Final Day in Toronto

Sunday morning after breakfast, we checked out and left our bags at the Jarvis House and headed over to the nearby  Allan Gardens Conservatory

where we enjoyed looking at a nice exhibit of plants strange and familiar

Then we took a streetcar to Queens Park, where we walked around the outside of the Ontario Legislature

Ontario Provincial Legislature

and the University of Toronto

we headed back to admire more of Toronto’s office building architecture

Old Toronto municipal building reflected in office building next door

and decided that we liked the old Toronto Municipal building much more than its new City Hall

Toronto's old municipal building

Toronto City Hall

We stopped into Toronto’s major downtown shopping mall, Eaton Center, whose roof, at least, is modeled on the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, but only to use the washroom facilities (they’re not called restrooms)

Eaton Center with flock of geese near south entrance

then headed over to the Kensington Market and Chinatown for some last touring as well as lunch.

Chinatown was full of fruit and vegetable markets along Spadina Avenue; it has been some time since we last saw durian on sale (we managed to pass up the opportunity). In Kensington Market, we liked the small Victorian houses, most of which were residential but some of which contained small shops, and the murals decorating some of the shops

This shop was actually a bit to the east of the Kensington Market area

Apparently, McDonald's is facing serious consumer skepticism in Toronto

There were several small synagogues in the neighborhood, which was once a center for Toronto’s Jewish population.  Next to one of the synagogues was the Ka Chi Korean restaurant, where we had our lunch.  

The atmosphere was rather too sterile for my taste, and I didn’t much care for the "pan fried" dumplings, which seemed to have been deep fried and were way too greasy (we much prefer the Chinese style). But Nancy liked her seafood pancake and the sides that came with my spicy bulgogi, which was also tasty.

After lunch, we hopped on a streetcar back to the Jarvis House, where we collected our bags and headed back to Billy Bishop City Airport. Having learned our lesson from the interminable walk from the airport, we used our day pass one last time and rode the subway and street cars back to the airport. It was a good two days in Toronto.