Toronto!

Korea is history and Toronto is the present and future, ladies and gents. After weeks of scouring the city for a place to live, we finally landed an apartment in this building, in this unit, in the very heart of Toronto (or downtown, if you want to take the un-romantic approach). We moved into our new home last Monday, but not before going on a major shopping-spree at IKEA! We bought this couch:

This bed:

And these chairs with this table:

They look far more impressive and far less drab in real life, but pictures of the apartment will come later. I'm feeling far too lazy to take any at the moment, plus I didn't actually log into my blog with the intention of showing off my apartment or posting pictures of my IKEA purchases... but there you have them!

First, let me just say that Toronto is a new city for me entirely. Before making her my home, I had really only spent a few weeks here during the summer of 2008 while visiting Ken between our stints in Korea. I don't know anything about Toronto, to be perfectly honest. So, during my days of unemployment (which will last awhile longer, as I still can't work legally in good ol' Canada) I've been meandering around the city, trying to learn her ways. Ken has been my tour guide (an excellent one at that, since he is a genuine Torontonian), and I've been slowly getting to know the city and slowly warming up to her. 

Today was one of my touristy days. I wanted to see St. Lawrence Market (someone on the internet said it was one of the greatest markets in the world... he/she has the propensity to exaggerate), so we meandered in that direction after finally getting our lazy bums out of our pajamas at around noon. After looking at a map of Toronto, I assumed the market would only be about a 20-minute walk from our apartment and I was--Wrong! I think it was more like 45 minutes, but I didn't actually time it. It just definitely felt like 45 minutes. 

When we finally got there, we were disappointed to find the food section of the market was closed for the day. Boooo! So we moseyed on over to the antiques section of the market instead and it appeared to be open and booming with business. It was kind of fun to wander through the mounds of junk and/or treasures stacked all over the place (I think I was feeling a bit pessimistic this afternoon, however, as there seemed to be more junk). When we went back outside, we found a fun little table stacked with old toys that I recognized from the days of my childhood... and, once again, this was an antique market. *sigh*  

After about an hour or so at St. Lawrence, we decided to walk another 15 minutes to the distillery district. I think it used to be an old whiskey distillery, but it has been transformed into trendy/shopping central.

Not that you can tell from my fabulous photography skills, but there are lots of cute, little, expensive-as-all-get-out shops and restaurants within these old brick walls (where I'm assuming whiskey once flowed). It was a fun place to poke around, while abiding by the "just look, don't touch" rule. Of course, I fell in love with a hundreds-possibly-thousands-of-dollars painting and a little $70 tree (I sometimes have expensive taste without even meaning to). The painting was easily passed up due to the dwindling numbers in my bank account, but the tree....

It is a pretty little tree, isn't it? Not that it would have survived the week in my plant-killing hands. I pried myself away and left it where I found it before meandering back to my dull, plant-less, tree-less abode. Anyhoo, I thought the distillery was a great little area for a Sunday afternoon stroll and I definitely plan to make a habit of it.... I just have to leave my wallet at home to avoid further temptation.

Hopefully I can discipline myself to take more pictures of Toronto while I'm exploring, and blog a little more now that I'm all settled in (...and jobless and bored out of my skull). But for now, at this very moment, I'm going to explore my freezer for some ice cream. Yay!