More adventures - part 1

Well, like all good days, today has been a day of hedonism & fun. (Yeah I know; when isn’t hedonism fun?)
Another day of clear blue skies 26C sunshine and lots of walking.
After breakfast I had another chat with the gorgeous Welsh lady, whose name is Andrea by the way, and with her guidance procured a wonderful street map of Toronto. I was set up for some map assisted wandering – great. A playlist of Moving Pictures, Caress Of Steel and All the World’s A Stage was selected on my MP3 player, the child was in the sweet shop and I was out on the street in glorious sunshine and grinning like a fool. How much better does it get?

I started off wandering West on Adelaide Street and then North on Spadina Avenue. This took me through Chinatown and Kensington Market. Loads of different smells & colours to experience as well as a whole host of unintelligible signs – my Mandarin needs some creation, not just brushing up. This was all in pursuit of my goal; a bit of Rush tourism. I was gutted to find out I will be heading for Vancouver when they play here later on this month – two dates and I will miss them both! I would love to see them in their home town. Never mind, I suppose one can’t have everything on one’s trip of a lifetime.
After emerging from Kensington Market I was on College Street. Head east until one reaches University Avenue and then look left – there it is, the Ontario Parliament Building. Any non-Rush fans out there should really listen to more music and look at a few album covers (yes I am an old fart who still views albums as real vinyl discs with proper sleeves one can appreciate and read without the use of an electron microscope – especially if one happens to be long sighted like me! Anyway, I digress – as usual. The album cover of Moving Pictures depicts a bunch of guys carrying large Rush themed pictures up some steps through a wonderful looking portico – see picture for an idea. Well I wanted to see this facade for myself and it is very impressive – Spank though so too and insisted on swinging on the handrail. (By the way Spank is a Rush fan too!)

The inside looked spectacular; large chandeliers and lots of polished wood. Unfortunately the next guided tour was just over an hour away, and, as I didn’t have any water with me and was getting a little hungry, I couldn’t just sit about and wait – so I continued wandering. Back down to College Street, turned left, and kept walking to Yonge Street. I decided to wander into the Eaton Centre (sorry, Center) in search of a mobile ‘phone which might work. I am not a fan of shopping malls or their equivalent (I am proud to say I have never been to Toiletwater in Kent – and never will) but this was something different. Yes, it was full of shops – all manner of different ones and a Sears store which covered 5 levels! (it was quite weird seeing references to departments on level -1 – yes that is minus one.) There was a food hall which made a laughing stock of any I had seen labelled such in the UK – sorry make that food halls. There was the usual McMurders, Tacky Bells & Klan Fried Cat outlets, but there were loads more covering all variety of origins, flavours & styles. [I didn’t have the heart to try the “Original London style Fish & Chips” – I guessed they wouldn’t have got the greasiness & over-pricing right.] Talking of pricing; anyone who hasn’t left the UK for anywhere further afield than Spain will not appreciate how much of a rip-off the UK and it’s prices are! Example: 12 Duracell Xtra (their spelling – not mine) AA batteries for C$6.99! As the Yanks, and probably the Canadians say: “Do the math”. Feel free to use the current exchange rate; about 2.41:1.