Here in Canada we have a long weekend to celebrate our late monarch, Queen Victoria, in May. This year, I decided to go to Toronto! I had such a great weekend, with a ton of great surprises! Spoiler: Victoria Day weekend is actually a really good weekend to visit TO!

DAY 1:

To start off Saturday in Toronto, we went to the Rib Fest they were hosting at Yonge-Dundas Square. There were tons of rib vendors, snacks, and live music. I bought an entire half rack of ribs for myself for only $15, and ate them ALL in the Eaton Center Food Court. Yep. They were really good. But this was only the beginning of the food filled weekend. After Rib Fest, we shopped around at the Toronto Eaton Center, before heading to our Airbnb on Charles Street near Yonge. It was a nice place for our money, and it was in a really good location near the corner of Yonge and Bloor. After dropping off our luggage, we set out to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)! Turns out, not only did they have a student admission price, but since it was Victoria Day weekend they were also doing a $5 discount for each ticket if you asked and knew the Promo Code (which I happened to glance at before we left). So good thing for us, we actually only ended up paying $11.50 per ticket to get in! Much cheaper than the regular price, almost half actually. So we got lucky there, and we spent some time perusing through the museum. I really like rocks. And gems. They also had a giant Dinosaur section, and an Evidence Room Holocaust Exhibit. Then we did some more shopping out our favourite place, Dollarama, and then went for dinner. Ramen!! At Sansotei Ramen, I had Miso Black ramen and it was pretty darn good. It was essentially normal miso ramen but with black pepper in it too. Also got in some Calpis, that I haven’t had since being in Japan. After dinner, we wanted to go dancing, after all it was Saturday night in the big city. We went to a popular place for students near the University of Toronto, with FREE COVER with a Student ID! It was called The Dance Cave, and they actually played good sing-alongable music, unlike most places recently just playing rap songs all the time. I didn’t get any drinks nor did I see any prices, so I can’t comment on drinks at the club but the dancing was definitely super fun! I would recommend it and I would definitely like to go again. It was also in a really convenient place, and close to our Airbnb.

DAY 2:

Sunday morning, we walked to Kensington Market. It is an interesting place, with a wide variety and fusion places. They have a place called Bacon Nation that sells everything bacon. They also had restaurants like Italian-Jamaican food, or Chinese-Indian, etc. For lunch we chose Chilean Empanadas, and I had a pulled pork, potato, cheese, tomato, celery Empanada, and it was the best Empanada I’ve ever had. The spinach, potato, and ricotta cheese one was pretty good too. I was still hungry, but more thirsty and I really wanted a smoothie, but they are all so expensive everywhere so I just went to McDonald’s and bought a $2 blueberry pomegranate smoothie, with fries. Then we strolled down Queen Street, and back to the Eaton Center. Dinner time, today was Indian Buffet! Actually though, the unlimited Naan and Butter Chicken alone made it worth it. It was only $16 for a dinner buffet on the weekend, and the food was actually really really good. I would highly recommend going here, it was called the Buffet Palace on Yonge Street. They also had dessert, and I was literally so stuffed it took us forever to walk back.

 

DAY 3:

Time to check out of our Airbnb, go to a video game store, and then have FUNNEL CAKE FOR BREAKFAST! We went to Funnel Cake Express on the corner of Yonge and Wellesley, which is apparently the only Funnel Cake restaurant in Canada. They were having a summer promotion, that if you bought a funnel cake you got a free twister (their version of a blizzard or McFlurry). AND you could get 10% off your purchase with an SPC card. So we got a funnel cake with caramel sauce, icing sugar, and apples, with a Reese’s Pieces Twister, for only $10! Pretty good deal! Then while we were sitting in the place a parade of Military Veterans went by with army trucks and an escort of police. I am assuming it was because of the holiday. Then we went to the CN Tower! We bought the Sea the Sky Promo tickets in advance online,

 

 

 

 

 

 

so it is a cheaper combination ticket with the CN Tower and Ripley’s Aquarium. I was honestly surprised at how not busy those attractions were for the holiday. We didn’t need to wait in line to go up the elevator, but they were doing construction on the observation deck so you couldn’t see the South side of the city. The glass floor was as terrifying as always, and it was surprisingly not windy in the outdoor observation area.
ALSO! Because of the holiday, it was complimentary for everyone to go up to the Skypod!! That’s the smaller and much higher deck that usually costs extra, and I can’t remember ever going up there so I was super excited!! But they had a timed ticket, so we had to kill like an hour and a half in the main level just wandering around and looking at the North and West sides of the city. We went to go check the prices for the 360 restaurant (the rotating restaurant in the tower), and it was like a minimum of $60 per person. So that isn’t happening on a student budget. Finally we went up to the Skypod, and there were like 10 people total up there. It was really really really high up, and you could see the Edge Walk people! They waved at us, and I don’t know how anyone cant bring themselves to lean off the edge of a 500m tower but that’s just me.

We went back down, the elevator takes 58 seconds to reach the top or bottom. Then we went to Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada! It was a lot smaller than I was expecting, but I literally love Aquariums so it was still fun! I saw Sea Turtles! I got to pet a Sting Ray, a Horseshoe Crab, and a Zebra Shark! There were also cleaner shrimp, and they were eating all the dead skin off my fingers and it felt really weird. Then we had Chipotle for dinner, and I am kind of sad that it didn’t totally live up to its expectations. Steak burrito was still pretty good though. And that concluded our long weekend trip to Toronto! Somehow, we managed not to use any form of transport, only walking everywhere. And now my feet hurt like crazy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Victoria Day also included free parking on most of the Toronto Streets which is good for people driving to the city! I had a really really great trip!!! <3