Touristy Toronto

When Jess arrived, we hit the ground running on a beautiful Toronto autumn day - it was Saturday morning so we decided to hit up the CN Tower.

If the photos look a little better while Jess is visiting, it's because I've hired her and her sweet DSLR as official blog photographer for the duration of her stay here in Toronto.  Just shows you what a different a decent camera can make (my photos are taken on a $100 point and shoot).

I wasn't too keen on going up the ridiculously high glass-floored tower with glass elevators on the outside.  Luckily for me, it was packed - it's Thanksgiving Weekend, so there were a lot of tourists in town.  We decided to come back during the week when it's a bit quieter.

We sampled some of the local produce - Stephen has dubbed Toronto the burger capital of the world.  Apprently 3 out of 3 burgers so far have been awesome compared to Australia - he says he's had some good burgers in Australia but they're not consistently this awesome.  This was a bison burger at a local brewpub.  

The next day we were up bright and early for breakfast - this is eggs "over easy" with toast, "home fries" (cooked potatoes?) and Canadian peameal bacon, which is apparently a cross between bacon and ham.  The peameal bacon wasn't awesome but I think it's worth giving it another shot.  

We took the ferry over to Toronto Island, which is a short trip on Lake Ontario.  Our plan was to hire bikes and ride around (it's a pretty big island), but apparently it's "out of season" (May to September), so we'll have to come back later.  For an "out of season" day, it was pretty good - 20 degrees and bright sunshine.

We found other ways of amusing ourselves :)

Jess and I found some local directions on the pier - 4521km to the North Pole, 65km to Niagara Falls, 3371km to Vancouver and only 548km to New York City!  There's a trip that's waiting to happen :)

This is an Inukshuk (technically Inunnguag as it's a human figure) - apparently they are stone cairns that are made by the aboriginal Inuit people, originally as navigational reference points or markers.  It's somewhat of a national symbol and was used as the symbol for the 2010 Winter Olympics.  They are everywhere here - on logos, in the airport, or in parks like this one.  

The view from the boat back to the city - beautiful!

We celebrated our successful day by testing another Canadian icon - Tim Hortons.  Timbits are like donut holes, only they come in lots of different flavours - you can get a box of 10 for $1.90, and they're pretty tasty.  That's a Canadian Maple donut in front - Maple syrup on top and maple flavoured cream inside - best donut I have ever tasted.  Jess assures me that the hot chocolates are above average too!