36 Hours in Toronto: Kensington Market

Our weekend in Toronto was a dense one, in the best way possible. My past visit to Toronto (in 2010) was a whirlwind. We arrived via bus (10 hour ride), checked into our hotel, had dinner, partied, and hopped back on a bus back home. We didn't do anything Torontonian.

This time though, we flew in (1 hour ride), checked into our hotel, and enjoyed a flurry of activities over the course of 36 hours. Holly and I both enjoy travel immensely. But despite that common love, we haven't traveled together as a duo before, which is unfortunate because we make quite the pair. We were super in sync and we really enjoyed ourselves.

From the airport, we took the Rocket Bus to the subway to another bus into Chinatown and checked into our hotel. We thought we'd just drop off our bags because it was only 10:00 (and regular check in time is at 14:00) but our room was ready!

We stayed at the Studio 6, which is a cute little extended stay near Kensington Market. It's got a cute kitchen, comfy beds, a television, clean bathroom, and it's in an awesome location.

We were given a room with two twins. It reminded me of my college dorm rooms.

Oh! And I have to share the money. This is Canada's new money design. There are cute plastic-y clear bits.

All right, now let's talk about the juicy stuff! Kensington Market was literally half a block from our hotel. We walked over to Augusta to snap a photo of this kitty on top of the world and then walked over to Kensington to do a little vintage shopping.

There are so many awesome stores with really cool and random finds. There are clothes, shoes, hats, scarves, beads, chains, charms, and Mexican wrestling masks among other fun items.

One of my favorite moments of the trip was meeting this little cutie pie. His name is Panda and he's one of the sweetest poms that I've ever met. He was incredibly friendly and smothered our hands with kisses.

Another of Panda's cute traits was that his default face was a grimace, as you can see in the photo below.

I miss you, Panda!

There was a bubble machine on the street also. I'm not sure if you can see the bubbles here; I did my best to get a snap but they might be really faint.

Kensington Market is more than just vintage stores, though. There are cheese markets, souvenir shops, butchers, home furnishing stores, bakeries, bodegas, just so much fun stuff. I could probably spend weeks here.

This cup is for the ultimate coffee lover.

And though I'm not a big coffee drinker, this cup might convert me to a big coffee drinker. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

I've got a few more posts worth of photos so stick around for some biking and eating and lots and lots of graffiti.

xoxo.