Food, physics and Toronto
I can't stop talking about food.
* Am nibbling on blackberries and strawberries. BOY AM I GLAD THAT BERRY SEASON IS UPON US!!! :D
* Had lovely Pad Thai today with shrimps and a spring roll. Yummmyyyyyy.
* Mom made us burgers for lunch. *tears up* So good. Homemade burgers. OMM.
Statistics exam was weird, I hope that I got a good enough mark to warrant me a 70% overall in this course. (Sucks to know that there's no way I can get an 80 because of my crappy 2nd midterm---which I failed, and the lack of assignments I handed in. *sigh*)
PHYSICS TOMORROW.
Dun-dun-dun!
DOOMSAY. OH PAOLO.
I'll try to study through the night (again). Plan is to read Prof Vinet's slides online, do exercises in book assigned by my teacher and then re-do midterms. I have 18 hours, approximately. Doable...right?
For anyone who's interested, my final creative travel writing project from my English class. It's three vignettes pertaining to my trip to the T.O. (the one where I met up with wifey and we had our second photoshoot of le crack).
A Clash of Titans
The air was cold but my cheeks hot. I leaned my head against the fuzzy cushion inside the bus, willing my heart to stop racing. My mind screamed at me how stupendously stupid and stubborn I was being, but I refused to budge. My voiced croaked and died in my throat at the mere thought of getting up and slapping the “tourist” label onto my head. I would sit here and panic by myself, thank you very much.
The driver’s garbled voice, distorted by static, reverberated throughout the vehicle. It was of no help whatsoever. I still didn’t know where I was. I tried looking out the window, but saw nothing other than rows and rows of unremarkable suburbia: snow-littered pavements, grey bungalows, station wagons parked in driveways, and, sure enough, not a single discernible, readable street sign in sight. Great. The bus made another long, sweeping turn. Alarms went off everywhere in my head. I was pretty sure by now that I had gone way, way beyond where I was supposed to get off. I bit my lip. This was beyond embarrassing, but I could no longer deny the truth to myself. I was lost. Utterly, completely, totally lost in the Toronto suburbs, of all places. And so my pride crumbled. My dignity vanished. Taking a deep breath and summoning all my courage, I got up from my safe, warm, fluffy TTC seat.
The Toronto Transit Corporation (TTC) has three lines. It’s short, simple and effective. Connecting buses abound at every stop and diffuse into every borough of this big, grey metropolitan area. My instructions were relatively simple: take the subway nearest to my hotel, go to Yonge/Bloor stop and ride the so-called “Rocket” east until Kennedy station. Transfer for the Scarborough RT and get off at the Scarborough Centre. Then hop on the 124 B bus and get off somewhere between Shepard and Washburn Way. It was all extremely straight-forward. Yet I had somehow been thwarted at the last step by the incomprehensible garble of bus drivers. Eventually I made it safe and sound to my friend’s house in Scarborough, but the lesson remains that: one) never trust bus drivers in a foreign city; and two) don’t forget the laptop on which you wrote the instructions back at the hotel.
Even as a Montrealer (and therefore possessing inexplicable amounts of disdain for Toronto and the grammatical aberration that are the Maple Leafs), I had to admit that our Ontarian neighbour’s public transport was much, much more efficient than ours. It was faster, cheaper, and also extremely uglier. Not to mention smellier. I was in town during my March Break to visit some friends and acquaint myself with the beacon of well-funded learning known as the University of Toronto. My mother had decided to drive me and my siblings over and after braving a snowstorm, an under-heated hotel room and my brother’s ability to sprout nosebleeds in the middle of the night, we were finally settled into the nice and cozy Best Western Primrose. I then decided to pay a visit to my home-ridden sickly friend in the ‘burbs; an ambitious initiative that caused me a great deal of pain, that was.
Yet, somehow, I had enjoyed the long ride from College Station to her house in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know if it was the efficiency or the scenery that made me appreciate the system, but one thought struck me: Toronto is a huge, sprawling urban area. The culture may not be as evident as in Montreal, and the good restaurants may be harder to track down, but this place was undeniably buzzing with people, cars and economic growth. As my train jerked along the outdoor tracks, I could see buildings sprouting up in every direction and, surprisingly, a good amount of beautiful landscape. The Don Valley was dotted with green sprouts, and the curved Parkway gave it a striking, rounded shape. Tall buildings did not seem limited to the Downtown area; instead, they kept going and going and expanding in all directions. Even in a train, half-asleep and unsure of where I was going, I was acutely aware of the sense of unadulterated excitement that the city gave, which was not unlike that amazing feeling of everything-is-possible-here exhilaration that I had felt in my beloved New York City.
The vehicle lulled to a stop and my view became obscured by a huge graffiti-covered concrete wall. I turned and watched the throng of people enter my wagon. I could risk falling asleep, I told myself, seeing how I was to get off at the last stop. There was no way for me, I reasoned, to possibly get lost.
***
Loud billboards proclaiming the virtues of the latest wrinkle-cream and the coolness of trendy denim greeted me as I set out on Yonge. It was unnerving to have so many larger-than-life posters competing for my attention, just like it felt foreign to see my usual Pharmaprix being touted as the Shopper’s Drugmart. I was to meet an old classmate for supper and had decided, against reason, to walk instead of taking the subway. I quickened my pace. Soon I bypassed the Times-Square wannabe part of downtown and reached the section of Toronto that was of most interest to me. Hello Yonge street, oh jackpot of all Asian food hubs.
It is no secret that Asian people and culture proliferate about the T.O. With something like three Chinatowns and a few dozens Tamil community centers, not to mention the Korean, Vietnamese, Bengali and Middle Eastern ethnic groups, they are simply unavoidable. On that freezing night of March, my brisk walk from College to Bloor was bombarded by offerings of ethnic food. I passed the requisite Persian pita place, paused to smell the fried scent emerging from a Chinese takeout and could almost hear the chefs sharpening their knives from outside a sushi joint. I even stumbled upon a Nepalese restaurant called Katmandu, where I stopped for a moment thinking, what exactly would Nepalese cuisine consist of? Yak milk and alpine herbs? To this day I have yet to find out.
My eyes roved over the little pizza joint squeezed in between Indian buffets and Vietnamese noodle stands. Quaint Asian pastry shops were so precariously perched on second-story corner buildings that a particularly strong gust of wind (or throng of famished customers) would have presumably knocked them down. My stomach chose that moment to manifest itself and painfully protest my perusal of food while it remained unfed. It was cold and dark, and every restaurant I passed tempted me with their warmth and comfort. I could practically smell the pho soup, and I was salivating at the thought of biting into one of those tiny sesame balls topped with shredded coconut. I decided there and then that walking along Yonge on an empty stomach was, in most likelihood, an incredibly masochist thing to do.
Ultimately, my friend took me to a Korean grill place for supper. Having never been to one, I was intrigued by the idea of grilling your own food to eat. The place was packed for a week night and had a very lively atmosphere. People chattered, glasses clinkered and meats sizzled on foot-high orange flames. I followed my friend’s advice and ordered an all-you-can-eat combo. A definitively un-Korean-looking waiter soon brought me plates of raw lamb, beef, poultry, pork and seafood to grill, along with kimchi, marinated chop suey and other side dishes. I picked up my chopsticks, and proceeded to separate a thin slice of lamb and slide it onto the grill. It produced a nice, deliciousness-promising sizzling sound. I wished, not for the first time, that this kind of self-serving dish was available in Montreal
My friend and I ate as we caught up with each other’s life story. Steam and smoke from grilling rose from the tables and gathered into a thin cloud just below the funky light fixtures of the restaurant. Then, someone opened a window and the puff of heat flowed out onto the streets.
***
Squished in between the box of dried udon noodles and the industrial quantities of sushi my mother “just couldn’t resist buying”, I stared out at the endlessly long line of cars waiting to get on the 401. More and more motorists had squeezed their way into our already crowded lane as we exited the city. Pickering and Ajax drivers, in particular, were most talented at swerving until they are an inch from your bumper. It was despairing to realize that the further you drove away from the city, the worse the traffic got. At this rate, we would never get be able to leave Toronto.
It’s funny how being in a car changes your perspective on thing. On an outdoor subway train, the urban sprawl of the city had seemed exciting. On foot, walking along Yonge was a gastronomic delight for the senses. However, when climbing up said street with boxes of dried, over-salted ribbon-like pasta taking up all of your leg space in a moving vehicle, the experience was significantly less enjoyable. Make no mistake, I immensely admired the diversity and complexity of Yonge. As the longest street in the world, it houses as many buildings and people as a small town. But as we drove up the road in order to escape some of the traffic (which, really, did not work at all), the urbanisation of the place was more of a curse than a blessing. With no clear delimitations, the city and its streets just keep on expanding and expanding. At some point, the metropolitan area loses its condensed clusters of fun and excitement, and all the interesting things that define a city get diluted into the suburbs. Toronto, it seemed, had fallen prey to this. I blocked out my family’s ramble about the delights and wonders of the Pacific Mall while ruminating over these thoughts.
The sudden honking and braking of our car brought me back to reality. A man in a navy blue Volvo had just cut us off. I mentally brandished my fist at him and heaved a sigh. Yonge Street had once stretched seemingly forever in front of our eyes, carving a path straight up to the great, white North. But instead of following it, we had decided to turn right and head home. Our little car was now firmly stuck in place somewhere between Whitby and Oshawa, breathing exhaust fumes and motor oil by the bucketful. Such are the joys of modern-day cities.
I turned around my seat, reached for the container of sushi that was digging into my back and started eating from it. After all, I might as well make myself comfortable while being stuck in traffic.
THE END
Feedback, criticism and comments of any kind are welcomed. They'll have no affect on my grade since I've already handed it in, but my personal satisfaction will very much appreciate it.
* Am nibbling on blackberries and strawberries. BOY AM I GLAD THAT BERRY SEASON IS UPON US!!! :D
* Had lovely Pad Thai today with shrimps and a spring roll. Yummmyyyyyy.
* Mom made us burgers for lunch. *tears up* So good. Homemade burgers. OMM.
Statistics exam was weird, I hope that I got a good enough mark to warrant me a 70% overall in this course. (Sucks to know that there's no way I can get an 80 because of my crappy 2nd midterm---which I failed, and the lack of assignments I handed in. *sigh*)
PHYSICS TOMORROW.
Dun-dun-dun!
DOOMSAY. OH PAOLO.
I'll try to study through the night (again). Plan is to read Prof Vinet's slides online, do exercises in book assigned by my teacher and then re-do midterms. I have 18 hours, approximately. Doable...right?
For anyone who's interested, my final creative travel writing project from my English class. It's three vignettes pertaining to my trip to the T.O. (the one where I met up with wifey and we had our second photoshoot of le crack).
A Clash of Titans
The air was cold but my cheeks hot. I leaned my head against the fuzzy cushion inside the bus, willing my heart to stop racing. My mind screamed at me how stupendously stupid and stubborn I was being, but I refused to budge. My voiced croaked and died in my throat at the mere thought of getting up and slapping the “tourist” label onto my head. I would sit here and panic by myself, thank you very much.
The driver’s garbled voice, distorted by static, reverberated throughout the vehicle. It was of no help whatsoever. I still didn’t know where I was. I tried looking out the window, but saw nothing other than rows and rows of unremarkable suburbia: snow-littered pavements, grey bungalows, station wagons parked in driveways, and, sure enough, not a single discernible, readable street sign in sight. Great. The bus made another long, sweeping turn. Alarms went off everywhere in my head. I was pretty sure by now that I had gone way, way beyond where I was supposed to get off. I bit my lip. This was beyond embarrassing, but I could no longer deny the truth to myself. I was lost. Utterly, completely, totally lost in the Toronto suburbs, of all places. And so my pride crumbled. My dignity vanished. Taking a deep breath and summoning all my courage, I got up from my safe, warm, fluffy TTC seat.
The Toronto Transit Corporation (TTC) has three lines. It’s short, simple and effective. Connecting buses abound at every stop and diffuse into every borough of this big, grey metropolitan area. My instructions were relatively simple: take the subway nearest to my hotel, go to Yonge/Bloor stop and ride the so-called “Rocket” east until Kennedy station. Transfer for the Scarborough RT and get off at the Scarborough Centre. Then hop on the 124 B bus and get off somewhere between Shepard and Washburn Way. It was all extremely straight-forward. Yet I had somehow been thwarted at the last step by the incomprehensible garble of bus drivers. Eventually I made it safe and sound to my friend’s house in Scarborough, but the lesson remains that: one) never trust bus drivers in a foreign city; and two) don’t forget the laptop on which you wrote the instructions back at the hotel.
Even as a Montrealer (and therefore possessing inexplicable amounts of disdain for Toronto and the grammatical aberration that are the Maple Leafs), I had to admit that our Ontarian neighbour’s public transport was much, much more efficient than ours. It was faster, cheaper, and also extremely uglier. Not to mention smellier. I was in town during my March Break to visit some friends and acquaint myself with the beacon of well-funded learning known as the University of Toronto. My mother had decided to drive me and my siblings over and after braving a snowstorm, an under-heated hotel room and my brother’s ability to sprout nosebleeds in the middle of the night, we were finally settled into the nice and cozy Best Western Primrose. I then decided to pay a visit to my home-ridden sickly friend in the ‘burbs; an ambitious initiative that caused me a great deal of pain, that was.
Yet, somehow, I had enjoyed the long ride from College Station to her house in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know if it was the efficiency or the scenery that made me appreciate the system, but one thought struck me: Toronto is a huge, sprawling urban area. The culture may not be as evident as in Montreal, and the good restaurants may be harder to track down, but this place was undeniably buzzing with people, cars and economic growth. As my train jerked along the outdoor tracks, I could see buildings sprouting up in every direction and, surprisingly, a good amount of beautiful landscape. The Don Valley was dotted with green sprouts, and the curved Parkway gave it a striking, rounded shape. Tall buildings did not seem limited to the Downtown area; instead, they kept going and going and expanding in all directions. Even in a train, half-asleep and unsure of where I was going, I was acutely aware of the sense of unadulterated excitement that the city gave, which was not unlike that amazing feeling of everything-is-possible-here exhilaration that I had felt in my beloved New York City.
The vehicle lulled to a stop and my view became obscured by a huge graffiti-covered concrete wall. I turned and watched the throng of people enter my wagon. I could risk falling asleep, I told myself, seeing how I was to get off at the last stop. There was no way for me, I reasoned, to possibly get lost.
***
Loud billboards proclaiming the virtues of the latest wrinkle-cream and the coolness of trendy denim greeted me as I set out on Yonge. It was unnerving to have so many larger-than-life posters competing for my attention, just like it felt foreign to see my usual Pharmaprix being touted as the Shopper’s Drugmart. I was to meet an old classmate for supper and had decided, against reason, to walk instead of taking the subway. I quickened my pace. Soon I bypassed the Times-Square wannabe part of downtown and reached the section of Toronto that was of most interest to me. Hello Yonge street, oh jackpot of all Asian food hubs.
It is no secret that Asian people and culture proliferate about the T.O. With something like three Chinatowns and a few dozens Tamil community centers, not to mention the Korean, Vietnamese, Bengali and Middle Eastern ethnic groups, they are simply unavoidable. On that freezing night of March, my brisk walk from College to Bloor was bombarded by offerings of ethnic food. I passed the requisite Persian pita place, paused to smell the fried scent emerging from a Chinese takeout and could almost hear the chefs sharpening their knives from outside a sushi joint. I even stumbled upon a Nepalese restaurant called Katmandu, where I stopped for a moment thinking, what exactly would Nepalese cuisine consist of? Yak milk and alpine herbs? To this day I have yet to find out.
My eyes roved over the little pizza joint squeezed in between Indian buffets and Vietnamese noodle stands. Quaint Asian pastry shops were so precariously perched on second-story corner buildings that a particularly strong gust of wind (or throng of famished customers) would have presumably knocked them down. My stomach chose that moment to manifest itself and painfully protest my perusal of food while it remained unfed. It was cold and dark, and every restaurant I passed tempted me with their warmth and comfort. I could practically smell the pho soup, and I was salivating at the thought of biting into one of those tiny sesame balls topped with shredded coconut. I decided there and then that walking along Yonge on an empty stomach was, in most likelihood, an incredibly masochist thing to do.
Ultimately, my friend took me to a Korean grill place for supper. Having never been to one, I was intrigued by the idea of grilling your own food to eat. The place was packed for a week night and had a very lively atmosphere. People chattered, glasses clinkered and meats sizzled on foot-high orange flames. I followed my friend’s advice and ordered an all-you-can-eat combo. A definitively un-Korean-looking waiter soon brought me plates of raw lamb, beef, poultry, pork and seafood to grill, along with kimchi, marinated chop suey and other side dishes. I picked up my chopsticks, and proceeded to separate a thin slice of lamb and slide it onto the grill. It produced a nice, deliciousness-promising sizzling sound. I wished, not for the first time, that this kind of self-serving dish was available in Montreal
My friend and I ate as we caught up with each other’s life story. Steam and smoke from grilling rose from the tables and gathered into a thin cloud just below the funky light fixtures of the restaurant. Then, someone opened a window and the puff of heat flowed out onto the streets.
***
Squished in between the box of dried udon noodles and the industrial quantities of sushi my mother “just couldn’t resist buying”, I stared out at the endlessly long line of cars waiting to get on the 401. More and more motorists had squeezed their way into our already crowded lane as we exited the city. Pickering and Ajax drivers, in particular, were most talented at swerving until they are an inch from your bumper. It was despairing to realize that the further you drove away from the city, the worse the traffic got. At this rate, we would never get be able to leave Toronto.
It’s funny how being in a car changes your perspective on thing. On an outdoor subway train, the urban sprawl of the city had seemed exciting. On foot, walking along Yonge was a gastronomic delight for the senses. However, when climbing up said street with boxes of dried, over-salted ribbon-like pasta taking up all of your leg space in a moving vehicle, the experience was significantly less enjoyable. Make no mistake, I immensely admired the diversity and complexity of Yonge. As the longest street in the world, it houses as many buildings and people as a small town. But as we drove up the road in order to escape some of the traffic (which, really, did not work at all), the urbanisation of the place was more of a curse than a blessing. With no clear delimitations, the city and its streets just keep on expanding and expanding. At some point, the metropolitan area loses its condensed clusters of fun and excitement, and all the interesting things that define a city get diluted into the suburbs. Toronto, it seemed, had fallen prey to this. I blocked out my family’s ramble about the delights and wonders of the Pacific Mall while ruminating over these thoughts.
The sudden honking and braking of our car brought me back to reality. A man in a navy blue Volvo had just cut us off. I mentally brandished my fist at him and heaved a sigh. Yonge Street had once stretched seemingly forever in front of our eyes, carving a path straight up to the great, white North. But instead of following it, we had decided to turn right and head home. Our little car was now firmly stuck in place somewhere between Whitby and Oshawa, breathing exhaust fumes and motor oil by the bucketful. Such are the joys of modern-day cities.
I turned around my seat, reached for the container of sushi that was digging into my back and started eating from it. After all, I might as well make myself comfortable while being stuck in traffic.
THE END
Feedback, criticism and comments of any kind are welcomed. They'll have no affect on my grade since I've already handed it in, but my personal satisfaction will very much appreciate it.