Hot Hot Hot long weekend
Caribana, a major caribbean islands festival was on this weekend..they expected over a million visitors on the weekend. It's always an interesting weekend to live downtown...Yonge street becomes the cruising capital, where a very large number of mostly black young people hang out or drive their "pimped" out cars ( with very loud stereo and lots of bass ). It's definetly not a situation that is very common in Canada.
It's not a good thing but there are always a large number cops on streets as well ( we counted over 60 in a 4 block stretch of Yonge ), it's racial profiling at its best...but almost every years there's been a shooting in the area.
We've never had any problems, you've just got to sit back and enjoy the different scenery...although one thing I don't get is that almost every group of guys has at least one holding a video camera...almost always pointed at a passing group of girls....
Saturday is the parade, it goes along the lakeshore, lots of flatbead trucks with massive soundsystems each with a DJ and his homeboys hanging out with a few scantily clad dancers.
They're all playing the same set of island calypso/rap songs...very very very loud, the ear plugs saved us but you could still get blown away by the bass.
In between the trucks were the carnival float/costumes..which are definetly the highlight of the parade. Incredibaly ornate and detailed...they're amazing colourful and fun.
With the good weather, catchy tunes, cool costumes and lake in the background...it was a great feeling kinda day.
We went for another ravine walk on sunday and hung out on Cherry beach reading Harry Potter on monday.
It's not a good thing but there are always a large number cops on streets as well ( we counted over 60 in a 4 block stretch of Yonge ), it's racial profiling at its best...but almost every years there's been a shooting in the area.
We've never had any problems, you've just got to sit back and enjoy the different scenery...although one thing I don't get is that almost every group of guys has at least one holding a video camera...almost always pointed at a passing group of girls....
Saturday is the parade, it goes along the lakeshore, lots of flatbead trucks with massive soundsystems each with a DJ and his homeboys hanging out with a few scantily clad dancers.
They're all playing the same set of island calypso/rap songs...very very very loud, the ear plugs saved us but you could still get blown away by the bass.
In between the trucks were the carnival float/costumes..which are definetly the highlight of the parade. Incredibaly ornate and detailed...they're amazing colourful and fun.
With the good weather, catchy tunes, cool costumes and lake in the background...it was a great feeling kinda day.
We went for another ravine walk on sunday and hung out on Cherry beach reading Harry Potter on monday.
posted by Mike Lepard at
9:12 p.m.
