MiKE: picture diarrhea

So, we've been taking pictures. It's been snowing, with a major snowstorm over the last weekend; and also, we've discovered the TTC day pass, which allows individual access to the TTC (that's the bus, subway, and streetcar) on weekdays, and family access on the weekends. Which makes a lot of sense. Because we would recoup the cost of the pass by simply making a return trip. There are a lot of pictures here, so I'd spare the opening narrative and write around the pictures:

On the advice of a friend, we took the 501 streetcar service, apparently (one of?) the longest streetcar routes in N. America. It brought us to the beach on the east coast of Lake Ontario, which has to be seen to be believed. It is not called one of the great lakes for nothing - at the beach, it feels for all intents and purposes, like a beach in an ocean. So much so that Serene had thought that it was the Atlantic. It even has its own breakwaters, like this:

except that, unlike other places we've been to, this one has icicles hanging off the rocks. That day we visited it was very cold, the weekend saw a minimum temperature of -15ºC; when this picture was taken, not only was it cold, it was windy..

Part of the reason why we went to the beach that day was that it was a clear sunny day.

And like most other clear sunny days, the sunset was beautiful:

Here's another shot that that correctly exposes the rock, so you can see more detail. Once again, it was interesting to see ice on the rocks; yes, call us frog-in-the-well, whatever, this was our first time.

A shot of the coastline. I am no geography major, but I remember from a long time ago that wave action creates a characteristic pattern on the shoreline:

And a shot of us in the sunset. The lighting became very red, reminding me of a wisecrack a prof said recently about how it was all thanks to 'oxides of nitrogen and sulphur"

Looks all sunny, but it was very cold; within 15 minutes of being there, Serene was complaining of numb toes and fingers, and wanted to get out of there:

And a shot of us.

When waiting for the streetcar to arrive, the sun took its time to set, making the silhouetted scenery you see below:
And so that was our first trip out to the east and the beach. Overall, it was quite a pleasant way to spend the Saturday: wake up late-ish, have brunch at St. Lawrence Market, take the streetcar east to the beach, freeze up while at it, and then come back, after shopping for groceries at Sanko, someplace which I'd like to go, but usually don't because it is quite a distance away. We were convinced into buying 2 Oden sets, which don't look like much, but when cooked, turned out to be a bit too much for one sitting.


So, one of the weekends, we heard drums. Wondering what it was, google gave us the answer within a couple of minutes: there was a demonstration and a march from the Bloor Street United Church (which, incidentally, had a rainbow flag at its signboard) to the Parliament. Apparently these people were demonstrating for the right of US war resisters to remain in Canada, whereas the government was deporting them back. Browsing the page, it seemed that most (all?) of these people were US military 'deserters' (depends on who's doing the name calling, eh?) who refused to serve the second term, or who refused to go to war in Iraq; some of them had applied for conscientious objector status and were denied. So, they gave up and just moved here, and decided not to go back. Isn't that great? That people of another country would fight for your right to disobey your own government, even to the point of petitioning their own to allow you to break your government's law? No, seriously, I mean that with no sarcasm whatsoever. People with an attachment to higher values, and enough empathy to be activist about it.


So, that night, it snowed, lightly, and then we noticed this on our window sill: It was very fine snow, and the temperature was cold enough that it did not melt:


This past weekend, we decided to go to the beach again. So, after brunch of a veal and eggplant sandwich (with everything on, including the hot peppers), we walked toward Queen Street to take the 501 east again. We passed by this church, and as you can see, it had been snowing quite heavily the day before. It was beautiful; dark brown tree branches trimmed with white snow:


On our way to the streetcar stop, we came across this. Seems people have a sense of humour here.

And then we arrived at the beach; this time a different part of it. Once again, you can see the coastline; it does not look like what I would imagine a lake to be at all:


It had snowed 15-30cm, downtown near where we stayed, lots of it got ploughed off the roads and the pavements salted so that much of it melted to become a dirty slush. But out here, it was relatively untouched. You can see just how much snow actually fell:


The inside of a TTC streetcar:

Shooting out the window, we came across this:
Oh, for those of you lazy enough to scrutinise the picture, it says: "A PROPOSAL: TILT THIS BUILDING 5 DEGREES TO THE RIGHT"

Sunday, we went to the Christie Pits park, apparently a part of a river which had been filled in. the result is that there was a natural depression, which, when filled with snow, equals many fans of kinetic energy out in force to take advantage of the lowered friction of the slopes. On the way there, we came across this quiet street. Toronto has ever been described by people as a city that works; I like it; unlike other more densely populated cities, there are hardly any significant parts of the city that are built up with high rise blocks - I am thinking in terms of the 40-50 floor concrete monstrosities in Hong Kong, for example. There is a certain amount of sprawl, but not like American suburbia, where it becomes so desolate and isolated that there is no sense of community and living together but rather a place where many individuals happen to be sited close together. Anyway, this side street makes a good picture for me because it is just off Bloor West, a fairly busy street, yet this looks so peaceful that I would stay here. And not to mention the white-snow-on-black-branches look. I like it:

So as I was saying, we went to see the park, and noticed this one kid who loved the snow he was deliberately falling onto it; guess it is nice to be a kid with nobody (inside) telling you what to do or not to do. He was running up the slope, and then when he found a deep enough pile, would throw himself onto it, and then repeat the process:

Parkas and scarves hung aside, people would have just taken cardboard boxes and slid down the slope:

And then there were this 4 Japanese people who came with an inflatable sled. The guys just had a turn, so it was the gals' turn; they get ready:

One of the guys got tired of waiting, and then gave them a shove:

While the other waited midslope to take a picture. Here you can see it is not going well, they have turned 90º:

And they end up falling off the sled and sliding on their clothes:
The gals spent quite some on the snow; it must have hurt somewhat, or it was just fun to be lying there.

At the park, there was actually a skating rink. And this guy was pushing his baby stroller along:

And finally, parting shots, us walking back, near someone's house, admiring the effect of the snow on the trees: