Thanksgiving passed, and now we're back from a three day excursion in Canada. Since this week, both Dad and I were off (Dad from work; I from school as it was a holiday), we decided that we wanted to get out of the house, out of town for a little while, and from there we landed on Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Surprisingly, it has now become our favorite city in North America. The city is amazing, it's comfortable and feels like a mix between Chicago an Hiroshima, or at least it did to Mom and I.      And, above all, there was vegan food! And a lot of it! So, for this short vacation, we were able to actually eat well, which was great break from our usual travel experiences (of the last year and a half anyway, since we converted to veganism). There is even a directory of all the vegetarian/vegan places in the city! And the government even gives a discount to those who buy healthy foods over the unhealthy options. Our trip to Toronto turned into a surprise truly, in a good way. I almost didn't want to come home.  

Now for Pictures:

After arriving at the hotel and getting settled, we ventured outside and found one of the best vegan restaurants (in my opinion): the Loving Hut. The food was incredible, and the staff were so friendly, they wrote out a list of the best places for vegan food in Toronto for us.

This noodle soup I am obsessed with. Unfortunately, it looks like it's a Toronto only dish as I can't find it on the menues of the other Loving Huts that are scattered all over the world.

The TV that was playing an interview of the founder of the chain of restaurants was translated into over fifteen languages––my brother and I had fun watching it.

To see as much of the city as we could in our one full day of sightseeing, we boarded a city tour bus, and the first stop was the CN Tower.

And next to the tower is the Rogers baseball stadium.

From this picture it is difficult to tell, but attached to the side of the stadium are several statues called, "the audience" as it  depicts people sitting in the stands apparently watching the game.

Near the bus was this food truck–– a lot of the tourists on our bus bought lunch here.

From the bus, Dad and I took turns trying to capture the city as it passed by the bus' windows. 

This was taken from the harbor looking back at the city. The golden building actually has gold in its windows for economic and environmental reasons (less heat loss is I remember correctly). 

More of the city. Here seemed to be like a center square. 

This was the park that Occupy Toronto (the protest) held up until the day we arrived in Canada, the day before we toured the city. So, we missed seeing the protest, but at least we got to see the park. 

Toronto has street cars! Maybe this is why it felt like Hiroshima, the familiar sounds of the street cars passing…

After lunch at Whole Foods, we walked around some of the residential areas streets upon streets of townhouses. 

One even had corn growing in its front yard! The neighborhoods had a really comfortable feeling, and every house was unique in design although within the limited options that the small lots gave. But most of the houses were thin and long, so surely there must be plenty of room indoors. 

The Whole Foods we stopped in for lunch. 

The place we walked around the most, and what became a favorite place in Toronto, was Chinatown. We all agreed that we liked this one more than Chicago's Chinatown. We ended up walking for blocks and blocks down the streets of Chinatown in search of a coffee break.

Looking back at the city, we could see the CN Tower in the distance.

Finally, we found this coffee shop in which we stopped for a while and discussed what we thought of the city. After our "coffee clutch" time, we returned to the hotel and got ready to go and see a Second City show (an improv comedy show) for Thanksgiving night!

A great holiday, it just too bad it's over now. But on to the next!

じゃあね！