This past weekend I was up in Toronto at the dragonboat festival there. It was my first time there so I was pretty excited to travel up to Canada and see what the venue is like in Toronto. The race was held on Centre Island, which wa about a 15 minute ferry ride from Downtown Toronto, and there was a manmade strip of water on the island that connects to Lake Ontario. The venue was pretty good, but the festival was very small and there weren't that much going on. There were about 70 something teams at the race, and they were all very fast... We were up against Canadian national teams who train for the world championships. This was the first time I've seen teams paddle that fast and the first time I've been in a race where we were so far behind. As a team, we didn't do that bad, but we just looked pretty bad against the national teams. The other boat we got second place in the Finals, so that was a boost of encouragement.
Besides the race, we didn't do that much exploring aroudn Toronto. Our hotel was about a 30-minute drive from downtown so it was a bit inconvenient to explore on our own. On Saturday after the race we went to someone's house to have a poolside BBQ. His house was so big and the backyard was huge, with a pool and a gazebo. On Sunday, we had our team dinner at a Chinese restaurant and just hung out in the are afterwards. We ate so much for dinner both days.
Downtown Toronto.
View from the ferry to Centre Island.
Wall Street Dragons!
Watching the finals.
Woooh!
Lots of sailboats on Lake Ontario.
Found a kiddy frog umbrella at the festival!
