Reading week is next week, and for those of you not going home for the holidays, there’s plenty to do around town.
If you’re new to the city or don’t spend a lot of time traveling outside of the main Ryerson campus, I heartily recommend taking a jaunt out to the Annex to see Honest Ed’s. Basically, it’s a giant discount warehouse of various cheap (and I mean CHEAP) objects from groceries to clothes to hologram pictures of Jesus.
Started by “Honest Ed” Mirvish over sixty years ago, it stands as a testament to kitsch and terrible knock-off products everywhere. Worth it for those who want to find disposable objects on the cheap (plungers, lightbulbs), anyone looking for things that last (dishes, housewares, clothes) would be best searching elsewhere.
However, it’s worth going there simple to experience it: you can get lost in the building simply because of how big it is. You also get to see a number of (often-autographed) portraits from celebrities who have come to visit the place, and generally enjoy a simple, “Hey, look at that!” tour of the weird.
The Annex is consistently one of my favourite places in Toronto because of the culture and quirky stores like Honest Ed’s. You can get there by traveling to the Bathurst subway station.
