canada day 1: toronto

in july, luke began teaching a group of korean teachers visiting msu for a month. they are here for teacher training and language classes. aside from teaching every day, part of his job was to accompany them on a weekend trip to canada. a few days before the trip, luke was told that he could bring along his wife and baby, since everything had been paid for and since the koreans would be interested in a real american family. :)

so last friday morning, luke, mateo and i got on a bus with 30 korean teachers and headed for toronto. we were so happy we didn't need a passport yet for mateo (although we're working on it). we videotaped him crossing the border into canada, but it might take some time to find it.

our first stop: the hotel. we'd only had 2 hours of sleep the night before because of finishing work/packing/last minute stuff, so luke and teo napped while i mapped out our journey.

we stayed near st. lawrence market, which turned out to be one of our favorite places. so much goodness, so much color. it reminded us of the mercados in spain, and we even found our old favorite treats there - luke got the kikos (corn nuts) and i got the dried peas.

after the market, we walked and walked until we reached chinatown. we'd heard that toronto was a super clean city (which is impressive since it is the 5th largest in north america), but we were confused after walking around since there were extremely overflowing trash bins on every corner and garbage everywhere. then we found out their garbage people were on day 30 of a major labor strike. yikes. hopefully it gets resolved soon.
anyways, we loved chinatown.

after chinatown, we walked to kensington market. it is kind of an outdoor eclectic and really young space in an old historic neighborhood. shops were just closing, so we definitely want to check it out another time.

mateo didn't see too much. but he loves canada!

we really liked these street posters turned into living plant holders. awesome.

and finally we found a nice place with a mellow vibe and patio to sit and celebrate luke's birthday. it started raining a little and everyone went inside, but we were under an umbrella and were able to still eat and drink with the rain around us. it was really nice.

so we really enjoyed toronto. it was super multicultural and had so much to do and see that we couldn't get to in our short afternoon/evening there. we didn't make it to the cn tower, the lakeshore, the museums, or the university (on luke's list, of course). or the zara (on my list). we also wanted to make it to a barefoot walking club meeting for a shoe-less walk in the park (what a better way to mix in with the real toronto-ans, right?) but we didn't make it in time. oh, and cafe tacuba was even playing for free the next night. the city is only a 5 hour drive away so we really hope we can go back again before we leave michigan.