Downtown of London, Ontario

Today I toured the downtown area of London (Ontario) and snapped some pictures. The downtown used to the center spot of Londoners during the 70s. Nowadays it is deserted and appears to be run down due to the openings of massive box stores in the sub-urban area. This is somehow similar to Tesco/Jusco/Carrefour/Giant phenomena in Malaysia.

VIA Rail Canada station at London. You can take a 2-hour train ride to Toronto along the busy Quebec-Windsor corridor.

Downtown street view.
There are many churches in the downtown. And you can see a guy is reading in the mainstreet too. I found Canadian Londoners like to read a lot, what a big contrast compared to home..=D

A nice building in downtown.
Street view two. Starbucks! They are everywhere, aren't they? ;-) But in Ontario, Canada has its rivals which is Tim Hortons. Tims serve good coffee (I like the cappucino particularly). Speaking about Tim Hortons, recently there is a Timbit-gate story which I will like to tell. The story goes like this: A cashier working in one of Tim's outlet gave away one Timbit (some doughnut balls) to a customer with a crying baby for free. Because of that, she was fired by the manager! This issue has caused much controversy and of course, general public sympathize the cashier and the incident has really tarnished Tim Hortons' PR image badly. The cashier eventually got her job back, but at another Tim outlet. Even since then, many Canadians would joke to the cashier: "I want a free Timbit" when they buy their coffee... ;-)

Street view 3.
Street view 4.
London Life main office. A major insurance company in Canada.
A nice church.
Another one.
A statue in Victoria Park, downtown.
Statue at Victoria Park entrance.
Some street basketball carnival on-going in downtown, which is a typical event in the summer.