A write-up/photospam of the vacation I took to Ontario with yohtan and amande_san. Also, a test run for my Semagic multiple posting skills! Cross posting spam is go!

Tuesday - "Huge Like X-Box!"

Well, I made sure to get up early, get everything done, run around like a maniac researching and scribbling and printing at seven in the morning. It's a family thing. We have to make sure that everything is set and ready, and make good time, and all that lunacy. I made the phone tag calls to yohtan and amande_san, loaded up Sasuke, and headed to pick them up. (It was decided to take my car, as it's a little more spacy than yohtan's.)

On the way to amande_san's house, yohtan started squeeing over the trip. Yeah, I'm the jaded traveler, so I was all "heh" about it. So, once amande_san was set we switched off so that she could drive. She needed the practice for her road test and anyway, driving on a highway isn't that bad, once you stop thinking about the trucks, RV's, and random crap on the road. Just keep to your lane, and all is well. She had the first hour, which got us into Pennsylvania. For the remainder of the trip, yohtan and I would trade off.

Although driving through New York would take longer, going through Pennsylvania was nearly torture, what with driving through long stretches of nothingness, with radio nothingness. I had baked a CD with all my comedy mp3's, but the damn thing crapped out after a track. Lame. So, what to do but the road trip stand-by of staring at the scenry. Said scenery happened include fireworks shops, farmland, and shirtless manflesh, probably at football camp. For the purposes of this entry and ElJay policy, they were legal. Otherwise, just no.

Driving through New York had me firing up my mom's GPS, which she made me bring along on the trip. The GPS would turn into a lifesaver many times over the course of this trip, so thanks, mom. We ate dinner at this Chinese place in Syracuse, through some miracle found the NPR stations, and so we had something to listen to the rest of the way to Canada. It was a matter of getting on the Throughway and staying there until the end, and driving through storms. And, of course, since we're going west, we went in and out of storms all the way there. Gah.

yohtan did the honors of driving us over the border. The patrol gave her some shit about her passport, but I guess he was just having a long day, and needed to snark. Or something. We made it to our motel around 7:30, and I was ready to pass out. However, the manager--one of the nicest people ever--asked us to stay a bit and she'd highlight a map of Niagara Falls and give us coupons and such. Or, if we wanted, we could rest a while and then come back. We voted on that.

We unpacked and vegetated for a while, and my brain finally clicked the whole joke about our room being number nine. (Obvious Hint: "Dance water, dance!") Watched TV, in particular Power of Ten, and the contestant was this squeaky clean, never-left-the-cul-de-sac, would so be the uke in any slash work nineteen year old. Many jokes were had at his expense. Vegetation done, we went back to the front desk, got our maps and things, and went for supper. (Swiss Chalet and chicken pot pies for the win!)

Wednesday - "Steep Hill is STEEP!"

I woke up first, because I'm paranoid like that. We got ready and took advantage of the free breakfast the motel offered, and ate it in this small patio they have out by their pool. It was really nice, even with the freaking flies everywhere, attracted by our food.

Because of my last-minute researching, I found out that our bank was partnered with a Canadian one, meaning no fees when we used the ATM. So, using the GPS, we found the nearest one and set off. I tend to take my backpack with me on day trips, and when yohtan mentioned she was just going to take her wallet, I thought it a good idea, and did the same. We go off to the ATM, and as I'm waiting for everyone to finish up, I start to fish around in my pockets for my keys. Which are not there. They're in the backpack, in the car, where I had put them when I took the keys out of the ignition. Cue freak out. I'm kind of proud of myself that I didn't cry. I was still kind of angry at myself for a while, though.

Down the road, about half a block, there's a car dealership. Score. We make our way over there, I ask if they do lock-outs, which they don't. They call up a towing service for me, and tell me that it'll be about half an hour before someone comes. Nothing to do but go back to the car, and we do. While we're waiting, my mom calls to check up on me--because of course I manage to bring everything with me but the things I need. I tell her of the situation, how we're handling it, and as if on cue, the truck comes up. It hadn't been fifteen minutes. The truck said their place was in Hamilton, Ontario, and I wondered where that was, exactly, in relation to Niagara Falls. The unlocking was done quickly enough, and we were on our way (after I fished more money from the ATM, since I only took $40, and the job cost $35.).

The bank was in the opposite direction from our motel to the Falls, so the route that the GPS instructed us to take was unfamiliar to me, until we started nearing Clifton Hill. In order to get into the Niagara Parks, you have to go down said hill. Feeling a bit better, I decided to just let the car go on gravity. Not to bad on the first slope, but the second was a bit worse and had me using the breaks more often. As we're going down, amande_san screamed "Steep hill is steep!" And lo, we had an inside joke. We're all incredibly cheap, so we go out to the furthest parking lot and use the shuttle to get back to the park. We used the Adventure Pass, and pretty much anyone that wants to do the main requirements should do the same (If you can get them before you go, at a AAA, do so. It's cheaper.). Our tickets were timestamped, so we killed time before our first attraction by just hanging around the park.

amande_san was wearing her Demyx shirt, and so there was much crowing of "Dance water, dance!" throughout the day. We took pictures of the brink, the falls, and of the Maid of the Mist.

The brink of the Horseshoe Falls

The Cave of the Winds, as taken from the Canadian Side

The American Falls

Our first thing was Journey Behind the Falls, and I only noticed the "autographs" from Minnie and Mickey Mouse as I was passing them on the stairs. I told amande_san about them, and she mourned the lost opportunity, too. There's really not much to Journey, but the balcony at the observation deck is a nice place to cool off. (The tunnels are humid, and there's no evaporation.)

Next was The Maid of the Mist, required doing when you're in Niagara. The line was hella long, since, yeah, it's required doing when you're in Niagara. There was a minor hassle with our tickets, but we were waved through, anyway, and slowly herded onto the boats. We were right behind a Japanese tour group, and I tried using my ghetto nihongo skillz to pick up what they were saying. No luck.

The Maid of the Mist is fun, and we managed to make our way to the front of the boat, where it really is lots of fun. Of course, there was the one person that thought that they wouldn't get wet, and so didn't put on the poncho they give you. Of course, that person was immediately hit for their hubris. It's like clockwork. So, we're heading back towards the dock, and yohtan mentioned that she guessed that this was the end of the ride. Cue one last splash hitting us. Mother Nature's money shot.

After Maid of the Mist, I was feeling kind of off from the sun exposure--with my parasol--so I asked for a bathroom break that was then extended into a lunch break. We hung out in a booth with a nice view of the American Falls and just chilled for two hours, kind of how we tend to do when we go out to eat. After the sun was low enough, we continued on.

The next thing was the White Water Walk, something in the shade and pretty relaxing. There's a tunnel from the elevator to the boardwalk, and it carries a nice echo. Cue cries of "I'ma chargin mah lazah!" and "Shoop the whoop!" There are two little embankments where you can get off the boardwalk and just sit and look at the rapids. We chose to go to the furthest one, and just sit. I think I was hypnotized by the patten of the waves for a while. I remember thinking, "It's rivers like this one that make people think that dragons live in the water. The pattern of the waves rising and falling look like snakes. Big ass snakes."

yohtan was sort of off to the side, watching the river, too. The water was lapping up near her, and I joked that the river was out to get her. She cried out that the river could bring it. Cue the waves getting a bit stronger around her, and splashing up just to get at her face. We died. We moved somewhere else, and the waves started picking up there, too. We went to the other embankment, and same thing. The rest of the time at the walk was spent looking at the masses of graffiti and taking pictures of the interesting ones ("Mario + Luigi," "Valentina + Luigi," "Ren + Stimpy," etc.)

The last thing in our package was the Butterfly Conservatory. After some drama about tickets--the person in front of us in line, not us--we went in. I didn't remember the massive amounts of blue butterflies around, and I mentioned to amande_san that it's a shame that she didn't bring her Anko costume, because there were some great places to take shots. This theme would be repeated when we walked around the gardens surrounding the conservatory. amande_san and I took the chance to stage what fandoms could cosplay in particular parts of the garden, and yohtan mentioned Longwood Gardens. (We really have to go, guys. Make a day of it.)

The conservatory was closing up, and that meant the shuttles were going to stop running. I didn't relish a six kilometer hike in the dark, so that meant catching the shuttle. One was pulling up just as we were finishing up the walk around the gardens, but it was still a ways away. Cue the three of us running. It felt like college all over again. However, I didn't have yohtan or amande_san with me at college, and I certainly didn't have amande_san crossing the "finish line" like a runner (arms up, charging through). I abandoned running to laugh my ass off.

There were fireworks that night, so we staked out a spot and waited. We were bitten by bugs, I tried taking artistic pictures of the Skylon Tower and failed miserably, and yohtan and amande_san got their check-up calls from home. The fireworks were nice, though they only lasted a short while. I made the same "fireworks are like sex" comment I did on the fourth, and we trudged back to the shuttle bus stop while talking about fandom, mainly slash.

The lines to the buses had a bunch of people milling around, turning into piranhas at a feeding frenzy whenever the bus doors opened. I tried to imagine David Attenborough doing narration. We scored seats on the bus that took us back to the lot, and I kind of vegetated until we got there.

We were all kind of hungry after the wandering around, and so came the adventure of looking for late eats. We settled on Denny's, which was horrendously overpriced. Next time, more research on late night eating, trufax. Again, we watched a bit of television back at the hotel before passing out for the night.

Thursday - "They dress real bad and they think they're New York in Toronto, Ontario.

So, the first one up again. I'm so leet. This time, though, we kicked around the hotel room getting ready long enough for the motel's free breakfast to be over by the time we were set to go. So, trolling around Lundy's Lane we went, to a place that I saw suggested on message boards: The Flying Saucer. Good call. Breakfast for four dollars, the kind that filled you up just enough to get you to the next meal.

Well, off to the bank again--no lock-outs this time--and then hit the QEW to Toronto. QEW : this trip :: 440/287 : my undergraduate life. We found this out on the second day, when the GPS kept on giving us directions to anywhere, and mentioning the QEW. We stay on the QEW, save for a gas stop, and I start talking about Avalon, mainly because this and Wilderstand are my main sources of Canadian culture. (Shut up, I know I'm sad.) Of course we manage to hit traffic, somewhere around Hamilton, and of course it's a pain in the ass. I also realized just how far Hamilton was from Niagara Falls--about half an hour, and how crazy lucky I was, that that tow truck showed up so quickly.

Before going, I had read about how much of an absolute freaking nightmare driving in Toronto is, and how insanely expensive parking downtown could be. Lower Manhattan streets and Midtown prices. OT-freaking-P. The solution was to park at one of the lots/decks further from town, and get a day pass for transit, and just ride around. Toronto : this trip :: Manhattan : anyone of our Manhattan trips.

By the end of the day, this revelation was extremely accurate: other than going to the CN Tower, we basically did what we always do in Manhattan: wander around, go to the Village, go to a bookstore in the Village, go to Chinatown, eat in Chinatown, wander around some more, go back home.

Well, CN Tower. Yes, tourist trap. Yes, expensive--especially with the weak dollar. Argh. But the glass floor is such fun. The day was overcast, but it was still rather crowded on the observation deck. Nothing too crazy, though. We had a nice area of the glass floor to ourselves, and amande_san did all of the required glass floor antics: pretend you're falling, interesting poses, things like that.

View from the glass floor, CN Tower

Another view from the glass floor, with amande_san's silhouette.

Random tourists looking at a blimp, CN Tower. I... just liked how this looked.

After souvenir hunting in the gift shop, it was decided to head to the Village. And now, this is where things get crazy. Sure, I had some idea of the transit layouts, however, it's when I'm getting out that I get all disoriented. I don't know where to walk, and given that this is an entirely new city for me, that meant I kept on leading everyone in crazy directions. I got discouraged, and then yohtan mentioned "following your rainbow." There are, of course, now street signs that have little rainbows on them. And we followed those. Out onto a main drag, and then up the street towards a bookstore that I'd seen mentioned online, and looked interesting. Well, damn.

Next on this batshit tour was Chinatown, since we were getting hungry and Chinatown always means cheap food. Of course, I lead us down the wrong way, again. This time, it was the GPS that saved us. We had to head down to Spadina Avenue, which, my hunger-addled brain, forgot to recall, was pretty much the Canal Street of Toronto Chinatown--well, that portion of Toronto Chinatown. It's something like six blocks, and of course we get passed by a streetcar along the way. But, finally, we made it to Spadina and the shopping center that I had wanted to get to. By the time we there we're famished and just want to eat. We proceed to the restaurant up on the top floor.