Pottering around: Toronto Day 3 (23 April 2014)

After yesterday’s very busy day, with lots of walking, we kept today a little quieter. Hannah had the day off, so after a leisurely morning catching up with washing and blogging, Len and Sue used the streetcar system for the first time to get to the Kensington Market area where we were to meet Hannah for lunch at a “funky” little vegetarian cafe called Hibiscus where everything is gluten-free, and where they serve dairy-free ice-cream too.

Kensington Market

Sue started with a small salad of kelp noodles, quinoa, beets, lentils, kale and other yummy “stuff” ($7.90 before tax and tip) followed by a buckwheat crepe with cinnamon, lemon and sugar. Len had a savoury buckwheat crepe followed by a brownie. Hannah had the same salad as Sue, but the large version. It was good food, and the admittedly small place was full.

We then pottered around the streets checking out some of Hannah’s favourite little retailers – gift shops, food shops, vintage shops, art and craft shops and galleries. It was a lovely day. Well, let’s rephrase that. It was like a Canberra winter day  – temperature in the low teens (centigrade, speaking) but clear and sunny. We’d have liked it warmer but it could have been so much worse, so we are not complaining in case the weather gods hear us and decide to show us what’s what!

Kensington Market is one of Toronto’s older neighbourhoods and is a National Historic Site of Canada. It has a lovely quaint feel, and apparently once a month, through the warm months, they have Pedestrian Sundays when the streets are closed off to traffic and musicians perform at various spots.

It has some lovely old houses. The settlement dates from British occupation in the early nineteenth century, but we guess the houses we saw are more late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. During the 1920s to 1930s it was known as the Jewish Market, and we passed a small synagogue dated 1930 in one of the streets. Like most cities, there’s the contrast of old and new with most views of old houses backed in the distance by modern multiple-storey buildings.

Board game cafe

Next stop on Hannah’s itinerary was a board game cafe! What fun that was. There are apparently three or so now in the city. You pay an amount per person, eg $2.50 per hour, and then play from the hundreds of games filling the shelves. The staff will help you choose if you can’t decide, asking what sorts of games you like etc. They are also knowledgeable about the rules. You can buy drinks (non-alcoholic), light food, and of course cakes. Hannah says the first such cafe she went to was (appropriately) called Snakes and Lattes. Another, that serves alcohol, has recently opened she said. It’s called Snakes and Lagers!

Anyhow, we spent nearly 2 hours and played three games, the first being Scattegories which Len didn’t much care for. We then played a fun tile-based strategy game called Tsuro a few times, followed by a couple of rounds of an interesting game called 10 Days in Africa. These cafes seem a great idea, and probably appropriate for a city that has so much indoor time! We enjoyed it.

Rogers and Apple

At this point Hannah left us to spend the evening on her tax, and we headed off to Toronto’s biggest mall, the Eaton Centre, which has an Apple shop. We’d been told the day before by a person at a Rogers outlet (Rogers being one of the big communications companies as well as Hannah’s employer) that Apple would give Sue a free sim for her iPad and then we’d just need to buy a one-month prepaid service for around $25. Otherwise, he said, he could sell us a sim for $35 for which we’d then have to buy the month’s service. So of course we went the free-sim route … and it all went smoothly. Apple gave us the sim, and then we went to the Eaton Centre Rogers store and bought their service. It was quickly done, with no fuss about identification, and it worked immediately – unlike our German experience last year which was rather more fraught though it worked in the end.  Sue is now connected when on the move (no more Internet withdrawal)!

We pottered around the mall a little before choosing a cheery place, Mr Greenjeans Restaurant and Bar, for an early dinner. We returned home via two streetcars, the first of which had to make a detour – luckily there were tracks enabling that, due to some police action up ahead. We now have the streetcar process sussed, and feel more like locals.

Here is the slide show of our day …

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