After our 4 nights in New York, me and Pete jumped on a flight to Canada to visit my best friend Leah, who moved out there to live and work last year. I was so bloody excited to see her, and looking forward to the buzz of a new city and new places to explore. We thought NY was cold... well damn, Toronto was even colder. But completely outweighed by the warm fuzzy feeling inside being reunited with my bestie and getting to see where she has set up a new home. Here's my quick(ish) guide to how we spent 3 days in Toronto in Winter.
I can't recommend enough going to see an Ice Hockey game while you're in Canada, even better if its watching the Toronto Maple Leafs at their home stadium Air Centre Canada! If basketball is more your thing, the ACC is also home to the Toronto Raptors. I've never been a big one for sports, but the atmosphere at the game was amazing. Leah and Josh gave me and Pete a crash course in how Ice Hockey works, and said it was a pretty tame game compared to most (ie, no fights broke out!)
On our first night in Toronto we experienced 'ice rain' which was just as pleasant as it sounds, but the next day we woke up to blue skies! Our hotel (The Chelsea Hotel) was just off Yonge Street, which had loads of shops, places to eat and drink including the massive Eaton Centre shopping mall and the Hudson Bay Company a little bit further down town. I fell in love with the amazing shops around Kensington Market where Leah lives, and also down Queen Street and Ossington Avenue. St Lawrence Market was also amazing, a farmers market with loads of fresh produce, fruit, bread, meat stalls etc across two levels.
Where we visited:
CN Tower
Steam Whistle Brewery Tour
Air Canada Centre
Kensington Market
St Lawrence Market
Where we ate:
Lou Dawgs
Milk Bar
El Local Loco
Rhum Bar
Elephant & Castle (Where Leah works)
Toronto Popcorn Company
Otto's Berlin Donner
Dineen Coffee Co
Jimmy's Coffee
Where we shopped:
Bite Lip Lab (full post on this to come!)
Deciem
Blue Banana Market
Good Egg
Hudson's Bay
Drake General Store
Cry Wolf
Kid Icarus
David's Tea
That's the best I can do list wise from memory and food photos haha, but we easily could have spent a few more days in the city exploring it further! Just click the locations above to visit their websites for more details. As you can see from the first photo, my lashes were still going strong and I loved how they looked in the silhouette picture Pete captured when we were at the top of the CN Tower (Lotus Lashes, you da bomb!) Pete was a such damn good wee photographer for our whole trip. I'd love to go back in Summer, and fit in a trip to Niagra Falls next time as we weren't able to do that this time around. I had an amazing time at Bite Lip Lab making my own lipsticks too, and I took loads of pictures so I'll save that whole shebang for another post. Leah, thank you for being the bestest tour guide and sharing with us a little slice of the place you call home ♥ Have you been to Canada before? Or is it on your list of places to visit? Let me know!
