A Week of Toronto: Day 5 - St. Lawrence Marketplace

Just in case you don't know what I'm doing, click [THIS] to be updated on my 2011 summer photoshoot!


Day 1 at The Distillery District is here - [Here]
Day 2 at Chinatown and Kensington Market is here - [Here]
Day 3 at the Toronto Islands is here - [Here]
Day 4 at Allan Garden's Conservatory - [Here]

I hate how all the photos I liked aren't even the ones that I took at the destination. Maybe whoever said "It's not about the destination, but the journey there that's important" was right. My fave? the top 3 B&W photos, I think i'm getting just a tad better at shooting/editing street pics. Comments?

"HI!" child to baby

3 more with a stripped road and BAM, epic album cover.

This woman ain't playin.

I'm sure everyone has alrdy been to St.Lawrence Marketplace, so what's new about it? They're renovating it so instead of metal gates you now have an electronic door, there are now more Asians as the sellers, and the other marketplace I visited just north of it was all cleared out. 

There was also a cool gallery of photos on the 2nd floor, so of course I checked it out. 


-Canon Ma


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A Week of Toronto: Day 4 - Allan Garden's Conservatory (+ Chinatown + AGO + Ryerson University)

Just in case you don't know what I'm doing, click [THIS] to be updated on my 2011 summer photoshoot!


Day 1 at The Distillery District is here - [Here]
Day 2 at Chinatown and Kensington Market is here - [Here]
Day 3 at the Toronto Islands is here - [Here]
Day 5 at the St. Lawrence Marketplace is here - [Here]

Allan Gardens was surprising. I thought it'd just be a normal greenhouse filled with flowers and trees, but no. It was surprising because it was much larger than I thought, and had much more things than I thought. The gardens had an entrance to a huge circular dome which housed a lot of tropical and exotic plants, which is completely normal, nothing out of the ordinary. 

But look through door number 1 and you'll see a whole desert area (which was incredibly hot), and through door number 2 had an area filled with plants that were more accessible for us to plant, and had I think 3 or 4 ponds (one filled with goldfish, another with a watermill, this conservatory was high bawling).

After the gardens (which was beside a huge dog park btw, puppies galore), we decided to walk around Ryerson University, and asked for the most interesting building to visit. We eventually decided that the archetectural building had the most to offer, and even if I wasn't that impressed, there WERE a lot of projects hanging everywhere.i.which is cool...I guess...

After Ryerson we decided to hop on the streetcar and go to University of Toronto  Chinatown (by accident). But for some reason I didn't see a lot of asian people. Wierd.

And lastly, the last place we decided to visit was University of Toronto  Art Gallery of Ontario. In where I found out that I can't care about art statues, paintings, or ship models. They had a very little section for photography and it wasn't even modern photography. I had to admit...I was sad. But on the flip side, the AGO and ROM are free on wednesday. Go visit if if you have time.

Btw, does anyone know the photography laws in Canada/Ontario? I would love to know them in detail because everytime I take a picture for this blog/flickr, I feel like I'm breaking some privacy law or something.

And yes, there is no love for UoT, Sorry.

-Canon Ma

(Feel free to leave comments, or like the Facebook link, everything you do helps out!)

A Week of Toronto: Day 3 - Toronto Islands

Just in case you don't know what I'm doing, click [THIS] to be updated on my 2011 summer photoshoot!


Day 1 at The Distillery District is here - [Here]
Day 2 at Chinatown and Kensington Market is here - [Here]
Day 4 at Allan Garden's Conservatory - [Here]
Day 5 at the St. Lawrence Marketplace is here - [Here]

Whoever said that you can't get lost in downtown Toronto clearly did not travel with me. I walked around for what felt like forever until I found that damn ferry docking station, so I guess I was suppose to get off at King instead of Union, but good thing I did leave at union or else I wouldn't have been able to capture these.

The dock was probably the most relaxing part of my travel. Albeit I did feel really alone because everyone had babies, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, strollers, uncles, and aunts with them, and I never felt more like a creep with a camera. As much as I wanted to take pictures of the families doing their thing, I feel like I'd get attacked and accused of advocating child pornography.

The more I write about Toronto the more I'm beginning to think i'm a tourist or a tour guide. "Did you know that there is more to the islands than just Centre Island?" While the majority of people know what Centre Island is, I don't think a lot of people know about ALL the islands. Surrounding Centre island, there are 4 other islands named Forestry Island, Snake Island, South Island, and RCYC Island (Royal Canadian Yacht Club).

I have no idea if I walked through all of them, but all i know is that it's a much more interesting place than I originally thought.

The only thing I have to complain about is the amount of bird crap EVERYWHERE, there's a sign that clearly says "Please walk on the grass", but there's bird excrements EVERYWHERE. Now why would the park put us through all that...

-Canon Ma


(Feel free to leave comments, or like the Facebook link, everything you do helps out!)

A Week of Toronto: Day 2 - Chinatown + Kensington Market

Just in case you don't know what I'm doing, click [THIS] to be updated on my 2011 summer photoshoot!


Day 1 at The Distillery District is here - [Here]
Day 3 at Toronto Islands is here - [Here]
Day 4 at Allan Garden's Conservatory - [Here]
Day 5 at the St. Lawrence Marketplace is here - [Here]

Kensington's locked piano...

Visited my roots and and discovered that nothing has changed in Chinatown. Everything is still kind of in it's raw state with shoppers everywhere and shifty-merchandise being sold off to people. Howevere, that's the exact reason why I wanted to come.

My ONLY photo from Chinatown that I'll publish

While North York is filled with an asian community that has wealth, the majority of Chinatown doesn't have the luxury of money. So even if I know that this community enforces whatever poor stereotypes that been placed on my culture, at the same time, it needs to be there to teach me that there are always going to be people who are not as well off.

Kensington on the other hand was a very nice area to walk around. Although the area itself was kind of ghetto-y, the feel of the community was exactly the same as the Distillery District that I visited yesterday.

If you ignore the odd smells of suspicious looking liquid on the ground, the market does have a lot to offer. We found this cool shop guarded by an asian man reading a newspaper and we found guitars, statues of musicians, and so many wordly treasures. And apparently there's a really good burger joint there called "Burger Bar".

Another day another community, I'm kind of sad I couldn't get to Little Italy, but time and weather cut me short and now I'm forced to go to it another day.

And Celina? thanks for treating me to Sushi, you're never getting that money back.

-Canon Ma

A Week of Toronto: Day 1 - Distillery District

Just in case you don't know what I'm doing, click [THIS] to be updated on my 2011 summer photoshoot!


Day 2 at Chinatown and Kensington Market is here - [Here]
Day 3 at Toronto Islands is here - [Here]
Day 4 at Allan Garden's Conservatory - [Here]
Day 5 at the St. Lawrence Marketplace is here - [Here]

The Distillery District was probably the best part of Toronto I've seen so far. Everything was beautiful, the stores there were so nice, it was like walking into an entirely different mini-city. People have even been known to want to take wedding photos in this area because the area is so nice

My only complaint of the whole trip was the new buildings that were being built around this place. I absolutely hate them, not only because they ruined a lot of my shots, they ruin the natural beauty that this area has.

I also fell in love with the areas of this district that were dedicated to art studios, studios, and galleries. If you want a 'nuit blanche' feel all year around, this is definitely the place to go. They had a whole building filled with studios, me and a friend even took a peek inside and all we saw were clothings and fabrics. It was as if we walked into a young, budding fashion designer's studio.

This place is definitely worth the visit, it was also free. Before I even walked in there was music playing, and from that point on I knew I'd love it. And the coolest part was there was beer...EVERYWHERE. patios and bistros set up with people in them all holding some sort of unique looking glass with beer inside it. We opted out of the beer and just decided to get some gelato, and even that was amazing.

Just a added note, these pictures looked a lot better on my computer than they do on flickr, and I have no idea why their colours aren't as strong on Flickr. I'll give it a day or 2, maybe they have to fully develop them for web but until then, look at these photos and imagine a bit more colour...if that's even possible.

Until next time

-Canon Ma