Toronto

We arrived in Toronto on the 7/08/2006 and were picked up from the airport by Pat and Don, now Pat and Don, are a lovely Canadian couple who are friends of my family through my parents, I first met Pat and Don when I was 12 years old and was lucky enough to travel to Hong Kong for my birthday on one of my dad's business trips.
They have been kind enough to let my older brother Scott and my cousin Jordy stay at their place over the years, and now that they've had me and Weggie, all they need is my cousin Dani and my brother Robert and fiance Mei to have a full set!
Dinner in Toronto consisted of a wonderful series of home cooked barbeque dinners, eaten out on the patio at the back of Pat and Don's house over looking their beautiful floral garden, and the meal was made infinitely better by the abundance of chatting and catching up we had to do. Word of the wise... boy can these Canadian's talk! Pat in particular but Don can hold his own!
Our first night and the consecutive ones were spent in real beds, a double upstairs for me and a single downstairs for Weggie. It was so nice to have a real bed to sleep in that I felt quite spoilt by the whole affair, especially when coming down to breakfast each morning and finding a proper place setting and breakfast all ready for us. Pat and Don were wonderful hosts who we can't thank enough for putting up with us for 4 days.
On to the activities of Toronto.
Toronto Day Two
Don drove us into work with him and let us use his computer to upload some photographs onto our Blog. Once we were done with that we walked to the CN Tower where we had lunch in the revolving restaurant. It took 72 minutes to make a full circuit, so we had a leisurely meal, that was a little over priced for the quality, but all part of the experience!
And the views of Toronto were simply magnificent.

After lunch we caught the subway to the Bata Shoe Museum which would have to be my favourite museum to date!
There's just something about shoes that is bound to strike any woman's fancy, even if they don't want to wear the pretty shoes, most of us are more than happy to look at them.
My favourites were the 18th Century slippers, closely followed by the themed shoes from television, fairy tales, or the outrageous platforms and colours of the 60's and 70's.

We caught the subway back to Pat and Don's area and walked about three or four blocks to their house arriving home at exactly the same time as Don, talk about timing!

Toronto Day Three
Today Pat and Don took Weggie and I to Niagara Falls, the drive took approximately 2 hours, so we arrived by 11:00 - 11:30 after a short scenic drive past both the American and Canadian Falls and onto the Hydro Plant above the falls.
Weggie and I then went on the Maid of the Mist Boat Tour which consisted of us putting blue garbage bag rain coats over our clothes and being taken right up close to the base of the falls, both American and Canadian, where we had the pleasure of being drenched by the spray. As you can imagine, i couldn't see very much after the first few minutes, what with my glasses being covered with water, but it was well worth the experience, just to get wet on such a hot day!


Weggie and I met back up with Pat and Don breifly after the boat tour and decided to meet at 4:30, which would allow Weggie and I to get some touristy stuff out of the way... so of course we went to Madame Tuesaudes Movie Land where after viewing the wax models we decided to go through the haunted/horror section.
Now I'm always the first to run head first into these horror sections, often dragging Weggie behind me, and this was no exception, the only difference between this experience and previous ones was that this Horror section was really good!
I was genuinely freaked out! To start off with it was quite dark with bright flashing lights, like strobe lights. Intermittently bursts of air would blow at you from random points, the floor shook at one stage, and the worst of it was the mirrors. It was like fun house mirrors but scarier because the strobe was going, the wind was blowing, and you kept on coming up against dead ends. I spent half of my time shrieking and the other half laughing, until finally we escaped into the gift shop where I went almost into hysterics i was laughing that hard. Weggie didn't stop glaring at me for at least half an hour.


After Movie Land we went on 3 4D simulator rides and an over the Falls Simulator ride. I swear I must have been on an adrenalin high becuase every time the ride moved or shook me I bust out giggling. I'm pretty sure Weggie wanted to smack me one by the end of the first ride, but luckilly for me she refrained.
We stopped for a Sundae at the Hardrock Cafe, before meeting back up with Pat and Don and driving to the Whirlpool Rapids for a photo opportunity and then on to the Patio Bar and Grill for a devine dinner which Pat and Don once again paid for.



Toronto Day Four
Since Thursday was our last day in Toronto and we'd gotten all the touristy things out of the way, we decided to just have a relaxing one. We started off by going to the post office and sending some stuff home, for Weggie it was all the breakable souvenirs that she'd bought, for me it was half of my suit case, yep, once again i've packed way, way, way too much!
After that Pat drove us to Yorkdale Mall, where Weggie and I went to a movie, and then did a little shopping before heading back to the Jeffreys.
We got Pat and Don some matching placemat and plate sets from Williams and Sinoma as a thank you for their wonderful hospitality, and presented them to them that night after dinner.
Our last night in Toronto, after chatting for a while with Pat and Don was spent watching DVD's of 21 Jumpstreet on the television downstairs, all in all a nice relaxing way to end our Toronto Tour!