Friday, June 5, 2015

Eastern Canada Trip 2014 Day 15 Tuesday June 24 Toronto to Brentwood Bay

UPDATED: February 11, 2021

This is the 15th and final of a series of posts dealing with my fourth trip to Eastern Canada. I’ve made minor corrections to these reports. Also, I’ve added additional thoughts with the hindsight of a year later or to add further clarification.  These are indicated by “NOW”. After I booked the trip I unexpectedly had to move and was staying at a friend’s place at the time of the trip, so I was already pretty tired before the trip back.

A bit of insomnia last night but only for about an hour. I walked along Danforth to Broadview Station, I where I bought another daypass (you can get weekly or monthly passes from a machine but you have to pay an agent cash for a daypass). Note that all transportation this morning Toronto Transit.

[NOW: The hostel I was staying at was The Only Backpackers Inn.]

I took a 504 streetcar to Canada's Walk of Fame, focusing on the section I couldn't find before.  There are three sections: King St W south side between where Ed Mirvish Dr terminates and Simcoe street (this is the bulk of them), on Simcoe St west side between King St W and Wellington St (second largest), and on the north side of King St W between John St and Simcoe (a lot more spread out, thus easiest to overlook). There are a couple of repeat famers, e.g. Jim Carrey.
 
[NOW: I think one of Carrey's two stars was removed. I can't think of anyone else with two.]

Ed Mirvish (Honest Ed) actually has a square, probably because he was key to restoring a major theatre. The cheekiest square is Canada's Walk of Fame themselves. Yes, Canada's Walk of Fame actually awarded themselves a square on Canada's Walk of Fame. I walked to the former Global Village Backpackers, then north along Spadina to Queen, then walked along Queen to City Hall and back.

[NOW: Ed  Mirvish's Honest Ed's store has closed. There is both an Old City Hall and a new one. I think the new one is officially just City Hall.]

Back on Spadina I got a 510 streetcar to Spadina Station. I was going to get a 2 Line train (Bloor-Danforth) to Donlands Station, but there was an accident on the tracks at Donlands so the train terminated at Broadview. There were heavily packed shuttle buses but I opted to walk the remaining distance back to the hostel. I finally managed to get to the 9 am breakfast at the hostel's bar, a waffle and fruit combo; pretty good. I will check out and get my luggage stored, then continue on.

[NOW: The above was written in the morning. The rest was written early the next day.]

One thing I keep forgetting to talk about is the bus/streetcar system in Toronto: in most places there's no schedule or even route number, just stop number. They assume everyone including seniors has a handheld device that they can type in the stop number for more info. Prior to flying out all transportation this day Toronto Transit.

After breakfast the Donlands Station matter had been cleared so I took a 2/Bloor-Danforth Line train from there to Yonge St and walked from there to Yonge-Dundas Square briefly, stopping at a 7-11 along the way, a bit north of the one on Yonge I normally stop at. I then took a 1 Line train (Yonge-University-Spadina) from there to St. George Station. Transferring to the 2 line there a guy got a bit hostile because I was taking photos so I hid until the train came.  I took the train east to Kennedy. Because the Scarborough Line train is above ground I took it to its final stop, McCowan and back just for the photos. I took a 2 train back to Main Street Station.

[NOW: The Scarborough Line is the 4 Line.]

There I took a 504 streetcar that was supposed to go to High Park Station but terminated at College and Lansdowne. So I walked to Bloor and started heading east. The cats still weren't there in that one window (I saw two in the past); probably moved. I briefly visited Bloor Mini-Mart because it was one of the first places I visited on my first trip and fairly frequently. I continued along Bloor to Danforth. I bought a DVD at Bargain World then visited Mike's Music and Re: Reading. I found another DVD at Circus Books and Music which was a relief because I didn't want my final Toronto purchase to be at Bargain World.
 
[NOW: Bargain World has closed.]

I got my luggage and got them to Donlands. With a little bit of help (no elevator found this stop) I managed to get them onto a 2 Line train which I took to Kipling Station. There was in fact an elevator which I took up. I just missed a 192 Rocket bus but another came soon and was close to empty most of the ride. It had a luggage area. I arrived at Pearson Airport Terminal 3, Mississauga and checked in. One of the workers there had me use the automated system. Security was a bit backlogged so I was supposed to find another entry, but I proved to be too fatigued to play hide and go seek and opted for the longer line. I grabbed dinner at Tim Horton's.
 
[NOW: 192 Rocket has been renamed 900 Airport Express.]

I tried to log on to Pearson's wi-fi but kept getting shunted to an ad from their sponsor American Express and not being able to go any farther. There was a bunch of kiddie activity on the flight back to the point that except once it was only barely on the side of me not saying anything. Cloudy for most of the flight until it started to turn a bit dark to see the ground though I got a lot of nice sundown type shots. The TV wasn't working so I couldn't photograph the map to indicate where I was at any given point. My friend Dana and her husband Carl whom I've been staying with in Brentwood Bay picked me up from there.

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