Wednesday & Thursday – October 13 & 14th
On Wednesday, Jeff and I drove to Toronto, Canada. The entire trip, door-to-door, is supposed to take eight hours if you don’t stop for any reason and there’s no line at the US/Canadian border and you’re not caught in traffic according to mapquest.com. I think even truckers make pit-stops and don’t drive continuously for eight hours. Anyway, it took us 10 hours, which I think is pretty good time considering…..
Some time ago we had read that a special exhibit had opened at the Royal Ontario Museum (the ROM) called The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army. We found a hotel-and-tickets-to-ROM deal on the Internet and made our reservations online. We both like Chinese art and we thought it would be fun to drive through New York State in October to see the colorful fall foliage. Scenic Route 17 goes through the Catskill Mountains and passes through one of the most beautiful parts of rural countryside anywhere.
When we left home at 6:30 Wednesday morning, it was 42 degrees outside. As we drove along through the ancient Catskill Mountains in the early morning fog, we watched the thermometer drop to 32 degrees. By the time we reached Roscoe, NY the sun shone brightly and we stopped for coffee and bagels.
The Roscoe Diner is a famous stop along Route 17 and the interior is decorated with pennants from every local college you could think of. Everyone I know whose kids went to college in NY State knows the Roscoe Diner. Many years ago, we used to stop at the half-way point of the Roscoe Diner for a break when my older son attended Ithaca College.
The fall leaves and trees of New York State did not disappoint! They were amazingly beautiful (as they are every year!) and we appreciated Mother Nature and her gold and orange and red-painted hills as we drove along. From Binghamton it was an easy pass onto Route 81 to Syracuse and then onto Rt. 690 which leads to the New York State Thruway also known as Route 90. It had started to get cloudy by the time we reached Syracuse.
By the time we passed Buffalo, we could see huge storm clouds brewing in the distance. The NYS Thruway ends at Niagara Falls and the Canadian border. As we drove along the QEW highway into Toronto, it started to drizzle. Our TomTom GPS led us to the door of the hotel in Toronto by 4:30 PM. There was a steady rain as we unloaded our luggage from the car. We checked in and rested for a couple of hours then went out for a light supper.
It was pouring rain and chilly on Thursday morning. We had a simple breakfast at the hotel and then went out to take the Toronto subway to the ROM. The closest station was just a half block away on Bloor Street and a city map told us that the museum was only two stations away. In better weather we could have walked! We descended into the subway and bought “senior” fare tickets. The regular price for a Toronto subway token is $3.00 each. We thought that the NYC subway fare rising to $2.50 this coming December was outrageous! The senior rate is five tickets for $8.25 or $1.65 each – a much better price.
The Royal Ontario Museum recently expanded its original building with a new ultra-modern glass and steel addition jutting over Bloor Street called the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal Building. The ROM’s stated mission is a commitment to an understanding of human cultures and the natural world through research, so their collections are part natural history and part art, history, and culture. For example, the second floor is devoted to dinosaurs, gems and minerals, biodiversity, and all kinds of animals. On the fourth floor next to the Textile and Costume room is an exhibit space for Contemporary Art. On the first floor is a huge collection of Asian art spanning thousands of years of Chinese and Indian cultures.
The special exhibit was down the “Stair of Wonders” to ROM’s subterranean gallery space. The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army was presented in three languages (English, French, and Chinese) and used videos, printed information, and real artifacts to tell the story of China’s first emperor: Qin Shihuangdi. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in the special exhibit space.
The great first emperor unified the warring states of China, instituted standard units of measurement, built the Great Wall of China, ruled that China have one written language, appointed town officials based on merit rather than birth-right, and established a system of government that served as a model in China for almost two thousand years. Qin Shihuangdi designed his tomb and had it built during his lifetime. He had the burial tomb surrounded by thousands of terracotta warriors to guard the tomb and protect him in the after-life.
We looked at the Asian art before going to the special exhibit. Then visited and walked through several other galleries. For a break, we had a good lunch on the top floor of the museum in their c-5 restaurant. It is a modern space and had a great view of city of Toronto through huge angled windows. We watched big gray clouds roll over the buildings in the distance and rain pelted the glass. We spent most of the day at the museum and took the subway back to our hotel for the evening.
