Weekly survey: What do I do with a guy who’s never been to Canada?
After more than 15 years of visiting my friend Shehzad in Singapore, he’s FINALLY coming this way. He’s only been to Western Europe once and never to North America. He’s currently visiting family in Atlanta but I’ve guilted him into coming up to Toronto for the weekend.
Now the question: What do I do with the guy?
He has ZERO experience with Canada, a country that barely registers in his part of the world. He’ll be here for two days. Where in Toronto/Southern Ontario do I take him? What do I show him? Where do I take him to eat? (He’s an Ismaili Muslim, so he has to go to the Aga Khan Museum, which is a given.)
The biggest problem? He’s not much of a music fan. In fact, he honestly believes that Rick Astley is one of the great artists of our time. (I am NOT kidding about that.) This means we must leave music out of the equation. But as for everything else, I’m open to suggestions.
Ask what his favourite store is, because we know the downtown version is bigger and better! So much more variety.
Blue Jays game! Economics and good Canadian spirit!
Boat ride on Toronto waters. Universal goodie!
Distiller district is a lively walk around and nice restaurants before or after the museum which is beautiful. -great restaurant there too.
Niagara Falls the second day. Just because he might actually have heard of it.
Bring him to Niagara region to see the Falls and the ships heading through the locks in Port Colborne (the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway system – the world’s longest inland deep draft marine highway. It’s also Art Crawl this weekend).
I ordered the Tourism TO guide and read through all the places I thought I wanted to visit and then divided the city into sections to explore. I also picked out cuisines I wanted to try.
I didn’t get a chance to visit Gerrard St area but from what I saw, it had a good mix of ethnic foods he can try. Maybe Korean hotpot on Bloor (Imonay I liked for the simple homey dishes), I loved King’s Noodles on Spadina, old style Chinese food and great prices (loved the steamed chicken with ginger scallions sauce, classic comfort food), I didn’t like Poop Cafe, gimmicky and meh desserts but liked Kekou Gelato on Baldwin St, really enjoyed the rosewater pistachio.
I visited Casa Loma, Bata Shoe Museum, Mick Rock photo exhibit at Liss Gallery and Kensington Market. I didn’t check out the Banksy or Black Creek Pioneer Village though. I did want to see Banksy but objected to admission pricing and crass cash grab.