[TOR] "Where locals fear to tread"

[rfmcdonald]

Back on the 28th of August, Ariel Teplitsky's article "Where locals fear to tread" touched on an interesting subject.

There's a disconnect between the city we live in and the city that visitors tend to see.

Those of us who live here have our favourite haunts, the places and experiences we feel make Toronto worth living in. An east-end cupcake shop. That west-end bar. Your neighbourhood park. The view from my balcony...

Chances are, the average short-term visitor will end up sharing few of those experiences. With some exceptions – for instance, Harbourfront and the Science Centre – Torontonians avoid the tourist traps. Most of us would exclude, say, Captain John's floating seafood restaurant from our personal equations of what makes this city great.

Are tourists missing out on the real Toronto – or are we? Allow us to plan for you a typical day:

You wake up to a giant buffet breakfast with a sampling of oily comestibles from around the world. Then you take a ride in a foot-powered rickshaw whose panting chauffeur takes you to an ornate, non-wartime fortress that's almost 100 years old!

Next you'll hop on a large, smiling hippo, and stop to shop at a dingy, fluorescent-lit labyrinth of discount goods, before you dine at an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. In the aft, you'll ride atop a double-decker bus to the observation deck of the world's second-highest free-standing structure, take a party boat on the harbour and cool off with a refreshing dip in the crisp, clean waters of Lake Ontario.

What could be more Toronto than that? Don't ask us. We don't do those things.

Until now. In an effort to bridge the unsettling gap between tourist and local, an army of us descended upon the city to experience the side of Toronto we've neglected for far too long. Some of those experiences were pleasant surprises, some forgettable, and others ... well, let's just say each of us is morally obligated to steer our esteemed visitors away from them at all costs.

Different journalists then go on to record their impressions of the tourist traps listed below.

• Wayne Gretsky's Restaurant. I did not know that the former ice hockey star had his own restaurant.restaurant.


• Toronto Hippo Tours. Toronto's only amphibious city tour sounds interesting.


• Town & Country Buffet. This is apparently a standard buffet restaurant.


• Bata Shoe Museum. Created by the Bata shoe company, this is a uniquely-themed museum.


• Captain John's Restaurant. This buffet restaurant is apparently a standard.


• Medieval Times. I've seen this medieval-themed restaurant before.


• Honest Ed's. Honest Ed's is a landmark discount store


• CN Tower. The tallest free-standing structure in the world is a major tourist attraction.


• Swimming in Lake Ontario. Once notoriously polluted, water conditions hav eimproved markedly since the non-native zebra mussels have sucked up all the pollution in the course of destroying the fragile Great Lakes ecosystem.


• Nicholby's Sports and Souvenirs. This is the first I've heard of it.


• Allan Gardens. These greenhouseshost a variety of tropical plants in climate-controlled environments.


• A Rickshaw Ride. Enough said.


• A 'Haunted' Tour of Toronto. Again, enough said.


• Casa Loma. The castle-like home of a Toronto financial is a major tourist attraction.

I'm curious about all these attractions now. Guess what I'll be doing?