2009 Road Trip Day 7 - Harbourfront Centre and Royal Ontario Museum

We went to the Harbourfront Centre in the morning... The right is the Queen's Quay Terminal

Then we walked along Lake Ontario...

CN Tower seen from Harbourfront Centre...

Breakfast at Tim Horton's...

It tasted good, nicer than McDonald's... =p

More photos of CN Tower as you can see it almost everywhere... The right photo shows CN Tower and the Union Station...

The McDonald's logo in Canada is special as there's a maple leaf on it...

The Museum subway station is nicely decorated...

Very interesting bicycle stands outside the Royal Ontario Museum...

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is Canada's largest museum on world culture and natural history. It contains more than six million items and over 40 galleries and is the fifth largest museum in North America... It is a must see Toronto attraction as it has many interesting exhibits...

The main entrance of the ROM is to the newly opened Michael Lee-Chin Crystal...

We first went for the museum tour which gave us an overview and brought us to some of the main galleries of ROM... Later then we went back to the various galleries to walk around... We walked around the ground level of ROM while waiting for the tour to begin... These are Nisga'a and Haida Totem Poles and they grace the ROM's main stairways

The mosaic ceiling of the domed entrance to ROM...

Left: The painting "The Death of General Wolfe" by Benjamin West.
Right: A 19th century copy after Benjamin West's painting. The difference is in the colour of Wolfe's uniform - it is yellow ochre and red in contrast to all red in the original painting.

After the tour we went to walk around ROM and re-visit some of the galleries... The following are exhibits from the Gallery of Canada: First Peoples... The left photo is a Birchbark canoe, an essential mode of transportation among the Native hunters and trappers of Canada...

Left: Model of an Iroquoian longhouse - a narrow (7m wide) and long (14m to over 100m) wooden structure.

Left: An everyday outfit worn in the Great Lakes region in the early 19th century.
Right: A house post representing a bear.

Hadrosaur dinosaur...

The following are exhibits from the Chinese Galleries...

Left: Temple bell from the Zhengde period of the Ming dynasty.
Right: Buddhist stele from the Northern Wei dynasty.

Some sculptures...

Ming tomb belonging to Zu Dashou, a general who defended the Ming dynasty from Manchu attacks...

Left: Stone sculpture of a civil official wearing Ming-style court robe found leading up to the Zu family tombs.
Right: Stone sculpture of a military official wearing Ming-style armour found leading up to the Zu family tombs.

Carriage made from wood, bronze and iron from the Qing dynasty. It was the standard means of passenger transportation from the 17th to early 20th century...

Stone camels that line the path to an important tomb in North China. In Southern China, they would be replaced by horses...

Reconstruction of the corner of a 17th-century Chinese Imperial Palace building from the Qing dynasty. All parts were custom made in China and shipped to Toronto. A team of 10 Chinese artisans from Beijing assembled and painted the building at ROM. Only traditional Chinese materials and building techniques were used...

Exhibits from the Age of Dinosaurs and Age of Mammals galleries...
Right: Oviraptoroaur theropod cast, 66 million years old. Oviraptorosaurs have a beak rather than teeth.

Video clip showing how large a Barosaurus is! The structure is part real and part replica... Barosaurus are from the Late Jurassic period and are 150 million years old... They have very long necks and tails and small elongate skulls. It reached a length of 24 metres and weighed about 15000 kg.

Exhibits from the Gallery of Africa: Egypt...
Left: Coffin belonging to a chantress of the god Amun.
Right: Canopic jars are jars used for preserving human organs.

Left: Statue of the goddess Sakhmet.
Right: Mummy case of Djedmaatesankh, a female musician in the temple of Amun-Re in Thebes.

Left: Mummy-case with mummy of Antjau.

Mummy cover of a temple singer from Thebes. The yellow background and style is typical of the 21st dynasty when Egyptian power was diminished. Since kings and nobles were no longer building elegant tombs at Thebes, the artists there are available to decorate coffins of the priesty class...

Exhibits from the Gallery of Greece...

Larnax (coffin) from Minoan Crete. Clay coffins became the standard type of burial vessel on the island of Crete from about 1400 to 1100 BC. Such coffins are also painted.

Left: Greek helmet found at the battlefield of Marathon, 490BC.
Middle: 'Illyrian' helmet that is beaten from a single sheet of bronze, a type found in mainland Greece and Yugoslavia. Reportedly found at the battlefield of Plataia, 479 BC.
Right: Greek-style leg armour, a standard piece of armour won by the Greek foot-soldier (hoplite).

Left: Various remains of statues...
Right: Outer and Inner faces of Parthenos Shield.

Exhibits from Gallery of Textiles and Costume...
Left: Woman's evening dress in Zig-Zag Shell print from England (London).
Right: Hand-loomed textiles made in Canada. Weaving or interlacing 2 or more sets of yarns at right angles products a structure called a textile. A loom is a tool for controlling the precise interaction of these yarns in a repeatable manner.

Handweaving in Canada which reflects the weaving traditions brought by European settlers...

Housepaint Exhibition at ROM by the Institute for Contemporary Culture on the subject of street art. It is a collaboration between ten street artists. Each artist has painted a colourful canvas house in their personal, exuberant style.

We were back at St. Lawrence's Market to try those food that we wanted to try on Sat but were too full... =p It was near closing time so there were not many people there, a sharp contrast to Sat... There was a lot of people eating at this place on Sat and we had decided that we must try it then...

Waiting for our food... Both very hungry...

Our food - Fried Calamari and Fish N Chips!! The calamari was the last serving, luckily we were one step earlier as it was good!! The fish and chips were great too!! =)

We also had pasta from this stall... We had tried their samples of Sat and like it so we were back to try it... We had ravioli, a type of filled pasta with a mixture of meat and veggie filling... Yummy!! =)

Nathan Philips Square...

Nathan Philips Square with the Old City Hall in the background...

The City Hall of Toronto, built to replace the Old City Hall

Then we went to Eaton Centre... It is a large shopping mall with lots of shops but we did not buy anything. The right shows the display of 60 life-size Canada geese. They are hand-tinted black and white photographs on cast fibreglass forms...

Took a break from the walking and tried a frozen yoghurt at Yogen Fruz. Basically you choose 2 fruits and they will blend it for you... It was too sour for my liking, think we chose the wrong fruits. And I did not like the huge number of seeds from the berry... =(

And we were back at Chinatown again!! Hehe.... Not extremely hungry but how can we give good food a miss? This is another Zagat rated restaurant plus other articles on it pasted on the glass windows... It is also mentioned in Lonely Planet...

Waiting for our food...

We ordered their 招牌面 and 招牌粥 which are basically noodles soup and congee... It was delicious!! The fish cakes and fish balls were very nice!! The beef in the noodles soups was good too!! Another satisfying meal... No regrets coming in for a try... =)

Me tucking into the noodles... =p