ROMmania

The Royal Ontario Museum (locally known as the ROM) is one of my favourite buildings in Toronto, a bold combination of old and modern. It is the largest museum in Canada and houses around six million items. Most of its recent attention has been due to it architectural additions however rather than the exhibits.
Since we've been coming to Toronto they've been wanting an extension to the building to give them more exhibit space. They also wanted something new and modern to dress up the older looking building. So what they now have is known as the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. They haven't just added an extension to the building, they've turned it into a piece of modern art. Not everyone likes it however, in fact many hate it, but I like the combination of the old and the new.

If you look closely at it it appears that the new addition is just haphazardly added to it. Windows are partially covered by the new structure, there are gaps here and there that look like they should have been avoided. From the inside you can see areas where it joins the old building where it cuts across large doorways and creates small rooms of weird angels that don't appear to be of any use. While in the museum the other day we noticed a window that has been blocked over by the crystal but leaving a foot gap to the outside world that was full of snow.
The addition has just been completed, and when we went on Thursday it was to see the dinosaur exhibition that's just re-opened inside the crystal. Lots of dinosaurs.

Last month an art group got several hundred people together outside the building and staged a mass light sabre fight up and down the street. In one newspaper a writer said it was probably a suitable location since it looks like a star destroyer has crashed into the building.

Worst storm in recent history

Or so they tell us at least. If this is the worst that Toronto gets, then it's fine with us.

So Saturday/Sunday we had a major storm front come across north east North America. It dumped a lot of snow across north easter United States and eastern Canada. Generally in Toronto it amounts to about 25-30 cm, but due to the strong winds it is generally in drifts much deeper.

They do a decent job of keeping the main roads plowed, but all the plows do is push the snow to the side of the road. This is great for cars, but pedestrians have to break out of their fort of snow and push through or climb over the 4 foot piles of snow to cross the road. I should have bought some rope and crampons. The drifts mean some places there is only a couple of cm of snow, which makes it easy enough to get around on the major routes, but it can be many feet deep in some places as we found out on our little walk about. Incidentally in the photo below our building is the one in the middle of the photo, to the left of the Rogers Centre.
The quays by the lake are starting to freeze over now with large bits of ice making its way into the harbour area. The ducks love it as it gives them somewhere to sit while on the water, but I don't think the local sailing club is going anywhere. In the second photo below that is one the Toronto Marine Fire Stations in the background with the fire boat moored alongside (not the little one, but the larger one behind it.)

One the lakefront there is a large outdoor ice-skating rink, though I may have mentioned that before. Anyway, they had to clear off a lot of snow to get access to the benches.

Land of the Mole People: Part II

The PATH system is mainly maintained by the management of the buildings it goes under, as technically it is mainly retail space in their towers. By and large though the system is very well maintained and in some places becomes quite rich looking as the large companies try to show their wealth. For example below is an example of the food court and a bit of the retail area below BCE Place in the Financial District.

And another area below the Scotiabank Plaza building where they carry on the red stone construction of their main tower.

It does seem quite strange down there sometimes, especially coming from the UK. When I took these photos it was a Saturday afternoon, but most retail outlets in the PATH system were closed. Under the Financial District they mainly cater for the banks and associated office tower and as a result the area is extremely busy weekday lunchtimes, and dead the rest of the time. As you can see from the photo there aren't even shutters on most of the areas, anyone could clamber into the stores at any time, but they don't.

Another example of this odd openness on the PATH system is this bank that is within it. It's a branch of the TD bank, that anyone could walk into at any time. It's completely open, and while I'm sure there are security cameras around, you don't see many guards except in the main foyers of the buildings. Also note that the banking staff aren't behind glass panels separated from the public.

Land of the Mole People: Part I

So as it's colder now (it's currently a rare day if it reaches 0 degrees), people tend to spend a bit more time indoors while travelling around. Thankfully in Toronto you can do this. It is possible to travel a long way around downtown via the PATH system, a network of underground tunnels in the downtown core. 27 km of tunnels connect the major buildings of downtown with pedestrian access throughout the area.

Our closest entrance is just beside the CN Tower and from there we can get to the Atrium on Bay north of Dundas Street on Yonge just over a kilometre away in a straight line. This works out to be about two kilometres by foot through the PATH system.

It's not just a series of bland tunnels though, every km of the system has shops, dental surgeries, food courts, post offices and all manner of services. In fact it qualifies as the largest underground shopping complex in the world. The majority of it is open 24 hours a day (the section through The Bay closes late at night due to the fact it goes right through the heart of the department store.) There are six subways stations, one mainline station, two concert halls, a convention centre, sports stadium, at least four major hotels, the headquarters of all of Canada's major banks and the City Hall connected to the system. You walk through office buildings that you wouldn't normally consider entering, though that is quite commonplace in Canada as most office buildings have public access facilities on the ground floor (and sometimes elsewhere.)

It's a really strange place, a little tricky to find your way around, but we're getting there. Just on Thursday night we were trying to find a restaurant connected to the system in BCE Place, and ended up walking about a kilometer and a half when if we'd taken a different turning straight out of Union Station it was only a block away. It's all part of the learning process.

Freak weather

Okay, we've had cold snaps and snow on and off for a couple of weeks now, but on Tuesday we had the most bizarre weather I've ever seen. Looking out the window of the lounge it was relatively clear and you could see right the way around the lake. A couple of minutes later a massive set of grey clouds rolled in. There was a giant curtain of grey air that just blanketed the view. Imagine something out of a science fiction movie where a giant curtain of weather just rolls forward.

Anyway this curtain of sleet and snow just rolled in from the west, you could see it advancing quite rapidly and clearly. It was solid and as it moved in it just devoured buildings as it came. Really bizarre watching condo towers just disappear into this band of murk that was coming forward at a great pace.

Then it hit us. Massive sleet for several minutes, the side window of the lounge just completely sleeted up solid and you couldn't see a thing. Then it was gone, and three minutes later we had blinding sunlight.

Never seen anything like it, very bizarre. It was like something was travelling along just eating up the city as it came.

Well now we're down to snow squalls at irregular intervals and it's -9 outside at the minute. This proved unfortunate for the film crew outside filming Jude Law's new film at the tower opposite last night, but what do they expect doing filming in Toronto in November?