Two Lost Boys Blog

Canada, July 2016 - A Trip Report

Hello everyone,

At the end of last month (July), Jon and I drove up to Canada for a five day visit, to see friends and family.

For those of you who don't know me and my story (from my old blog), I used to live in Canada (after the UK - yes, I've done it all!), and it is where Jon and I first met. I lived in a small town north east of Toronto, called Uxbridge. It is here in Uxbridge that we centered our visit this trip, branching out from there to go other places, such as downtown Toronto.

I'll start my report with Uxbridge and some of the other greater Toronto area towns.

If you follow Two Lost Boys regularly, you'll know that we love toys and the TMNT. While in Canada we had to visit a Toys R Us to see what TMNT stuff they had! I was actually quite impressed with their displays, and I felt they had more stock than the US stores.





We also visited Costco, which for the most part was virtually identical to the US stores, with one exception; their cafe has poutine! I cannot tell you enough my love for poutine (without the meat though, since we are vegetarian), and how crazy it seemed to me that Costco would have it on their menu! I wish the Costco in our town had poutine! (Red Robin here has meat free poutine, but it's $9 for a small bowl, which is expensive, even if it is tasty!)


In Uxbridge we had lunch one day at a little cafe that had opened up since I had lived there, called Teddy's Organic Market. We tried two different sandwiches, and they were really nice. If you're ever passing through, I recommend Teddy's.




Since we visited Australia earlier in the year, Jon and I have become hooked on iced coffees, and so of course we had to go to Tim Horton's ("Timmie's) while in Canada. We found ourselves several times standing in Timmie's in Uxbridge, drinking what is possibly the best drink I have ever tasted - maple iced capp! The pastries were pretty good, too.




No trip to the region would be complete without of course going to downtown Toronto. We walked around, saw the sights, and refreshed our minds of what this great city has to offer.

We went through the Eaton Centre, to visit the Disney Store, of course! I was sad to see that there was absolutely nothing remotely Canadian, unlike the London, New York and Paris stores, which all have exclusive items.



We walked down through the Church-Wellesley Village, stopping to get Starbucks along the way (I can't remember what I had, but it wasn't anything as good as the maple iced capp from Timmie's!).









We went into the Hard Rock Cafe and walked through the store of the Hockey Hall of Fame (where we took photos of our Tsums, as you can see below!).





Nathan Phillip's Square had gained a large 'Toronto' sign since I lived there. Once again, the Tsums also had some fun there, too!






At Brookfield Place we got lunch at somewhere that I had nostalgia for - Marché. I used to get lunch here when I would visit downtown, and really liked it, so I wanted to go back for old times sake, and I wasn't disappointed. I recommend it if you're ever in Toronto.







We went out to the Toronto Islands on the ferry. It was super hot the day we went, and really busy. The views over to the city though are really great.







I saw this sign on the islands, and thought it was amusing. Anyone want to hike to the North Pole?...


Finally, on our way back to Uxbridge that evening we had dinner at a place on Church-Wellesley called Lola's Kitchen. The purpose? To get poutine. Sadly, while it was nice, it wasn't what we were expecting. They tried to hard to make it fancy, and really, all a man wants is some poutine!



For completeness sake, I'll share with you this photo of the Disney Store at Scarborough Town Centre that we also visited. I have nothing else to say about it, except I just wish they had something Canadian!


On our drive back down to the US, we stopped in Niagara Falls. We have been here many times, including last year when we made a full weekend visit of it (you can read my detailed report for that, here). I find Niagara Falls, Ontario, to be very busy and commercial, but not without its charm. Niagara Falls, NY, on the other hand is a horrendous place. The downtown core needs serious help. That's all I'll say on that one.



















We found a pretty decent comic book store on the Canadian side, where we saw some Captain Canuck stuff, so of course we had to get some pictures with our Captain America Tsum...




Before we left the Canadian side we did - finally - find some really decent poutine though!


Back in the US, and driving back down through NY state, we found a Timmie's, but alas, no maple iced capp - just an iced capp. Oh well, I'm sure we'll be back in the Frozen North next summer!




That's all for my trip report! If you have any comments you can leave them in the Disqus section below.

Have a great day everyone,

Dan.