Eric and I had been talking about going to Toronto for a few weeks now. Well... Eric had been, and I had been humoring him with, "Sure! Let's go!" But there was some sincerity in that... I was willing to go... I just didn't quite get why he wanted to go. But Friday afternoon, it just seemed to be a good thing to do... Eric really needed to get away from things, and the long weekend seemed like the perfect opportunity to make to do a roadtrip (where you'd actually get to enjoy your destination). So around 4pm on Friday, we started booking hotels and a car, figuring we'd leave as soon as we could get everything together, going as far as Detroit for the evening.
Then Saturday morning, we crossed the border into Canada.My only other time in Canada was out cross-over at Niagara Falls a few years ago. Granted, we ended up having to drive through Canada to get to the next border crossing south (into Buffalo), but I didn't pay too much attention to my surroundings, other than it just seemed weird and foreign to see crowns and kilometers on the road signs. But this trip gave me a chance to really take it in... all four hours within the country before making it to Toronto. A lot of farmland. A lot of 'green' energy in the making, both solar and wind. And way cleaner than US roads - no trash blowing around - and relatively well kept right-of-ways, in general.
We go into the outskirts of Toronto a little after 3pm, made some wrong turns, which led us to discovering some cool areas to go back to later that day (more to come on that later). We got to our hotel, which was in just about the perfect location on the edge of the financial/business district and their China Town. We checked in, settled into the hotel, and decided it was time to explore.
Our first 'destination' was an area we passed on our way into town (remember how we got lost?). We saw a bunch of shipping containers set up around a community center and small shops and food venders. Eric was looking for 'inspiration' on this trip, it turned out, and this was a good start for him. On our way to the community center, we noticed a road with a flurry of activity on it - what looking like some street venders and markets from a distance. So after we saw the container set up, we went back to that area.
It turned out to be Kensington Market - apparently, a popular area for just that - street venders and markets. It has a bit of a NYC Canal Street vibe, though maybe not as shady. But in an interesting twist, some of the smaller shops are being replaced by trendy shops and foodie type small restaurants. Not at all fancy, mind you... just a little above what was there.So we walked around Kensington Market for a bit - there were tons of people there! And the mix of venders was crazy!! It ranged from your Chinese Herb Shop, to your skateboard shop, to your medicinal marijuana, to your trendy styled butcher shop. After all the walking around, we were getting hungry and decided to pick one of the new trendy foodie places to eat. And what did we find? Chicken and Waffles. Who'd of thought that Southern staple made its way all the way to Canada.
We passed The Dirty Bird as we were walking down the street and the smell was amazing!
It was enough for us to talk about it and then go back to it. It was a small little place, with just about every seat taken. There was a short line... which was just enough time for a seat to open when we were ready to sit down. The food? Amazing! I guess they do kind of have the market on maple syrup... so that helps a little. I had The Dirty Bird'ger and Eric Went the traditional route, which ended up being a lot of food! Everything about it - the batter on the chicken, the syrup concoction they made (it wasn't JUST maple syrup), and the 'dirty' sweet potato fries they made... YUM!After we ate, we decided to walk some more. We stopped back at the hotel briefly to freshen up and take a look at a map and such. One thing about traveling internationally (even to Canada) is that you're forced to 'unplug' (unless you want to pay extra - which I did for my personal phone, but even it's limited). So we couldn't just use our phones to look things up unless we had Wi-Fi... which we knew we had at the hotel (and found elsewhere through the weekend). One we determined the direction we wanted to head, we were off again, this time in the other direction from the hotel, taking us towards the City Building and even a mall.
Supposedly a good mall, but we had nothing to compare it to. We discovered a cool multi-functional space in from of the main City Building where a fountain served as an ice skating rink in the winter. There was also a permanent stage and an elevated walking path around the perimeter. Kind of cool use of space. It was next to the original Courthouse, which was a beautiful brown sandstone.As darkness settled in, though, we were feeling our long day of traveling catching up with us. We were tired and the comfy hotel bed was calling our name. We figured we'd have a full day of exploring on Sunday, too, so it was better to get some good sleep beforehand.
Sunday morning, we deciding to be a little adventurous and find a crepe place a saw on Yelp. It was about a mile away, but we figured it wasn't too bad to walk. It would allow us to take in the City a bit more, too, since it was in yet another direction from the hotel.
Everything was pretty quiet, except for the area where they were setting up to do some movie filming. Turns out they are filming Suicide Squad right now, with Will Smith and a bunch of other big names. We walked by a few of the sets on Sunday - on the way to breakfast, We saw a bunch of extras hanging out, waiting for things to get started. We didn't see any of the big stars, but we did have the movie's 'trailer town' set up next to our hotel. There might of been some stars there... or it may have just been the crew.
After the wonderful crepe breakfast at Crepe It Up, we hopped on The Toronto Bike share that was at the end of the block. It was time to do some bike exploring! We really had no destination in mind, so looked at a map at each stop, and just decided where to go next. We ultimately ended up down on the lakefront. Even at this point, we weren't sure where to go next, but then we saw the Redpath sugar refinery... and it was open to the public. Turns out that this weekend was Doors Open Toronto, which is an annual even where businesses open up their doors to the public, many of which are typically open to the public, such at this refinery. 
Now it wasn't a full on tour, but it was a self-guided tour with some additional interaction with some staff to learn about the process and history, as well as their extensive product line. I had no idea all the things to could make with raw sugar! And the tour ended with a peek into the raw sugar storage barn... which was as massive, if not MORE massive than a typical road salt barn. Then they gave us some butter/sugar cookies, and we were on our way.We walked along the waterfront for a bit, until we came to the ferry docks for Toronto Island. We didn't ferry over to the island, but we hung at the park for a bit and watch some of the ferries and the crazy migrating geese that were flying inches about the water. It was such a beautiful morning, but was started to cloud up a bit. We decided to head back into the City and find some lunch. And since it was nice, and there were a lot more people out and about, we figured it'd be better to just walk, which was pretty easy, since where we were going was a straight shot up Bay Street.
We found an Italian places called Mercatto, and thought we'd do a quick pizza there. They had some amazing desserts we decided to have, too - we walked/biked enough that morning - we could 'afford' dessert, right?? The restaurant happened to be next to a historic church that was participating in the Doors Open weekend, so we took a peek inside before heading to the Courthouse (we saw the night before) for the same reason.
The church had a beautiful pipe organ in it and one of the guide was telling us how the subway was literally dug around it, and the more frequent trains have caused massive cracks in the building walls in recent years (as he then pointed out). It was crazy to see some of the excavation pictures! The courthouse turned out to be a bit disappointing, as they had very limited area actually open to the public. You would've though court was actually in session on a Sunday.We decided to end the day with a little shopping at the mall. There were some interesting stores there that we didn't recognize as being in the US... though we still ended up at Banana republic and J. Crew somehow. But we did go to others, as well. We finished with a walk-though of the Canadian Tire that was attached, which we determined to be the Canadian version of K-Mart (yes - K-Mart, not Wal-Mart). We then took our stuff back to the hotel (yes - we did buy some stuff) and started figuring out our dinner options.
At this point, we knew we were tired. But one thing we saw earlier in the day intrigued us... we walked by a place called Uncle Tetsu's Japanese Cheesecake on our way to breakfast, and there were cones set out to a line to form in. We thought that was odd, though there were some people in the line already, and it had just opened.
When we walked passed it on the way to back to the hotel, the line was much longer, and we understood why the cones were there. We did a little research, and decided that after dinner (wherever we decided) we would go wait in the line and join the hype that this place has apparently created. So we were literally planning out dinner around 'dessert' that we'd have to wait for.We did a gourmet burger place called Bareburger that was nearby, figuring it's be relatively quick. I actually had an Elk burger. It was good - gamey like deer, but good. Eric went for the safer Bison burger. We then went over to wait in line for some Japanese Cheesecake. We got in line right around 9pm, and quickly learned that this place was a lot of hype, because no one near us in line had been there before. There were even other Americans in line with us because they, too, had heard about this place. But there had to be hype for a reason, right?? About 15 minutes into our wait, one of the employees came out to give us a ticket to 'guarantee' our 6" cheesecake.
She proceeded to tell us the procedure, which we already vaguely knew from our research, and even mentioned how the average wait is usually closer to two hours (and we were looking at one hour at that point). We were ready for the wait!We finally get inside the tiny little bakery, which was maybe 500sft, and it was so hot in there from the ovens and constant line of people. But now we could see the process. They only bake 12 at a time in each oven, and there are three ovens, and each round takes 45 minutes to bake. As soon as they are out of the oven, they pack them and sell them. It's cash only ($10) and you pay, and then are out the door with your steaming hot cheesecake.
If you do a little research, you'll learn that Japanese Cheesecake is different from what you would typically think of when you think about cheesecake. When it's still warm, it's very soufflé like, and even has a strong egg-y like taste - the cheese doesn't come through very much at this stage, but I was told it's good to try at this stage and heard some even eat if for breakfast because of the light, egg-y flavor. As it cools, though, and even is chilled in the fridge, the become more sponge cake-like, though still lighter than your traditional cheesecake.
The cheese flavor come out a little more now, though it's still not nearly as sweet, like a traditional cheesecake. I think it would be ideal with fruit on it - the fruit flavors would shine, rather than the cream cheese flavor.So we took our cheesecake back to the hotel and tried it. Eric really didn't like the cheesecake warm, and though it wasn't my cup of tea, I could see how this stage of the cheesecake would be appealing to some. We both tried it after it was chilled in the fridge, and liked it much better that way. Mentally noted for 'next time' or if I try to attempt one of the many Pinterest recipes I've seen for Japanese Cheesecake. But this was a great way to end the night - and the weekend. The whole thing was quite an experience! Considering we had no agenda for Toronto, we were quite happy with our weekend!
This morning we just got up, and made our way out from the hotel. We ended up doing breakfast at Ikea (only because we passed right by it) and then picked up a few snacks for the road from their local grocery chain, Longo's, which was actually kind of a cool store. Then we drove and drove until we got to Detroit.
Once in Detroit, we did a little detouring. Eric wanted to find a few places, as well as show me some of the places he learned about on his 'field trip' up to Detroit a few months ago.
You hear about the blight of Detroit, and even see pictures... but until you see it firsthand, you really can't comprehend it. And to see how far the downtown has come is amazing! We drove through some of the areas Eric's bus tour took him, including The Heidelberg Project, which is an 'art' installation. Basically, a guy collects junk from vacant buildings and homes and started piling it up and occasionally painting it or getting creative with it in some way. It was very odd, in my opinion.After some detouring, we were on our way back to Indy. We got home around 10:30pm - made for a long day, since we left out hotel around 9am. That's what stops and detours do for you, though - it's in no way that long of a drive if you drive there in a more normal fashion. But then, when do we ever travel in normal fashion?
