Toronto!

Toronto is a really nice city, very flat and very different to Vancouver. Toronto is Canada's economic capital and one of its largest cities, with a population of 5,555,912 in the greater Toronto area. I spent the day today going to all the sites and many of the neighbourhoods. I dont think i have ever been in such a cosmopolitan city besides London that is. There is almost no specific culture here definately not Canadian due to the large number of other cultures making it a real mish mash.

The CN tower dominates the skyline much like the Space Needle in Seattle but the difference is that this is the tallest freestanding structure in the world at 553m, its quite something.

There is a nice contrast in the city of older architecture alot of it originating from England and Scotland and then the modern high rises.
My accommodation is actually in Chinatown and this alone is abit of a mind blow as the signs are often in english and chinese (catonese i suspect) and there are loads of asian people so much so that i could actually be in China - again!







A little out of town is Casa Loma - a castle of sorts and a very pretty building, i was lucking enough to have a peek inside, thanks to my South African bus driver Ed.


Some of the neighbourhoods i went through were:
The Beaches - this is incredible, Lake Ontario is huge and really does look like the sea its hard to believe its actually a lake

The Gay and Lesbian Village - and as soon as you are in this area you are very aware of the amount of men together, what a waste, *sigh*

Little India, Little Portugal and the Greek area are all really like being in those countries as the signs are in english and the relevant language below, amazing how Toronto has taken on all these cultures. It makes for good eating as you can imagine.

In the afternoon i went to the Kensington market which which quite interesting, alot of hippies and bands performing in the streets, very pleasant way to spend an afternoon. In the centre of Toronto was a Green festival which has tons of stalls all promoting green issues in some form or another, very positive!!!!

Tomorrow i am off to Niagra Falls, wooohooo.

See more pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/sbramhall/TorontoDay1#