When we reached the hotel lobby, we checked in to confirm our reservation, and were designated a room on the same floor, not too far from the elevators and the escalators leading to the tiers of shopping malls below. Vibrant colour and a complexity of shops below greeted our gaze, with shoppers thronging the aisles from the viewing stage above, on our floor. This was Sunday, a gathering place for the Chinese who live in the area, a lively and entertaining scene.

In our room however, quiet pervaded the atmosphere, to our relief. Once settled in, which took a brief moment, we put Riley's harness on, and set out for a bit of a walk-about. Walking up Spadina proved a physical challenge and a viewing cornucopia of people, commercial transactions, traffic, sound and spectacle. We maneuvered our way through, around and out of the more immediate area of shopping and soon enough threaded our way to the park whose presence we recalled behind the Art Gallery of Ontario, Grange Park. There, we encountered grass and trees, and others eager to escape the hurly-burly of the streetscape, sitting on benches, pushing strollers, walking dogs, sunning themselves. Not that we saw much of the sun; it peeked out now and again through the continuing overcast, but the day was hot and muggy. Perfect weather for the children who used the play facilities there.

Our daughter had driven down to Toronto from her home near White Lake, setting out about an hour earlier than we had. The time-frame given them for move-in activities to the residence was between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.; the times staged to greatest efficiency with so many students moving into the residence on Sunday, move-in day. We had the little refrigerator we'd bought and brought along for our granddaughter's shared room, but were told it might be better to plan on delivering it the following day when, presumably, all the activity of move-in would be hugely reduced.

While we wandered within the confines of the small park, we had the anticipated call from our daughter who was walking over along Queen Street, to meet up with us, so off we went to meet her halfway. From there we walked back to the hotel to familiarize her with the area. Although she had lived in Toronto with us until she was twelve, she wasn't all that familiar with the area, as we had been in our own young years, living fairly close by.

And then we walked back to the residence, a converted hotel. While my husband sat outside the building with Riley, I went upstairs with my daughter, to view the room, and there was her daughter, unpacking all the items she had carefully packed. The room, shared with another student, had two double beds, two wardrobes, two well-designed desks, two chairs, two bed tables, a make-up counter adjacent the bathroom which also held a coat cupboard, the facilities well designed to meet the needs of students who would also be taking their meals in the building. The presence of security personnel inside and outside the complex was reassuring to a degree. Their concern and helpful friendliness exuded an aura of confidence and comfort. Many of the young men and women checking in were experiencing a new direction in their lives, far from home. Our daughter's room mate came directly from Russia.

We all set out back to Chinatown and the hotel, my daughter driving us in her vehicle so we could show her where to park. From there, since it was six o'clock, and they as vegetarians would be seeking a meal that conformed to their eating style, set out on their own, as we too set out up Spadina Avenue to find our take-out dinner. Obviously, with Riley, we were barred from entry to any restaurant. We selected a restaurant that also provided take-out, one that was crowded with Chinese families having their Sunday meal. That old adage, that one should look for authentic quality food by finding where Chinese themselves eat, resonated with us. We chose the special meal-for-two, walked about again in the dark, brightly lit by shopfront signage, for 15 minutes while it was being prepared, then retrieved the food and walked back to the hotel, tired and glad enough to wind up the day.

We had discovered the presence of a tiny community park just around the corner from the hotel, and it was there we would take Riley first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Throughout our stay in Toronto at the hotel, and whatever our activities happened to be, he was the perfect little dog, acquitting himself marvelously well; a great little companion, never complaining although he must have been discombobulated at the change in his environment, his only assurance that all was well, being that he was with us.

The food we brought back with us to the hotel was quite, quite awful, uncongenial to the nth degree to our tastes, definitely not the Szechuan type we were more familiar with. The chicken soup was fine, loaded with bits of chicken, egg noodles, green peas and chopped green onion, but the fried rice, also loaded with egg, had pork, not chicken as we thought we were getting, and the pork was high, and unpleasant, as it was also in the other dish with larger pieces and mixed vegetables, all steeped in a sweet-and-sour sauce that couldn't hide the high taste of the pork. Most of it ended up in a dumpster when we took Riley out for his last evacuation that night, after our daughter had arrived back at the hotel once she had walked our granddaughter back to the residence, then walked back to the hotel.

We all slept fairly soundly that night, exhausted from the drive and all the walking about, and the strain of the exercise of the initial introduction of our granddaughter to her new surroundings.