It's My Life

Last day in Vancouver & first day of travel (Days 108 - 109)

My last day in Vancouver was spent doing last minute packing for the stuff I’ll be bringing along on my trip… then went for a Macdonald’s dinner with a roommate… returned my keys and said goodbye to the roommates. Then went on my way to the airport.

I was booked on a WestJet flight to Toronto. The security procedures were rather strict – I even had my laptop swiped with a swab and tested on the spot for explosive particles. The flight was delayed slightly as for some reason a passenger had to be ‘removed’ from it.

The way I see it, flight crew were not very professional (compared to Asian carriers’ crew), and were very casual… chatting loudly amongst themselves during the flight. Also, they weren’t doing things very efficiently – they could have sped up the boarding process if they followed some boarding sequences (i.e. allowing passengers sitting at the back of the plane to board first… thus reducing bottlenecks). Hmm. No wonder North American airlines have been losing money.

The flight was 4.5 hours long and very uncomfortable. The seat was hard and narrow… even for an average sized Asian guy like me… I was so relieved to get off the flight finally at 6.30am Toronto time! Then I took public transit to the hostel I am staying at for the night. Toronto’s subway system is quite aged and its showing… the trains and stations were quite dirty and dimly lit. Quite different compared to Vancouver. And here on the streets they’ve got very short and narrow ‘streetcars’ which were essentially just trams.

After a long flight, I was hungry and tired so the first thing I did after depositing my heavy bags at the hostel was to look for something to eat. I ended up, where else but at Tim Horton’s (it’s all over the place here in Toronto, compared to Vancouver where Starbucks is the de facto coffee place).

And… I ended up eating Tim Horton’s sandwiches for all 3 meals today because it was the most reasonably priced food I could find. And to be honest they were all pretty good. Vancouver’s Tim Horton’s serves fake cappuccino (at least the UBC branch does that – of the few times I ordered it, they served me French Vanilla flavoured coffee – not at all like cappuccino, and doesn’t even have frothed milk). The Tim Horton’s cappuccino I had for breakfast this morning in Toronto is the real deal, though I do find it a tad less aromatic than Starbucks – but I guess for the price its good enough.

Shortly after 9.30am I got on the tour bus for a day tour to Niagara falls… well, when we finally got there I was quite disappointed – although the falls was certainly really large and amazing, but there’s nothing much else besides that… and one would get tired of looking at it after a few minutes. I would prefer something like the Grand Canyon where every direction you turn there’s amazing scenery. I also paid about $10 to take an elevator down ‘behind’ the falls… it was quite disappointing as you can see from the pictures below - nothing more than a wall dug out of the rock to show that we are behind it. But the sheer quantity of water and the speed can really make one feel intimidated.

Before the falls we stopped at a boutique winery for some free wine tastings. The wine were all so-so… and I had a chance to taste red icewine as well (Cabernet Franc – erm, not very nice actually). Actually after a few tastings the novelty of icewine wears off – I find late harvest Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling much more palatable, and many times cheaper.

And after the tour we got back to Toronto at 6pm. I tipped the driver/guide (who incidentally can probably qualify to be Toronto’s tallest person at 208cm tall) and went for dinner, yes, at Tim Horton’s.

I swear I’m not gonna touch Tim Horton’s again in the next 2 days at least. Sinful stuff.

© 2008 this lush garden within.