Toronto revisited

Chilling out in London with JP and Beth, playing pool, drinking beer, eating pizza I was reminded of the last time I played pool in Canada. Having played quite a bit of snooker in my youth and at work (my first company had a full size table on my floor!) I am quite a confident pool player since the table is a quarter of the size and the pockets seem huge in comparison. When I was driving across the USA/Canada in 1999 I often joined a pool table in order to meet some locals. I even entered a few pub competitions and won some money in the USA but not in Canada. In Canada I remember asking someone if they were any good and getting the reply "No - But I'm gonna kick your ass"! I kicked JP's ass!

Anyways on Wednesday we headed up to 'Tuh rah na' as the locals call it a bit later than expected for a night of 'all you can eat' Japanese in Markham, Go Karting and then a few beers at the world famous Beer Market in downtown Toronto with JP's friends. These Canadians are hard core since after leaving the Go Karting late (11.30pm) I expected a few drop outs but only one person left and they had a good excuse. JP was the fastest on the Go Karting of all of us and kicked ass.

Staying at the Westin Hotel downtown, JP had to go to his office and I had the day in Toronto to myself. Needed a swim in the hotel pool to clear my head of the Quebecois beer of the night before. I was planning to meet up with JP's friend in the afternoon and wasn't sure what to do. I then do what I normally do in this situation - ask a local. I had a few suggestions from the night before and I thought I'd supplement this with advice from the Lonely Planet Toronto guide - Trouble was I didn't have one. I therefore decided to take advantage of my personal library - it's called a bookstore and it recommended as part of a perfect day in Toronto to visit Baldwin Village - where I ate in this place. - not many locals seems to know about this 'village' which is just a short street (Baldwin) a few blocks north of the Toronto Arts centre but I recommend it - lunchtime was busy so you might need to book a table.

In the arvo, I was given a walking tour by local Canadian Jonathan who I'd met the night before who showed me around a few points of interest before we hit the bar where we met up with his Quebecois girlfriend and members of his ski-club. I left early to meet up with JP to go back to London but I left Toronto with a sense that it would be an easy city to live in for me where everything would be easy to find, people friendly and outgoing and lots to do. Will have to come back in summer!