The film festival is coming... starts tomorrow, runs for a few weeks.
Toronto is huge on films even when the fest isn't on. Check out the page below, showing the staggering number of different films you can see today, with no festival on:
http://www.cinemaclock.com/clock/ont/Toronto-now-playing.html
The combination of the fest plus the Virgin Mobile two-day concert here leaves me without a bed for two nights, so I'm going across the border to Buffalo, New York. I pass by Niagara Falls on the way, twice. Buffalo sounds fairly mediocre but it has world-class art museums. I didn't want to try to cram Montreal or Manhattan into a short, impromptu jaunt, so Buffalo/Niagara it is.
Backpackers hostels suck. There is no privacy; the bathroom and shower stalls are constructed so haphazardly that there is a half-inch gap running the entire hinge side of the stall door. Noise is everywhere; the British are everywhere. An apartment search is imminent.
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Coffee in Chinatown
Toronto is a wonderfully chilled out city. The climate is a bit more humid and less hot than I'd expected given that this is the tail end of summer. People are relaxed, friendly, and in no hurry to get anywhere. Reminds me a bit of New Zealand, actually.The Canadian flag shot is taken from one of the many parks around the central city, and the Oxbridge-esque cafe is around the corner from where I'm staying.
The aeroplane shot is of the Grand Canyon from a very great height. Given that we flew clear across northern America, you'd think there'd be more to see, but apart from a glimpse of Detroit, this was pretty much it.
My favourite thing in Toronto so far is going to the park and seeing the squirrels; they were merry. When I figure out how to put video up, you shall see and enjoy.
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
The big T.O.
Canada is like America without the disadvantage of Americans. All the stores, highways, culture and opportunities are here, yet it is blissfully free of the self-obsessed whine of their neighbours to the south.
The dual-language thing is big here. I haven't actually heard a conversation in French, but public signage is often in French as well as English. The only problem is automated telephone systems; you have to wait twice as long to get through, as all the statements are repeated in lingua Francais.
There's a hesitancy to glances, to social interactions. Canadians are timid, and despite the size of the country and the city, there's a small-scale feeling in Toronto. The malls are large, but not expansive. The streets are broad, but not grand. The city is engineered for comfort. It is Greece, not Rome; built around culture, not around empire.
Goods in the U.S. were cheap, as if they remembered when the greenback was strong. Goods here are more expensive, as if they remember when the CAD$ was weak. Many things cost the same in CAD as Kiwi stuff costs in NZD, despite the 30% value difference. Some things are cheaper than in NZ: $5 T-shirts, $1.25 coffee, 30c/min cellphone calls. The States is another world, though, for ridiculous savings. Apart from the 99c store (a Wonka-like revelation for me), online shopping in America yields incredible discounts. Order across the border, though, and you're immediately paying 25-30% more for the same stuff. With one-tenth the population and one-twentieth the economy, the numbers just don't work the same.
My first full day here was a national holiday, Labor Day (yes, they drop the 'u'). There was a parade down Queen Street of float after float of union workers of all stripes. It was charming in an old-world sort of way; I had to bite my tongue not to sneer at their solemnity. One float had a black guy singing Old Blarney, in full voice with an Eire accent. Not sure it was genuine, though I suspect it was heartfelt.
The dual-language thing is big here. I haven't actually heard a conversation in French, but public signage is often in French as well as English. The only problem is automated telephone systems; you have to wait twice as long to get through, as all the statements are repeated in lingua Francais.
There's a hesitancy to glances, to social interactions. Canadians are timid, and despite the size of the country and the city, there's a small-scale feeling in Toronto. The malls are large, but not expansive. The streets are broad, but not grand. The city is engineered for comfort. It is Greece, not Rome; built around culture, not around empire.
Goods in the U.S. were cheap, as if they remembered when the greenback was strong. Goods here are more expensive, as if they remember when the CAD$ was weak. Many things cost the same in CAD as Kiwi stuff costs in NZD, despite the 30% value difference. Some things are cheaper than in NZ: $5 T-shirts, $1.25 coffee, 30c/min cellphone calls. The States is another world, though, for ridiculous savings. Apart from the 99c store (a Wonka-like revelation for me), online shopping in America yields incredible discounts. Order across the border, though, and you're immediately paying 25-30% more for the same stuff. With one-tenth the population and one-twentieth the economy, the numbers just don't work the same.
My first full day here was a national holiday, Labor Day (yes, they drop the 'u'). There was a parade down Queen Street of float after float of union workers of all stripes. It was charming in an old-world sort of way; I had to bite my tongue not to sneer at their solemnity. One float had a black guy singing Old Blarney, in full voice with an Eire accent. Not sure it was genuine, though I suspect it was heartfelt.
Monday, 3 September 2007
In Toronto
I'm in Toronto now - five hour flight but it sucked up a day 'cos I had to get up @ 6.30 to shuttle, check in, fly, lose three hours, Toronto shuttle, suddenly it's 8pm.
Canada's much mellower. I'm glad I spent a week in L.A., it took the edge off Toronto completely.
My last two days in L.A. I was hanging out with some strange people. We went on looping long drives around the southern beaches, four hours one way. One was an American guy who had smuggled marijuana out of the Dominican Republic and Nepal, and rolled hash into his hair to get it through Indian roadblocks. Another was an independent documentarian who was about to make a film about the indigenous population around the Grand Canyon, and the third was a girl from Montreal who ended up as a teeth-whitening salesgirl.
We went all around Venice Beach, Seal Beach, Rodondo, Huntingdon, Santa Monica, and everything else in great wandering arcs. It was just a lost couple of days in true L.A. style. If I ever want to waste a few years and completely lose any sense of who I am, I'll head back to Los Angeles.
Canada's much mellower. I'm glad I spent a week in L.A., it took the edge off Toronto completely.
My last two days in L.A. I was hanging out with some strange people. We went on looping long drives around the southern beaches, four hours one way. One was an American guy who had smuggled marijuana out of the Dominican Republic and Nepal, and rolled hash into his hair to get it through Indian roadblocks. Another was an independent documentarian who was about to make a film about the indigenous population around the Grand Canyon, and the third was a girl from Montreal who ended up as a teeth-whitening salesgirl.
We went all around Venice Beach, Seal Beach, Rodondo, Huntingdon, Santa Monica, and everything else in great wandering arcs. It was just a lost couple of days in true L.A. style. If I ever want to waste a few years and completely lose any sense of who I am, I'll head back to Los Angeles.
Sunday, 2 September 2007
General L.A. photos
I caught a ride with some Italian guys to Exposition Park -- they were heading on to Malibu -- to visit the Museum of Natural History. Even when we knew that we were on the correct path, we kept asking directions. L.A. is so vast, the distances between things so surreal, that we continually required reassurance that we were, in fact, not halfway to China.
The museum was full of small children and their lumbering herdswomen. The displays were impressive, although the wise, concerned expressions on the faces of African animals strained credulity.
The building was the backdrop to Ben Stiller's 'A Night In The Museum,' with an exhibit about the film (a la Planet Hollywood). The best room was a hands-on area with creatures' horns, fangs, an enormous stuffed polar bear, and a python-handling demonstration every half-hour. You don't get to play with the tarantulas or leeches.
Between my four (!) buses home, I stopped off at Walgreens, Staples, a Korean place, used the WiFi at an IHOP (acronyms both), and got a 99c burger at Jack In The Box.
I feel like Morgan Spurlock... I'm beginning to revolt myself with my relentless diet of Americana. My dinner is a six-pack of airline-sized Diet Pepsi, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Twinkies. Lunch was a hoagie and a Big Gulp, breakfast Pop-Tarts, a 99c Store box of some form of cereal bars, and Goobers. All are saccharine-sweet and unabashedly artificial, and fulfill some idiotic hipster desire deep within my psyche.
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