Overview

Let's write a travel story for a change. I went to Niagara Falls.

On this trip, we entered Canada from Michigan in the United States and went to see Niagara Falls from the Ontario side of Canada.

On the Way

This time, it was a rental car trip. This ↓ is a rest area along an Interstate Highway. It's huge. North America is huge, so I'll be using panorama mode here and there on this trip.

At the point where we entered Canada, there was a toll booth, the Blue Water Bridge, and an immigration checkpoint. This ↓ is the toll booth. The white bridge you can see in the back is the Blue Water Bridge.

This ↓ is the Blue Water Bridge.

This ↓ is the immigration checkpoint. Since this is Canada, French is written alongside English.

I have to mention the towns with funny names that we passed along the way. Adelaide Metcalfe and Strathroy-Caradoc had such long and complicated names that I found them amusing. (What am I even talking about?)

This ↓ is from Midori-san's Starbucks photo collection: a Canadian Starbucks tumbler.

This ↓ is the fork for Toronto and Niagara.

This ↓ is the entrance to the city of Niagara Falls. We've arrived.

Niagara Falls

It looks as if a huge hole suddenly opened in the ground. This ↓ is Niagara Falls. By the way, Niagara Falls is not the name of a single waterfall. It is the collective name for three waterfalls located on the border between the United States and Canada. The one in the photo is Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side.

In this photo ↓, from left to right, you can see American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Horseshoe Falls. These waterfalls are located along the Niagara River. So, to be more precise, "Niagara Falls" means "the three waterfalls along the Niagara River."

Horseshoe Falls here ↓ is overwhelmingly huge.

Like this ↓, all this water flows toward Lake Ontario. The bridge you can see in the distance is called the Rainbow Bridge, and the international border runs through the middle of it.

Between the hotel area and the waterfall area, there is a facility like this ↓ that takes you up and down. Come on, just build some stairs too.

There is also a zip-line attraction, but I'm going for the sightseeing boat.

The price is shown here ↓. It's a little under $50. Canadian dollars, though.

This ↓ is the view from the sightseeing boat. Seeing the Canadian side from the middle of the river is a pretty rare view.

If you zoom in a little, you can see proof that this is the Canadian side ↓ (the flag).

Me making it all the way here with my EIKEN Grade 1 certificate ↓

This ↓ is from Midori-san's Starbucks photo collection: a Niagara Falls Starbucks tumbler.

Bonus

When you use a Japanese credit card to pay overseas, you may be asked something like this ↓. Apparently, it is usually cheaper to choose the local currency.

This ↓ is the breakfast buffet. Since this is Canada, of course (?) they had maple syrup.

For mobile data, I used an Ubigi eSIM. I bought 1 GB for Canada for 900 yen and 10 GB for the United States for around 2,300 yen. Let me briefly explain what an eSIM is...

  • A smartphone already has an antenna and modem for communicating with a cellular network, as well as the hardware needed to connect to Wi-Fi
  • A SIM card is not a device that communicates with the cellular network itself. It is more like a certificate that lets you use the network (strictly speaking, it is a profile containing a set of settings), so if you have one installed, you can use a network such as Docomo's
  • An eSIM simply means that this certificate-like thing is an electronic file instead of a physical card, so once you download it, you can use the supported network
  • It's basically the same relationship as physical and downloadable Nintendo Switch games
  • By the way, if you enter *#06# in your smartphone's phone app and a number called EID appears, your smartphone supports eSIM

This ↓ is from Midori-san's pin badge collection. I bought both of them at souvenir shops in Niagara Falls.

To sum it all up... my impression was basically, "That's... a LOT of water!!" That's all. Thanks for reading. For privacy protection, I have taken the liberty of hiding my face with Goldmask.