Yonge Street in downtown Toronto in the early morning.
I was in Toronto for 3 days to visit some friends and to look around at the city that use to be my home. I had lived there for 10 years (5 years for school and another 6 years for work). There have been some huge changes in the city such as an explosion of condominium developments replacing areas that use to be park lands. There have been more office buildings which have exploded around the downtown core. These new developments have changed the look of the city but not the feel for the city.
Toronto still has a good vibe to it; thanks in large part to the huge immigration population (over 300 different languages are spoken and services are catered to each cultural group). On the subways, you can still play the wonderful game of guess where everyone is from. You still see Jew sitting next to Arab, Japanese sitting next to Korean, Muslim sitting next to Christian as if the troubles of the world seem not to exist in this city. There are a lot of “yuppie” places where rich people can splurge on expensive tastes. There is a wonderful tea company called Davidstea where you can spend $7 CDN on a cup of tea. There are tons of galleries and arty kind of venues that make Toronto what it is. The gay life is far more open than ever before and is head and shoulders above what is found in HK and light years ahead of Seoul.
The problems which are noted in the newspaper in the last few years are still around. Toronto is still VERY expensive, even compared to Hong Kong. The cost is mostly on being overly taxed; add 15% on everything you buy. The transportation is very expensive at $3 CDN to ride the subway and buses but that is to anywhere in the city. I say expensive compared to the $1.25 CDN of traveling from Seoul to Bundang, or from Central to Lok Ma Chau. This is the equivalent of traveling from Toronto to Newmarket. The transportation is not as clean and doesn’t run as frequently as in Seoul and HK.
The friends I knew there are not as many as before. A lot of them moved to the nation’s capital in order to work for the Federal Conservative party who are now in power. I did have a chance to meet up with Alex, Pam, Lauren, and Ben.
The conclusion I have come to is: I don’t think I could move back to Toronto to live at least at this point in my life. I think it has a lot to do with me just arriving in Hong Kong and not fully exploring the city. As well as the fact that I love my current job and can’t find the same job working in Toronto. It is very hard to find a full time teaching job in Toronto or the surrounding area. I have been told this by a few of my friends. Right now the city is a nice place to visit: but I wouldn’t want to live there.