I’d read somewhere Toronto had a thriving underground nightlife, and my friends were determined to find it. Luckily some Torontonians they’d met on another trip showed us the places to go to be seen. I went along with it, despite my usual desire not to be seen by anyone but the people I want to be seen by.

Among the recommended places was an upscale lounge frequented by pretentious sorts, a prime example of my aversion to places like it. For one thing, the bartender, a  poor man’s Shia LaBeouf, flirted with tall blondes and brunettes before serving drinks to the commoners. And when he did serve drinks, an attitude came with them.

“I don’t know what that is,” he said with an eye roll.
“But,” I said, “it’s on the menu.”
“No, it’s not. You can ask HIM how to make it,” said Poor Man’s Shia, referring to the other bartender.

It was big-city snobbery without the big city.

A cab driver blamed the recession for the lackluster nightlife. After I’d lamented the empty streets and muted energy, he said people had become more careful with their money, but “It’s not New York.”  I nodded in agreement, though I hadn’t expected it to be New York in the first place.

During the day, it was no better. At around 5 p.m. everyone downtown passed in a blur of suits and briefcases. A suited drone rammed into my friend and kept walking, barely missing a step. It’s a familiar sight in big cities, but the colorless backdrop made it seem even colder.

This isn’t to say there weren’t good things about Toronto.

I was surprised by the narrow interpretation some people took of my Kensington Market entry. Though I can’t control how my writing is interpreted, it’s interesting how people project their biases onto the situation, depending on how well they think they know the people in the story.

I highlighted the interesting parts of Toronto in pictures. But because pictures can be deceiving and it’s not always easy to capture frustration visually without going into abstract or extremely literal territory (cue picture of me scowling), I felt it necessary to use commentary to provide a more complete perspective. I’m not interested in reading the censored version of anything, so why should I write such drivel on my blog?

I aim to provide accurate accounts of my experiences — at least how I see things, which is the key element here — whether or not they were pleasant. I’m not going to say something was life-changing and amazing when it wasn’t, but I’m not going to portray someone negatively without merit either. Something less than adoration is not necessarily criticism of the person but an analysis of someone’s behavior and my reaction to it, which could just as well be a criticism of myself. And because I’m a writer who thinks too much and analyzes too much and deconstructs too much, I always try to learn from these experiences and, unfortunately (insert wink), try to share what I’ve learned with others. With that said, Poor Man’s Shia LaBeouf was a douche and certainly deserves the title.

Toronto reminded me that more often than not, especially when traveling, things don’t always go as well as you’d hoped. As with anything in life, it’s all about how you react to things. I reacted by taking an hour to explore the city alone and by dissecting the trip afterward. It also further reinforced that travel means different things to different people. Some trips you take to enjoy friends and to make them, some to get away from the drudgery of daily life, some to explore the unfamiliar, and so on. All of them, ideally, allow you to learn more about yourself and things outside of it. All of them hopefully don’t hinge on a solitary landmark or mishap, because if something ever goes wrong — and, chances are, something will — then it would all be a waste of time.

Of course I would have loved to come back with several tales of misadventures and glorious encounters (though there was some of that), but not all trips are like that, just as life isn’t always like that. If it were, it would condition us to grow accustomed to extreme highs; monotony would ensue. This way, the moment something amazing does happen, it heightens the senses and makes us all the more aware of its rarity.

More common still is the sameness of life, briefly interrupted by glimmers of things less ordinary. And that, to me, was Toronto.

These pictures are completely random and didn’t fit into previous posts.
Here, a dog actually was sniffing these statues but I sadly didn’t get a good shot of it.

The day S. and I went to the Cambodian restaurant, we also came across a grocery store called “Manila,” named after the Philippine capital.

S. laughs during one of our impromptu photoshoots.

Rush hour zombies.

Flashy Chucks.

This guy hung out at Tim Hortons. When we gave him change, he started calling us his girls.

First glimpse of C.! In this picture, she’s passing through an air-blowing security checkpoint at the CN Tower.

I really liked this walkway, which led us to the tower.

The ROM. I enjoyed ancient Egypt the most. Women were held in high esteem
and could rule the country. Ahead of their time or are we just backward?

At Casa Loma after the Princess’s exit.