First-person travel notes, city stories, photos, and videos from the Travel Map archive.
#Toronto Addition to the housing post The price of a house in Toronto and Vancouver is almost 80% tied to the price of the land plot (this includes the land itself, and various taxes and fees). And yes, the average house in both cities costs >1 million…
#Toronto Why is Canadian housing in cities so expensive? Canadian housing is traditionally considered overly expensive (though where is it cheap nowadays?). The country attracts 400,000 people a year, who mainly settle in the three largest cities: Toronto,…
#Toronto Expenses for the first month of living in Canada For the entire month, I meticulously entered figures into a spreadsheet to understand the cost of living here. Especially for me, who's used to eating out at restaurants while traveling and not really…
#Toronto Planes land directly on the island, separated from the runway by just a two-layered fence. There used to be a ferry to the airport too, but now you can get there on foot through an underground tunnel.
#Toronto And these are the views of the city from the pier at sunset and at night.
#Toronto An island fire station. On the right, you can see a firefighter's golf cart! This is also where the only emergency vehicle is located, which transports people to the dock, from where they are then picked up by a rescue boat. The nearest hospital is…
#Toronto On the islands directly opposite the city center lies a true village. There are no shops or roads here, only golf carts and a few fire trucks. The only way to get here is by ferry (9 C$) and water taxi (60 C$), unless you're a local with your own…
#Toronto What the hell is this, the Canadian VDNKh??
#Toronto Is this some kind of wellness program, or is the city's budget just not enough? But some of the police here are actually riding bicycles around)) And to top it off, they're wearing shorts in their uniforms - that's just hilarious. I remember…
#Toronto When I opened an account at TD Bank a month ago, they told me that new customers were eligible for some kind of bonus. I had to meet a few conditions, like setting up salary payments and paying for mobile services... I had already forgotten how to…
#Toronto The mystery - how to transfer money to an account in another bank without a fee, if the amount exceeds the local SWIFT limit? The correct answer - CHEQUE. You get it in one bank, and then walk to another bank to hand it over there. The great…
#Toronto Of course, Canadian geese also ended up in the collection! Geese are often considered aggressive animals, but these ones turned out to be more timid than squirrels. I barely managed to capture their faces in close-up shots.
#Toronto It's already +16 degrees outside, and it's raining in the evenings... It seems that autumn has arrived in Toronto.
#Toronto Finally signed a lease for an apartment in this dump)) I'll do a review once I move in in a week. For now, here are the best views I've managed to check out. This is one of the most prestigious areas, as two metro lines intersect here (and there…
#Toronto How much do they pay for something like this today?
#Toronto Great works of art from this place.
#Toronto The reaction of a person who saw a skunk for the first time (!) We're adding to our collection of Canadian wildlife!
#Toronto The old Toronto airport is also located on these islands. Every 10 minutes, a regional plane lands here.
#Toronto Near Toronto, there are islands that can be reached by ferry for 9 C$. One of the best places in the city, without cars, and with simply amazing views of the city. It brings back memories of Hong Kong - the same ferry crossing, the same bay dotted…
#Toronto I fucking hate it! Why does the local government service center look like a shawarma stall from the outside?))) Of course, they don't provide the only service that a newcomer needs (obtaining a Health Card). Fuck it! Go to the main office and wait…
#Toronto Fortunately, in Canada, you can almost everywhere pay via NFC, but for some small shops that evade taxes, cash is still useful. Recently, I withdrew a hundred from an ATM for the first time and also checked out the local polymer banknotes. The…
It's just like going back in time to the 80s. The bar is 52 years old, they only accept cash, and on weekends, unknown bands play on stage, some of whom even know some of the visitors by name. Sometimes I feel like I'm in some kind of game, collecting…
A typical #Toronto moment is when you're standing waiting for the tram home on a Sunday evening, and a 60-year-old man approaches you and asks for directions. You give him the directions, after which he says, "I'm heading to a music club, do you want to join…
#Toronto Downtown this afternoon
#Toronto It was just yesterday that I posted a couple of posts, and today all kinds of nonsense started again😂 Guys are going around and knocking on every house where Chinese people work.
Who is the most numerous group in #Toronto ? The correct answer is Chinese. As many as 12% 😁 To be more serious, it's obvious that the largest group here are English speakers, making up about 35%. But it's still funny - only 6.7% consider themselves…
#Toronto How strong is the Chinese diaspora here that they've built TWO Chinatowns in the city! I actually liked the Eastern one even more. It's more compact, not very crowded, but most importantly, much cheaper than its Western counterpart. 10 bucks for a…
#Toronto The old meets the new How absurdly, in some places of the city, buildings from different eras coexist, completely ignoring each other's existence.
I'm just laughing, they hung this 200 kg carcass in the hallway😂 Truly supreme cousine!
The little pig has arrived!
#Toronto The biggest surprise was that they don't sell alcohol here without a passport. I'm so used to being able to buy everything in Asia (and even in Europe) without carrying my ID, which I'd never dare to lose. (And yes, I don't have a driver's license,…
#Toronto I love finding something painfully familiar in other parts of the world.
To start with, some introductory remarks (why I started having doubts almost immediately): 1) The listing was on a popular housing rental site, but the price was below market value - 1950 CAD versus an average of ~2200 CAD in the area (but that happens,…
#Toronto Scams in housing rentals Sooner or later, everyone faces divorces, and it's important to be able to recognize them effectively. After talking to people, I realized that it's not obvious to everyone how to quickly spot red flags in correspondence,…
#Toronto Toronto also has its own "winery". More precisely, a former whiskey factory that was converted into a public space after a wave of deindustrialization in the late 20th century. Now, it houses classic art spaces, restaurants, and pubs where the…
Just #Toronto
#Toronto I also got myself some local belyashes and sugarcane juice. Turned out it was more profitable to come at closing time - they gave me five buns instead of three.
#Toronto Anywhere else, but definitely not in Canada, I was ready to experience that "authentic" smell of Chinese cuisine again.
#Toronto Last weekend, I successfully attended the Chinese Summer Festival in Chinatown. The street food was amazing, but the overall vibe felt like a children's morning event 😁
#Toronto Private houses != suburbia There are many low-rise neighborhoods in Toronto that remain despite the city's growing urbanization. A good half of them are townhouses - private 2-3 story houses joined together with a small plot in front and a…
#Toronto Today, I stumbled upon the Riverdale City Farm, located east of downtown. Although, it would be more accurate to call it a zoo, as the animals here are purely for people to admire - you can't even buy eggs or milk from them. One interesting thing…
I really love all kinds of urban wildlife, so as I go along, I'll be collecting the inhabitants of these lands (fentanyl addicts don't count). In addition to the squirrels, last night I saw a SKUNK, but I didn't manage to film it because it hid in the…
#Toronto Toronto squirrels in close-up. Since Canada is a country that is tolerant of all nationalities, there are both red and black squirrels here. I managed to film one of them, which was nibbling on sunflower seeds by the roadside, from an unacceptably…
Guys, it's all sorted! I managed to connect to VoWiFi, and now SMS messages are being forwarded via the internet.
#Toronto The time I learned that Russian SIM cards don't work in Canada. At all. I can't even receive SMS for 2FA. All Russian operators are under sanctions. So far, this is the first country where such bullshit happens. Thanks for the sanctions, eh👍 Now…
#Toronto LOL (Laughing out loud)
#Toronto As soon as you leave the city, the infrastructure hell begins. In the photo - the center of Mississauga, a suburban city to the west of Toronto. The center, as usual, consists of thousands of square meters of parking lots, several Walmart-type…
#Toronto Who came up with this ridiculous idea?😂 Just FYI, this is the shortest route.
#Toronto Welcome to the 20th century, where there's no wifi in the subway car and the mobile connection drops out.
#Toronto You may refuse to admit it, but the peak of Chinese cuisine happens exclusively in such places.