Kew Beach and Little India (Toronto)

July 24, 2004

Today we went to Kew Beach (map) on Lake Ontario. Our visit just happened to coincide with the Toronto Beaches International Jazz Festival, which was pretty lucky. We didn't really get to hear any of the music, but the girls got to ride some rides and enjoy the peripheral things that go along with such a festival.

The water was way too freakin' cold to go swimming, so we mostly played in the sand. That's OK, because that's what Emelia said she wanted to do anyway. Chloe didn't say that she wanted to do anything (go figure), but she seemed to have a good time in the sand. It was a nice dry sand. Hot in the sun. Cold in the shade. Freaky, but definitely a nice place to come in the summer.

I buried Emelia to make her look like a mermaid. That didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. The sand was way too dry. And us without a bucket. She was still happy -- or at least smiling -- maybe that's just because she was staring at the sun.

Then there was the rock army marching in formation that I started building when I was digging in the sand and found a thousand rocks. Apparently, the beach is really just rocks and they shipped in a bunch of sand. However, there's nothing to can do (obviously) to get rid of all the rocks. Soon everyone joined in the rock army building. It was all fun until Chloe decided that of all the space on the beach, that was the best one in which to sit.

After that we went to Gerrard Street which is informally named "Little India." They claim that it's the largest Indian bazaar in North America. How you validate that kind of claim, I have no idea. Anyway, it was pretty cool. All sorts of vegetarian restaurants. We ate a place called Madras Durbar (map), had enough food to make us all explode and it was about $20. A nice change from the $50 meals we've been eating. If I move to Toronto, I'd try to live close to this place. It may look kind of grungy (you can probably see what I mean from the pictures). I assume it's not always like that, but I don't really know. They're doing a bunch of streetcar track construction there.

Emelia got some bangles and she was happy. She wanted a saree, but that's where I drew the line. She also got some fresh cane juice. This is apparently something that Indians love (along with roasted corn). Virtually every store on the street had DVDs and cane juice and every corner had a piles of leftover roasted corn cobs. Anyway, Emelia hated it, so Chloe drank it. Weird how she likes sugar water, huh?