This is gonna be a long post.

I’m going to be changing the format of this post, instead of the regular all photos at top, this one will be more of an article format for easier reading. Hooray!

Paige dragged me to Toronto this Sunday, she needed a haircut from a place called NC Salon, and I needed material for a new post.

I had brought along my Pentax P3 with me; armed with the Vivitar 28mm f/2.8 and a fresh roll of Ilford HP-5, I was ready for the streets. I’ll probably make another post when I get around to processing and scanning all those, so meanwhile you’ll have to “put up” with my shots from the Sony A7II.

First stop: NC Salon.

This place is pretty fancy for a salon: full body (kimono-styled) gowns, tea for the patrons, customized hair-stylists; it’s got a hefty $60 per cut price tag, but it might very well be worth it.

Paige seems to enjoy them anyways.

I had to take a photo after the haircut, she was apparently unsatisfied with the length of the hair behind her head, but to me it looks fine – the extra length allows for better layering.

The streets of Toronto is like a street-photography goldmine. The old streetcars always look nice, and they provide such a nice contrast against the urban environment. People on the streets are a lot more fashionable, or at least unique compared to a university city like Waterloo.

Uncle Tetsu’s shop always has a line-up, always.

When we finally landed ourselves in Eaton Center after MUJI, we were famished. We really couldn’t be bothered to go out and find a restaurant to eat anymore, so we chose Shanghai 360 in the food court; they always held a place in my heart when I want that Americanized, greasy Chinese fast food, and they are always generous on portions.

I had a chance to take a couple shots of the mall itself while Paige entrenched herself in Sephora, trying various foundations and eye shadows and eyeliners. I’m not a big fan of Sephora because the shop is almost always over-sprayed with various perfumes, so I walked around a bit in the mall, checking out a couple of shops and took some pictures with both my Sony and my Pentax.

I had to drag Paige away from Sephora at 7pm: the mall was closing.

We made a trip to my car first to drop off the booty of the hunt, then we made a trip to Jule. I managed to get a couple more candids during the walk.

By the time we started walking towards our final destination of the day, the streets were already dark. This proved difficult for my adapted Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM, as the AF mechanism struggled to find focus many times.

I only have a couple usable shots from the walk, and I eventually started manual focusing to improve my chances of success.

During the walk, Paige and I talked about something I’ve been avoiding – my departure for San Francisco for my next co-op term, as well as the fact that when I come back, Paige will be on co-op. It’s so rare to find myself in a position where I’m genuinely worried about not being able to see someone again, as I tend to usually let these things take their natural paths.

Paige is a little different. She’s probably the closest thing I have to a 死党 right now, having lost my previous 死党 during the move from high school to university, I was not about to let this one slip quietly into the night.

To Tenny, if you are reading this, I’m sorry. I didn’t make enough of an effort during first-year to keep in touch, despite your attempts. It’s one of the things I regret most in life, right behind my breakup with Elana (you know the details). I don’t know if you can tell, but I’ve trying to reconnect as much as I can, but it’s kinda difficult since I had changed a lot, and being in CS for a long time makes me hard to talk to. I’ll keep trying though, and I’m sure we’ll get there someday, again.

I will probably be going through withdrawal when I leave, as I always do whenever I’m having a lot of fun with someone, but the best I can do is to enjoy the time we have now, and put in effort to keep communications open. I promised her that I’ll be sending postcards; that I’ll keep writing this blog. I made her promise to write some form of blogging as well (and offered my help for setup), hopefully this will be good enough.

A part of me, a part of us regrets the fact that we haven’t met sooner, but we also agreed that we might not be as good of friends with each other as we are right now if we haven’t gone through the separate breakups we had.

Right, my breakup with Anna. Maybe I’ll get to that someday, that one’s a doozy.

Meanwhile, let’s look at some of the fantastic urban architecture downtown Toronto has to offer.

After we had our slightly disappointing dinner at the Copacabana, we started making our way back to the car.

I was mostly quiet during the walk this time, coming to realization that this is probably the last trip we’ll be making. It’s hard not to feel sad at the current situation, but c’est la vie; there isn’t much else to do right now.

Finally, what’s a trip without a cheesy selfie?

Paige, you know posing with me makes you look super skinny, take advantage of that! I’m sorry my legs are longer than yours, but if I hide half my body behind you, it makes me look skinnier as well.

Another great day, and a great trip.

Sigh.

-Tao