jab we ghoooom!: Toronto, Canada

As always even Toronto trip had a drama but this time even before the trip started!!

My Aunt came to Toronto, Canada for a month in May 2011. So we planned to visit her in near mid-May. We applied for visa after booking tickets for 11th May. Now finally the day arrived to fly, but guess what, we didn't get our Visa/passport yet! So we cancelled the tickets and thought to wait till weekend. Now weekend was here, and there was still no clue of our passport yet. After much thoughts and several visits & calls to USPS, we decided to drive to Canadian Consulate in LA and find out whats the issue. So around 9am Sunday morning we took I-5 towards LA and reached around 3pm. There we had already booked a hotel for a night in Downtown LA, near the Canadian Consulate.The next morning we had an early appointment at the Canadian Office. There we came to know that their system was being upgraded, hence they couldn't process our Visa application. How can be they so irresponsible. Cause of their so called upgrade, we lost so much. Anyways, let it be...this too a lesson learned . Well the lady at the consulate told us that they will issue our visa in couple of hours. Finally we came back to Sunnyvale with our visa and passports, yayyy!

We flew on the night of 18th May and reached Toronto 19th morning. We took the pre-booked rental car from airport and reached the guest condo in Brampton where my aunt was staying. Wow, after one year we were meeting someone from family. I was so excited to meet my kiddo brother and play with him.

view from the 25th floor condo's patio

First day we just stayed at home for the chatting sessions and lovely food cooked by my aunt. Just went near by market place in the evening.

enjoying the evening

Next morning after having nice breakfast at home, we left for Ghoooom!

Started with Casa Loma. Casa Loma is a Gothic Revival style house, now museum in Toronto. It was originally a residence for financier Sir Henry Mill Pellatt. I have shared the detailed mail about Casa Loma here.

exterior views of Casa Loma

to see more exterior and interior details of the castle,

please see here on my other blog Designing Life.

After visiting the beautiful castle, we headed towards the Downtown Toronto,

yes for the famous CN Tower.

The CN Tower

view from CN Tower

CN Tower from its base

After seeing the aerial view of the city, we went to see some history and know more about nature at ROM i.e. Royal Ontario Museum

beautiful exterior of ROM

loved this tiled floor

beautiful pieced from past

another beautiful zone, the Buddha zone

most of the museums have this

cute miniature pots

that's one the many beautiful roofs

chairs matching with the architecture

now this zone glued me to it, for obvious reasons :)

Now we were so tired and hungry, and no energy to visit more. So we went to the Punjabi Lane of Toronto. Sorry I don't have those pictures as I was busy sleeping in the car. But when we were in the lane, it was like being in India, trust me from every corner of the lane it was shouting India. From Paan stall to hot corn, from freshly deep fried samosa to a saree shop, it was all India. We had our Indian dinner at Siddhartha there and back to home for some rest and chatting sessions.

Next morning we woke up fresh and all set for Niagara Falls. My aunt made lots of Aloo Parathas and we packed it with some pickle for the picnic mood at Niagara.

Reached Niagara, its was so beautiful that I don't have words to explain describe it. But I do have beautiful pictures taken by Gaurav and videos by my uncle.

map of the Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls are composed of two major sections, separated by Goat Island the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side and the American Falls on the American side. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are also located on the American side, separated from the main falls by Luna Island. The international boundary line was originally drawn through Horseshoe Falls in 1819. A long bridge connects USA and Canada. There are different tours, Maid of the Mist, Journey Behind the Falls, Cave of the Winds, Bird's Eye View with Helicopter and more. We took Maid of the Mist and this was truly worth it.

Enjoy the pictures and videos of this beautiful falls below.

American Fall and Bride's Veil Fall

Horse Shoe Fall

usually we see rainbow in the sky, but here we saw in on land :)

from the furry of Maid of the Mist

Videos

these were the videos we took at Niagara Falls!

Next as the Sunday morning. We woke up and I had a list of Museums to visit. But I was asked to choose just one...hey! that was unfair! So out of those fabulous must-visit museums, I chose to visit Textile Museum of Canada. Being a Textile Designer, this was a wroth visit for me, but others were bored ;) lol...! and my 12yrs old kiddo brother (pretending to be elder and smart) also left a comment on their visitors' compliment log, he wrote, "Good! can do better" :) LOL...

I have already shared a post about Textile Museum of Canada here.

the entrance

for more and more textile museum, see here!

After the museum, we headed towards the Toronto Zoo! It was good, but not so good. Due to the extreme weather conditions, they have a few indoor solutions to maintain temperature. Polar Bears and Penguins excited me most, rest was similar.