 |
| One of U of T's greatest fringe benefits. |
I subbed for one class yesterday at the school. It was a class that I had taught before, so the familiarity factor was quite welcome. Afterwards, since I had several hours to kill between the end of the class and my meeting with The Siberian, I decided to walk over to the University of Toronto's St. George Campus, my old stomping grounds....for my seasonal lunch from a food truck.
I didn't have to go far up St. George to find The Blue Truck. It had the Burger & Fries package for $5 but I just had to throw in the Coke and extra gravy, so it came out to $7.50, but I wasn't complaining at all. After teaching 3 hours, it was nice and comforting to dive into an unrepentantly unhealthy lunch....while sparrows were just waiting for those extra crumbs and french fry bits to drop down on the ground. I helped them out. I'll tell ya....those food trucks are the lifeblood of lunch at the campus. It also helped that the weather was very pleasant...very May-like out there.
Spent another couple of hours browsing in Koffler Centre and my old workplace of the International Student Centre....not that anyone there would know me now. I have a feeling that the director that I had first met as a student assistant there 20 years ago has probably gone onto bigger and better things.
 |
| One heavy dish |
Then I looped it around on the Yonge-University Line all the way to Finch Station in the late afternoon and spent an hour at the nearby Starbucks reading before The Siberian showed up at 6. I hadn't seen my old juku student in a few years, but it was evident that he had gained a couple of kilograms. He's been in Toronto since February so he's had lots of opportunities to fill up on the good stuff.
We ended up going to a Korean joint which he frequents just south of Yonge and Finch. I had myself the Kimchi Fried Rice. It may not look like a lot of food in the picture but I was pretty darned stuffed by the end of the dinner. The Burger & Fries probably didn't help. The Siberian and I caught up on the past few years. He's currently going to school at one of the places near Eglinton Station and is staying with a Filipino family at the northern edge of the city. He had heard rumours about the juku boss' divorce via his mother, and so I basically confirmed them for him; he had already been long gone from the juku as a student by the time the marital discord reached a peak. He's only here until August but he's already made a lot of friends from Korea and Mexico; in fact, he had to take off to head to some sort of farewell party down at Bay and Bloor after our meeting. Hopefully, we'll meet at least a couple of more times before he takes off for home.
