"Let's All Hate Toronto"

Vancouver is the Canadian version of hell.

Disclaimer: Not only have I been to Edmonton (sorry, beef) but I've also been to Fort McMurray. I'll take a weekend in either one over Van.

 

Rockin' the sou'wester! Yeah!!

 

Really? OK, here goes.................why?

 

You know what? Aesthetically, it's really quite beautiful. But there are just so many people and such a me-first attitude (which is filtering quickly into Calgary).

The levels of rudeness were always magnified for me when I was there.

 

And it rains all the time. Vancouverites get mad when you point this out but the city is built in a region of "temperate rain forest" for Pete's sake.

 

I live an hour out of Vancouver and I agree about the people in Vancouver. I don't think you'll find a more beautiful place aesthectically to live in but it has quickly become unfriendly and overpopulated.
The place to be in BC is the Okanogan.

 

I'll take the rain over snow and ice storms.

 

how can you hate on toronto this way? he saved the lone ranger's ass on plenty of occassions.

 

Yeah, I was walking through a section that rain forest over near Capilano and saw a slug the size of my first.

Ew.

 

It was a little different the last time I was back. In the mid-90s, I was road-tripping to Van once a month to visit a boyfriend who lived in Richmond. That was a lot of my frame of reference for Van ... other than the odd trip into the downtown area.

Went on a travel junket in the fall of '05. Didn't get too involved in the downtown muck, other than dinner at the new trendy area (it's not Gastown anymore but I can't remember the name of the district, lots of seafood restaurants, though).

And dinner at a real Chinese food restaurant was enlightening. I learned that Richmond is attempting to promote its Chinese element in a more positive manner.

But I guess I'll always have the '90s to colour my perception of the Lower Mainland (including a hit-and-run from behind in Langley).

 

Areas of Vancouver, unfortunately, have been overrun with people buying lots and building too-big houses.

Say, a 5,000 square-foot lot with a house taking up 4,995 square feet of it.

Brutal.


As for Toronto, it's come a long way in the last 20 years.

Used to be the bars closed at 1, and you couldn't even get gas downtown on a Sunday.


I wouldn't call it cosmopolitan, though. Most of it is suburban sprawl, very American-like.
My idea of cosmopolitan is a vibrant downtown, and sadly most of rolls up the carpets pretty early, and stores 'em for the weekend.

Great place to visit, though. Lots to do.

But the best people there are the former Montrealers who moved when secessionist talk took over Quebec a few years ago and all the head offices packed up and left. When you come from a place where the official closing time is 3 a.m. - and that's just when they lock the front door, not the back - and the legal drinking age is 18, you bring some booty to the party table.

 

Ball, I totally disagree. I'd say there are only a handful of North American cities more cosmopolitan than Toronto the Good.

The GTA may be all about suburban sprawl but that's not Toronto--any more than Surrey is Vancouver.

It has about as vibrant downtown as you'll find anywhere.

I'm way past the age but the clubs alone attract 50,000 to 60,000 people every weekend in the Entertainment District (a couple of blocks from Skydome).

There are hundreds --literally--of restaurants of all kinds in Chinatown, Greektown, College Street, uptown at Yonge & Eglinton, in the Annex, and Yorkville.

It's a driving force in live theatre.

After Cannes, the Toronto Film Festival is the most influential in the world.

A first class opera house.

It ain't Montreal--nothing is--but I've essentially lived here since the late 60's and I can chronicle the changes.

It still has a strong WASP element and undercurrent but it's not even the same city it was even a couple of years ago.