Toronto - Tall Ship Kajama

http://www.tallshipcruisestoronto.com/

I don't remember for sure how I became aware of the Kajama. It might have been through the Travelocity suggested activities for the area, or something like that. I am a pretty easy mark for boats.

Of course, around any famous water, and Lake Ontario counts, you will have several cruise options. For the Bay of Islands, I wish we had not taken the fast boat tour. For Lake Ontario, I was pretty happy with the Kajama.

The tall ship Kajama is a three-masted schooner that worked as a cargo ship from 1930 to 1998, and was then restored for cruising. It's hard to believe that something that looks so historic is actually so recent, and that you might have seen a three-masted schooner used for cargo in 1997, but that just shows that I don't know very much about shipping.

Sailing does not require as much crew as leaving port, so they asked for a few volunteers with raising the sails, and I helped. I was the only female to volunteer, but at least one of the regular crew was a girl (they were all young college students). Anyway, ship work is not just man's work.

The cruise itself was pretty peaceful. There was one moment where we were kind of close to shore where I could hear music coming from a fairground or something. Actually, it was the Finn Brothers, and I suddenly had a wild thought that what if they were in town, but it appears to have been a recording.

The boat has a lot of character, and if you can go out on one of the Great Lakes you should do it. This is a reasonable option.

Toronto - Royal Ontario Museum

http://www.rom.on.ca/en

The Royal Ontario Museum was in the CityPass, and I'm glad it was because it was a pretty good museum.

For the main collections I remember dinosaurs, minerals, and some items that I thought were Egyptian but could have been Nubian. Exhibitions were spacious and well lit, which I thought helped give a better sense of things.

So I would say that the permanent collections are worthwhile, but part of keeping a museum a vibrant place is that there are temporary exhibits that change and give a reason for return. When I went, it was an exhibit on portraits, and one of the things they had set up was postcards and drawing materials, and you could draw your own portrait and submit it. Several were already on the walls.

That activity drew people in. There were people busily working while I was there, and many submissions in the depository for them, which was clear so you could see, as well as those that were already on display. That has always struck me as a way to invite the public to connect to art, not just as a viewer but as an artist.

Currently there is an exhibit using the photography of a local artist to explore every corner of the museum, but as part of exploring the city. That also seems like it will work well for fostering connection. This is important. It is good to be able to appreciate objects in a museum, but if that helps us appreciate what we find out of the museum, if we learn to see better, then it becomes something more.

I cannot comment on the Crystal, which now forms the main entrance, because it was still under construction when I was there, and it was actually kind of a joke on whether they would ever finish. However, it looks like it only took them another year, plus some time to work out the leak issues.

Toronto - Bata Shoe Museum

http://www.batashoemuseum.com/

The Bata Shoe Museum was not featured in It's an Aardvark Eat Turtle World and it was not in the Toronto City Pass, so it would have been very easy for me to have never known about. Fortunately, it was featured on the double-decker bus tour, and the construction of the building alone, designed to be reminiscent of a shoebox, lured me in.

I know there are people who are wild about shoes. I am not one of those people, therefore this review is based on the strength of the museum itself, and not as a special interest observer. Though, if your special interest is shoes, I do not doubt there is a level of ecstasy that this museum will provide, and that's cool.

For everyone else, the strength of the museum has to be not just in its collection, but in how the collection is presented and made relevant. This was several years ago, and removed from that, I remember the historical development of the shoe including types of shoes used for specific purposes that I would never have thought about without going.

That is pretty good, but I also happened to run into this article this week:

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/arts/deadly-victorian-fashions/

Fashion is not the only way of looking at shoes, but it is a relevant one, and that exhibit sounds fascinating, both historical and timely. So even though in my initial plan I was going to do the Royal Ontario Museum this week and the Bata Shoe Museum next week, I changed it so that if I could possibly offer a little signal boost to this exhibit four days before it opens, I would.

Fashion Victims: The Pleasures and Perils of Dress in the 19th Century opens June 18th and will run through June 2016.

If you get a chance to go, you should.

Toronto - CN Tower

http://www.cntower.ca/intro.html

I found I did not take any pictures of CN Tower. I did take one from up top, but it is night and you cannot see anything.

I had hoped that the recent cracking event at the Willis Tower would make this more exciting, but it's not, really. If you have a material that you designed to be clear and strong, and you are constantly going to have shoes scuffing it and fingerprints accumulating, it would be normal to put some sort of easily changed covering, and the easy change would require it to be less durable. This is not to say that it wouldn't have been scary to be there when it was happening.

So I am left with not being impressed with tall buildings, and feeling like I am kind of deficient in that. It actually might have started in Toronto. This was my first really high tower. I have never gone up in the Space Needle, though I have seen it nearby. So, I went in, and it was very high, and I made a point of eating in the restaurant there, which I can't recommend, and I stood on the glass and looked down, and it was all kind of underwhelming.

About a month later I had a one night layover in Frankfurt, and saw two of them. One would have been the Europaturm, 331 meters high. I can't find a reference to another one, but I swear I saw two. The other may not have been tall enough to be famous. Anyway, I remember realizing that this type of structure isn't really that uncommon.

(And hey, with the Willis Tower, it is a whole building, which is impressive, but also, they have another tall building with an observation deck.)

Still, it's something you do. The height of radio towers serves a communication purpose, and if you can combine that with a view, it makes sense. If I get a chance, I am sure I would go up in the Space Needle. The CN Tower is the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere, and has been declared one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. I know these things are impressive, even if I cannot feel it.

Toronto - Casa Loma

http://www.casaloma.org/

Casa Loma is one of those places that you really should see if you are in Toronto, and it is worth seeing. The exterior is beautiful, there's a lot of history and movie trivia that relates to is, you can go via an underground tunnel to the stables, and there is even a short film featuring Colin Mochrie.

It is also a place that brings up some mixed feelings. It is really too large. It could probably be just as beautiful being one story shorter, or by having the existing levels not stretch quite so far. In some ways it seems like a perfect example of hubris in the construction, and a comeuppance with the loss of the property due to back taxes. However, Henry Pellatt's financial difficulties came largely from the government expropriating not one but two large sources of income for him: his electrical power generating business and his airplane manufacturing business. Even if this expropriation was necessary for the war effort, you'd think they could have at least given him a large tax credit.

Therefore, it will be very easy to go and have a feeling that things are simply not as they should be, but that is not a reason not to go.

Toronto - Getting around the city and the Double Decker Bus Tour

http://citysightseeingtoronto.com/Toronto-DoubleDeckerTour.htm

I am not sure that the link is for the same company that I used, but it sounds right. I don't remember a harbor cruise, but it could be new, or I could have not had time to use it because of some other things I booked.

Even if it is not the same, it is probably close enough, and I found it very helpful. It hits the key sightseeing points, but more than that just taking that first ride around gives you the lay of the land, and then you can take advantage of the hop on/hop off feature.

I did end up often walking places, because Toronto is very walkable, but I knew what things were when I came to them, and where they were in relation to other spots, because of the tour.

I admit, I also ended up in a very good location with my hotel. This was not be design. I looked at Marriotts because I could get a discount, which put me in the one on Bloor, right by Younge. This was very central. That put me very close to Eaton Center and Dundas Square, which was where I would usually catch the bus and take my meals.

Obviously I was in Toronto for longer than the three days of touring, but for the attractions it takes you to, those can be done in three days, and this site can also get you packages for other places, like Niagara Falls. I had things I did not book through here, but it is still worth looking at.

There was one incident that bothered me, which was not their fault, but I want to mention it. There are tour guides letting you know about the locations as you go, of course, and I remember one family asking her to give less information. After being around a few times, you have heard it more than once, but it shouldn't be that big a deal. As it was, it really threw the poor girl, and then she had a hard time giving any facts. Yes, I am sure that part of it was that she relied on a pattern, and trying to go out of that messed with her rhythm, but also I think they really smashed her confidence, and she was fine. She was doing a good job. So don't be a jerk. If you don't want a tour guide, take the city bus.

I will just mention two other things that don't relate to the tour. I was not able to use every ATM. I use a credit union, which was part of the issue, but it does not hurt to check ahead and see what is around and whether it will accept you. This is important because it is generally less hassle to simply withdraw rather than look for a place to change your USD to CAD.

The other thing that was amazing to me was that the squirrels were black. A lot of the film I wasted was spent trying to get a good picture of one of them, but they were small and fast-moving and I didn't have a zoom feature on the Fun saver. Again, I am very glad to have switched to digital.

Toronto - Eaton Centre

http://www.torontoeatoncentre.com/en/Pages/default.aspx

Going over Toronto has been pretty educational in a way I did not expect. I am often not happy with my picture quality, but going back to a trip when I was carrying around Fun Saver cameras reminds me of how much better it has become.

Yes, simply being able to upload the pictures into the computer is better than messing around with the scanner, but I have wondered sometimes if it's bad because maybe we don't go back and review digital photo files the same way we do with hard copies. Well, I haven't looked at these printed photos for a long time, and their quality is much worse. I don't do a lot of fancy settings, but even being able to zoom, and to know whether or not you got a shot, makes a huge difference.

These next few posts won't have a lot of photos, and they won't be great ones, but it does make me grateful for progress.

Eaton Centre is the largest mall in Toronto, and it was built at a time when malls of this size were less common. I am sure I did not properly appreciate it, because I am not much of a shopper. However, there were three things about it that were cool for me.

One is that it had a Carlton Cards. While this looks like it is not very different from a Hallmark, it is based on American Greetings, and therefore it was easier to find Care Bear related merchandise here.

http://www.carltoncards.ca/

They have never been very common, but are less so now. The Eaton Centre location is gone now, but at the time it was there, and I was able to acquire Care Bear ornaments for my younger sisters, which for them was the most impressive thing about my trip.

There was also an Yves Rocher. Yves Rocher the man was a pioneer in the use of natural ingredients for beauty products. Yves Rocher the company is really good about including free gifts in orders, and there was a time when I ordered a lot from them. The products really are quite good, I just built up a backlog. It was kind of cool to find a physical location.

http://www.yvesrocherusa.com

I had mentioned in a previous post that I did not go to Mr. Greenjeans. I thought about it, but the menu and prices did not seem that appealing to me, as it seemed like basically a grill, but one that would be fun, maybe with flair. However, the food court did indeed prove to be a valuable place for a traveler on a budget, as it was conveniently located to my hotel and the main stop for the double decker bus tour. That was handy.