Toronto Chinese lantern festival
CN Tower
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
My mom came into my room with a printout in hand, showing it to me excitedly. Look, she said, they've got lanterns at Ontario Place. She suggested that I take some photographs there, and recognizing a capital idea when I heard one, I decided to do so.
See, a huge telecommunications company sponsored this lantern exhibition in downtown Toronto. Now, le Jardin Botanique does this every year, but Toronto doesn't have an annual lantern festival, even with its high Chinese population. They originally had it running until the beginning of October, but someone must have informed them about 中秋節, because they extended it until that weekend.
The trip to the harbourfront reminded me of how fun certain parts of the Toronto transit system are. I got on a clean and bright subway car, rode down to Union station, and transferred to a streetcar that brought me to Exhibition Place. After a walk through huge parking lots, I was able to see brightly coloured, Chinese looking, structures.
I crossed the bridge on to the Ontario Place island, where I had the privilege of paying $25 to get in. Once inside, I noticed that the place wasn't very well populated at all. This is unlike Montréal, where the gardens are often packed so full of people that you can't set up your tripod.
Since the lanterns weren't on yet, I spent some time walking around scouting locations. And taking photographs of the sunset. Some kids had congregated on the beach to skip stones, which looked like an awful lot of fun.
Once the sun had actually gone down, they flipped the switch on the lanterns.
Temple
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
Phoenix at dusk
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
After a bit of photography, I heard the rhythmic drumming of a dragon dance. Since I found myself conveniently in front of a soundstage, I went over to see what was going on. Oh! A dance by some teenagers.
Dragon dance
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
Clawfoot
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.