23/09/05: In which we wander around a castle and a shopping centre
Sunday, 18 December, 2005
I woke up really early—7:30 am—and decided to get up, shower and have breakfast. I was cleaning up just as Jose got up. Then I woke Ben and packed the rest of our stuff and we left mostly on time.
Today we headed to Toronto, listening to Blur on the way in. I helped navigate from Gardener onto the expressway, past all those expensive condos which Jose said cost half a million (I don't think the Great Canadian Dream is to own your own house), then left at Spadina. There are certain words that just seem to conjure up the city and Spadina is one of them; Bloore, Yonge and Dundas are the others. Toronto is a lot like Sydney; the actual capital of Canada is Ottawa but the unofficial capital is Toronto (so I wasn't far wrong when I was asked this as a kid and replied, “Toronto,”), just as the actual capital of Australia is Canberra but unofficially it is Sydney (sorry Brisbanites). Toronto was the city where I was born and where I lived until I was six. I have a lot of jigsaw piece memories of it—of snow in the playground; of after school care where we were fed celery dipped in peanut butter and I used to lick off the peanut butter because I hated celery (I actually don't really like peanut butter either); of going trick-or-treating with my father; of riding the little fire engines on Ontario Island; of racoons knocking over our bins and squirrels sitting on our fence. Psychologically, Toronto has always felt like some sort of lost Eden—it was the place where my family was all together and my birthday parties were in the summer. But of course, you can't reverse history—you can't go back—and the city has grown up without me. I don't even speak the language properly anymore, for all my foreignness in the land Down Under.
As we drove in the car, we heard on the radio that a suspicious package had been left at the Kensington Market which probably meant bad traffic in that area. But it turned out not to be a problem and we passed all these funny little houses (like the equivalent of Sydney terraces) packed together but not squashed up one another to reach Casa Loma safe and sound and in good time.
Casa Loma is a novelty castle built early in the twentieth century by a rich guy named Sir Henry Pellatt who was so into castles, he built himself one. Unfortunately he and his wife were only able to live there for ten years before financial ruin forced them to sell the place and get rid of the 40-odd servants who waited on them. I'm not sure what it's meant to the consciousness of Torontonians (apart from being a place to shoot movies or hold wedding receptions) but for me it's always reminded me of children's poetry by Dennis Lee who wrote “Alligator Pie” and “Wiggle to the Laundromat”:
Wiggle to the laundromat,
Waggle to the sea;
Skip to Casa Loma
And you can't catch me!
and in my old copy of Alligator Pie there is a sketch of Casa Loma surrounded by pink cloudy curls and I'd scan it in and show you except I fear you have had enough of my nostalgic potterings. The point is, I think most Torontonians find Casa Loma embarrassing; I think it's cool.
Jose, funny enough, had never been there before. Neither had Phil but unfortunately Phil wasn't us. I'm sure that neither would have gone if I hadn't been so set on going. There was repairs and construction going on along one whole side of the castle. For $12, you got admittance and an audio tour (I don't know about you but I hate audio tours).
Although the place didn't look exactly the way it did when Sir Henry lived there, care had been taken to restore as much of the original furniture as possible. We walked through the great hall and into the oak room—
—into the smoking room/billiard room, then through the library—
—which used to have a wall at the end with a fireplace but the wall was taken down to enlarge the space for wedding receptions—then the dining room and the conservatory—
(my favourite room; I have a suspicion that X-Men 1 was filmed there but don't quote me on that)—then to the breakfast room, the study, up the secret passageway from the study to the second floor, the guest bedroom, Lady Mary's quarters—including her sitting room,
her walk-in-wardrobe and her bathroom, and then Sir Henry's suite (complete with one of the first ever showers (which looked really weird) and a bidet. At the other end of the castle there was another guest bedroom and the round room. There were also little cubbies in various spots in the walls—telephone points, apparently.
Up the stairs again and we found that there was a quilting show taking place so there were quilts everywhere, even in some of the bedrooms. The third floor was pretty much entirely taken up with a quilt viewing gallery and you could bid on the quilts as they were being sold to raise money for charity. Some of them were very beautiful and elaborate but completely out of place in the castle.
I also insisted on climbing right up to the top of the towers. Ben was quite reluctant to do so and stayed below but eventually followed us up the narrow spiral staircases past the levels where servants' quarter would have been. The view from the top was pretty cool—you could see over half of Toronto and you could look down on the gardens and the fountains.
The last time I had been there it had been 1998 in winter so it was lovely to see the gardens all green and leafy.
We didn't go to the basement (where apparently there were plans to make a bowling alley, an indoor pool and a cinema which never happened). I was quite keen to take the secret passage down to the stables but we didn't have time and Jose and Ben's enthusiasm for Casa Loma was waning fast. So we hopped in the car again and navigated our way to the Eaton Centre. Jose was quite tense about driving in the city but really, Toronto is laid out so well driving there is no worse than driving through The Shire here. But I decided to keep my mouth shut about Sydney traffic.
On the way I saw some of those newspaper stands on the sidewalk and had to snap pictures of them:
You put your money in and open it to get your newspaper.
We parked in the Eaton Centre car park and went hunting for sushi.
(Note the flying Canada geese near the ceiling.)
Ben wasn't interested in wandering around another shopping centre—he was keen to find secondhand CD stores—so we found him a tourist map of Toronto and sent him off with instructions to be back within the hour. Then Jose and I went wandering. I was keen to find the three-storey Chapters bookstore that had been there last time I was in Toronto (1998; wonderfully large bookstore with a fantastic range and lots of comfy seats where you can just sit and read) but Jose didn't know where it was or even if it existed. She suggested Indigo Books (I think Indigo Books took over Chapters because they're now owned by the same poeple). She and I headed up to the second floor.
In Indigo, I saw Anansi Boys for CAN $37 in hardcover and decided it wasn't economically viable when tax was added on top (they don't add the tax to the price tag 'til you get the counter; it takes some getting used to). I did, however, see The Last Light of the Sun (Guy Gavriel Kay) in small trade paperback so I snapped it up. And there was also a book of his poetry which I figured I'd probably never find anywhere else in the world (GGK is Canadian, did you know that?) I was trying to search on the computer for other books I was looking for but got sidetracked by a friendly shop assistant named Paul who told me all about William Gibson's latest novel, Holding Pattern (or whatever it's called). He also gave me his honest opinion of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy.
In the DVD section I tried to find the BBC production of Middlemarch for my friend from school who has been looking for it for ages (not available in Australia). Unfortunately it wasn't there and I was told to try HMV on the ground floor. Jose and I paid for our purchases (she bought me How to Be a Canadian which I am still reading through) and headed down there but the guy couldn't understand me when I said “Middlemarch” and thought I was saying “Middlematch”. I had a moment of total culture shock (or, as Mike Raiter would say, culture stress) and was depressed for a moment about my inability to communicate with people on two continents. Jose and I checked the shelves but Middlemarch wasn't there.
It was getting close to 2:30 so we returned to the car. Ben wasn't there so I sat in the backseat, reading bits of the quiz in the back of How to be a Canadian to Jose who had to explain to me every time she found something funny. For example, Speakers' Corner,
The show, an example of Moses Znaimer's philosophy of interactive broadcasting, allows the general public to enter a booth and record a short video segment (up to two minutes in length) for a nominal fee (currently one dollar). The show's producers then select “compelling” segments for broadcast. Segments are sometimes broadcast as short segments outside of the scheduled show times, or as interstitial bits on MuchMusic.
I thought that sort of thing would be right up Ben's alley.
Ben finally arrived. He had found some CD shops but not second hand ones. He also had a very blue drink.
We had to leave so early because we were driving to Brampton which apparently takes about an hour to an hour and a half. I was sort of navigating and there were much heavier traffic (though not as bad as Sydney) because it was Friday afternoon and everyone was getting off early. I tried to find my old home on the map but then realised that I had no idea where it was which was a little depressing.
Brampton is right on the edge of Toronto in the north-west and Jose's parents live right on the edge of Brampton across the road from where it's just fields. They were not home but we went in and rested for a while until Phil got there. It was nice to see Jose's dog, Hippy, once again. He was old but still energetic and fluffy. On the dining table was all of Jose's mum's pottery and I thought how my mother would have liked to see it since she loves ceramics.
Phil showed up not long after. I showed him bits of the How to Be a Canadian book and he was surprised that we didn't know anything about Coffee Crisps. He did an advertisement re-enactment for us (“How do you like your coffee?” “Crisp!”).
Then it was time to say goodbye. I brought out the presents I had made for Phil and Jose—scarves! I had had the idea a couple of weeks before we had flown out of Australia and I used this really soft light blue yarn which I had bought in Melbourne with Kathleen to make her her scarf (I used this Trellis pattern which I got from Bendigo Woollen Mills) and then I had bought this New Zealand 100% wool to make Phil's scarf (which was a more basic k2 p2). I was pleased when they told me they really liked them and Jose tells me she has been using hers now that the weather has gotten really cold.
Then Phil, Ben and I hit the road to Midland.
The country was mostly flat but a little hillier towards the north. There were places selling pumpkins everywhere because fall was coming. Because of all the wide open spaces, I thought I understood why Jose feels stressed in the city with lots more cars on the road and cars parked on the side of the road.
We subjected Phil to George in the car and then he played us something—the name of which I've forgotten. We stopped on the way at the petrol station to buy chocolate bars.
Finally we were in the vicinity of Midland. I could see where we were supposed to be—on the other side of Georgian Bay—but we weren't exactly sure how to get there. The road signs weren't very helpful. We turned down one street and realised it was a dead end once we could see a view of the water. I figured out where we were—there's a track from Uncle Jack and Auntie Lois' which leads to the spot, so I instructed Phil to turn around and go down the other fork in the road. And then we were there and everyone was coming out to greet us—my mum, Peter, Uncle Jack and Auntie Lois (who are not my aunt and uncle)—and Phil was invited inside to have a drink and a rest before continuing on his journey.
Now I should explain about Uncle Jack and Auntie Lois. When my mother finished high school, she got into the University of Toronto which meant she needed to emigrate from Hong Kong. Back then, for some reason, it was really difficult to do that. Her older sister, Lily, had been working in Melbourne as a nurse but, when the immigration laws of Australia changed, she was forced to leave and she went to Canada (Lily always hated the cold in Canada and, at first available opportunity, she and her family returned to Australia to live in Sydney). But while Lily was in Canada, she befriended Jack and Lois and told them about the situation with my mum. They offered to sponsor her and, if it hadn't been for them, my mum probably wouldn't have made it over there.
She lived with them for at least a year while she was studying and befriended all their kids who were a bit younger than she was. Ever since then, we've always had close ties with the family and they've been a bit like grandparents to me.
Phil soon left to continue his journey to Owen Sound. My mum showed us where we were sleeping and then we sat around in the lounge room chatting, waiting for Kenneth who was due to arrive at around 8:30 in an airport taxi. When he finally came through the door, we sat down to dinner and had a fabulous roast—very English (Jack and Lois were originally from England) with baked vegies, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding (which, by the way, is not a dessert). I can't remember what dessert actually was.
We stayed up for a bit chatting but everyone was tired. We talked about plans for tomorrow—whether to drive to the nearest town to go to Chapters/Barnes & Noble bookstore or whether to go on the boat tour around Georgian Bay—but nothing was fixed and we decided to just sleep on it and decide in the morning.
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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I know this has nothing to do with your post but did you hear the sad news about Leo/John Spencer?