As a child in Hong Kong, I was always mesmerized by all the glass and mirrors and the way they created this illusion of space. My favourite were aquariums with seahorses in them. Kowloon Market in Chinatown satiates my aquaphilia with their fish tanks, while also satiating my appetite for freshly bonked fish cleaned and ready to be steamed.

This vintage clothing store ain’t just some new-aged, marked up warehouse for ironic t-shirts and howling wolf hoodies. Brimming to the teats with ghostly relics, Ragtime has come to my rescue on multiple occasions; whether it’s a tailcoat for a bougie gala, Genghis Khan gear for a time-travel party, a Kamikaze pilot for Halloween or knickerbockers for my groomsmen.

Artengine is a local arts group that produces technologically based presentations. As part of their Electric Fields program, I recently attended Swim Sound – a sound performance at a municipal pool. A percussionist played on a floating platform, while a knob twiddler tweaked and tweezed the inputs coming from drum mics and a couple underwater mics. Too fun with an encore performance possibly happening in the spring!

We have the best Vietnamese cuisine in Canada thanks to an inclusive policy that opened the city up to thousands of post-war Vietnamese refugees in the late 70s. At the zenith of this flavour heap is Huong’s where I can relive a recent trip to vibrant Hanoi. The whole idea of lining up for egg-y brunch is absurd when you can get a spicy saté noodle lashing here and squash that hangover in seconds.

With age, I’ve been more reluctant to engage in the cyclical social gymnastics of a high-octane evening. Just give me a pint and a pinball machine and I’ll be a content little monk, cussing at gravity and the wiles of analog engineering. Aside from triggering rebellious teenage memories, the Orange Monkey pool hall is also situated in one of the rare industrial complexes in the city.