2008 PUBLIC TOUR DESCRIPTIONS

FOODIES | GHOST | LITERARY DETECTIVE

FOODIES WALKS:

BROADVIEW GATEWAY: 4 CULTURES
Back by Demand!

Duration: 3.5 hours

Meet: Broadview Subway Station by exit to street

End: Broadview/Gerrard

What's the connection between the Bloor Viaduct and the old Robert Simpson store turned into The Bay on Queen Street? Find out while you cross the bridge and meet long-gone colourful citizens of the lost "Chester Village", Doctor's Row, Riverdale and Toronto's Third Chinatown. Though long gone, they'll come alive with their tales and pictures of fishmonger shops, long-gone cash market gardens, dirt roads, and car display lots. Fans of the romantic comedy movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" will love this walk as your guide points out sites enroute and show her own photos taken before the area changed some what since the movie shoot in 2001. Peel back layers of multicultural history along the Danforth, in Riverdale, and East Chinatown while sampling G.M.O.-free snacks from an innovative health food store and savoury and sweet Greek snack food and ending with Chinese and Vietnamese snacks. Note: some rolling hills (downhill), plenty of green outdoors thanks to secret gardens.

FOODIES GASLIGHT STROLL: ROSEDALE & YORKVILLE
Back by Demand!

Duration: 3.5 hours

Meet: Summerhill Subway Station, exit

End: Yonge/Yorkville

"When I went up to Rosedale I thought of kingdom come... and roads that wind their stately way to dead ends... When I came down from Rosedale I could not school my mind to the manic streets before me nor the courtly ones behind" - local poet Dennis Lee

You'll likely sigh after your guide recites this fabulous poem just as we leave behind Rosedale's eclectic nooks like workers' cottages, an old train station visited by Queen Mom, Sir Henry Pellatt's second castle after he was turfed off Casa Loma, site of the Jarvis family, The Group of Seven's forgotten Studio, a local's hidden away wooden staircase, and then enter hustling and bustling Victorian village of Yorkville. Indulge in coffee house nostalgia as we end at the oldest Yorkville café!

SECOND CHINATOWN FOODIES QUARTERS WALK

Featured in USA Today, Washington Post, L. A. Times & Toronto Star!

Duration: 3.5 hours

Meet: Chinatown Moose Statue at 393 Dundas St. W. (SW corner of Dundas/Beverley Sts.)

This gastronomic tour takes us into some of the most intriguing shops in the city! Many repeat guests love this tour for its equal portion of facts, seasonal festive food and drink sampling, and of course, shopping. No need to worry about the weather – there is ample opportunity to warm up or chill off in the interesting places we visit.

We kick-off by sampling traditional and new snacks of varying textures, flavours and colours at a family-run Taiwanese bakery. After a brief review of the Chinese community and its food history, we head over to a Chinese Herbal and tea shop, to sip specially brewed fragrant tea while noshing on delicious dried snacks. Bring along your shopping list for our intimate visit into an amazing Asian supermarket to demystify Asian produce. Looking for individualized mugs as gifts? You'll find your Chinese Horoscope mugs at one of the best restaurant supplier!

The Finale: your guide will host you at a healthy sit-down Dim Sum luncheon at a restaurant complete with swirling food carts. Your guide will review chopsticks, tea pouring, and dim sum etiquette, as we sit down for the meal. Your guide will order dim sum with harmonious blending of the five elements – colour, aroma, flavour, shape and texture – a principal which applies to the making of each individual dish as much as to the whole meal as well. We end reading the popular Chinese horoscope book. Get the most out of this year for your Chinese animal sign !

NOTES:

Your guide will order dim sum with harmonious blending of the five elements – colour, aroma, flavour, shape and texture – a principal which applies to the making of each individal dish as much as to the whole meal as well

KENSINGTON FOODIES ROOTS WALK

Featured on CNN & National Geographic Traveler!

Duration: 3.5 hours

Meet: Red pole w/ Black Cat @ 350 Spadina Ave. (1 block N of Dundas St. W.)

Culinary explorers savour Ontario’s seasonal bounties, while celebrating our roots and ethnicity. Each season’s local and international ingredients will link you with our past, our present, and our future as we peel back 200 years of successive waves of immigrants setting their roots, food, stories and customs in this marketplace. You start off noshing on Jewish and South Asian snacks at a popular local micro-roastery, then it's food for thoughts along vintage and " Japan cool" rows. After the gentle stroll and nostalgic tales accompanied by pictures, we relax at a Middle Eastern grocery store where we sip aromatic tea accompanied by specially-prepared Lebanese treats.

Since Latin American snacks are all the rage, we'll sample some more street food fares. Of course, we need dessert, so we will make our way over to the tiny family-run chocolate shop for handcrafted Belgian chocolate and truffle tasting to please all the senses. Savour all the delicious tastes while reflecting on the cultural diversity as we start off with World famous hatter, Sammy Taft and end with the late actor/director, Al Waxman of "King of Kensington Show" fame!

NOTES:

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HAUNTED YORKVILLE, U OF T & QUEEN'S PARK WALK

Featured in Homemakers' Magazine and Hamilton Spectator!

Duration: 2-hour 15 minutes

Meet: Royal Ontario Museum's front steps, 100 Queen's Park

As shoppers, scholars and politicians head home, the ghosts emerge and you might feel their presence or detect them with your digital cameras. Step back in time as we indulge in treats and ghostly lore in the last remaining coffee house from Yorkville's Hippie era. Do we go into any haunted sites, you may ask? YES! After the tragic tale of revenge amidst the Gothic setting of the University of Toronto's most famously haunted building, we actually trace the last steps of a murderous chase and then you come upon a bannister and wonder if you've been transported to Harry Potter's Hogwarts School. If you grew up munching Mr. Christie's cookies, you'll savour the eerie stories connected with his mansion in Millionaires' Row. You might feel the vibes of two lost hospitals, so strong that you might feel the sad memories still lingeringly haunting. Bring digital cameras.

PHANTOMS, PLAYERS & PUNDITS WALK

Featured in Ottawa Citizen and on Natradio.com

Duration: 2-hour 15 minutes

Meet: Old City Hall's front steps, Queen St. W./Bay St.

For whom does the bell toll? Find out whether it's for the spirits lurking in the shadow of the gargoyle-decked clock tower of Old City Hall or Osgoode Hall's grounds or Campbell House's attic or the warehouses turned into the most 'spirited' nightclubs in the new Entertainment District. You'll be chilled and thrilled by a very spirited vaudeville theatre complete with actors who were once the toast of Toronto or merely bit players, but they're all still putting on a hell of a show in their dressing rooms. NOTES: Not for the faint of heart, especially the exceptionally strong vibes coming from Old City Hall and Osgoode Hall areas. Bring digital cameras.

HAUNTED KENSINGTON, CHINATOWN & GRANGE WALK

Featured in Fodor's Around Toronto With Kids and Toronto Star Newspaper

Duration: 2-hour 15 minutes

Meet: Red Pole with Black Cat @ 350 Spadina Ave (1 bl N of Dundas)

As twilight approaches, the shops close up one by one, the streets become dead quiet...or are they? Sip a hot drink/cool drink (seasonality) inside a haunted micro-roastery while your guide tells ghost stories with multicultural twists. Buffy, The Vampire Slayer fans will love topics like Feng Shui, voodoo, zombies, and ghost festivals beyond Halloween within the culturally diverse Kensington Market and Toronto's Second Chinatown. We venture back onto the streets hunting for Chinese ghost-busting objects within commercial and residential quarters. Culture vultures will love the end of the tour at the public art gallery complete with swooping bats! NOTES: Not for the faint of heart, as you'll have eerie experiences when stepping into a couple of haunted sites to see if your sixth sense picks up any vibes. Bring digital cameras as you might detect our "extra guests"...

GHOSTS, GREASEPAINT & GALLOWS WALK

Featured on FTO and CFMT and in Hamilton Spectator

Duration: 2-hour 15 minutes

Meet: Meet: St. Lawrence Market (S. Bldg.), middle doors Front St. East (at Jarvis)

You'll be glad that we popped into the St. Lawrence Market to pick-up our mouth-watering pastries and drink at the beginning of the tour, otherwise you might not be able to handle the ghosts on an empty stomach. With the aid of your digital camera, you might catch the ghosts lingering in the lost jails, hanging squares, grand vaudeville theatres and an old hospital. They beckon us to listen to muddied stories of Toronto's wicked citizens. Muse over the macabre entertainment on market day close by the St. Lawrence Market area. Discover the macabre origins of popular phrases like "dead ringer", "off the wagon" and "You're pulling my legs!" We end at Eaton's Centre where you'll find the phrase "Shop until you drop" takes on a whole new meaning along this ghost walk! NOTES: Not for faint of heart or really sensitive souls, especially the strong vibes coming from the lost hanging square and the First Mayor's home. Bring digital cameras.

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IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHARLES DICKENS: 1842

Featured in National Post and on TVOntario!

Duration: 2-hour 15 minutes

Meet: St. Lawrence Market (S. Bldg.), middle doors Front St. East (at Jarvis)

Each year we like to celebrate the anniversary of British author, Charles Dickens' arrival in Toronto on Wednesday May 4th, 1842. If you love the book The Da Vinci Code, you'll love this walk as we play "detectives" with the aid of his much loathed travel book "American Notes", his wife's long-lost diary, locals' diaries, maps of the city in that era, pictures of the lost buildings he would have seen, and of course, portraits of folks he met in the town to add to the juicy tidbits during storytelling. You'll come away with a better sense of the real man and husband behind the label " famous prolific author". We'll even give you a hint where to find "the" door of a lost home he visited for dinner. We will NOT divulge the secrets until you come along on this fabulous walk, and you need not have read any of his books!

SWANSEA & L. M. MONTGOMERY

Duration: 2-hour 15 minutes

Meet: Runnymede Subway Station, Runnymede exit

End: Runnymede Station

Lucy Maud Montgomery, much beloved Canadian author of Anne of Green Gables, is closely tied with Prince Edward Island, Canada. What's little known is the fact that she lived her last years in Swansea, "a nice country village" in Toronto's west end before being buried on her beloved island upon her death... You'll admire its serene setting, the winding road on the back of the Humber River, a deep ravine of pines and oaks, First Nations footpaths and wooden staircases... all leading to "Journey's End", her dream home described in her children's novel, Jane of Lantern Hill. Who is this popular writer? You’ll find out as your guide read excerpts from this book as we stroll by her last home. Kindred spirits will love her letters to and from her life-long pen pal, and of course, her own diaries. NOTE: wear boots with thick sole and good tread, as we might use a lost First Nations foot trail.

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