Toronto Walk - Part 1
Toronto Street Photography
I was able to spend 2 days during Thanksgiving weekend exploring downtown Toronto. This was my first time really being in Toronto, I've been in the area a few times but I've never really in the city. My girlfriend Jen was sent there by her work to do some training, so I tagged along and did some exploring while she worked.
Day 1 - Nathan Phillips Square, Brookfield Place, TD Centre, Gooderham Building
We arrived at the Billy Bishop Airport at around 9 am. Our first stop was the hotel to check in and drop our bags off. We were staying at the Cambridge Suites right downtown. After grabbing a quick bite and walking Jen to her work I was off on my adventure. I just started walking, not really sure where I was going, looking for anything that caught my eye.
Pretty quickly I found Nathan Phillips Square. I had done some research about popular photography locations in Toronto, and this was on the list! Nathan Phillips Square is a plaza where Toronto city hall is located as well the big TORONTO sign you might have seen. There were quite a few other tourists here, and there were maintenance guys doing work in the pool in front of the Toronto sign, so it was a little difficult to get a decent picture. I got a couple shots and headed out.
Made my way through the Toronto Eaton Centre mall, and came out at Yonge and Dundas Square. I started walking back down Yonge and spotted a group of skyscrapers that looked interesting. I ended up hanging around in the TD Centre courtyards and walkways for quite a while taking photos, tall buildings are exciting after being in Thunder Bay for 4 years! I've also been trying to do more architectural photography and this was a good opportunity to try out a few things.
Right after finishing up with the tall buildings I found Brookfield Place, which was another spot on my list. It's an office tower complex with a 6 story atrium inside which is home to the Allan Lambert Galleria. Super crazy architecture. As a bonus for me, there was a free photography exhibition happening showing some amazing photojournalism from around the world.
Lunch time! I made my way back towards Jen’s office to meet up with her. On the way I passed by The Gooderham Building. It’s like a mini version of the Flatiron Building in New York, although The Gooderham was actually built first. Surprisingly this was where I ran into the most tourists, there must have been a photo tour or something going on, the streets around the building were packed with people all taking pictures.
There’s an English style pub in the basement, called The Flatiron weirdly, where we ended up having our lunch. I had a pint and some very tasty bangers and mash out on the patio.
After sitting down for lunch, and having a beer, I was feeling pretty lazy. But there was 1 more place I wanted to visit before calling it a day, Sugar Beach. Disappointed. I didn’t take any pictures, you should Google Sugar Beach if you’ve never seen it. Looks amazing, right?! Not so much in person. I wouldn’t even call it a beach, someone put some sand at the edge of a dock with some pink umbrellas. I think there was more garbage than sand actually. Oh well.
One good thing about going down to Sugar Beach, I found out exactly how far from home I was! 1444 km apparently.
I was pretty spent by this point so I headed back to the hotel and had a quick nap before Jen was finished with work for the day.
Things I learned:
Toronto is humid in October
The tops of your feet can hurt from walking too much
Sugar Beach is the opposite of sweet