Kensington cool, Chinatown parasols and Toronto's smallest beach
The Toronto Star has a blog about fave spots in the city. Here's my latest: I just discovered a tiny artificial beach west of Harbourfront Centre, facing the lake. It even has deck chairs, parasols and a foot shower to wash the sand off when you're done. This small spot helped bring down my level of tiredness to zero after walking five major city blocks south. I slumped into a chair, stuck my newly-acquired portable parasol into a slit between two slats, dug my bare feet into sand and chillllllllllllllllled. It was sweet.
Today was a rare day without rain. June is on pace to be one of the wettest on record here, not only in number of days but probably in precipitation, given the sudden and intense downpours we've been drenched with. Therefore, I took advantage of the positive forecast.
My friend and I agreed on Thai food and the Bloor Street and Spadina intersection where she works is much funkier than my Scarborough neighbourhood. Thai Basil, on Bloor, has lunch specials starting at $6 before taxes. It's featured positively in Cheap Eats Toronto and with good reason. Its lunch meal includes a tasty lemongrass soup, a salad with coconut-flavoured dressing and a spring roll in addition to the main course, which is served with a healthy but not overwhelming side of jasmine rice. Verdict: delish all around. I got the veggies in black bean sauce and Ivanka chose the green curry. Mine was garlicky good and you can never ever go wrong with green curry. The day someone denounces any green curry dish is the day the sun stands still, I say.
After that, we went spontaneous. My favourite way to enjoy life.
We hit Kensington Market and its always-delightful vintage clothing stores, specialty cheese emporia, happily ubiquitous greengrocers and avant-garde cafés. The Blue Banana Market on Augusta caught my eye. It's a block south of College and has about 80 different vendors with unique items. The first thing I noticed and liked was the "modernist stuffed animals" near the entrance, on the left wall. One-eyed patchwork-decorated rabbits vied for attention with pastel patchwork-decorated elephants in a Matt-Groening-cum-Kandinsky-inspired fiesta. (For the rabbit eye, think aliens on The Simpsons).
My second favourite section: the Russian Store, complete with lots of neat authentic-copy Soviet propaganda posters (as confirmed by Ivanka, who speaks Russian and hails from Eastern Europe), as well as caps and hats from every regiment, armed forces unit and era since the 1920s. I'm a hat freak, even if I rarely wear my collection. This was more than cool. I window-shopped only but kept a mental record to go back – if not for the hats, then for some of those hilarious posters. They even had frock coats and an entire uniform from a fighter pilot, though the latter seemed available only in a size zero. If they had it in a size 14, or I was eighty pounds lighter, I would wear this thing all over town.
Next stop: west downtown Chinatown, along Spadina from just south of Wellesley to Queen Street. There are several Chinatowns in Toronto: that one, plus one in east downtown at Broadview and Queen, plus a few more all over Scarborough. Ivanka ordered a smoothie and I got my usual favourite, Taro and tapioca bubble tea.
We sat on a concrete ledge and people-watched a bit. Then we hit a few stores where I found a parasol. I like the idea of using a shield against the sun. The only people I know to do this are Asians and they use light-coloured umbrellas, which, of course, are more efficient since they have a double use. However, a real parasol says "summer sun" only. They will be deployed quite poorly in freezing rain, and will clash with cloudy, rainy skies in general. This is an important psychological difference to me. So: I got a parasol. The only person to use such a contraption anywhere in town, apparently; even in Chinatown. But I don't care. I never do. I am also the only person I have ever spotted using a paper fan, even if a few people have looked at me while I fanned myself and said, hey, that's a good idea.
I ended up in Harbourfront, observing you need an unobstructed access to open water to feel the cool lake breeze. At least today.
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