Part 2 - Toronto and Surrounding Area

Part 2 – Toronto  and Vancouver Sightseeing

Day 1 - Tillsonburg – 31/07/2017

In the morning we left hotel for “La Guardia” airport, destination Toronto. Our friends Lorne and Jackie picked us up at the Pearson Airport. Very nice of them, and we were staying at their place for 3 nights. We met Lorne and Jackie in 2014 when we were river cruising from Budapest to Amsterdam (http://haryanto-wa.blogspot.com/search/label/Europe%20Tour), since than we keep in touch and becoming a dear friend to us. They visited us in Perth to our home in 2016, and now is our turn.

It was an hour flight to Toronto and on that day even less so we arrived a bit early, but Lorne and Jackie already there waving so we can see them. It was so great to see them again. It was around 1 (one) o’clock in the afternoon when we left the airport heading to Tillsonburg.

Quietly they surprise us. Lorne pick us up by driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee and it was a class higher compared to ours. They knew that our car at home is Grand Cherokee and we knew that they were trying to make us feel home….thank you guys.

We stop at Tim Horton’s for lunch and stop again at a local market shopping for dinner, we arrived at their home at about 4pm. You may ask, what is Tim Horton’s? It’s like a fast food restaurant and if you visiting Toronto, Vancouver or Canada in general you will find Tim Hortons everywhere you go. It was founded by Miles G. ‘Tim’ Horton in 1964 and then expanded to franchise business and lately bought by Burger King in 2014 for US$11.4 billion.

Anyway enough about Tim Horton’s. Their house is beautiful, the back garden is big and was still flowering; the front of the house is a farm.

Picture 1 – At a local fresh market near Tillsonburg

Picture 2 – View of the backyard

The following days Lorne drive us to few interesting places including visiting a little museum at Tillsonburg. It was beautiful day throughout, the scenery alongside the roads were mostly farms and on that time the corns plantation were everywhere. We feel like we were in Western Australia, feel like we were home apart that we were inside the Grand Cherokee – Summit.

Picture 4 - Scenery alongside the road to St Jacob's Market

Picture 5 – Our trip: Day2 to St Jacob's Market; Day3 - Niagara Falls ; Day 4 – Toronto

Day 2 – 01/08/2018 - Jacob’s Farmer Market

At around 10am were arrived at St Jacob’s Farmer Market, it’s a big market area with the main building has domes roof and many other little stalls located outside around the main building. You can find anything here start from seeds, plantation, fruits, veggies, cheese, meats, souvenirs and more.

The interesting part for us was we get a chance to see the Mennonites (traditional) at their stall (mostly ladies). We heard the story about the Mennonite mainly from TV, but here we can see and have a little conversation with them. Jackie remind us that they doesn’t like their picture taken, but we took the picture of them quietly anyway ☹. Throughout the day we saw many them (from afar), in their farms, alongside the roads and their houses. Another interesting things about Mennonite is, they don’t use machineries, cars, electricity, gas and other kind of things in their life. Instead they have horse and horse wagon, woodfire, livestock and manures to run for their life. More info about Mennonite can be found here: http://www.canadianmennonite.org/stories/10-things-know-about-mennonites-canada

Picture 6 - Arriving at St Jacob's Farmer Market

Picture 7 - Mennonite Lady attending her stall

Picture 54 - Fruits and Veggies stall outside main building

After walked around, looking and bought few things than we stop at maple syrup stall, this was we were looking for; the original maple syrup right from the farmer who made it.  Canada has strict rule about maple syrup, so when you bought this syrup in Canada is guaranteed the originality. This is what the Canada said: “In Canada, syrups must be made exclusively from maple sap to qualify as maple syrup and must also be at least 66 percent sugar”. Apparently there are few grade/type of this syrup, we spoke to the seller and producer he explained it all. Here are the regulated grade and the taste list of maple syrup (Canada):

Grade	Colour Class and Taste	Percentage of Light Transmission
1	Golden, Delicate Taste	Not less than 75%
2	Amber, Rich Taste	Less than 75% but not less than 50%
3	Dark, Robust Taste	Less than 50% but not less than 25%
4	Very Dark, Strong Taste	Less than 25%

So, which one do/did you ever have?

We tasted all those 4 grade category and yes the no. 4 have the strongest taste. We bought a bottle (1 litre) of grade 1 and a bottle of grade 3, we brought them all back home to Australia and share it among family and friends. We all agreed the taste is different, this one has a rich taste compared to the one that we bought from supermarket 😊 I am not sure why, as you know the one from supermarket here also clearly written “100% pure Canadian maple syrup”  and the one that we brought from Canada does not have word “100%” ☹

If you interested to know more about maple syrup here the link:

http://www.agr.gc.ca/resources/prod/Internet-Internet/MISB-DGSIM/ATS-SEA/PDF/4689-eng.pdf or this one the producer of the one that we bought and you will find some recipes too in there http://www.ontariomaple.com/maple-products-syrup-grades.

Picture 8 - Maple syrup - Sweet Ontario we bought at St Jacob's Farmer Market

Day 3 – 02/08/2017 – Niagara Falls

After breakfast Lorne and Jackie drove us to Niagara Falls, it took about 1.5 – 2 hours from Tillsonburg to the location. By 10 am we arrived and straight went to the gate, we purchased our tickets online last night. It was long queue to get to the boat on that day, noticed that the raincoat colour given on the Canadian side are red while from the American side are blue. There is another attraction to go down lower by zipliner, we did not do this option simply because we did not have a plan and did not know it in advance. It would be interesting though to go down and walk to the back of the water falls.

Picture 9 - The queue of the next passengers of the 'Hornblower' including us

After 20 – 30 minutes waiting then we all went onto the deck of the “Hornblower” that going to take us up and close to the falls. There was strong wind and drizzling water like it was raining as the result of the water fall down when we got closer. It was amazing to have an experience on the nigari river and up close to the ‘mighty’ waterfalls. The roaring sound from the falls was so loud while the boat circling around. It was only approximately 30 minutes cruise but it was lots of fun.

   

Picture 10 - The Hornblower at close proximity to the waterfalls

Picture 11 - Getting closer to the falls, tried to take picture of my wife for the memento.

It was difficult to have decent photos because of  the wind, rain and little space available among the crowd.

Picture 12 - Memory photo of us together taken from the photo booth after the ticket counter

After the cruise we wonder around on the top bank of the river enjoying the view of the falls from above, and the park on the area was nicely manicure for the visitor to enjoy. So this garden like a last spice to our experience visiting the Niagara Falls becoming nicer and memorable.

Picture 13 - At the Niagara Falls parks – Queens Victoria Garden

At about lunch time Lorne and Jackie took us to the spot where we can set up a picnic lunch, oh this was so nice experience.. we felt like we were home with kind of this thing. Today the air temperature was a bit high and the sun shine was strong, so we tried to pick location that has got shady tree.  

Picture 14 - Picnic lunch at Niagara upstream river, I am just holding my wife's brollie 

After lunch Lorne took us to another place called Niagara-on-the Lake which is the Historic District. On the way we stopped at the floral clock just near the Hydropower on the Niagara river known as Hydro's Floral Clock.  The information I got is that the Floral Clock at Queenston was built by Ontario Hydro in 1950 but since 1977, the floral clock has been displayed and maintained by the Niagara Parks Commission apart from the mechanism that is still maintained by Ontario Hydro. The floral display changed  twice every year.
Here is a photo we took during our visit.

Picture 15 - Famous Hydro's Foral Clock at Queenston - Niagara Parkway, Queenston

The town of Niagara-on-the-Lake situated at the rivermouth of Niagara river to Lake Ontario approximately 20km north of Niagara Falls, yes it is not faraway at all. The town looks very nice, flower plants were everywhere  and well manicured. We walk along the Queen's St, it seems this street is where the centre of attractions of this town. There were many Cafe's, souvenir shops, horse wagon ride and few more. On that dayThwere many visitor during that day, it was look like there was bazaar or something but was non.