Saturday 10 March – Toronto / Niagara Falls

In typical form, myself & Libe were late to start our sightseeing today, despite only having a day available to see Toronto – for me anyway; Libe had even less.

We at least got to look at the CN Tower, the tallest free-standing building in the world, and right next door to the Rogers Centre. The glass floor was of particular interest – it can certainly challenge your nerves walking on it when the ground is some 300m below. Unfortunately an ordinary day’s weather really did restrict our view out over the horizon; on a lovely clear day, like Friday was, the view would have been outstanding.

We at least got to say a quick final goodbye to Kevie, who was battling after a late night and a early morning start taking training. However long it takes us to catch up with him next, it will be too long.

The trip to Niagara was via the Greyhound Bus (as per usual for us).

Niagara is a little like Atlantic City, in that apart from the tourist areas, it’s really not an attractive city. There is a lot more at Niagara to do however. It has a lot of hotels, a lot of neon lights and plenty of fun/amusement-type buildings. It also has a couple of particular small water features, although these are no ordinary backyard birdbaths...
Our hotel room directly overlooked the falls, which was a great result – despite that fact that it was foggy on Saturday night, and we were looking into the sun on Sunday morning, so it was not quite so easy to see them.

The larger Horseshoe Falls, also known as the Canadian falls, are lit up at night to create a spectacular scene after dark. The smaller American falls, which are amazing in their own right but are completely overshadowed by the Horseshoe ones, aren’t afforded the same attention. If I wasn’t such a tightarse I might have had some great photos of this, but my digital camera bought a couple of years ago in Perth doesn’t really put the blokes taking the footy pics for the Addy in any danger.

Our final stop for the night was a couple of drinks at TGI Fridays. Towards the end of our stay, they fired up the Karaoke. Unbeknown to us, the singers’ voice and the music is broadcast outside the restaurant; fair to say those living within earshot would be happy that I didn’t take to the stage to belt out a number, but they didn’t have any Johnny Farnham, so they weren’t subjected to hearing my lack of ability.

Interestingly, Niagara, which is on the Canadian side of the border, takes both USD and CAD – on a couple of occasions, we paid in one currency and received change in another. The exchange rate is about 1 USD = 1.1 CAD, so it’s not too hard to work out.

Still yet to find any cordial over here. And if you ask for a lemonade, you’ll get a puzzled look – it’s just ‘Sprite’.

Another thing in common with AC is the Rainforest Cafe, a restaurant fully decked out in jungle themes, such as vines on the walls & roof and robotic gorillas, elephants, snakes (etc).