Hey Beautiful Warriors:
What time is it????? It's "Toronto Time!" Welcome! Welcome! Welcome, to the Adventurous Dynamic Duo's blog, featuring another episode of, "Dynamic Duo Inspired Journey." This week we want to take you straight to the city known as an international centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and it is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.
Are y'all ready? Let's get it started......We leave the Niagara Falls, in Ontario, and we are in awe. We are on a high because we have been blessed to experience one of the 7 wonders of the world. How fantastic is our God!!! Now we are headed back to Toronto's #Hilton downtown, to spend the next three days of our vacation. We arrive and we are totally pleased with our hotel and its central location. Skyscrapers every where we looked. This time our view from our room was of the CN Tower and huge surrounding buildings . It was perfect! After getting settled in, we go to the front desk to get a little lay of the land. We decided to walk 20 minutes away to a shopping mall #TorontoEatonCentre, and yes, it's time for Jackie to get her shopping on. "Right Sid!" "Oh yeah, JD always make a small purchase on every vacation, and she saves and budgets - just for it, y'all." Eaton Centre is a very upscale mall with lots of shops and nice designers stores. I found a few pairs of nice leather, sweet-talking-to-me shoes, as Sidney patiently watches and waits for me to make up my mind. Lol. We hung out until it starts to get dark, because we have another tour; yes, a tour in Toronto: #SmallGroupCitySightseeingDayTour in the morning. Nighty, Nite, Warriors!
The vibe in Toronto was so, us! It is a huge city (about 7-8 million people), and we like big cities. "Sidney, what city did you keep saying, Toronto reminded you of baby?" "Warriors, I felt right at home, it was New York, NY all day long!!!! People everywhere. The streets filled with theaters, arts and cultures, markets and of course, tall buildings - everywhere."
We learned the next day, while on our tour with #SeeSightTours, Toronto has a over 30 kilometers of underground shopping, personal business, restaurants, grocery stores and more in the #Path. The Path links to public transit and over 50 office towers including the iconic Royal Bank Plaza, Scotia Plaza, Richmond Adelaide Centre, the Hilton and more. It also connects major tourist attractions, such as: the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Air Canada Centre, Rogers Centre, the CN Tower and more. The Path was so cool to see. Over 5,000 people are employed there, and the retail workers are off on the weekends, because the stores are closed! Why, are they closed? We were told that they make enough money during the week. So as packed were the streets, the day prior, we learned half of the Ontarians are underground moving around. "Holler!" Additionally, a huge portion of downtown, Toronto has been built over the lake. Interesting!
Our tour guide continued to drive us around downtown, Toronto, showing us the different districts (Business, Banking, Theater, Upscale shopping for the rich & famous, the City Hall, the historic buildings and much more). What's so nice about having a tour guide, we really learned the history of the city. We learned the window panels of #TowersofRoyalBankPlaza are covered in 24-carat gold. We saw the new City Hall, as well as, the old City Hall. For lunch, we stopped at the #StLawrenceMarket, and it was truly amazing - with fresh uncooked/cooked food everywhere. It had amazing pastries, and we had some authentic Greek food. Yum! Yum! We can't lie, we got us several authentic Ontarian pastries too. Lol. So yummy for our tummy. Lol.
We toured through the #UniversityofToronto, and it is so beautiful, historic and huge. Its tuition is very affordable - in and out of state, as well as highly ranked around the world. As we continued, we learned that Toronto does a lot of medical research, it is home to one of the top 10 hospitals in the world, and they have one of the best Children's hospitals in the world, #SickKids. Another interesting area was the #Distillery, the streets are paved of cobble stone. As a matter of fact, later that evening, we walked 35 minutes to eat at an authentic Mexican restaurant #ElCatrinDestileria. Another, yummy moment. Lol.
Next stop, Casa Loma - a house museum and landmark. It was constructed from 1911 to 1914 as a residence for a financier Sir Henry Pellatt, his wife, and their child. The mansion sits 460ft above sea level. Y'all, what a house for three folks!!! Unfortunately, after 10 years of living in this mansion, he lost it due to an increase in government taxes. OH, NO! However, now due to its unique architectural character, Casa Loma has been a very popular Toronto filming location for movies and television. It is also a popular venue for wedding ceremonies. Even as we were touring it, the film "Legends of Horror" was in the mist of filming there. How cool! In the lower level of the mansion, they had posters of several of the movies that were filmed there. This dude was a visionary; he was way ahead of his time. About one block away, Sir Henry even built a castle for his horses and he had an underground tunnel to get there. How about that, Warriors!
Our tour even included a harbor cruise on Lake Ontario, over along the coast of their Toronto Island. It was nothing but utterly beautiful. We saw ferries and water taxis taking folks to the Island. This Island doesn't have cars on it, so the natives ride bikes or walk. We learned that it is rare for land to go up for sale. Usually, the land stays with the families that own it, so it isn't easy to live over there. Next, we head over to the #CNTower. It is one of the tallest towers in the world, and it's located between the #Rogers Centre, #TorontosSportsDome and the #ToronotoConventionCentre. Our tour took us to the top, where we walked around the lookout level that features open-air viewing. The level right under that, is a glass floor to walk on and look down at the people and street - over one thousand feet below... and of course, we walked on it. Lol. They have this adventurous #Edgewalk that is available to do for a cost of about $250, the Adventurous Dynamic Duo weren't quite that adventurous. Lol. It consist of a hands-free walk on a 5ft (1.5m) wide ledge encircling the top of the Tower's main pod, 356m/1168ft (116 stories) above the ground. As we were waiting to get in, we saw people up there walking around and leaning over the edge. It was just too much adventure for your Duo. Say What!
Again, Warriors, as usual, we enjoyed meeting people from all over the world. Our last day, we headed to the #WaffleHouse of Toronto, the Famous #TimHorton to get some of their awesome coffee and waffle sandwiches. Well, Warriors our time is winding down, so we go to the Lake Front and hangout, walking around when we ran into a Barbado's Festival. We truly enjoyed listening to the musical entertainment. It was so tranquil sitting and gazing at the sky blue waterfront, with boats sailing by and please, do not forget the water taxi. Lol. We ended our visit with Mr. New Yorker, Sidney stopping at a hot dog cart to get one of their famous hot dogs. "You really felt like you were home then, right Sid!" "You know it, Baby."
No! No! No! We do not want to leave, so much to do and so much to see. We may just have to add Toronto back on our bucket-list for one more visit. We fell in love with it. However, we only want to go during summer time. Lol.
Warriors, another great visit, and we have other adventures coming at you, very soon. Thank you for reading our Blog. We aren't sure what is on your bucket list, moreover, we don't know if you even have a bucket list, but what we do know.....God has ordained us to encourage you to live your life intentionally. He has us on a journey to live ours intentionally and we are enjoying sharing our adventures with you. Please sign in using your email address and the code ZEJFNW. We love you!!!! We love Toronto!!!!!!
Until next week.
Love Y'all
Jackie & Sidney
P.S. To purchase the book, ”More of You God”, click on the link below:
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