Hey I'm back in Toronto for a while now and had a wonderful time with Sandee in Thailand (and Cambodia!). I will write a few journal entries about our trips and about meeting various people from TF. Hey I can't wait for the new "Testimonials" feature to begin operation!

It's -15 here today with wind chill making the temperature feel like -30. So nice to arrive back to this! From 33 (in Phnom Penh) to -30 in just a day! And I didn't have a coat or a jacket or a hat or gloves LOL. I was just wearing a long-sleeved shirt and undershirt, light cotton pants, light socks. Luckily I was wearing hiking boots. It has been snowing for a couple of days and the roads are a mess, lots of uncleared snow, so traffic to and from the airport was a nightmare. Two and a half hours from the airport to downtown (a half hour trip in light traffic conditions). Not many taxis making it out to the airport, and the lineup of people for them, all wearing warm coats, was massive. Not something I wanted to wait in, underdressed as I was.

The airport bus to downtown was an hour late already and no sign of it coming (normally there is one every 20 minutes). So I ended up hopping on "The Better Way", which is the slogan for Toronto's public transit system, the TTC. And tonight it most definitely was the better way, and also the cheapest way. A taxi to downtown is C$40 or C$45. The airport bus is C$14 to the major downtown hotels, and then I still would have had to catch a bus or a cab from there. The TTC is C$2.25, or C$1.90 if you buy at least five tickets or tokens. I had a token .

So I caught the TTC bus from the airport to Kipling subway station, and it was chilly there but manageable. The subway was a little chilly while we rode through the above-ground stations but improved when we went underground. At Dupont station, the closest to my apartment, I had to face the real test though LOL: the 5 minute walk to my apartment. 5 minutes underdressed in -30 induces a little pain in bare hands and exposed ears start to get numb. Frostbite is very fast and easy to get in these conditions. But the main feeling of walking outside to my apartment was similar to the feeling of jumping in to a very cold lake in late spring or in fall and swimming: there is kind of a shocked feeling in your torso and in your breathing.

When I got in to my apartment building front door, instead of fumbling with stinging slow cold fingers looking for keys I just dialled my buzzer code on the screen, which rings to my mobile, which I could just answer and press 9 to open the door. Once into the warmth of the lobby I looked for my keys in my bag and felt good again.

Jan. 17: well, it's still cold -24 on the thermometer last night. It warmed up a little today. But don't worry Thai people! In Toronto we only get 3 or 4 weeks of frigid weather like this, the rest of the time it's warm! Actually there's no problem with this kind of weather as long as you dress for it, I've been too warm all day....