Sports filled Sunday

I ended last night by watching some standup by a pretty funny Canadian named Dean Jenkinson. It was strange comedy though, he was really polite and his jokes and stories were funny, but more pleasant than any other comedian I've heard. Most be a Canadian thing, but I really enjoyed the program. I also realized that I didn't pay at all for the Toronto subway system yesterday, which seemed a little strange to me.
Today started a little earlier than it needed to because I have a terrible sense of how distance relates to time. I ended up arriving at the Hockey Hall of Fame 40 minutes before it opened because I thought it was much farther away than it was. So, I stopped for a chocolate and honey crepe at La Marche, which was actually recommended by a coworker, then I explored some more outside and wandered down various side streets.
The Hall was pretty cool, I saw a Stanley Cup (there are 3, I didn't know that), along with all the individual trophies presented to players for the season and playoffs. They also had Olympic medals from 1920-2008, which was pretty neat to see. I really like hockey but have had a hard time following it in recent years, seeing the Hall has renewed my interest. Since the Hall was much closer to the hotel than I originally thought, I had time to drop off the souvenirs I bought before heading back out to Rogers Center to catch the Blue Jays vs Rangers game. I took a different route to the stadium just to see more of the city.
The played both US and Canadian national anthems, and the difference in excitement level by the singer was pretty intense. I wonder if American teams do that when the Blue Jays are in America, they probably do. Rogers Center is a very nice and clean stadium, but it was missing a few things that I took for granted at Minute Maid Park, like the mph and pitch tracker.
The Jays ended up winning 5-2, which was cool. I'm pretty indifferent towards the Rangers, but I've always supported MLB outside of the USA so I've been a Toronto and Montreal fan (when they had a team) for awhile. I was lucky enough to see David Murphy, a former Klein Bearkat, and Justin Smoak, a former USC Gamecock on the Rangers though.
After the game I meandered towards China Town. The section I found was more Vietnamese than anything, so I had some tripe and tendon pho that cleared up my sinuses better than any pho I've had in Houston.After some tapioca, I wandered some more in the direction of my hotel, but it was pretty lackluster. After a brief stop at the hotel, I decided to check out the World's Biggest Bookstore and then head back to China Town to do some proper wandering. I took a different hotel exit and came out right next to a pretty cool looking church. I peeked in and was satisfied. It kind of bugs me that most American searches are just monstrosities, I think the older architecture is really important.
The bookstore was gigantic, which was impressive, but I wasn't sure what to expect. It was just a bookstore really (go figure).
China Town take 2 was much more exciting. I wandered past numerous shoe, vegetable, and dvd outdoor markets, plenty of acupuncture and herbalists, and trinket shops. I did see a sign for the Royal Ontario Museum, so I followed it but never found the place. I did find what I think was the Ontario Legislature building though, which had some cool architecture. After looping around it, I headed back into China Town before heading down a sidestreet on a whim.
What an abrupt change! I quickly found myself in hipsterville. The Chinese influence seemed to just vanish. I wandered around a bit in hopes of finding some spruce beer, because that seemed like just the type of thing to find in a hipster place, but just like the Royal Ontario Museum search, this one too came up empty.
I slowly made my way back through China Town on my way to the hotel, and decided to check out the square I found with the live music last night to see if anything was going down. Nothing was, but I decided to pop into the Hard Rock Cafe on the corner. I already have a Toronto shirt, but I am a sucker for mugs, and they had a really cool Toronto one.
Back at the hotel now, watching the Canadiens get blown away by the Flyers in game 1 of the new playoff series.
Might be done for the night, but I did have the pho fairly early and might pop out later for something small to eat.