I landed in Toronto on Thursday. Originally I was going to get there Friday, but I had some friends who wanted to hang out and refused to hang out super late the night before the tourney. Let’s start with the plane ride there, which was great. I traveled with my friend Mark, who is a really tall dude. Thankfully, Mark and I had the row to ourselves so we had an empty seat between us. Then we landed and Mark refused to take the train. I think people have some weird hangups about public transportation that I don’t understand. Anywhere outside of America, public transportation is where it’s at!
Thursday
So we took a like, 60 dollar Uber to the hotel in downtown Toronto. We couldn’t check in immediately so we just dropped off our luggage and we walked around a bunch looking for a place to eat. I asked a few people what’s good to do in the area and we got some good tips about a place called the “Distillery District”. It was actually really cool! It’s all a bunch of brickwork for the roads and buildings and they don’t allow cars in there. We found a bar called “Old Flame” that was really cool. Then we went to this excellent stationary store and I bought some red ink for my brother as a gift since he wasn’t able to use the gift I got him in Japan.
After the bar and hanging out, we bought some cigarettes and the packs are omega cursed. They have like, no signs of them in the store and all the brands are behind these flaps so you can’t see them. Furthermore, the boxes are all this brown color with just the name of the cigarette and like, these grotesque pictures of like, open heart surgery or dying babies or black lung on the front. It’s absolutely insane lmao. It’s interesting though, and I understand why they do it, but I also hate it lol.
We went to this Japanese restaurant called “Boku” in the distillery district, it’s right across from a sake brewery, which was really cool as well. We had takoyaki and chicken karaage and some unagi sushi, as well as a flight of sake. The sake was awesome and the food was incredible food, authentic Japanese. It literally tasted just like when I was in Japan but like 3x the price lol. Then we got back to the hotel room and checked in. Mark crashed on the bed and didn’t wanna hang out later, so I met up with my friends across town for some drinks and food. Then we went to the casino.
The casino wouldn’t let one of my friends in because he didn’t have 2 forms of picture ID with him and doesn’t own a passport. So he waited outside while my other friend and I did some late night degenerate gambling. In order to make him not wait so long we bet like $300 each in like 15 minutes on Roulette and lost it all lmao. It was fun anyway.
Friday
So night before the tournament I ended up just hanging out with the homies from MA. You travel to play in these events, but it shouldn’t be the whole reason for traveling. You gotta enjoy your time while you’re there! So Friday night we kinda just relaxed and got some food before the tournament with everyone and talked about what we all thought the meta was gonna look like.
Saturday
Tournament went poorly. I drew round 1 and it got marked as a loss and I didn’t find out until round 4. I was actually kind of upset. I mean, flying to Toronto isn’t free, the slip was marked correctly when they pulled it back up. I literally got hit with “that sucks, there’s nothing we can do” then I talked to the main guys and got hit with it again. I was kinda hoping to at least get my entry fee back or something even like a couple consolation packs of something. I was too upset to continue playing so I just dropped and left the venue.
After that, I kinda hung around and just explored a bit until we met up later for drinks and food. I tried to meet up with some other friends for Karaoke but it was full up until like nearly 1AM. I forgot it was halloween weekend lol.
Sunday
Sunday I was still mad about everything from the prior day so I didn’t participate in anything and instead chose to just hang around and chat with people. It was a relatively uneventful day, until the evening when I was hanging around the hotel bar with a bunch of friends. But all in all, Toronto was great. The tourney could have been better.
Monday
Monday was a chill day. I went to a park that had this crazy looking fountain. It was pretty awesome. We got some Tim Horton’s (it wasn’t good). Then just kinda hung around until 4 of us split and Uber back to the airport. That said, the flight back was absolutely horrendous. Mark was miserable the whole flight and he was cramping my space too. I think he really needs to upgrade his seat to more leg room next time.
Conclusion
Toronto is a really cool city to visit. Everything in Canada felt like it was just slightly different than America, in a good way. I think Canadians have a reputation for being nice and they certainly live up to it. I wish America had a cool reputation lol. A lot of people I spoke to internationally thought America seemed really cool. I have no idea why lol.
I plan on going back to Toronto at some point. I really want to see Niagara Falls and do some of the cooler stuff in Toronto like experience the theater district and maybe take a tour somewhere. Would be nice for a weekend and it’s just a day’s drive away!
