Category: city life

After the gruelling Algonquin trip, my body was mostly aches and pains (though not as bad as last year; a testament to my much better diet and workout routine these days) so I made a visit to the women-only Body Blitz Water Spa. I knew I had to go within two days of returning from Algonquin for the spa to be of most use, and I’d heard previously of their discounted Tuesday evening rates, so I went then.

My friend and I had a lovely salad dinner at lettuce first, then we made our way to Body Blitz. We paid up our $35 first, then received a quick tour and explanation of how to use the facilities.

Having never been to a spa before, we were glad of the assistance. We were also quite impressed with the interior design of the space; modern, fresh, comforting and not too cramped considering how small venues in Toronto are.

You begin your experience in the locker room, where you get a locker along with a key, a pair of slippers, a bathrobe, a towel, a hand towel and a waterproof paper that indicates how to follow the “circuit”. After changing and leaving your things, you move on to the shower room where you rinse off the day’s grime. The mint and citrus flavoured body wash, shampoo and conditioner are a lovely treat for the nose.

You then follow the circuit around by alternately soaking in a hot pool of salt water, sitting in an incredibly hot, stifling steam room that outputs eucalyptus oil in its steam, jumping into the frigid pool of 66 degrees celsius in an attempt to maintain a normal body temperature amongst this treatment, sitting in an infrared sauna that makes you sweat out all the toxins from your skin, showering off and jumping back into the salt water pool, and then a final soak in the green tea pool. You can, of course, mix this routine up as much as you like and do your own thing, but this was what was recommended and we’d never done it before. We were interrupted before we could finish up the whole circuit as the place closes at 8 PM and we’d only arrived at 7:20. A bit less time than I’d hoped for, although it seemed like longer.

The final stop after showering once more and changing back into your street clothes is the primping room. You get a whole range of skin and hair products to play with, including creams, hair dryers, sterilized combs and brushes. I found this was the only place that felt cramped – with upwards of four women in there all getting ready to leave at closing time, it’s difficult to move around the space.

The whole experience left me feeling so relaxed and clean. I noticed that as soon I stepped onto the street, all of my aches and pains from the canoe trip had vanished. An incredible feeling.

I don’t know how often I’ll return; probably only when I’m in extreme need of rejuvenation. But it’s nice to know a place like this exists. And it’s worth every penny.

(photo above taken from the Body Blitz photo gallery)

Two weekends ago, I attended a beginner’s kayaking course at the Toronto harbourfront.

I’ve been kayaking before, but only once or twice – and never have I had lessons on how to paddle properly. So this course, suggested by my friend, intrigued me. The coolest thing about it was being able to see the city of Toronto from the water – it was like being on the verge between wilderness and city.

The course was fun; it involved two full days of training and paddling on Lake Ontario. Saturday was a windier day, making the waves choppy and rather fun to bob with. We learned the basics that day, and then applied them to a day-trip out to Toronto island on Sunday, when the weather was much calmer. We learned how to get back in the boat when it flips over, and how to help others do the same, on top of paddling techniques such as turning on the spot, moving horizontally, sculling to keep balance and more.

If you feel like trying something new, it’s a safe and fun way to approach kayaking while staying within Toronto. Check out the organization, Paddle Toronto, as they have other levels of courses and also social kayaking meetups on a weekly basis.

The Metropass Affinity Program, the discount program for TTC Metropass holders, now has a more public Yahoo Discussion Group set up for it. So join up and get posting ideas and comments for the program.

(Apparently I’m a bit more ill than I had originally thought.)

I wanted to make an observation on the TTC monthly Metropass and the colours they choose to use on it. Earlier this year, brown was one of the dominant colours on the card for two months in a row; I don’t remember if these were February/March, or March/April. In any case, the first few days of the second month with a brown card, I completely forgot to start carrying the new one. Confused, at first, as to why my card wouldn’t work in the stiles anymore, I went on my merry little way showing my card to streetcar conductors and ticket collectors and beind easily waved through.

This went on for the better part of three days, until I finally figured out it was time to get out the new card: and I saw the dominant brown and understood why, while the turnstiles recognized my pass as being invalid for this month, the humans had seen the flash of brown, known it was this month’s colour, and allowed me through. It turned out to be an interesting little experiment on accuracy; if all passes had similar dominant colours from month-to-month, we’d likely be able to get away with a lot more invalid passes. And now I also know why usually the colours are so vastly different, month-to-month.

It did make me wonder whether whoever was in charge of the design of the cards for those two subsequent months got into trouble of some sort. And, did anyone else have a similar experience as I?