Toronto, the World's Most Diverse City

Since Toronto was only (only?) a 15 hour Greyhound bus ride from Chicago, I took this more financially manageable option as opposed to a short flight. Also, apart from saving me a night of accommodation, bus rides were more interesting since I got to have glimpses of different areas of the USA, such as Detroit, Michigan, where we stopped over for a few hours before crossing the USA/Canada border. Getting into Canada was sweet, with no problems at all.

Toronto is Canada's largest city and is known to be the world's most diverse city, with half of its ethnic makeup originating from outside of Canada. Not only that, it is also considered one of the world's safest cities to live in, too. The morning when I arrived, it was very interesting to see people who were getting to work. Asians, Caucasians, Africans, Indians, Europeans, Persians, and I also even heard an Aussie guy! From the get-go with my bags lugged around my torso heading towards my destination by foot (Hostelling International), I saw Toronto embodying an image that I would confirm by the late afternoon - the world in a city.

I first strolled through a few parks that beautifyed the city, then walked through the University of Toronto.

The CN Tower (Canada's National Tower) is the tallest structure in the world, towering at 553 metres, used mainly for radio and tourism purposes. This tower also had glass floors for people to go crazy on. From the observatory deck, many of Toronto's interesting features could be pinpointed, including the stretch of Yonge Street, which is controversially known as the longest street in the world (almost 1900 km!).

It rained later that day, but after that stopped, the marina/pier area was nice to have a rest at, seeing the views of Lake Ontario.

Toronto's new city hall looked to me like one of those fighting vehicles on Star Wars, so I also stopped by here and chilled out for a bit.

Canada spelt according to the British English language. For example, the sports arena next to the CN Tower was the Rogers Centre, not the Rogers Center.

Also, I saw lots of French translations wherever there was something written in public. I tried to pick out the differences in accents between American and Canadian too through the course of the day. One word that seems to stand out is the word..."out". Canadians say "er-oot".

The next morning, I went through Eaton Centre, one of the largest shopping malls in Canada, and had breakfast there before continuing to the Greyhound bus station.

That morning's weather was very blue. The CN tower shone and literally glittered during my bus ride out of the city. It proved to me how much weather can affect a city's lasting impression. Apparently not obvious to me yesterday, the sun and the blue sky made Toronto look absolutely gorgeous.

That morning bus ride took me around Lake Ontario, to...the Niagara Falls!