June 10, 2007 - So as I mentioned in my previous post, after 10 years of avoiding Wonderland, I finally went this weekend! Now I haven't purposely avoided Wonderland per se - it was more like I was never really interested. This is partly because I'm EXTREMELY TERRIFIED of height, thrill rides and roller coasters. I just don't like that feeling of being flung by machines - it's just so scary =(
So when B asked if I'm interested, I was a bit hesitant at first - given I know I probably would not want to go on most rides. But I figured hey, if little kids can do it - I can totally do it. But nope, I was wrong. The first ride I went on, the Spinovator, is supposed to be like riding the tea cups at Disneyland (only faster and on a slanted floor). Anyway, I FREAKED OUT on the ride - I screamed, yelled, cried, begged for it to stop. I felt like I was going to fall out of the basket and die right there. It was actually really pathetic and thinking back, I'm kinda embarrassed about it. The next ride was the Rage - the pirate ship. I was THIS CLOSE to getting off the ride before the ride started. The hyperventilation did not help either - I felt like I was going to pass out when the safety bar was lowered. Having said that though, the ride turned out to be really mild and all the freaking out was for nothing.
So after those two freakish experiences, we split up for a bit - Jenny took me to Hanna Barbara land where we went on the only kiddie ride that we were allowed on (boo - that's height discrimination I tell you) while B and Grace went on one of those crazy roller coasters. We met up afterwards for a really expensive and disgusting lunch, and then off to more rides that I could handle (the water ones, The Italian Job, Swings, Thunder Run and Bumper Cars). I also went on that Sponge Bob motion ride by myself - it was actually kinda cool, even though I'm not a big fan of Sponge Bob myself (it's kinda creepy actually).
I also played the Fool-the-Guesser game, where you pay 5 bucks and have the person guess your age, within 2 years. I've played that a couple of times, and of course I won each time. This time, the girl guessed I was 23, and was pretty shocked when I told her I just turned 27. I won this ugly orange Wonderland dog, which B refuses to put in his room. =(
So overall, I still had lots of fun. The funnel cake was good - though expensive and the strawberries tasted kinda funny. We also played this game called 20 questions, which seems to go on forever. And yeah, that's pretty much my Wonderland story. I feel bad that I wasn't cool enough (or as B nicely put it "man" enough) to go on the real rides =( maybe next year, we can start with the level 4 ones again. And in the meantime, I guess I'll let my 27 yr old body recover (sigh...so sad).
On a side note, can I just say how I was shocked by all these housing developments along Rutherford and Major Mackenzie Dr in Vaughan? There are so many new subdivisions in the area that the houses seem to stretch on forever!
June 7 - 10, 2007 - I honestly wasn't planning on blogging about my birthday this year, given how I'm really not a birthday person. Having said that though, I have to say this year is probably one of the best ever - having a great group of friends and an amazing boyfriend to celebrate (?) my big 2-7 with me certainly helped. So yeah, here's my annual, hypocritical birthday blog.
June 7: Cheesecake and Subway Buttons
I got to spend my actual birthday with B (much thanks to Alaska!). I came home from work to find a nicely decorated cheesecake with a generous amount of icing on it. Apparently B was planning on baking a cake, but he ran out of time and had to simply buy a cake and decorate it. It was still nice - I don't think anyone has ever baked and/or decorated a cake for me!! The cake was a bit sweet, but it was still very tasty :) and yeah, it would eventually take us a whole week to finish the cake.
B also made me dinner - it was SPAM with 3 different kinds of pepper - hahaha. I haven't had SPAM in a while, so it was all good. We watched The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - apparently he has been wanting to watch that for awhile.
B then surprised me with a half-complete set of the TTC subway buttons from Spacing magazine. It was kinda funny - we were talking about the buttons just earlier that night. Anyway, turns out he got them at the architecture bookstore and didn't know you could order the whole set from Spacing until a couple of days ago. Still super cool though - we have about 30 more buttons to go to finish the whole set, so if we buy a new one each year (like he suggested), I'll be 60 years old when the whole set is complete!
June 8: Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
We went to the zoo today! I haven't been there in a few years - and B hasn't been there since elementary school. Anyway, it was a really really hot day - and the zoo was packed with a million school kids. We saw pretty much all the animals we wanted to see, including the giraffes!! At the giraffe exhibit, we saw a whole bunch of kids who said they were born in 1999 - that really made us feel old (I was already in my first year of university in 1999 - sigh). We also saw snakes - which freaked Bernard out a bit (though he kept wanting to see them?). Anyway the zoo was loads of fun - though a bit expensive - but we both got a nice tan out of it though!
We then joined Queenie and Jenny for karaoke, dinner and Shrek 3. Queenie had just came back from Europe, so we chatted about her trip quite a bit (so jealous). Can't wait to see her pictures either!
June 9: Nearly died in Wonderland
Grace, Jenny, B and I went to Wonderland today!! holy crap!! I'll save that for another blog.
June 10: Of friends and family
My high school friends surprised me with a nice lunch at Milestone's. I wasn't expecting so many of them to show up - so that was super nice. My friends Amy and Ray had just came back from their honeymoon to Italy and Greece, so we talked about that quite a bit. It's really nice to just have a couple of days revolve around you I guess! A part of me also can't believe that I've celebrated more than 15 previous birthdays with these people already. As for gifts, I got a new set of dishes/cutlery from Freeman - I think that's his way of saying "stop borrowing my dishes/kitchen utensils, you cheap-ass! here's some new ones!"
I also had a nice dinner with my parents - they gave me a nice new tie (now I just have to learn how to tie it) and my sister gave me a nice shirt from American Eagle. Nothing special, just a quiet night at home with the folks.
And there you have it, my 27th. What made this year special was I got to spend it with everyone that I like and enjoy hanging out with. A big thank you to everyone for remembering my b-day and for taking the time (and money) out to celebrate it with me. :D
June 3, 2007 - After almost five years of planning, construction, and much controversy, the highly anticipated Michael Lee-Chin Crystal officially opened today at the Royal Ontario Museum. As the centre-piece of the Renaissance ROM project, the Crystal, along the opening of new galleries, will completely rejuvenate one of the Toronto's most beloved cultural institutions and help create a new civic landmark for the city.
The man behind the Crystal is the international renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, who also designed the famous Jewish Museum in Berlin (one of the most beautiful museums I've ever visited) and the original design for the Freedom Tower in New York. Libeskind was said to have drawn the first sketch of the ROM crystal on a napkin, and while the final design is slightly different (due to engineering and costs reasons), the Crystal still stands out as a sight to behold.
To celebrate the opening of the Crystal, the ROM opened its doors to the public starting at midnight today for a free 24 hour architectural preview. With our love for cities, buildings, design, and museums, of course Bernard and I were not going to miss this "event of the year" (you can read Bernard's thoughts on the ROM here). So yesterday (Saturday) morning, we woke up super early and made our way to the ROM to get those tickets. Our goal was to be among the first group of people to be inside the Crystal. When we got there at 9:45 am, there were already 10 or so people lining up outside for tickets (and they weren't giving them out till noon!). By 11:45 am though, the line had stretched all the way around the block to Trinity College!
The line-up wasn't so bad and I got to meet pretty much everyone from B's architecture class. We also launched into a debate about planners vs. architects vs. engineers - with the conclusion that planners, despite being the most important, never get any respect!!! Anyway, by 12:15 p.m., we were on our way back to uptown with those hot tickets in our hands.
At 11:30 p.m. that night, we were among the thousands of people lining up outside the new Bloor Street entrance of the Crystal, waiting to get in. The Crystal looks stunning illuminated - though I read somewhere that it would not be lighted up every night. By 12:30 am, we were inside the stunning new foyer of the ROM.
The ROM Crystal feels less intimate than the Jewish Museum - though this could be because the galleries are still bare at this time (and also the museum was packed). Having said that, the building is simply an architectural masterpiece. Here are some of my favourite parts of the new ROM:
1) The Stair of Wonder - the new staircase that extends from the basement to the fourth floor is not as spectacular as the old staircase with the totem pole, but it does feature some really neat exhibits along the way (everything from antlers to toy soldiers to bugs) and hence the staircase acts like a gallery on its own.
2) The windows - the small slices of window on the walls are perfect intimate places (we saw people crawling into them all night); the larger windows allow visitors to see the action on the street - and allow passerby on Bloor Street to see inside the museum, including the ROM's famous dinosaur displays.
3) The fourth floor - where the textile exhibit will be is a large yet intimate gallery with a ceiling filled with bright lights - definitely my favourite floor in the Crystal
4) The one and the new - the old facade of the original building was beautifully preserved and in some cases enhanced; visitors could see where the old meets the new in a carefully designed manner (apparently the new structure never actually touches the old building and merely meets it)
5) The open spaces, balconies and catwalks - they provide yet another way for visitors to enjoy the building and their museum experience, through carefully designed lookout points to galleries and floors above and below. I should also note that the walls themselves are a piece of art - none of them actually make a right angle with the ceiling.6) Spirit Room - Though no where as powerful as the Axis of Death/Axis of Continuity/Holocaust Tower/Garden of Exile in the Jewish Museum, the Spirit room was purposely left empty, in a quiet corner of the atrium, to allow visitors to reflect and contemplate on the exhibits.
Despite one unfortunate incident where I got yelled at by a security guard for climbing the wall like Spiderman, the architectural preview as definitely an unique experience. Eric, B and I ended up staying there till close to 4 am - and the crowd inside was only getting bigger. Whether you love it or hate it, it seems like the ROM Crystal is the talk of the town - and getting people talking and being excited about a building, much less a museum, is success in itself. Time will tell on whether The ROM Crystal will help alleviate the museum's status as a must-see in the city. But if the opening is any indication, I have no doubts the Crystal will find a place in the architecture textbooks as one of the most daring and stunning pieces of work in North America.
As for the pictures - Bernard and Eric dressed up and both wore black that night. With the contrast from the white walls, both looked super duper hot! of course, they failed to tell me about the dress code and I ended up wearing white and pretty much blended in with the wall everywhere I walked. Boo.
June 1, 2007 - Well, technically, the PM didn't write directly to me, but the envelope had my name on it, so I'm going to say that he did =)
So why did I get a letter from the PM? well apparently, Prime Minister Harper is sending letters to Chinese families across the country to officially and "personally apologize for the Head Tax" - something that happened almost 100 years ago. The Head Tax, as we all know, was a fixed fee charged for each Chinese person entering Canada back in the late 19th - early 20th century. The tax took effect beginning in 1885 and lasted until 1923, when the Chinese Immigration Act banned Chinese immigrants altogether. The tax was $500 Cdn per head, which at the time was enough to buy two houses. It should also be noted that the Chinese was the only ethnic group required to pay such a tax.
Anyway, when the Harper government took power, one of the things that they did was to formally apologize for the Head Tax. Last year, the Harper government also announced that all Chinese immigrants who once paid the Head Tax will be compensated (there were only 20 survivors).
Back to the letter - it was great that the PM apologized - and I think sending letters (in both English and Chinese) to the Chinese community is great PR. Of course, I also know that this just is a way to buy votes - and I have to say, despite this nice gesture, he's still not getting my vote.
Why was the letter addressed to me though? I have no idea. I was actually excited when I saw the envelope (I thought maybe he was going to offer me a job or something!). Oh well - at least I can still say I got a letter from the PM!
June 10, 2007 - So as I mentioned in my previous post, after 10 years of avoiding Wonderland, I finally went this weekend! Now I haven't purposely avoided Wonderland per se - it was more like I was never really interested. This is partly because I'm EXTREMELY TERRIFIED of height, thrill rides and roller coasters. I just don't like that feeling of being flung by machines - it's just so scary =(
So after those two freakish experiences, we split up for a bit - Jenny took me to Hanna Barbara land where we went on the only kiddie ride that we were allowed on (boo - that's height discrimination I tell you) while B and Grace went on one of those crazy roller coasters. We met up afterwards for a really expensive and disgusting lunch, and then off to more rides that I could handle (the water ones, The Italian Job, Swings, Thunder Run and Bumper Cars). I also went on that Sponge Bob motion ride by myself - it was actually kinda cool, even though I'm not a big fan of Sponge Bob myself (it's kinda creepy actually).
So overall, I still had lots of fun. The funnel cake was good - though expensive and the strawberries tasted kinda funny. We also played this game called 20 questions, which seems to go on forever. And yeah, that's pretty much my Wonderland story. I feel bad that I wasn't cool enough (or as B nicely put it "man" enough) to go on the real rides =( maybe next year, we can start with the level 4 ones again. And in the meantime, I guess I'll let my 27 yr old body recover (sigh...so sad).
