The Campaign That Changed Nations

The Gallipoli Campaign, known to Turks as the Battle of Çanakkale, began on April 25, 1915, when Allied forces attempted to force passage through the Dardanelles Strait. The strategic objective was ambitious: capture Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, and establish a supply route to Russia through the Black Sea. What planners expected to be a swift operation instead became an eight-month ordeal that would define the national consciousness of Turkey, Australia, and New Zealand.

The peninsula, stretching approximately 60 kilometres into the Aegean Sea, became the stage for one of history’s most brutal campaigns. The terrain itself posed enormous challenges – rugged cliffs, steep ravines, and scrubland that offered little cover but countless hiding places for defenders. The geography that made Gallipoli strategically valuable also made it nearly impossible to conquer.

The Making of Atatürk

Among the Ottoman commanders defending Gallipoli was a 34-year-old lieutenant colonel named Mustafa Kemal, who would later become known as Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. His actions at Gallipoli, particularly his defense of Chunuk Bair, established him as the “Rock of Gallipoli” and catapulted him into national prominence.

Kemal’s tactical brilliance and inspirational leadership during the campaign became legendary. When he famously told his troops, “I am not ordering you to attack, I am ordering you to die,” he embodied the desperate determination that would ultimately repel the Allied invasion.

Kemal’s success at Gallipoli wasn’t just tactical; it was transformational. His ability to coordinate defenses, inspire troops, and maintain morale under impossible circumstances demonstrated the leadership qualities that would later make him the founding father of the Turkish Republic. The victory at Gallipoli became a cornerstone of Turkish national identity and pride, representing the last great stand of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of modern Turkey.

The Staggering Scale of Loss and a Personal Connection to History

The numbers behind the Gallipoli Campaign reveal its devastating human cost. Over 559,000 Allied personnel participated in the campaign, facing more than 300,000 Ottoman defenders. The casualty figures paint a sobering picture of the campaign’s brutality. The Ottoman Empire paid the highest price, with over 87,000 deaths and 300,000 total casualties. Among the Allied forces, Britain and Ireland lost 29,500 lives, Australia 8,709, New Zealand 2,779, and France 12,000. These numbers represent not just military statistics but entire generations of young men who never returned home.

In our tour group, there was a woman from New Zealand whose family story brought the campaign’s human cost into sharp focus. She found the grave of her grandfather’s cousin, who had died during the campaign. Through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records, she located his final resting place among the rows of white headstones that now mark the peninsula’s cemeteries. She later shared that other family members had survived Gallipoli only to die later at the Battle of the Somme, where over 57,000 British casualties occurred on a single day.

A Source of National Pride

For Turkey, Gallipoli represents far more than a military victory – it embodies the spirit of national resistance and the birth of modern Turkish identity. The campaign is celebrated as a defining moment when Ottoman forces, under Kemal’s leadership, successfully repelled a major Allied invasion. This victory became a rallying point for Turkish nationalism and continues to be commemorated as a source of immense national pride.

The Turkish government established the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park in 1973, covering over 33,000 hectares and including it in the United Nations list of National Parks and Protected Areas. The park serves both as a historical preserve and a place of pilgrimage for Turks, who visit in large numbers to pay their respects to the “Martyrs of Çanakkale”.

See more photos of Gallipoli here

We drove out to Cape Canaveral to visit the Kennedy Space Center, the primary launch site for human spaceflight missions in the United States. It’s one of the major attractions that doesn’t center around amusement parks. Visitors are welcomed by the Rocket Garden that showcases a diverse range of rockets used for past achievements that serve at a tribute to the achievements of space exploration.

One of the key attractions there is a the tour that takes visitors around the space center, and one of the key attractions along the tour is the Vehicle Assembly Building, a colossal structure where NASA assembles and prepares its largest rockets for space missions, including the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. It stands as an iconic symbol of human space exploration and engineering prowess and is one of the largest buildings in the world. It played a pivotal role in assembling rockets and preparing space shuttles for their missions.

Another cool attraction was the mission control room. It’s no longer in use, and has since been repurposed as a simulation of a rocket launch. As the launch clock continues counting down, different systems of the rocket come online and their statuses are reflected on the screens and dashboards around the room. Until finally, when the countdown goes to zero, rocket launch noises fill the room and the screens show the rocket launching. The windows behind also glow bright orange to show the burn of the thrust.

The tour concludes with an exhibit of the Saturn V rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built – the one that carried astronauts to the moon. It was difficult to grasp the scale of the rocket until I saw it in person. Each section is separated, showing each of the stages of the rocket launch. The Saturn V rocket launches by igniting its powerful engines, generating millions of pounds of thrust, and lifting off from the launch pad. As each section of the rocket runs of fuel, it separates from the rest, and propels the spacecraft and astronauts into space (most of the fuel is spend leaving Earth’s gravity). Attached to the end are the modules for the lunar lander and the craft for returning back to Earth.

It was also cool to see the lunar lander up close. It was a spacecraft designed to land astronauts on the moon during NASA’s Apollo missions. It consisted of two parts: the descent stage, which landed on the moon’s surface, and the ascent stage, which launched the astronauts back into lunar orbit.

In 1981, the space shuttle program was launched with the aim of creating a reusable spacecraft capable of launching payloads into space, deploying satellites, conducting scientific research, and safely returning to Earth. The exhibit also featured a simulator that simulates the experience of a rocket launch aboard a space shuttle – essentially a motion simulator that mimicked the G-forces and movements of a shuttle launch. Supposedly it’s a high fidelity simulation of a rocket launch, but surprisingly the G-forces only went up to what I vaguely recall to be 3.5Gs and felt actually quite mild (even children went on the ride and were completely okay).

A visit to the Kennedy Space Center adds a unique and educational dimension to the Orlando experience. From the awe-inspiring Rocket Garden to the monumental Vehicle Assembly Building, the center embodies the triumphs of human space exploration. It was cool to experience the simulated rocket and shuttle launch and getting up close to the lunar lander and Saturn V rocket.

More photos here

The book attempts to answer questions such as:

• How should I schedule my workouts?
• How is it best to train during the weeks of my most important races?
• How many miles do I need before starting speed work?
• Is it okay to ride on the same day that I lift?
• How long should my recovery rides be?
• What can I do to climb better?

Different experts would each have their different answers to these questions, because there is more than one way to solve each training problem. This book aims to present ideas and concepts such that why the answers are the way they are. I’ll attempt to summarize my learnings chapter by chapter. Each link will be updated as each summary becomes available.

• Part I – Mind and body
  • Chapter 1 – Mental performance
  • Chapter 2 – Physical performance
• Part II – Training fundamentals
  • Chapter 3 – Basic training concepts
  • Chapter 4 – Training intensity
• Part III – Purposeful training
  • Chapter 5 – Getting started
  • Chapter 6 – Preparing to race
• Part IV – Planning your season
  • Chapter 7 – Planning overview
  • Chapter 8 – Planning a week
  • Chapter 9 – Planning alternatives
• Part V – Stress and recovery
  • Chapter 10 – Training stress
  • Chapter 11 – Fatigue, recovery, and adaptation
• Part VI – The competitive edge
  • Chapter 12 – Muscular force training
  • Chapter 13 – Tapering to race
  • Chapter 14 – The training diary

I always thought that Petra was just a single structure – the same one that gets shown everywhere, but that structure is just The Treasury that’s a part of an entire city built in the rocks.

From the entrance, we walked 30 minutes through a winding gorge formed by a fault line that tectonic forces split apart until we reached The Treasury. Stray dogs followed us every step of the way hoping for scraps of food. Leaving at 6:00 didn’t help because the only people that the dogs could beg from was us.

We arrived so early we were practically the only people there. We admired Petra on our own without the large crowds of tourists everywhere. We took our time walking up to it, all around it, up the slope to get a better view (nobody is allowed inside it though). We did all of this before the crowds showed up.

Petra was the capital of a kingdom of the Nabataean, a group of nomadic Arabs who established the city as a major trading hub. The Nabataeans constructed massive structures by carving it all out of the sandstone. Although it’s called The Treasury, the building is believed to have been the mausoleum of the Nabataean King Aretas IV.

The area around Petra is also home to the Bedouin people, a group of nomadic Arab people who inhabit the desert regions in northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In the modern times, many have abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and many Bedouin around Petra work as tour guides, offer camel rides, among other things. One of the Bedouin people there is actually the descendent of a woman from New Zealand who married a Bedouin man and wrote about it, called Married to a Bedouin.

The area is over 250 square kilometers, something I totally didn’t expect (because I totally did not do my research before I went). I’m not too big on hiking and I was totally not prepared for a hike that day – I would have totally brought more water, and more food along with me that day. Despite that, I hiked up the 900 or so steps to the monastery anyway, while getting hassled by vendors trying to sell me their junk. Temperature-wise, the temperature shot up to a whopping 20 degrees Celsius from the 0 degrees Celsius just two days before. My body did not like that.

We spent about 8 hours in Petra, walking along the rock faces, seeing the ancient ruins, hiking up the hill, but if I had more energy I totally would have hiked up the other trials for even better views of the area.

For dinner we had mansaf, probably the national dish of Jordan. It’s a delicious dish made with lamb and rice dish mixed with a yogurt sauce! This tasted even better than the chicken rice dish we had the day before. I had no idea that lamb and yogurt was such a great combination. It was a great meal to refuel after such a long day.

More photos of Petra here

Bastogne

The Battle of the Bulge (known in German as the Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein – Operation Watch on the Rhine) was the last major German offensive in the western front during World War II. The Germans attempted to use this offensive to break the Allied offensive on that front and force the western allies to negotiate a peace treaty. The territory taken by the Germans during the offensive resembled a “bulge” on the map, hence its name.

During the battle, Bastogne was surrounded by German forces, and when the Germans asked the Americans in Bastogne to surrender, Brigadier General McAuliffe famously answered “nuts!” to the German request.

We stayed overnight in the same farmhouse which served as the former field headquarters of the legendary American 101st Airborne Division during the battle. The staff there mentioned that the same family still owns the farmhouse to this day and that some of them had perished in concentration camps during the course of the war.

They even decorated in the interior with old helmets and ammo boxes.

I wouldn’t consider the place in the middle of nowhere, but maybe trying to find it at night isn’t the best idea.

Just look for the tank turret out front I guess!

We tried going to the Bastogne Museum, but little did we know that the Bastogne War Museum was closed between 20. January 2020 to 19. February 2020. I knew it was low season, but I didn’t think it was so not busy that the entire museum would be closed for a whole month! The only exhibit we got to see was the East Germany open air exhibit outside showing off art painted on the tank, slabs of the Berlin Wall on old Trabants.

Nearby the museum was the Mardasson Memorial, a monument dedicated to the American soldiers who fought the Battle of the Bulge. Inside the memorial, carved panels tell the story of the battle.

The weather really cooperated with us today! We had clear blue skies all day, and got to see the the thin layers of morning frost over the vast farm fields.

Liège

The weather didn’t cooperate for long though because it became like this on our way to Liège…

The thing that surprised me about Liège was how seedy it was. We were hanging out around Place St Lambert, and it felt like people were subtlely eyeing us from the side of the street. In once instance, the moment we turned corner, a man glanced at us and immediately started walking in our direction. I glanced at him some more and eventually he went away. Yeah, we didn’t stay long in Liège.

I think one way to explain why it was so seedy was that Wallonia was no longer Belgium’s center of industry like it was in the late 19th and early 20th century. As the industry went to neighbouring Flanders, the local economy suffered.

Drielandenpunt

Next up, Drielandenpunt, the triple point between Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium. It’s also simultaneously the highest point in the entire Netherlands, a miniscule 322.5m above sea level.

Aachen

Not far away from the Drielandenpunt, was the westernmost city in Germany, Aachen. This is where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. Charlemagne (his bust pictured below) himself had his imperial medieval residence here.

The Aachen Cathedral shown below was the burial location of Charlemagne. The chapel shown in the middle is the location of the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors. Despite the name, the Holy Romans Empire was neither holy nor Roman, nor an empire.

As a “holy” empire they weren’t exactly unified by religion. It wasn’t solely catholic and had a significant population of Protestants.

It wasn’t really Roman since for most of its history it didn’t rule over what the Roman Empire ruled over (although it did for a time) and its centre of power was ultimately in Germany. Arguably, the Byzantines or the Eastern Roman Empire was the true successor to the Roman Empire. They were a part of the Roman Empire when it fell and it continued the empire in the east until it fell in the 15th century to the Ottoman Turks.

Technically, it was an empire (at least officially) for a time, until their defeat in the Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648), which resulted in the kingdoms within the empire effectively receiving independence from the empire.

For lunch, I finally got the chance to eat Eisbein (bottom dish), a pork knuckle! It’s simmered for several hours in broth and served with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes! If you like meat, this is the dish for you. The above dish is a schnitzel – thin slice of meat (thinned via pounding) that’s breaded and fried.

Bonn

From Aachen, we drove to Bonn to meet up with a friend, who moved to Bonn from Taiwan to pursue a PhD in chemical engineering. We were so full from lunch, we only had a small snack for dinner at a local pub.

Since it was a Bavarian pub, it sold Bavarian specialities like weisswurst (shown on bottom – literally white sausage). It’s a sausage made from veal! The bread in the basket is a very delicious German pretzel. It’s got a nice cripsy outside flavoured with salt with a soft inside.

After dinner, we explored the city a little bit and visited the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven. The house is one of the few remaining middle-class homes of the era.

Bonn is also the world headquarters of an amazing brand of gummy bears – Haribo! It was founded by Hans Riegel in Bonn, hence the name Haribo. People who hear about Haribo for the first time usually think it comes from Japan, and are almost always surprised to find out it’s German! The outlet store not far from Bonn city centre has a MASSIVE selection of all sorts of Haribo variants! It’s got gummy bears, sour worms, licorice, and more! I definitely recommend the gummy bears (of course), the frogs, coca colas, and the Phantasia pack!

That concludes our 7th day. The next day we’d travel to more German cities – Cologne and Düsseldorf.

Photos:

• Bastogne
• Liège
• Drielandenpunt
• Aachen
• Bonn

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is in the historic region of Alsace-Lorraine. The unique thing about Alsace-Lorraine is that in the span of 100 years it has flipped back and forth multiple times between France and Germany as a result of three wars (the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, and World War II). As a result, the city shares cultures from both countries. This is super evident in a part of town called Petite France, most notably the timber framing around each building. The local dialect Alsatian, also has Germanic origins.

It’s also the home of the European Parliament. This is where over 700 democratically elected Members of European Parliament pass legislation.

Thus far, in France, I had been speaking my very limited French here and there whenever I needed it. As we waited for the tour, a Middle Eastern fellow struck up a conversation with me in French, kind of just asking us where we were from etc. It was kind of weird, but we went along with it anyway – it didn’t seem like he was a pickpocket or anything. I managed to get pretty far in the conversation in French actually, which surprised me quite a bit. He told me that he had moved to France from Afghanistan after working there as part of the local security forces, and even showed me his old Afghan ID, and a bomb scar he had.

The conversation got super weird when he started asking about our yearly salary, and it seemed like he was asking us for money (but it’s possible some of that was lost in translation). At that point, we totally understood why he started the conversation in the first place. We basically told him that we’re not that well off either and he tried to give ME money, and I still don’t understand what was going on there. When the tour started, it seemed like he was still staying within our general vicinity, which made it even weirder. Eventually he picked up on that and left us alone. We even checked if he followed us back to our car (just in case).

Strasbourg appears pretty proud of their cuisine – even their postcards have pictures of recipes of different Alsatian dishes. One that we had was called Flammekueche (in German it’s Flammkuchen, so it’s easy to see the German influence in the language here, at least in this word). I think the closest analogue that English speakers would know would be a flatbread pizza, but with more French style ingredients like fromage blanc, and uses crème fraîche as a base as opposed to tomatoes.

From Strasbourg, we began our journey to Switzerland. At the border, we bought our vignette (it’s a required sticker on the car for driving in the country). I spoke to the lady in German and I got a nice feeling speaking and listening to a language that I understood again.

Habsburg Castle

Our first destination in Switzerland was the Habsburg Castle. This is where the House of Habsburg began. This is THE Habsburgs that wielded enourmous power in Europe for centuries, most notably the Holy Roman Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The castle looks quite modest compared to other European castles like Neuschwanstein, but this is because it was originally constructed almost 1000 years ago.

Zürich

As we drove through Switzerland, we expected mountain passes full of snow, but there were actually very few mountains along that route! We probaly would have seen some in Zürich itself, but too bad it was nighttime.

We arrived in Zürich just in time for a fondue and raclette dinner, because that’s what the stereotypes say. Of all places we found though, we found the most touristy one. I’m pretty sure everybody in there was a tourist.

As we were chatting while eating, I was trolling my friend, saying he comes from China even though he’s actually from Taiwan, since Taiwanese people stereotypically like to assert that Taiwan is not the same as China. A lady at our neighbouring table heard us and actually confronted us about it. She seemed so pissed off! She seemed fine once we told her we were just messing around, and that I’m from Hong Kong (people from there generally side with Taiwan). But imagine travelling all the way to Switzerland and hearing someone trashtalking your country!

This concludes our fourth day. Stay tuned for day five!

• Strasbourg
• Habsburg Castle
• Zürich

Originally, we had planned on visiting Sedan too. This was where the Germans made their initial breakthrough into France that eventually led to the French surrender. We intended to go to the Museum of the Last Cartridge, the local museum there, thinking that it was about the World War II battle, but actually it was about the Battle of Bazeilles during the Franco Prussian War (which I had never heard of before). In the end, we didn’t have time for it anyway so it was okay that we didn’t go.

The Maginot Line

Not far from Sedan, was a preserved portion of the Maginot Line in northeastern France, known as the Ouvrage La Ferté. The Maginot Line was a series of defensive fortifications stretching along the French border from Luxembourg to Italy built after World War I to protect France from a future German invasion. The location at the Ouvrage La Ferté saw the heaviest fighting during the Battle of France in World War II. It eventually was overwhelmed by German forces and its entire garrison was killed.

It’s exterior still shows the damage from the battle and grass has grown over the craters that were once there. It is possible to tour the inside of the bunker, but it is only available to large group tours.

Driving through the area, it’s pretty common to still see bunkers on the side of the road.

The Ouvrage La Ferté is in a pretty remote location, which makes sense considering it’s a defensive fortification, and because of the rain the night before, we ended up driving on some flooded roads, and even narrow farm roads that even Google Maps didn’t have a name for.

Verdun

From Ouvrage La Ferté, we drove to Verdun. Verdun was the site of another major battle in World War I, and to remember the fallen soldiers, a memorial containing their skeletal remains was constructed.

Unbeknownst to us, the ossuary was actually closed when we arrived, so we never got to go inside. We could only peek through the windows and see was a blurry view of stacks of bones. In front of the monument lies a military cemetery.

Nearby the ossuary is the actual fort that played a role in the Battle of Verdun. The fort fell to the Germans without a fight since the French had abandoned the fort thinking that the fort would have been ineffective against the heavy artillery that the Germans were using. Eventually, the fort was recaptured.

The road leading up to the fort was interesting too because some of the old trenches were preserved. The zig zag of the trenches can still be seen. Its purpose was to ensure that shrapnel exploding inside the trench would be contained. A straight trench would have allowed a clear path for the shrapnel to fly through more of the trench.

From there we drove three and a half hours to Strasbourg, where we’d start our fourth day of our road trip. That’s all for now!

• Maginot Line
• Verdun

Our second day takes us to Oosterscheldekering, Ypres, and Dunkirk.

Oosterscheldekering (Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier)

We began our day two heading back into the Netherlands, to a network of storm surge barriers, designed to protect the Netherlands from flooding. Large sets of doors can open and close to control the water flow coming in from the ocean. They’re important because most of the Netherlands sits a few metres above sea level or lower, and thus are prone to flooding.

As we drove in the area of Oosterscheldekering, we encountered a lot of windmills spinning noticeably in the wind. And I wondered where all the old traditional windmills went, as in the ones with a tower made of brick with four rectangular fan blades . Netherlands has a stereotype of having a lot of them. We barely saw any of them and then it occurred to me that most of them were probably upgraded to use modern technology.

Ypres

Our next destination, Ypres, is known for the many battles that occurred there during the First World War, where the Germans introduced chemical weapons in the battlefield in the form of poison gas. During the course of the war, the town was destroyed, mostly by artillery fire.

The town was rebuilt after the war using German war reparations, with the main square following the original design as closely as possible. The In Flanders’ Fields Museum (the big building in the above picture) is a museum dedicated to the First World War.

Dunkerque (Dunkirk)

Our final destination for the day was the French port city of Dunkirk, known for the role it played during the evacuation of Allied forces from France. The Germans had achieved a breakthrough in France and had surrounded the bulk of Allied forces around Dunkirk. The German airforce was tasked to destroy these forces, so that the Germany army could conserve its ground forces for other operations, but the Germans failed to destroy the Allied forces and over 338000 soldiers were successfully evacuated to Britain.

That night, the locals were having a festival, called the “Bal du Chat Noir”, probably loosely translated as “The Black Cat Ball”. It’s so obscure that as of this writing, an English Wikipedia article for this festival doesn’t even exist. The French Wikipedia describes it as a festival to celebrate the opening of the carnival season (i.e. the Christian Carnival), and that it’s local to Dunkirk.

From what I can tell, it’s kind of like the Carnival in Cologne, where people party in the streets dressed up in costumes. There’s no shortage of reasons for people to party!

Stay tuned for day 3!

• Oosterscheldekering
• Ypres
• Dunkirk

The instruction book is coil bound and is basically a giant intimidating tome…

The detail is pretty amazing – both inside and outside.

It’s also got minifigs from both the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy! They also include the radar dish from each of the trilogies that can be swapped in and out.

Inside the big box, there are 4 boxes with numbered bags. The instruction book goes in order starting with bag 1 and so on, but it’s not clear which box contains what numbered bags since it’s not sorted – you’re forced to look through all of them. There’s also some weird stuff where there are unnumbered bags and some bags have extra pieces that get used in a different part of the build, but the instructions don’t indicate this at all.

To protect it from dust, I bought some acrylic panels and glued them together to make a box for it. There’s also a stand that the Millennium Falcon is sitting on, which is this display stand.

I found the build pretty cool when I was building stuff like the different rooms inside the ship, and the outer hull sections. Since there is SO much detail everywhere, it can be a little bit tedious to build the little tiny bits of detail everywhere. But in the end, it looks absolutely amazing and is a definitely a conversation piece for guests

Before my trip, I had no clue what there was to see in Toronto except the CN Tower, and Niagara Falls, which I had already been to. Luckily, this reddit post helped me find few places less traveled.

Royal Ontario Museum

It’s a museum that displays different elements of world culture, art, and natural history. Think British Museum, but much much smaller. One thing the ROM has that a lot of museums don’t are dinosaur fossils! There other exhibits showing world history and culture as well.

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

Located on the University of Toronto campus, this library is Canada’s largest repository of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts in Canada. Among its collection is a copy of Isaac Newton’s Principia from 1687.

Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada

This aquarium is exactly what you’d expect. Lots of different kinds of exotic sealife, sharks, manta rays, etc. The main exhibit is a giant water tank that contains these animals, and a giant conveyor belt takes guests all around. It’s a pretty good aquarium for those who are into that kind of thing

Casa Loma

This is one of the few “château”s in Canada. It was the largest private residence ever built in Canada and was the former residence of Sir Henry Pellatt, a former Major-General in the Canadian Forces. Now it has turned into a tourist attraction. The museum shows off similar things to what one would expect at a European castle: cool architecture, fancy decorations in just about every room, paintings and other art, antiques, and a garden.

And of course, a giant wine collection.

SkullStore Oddity Shop

This place is SUPER out there. This is a store that sells the skeletons of random animals, the skin of snakes, human remains (bones, preserved brain, etc.), taxidermy, preserved bugs, etc. All cruelty free and legally harvested apparently. Half of the store is an actual shop selling these strange items, and the other half is a free museum of even more weird things that aren’t for sale

The Half House

This half a house just sits on the side of the street like any other building. There isn’t a sign explaining why this is, what it’s doing there or anything like that. According to this site, it’s part of the remnants of the neighbourhood that once was here, where the owners at the time sold only half the house, and so the rest of the community developed around it.

St. Lawrence Market

This place felt similar to something like Granville Island in Vancouver, or Pike Place in Seattle – a farmer’s market positioning itself on selling fresh local meats, seafood, produce, etc. It’s a bit out of the way from the downtown core, and when I went, it was almost closing time, so it wasn’t very busy.

The one thing this place has over other farmer’s markets I’ve seen (at least in Seattle and Vancouver) is the variety. If you zoom in on that picture, below, you’ll see what I mean.

Restaurants

Toronto is Canada’s largest city, and therefore has a lot of offer in terms of food. Of all the places I ate at, these two places were definitely the best.

La Palette

This is a French style restaurant near the Kensington district of Toronto. It’s got an interesting selection of game meat, which was the reason why my buddy and I went. They’ve also got a good selection of wine and staff that are knowledgable about it.

For those wondering, horse doesn’t have a strong flavour like beef does, and it chews like super tender beef. Elk on the other hand, tastes kind of like steak with a bit of gaminess, and is actually quite hard to tell the difference unless you’re someone with really sensitive taste buds

Diana’s Seafood Delight

This place is known for their quality oysters and sea urchin, and also precisely the reason why we were there. They have a selection of different oysters from different areas, but if you gave me a blindfold and asked me which oyster was which, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

Photo albums:

• Toronto
• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada
• Casa Loma
• SkullStore Oddity Shop
• Royal Ontario Museum