Toronto in October

I've never been to Canada. It hasn't even crossed my mind to take a vacation in Canada, let alone going all the way to Toronto. But boy am I glad I got the opportunity to. I was blessed with the opportunity to travel along with my mother dearest and Amar. My mom actually was there on business and Amar and I were lucky enough to tag along to experience and explore the beautiful city and its surrounding areas. 

I'm so used to city life but dense and compact city life aka San Francisco 7x7. Do I need to even mention how compact Hong Kong is? So it's definitely strange to see such a vibrant, diverse city (very similar to Hong Kong with its towering high rises and hustle and bustle lifestyle) with so much space and land. Anyways, I will talk more about it later on. Let's get on with it, shall we?

DAY1

We took a super early 6:15AM flight from San Francisco (SFO) to New York (JFK) with a one hour layover and then proceeded to Toronto, Ontario (YYZ). JFK is SO confusing! We ended up having to exit the airport, walk a mile to another terminal, go through security again, and then wait in the same gates as domestic flights. So strange. Hopefully it's because of all the constructions going on in the airport, but it was not okay. The signs were misleading and it was downright confusing. 

Once we got past international security at JFK, we boarded a really small plane for a 2 1/2 hour flight to Toronto. I think I'm really starting to have a small plane phobia. Small planes just freak me out, especially when everything creaks and shakes (not talking about taking off and landing either). Despite all that, we made it! After cleaning up, it was around 9:30/10PM at night and we decided to venture out (for food mostly) and to look around.

My beautiful Mommy and I in front of our hotel with the old City Hall building (looked more like a church) behind us.

Toronto at night is absolutely gorgeous, especially at night. There were so many (normal not crackheads) people out walking around as well which is a strange sight, especially coming from San Francisco-- You for surely won't catch me walking around downtown after 10PM on a Tuesday night. 

Our main goal that night was to search for food and water. TGFY (Thank God For Yelp), we were able to locate a HUGE giganticnormous market (I was in grocery heaven..) called Loblaws. It reminds me a lot of Whole Foods, especially the prices. Ooowee. But if there was a beauty pageant for grocery markets. This would be one of the top ones. The layout and the organization of all their products are on point. 

We ended up having our first dinner at Loblaws! We had fresh sushi and makeityoself salad but really, by that time we were all so exhausted from traveling for 8-9 hour. We didn't care what we ate. It was time to sleep!

DAY2

We were all up and ready by 9AM, where we headed out to get our rental car for the day. Guess where we went!! That's right! Niagara Falls!! Before we started our journey to Niagara, we drove our rental car around the neighborhoods surrounding the hotel and we were able to locate where the infamous Toronto Chinatown was.

We drove from Toronto to Niagara Falls taking the Queens Expressway, which took approximately 1 hour (not bad!). On the highway, we noticed an accident on the other side. It was bad bad bad and turned a five lane freeway to one lane-- so you can imagine traffic from there on out. 

We made it! Parking was a pain but the beautiful sight made up for it. It was phenomenal. Mother Nature never cease to amaze me. There are two sides to Niagara Falls, the Ontario side and the New York/American side. The Ontario side is basically overlooking the Falls since the Falls are technically located on the American side so on the American side looking at the Falls, all you see is the side of it (that's what I have gathered from the reviews). But that's where Maid of the Mist come in and yadiyadiyada. There are three world-famous large waterfalls on the Niagara River but from the Canadian side, you are able to witness the beauty of two falls, the American and the Horseshoe. Along the river, there's a bunch of tourist attractions with souvenir shops, observation towers, high-rise hotels, casinos, and etc. It reminded me a lot of old-Vegas (attracts the older crowd and a bit run down) or Pier 39. We were able to get gorgeous panoramas of both the American Falls and the mighty Horseshoe Falls.

We had our Adventure Pass all ready to go! The Adventure Pass includes all four of the attractions the Park had to offer which was the Maid of the Mist (my personal favorite), Journey Behind the Falls, Niagara's Fury, and White Water Walk. Inclusive with the Pass was unlimited access to the We-Go Bus Transportation, which takes you from attraction to attraction cause it's a loooooong walk. 

Maid of the Mist

The representative at the Visitor's Center arranged and organized the times for each attraction. We first were scheduled to go on the Maid of the Mist, White Water Walk, Niagara's Fury, then finally Journey Behind the Falls. Maid of the Mist was my favorite. It is a boat tour of Niagara Falls and the tour starts off at a calm part of the river, near the Rainbow Bridge (which after doing some research and looking at it myself, the rainbow is ALWAYS there. Crazy!) and then we get all up close and personal by the American and Bridal Veil Falls. After we past those two, we get splashed inside the curve of the Horseshoe Falls. And then when we return, the other side of the boat get to experience heavy dense rain splashing in their face. We were give a poncho (thank God) but everything else the poncho didn't cover, were soaked! It basically felt like we were actually under the waterfall. So cool! 

White Water Walk

Next we boarded the We-Go bus to visit the next attraction on the list, which was the White Water Walk. There were no lines when we went so that was great! We had the whole place by ourselves. It is a nice little scenic walk along the rapids and you can see up close and personal the actual rapids and whirlpools while learning a lot about them on the signs posted along the walk. Those are Class 6 Rapids which is so cool to see! There were also real life occurrences posted when you first enter the walkway of people attempting to raft down the rapids. Most of them are dead because of it which kind of sends chills through my bones but why would you be so stupid to try to beat Class 6 rapids in barrel?! The stories are pretty interesting though and they can be found here. I would recommend first timers to get the Adventure Pass to experience all the attractions because it's worth it doing it once (and once only). 

We-Go Bus Heading Back

It may not seem like we did a lot, but by this time, we were all exhausted! The We-Go bus comes around every 20 minutes and we just missed it as we came out of the White Water Walk. At this point, we are across the street facing the White Water Walk since we are taking the bus back to the Visitor's Center where Niagara's Fury and Journey Behind the Falls was. I noticed that there is a temple behind the trees where the bus stop was. My mom and I ventured out to explore it a bit as the front gates were wide open. 

My mom thought it was a cemetery at first and told me to stop taking pictures (LOL). The temple was HUGE and after further research it is called the Cham Shan Temple, which translates to Ten Thousand Buddhas. It was such a nice find! We walked around for 15 minutes and the main temple is a 7 level Asian style building that contains collections of Buddhist arts and artifacts. There were ginormous statues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that were so beautiful. My mom actually went inside the temple, put on their slippers (no shoes policy), and saw devotees praying. Great find.

 Niagara's Fury

Because we missed the bus exiting the White Water Walk, we missed the 5:30PM showing of Niagara's Fury. But, we were not that upset about it because Yelp reviews says it's basically a 5-10 minute showing of how Niagara came to place. So we decided to sit around and admire the Falls a little more before heading to the Journey Behind the Falls. 

Journey Behind the Falls

Feel the thunder! SO COOL. We were handed ponchos once again, which you know what that means! The sight would be amazing if we were able to see! There are two routes, one route leads you right next to the Falls. Like. Right there. Next to you. We were literally standing in the mist where the Horseshoe Falls tumbles from 13 stories above! The other route was to little caves where fresh water are crashing down to the basin below. They said that during summer hours, over 2,800 cubic meters (739681.7 GALLONS) of water thunders over the brink of every second, traveling at 65km (40 miles) per hour! Crazzzy. It was definitely a great end (of attractions) to the trip to Niagara. 

Mommy's Favorites

My mother especially enjoyed watching the American Waterfall from the Table Rocks (which was free). Pictures below.

By the time we were finished with Journey Behind the Falls, it was close to 6PM. We decided to stay at Niagara but venture out a bit for dinner and come back to see the Niagara Falls at night! The workers said the lights turn on when it is completely dark outside and at that time, it's completely dark by 8:30-9PM. We heard that the floodlit at night is the prettiest thing ever and since we were there, what the heck. TGFY (once again), we located a small shopping plaza 10 minutes outside of the actual Falls area and walked around. It was much like the Vacaville Premium Outlets... but more pricey. I think the idea was for it to be an outlet but because everything in Canada is so pricey that all the "discounted" items are regular price for American standard. Our tummies were growling by now and I found a Vietnamese noodle shop less than 5 minutes away! Who doesn't love phở?! Pho Xyclo had 4 stars on yelp, which is pretty impressive after seeing 2-3 stars for everything else deemed as tourist traps around Niagara. Maybe I have been deprived of noodles before this trip, but the phở was was a-mazing! I believe my mom ordered the combination phở, Amar had the charbroiled beef with rice +an egg on top, I had the satay beef phở, and we all shared the Kim's roll (with Kim being the owner of the delicious little noodle shop). 

Mmmmmmm. So good! Let's ignore the fact that my satay beef phở is bigger than the size of my head and twice (if not 2 1/2 times) as big as my moms bowl.  

The Kim roll was sososo good. I dreamt about it several times after the trip. It was basically imperial rolls inside a spring roll. I love them both, but Kim was such a genius in combining the two! 

After dinner, we drove back to Niagara and ta-daaaaa! 

The colors change in a random order and it's easily mesmerizing. It was so amazing to experience the Falls at night and to see the beauty of Niagara all colorful!

The drive back was pretty normal, we also got to see a bunch of pretty lights from the hotels. 

I think I will end this post right here cause it's super long already with all these pictures. Stay tuned for Toronto in October dos!

xoxoxoxo