Ever since I found out that we have Japanese cherry blossom trees in High Park in Toronto, I made plans to go see them. They only stay in bloom for about 10 days, and the start of blooming depends heavily on weather! So, I had to really keep an eye on predictions. I was very worried that we wouldn’t be able to see the blossoms in full bloom because we could only head to Toronto on a weekend, and because it might rain or even hail before we had the chance… I am very happy to say that we did make it in time to see the blooms at peak bloom though!

We were able to leave our place around mid-day, and hoped that we would miss larger crows that way. And we were lucky! We were actually able to avoid a lot of crazy traffic, and even found parking in a parking lot within the park! And it turns out that I had been worrying for nothing, because there were beautiful cherry trees everywhere!

I was so happy that there were tears in my eyes! As some of you may know, I have been to Japan twice. But I could never afford to go there while the cherry blossoms were in bloom (because plane ticket prices go up around that time). So, seeing these cherry blossoms (Japanese ones at that), was a dream come true for me!

You might wonder how I know that these were Japanese cherry trees, and I will tell you! While looking up when it would be best to visit High Park to see the blossoms, I read a section (I forget on which site) that explained that Japan gifted Toronto 2000 Japanese cherry trees as a thank you after World War II. Isn’t that so cool?!

As you can see from my photos, the day certainly wasn’t sunny, but the blossoms were beautiful and I couldn’t help but take like… a million photos. As you can probably also tell, I brought my good camera that day in the hopes that the blossoms would still be on the trees, and that I would get some photo opportunities.

On our way back to the car, we decided to go through the free zoo area, and see the baby bison that we’d hear about. And he/she was sooooo cute! We were lucky enough to find the little baby napping right by the fence, and I was able to take an awesome close-up photo. There were also some very interesting animals there that I had never seen before, like mountain goats, caribou, a wallaby, and some capybara (the latter of which I heard had escaped the zoo some time ago, and that took some time for the zoo to find and bring back. The story really made me laugh!)

We then made it back to the car, intending to go up to Muskoka for the weekend. But before we left the city, we decided to stop at one of the restaurants listed in BlogTO’s article about the best Japanese restaurants in Toronto! I wanted my boyfriend to try something other than sushi, and since some of the restaurants on the list were closed until dinner time, this narrowed things down to one place for us. The restaurant is named Japango, and the food was absolutely fantastic! I had eaten a number of chirashi bowls before, but this was by far the best one I ever had! (And my boyfriend said that his tonkatsu dish was also quite delicious!)

We sat by the front window in the restaurant, and while eating, we saw someone walk by with an Uncle Tetsu’s Shop back walk by. This Japanese bakery was one of the places that I really wanted to visit in the city, and we decided to see if maybe the shop was nearby. We checked Google Maps, and luckily enough, the shop was right around the corner! So, after we paid and complimented the staff on the delicious food, we made our way to Uncle Tetsu’s Shop and bought some Japanese cheesecake, and some honey madeleines. Everything was to die for, and we will definitely be going back to get more cheesecake, madeleines, and some of their other products!

ALL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN BY ME! PLEASE ASK ME FOR PERMISSION IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO USE THEM ANYWHERE. THANK YOU FOR READING MY TRAVEL POST! HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO TORONTO? OR DO YOU LIVE THERE? AND IF SO, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO THE PLACES THAT I MENTIONED HERE? HAVE YOU EVER TRIED JAPANESE FOOD? AND IF SO, DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE RESTAURANT OR DISH? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS!