We had a nice day in Toronto last weekend with Mark, Sharilou, Rebecca and Trevor. Donna and Sharilou had arranged to spend the day looking around, taking in some of the sights, and maybe even a visit to that icon of the Toronto skyline, the CN Tower.
We'd originally planned to take the GO train into town, but instead we all squeezed into Mark's van and took the QEW into the city. Traffic was pretty heavy as we got closer to the city centre as the Toronto Bluejays were playing the Chicago Whitesox at the Rogers Centre.

We eventually got through the traffic to face the next challenge - getting a parking spot. It was easier than we first expected and we were soon walking towards the enormous phallic spire of the CN Tower. A short wait to buy tickets, and we made our way to the lifts and towards the top. The lifts on the tower are made of glass and are actually on the outside of the building, so the view during the trip up is almost as spectacular as the view once you get there, (that's if you open your eyes, Don).

Donna is not too comfortable about heights, but she's been pretty brave about our visits to places like the CN Tower, or the Sears Tower in Chicago - these are some of the tallest man-made structures in the world, so she's done well.

Once at the top, the view really is quite spectacular - looking south over Lake Ontario, and every other direction over the vast urban sprawl of the Greater Toronto Area. The visibility was not as perfect as it could be - there was quite a high level of smog at the time - but it was still pretty impressive! We walked all around the main indoor viewing platform before taking the stairs down to the outside viewing platform, and the glass floor. Yes, there is a secton of the floor that is made of clear glass, enabling you to stand on it and look directly at the ground 342 metres below. Its quite an eerie feeling at first but a lot of fun once you get over that eerieness. Donna had a few reservations about it at first and wasn't too keen but the kids eventually talked her into it and she tentatively ventured onto the glass.
We spent a bit more time looking around the outside viewing area (which was protected by steel mesh so it was good for safety but not so great for getting a clear view of the city).

After descending from the Tower, we decided that our tummies needed filling, so Mark and Sharilou led us to a great little place called Richtree Market. It was a really interesting place to eat... they issue each diner with a credit-card style swipe card, and then you just wandered around a wide range of fresh food stalls selling everything from salads, pizzas, seafood, BBQ grill, sushi... you name it, they had it. When you find something you like the look of (or rather, something you like the look of slightly more than you like the look of everything else, because it all looks fantastic!) you just order it and swipe your card. The food is all prepared fresh on the premises and is a really good feed. It's quite reasonably priced, although the overall visit can be a bit pricey just because you tend to think with your stomach and everything looks so good. Regardless, we enjoyed it, and will probably have to go back again just to try some of the things we didn't try last time!

We then walked up Yonge Street, which is one of the main streets in Toronto (and apparently the longest street in the world, at some 300+ km) We eventually found ourselves up at Dundas Square on the corner of Yonge and Dundas where there were markets, street performers, musicians and lots of people. We hung out there for a while, as it had a really lively, fun atmosphere. We looked around at the market stalls, then watched a couple of guys playing some amazingly cool live flamenco guitar music - I bought the CD they were so good - and then we watched some guys do a bit of breakdancing. They didn't call themselves breakdancers, but rather B-Boys... whatever. They were still pretty cool to watch, and they did the whole spinning-on-your-head and rolling-around-on-the-floor business. Hehe.

We walked a bit more, looking at some of the sights and buildings of downtown Toronto, before heading back along the waterfront towards the carpark. Toronto is in the process of redeveloping their waterfront and we actually saw some of the design entries at the BCE Centre on the way to lunch. As a sydneysider who is used to living in a city by the harbour, it's hard not to feel that Toronto has yet to really make the most of the fact that it's a city on the water. In Sydney, you really can't avoid the fact that the city is surrounded by water because most of the architecture and design tries to take advantage of it. As Dave Grace observed in one of his recent blog posts, Sydney's development of it's waterfront really does make it a pretty amazing city. Although Lake Ontario isn't quite Sydney Harbour, I get the impression that Toronto is yet to really capitalise on its waterfront position by the lake. It will be interesting to come back in a few years and see what the city's planners do with the waterfront area.
We found the car and made our way back home after having a really wonderful day in the city. Thanks to Mark, Sharilou, Rebecca and Trev for showing us all such a good time.