On Monday, Michal, Nicole, and Torsten went to see the Canadian National Exhibition - or The Ex, as it is sometimes referred to. It's the Canada's largest fair, held annually at the Exhibition Place in Toronto. To get to the Ex from our hotel, we took the streetcar. In Toronto, you pay for the ride in the streetcar and you need to have exact change. That is a problem for tourists during the first few days of their first stay in a foreign country, since they usually don't have than many coins upfront. Fortunately the driver was reasonable and sold us the tickets even though we were a few cents short (and he understood we did not want to pay ten dollars instead of $8.25 for the three of us).
The event offers many attractions, parades, sports, food, shopping, and more. The Exhibition Place is huge; the following pictures only show a small part of the whole place.
In the beginning of our tour, we stopped for some food in a huge hall with dozens and dozens of different food vendors. Then we headed for the attractions. The first one that Nicole and Torsten went to was the observation wheel. The ride took a few minutes. The view from the top of the wheel was nice; you will find a few pictures taken from the top on this page, so you can see for yourself. While Torsten was clinging to the pole in the center of the nacelle, Nicole was leaning out and waving at Michal!
After the wheel ride, we saw an attraction with a lot of water: the log ride. As we were passing by, Nicole's eyes started to shine, so we had to go there. This is the attraction where her evil plan of getting Michal wet came to fruition. The log ride looks like a rollercoaster on the first glance, but people sit in a hollow log, which floats in a small water canal. There are a lot of barriers next to the canals to make sure that the water splashes are deflected on the people in the logs.
Nicole's plan was cunning, so she told Michal to sit in front and Torsten in the back, while she was hiding in between us. Both Michal and Torsten got a little wet (this was the second time for Michal). Although Nicole managed to stay pretty much dry, she was the only one of the three of us that was screaming on the ride! You can see the details of the water on the following three pictures and one video. Splish splash!!!
After the log ride, we saw a few more attractions, but didn't go on any more of them - we were just looking.
Instead, we went to one of the exhibition halls where we checked many of the shops. There was even a section where each country had a small shop selling items typical for their culture. Then we spent about 15 minutes watching one of the local dance school perform various Irish dances.
As you can see on the following few pictures, we've had a lot of fun on the Expo - but we were pretty tired, so we went back to our hotels to have some rest.
In the evening, we met again and went out for dinner. We ended in Bistro 990; while it's not the cheapest restaurant in Toronto, the dinner was delicious. If you look for a great restaurant in Toronto, this is definitely a good candidate.
On our way back from the Bistro to our hotels, we saw clouds in the sky and lightning in the distance. I mean, at first, it was in the distance... then it started to rain - and that's an understatement. The water was pouring down, the streets were changed to rivers. We waited a few minutes hidden under a building, but it didn't look like the rain would stop any time soon, so we went on. By the time we made it to our hotels, we were all completely wet; Michal's and Torsten's sandals took two days to dry. Splish splash! But fortunately this shower was the only sign of bad weather throughout the whole holiday; the rest of the time the sky was clear and the sun shone. Perfect holiday weather!
The fact that this was the third time that Michal got wet in Canada made Nicole very happy. Oh, and Nicole and Torsten also found the air conditioning in their room, so they turned it on - and after three nights in Canada, they didn't have to sleep in a very hot room!
Copyright notice: Text, images, and videos copyright by Michal Řeháček, Nicole, Torsten, John Philip, Darlene Sine.