The Lights of Toronto

First, there was a total darkness. Then there was this tiny flickering white light. Suddenly, a spread of hundreds of lights like diamonds glittering on a dark velvet fabric.

This was the spectacle I saw from the window of the airplane as we landed in Toronto with my ipods. It was my first time there, and as we made our way to the hotel, I was amazed with the array of lights dotting everything in the city—the streets, the stores and every window of every skyscraper in the metropolis.

At the time, we were suffering a series of brownouts back in Manila and thus we had to conserve electric power. So I asked our tour guide, “Haven’t you heard of energy conservation here?”

“Oh, we have lots of energy here,” she said as she rattled on about the Nigara Falls, located at the outskirts of Toronto, which has provided the city limitless hydropower for centuries.