This is my first time in the world (okay, still Canada..so far) that I'm really alone. Sure I'm never really alone..blah, blah, blah, but for the most part I am.
I arrived in Toronto Sunday night and soon after met up with a friend. I had surprisingly very little anxiety while travelling. Although a long day, I didn't really feel during my two plane rides, four-hour wait in the airport, and forty-five minute taxi ride (yes, ride). Coming from a city with 80,000 people, watching, observing, and listening really got me out of my head. I did feel slightly uncomfortable on the plane when a hippie from Saltspring Island began massaging my hand, but mainly because I wondered when he had last washed his hands. Oh and he just randomly burst into song. He sang for literally two minutes. We were sitting beside each other on the plane and he just started singing some slow ballad. Those two minutes could arguably have been the most uncomfortable minutes of my life.
Everything in Toronto went quite smoothly. I only cried once, and it was like ten tears. This was really nothing short of a miracle. I saw a couple interesting things in Toronto that could have made me cry though. I watched two different males piss onto public buildings, both somewhat hidden of course. One yelled at me in a monotone voice to give him some privacy; I should've been more respectful. In the alley near the apartment I was staying in someone had taken a shit right on the side of a building. "How was it a humans?" you ask. Well, I saw whole kidney beans in it. I actually am unsure whether I'll ever be able to eat kidney beans again, which is really unfortunate for a vegetarian like myself.
Overall I really enjoyed Toronto. At first I felt a little claustrophobic not being by the ocean. Perhaps some of my humanly instincts want me to be near a mass body of water; I'm not sure. I guess I'm just used to it. The night life in Toronto was amazing! In one evening my friend and I went to a drag show ("shes" were singing and dancing to mainly female karaoke-type songs) and to Remington's, a male strip club. The drag show was a blast, as I could sing and dance to most songs. And likely 90% of the fellow patrons were gay (I really like gay people...although I'm sure that's not politically correct). The male strip club was definitely not high-end. There was one guest who looked exactly like Dick Chaney! My friends and I were sitting obnoxiously close to the strippers. A couple of times the strippers would start touching their "meat" and make eye contact with one or a couple of us; like what is ones facial expression supposed to be to that?! I'm pretty sure every time I made eye contact with one of them I stopped breathing out of "what is my facial expression supposed to be right now?!"
The rest of my stay in Toronto was much more mild. I went to the art gallery, distillery district, CN tower, walked around and did a lot of people watching, and went out for sushi with my friend's parents. The sushi restaurant was very high-end; I felt out of place. Also the fact that a three-year old Asian can probably use chopsticks better than I can doesn't help. I ended up blabbering on to my friend's parents about my schooling and accomplishments in order to make up for my lack of chopstick ability.
