Canada trip -2‏

DAY 2: NIAGARA & TORRONTO; Due to tiresome jurney and walking all the time, we fell into deep sleep and were hardly able to get up at 8.00 am, but as we had to march forward for onward journey, we all got up and one by one got ready. Fortunately Roadways Inn, had very good breakfast facilties, with seperate breakfast room having bread butter, jam, juices, milk, tea coffee,muffins,fruits and cereals (corn flakes), we all had one by one hefty breakfast. Anvay has now become a swimming fan, so wanted to have a swim in Inn's indoor heated swimming pool He therefore took advantage and enjoyed swimming in the pool.Inn also had outdoor swimming pool too.It had elevator, ice maker, which is minimum in any motel/hotel.

We left the rooms by 11.00 am loaded the van and started for Torronto. Mithun became a guide to us. He guided us well at Niagara yesterday and has taken us to Tim Hortin, a chain of Donuts like Dunkin Donuts .Nimish had come to Torronto on 23 rd August 06 and had been to sight seeing of Lion Safari and other places.He had rented a Toyota Corolla for them and had brought it to Niagara, so they escorted us towards Niagara falls for the last time and then towards a site of whirl pool.These whirl pool is on the niagara river, and it takes turn here, making a dangerous whirl (vamal) in the big pond like pool of water.A jet boat ride is offered here for those who love adventure and scarry ride.We just went near vista point of that whirl pool, watched a dangerous deep whirl and also saw a jet boat come, take a round of the pool, stay their for some time and then go back.We therafter moved forward towards, an old downtown of " Niagara on the river".while going towards these downtown, we saw huge mansion like bungalows of winery owners.We also saw beautifully cut Floral clock on the way.

We reached Niagara by the river down town and got down the van.City Council has developed a wonderful flowers on both sides of the road and on the devider of the road.It was a wonderful sight to see the various multicolour flowers bloom in full, making it a memorable place that we visited(u can see these in photographs that we have sent).beautifully cut and maitained.I have no words to express myself for these lovely sight of flowers of various colours, beatufully developed and artistically hung on the poles.

It was time to move fast and as such we took freeway towards Tottonto, passing through various small towns and Lion safari exit,.We reached Hotel Renaissance where Nimish had to return his Corrolla, and come to our Van.We agian took freeway and reached down town and Torronto's Lake Ontario beach. Lake Ontario is approximately 500 miles in length and 150 miles width, sweet water lake.Ships and crusies ply in from one place to another.

We first went near the world famous CN Tower, which is 1514 feet high, world's highest lone structure tower, and moved around its area having one of the largest Base ball stadium having seating apacity of 65,000 and with having a facility of sliding plastic dome on top of it, so that play does not get disturbed even when it is raining of snowing.( Recently in arizona a base ball stadium is constructed obviosly with slidng plastic dome but is also have a slinding huge ground turf, where entire lawns can be slided out to give fresh air and water.( Ha niche ni mati ne lawn stadium niche thi bahar khenchi sakay chhe) .Threafter we took a round of a market place where international art & sculpture fair was going on.Normally here there will be 2/3 stages are erected, so that any artist can perform their art, whether its music or dance or magic or so.International food market was also their, but the stardard of cleaniness was not much good, compared to USA, so we did not took anything and went on a walk on Lake ontario beach. It was very windy and was difficult to take a walk ,so we went inside the mall, took a round of it, came out and went towards downtown of Torronto and moving towards Indian Bazaar.

Downtown of Torronto , is just like Manhattan of New york, having huge tall buildings, with grand show cases and luxirious shops.Traffic system here is not UP TO THE MARK and traffic signs are ambigous, making it difficult to drive. There are no right turn or left turn green arrows but instead only yeild sings or blinking signs which does not make it clear for the drivers. Just to diffentiate traffic sysem from the USA, they have adopted these signs.We observed that Law and order and over all system of govt. seemed to be weak though better than India, definately weaker than America.We then moved over towards Indian Bazaar.

These Indian bazaar was typical of indian habits and lawless ness. All the shops loaded their goods on one side of the foot path making it hard to walk and shopping windows were also poor in taste and show.We basically came for Indian food.Bhai Mithun guided us well and took us to a restaurant named Moti Mahal, from where we took,(to go-parcel) Lachha Parotha, of plain and of Fudina.one veg of Aloo,mutter, and another of Malai Kofta and Dal Makhani.Before that we took, Dahi Pakodi.I will say that all these food stuff was EXCELLENT and lasted long for us.In fact we have not tested so tasty authentic Punjabi food in india.As for the NAN, we always have observed that Nans here are soft,and very good,We all were very hungry ,so we moved towards the Hotel.We had to ckeck in at hotel and we already had an reservations at Hotel Comoforts Inn.

We arrived at hotel, , checked in.It was a big one story hotel.Having no elevator, we had to undergo hardship to take baggage on the first fllor. Rooms did not have an common door in between, so we had trouble in communication, but otherwise rooms were decent, had apart from standard facilities like TV,Table and chairs,2 Queen beds,Lamps,good bath room with napkins and towels, coffee maker it also had an fridge and Micro wave oven.We immediately took our food along with dahi, etc,and arranged an entertainment programme of Songs sung by Mithun,Lopa , Nipa and almost by everyone as also playing Antakshari. children making dhamal and playing in Bed. We went to bed at around 12.00.

DAY 3 TORRONTO

In the morning, since we had to have a long drive to Montreal, we got up early and had decided to move out from the hotel by 9.00am. We went for an break fast.Unfortunately Hotel did not have seperate break fast room and had only a small area, we took it all the regular stuff of Decaf coffee,tea,muffins, fruits,bread butter jam, milk, cereals, etc in our rooms and after finishing it moved out by 9.30 am.

We first went to CN Tower area, parked our van and went straight to CN Tower.Tickets for the visit on top of the tower was $ 22 per person.Since we had seen Sears tower at Chicago and Petronas Tower at Kaula Lumpur, we had no desire to spent money unnecessarily apart from what we had seen earlier Empire state building.World trade centre, etc, so refrained from going up and as Mithun too had been twice on top, we 3, me, Tarla and mithun stayed back and moved around the Base ball stadium. We first had lime juice and while moving around got access to one hotel on the stadium and were fortunate to have a look at the Base ball ground.It was meticuously maitanied, very decent, gorgeous, green turf ground having a seating capacity of 65,000.We then sat their for some time.

We had kept with us a walkie talkie and we had good use of it.We frequently got the message from the other party from the 1514 feet top of the CN Tower that they are coming back. After their return, we went towards parking, and on the way took Vegi Hot Dog, as also some grocery, samosa,ice cream etc for our lunch.We had planned to have a stop at one of the town on the way to Montreal,as, Lopa's one friend of Bombay was staying their, and Lopa wanted to meet her. We therefore had a stop in that town,and Lopa along with Nimish and Lipi went to her friend's home and we went to Sub way sandiwich, to get the sanwiches for all of us. We also went around to find Dahi (yogurt) at 2/3 places for about 2 kms and finally got the Dahi.As soon as Lopa etc came back, we moved fast took the freeway towards Montreal.We ate Theplas along with dahi and sand wiches, while on the way.

Freeways of Canada are not that good in conditions and only 2 lanes were their to drive with a speed limit of only 100km per hour i.e. 65 miles per hour. Normally we on the freeways take around 75/80 mph ,so it was boring to drive and that it had no good places to stop or have some snacks,we just drived on. Though we had to stop for 5 times, due to children's needs and our just getting out of the van for stretching out.It took almost 7 hrs for us to reach suburb of Montreal. (mand padre pahonchya). It was already 9.30 pm we need to have a dinner, so we waited at Pizza hut.

Torronto in genreal and Montreal, Quebec in particular were french colonies and they in fact wanted to have seperate nation of their own, but in voting they were defeated, so they are continuing with the Canadian government, reluctantly, but all sign boards and language is only and only French.They dislike English and avoid speaking in English.

Since childhood, we have been taught that French people are courteous and mannerful but experience of Nimish and Snehal during their Europe tour and our experience at these Pizza Hut found out that French people are mannerless,and are rough with the strangers or customers.They just threw pizzas and ketchup packets at us, without any shame and on asking for the dishes,that too was just thown on the service counter.We in fact had hot discussion with the manager, but of no use.We thereafter took road towards our hotel.

Roads of Montreal are very bad and are not mantained very well,the reason we heard was that Olympic games were held here in 1972 and city council has yet not come out the debts and are stilll paying huge amounts towards loans and as such has no funds to maitain the roads.After long search we could find our Sandman Hotel, which had some 14 floors.Hotel was good and rooms were also very good.we got two adjoining room with common door, so we had a good communications.We already had pizza for dinner, so we arranged a musical evening, With Mithun on top of the singer list, we enjoyed well and went to bed.