no kidding. i used to live in mississauga and bus to school in oakville every day. it was a 2 hour ride each way. i bought tickets from each city and used transfers to hop from one to the other. i would have just used passes to save money but because i was getting on oakville bus to get home it worked out better to get tickets for each. i spent i think about $90/month on transit tickets. not bad really compared to the cost of a car and gas.

what a long crappy ride though. hubby was going to school in brampton so he had the same distance to go too. i quickly learned how to a-wake up before my stops and b-stand on a crowded bus without spilling my coffee.

urgh- it doesn't sound fun spending 4 hours a day on the bus every day. i think i'd go insane!

i take buses from the far side of brampton over to square one mall quite often, and use my brampton transfer to get on missisauga transit- who give me a new transfer when i get on their bus... i reckon if i kept going i could probably get into toronto if i was brave enough! an equivelent bus trip taken where i'm from in the UK would cost me *does math and conversion* at least $8 each way.

now, if i could only persuade an employer to give me a british wage convered into CA$ when i get a job here.... that'd be just wonderful, hehehe.

yeah it was pretty awesome at the same time though. cause poor college kids like we were could go spend a saturday afternoon roaming downtown toronto quite easily and cheaply (unless we actually needed to eat or anything while there, yeesh)

i quite miss the GTA actually. i moved from an almost all-white community with 2 languages (english and french) to Mississauga, what a culture shock. and then back to an almost all-white community. bleh. it seems so boring now in comparison. at least we get busloads of tourists to gawk at all summer :p

yeah... i've been in brampton for 14 months now, and the culture shock still hasn't left me... i'm from a small town in rural england, i think the only people there of any other ethnic origin than my own, were the folks running the indian and chinese takeaways.

the gta is full of extremes from my familiar little drizzly weathered, winding country roaded, hippy populated, and green field filled corner of the world. your weather freaks me out.. your massive million lane roads scare me... wow, i'm a wuss, hehehe. at least the locals are mainly friendly :) .

can anyone req a vegan friendly hotel in TO? Thanks!!

Unfortunately we're far from downtown...I'll check this museum though, thanks for the link!

Yes, nobody tells you that Nepean is not quite in Ottawa. I made the same ugly discovery myself, but will be moving to the market soon.

When in Ottawa try 'So Good' Chinese at 717 Somerset West (b/w Arthur and Bell), there is a huge veg section on the menu. I tried the green beans, veg in black bean garlic sauce and hot & sour soup - all great.

http://www.canada.com/cityguides/toronto/story.html?id=93055342-08de-4636-827d-e91fa9b3d2d6&k=25293

Manic Coffee 426 College St. (416) 966-3888 www.maniccoffee.com

Across the table, the owner of a soy chai latte ($3.75) is falling in love with it and offers up his oversized vegan pumpkin cookie ($2.50) to make up for the so-so hot chocolate

anyone in/near Stratford keep an eye out for "Soup's On" soups. they're in glass jars and in refrigerated section. Zehr's has them where they keep the hummus. there's a bunch of different kinds and they're all vegan! i had no idea. they do this competition every year where local restaurants create a soup and people taste and vote for the best one etc. i never went cause i assumed they wouldn't be veg. every one in the store is vegan! minestrone, leek and potato, hot and sour (!) split pea and lentil, butternut squash, brocolli, etc etc. they all looked fantastic. i bought the hot and sour, leek and potato and one other i can't remember which. they're 6.99 a jar but it looks like a jar will fill 2-3 large bowls so that's not bad really. a can of amy's is almost $3 and only fills one small bowl so i'd say it's not a bad deal.

Just saying Hi--new Vegan in Toronto!

Giving up meat and dairy was pretty easy for me: for the past year I only ate it when it was shoved in front of me, and even then I only had small bites to be 'polite'. That or I was too drunk to care WHAT I was eating, so long as it was food. Animal products in my clothing/cosmetics/toiletries is the harder one... at the moment I'm letting things run out, though I realized that somehow I fluked and a lot of the stuff I have is vegan anyway, which is sweet.

http://www.canada.com/cityguides/toronto/story.html?id=93055342-08de-4636-827d-e91fa9b3d2d6&k=25293

Manic Coffee 426 College St. (416) 966-3888 www.maniccoffee.com

Across the table, the owner of a soy chai latte ($3.75) is falling in love with it and offers up his oversized vegan pumpkin cookie ($2.50) to make up for the so-so hot chocolate

I've never been there...must have soy chai latte...

Okay so no one wanted to share their wine rack finds with me, and I'll be honest it hurt...well not really but I still need one for when I don't drink all the wine at once. It could happen!

But the real reason I'm posting is because that new automated stop announcer lady on the trolleys is creeping me out. I liked it better when the big burly dude at the wheel (thingy) would just bark whatever stops he felt like calling over his shoulder. And I don't like the way she pronounces some of the stops. Down with automated trolley stop caller lady!

Niagara Falls :)

I'm from the Niagara region, also...!

Can anybody recommend a good website that we can buy natural/organic products from? I want to get some nice environmental/vegetarian themed shirts and stuff too. It seems all I find is generally for the US. Thanks. :nigel:

In the GTA, check out Gourmet Vegetarian Chinese (VERY yummy, almost matches Harmony in Atlanta... almost) in Richmond Hill and Cafe Mirage at 4841 Yonge St.

Gourmet has a wide selection of vegan and vegetarian dishes, and all of the non-vegan meals are marked with a red star on the menu. My omni/meat sub-resistant SO tried the Shanghai noodles and lemon chicken with me and he agreed that it was "definitely edible" and then battled me with chopsticks for the last piece of lemon chicken! :D Both dishes were completely vegan.

Cafe Mirage is not entirely vegetarian, but they have a huge selection of things for LO's. Try their spinach lasagna, veggie quiche, and bruschetta pizza. Don't forget to top the meal off with a slice of cheesecake! I love the raspberry creme-topped one and the plain cheesecake with nutella. *drools*

Hey Everyone - we spent the day in Toronto last week!

My hair salon is in Yorkville so we trekked two hours by car into the city on Thursday morning. We stopped in and visited the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) which was great for the kids they really enjoyed the Dinosaur exhibit. Funny thing though, now that I am veg*n I had a hard time seeing all the dead stuffed animals in the glass cases, this is something that would have bothered me before but not as much as it does now. So I guess I had mixed feelings about our visit.

I asked the salon owner where we should eat and he suggested Whole Foods which was great, it wasn't all that easy though to find Vegan food, almost everything but the salads had either milk or eggs listed as ingredients. I did however, enjoy shopping I bought a bunch of stuff that I haven't seen in SWO.

I bought a gourmet Strawberry spread called Gouash - I'm sure it's just like jam but it looks very artsy fartsy so I couldn't resist, also picked up some Sunbutter for the monsters and found some Earth Balance Buttery Sticks which I'll try baking with. I found Soya Style Feta and Belsoy however, I didn't realize that is it was past the expiry date. :(. I also bought some Tofutti Cream Cheese we can only get the Yoso brand here so we'll see which tastes better; if they are both gross I'll just use them for baking. Lastly I picked up the latest edition of VegNews which I'm about to sit down and devour right now.

On our way home Al wanted to stop for a coffee so I told him to pull over on the corner of Bloor and Spadina because there is a Second Cup there, while he ran to pick up two Soy Chai Lattes - which are way better than Starbucks btw I looked out the window and realized we were parked right out in front of Fresh. Had I known we were so close we could have lunch there. Oh well next time. I've heard such great things about that place.

i didn't know TO had a whole foods, whereabouts is it?

i didn't know TO had a whole foods, whereabouts is it?

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/canada/toronto/index.html

It's pretty cramped and not as nice as the stand alone supermarket style Whole Foods, but it gets the job done.

There a Whole Foods in Oakville as well, although I've never been.

i didn't know TO had a whole foods, whereabouts is it?

there is one in Yorkville, in Hazelton Lanes shopping centre. there is a fair bit of stuff in there, but i've only been a few times cos its a bit of a pain in the backside logistically for me, and i always end up spending a fortune.

hey! whaaaa! no! people typing faster than me should not be permitted. *scowls*

There a Whole Foods in Oakville as well, although I've never been.



I often visit the Oakville Whole Foods, and it's lovely!

i'll have to check it out next time i'm in the area. i wish there was one in north bay

Hm, does anybody know anything about copyrights and ontario publishers, etc? I want to get together a few pieces of various kinds and submit them to different publishers in Ontario (I'm assuming the biggest main base for publishers is Toronto). But, I have no idea where to start or how to create a writing profile.

Anyway, I realized today that I'm a writer. It isn't something that I do but part of who I am. It is my passion and I've always known that. Why it's taken me this long to do something about it is beyond me.

i don't have any info or advise, just wanted to say good for you!! i wish i could figure out what i want to/should be doing

Hey, does anyone know about vegan/vegetarian places in Kitchener/Waterloo, or where I could buy vegan products (mostly food)? I'm moving there in the fall. :)

Oh, I just found out how to search this thread and there's lots of info, awesome!

not sure but if you ever venture into stratford make sure you go to veg out :drool:

There are some good places in the area - a whole vegan store in kitchener (i forget what it's called, i moved away a couple of years ago), a good health food store on bridgeport in waterloo.