The Eaton Centre

Sitting comfortably in the corner of Yonge and Queen, is the Toronto Eaton Center. The website claims that it is the number one tourist attraction of Toronto, deservedly so. Lets take a tour.

The entrance belies the size of this behemoth. It looks tall from outside, alright. But you will never expect it to be this huge. Bangalore’s Forum is like a departmental store, when compared to the size of this place. The first thing it reminded me of, is an airplane hangar. Maybe it was the roof. Talking of the roof, there were huge birds hanging from the roof, giving the feeling as though you have entered a huge zoo – Welcome to the Jurassic park (Sorry, couldn’t hold myself).

It was almost Christmas when I went there. So, the place was dressed up for the occasion. Greeting you when you enter, was a huge Christmas tree studded with, guess what, Swarowski crystals! The tree was glittering like a great big diamond! And it was rotating too! There were some pretty neat hanging trees too.

After this, you enter rows and rows of stores. It was console release time. So there were Wii stalls, which were more crowded, and the PS3 demo unit in the Sony store. I played Motorstorm on the PS3 – it was fun. After all the stores, comes a huge Sears (a large retail chain like WalMart). The Eaton Center was bought by Sears sometime in 1999. So, the back end of the building was fully occupied by Sears.

If all this walking makes you hungry, head out to the Food court. As you would expect for a mall of this size, the food court is huge, with representation from all the usual suspects. There were some Indian eateries too, if I remember right.

The Toronto Eaton Center is a great place to hangout. The fact that this place has been around for 30 years gives history as a reason for you to pay a visit.