Walk and discover your city- Jane's Walk May 6th, 7th, and 8th

May 6th, 7th and 8th is the date for Jane's Walk festival , where free city tour is being offered around the city, in the spirit of exploring and encouraging conversations. There are more than 150 walks scheduled in Toronto alone. In the spirit of the coming festival, I would like to share with you my thought on a recent reading.

When a Torontonian get asked about taking picture in his own downtown Toronto, here is what he wrote - "And what’s so bad about being a tourist? What is a tourist, anyway, but an explorer, a discoverer? Why should there be any negative connotations to behaviour that would be perfectly normal in a new place, just because it’s done in one’s own home? I think we could all benefit from acting like tourists in our own cities. For one thing, it keeps the place (and by extension, our lives) fresh and exciting. It makes you think about the place where you live instead of just inhabiting it."

This is an excerpt from a piece I just stumbled upon, written for Jane's Walk Blog, titled "A Tourist at Home"

The piece resonates with me...

Paris, Egypt, China, South East Asia, Cuba... As human, we travel a lot. Just count the number of blogs on backpacking, on traveling on a budget, on travel+volunteer. Yes, we travel far and wide. Yet there is one place we don't often travel or explore - our own home town. Not everyone know their own hometown very well.

While in a foreign place, we takes pictures of anything remotely interesting. But in our own home town, we don't usually notice and appreciate the beauty in the immediate surrounding, in our own home town (Sure we take pictures of our own outing, but often not of the locations, the quirks,and the beauty). Let alone getting to know the history, the culture of each place. We are too busy with life, work, and vacations.

Sunset on Harbourfront Skating Rink

I have lived here, in Toronto, for a while and also explored occasionally. But I have come to realize that there are a lot more to explore. Just last year, I discovered the Beltline trail and Evergreen Brick Works, thanks to Jane's Walk.

"The city is huge and full of stuff, and even if I ever got through all the things that are already here, there are always new things being added: new murals, new parks, new buildings. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll be playing tourist here forever.", the author wrote.

"So don’t be afraid to go out and explore your own hometown as if it were a foreign land. Your life will always be richer for the experience." I couldn't have put it better myself.

So go out and learn about where you live - there is always a story waiting to be told.