After literally being busy every day for most of the vacation, I take some days off and just hang out with Hanna, or ride around Toronto in search of art galleries and museums of modern art. The latter not with much succes, I might add, because most of the ones found by the 'bing' browser this cheap laptop er came with, have moved or shut down by now. And of course very few museums are open on Mondays, so all I care to see indoors is an impressive selection of dinosaur skeletons at the Royal Ontario Museum.
Tim Hortons was a Canadian fast food chain, but is now American-owned. To their credit they did well by placing this particular business in a former movie theater. Another defunct movie theater, shown below, got a much more colourful facade.
Riding through Greektown, Koreatown and a couple of Chinatowns also brings me to part of Toronto called The Annex, some sort of hip neighbourhood with stacks of neat cafes and shops. Most buildings rarely rise above three floors, which adds to the friendly atmosphere. Of course the town also has it's fair share of homeless and crazies, but they don't bother me and I don't bother them.
In The Annex I also stop at some motorcycle shops, where they tell me the monthly big ride-out is on Wednesday, at The Dark Horse Espresso Bar - the name implying that it'll be a peaceful crowd rather than gangs of bikers with sawn-off denim vests showing up. I may go, if it clicks with Hanna's plans. I notice that there are only few of the big Harley dressers around, so for the first time since Los Angeles a mix of sensible bikes of all sizes and styles makes up the mc population. Or semi-sensible, like the modern versions of cafe racers; cheap old Jap bikes, that every self-respecting hipster has chopped the rear frame off. Like in Denmark, where cars and bikes are pricey and last much longer than the manufacturers would hope for, part of the motorcycles I see here are easily 20 or even 30 years old.
Just like in the US, bicycles are catching on in Canada too, where the city of Toronto has put up neat 'donut racks' onto which one can lock a bike.
Town Moto sold me the very fitting black bumper sticker below.
(Or: "Make that eleven....")
The Royal Ontario Museum had on display this statue from ancient China, which looked remarkably much like my high school English teacher.
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