Toronto Day 2

For Day 2, Our itinerary included Toronto Zoo and The Rogers Chinese Lantern Festival at Ontario Place. I initially wanted to be at Toronto Zoo by 9:00am since I've read it could easily take an entire day to see everything there. However, that just wasn't going to happen since we were extremely tired from the previous day. Our hotel stay included free continental breakfast. When I first heard this, I was quite excited. It turns out that continental breakfast means cereal, toasted bread, jam, juice, muffins, etc. I was expecting something with egg at least. Having said that, I still liked the hotel given the price and location. We first had to pass by Yam's office to get our Niagara and Lantern Festival passes. She and Mean were happy to see each other after a long while. They would get a chance to catch up even more since they graciously offered us to stay at their place starting Friday.

So off to Toronto Zoo we went. It was quite a long ride with 2 trains and 2 buses. When we got there we decided to get a pass for the Zoomobile to maybe decrease our walking. This might have been a waste though since it didn't stop for us to take pictures when passing the animal enclosures. It was more like a shuttle between major areas. So we got off and continued on foot. It was quite a hike for the day. We were there for around 7 hours mostly walking. Highlights include an either curious or ill-tempered ostrich, a not-so-shy squirrel, playing tiger cubs. I probably missed a few interesting things so, again, the pics should do.

Toronto Zoo Full Photo Album

After that, we headed back to the hotel to recharge the battery. We drained one of our batteries and part of the second one so I worried that we wouldn't have enough left for the Chinese Lantern Festival. There also wasn't enough time to fully recharge the battery. With that, we set off. It wasn't a straightforward ride due to construction going on at the streetcar routes and the distance of Ontario Place from the nearest stop. Soon we caught a glimpse of the several Lanterns scattered throughout the site. Other than the lanterns, they had a lot of stalls selling Chinese souvenirs and food. There were also some performances and demonstrations going on. My main focus though were the lanterns. There was also wasn't enough time as the place was in the process of closing down as we finished dinner. Thankfully we had just enough battery time to take a picture of all the Lanterns. I'm really glad Mean found out about this event because it was really worth it.

Chinese Lantern Festival Full Photo Album

After that, we were exhausted yet again. Not as much as the previous day though since we had a decent amount of sleep. Hopefully, we'll be able to regain even more energy since there's still a lot of walking to do tomorrow.

Hot in Here

I've started bringing my signature towel again. The old sweaty Patrick is back. The other day, it reached 30+ degrees C. It's eventually going to reach Philippine levels but with much less humidity. I now know that 15-20 degrees (Spring time) is my ideal temperature. Thanks to the weather, people are heading to the Parks for picnics, a lot of them Pinoys. At the same time though, it's been raining quite a bit. So people here really pay attention to weather reports. Since arriving in Canada, I now understand why Sims have a "talk about the weather" option. In the Philippines it's just "it's hot", "it's hot", "it's hot", "it's raining", "it's flooding", "it's hot", "it's hot"...

I saw a group of around 50 geese(?), both young and adult, walking at the side of the road while I was on the bus. I've heard that they sometimes stop traffic when crossing the street. It's a good thing most people here respect animals and don't run them over (and I think there are genuinely enforced laws against that)