Toronto's quite an interesting place, although not really particularly oriented around tourists. Not many "tourist attractions" to be found. Still pretty chilly, too - temperatures only just above freezing, and snowfall on one day. But this didn't stop us from getting out and about.

The harbour area is quite nice, and a rather splendid food market - I get the feeling that one could live well, and eat well, here - both quality and quantity! A terrific range of fish and seafood, as well as those huge american-style steaks. I get the feeling that this is a place more suited to living in, rather than visiting.

Toronto does have a few amusing touristy things to do, though: birthday dinner in the rotating restaurant in the CN tower, followed by the glass floor - making Tracey scream by jumping up and down, press-ups, etc. over a 550-foot drop! Also, the compulsory trip out to Niagra Falls - pretty impressive, especially with the ice (formed by frozen spray) everywhere. Very hard to get a sense of scale, though.

One thing I liked about Toronto was the multi-cultural nature - a place with a more varied mixture of genetic and cultural backgrounds would be hard to find. This also means that there is a vast variety of restaurants. One thing we did manage to do was to explore the local Japanese restaurants. I managed to eat sushi or sashimi on three separate occasions over the weekend - this varied from really quite good to absolutely amazing. Indeed, the whole weekend was characterised by a fair amount of eating and drinking - just as well the hotel gym was well-equiped.

At the time, Toronto was one of the place afflicted with a SARS scare. There's a huge Chinese population, and considerable traffic across the Pacific. Several people had died, hospitals closed, and many people (mainly hospital workers) were in home quarantine. Even so, this didn't seem to have dampened the spirit of the place much, if at all.

Everywhere in Toronto seems to be a film set! We came across several places where 'real' filming was going on - powerful lights and cameras, loads of people hanging around in an aimless fashion, shouts of "cut" (yes, really), etc. At one point, I though we were actually in-shot, but I hope I managed to duck in time. One of the sushi bars seems to be entirely populated by people from the filming down the road - both road crews (with the traditional long hair, T-shirts and greasy black jeans) and actresses (big hair, big lips, etc.).