Toronto, ON: Museum of Illusions (8/5/2023)

Saturday, August 5, 2023

About 10 days ago, we received an email stating that our Winnipeg to Toronto flight was cancelled. That's it - cancelled. We had to scramble to replace that flight, finding four open seats, resulting in our having to wake up at 3:30. Fortunately we only had to walk "across the street" to the airport to check in. Also fortunately, Tim Horton's opened at 4:00 so we could have breakfast. And once more, fortunately, the flight had limited space for luggage, and we were able to check one bag each for free at the gate. We would be able to retrieve our luggage at Reagan National Airport.

The problem with the 5:30 flight was that we had a layover of almost seven-and-a-half hours in Toronto! Dylan helped us find and then purchase tickets for the Union-Pearson/UP Express train to the city.

Looking back at the Toronto airport from the UP Express train

Approaching Union Station with the 
iconic CN Tower

From Union Station we walked 1.4 km/0.8 mile with our backpacks.

Passed the Hockey Hall of Fame (since 1993 in a
Bank of Montréal building, built 1885-86, by Darling & Curry)

Jacob's Ladder (2017-2018, by Luis Jacob) in Berczy Park
is supposed to have rope/string lattice between the hands
in the shape of the string game of Jacob's Ladder

Also in Berczy Park, a dog fountain (2017, by
Claude Cormier and Associates) has 27 dogs and one cat
(seen under the pink shirt on the left)

St Lawrence Market South (1845 as City Hall,
renovated 1972)

Entering the Museum of Illusions, one of
a chain of museums found globally

Hmm, Dylan is bald, or Kent has a wig?

Tamiko is suspended in the air (KSS)

Double-headed Dylan is levitating

Eek! What happened to Pete? (KSS)

Dylan is taller than ever! (KSS)

Oh, what a change in size! (KSS)

Dylan and Pete in the tilted room

Kaleidoscope Pete (KSS)

Kaleidoscope Kent

What's for dinner? (KSS)

The proper angle for the photo

Pete is being careful not to fall into the hole

Pete is doing a finger-tip stand ...

And now he sits in a giant chair, but lacks
having another person in the picture
to show how small he is 

A hologram

This looks like there is a tunnel curving
from one window to the other

Meh, the Infinity Room (Yayoi Kusama
makes better Infinity Rooms!)

Pete is playingcards against "himselves"

Pete can't help but lean right when going
through the rotating tunnel

Tamiko was unsuccessful at making the snake cube
puzzle back into a cube

Dylan completed the SOMA cube puzzle

This time Tamiko succeeded in completing
the interlocking puzzle

We ate at Popeye's on the first and last day of our trip!

Gooderham Building aka Flatiron Building
(1892, by David Roberts, Jr
in Romanesque Revival style)

Union Station (1914-1927, in Beaux Arts style)

Union Station interior

Part of the exhibition We Are Still Here,
by Blake Angeconeb, Ojiim is a
"Gustav Klimt derivative" (The Kiss)

Mooz resembles an All Terrain Armored
Transport, or AT-AT walker from Star Wars;
Blake "deconstructs and re-contextualizes
Western and Indigenous art"

We caught the UP Express back to the airport and still had hours to wait!

Finally we boarded our flight to DC; Dylan needs to duck

Gosh, the "adventure" continued! We arrived at Reagan National, and went to baggage claim. Dylan's bag did not arrive. He had to report it to Air Canada and received a "delayed bag file number." It took two days for the bag to make it to Dylan's house. We wonder where it went?!

We stopped for dinner at Chipotle before dropping off Pete and Dylan. It was a long day!

Next: Baltimore Museum of Art.