Welcome to The Weekend Roundup...hosted by Tom The Back Roads Traveler
1. Starts with "L"
2. A Favorite
3. LIGHT - Chosen by Tom
Starts with L LOBSTER Phuket Thailand
LOVE
LIGHT
LIGHT Show Tokyo Japan click link.
REFLECTIONS LAS VEGAS
18 September 2026
16 September 2026
MAY RECAP
MAY 2026
TRAVEL
Toronto to Charlottetown PEI (return) 1,654 miles 2,663 KM 5 days
We flew home from PEI on Monday June 1.
ACCOMMODATIONS
Rodd Crowbush Golf and Beach Resort
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The restaurant was amazing, we never got tired of eating there.
We were there for golf!!
AROUND TOWN
Spring has sprung!
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We ate at Joey's (Linda) Shinyi Dumplings Yonge St. Harbord food court Japanese hot dog and Tteokbokki. I later found a video with the recipe, it still doesn't entice me! John had chicken katsu curry. Hurry Curry and a buffet at The King Edward ✅. We had our first iced coffees of the season, I tried a mango cream matcha (meh) and beer in Kensington Market and the Horseshoe Tavern ✅. We tried banh mi in Chinatown ✅. I had blue coco latte (on right) and John had the orange Americano also in Chinatown.
Considering that we were away for 5 days in May, we sure got around.
Sugar Beach Food Festival, Les Fleurs de Ville, Homeless Jesus, Billy Bishop. We poked around Kensington Market, Chinatown and Parkdale.
MURALS we found this month.
THEATRE
Inside American Pie A Beautiful Noise - Neil Diamond
GOLF
Getting ready for golf season and the first game was rained out!
John played his annual golf and dinner at Wooden Sticks.
AROUND HOME
We got our covid boosters.
New vacuum arrived and we returned window robot. John ordered a cigar holder, bags for the new vacuum and the reusable coffee pods. John installed the new showerhead and we love it!
I rediscovered the building's charity box. I did lots of decluttering. I also sold some gold for $4.1K !!!! WOW!
Christmas cactus flowered! We had the kitchen pictures redone. We hung Japan. I changed to sofa cushions.
COOKING
We complained to Amazon about our broken Walkers cookies and they said keep them.
We discovered a couple of Chinatown bakeries and love them! I also found Goo Goo Clusters and we bought jam on Harbord St along with a pastry!
MY RECIPE BOX YEAR TO DATE
TRAVEL YEAR TO DATE
✈Toronto to Charlottetown (return) 1,654 miles ·2,663 kilometers 5 days
Signs
In Newfoundland and Labrador, a tickle is a local term for a short, narrow strait or passage of water between islands or between an island and the mainland.
The name itself plays on the famous Canadian children's TV show prop from Mr. Dressup, combined with Newfoundland's geographic slang for a narrow water passage (a "tickle").
The "Need a Tickle" Connection: The shop heavily stocks products from The Dark Tickle Company, a well-known northern Newfoundland brand. If a sign or display there says you "need a tickle," it is a playful double entendre—inviting you to try their locally made wild berry jams, teas, or Newfoundland chocolate bars.
Knitting store
15 September 2026
Tuesday Treasures
Tom hosts Tuesday's Treasures.
August 2026 - Toronto ON
The historic and long-abandoned Oak Leaf Steam Baths located at 216 Bathurst Street.
Opened in 1941: The building operated as a traditional wood-burning steam bathhouse (or "schvitz") for over seven decades. It was legendary for having some of the most intense, hottest steam rooms in Toronto.
Bathers would use traditional oak leaf branches (veniks) to hit the skin, a classic Eastern European practice meant to boost circulation and open pores.
Stepping inside was described by visitors as an untouched relic of the mid-20th century. To release the steam inside the rooms, patrons had to pull a mechanical chain on the wall, similar to the pull-cords found in old Toronto streetcars.
It served eastern European immigrants, Jewish men, and later acted as a discreet social space for gay men.
By the late 1940s, it had quietly become a vital, discreet meeting space for gay, bisexual, and closeted men at a time when homosexuality was criminalized and heavily policed. By the 1980s, it was considered one of Toronto's oldest gay-identified operations, famously managing to evade the notorious 1981 Toronto bathhouse police raids.
Click here for murals of the police raids.
The bathhouse was shut down around 2015 due to a bitter legal feud between its co-owners. One owner had worked there since immigrating from Kyiv in 1990, manually stoking the wood fires that heated the facility. Amid mounting debts, hundreds of thousands in unpaid property taxes, and a court-ordered receivership, the historic facility closed its doors for good.
Click here to read about the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, which includes this story to highlight the personal impact of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada (which occurred nationally in 2005 under the Civil Marriage Act).
13 September 2026
Foto Tunes
Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
January 2017 - Las Vegas NV
February 2013 - Las Vegas NV
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
December 2013 - Fort Myers Florida
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They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
Sudbury ON
No, no, no
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot
Toronto ON
Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don't care about spots on my apples,
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
Hey now, they paved paradise to put up a parking lot
Why not?
November 2013 - South Carolina
Listen, late last night, I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi took my girl away
November 2013 - South Carolina
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
January 2017 - Las Vegas NV
Monday Mural
I'm linking up at Monday Mural
December 2025 - Phuket Thailand
This mural is located at the entrance to the Shrine of Serene Light (Saeng Tham Shrine) in Old Phuket Town.
The Sang Tham Shrine is a small, atmospheric Taoist temple hidden in an alleyway, founded in 1891 by descendants of a Chinese family.
The artwork was created by Liudmila Letnikova, whose signature is visible in the bottom right corner of the mural. It depicts traditional Chinese hand puppet performances, which are culturally used to entertain deities at the shrine.
BLUE
Toronto ON
Forthcoming One Word Sundays
20 September: Geometry
27 September: Power
October: taking a break
1 November: Back
8 November: Laundry
15 November: Afloat
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Weekend Roundup
Welcome to The Weekend Roundup...hosted by Tom The Back Roads Traveler 1. Starts with "L " 2. A Favorite 3. LIGHT - Chosen by T...
