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travel

The entry of the big boys from Trump and Shangri-La and the new Four Seasons Hotel and the fairly new Ritz Carlton has garnered a lot of attention in Toronto hotel circles. So much so that we (meaning in this case, I), sometimes forget about a very sleek and very convenient hotel right downtown: One King West. The famous tower in the historic (almost 100 years!) bank building at King and Yonge has 330 hotel rooms; all suites with kitchens for the convenience of guests. They do a fair bit of leisure travel, as it’s very convenient to attractions like Read more

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This is from a visit to the great city of Montreal a couple years ago… MONTREAL – I’d forgotten how much fun this town really is. I’d been a few times with my kids over the years, but last week’s brief sojourn was my first time to spend a few hours really looking around. I like the old city just fine, but I’d seen it before a number of times. I’ve also spent a bit of time on Crescent Street, attending a Jacques Villeneuve event at his Newtown restaurant when I worked in the sports department. So this time I Read more

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This is from a story I wrote for the Toronto Star golf magazine on the explosion of golf in China… You can see it in the way the mainland Chinese line up outside the Louis Vuitton shop in Kowloon. You can see it on Shenzen’s dusty roads, where cars are now far more common than the bikes that crowded China’s streets only a dozen years ago. People who suddenly come into wealth have a habit of releasing their pent-up shopping frustration by indulging in all the biggest gadgets and latest fads of the people they’ve seen enjoying the good life. Read more

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This is from a trip I took to London in the winter of 2009, partly to show how cheap it can be in the off-season… LONDON – Last time I was here it was summer and, oh, about 35 degrees Celsius. Today, when my Air Canada flight touched down after some really heavy turbulence (think monster drops that had even the flight attendants gasping for air) it was 2 degrees. With several inches of snow on the ground. I’m normally not one to go for the cold, but this town is far, far better in the snow than in the Read more

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This is from a golf trip I took with some friends to the golfing mecca of America a couple years ago… PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA — My buddies and I had been back home for a week or so when I got an email from one of them talking about our early September trip to famed Pebble Beach. “Thanks for the trip to paradise,” he said. I couldn’t say it any better myself. I’m not one for getting nervous talking to athletes or celebrities or politicians, but I had a serious case of the knee-knocks on the first few holes at Read more

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