Tag Archive: streetcar

In town with mom

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Sun. March 27, 2011

My parents don’t really venture downtown all that much. It’s mostly because they’re unfamiliar with it and my father kind of has a bit of taste aversion for the place. I wouldn’t call it a phobia, but he certainly wouldn’t want to be walking around there. Anyway, on several occasions my mom’s expressed interest in heading into the city with me. I think she missed being in more populous areas. I decided to make Saturday the day when we’d head down. I warned her though that there would be a lot of walking involved. Just like me she has horribly flat feet. And just like me walking around for extended periods used to be tough. Luckily, I know that the time she’s been putting into going to the gym has made her a lot stronger.

I walked over to their place early in the morning and head a bit of breakfast before the two of us headed out. We took the bus down to the subway station, and from there we headed into town. As we rode, I pointed out different stations where I’d get off to do my day-to-day activities. In doing so she got some sense of just how far I had to travel to get to things. It just so happened that this weekend a portion of one of the subway lines was closed. Unfortunately it was a section that we were planning on using. Instead I took her on a detour to a nearby station, and from there we walked to the downtown mall. As we walked I kept a close eye on her. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t feeling uncomfortable. She held up remarkably well. Really, she was spending some time just taking in the sights, and that was fine with me. When we arrived at the Eaton Centre she seemed kind of excited. She hadn’t been there in many years. I just followed her around for a bit before we split off. We agreed that she’d give me a call when she was done. I just wandered around looking at random things.

After we were done shopping we agreed to head to Chinatown. It’s a bit of a walk, and I think it would have been fine, but she revealed to me that she wasn’t really wearing sensible footwear. Well, midway there I decided it would be prudent to take a break and have lunch. We stopped by a Korean restaurant, and that’s where I introduced her to bibimbap. She enjoyed it, which made me happy. After that and a short visit to my favourite tea shop (she noticed that they knew my name) we hiked up to Chinatown. She seemed excited to go shopping for some exotic fruit. She ended up buying a dragon fruit just out of novelty. Since we were in the area I also took her through Kensington Market to visit some bakeries and the European deli. All throughout, people were milling about carrying out business as usual. I thought that it was a good thing to show mom that Toronto really can be a lively place. It’s easy to forget that if all you see are the suburbs.

When we were done instead of taking the subway all the way back I decided to have us take the 506 streetcar across town back to our neck of the woods before taking a subway and bus back home. I figured that it would expose her to other neighbourhoods that she would probably never otherwise see. We agreed that even though the streetcar was slower and more crowded, at least there would be more to look at.

In the end, I think she was satisfied with the outing. I’m sure she wants to head out again another weekend. I kind of want to show her how to access the trains from Union Station on her own, and I want to check out the St. Lawrence Market together one morning. I want her to experience the city as I’ve come to know it from working downtown. Those are all noble goals, but ultimately I’m just glad to be spending time with her. Ever since moving out we really haven’t done much together. This time is golden. Need to take advantage while I can, you know?

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Yay, technology!

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Tue. October 26, 2010

Earlier today, after work I decided to walk up to the subway station instead of taking the streetcar. It was raining at the time, but since I had an umbrella I really didn’t mind getting out there. Sounds like me, right? It’s a relatively short walk, but about midway I think the weather in combination with the warm air and the dimming sunlight was just making me feel a little bit sick. The discomfort increased to the point where I figured that hopping on a streetcar would be the best option. I still had about 8 minutes left in my walk if I wanted to finish my trek. I didn’t think it was worth it to finish the walk, just because the discomfort was mounting.

As I waited at the stop I checked my phone for the next arrival times. A while back I bookmarked the NextBus website which lists predicted arrival times for the many streetcar lines in the city. My phone said that the next vehicles would arrive in 1 minute and 3 minutes. I figured I could manage that. The first vehicle came around and only dropped off a few passengers. It was so packed that it couldn’t take anyone waiting. I waited for the second one and saw that it was just as packed. It was so full that the driver actually just drove right passed us. I checked my phone and saw that the next ones would come in 6 minutes and 8 minutes. Again, I waited there patiently.

While waiting I recalled the fact that this stop was pretty bad in terms of catching a ride. Usually I’m inside the streetcar though so it never really affected me before. Anyway, the next streetcar came and again it was packed such that the driver didn’t bother stopping. This time I growled out loud. Knowing that one was coming in 1-2 minutes, I told myself that if I couldn’t get on this one I’d just walk. I checked my phone and it said that the next one after the one coming was 9 minutes away. The the streetcar came, it was once again packed. The driver held the door open though. I was going to avoid getting in, but then I remembered what my phone was predicting. I wasn’t willing to hang around for another 9 minutes or so, so at the last moment I got on. Pfft. Sure, it was snug in there, and I really had to jockey for position. All the same, there would have been no point in just hanging around for a fifth streetcar to pass by. It probably would be filled anyway. All of this proved to me just how useful smartphones can be. I mean, the crowd at the stop didn’t do much to find a way on, but as a result they ended up waiting there for another good chunk of time in unpleasant weather. Yay technology!

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Many shades

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Wed. July 28, 2010

I was on the streetcar earlier today looking out the window. I was busy people-watching, imagining the reasons behind the emotions etched on each person’s face. The general din of the people on board was just white noise; I was able to just tune in to my own thoughts. There was a moment halfway through my trip though that I was dragged kicking and screaming from my thoughts. A twenty-something guy with a backpack and big headphones came on, and from a distance I could already hear the sound of distorted guitars coming from them. I protested to myself and was ready to sigh out loud in frustration, but then I noticed that I kind of recognized the tune. I focused my energy to see if I could figure out what I was listening to. It took a while, but I figured out that he was listening to The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely rather loudly. In particular, he was listening to Many Shades of Black at the time.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWT0E-AWUVA

I swear, this is one of those songs that I desperately want to do in karaoke. In a way it’s dramatic and overdone, but it’s an easy tune to sing along to. Oh, and have you listened to Adele’s cover of the song?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znzL8wlyESA

Well, shit. Even surrounded by a crowd of strangers, I was just about ready to burst into song and sing along with the bastard twenty-something’s loud music player. I actually started mouthing the words quietly, but stopped myself after one line. I didn’t want the woman next to me thinking she was sitting next to some crazy guy.

Although…

I started day dreaming about what would happen if I actually did break out into song. I imagined that the people in front of me would be startled. After a bar or two, I imagined people behind me starting to join in at the same time. It would have been one of those impromptu musical moments you might spot on YouTube. Except…something like that would never happen.

(Are you crazy?)

The song ended, and the streetcar ride ended soon after that. I think my urge for attention is starting to manifest. Perhaps that experience of singing the anthem in front of an audience was just the tip of the iceberg. Aaaaaaaah! What the hell?! This is strange! Where’s the introverted Jason? He needs to make himself known again!

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Heavy head; heavy heart

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Wed. July 22, 2009

Yeah…I’m safe, but that doesn’t mean I’m unaffected. I left at the end of the day feeling quite gross. As I walked down the stairs I knew that I just wasn’t in any mood to go run today. People say that running really helps to alleviate stress. It’s true. I actually perpetuated that among my students in the LTR. Thing is, in my sad state I wasn’t in a position to be helpful to anyone. I pretty much made the decision to miss the class, but on the streetcar I was vacillating. Part of me knew that getting out there might actually help. Sure, I’d be such that I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone, but still.

When I got to the subway, it just so happened that the train was out of power for some reason. The driver was outside on the phone talking to the control centre. I took that as a sign that it just wasn’t meant to be. So, I decided to walk over to Yonge and Bloor. I mean, I figured it would be a great way to kill time and hopefully burn off some of the cloud that was just hanging over my head. On the way though, I decided to change my plans. Instead of walking past the rich stores around Bay & Bloor, I thought it would be a great idea to head down to College and take the 506 streetcar to check out the scenery. Unlike the last time I took the 506, I wanted to make sure I got a window seat to get a good view of all the neighbourhoods. I walked down St. George through the University of Toronto. Seeing so many young people kind of made me feel old. I mean, if I think about it, I’m sure that a good number of those people are around ten years younger than me. There they are, all laughing it up and enjoying life as they walk down the road. In contrast, there I am kind of miserable after seeing far too much change happen at work.

I made it to the route and the streetcar arrived about 5 to 10 minutes later. Let me tell you, the ride was really long. Toronto is a really wide city, isn’t it? If I wasn’t so intent on trying to enjoy the route, I would probably be more annoyed at having made such a decision. I was fascinated by the varying levels of cleanliness throughout the areas. I mean, with the city workers’ strike going on, I’ve really only experienced the levels of filth that have accumulated around my workplace. By contrast, so much of the route was kept clean. I was impressed. It shows the amount of pride the local business have in keeping the city clean.

I made it back to my car eventually. After a quick ride home, I did a quick assessment of how I was feeling. Well, sure, I spent a lot of time out there trying to unwind and destress, but ultimately my head was still heavy. My chemicals were such that I continued to feel crappy. Such is life, I guess. These events can’t be washed away so quickly with a bit of a walk. I’m going to see if sleep will help to make things better. I hope so, otherwise tomorrow might actually be a bit hard to bear.

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A blanket of white under foot

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Wed. November 19, 2008

Unless my mind’s gone hazy, today’s been the first day this season that there’s been enough of an accumulation of snow for it to really make a difference on the ground. It’s beautiful stuff. When I left work and walked to the streetcar stop, I saw a long queue of people waiting in line. At that point, despite the wind, despite the falling snow, despite the biting chill, I decided to make the trek to the station on foot.

I’m not sure everyone understands why I’m willing to walk like that in this weather. At lunch when I want to wander around for the sake of wandering I often ask if any of my colleagues want to come along. With the onset of the cold weather, the response is inevitably “it’s too cold to walk!” Bah! Since I tend to overheat, the cold weather keeps me balanced. My jacket it usually undone; my torso can handle it. My fingers are really the only parts that really need to be covered, so as long as I have a pair of gloves I’m good to go.

However, no, the cold weather isn’t the only reason I like walking for a half hour after work. I consider walking where there’s a lot of activity as a good way to reconnect with the city. It’s a reminder to myself that I’m one of many. I’m part of it all. I belong. After stressing out at work, being in open air allows me to unwind.

That’s not to say that I avoid the streetcar all the time; some days I just need to get going. When I walk though, it’s sort of like an act of defiance. I don’t need to be held down by schedules. Weather won’t prevent me from walking. Hell, if I have an umbrella I’m happy enough to walk in the rain. I don’t need to listen to the people that say that normal people would take the streetcar up.

I guess that just makes me eccentric.

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Random thoughts on the commute

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Fri. July 25, 2008

  • I know that brown liquid splat on the subway platform; it was there yesterday when I was heading home. The stairway also still smells like urine just like yesterday morning. Was the cleanup crew not scheduled to clean this station last night?
  • There is a random guy chanting in a foreign language on the train. People are changing seats to get away from him. Though, it’s nothing that an iPod can’t drown out.
  • An old Chinese guy was busy pointing and chatting with himself on the streetcar. He was pretty damn loud. The girl next to me got up out of her seat and offered it to him. The Dundas St. stop could not come soon enough.

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Day 1: Hakodate, part 2

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Tue. June 3, 2008

Whoo, I’m in rather good spirits this morning. We had a really good day, but before I get to today’s events, I should finish off yesterday’s stuff.

(Hah-koh-dah-teh)

Prior to visiting the fort, we tried to visit this buffet place in another hotel. We were getting pretty psyched up about it, but when we ventured in we found out that the buffet already closed their lunch service. Haaarsh. It was only after that that we ended up at that out off the way restaurant. We were set though on returning for dinner.

We took a streetcar to get to the fort area. Some of them seemed pretty old. I mean, a few were brown and banged up and looked like thin tin cans.

Now the gift shop at the fort had a lot of Hakodate and Sapporo specific goods. I think the island is known for having bear as a food item of sorts. On the shelves, I spotted cans of bear curry. So yeah, I didn’t mistype that in my last post: I really meant “bear curry.” As much as I’m curious about it and that it might make a fantastic gag gift, I wasn’t in the mood to drag it around the island.

After the fort, we decided to try to walk over to the train station instead of taking the streetcar back. I think we got a little bit lost and wander off of the main roads. I dunno…the place sort of reminded me of small town America in decay. I’m not sure how else to describe it. There was a bus stop named “gas kaisha mae,” or “in front of the gas company.” That’s…kind of funny. Is that representative of Hakodate? To say so wouldn’t be fair. I mean, there are a good number of things to see, but it’s not like the whole city can be spectacular, right?

We did hear though that the city looked quite fantastic from the top of Mt. Hakodate at night. So, late that afternoon we headed for the mountain to see what all the fuss was about. As we approached, fog seemed to be shrouding the summit. The green lights from the ropeway were shining through the fog, making it look like a powerful being of some sort was peering down from the clouds to check out the creation below. It didn’t really occur to us that it would be a problem. So, when we got to the base of the mountain, we purchased ropeway tickets to get to the summit by cable car. As we were a the ticket window, the lady at the ticket window held up a sign saying that the view was being blocked by fog. Well, all things considered what other chance would we have at seeing things? So, we still agreed to go up and purchased the tickets. As we headed up the views of the city were looking more and more spectacular. At one point we thought everything would be OK, but everything changed pretty quickly. Soon we were enveloped in clouds, making it impossible to see the city from the top. Ugh! Yes, what a waste of fare, but still we had to give it a shot. There was no salvaging it though. We took our situation with a lot of humour, but in the end, it still sucked.

To pass the time on the mountain, we started joking loudly in as fake a New York accent as we could manage. I’ve been known for being able to produce a random accents–I just didn’t know that New York was in my arsenal. Some random kid heard our accent and started mimicking it to his friend. Was it to mock? Was it in admiration? Whatever. We wandered into the gift shop to kill even more time. We didn’t really want to buy anything, but we spotted these tiny bottles of pudding. At a price between ¥300 and ¥400, it was expensive pudding, but we my friend and I were joking so often about famous Hokkaido milk that we decided to just have Hokkaido pudding for the hell of it. So yes. I paid a couple of bucks for pudding.

Only in Japan? I guess?

We got tired of waiting and just headed back down the cable car. So sad! We at least figured that we’d get a view of the city as the cable car descended down below the clouds. There was a big crowd in the car and everyone was thinking the same thing. As the car passed the clouds there was aloud audible “waaaah!” from so many in the car. Unfortunately, it was raining and the windows were covered with a sheet of water that obstructed the view. Just wasn’t meant to be.

We eventually got back to the vicinity of our hotel, at which point we went to the restaurant. When we got to the restaurant we found out that it closed at or so. Damn! So what did we do? We went back to our room and started looking around for descriptions or close by hotels. We ended up eating in a restaurant called “Beer.” Hahah. At the time I wasn’t aware of how appropriate that restaurant name was in the context of the island as a whole, but even so, it’s a darn cool name. I had beer to go along with the steak that we ordered. Nothing unexpected for such a restaurant, yeah?

Well, that was Hakodate. Will write about this awesome day in Sapporo next.

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View from the 506

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Tue. March 11, 2008

After work, after I got on the train before it even made it to the next station the thing slowed down to a halt. A voice came over the announcement system saying that due to an emergency down the line everyone would have to get off the train. When we pulled into St. George a big crowd was waiting to get on, but no one was allowed to enter. The platform only got more crowded as we filed out. Ridiculous. What would be so bad that they’d prevent anyone in a radius of three stations from coming near? If it was a simple illness we’d just be waiting and not be forced off the train. I speculate that it was actually something a little bit bloodier–which is a bit sad, but probable.

I took a southbound train a few stops and decided to take the Carlton 506 streetcar over east, way past the problem station and ending at a station just a bit before where I needed to go anyway. I’ve never been on the 506 before, so I was hoping to take in the scenery. The car was crowded with a heck of a lot of like-minded and stranded people. There was an empty seat near the back next to this really large young woman. I just wanted to sit, so I took the seat…well…half the seat, anyway. I guess I didn’t want to hurt her dignity, so I tried not to grumble or complain or dive for roomier seats. Maybe this was all misguided, but that’s what I did. I just focused on the scenery.

The scenery was certainly interesting. I saw parts of the city which I haven’t seen before. These were my thoughts as I went through.

  • Ooh…fancy buildings.
  • Oh? Cabbagetown?
  • Eh. Riverdale.
  • Oh. Chinatown East.
  • Umm…reminds me of New Jersey.
  • Mm…these houses are old.
  • Hmm…so this is Little India.

I ended up arriving back on the subway line half an hour later than I would have normally. I think there’s possibly some irony that by that time the trains were probably running again. If I had waited around at St. George and waited for trains to run I might have still arrived earlier than I actually did. Oh, isn’t that usually the case? Eh…well, at least I got to know my city a little bit better. Ugh.

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