Unlike last year where I went to the CNE by myself for the first time ever for a solo end of summer insanity, this year fortunately my AnimeNYC trip was much earlier and we came back in a better time to catch really the only real reason to go to CNE other than nostalgia, Products Day.

Having made it all the way here today driving downtown, today parking is still damn expensive where I parked, still $45 dollars since our historical parking lot is blown up for the foreseeable future, what can be done really.

However, damnnn, look at this parking spot, this is like the closest to the CNE parking that I have ever had, like ever. It is quite literally right beside BMO field, it is actually inside the CNE grounds in fact. When you get this inside grounds parking, you have to scan your CNE tickets when you drive in to park and or buy your tickets straight up at the gates because there is no security after you park your car, you are already inside the CNE.

Look how close we are, we just walk in, no gates after the initial parking which is cool but it raises some questions about security really. When you think about this, this is is actually very bad. There is nothing preventing anyone from brining in weapons or other shit into the CNE in your car, they don’t do any car checks or inspections at all, which I think is an oversight but who knows.

Hm nearby corn dog stand near where we exit, the past couple of years the corn dogs have not been very good, we’ll probably get them again hopefully they are good on our way out.

Can you really call these foot long fries? Potatoes don’t grow that long so this is just like a glorified fried mashed potato strings. Perhaps one day I will try but today is not that day.

CNE opens at like 10am and this is like 10:30am or so, pretty empty in the early morning but then again it’s a Wednesday after all.

Cutting through the crafts building this time, awkward since we never park in this area, it’s weird to be seeing this stuff so soon but we will do it later, on our way out at the end of the day. Nice botan shirts.

What’s with this world and crafts shit lately? It is like popular now to do crafts all of a sudden or has this always been a thing. I don’t know man, after the Cruise and my sister doing all these crafts shit on the boat, part of me thinks it’s a new popular thing, or perhaps it was always a thing and I just didn’t care/didn’t notice? I have no idea.

BMO field formerly Canada Stadium or something left over from the World Cup this year still has not been fully dismantled, the temp seating and shit is still there I think.

Maybe it has been dismantled? I don’t know but it looks like shit. It is not surprising this place was considered the worst World Cup venue to play it, completely outclassed by high school level stadiums even in the US and elsewhere.

We quickly get to the Food building for Products Day, the real reason why we went today. Products day is usually historically the first Wednesday that the CNE opens, it is a day where if you go to the food building at noon and line up to spin a wheel to get free shit, and the stuff is not bad, ranging from kitchen appliances to food coupons to be used in the food building itself.

City of Toronto booth doing some bullshit I think. Giving away something I have no idea.

You would think that the line to spin the wheel is inside the building, nope. It is outside, that fucks up alot of people. Hence begins the almost 2 or so hour wait to spin the wheel.

Proof of existence, lining up for free food money or goods edition.

Even tho they have a big banner on the building itself, people still come up to us and other people in the line asking what are we lining up for. It’s a thing, education and knowledge.

We have been waiting for quite some time now..they start at 11am but the time is now like almost 1pm. Damn, we got here a bit later than we wanted so we paid the price in time. The family in front of us had the kids doing other shit during this time while at least one the parents just stood the line, good use of time. At the very front of the line were old ass Chinese aunties and uncles waiting for their free shit too. They probably been camping it since it opened at 10am exactly. This is probably my future too.

We can finally see inside, good shit. from here another half hour I guess, damn.

This is a new thing they added this year I think, the CNE food awards or something highlighting the most iconic/best food for that year. I don’t know, it seems they only started this last year and some of their choices are sus, some seem like retroactive classics like Tiny Tom or Colossal Onion, which have been here forever.

Proof of line existence, we are almost there edition. It has been like 2 hours but hopefully this will pay off.

We finally get to the red carpet and get to see some of the appliance prizes that can be won. Hm, honestly some of these are cheap shit lol. The food bucks coupons you get are probably worth more than some of these.

New this year they introduce the kiddie kids wheel which is for kids under a certain age. The prizes for kids are shitty but more age appropriate, like lego sets and toys, maybe Pokemon card packs maybe not sure. The worst prize is probably a free slice of pizza, the worst. The last time I came to Products day that was a prize on the normal wheel, truly the worse.

The time has come for my sister to decide her destiny. Spin that wheel, er press that button that simulates a digital wheel. At least the kids wheel it is an actual wheel you spin.

In the end, we both spin that digital wheel, we both got CNE food building Food Bucks lol. Not bad, while basically the default prize, it’s actually quite good since each envelope is $40 food bucks, which means that’s a decent amount of food to be brought and saved.

While it would have been nice/fun to win a physical prize like an appliance, which my sister and myself have won in previous years, food bucks not bad man, not bad at all.

One of the new gimmick foods this year is jamacian beef patty pierogis from this place, lets see how it cost.

Using our food bucks, we get our jamaican polish fusion pierogi. I can’t remember the cost but it was probably like or least $16-20, that’s like half of one individual’s food bucks lol. They were alright but nothing special, yea they tasted like Jamaican patty filling but kind of dry, not the kind of pierogi that I am used to.

At another angle some of the other prizes, hmm, not that good but still, free is free so can’t really comlain if you win these. One very large friend group all wanted Food Bucks. When you go spin the wheel they ask you what do you want to win, some people say like slow cooker or whatever but this group all wanted Food Bucks, at they almost all got it, except for one that got a slow cooker lol.

We saw them before in the line but our aunt and cousins were also here today for Products Day for the first time, they had no idea about it untill we told them about it last year/before. Now they are here to get nice free shit. Proof of meeting existence.

Because it is tradition, gotta get those OG perogies that our mom loves on behalf of tradition since she’s not here today. The price for 7 is basically $10 dollars now wow. Once upon a time, I remember this was like $3-5 dollars I think back in the day.

Always solid always there for you, pour one out for my mom, who didn’t go this year to the CNE.

Hmm looks like these marry me mochi doughnut has started a place in the food building. I like pondorings-like things but I am not sure if I like this company however, they have a location at STC and I have yet to try them, probably one day but I don’t like their name or branding at all.

I can’t remember if this is new or not but they have base pasta and some other italian american fare, I am pretty sure Nonna ain’t making shit from this place however.

Super noodle company looking pretty dead today. Last year they were super busy and popular with their dumpling offering but this year? I don’t think they have anything new or viral on social media anymore so no one cares anymore, wow.

Gus Tacos was here last year I noticed, perhaps I will have some today for revenge. They have lots of locations apparently, just I haven’t seen any of them around.

I am glad after all these years this Epic Burger place is still around and doing fine. I remember their krisme creme burger was the thing like a decade or so ago and how they gave people food poisoning to everybody one year with their bacon jam or something. This is what this place is known/remembered for. Not bad burgers, but the story and repuatation is stronger.

I think this is new, Black Camel, is in the spot where for many years Frans had their location, with their one time famous thanksgivings turkey stuffing sandwhich. Since they are dead at CNE, perhaps we should try this new sandwich place.

Interesting system and menu and a bold claim of being the best sandwich in Toronto, we’ll see about that.

My sister and I both got the same thing, beef brisket sandwich, mine with a little less toppings however, I should have gotten more since I could have used it for the Food Bucks, I think this was like the last of my food bucks, with maybe 1-2 dollars left. Not bad Food bucks, not bad. The sandwiches themselves was alright, the pulled beef brisket was good but the sauces only added a little but, needed more stuff honestly. The bread was cold so I would have liked it to be at least room temp or hot/warm but whatever, it’s not the type of bread I like, more kaiser roll, I think a softer bread would be better or brioche. Overall, Black Camel is a fraud, they are not the best sandwiches in the city obviously but it’s still a decent sandwich but could be so much better considering the price.

With our bellies filled for lunch for now, time to play some bait ass games in the midway and look at the current selection of prizes offered. Nice frog and hello kitty shit.

Not bad hot dog and pizza, anything with a face like this is like automatically pretty good. When I came alone last year, the prizes were horrible, this year is seems like their shit is pretty good. My sister says because I came in the last weekend, all of the good prizes were gone and had to be replaced with shit ones, hence my visual experience was so lackluster last year. Hm, makes sense I guess.

First blood of the day, my sister won on the birthday game I think, nice cone but far too small for the amount of money we spent on trying to get some of the bigger plush.

Why so many ducks? They kinda fugly you know, perhaps that’s the trend these days, ugly ass plush since that’s what the kids want. Who knows.

Nice watermelon and pineapple creatures. My sister and I played this game, just the two of us, so it was just a gimme buy win lol.

We traded the ice cream cone with some other thing we won to get this bigger tier goat I think, can’t remember. Might have been a real win. Not bad I guess.

We played this water gun game too, on the bottom they had some nice plushies of vegatables and fruits that can be transformed into animals liek bunnies and shit so why not. I ended up winning for real, out of 4 players, I won, nice, but then the person was like, we don’t have the bunny or fruit ones now, they are gone. Fraud what the fuck man, why even put them on display then if you don’t have them. In the end I settled on getting one of those red pandas, very incline retarded looking, very Toronto I guess.

I can’t remember what happened here but I think my sister traded the white goat for this orange Axolotl. Good trade I’d say noice.

I also can’t remember what happened here, I think we played the birthday game again and won for real, so combined trade up maybe won the hot dog. Not bad. Trading up is the way to go to get what you want I guess. Hardly anyone wins straight up the thing they want. At this time we were carrying alot of bulky ass plush toys so we just headed back to the car to drop them off, I mean, that’s one of the great benefits of parking literally inside the CNE grounds, you can do this. I didn’t even take a picture of the Red Panda but my sister has the photo so yea, we still have it, I tried to trade it with something else from a few other places and they said no, it has to be the same type or shit that particular game already stocks or has had before. I dunno man, I think they just don’t want the Red Panda. My sister traded in a goat for this Axolotl so why? Discrimination probably.

After dropping off our winnings for today I think we are done with the midway games, we won enough. Walking the route to the enercare center for the rest of the stuff.

Hm, I think this is new this year? Dirty Sodas? Sounds kinda dirty. They may have been here last year and didn’t’ notice them at the time but dunno.

They sound interesting but at $12 that’s quite alot for sugar water and more ice cream and shit added into it.

Looks like 100% AI generated art for sure, back in the day people actually used to paint and draw on these attraction pieces, guess AI is too strong and effective and cost efficient, can’t blame them really.

I’ve never ridden this thing in all my years going to the CNE I don’t think, not going to start going today. For some people it’s a tradition to go on this thing, for me, it’s to not. That tradition will continue. The remnants of world cup branding is on some shit, I guess they were having their fairs during that time aswell.

Remanets of world cup frenzy is everywhere still, nice pillows. Labubus are basically dead already from what I understand. What’s with the lilo stitch plushies tho, didn’t know it came it so many different colors.

Near the gates they always have food trucks, this particular one is directly sponsored shilled by sprite/coke hmm interesting.

Looks like some of that scarborugh tamil kothru roti is beginning to be made in food trunks hmm, perhaps this is the new big food trend. I’ve been seeing more of this around lately. The rest of the food trunks were more of the same usual burgers and Mexican/fries/chicken sandwiches, nothing especially of note so we continued our route.

Inside the enercare center now, especially empty and less people cause it’s a wednesday after all.

I think for once these plant contest things is actually going on live right now, I never usually see them in action, just after the fact once they have won.

Them natives at it again as per usual, making dem comics, giving them goods, spreading the word of the spirit of the wind.

I find this a bit odd, just out there Bubble tea at the EX huh? lol kinda jokes but their images are appealing like the TAHO.

They also have the Icee vendor right beside it too, which is nice since now you have a choice of nice beverage other than pure sugar water. In the end, I still brought a Icee, cause it’s tradition I guess.

I also ended up getting a TAHO, I wasn’t entirely sure what it was other than it reminded me of the ginger milk tofu dessert that I have sometimes when you go to dimsum/Chinese restaurant. I looked it up and apparently this is kinda like the Filipino equivalent, basically very similar but the syrup is sweeter and they put some tapioca pearls in there. Overall it was nice but the texture and temperature was questionable, it was a bit too thick and basically room temperature, I would have preferred it either cold or hot, it was neither so it kinda eh. Would not again unless they tell me what temperature it’s supposed to be, it matters a lot.

I am not sure if these guys got the memo but the world cup ended like over a month ago. Strange how even then there is still so many relics around promoting and reminding it. I suppose the CNE is a traveling fare after all and they may have held their shit elsewhere while it was going on.

Got some stage show going on singing and shit as per usual.

Unlike last year which has a fairly big and ambitous immersive experience installation, this year we got…this dome thing for space theme. And it wasn’t even working when we passed by, damn, what a major downgrade from last year, what happened?

I thought the science center was dead? Apparently it isn’t and they have some temp location where they set up, which I am sure no one knows about really. Their exhibt here is all about space things and the moon since, you know, why not.

They have something of a ghetto stamp activity rally within their small space like compare which of these photos is the real one.

Or count how many earth it takes to get to the moon in terms of distance, using these nice magnets.

After doing some more tasks our stamp card is filled and if you bring it to the front they take you and a bunch of other people who also completed the tasks to a special room with this hype man hyping up space rocks and this, our prize is to bear witness to this moon rock in the safe. Yay I guess. He has another small fragment of a moon rock which he went around and allowed us to touch, ok sure I guess? He also let us know that the science center isn’t dead and that they relocated to some other place but whatever. He said that the new science center is expected to be completed in 2029 and one of the other guests laughed, “ha,more like 2032 maybe”, I was like “really? how about 2035 if we are lucky”. It’s so over.

After our science center rock hype we exit from the booth and they have some merch and some other goods.

Local brampton space company company MDA Space have a sizable presence for some reason at this building. I guess it’s space time cause of SpaceX I guess?

Fairly nice stage to present nothing I guess. I am not sure why they need this stage other than to do hype shit for MDA.

Due to the huge MDA and in general space area, the ‘gaming’ area has been reduced drastically into basically nothing as seen above.

F1 racing sim is cool I guess but most not going to wait for this.

And that’s it, this area is the entire ‘gaming area’. So so sad what it has become. Last year they like a huge presence with PCs and esports and other computer company’s and shit shilling their shit, now it’s nothing. So sad.

In the space area they have like capsules and space shit for people to explore and whatever.

They have this floating ball for space shit and they had their acrobatic people doing some shit on it in space like suits, kinda ghetto but yea, it’s a thing.

In this hallway they usually have some more interesting shit, this year it’s just history of sport at CNE, which basically no one cares about and is basically zero interest. Look how dead this is compared to previous years.

Proof of sad sports existence.

What is this anime north? there is still a fair share of anime goods stores trying to sell shit but I am almost certain are kinda bootleg shit.

And here it is again, the moment we have been searching for. The Canadian Farmers religion christian thing where if you listen to their mini story or something you get a nice stick. Oh boi, look at that line.

Unlike previous years, we decided fuck it, let’s try getting the sticks this time. So after a not that long wait, we were at the front where we listened to some women talk about some beads and sin or whatever and then was like, ok you can get a stick now. Yay, first stick gotten.

After we got our sticks went to the main attraction, the Ice show. The same kind of thing that I had failed to get to last year.

This is still like pretty early, like 30min before the show and still not alot of people not bad, noice.

Proof of show existence and stick got, I did not fail this time edition.

By the time the show starts a lot more of the seats have filled up which is nice but still not a pack house by any means. Nice umbrella things.

Old man elvis stojko still doing his thing as he still got it. Must be the mccain fruit juice and frozen fries.

They had a carney like freak show kinda performance where this women was suspended by only her hair as a connection to the wire cable. Man it was like what the hell is this? How can her hair support her body weight, freak show indeed.

Umbrellas, I think they played alot of urban pop and related songs, it was a bit hood but not much, still mainly white people tunes which is fine.

In the end the show was alright, pretty solid, not better or worse than the last ice show I saw 2 years ago. Good shit. I remember one year they had some bullshit not skating performance with just projections on the floor and that was horrible with some environmentalist story and some drones, not good. In my opinion, this should always be an Ice show, anything else feels kinda ghetto otherwise as people are used to it by now.

After the ice show we immediately like up for the super dogs show. This is the first time I went to this show lining up like this from the outside, they used to line up from inside the area with carpets but apparently last year they changed it  huh.

Got inside after a brief wait. Lets see dem dawgs.

We lined up with one of our cousins cause they were also in the line too, so why not. Proof of dawg show sitting existence.

Show was base, as expected. Nothing really noteworthy other than I think this year the theme was shit, I think it was superheroes but the dogs in the show were all worse than I remember for this year for some reason. Not that much funny so who knows.

Fake flower display in the front of the enercare building, nothing of really note, other than I still remember this is where the sand shit once was.

Like last year Spam for some reason has a food stand, I think the novelty will eventually wear off once people realize you can make spam musabi and other such Hawaiian dishes at home for a fraction of the cost compared to whatever they are charging for it here.

With the dog show done and on our way out, it was time for dinner, first order of business, use the last of our Food bucks to partially pay for some of that nice colossal onion, it’s tradition.

Pretty good shit as usual, this year it was I think better than normal because they fried it quite well and actually drained it for a few minutes meaning it was not as greasy as previous years, good shit.

My sister went and also got some sushi nachos or something. All the Food bucks are long gone now and she said that for what it costs, it’s good but totally not worth it.

This Asian family sitting beside us going ham on dem onions too. Looks like the women saw me taking her proof of existence photo.

Also as per tradition, gotta buy from this san francisco veal sandwich but damn, they were so slow. There wasn’t any other customers ahead of be besides this couple but these guys were like ordering something like 4-5 sandwiches which each one with varying levels of customization/speal treatment. For instance one of them they instructed for the bread not to be spread with tomato sauce, but the dude did it already and so when they called him out, he just threw the bread away and started again, another one only wanted the sauce on one side, another wanted the whole thing dipped in sauce, another order was chicken but they had veal so they had to fry a new one etc. There was only this one guy making sandwiches even tho the booth had like 5 people working on it, 2 for frying, 1 for cashier, 1 for sandwich assembly and the manager just standing around doing nothing. Apparently this is the second time this couple has ordered from this place and were taking sandwiches back home with them and the manager noticed them so he gave them a free dessert or something, sure, your spending like probably $200 or so if you repeat customer cumulatively so sure why not. I was the next in line but because of how slow these guys were and shit I was waiting for like 15-20 min, shittt. When the time came for my sandwhich, it was simple and yea, I took it home for tomorrows lunch/dinner. It’s good shit man but still, why is it every time I come to this place it’s so damn slow, it’s just a fried veal sandwich I have no idea. Maybe just asshole customers and workers.

Since I just had the not-blooming onion and was taking home the veal sandwich, decided to try out Gus Tacos finally this year. Looks pretty affordable considering CNE prices.

They had a decent amount of customers still but once again a bit slow in service I dunno, it’s a Wednesday.

I got their Al Pastor tacos, there was 3 for $19 so yea not bad I think. The meat is very tasty and all the topping quite fresh. You can put whatever salsa on when you get your tacos, I put all of them on and they are taste quite good, although one of them was a bit more spicy that I realized although that’s fine, I can handle the spice. Would again, if I ever see Gus tacos elsewhere outside in the wild, would get again too.

After finishing up our dinner we headed to the Farm, the order of things we see this year is out of whack because where we parked but that’s fine. Optimal efficiency.

Sand shit here, been demoted for a past number of years, forever people do not care about anymore sad. The theme this year is probably nursery rimes and fairy tales or something I guess.

Oh yea boi, bees, time you buy my yearly honey supply from here. Gotta buy local honey you know, can’t trust dem billy bee, could be full of fake shit.

Not sure if this was always here but they have maple syrup being sold at the farm now. Hmm interesting. This guy was talking to the shop keeper and asking where they got their shit from, apparently this maple syrup is from Markham/Scarborough, from a farm just above steeles rd called Sweet Ridge Farms. dude is like “Nice, maple syrup from Scarborough huh? Sounds good to me.” Indeed, it does sound good to me as I also brought some too.

I didn’t know there was so many different grades and types of maple syrup, I though they all roughly the same wow. Interesting. I asked the dude selling, which is the best type for basic ass pancakes and whatever and he said the middle kind so I was like alright, I’ll take some of that, and I did.

Let’s have a stroll of the farm, see what’s different. It was about the same I think lol.

Apparently my sister says that big diary in Canada are trying to corrupt the youth into their importance by creating a minecraft server, I didn’t believe it at first but then I saw this. Damn, guess it’s true lol.

Horse area, gotta try to promote that harness horse racing you know, umas in canada I suppose. I don’t remember this kind of chariot racing ever but it seems interesting I guess.

A horse, he didn’t move at all. Not sure if sleep or just starting at all the guests looking at him.

Once we finished the farm, we moved to the craft area, which was pretty empty since it was almost closing time. This store had bootleg 3d printed bullshit for sale, like types and other misc items. Hmm.

Pretty bootleg i’m a bit surprised they were even allowed to sell at the CNE, guess they don’t care. Oh look it’s a magical cone and shit. My sister ended up buying some shit from here for some reason.

Eternal candy lollypop store forever. It was be here till the end of time or untill the CNE dies.

That gimmick movie goods store that once had the Leg has a new look. No more leg which is a shame but it’s just the passing of time I suppose, that shit is like over 40 years old now, nobody cares other than boomers and genx.

Shadow of it’s former self, debbies dep is just a small ass little booth now, It has a sign that says 25 years at the CNE, damn, that’s a long time. I remember when the shop keeper/owner actually manned the shop instead of this new black women, guess she’s too old now to man the shop herself now.

Superior meats, my sister says they got a new brand refresh. I don’t even remember what they used to look like.

As we are quite literally on our way out from the CNE, we decide to get some corn dogs as per tradition. We asked the lady to make fresh dipped ones for us instead of the ones just sitting around.

The cost of corndogs is super expensive, this particular vendor had some special ones but we just opted for the regular corndog, still $10 is quite something, so expensive.

Behold, our expensive $10 corn dogs. We ate them fresh while walking to the car. Hmm, I am not sure but I think that it’s over lol. The corndogs are kinda shit lol, even though we had them freshly made, they still taste kinda bad, like the dog quality itself is shit and the corn batter is like not even mainly corn anymore, it feels like they mix in regular ass flour now so it’s nice corn flavor is diluted so much now. It’s dissapointing but after a few years now they have been a letdown, sad, they used to be so good but I think it’s time to let it go, and not get them anymore since they so expensive. I was willling to pay money for them when they were good but when they are shit, I am not sure anymore. I mean, the mini corndogs that we had on the Disney cruise were wayyy better than this, and that’s saying something. They are so cheap here at the CNE now, sad. After our sad dog we got back into our car and left for the long drive home.

Well then, that ends our CNE products day trip for this year. I was not a insanity solo journey like last year but it was still the same old, which isn’t a problem as I don’t expect much from the CNE really, I expect it to be the same, just for nostalgia sake and tradition. It is disappointing and sad that the gaming area was majorly gutted in favor for space shit and the space shit wasn’t even that good but I suppose it’s just a reflection of the times with SpaceX and ruin everyday. The CNE overall in my opinion this year is actually a little worse, it seems a bit cheaper considering what they were offering and I don’t think there was any special night shows or otherwise but that’s maybe because it was a weekday but who knows. Food building solid as usual and products day Food Bucks cannot be beat in terms of free money. Would I go again? Of course, it’s the CNE and tradition, but it’s even better if it’s on Food Products day, since free money. Good shit.