Toronto: Sept 27 -- Crash Landing at Lily's!

I'm saving my Korea report for a little later. I just downloaded all my photos from my trips to Toronto and Calgary and decided that I'll work on posting about those legs of my trip... starting with Toronto.

I reason to come out to Toronto, in particular to make good on my deal Ida that I would come out to visit her in Toronto after her visit to Sendai Japan. Deciding that I would visit her, I decided that I would visit as many friends as possible in Canada, turning my initial trip home to a tour of Canada. Toronto would be my first stop before hitting Calgary and home.

Day1 : Sept 27 -- Crash Landing at Lily's!

I actually arrived in Vancouver the day before on the 26th at about 11 am. I stayed one night in Vancouver to meet up with the family, grab some dinner then headed out the next day on my Westjet flight leaving at 8:45 am to Toronto.

Being back in Canada for just the first 2 days, I would realize how friendly everyone in Canada is. As I stepped through the security gate with no issues, the guy with the metal detector wand have me the funny eye and jokingly said "we'll get you some other time."

I settled down in the terminal and waited for my flight to arrive-- I arrived at 7:30 am and my plane hadn't arrived yet. Across from me was an unattended agenda book left on the table I decided to leave alone thinking that the person that owned it might come back. Some guy walked by me and promptly asked if it was my book to which I responded 'no.' He then immediately handed off to the attendants at the desk near by. What a friendly and civilized place this country is.

A flight to Montreal came and went while I was waiting for my Toronto flight in the span of an hour, I will have to say that WestJet runs a very tight operation when it comes to coordinating their flights. My flight arrived at the gate and I borded. The flight attendents were remarkably friendly and funny, something that seemed unthinkable to me from my time in Japan-- if you're dealing with customers, the empoyees always use very formal language. Nope, not in Canada.

As for the inflight safety instructions, the attendant first told us "in the unlikely event of a cabin pressure change first put your own oxygen mask first before assisting others... if you're travelling with 2 or more children, pick your favorite one first." We had a good laugh.

Looking out my window to the side at another WestJet plane
What Vancouver looks like from the Sky

Behind me, sat 2 people one back from Afganistand and another a girl that was in Vancouver for a high school reunion. Both strangers to each other but they chatted it up anyways. Something that I haven't commonly seen done in Japan. Yes, Canada is an incredibly friendly place, I never realized that I would miss that till I got back.

4 hours later (and + 3 from time zone differences) I finally arrived in Toronto at about 4 pm. Hopped on a bus then on a subway to make my way to Lily's in Mid-town Toronto. Lily met up with me at the subway station rather surpised I was without a suitcase. Yup, for these 6 days I decided I would travel light with only a backpack and a shoulder bag. I also didn't want to wait for check-in luggage at the airport neither... because it always takes about 30 minutes for me to get my luggage from baggage claim.

We walked a few blocks to Lily's place inside an old looking appartment complex with plenty of character. The interior was nice, neat and well kept. Nice job Lily! I was impressed.

Ida came out to meet us shortly after at the subway station and we were off to find a restaurant to find grab dinner together. After some walking down Younge street we settled down to a place called "The Green Mango" that served Thai food. We had a Green Mango salad, a chicken dish and a pork dish to share for dinner. By the end, we were pretty stuffed and the food was pretty good.

We walked after dinner to walk off the food. We started heading back to Lily's after it started drizzling rain. I showed off a few pictures of Korea that evening, Ida had to get back after being pooped from a long day of work. As for Lily and I, we chated for a bit (a little about world events) then worked on our respective computers for a bit before crashing for the night. The next day, I would make my way to Niagra Falls with Drew.