Toronto Landing

I landed in Toronto last night. Everything was soooooo smooth.

I got out of the plane to do customs. The customs personnel asked if I had been to Canada before, then she maked my card to indicate that i am immigrating. I was directed to immigration office where i was asked to take a seat. About 5mins later, a gentleman asked me to come to his office and he quickly did my immigration. He asked if i am bringing in more than 10000 CAD. He didnt ask to see anything but the passport and COPR and he did ask for a local address. After that, i left him and as i was leaving, a woman called me and asked if i was landing. So i said yes. She then proceeded to give me a binder with information, etc. Very helpful and very welcoming.

After that i picked up my baggage and as i was leaving that area, i was directed to another where i had to give them a goods to follow list. My goods to follow list was printed from excel and did not have value attached to each item. So he asked me to put a value to each item and then he processed it. We laughed a lot during the whole process and then the next moment, i was out of the airport and inside Canada proper.

If you want to get to downtown from the airport, you can either take a taxi or public transport. I landed in terminal 3 so when I came out, there was an information desk. Near the info desk is an ATM machine, so i withdrew some money and got some change from the money changer next to the info desk and the ATM. With $3 in coins, i took a bus (bus 192) from the airport to subway station and the subway is free with the same bus ticket so I took the subway to downtown. If you need to transfer from the subway to another bus, then you can get a transfer ticket. Hold on to your original bus ticket, in case they ask at the subway (which didn't happen to me).

At one place where I needed to change subway, I was looking lost. One random guy came up to me and said, "you look lost, can I help?". I told him where I was going and he gave me the direction to the train I needed to take. Such a pleasant experience.

I came to my hotel, showered and slept. Today is my admin day at Service Canada and then open a bank account and then fly out tomorrow.

Things to remember when you land:
COPR and passport obviously,
Address to send PR card (if you don't have friends in Canada, I am not sure what people give them),
Address where you are staying,
goods to follow list with value attached to each item,
funds (I only had a bank statement from one bank and a cheque written out from another bank but it was a personal check).

They didn't ask to see either the bank statement or cheque. I am not sure if I should have told the customs person that I am bringing in more than $10 000 but it was written on my customs form. I did tell the immigration guy when he asked.

Hope all of you have a pleasant landing as I did.