Montreal Museum Day!

Mai 29th (Dimanche)

Today is Montreal's Museum Day, which means everyone can go to almost ALL of the museums in town for FREE! & There's free shuttle bus that takes people from one museum to another. Goodies! I finished my paper yesterday b/c I was preparing to go out today. Our prof was kinda disappointed b/c it seemed that everyone in the class decided to leave the paper to the last min. so he was saying "good that it's going to be rainy/cloudy on the weekend 'cause who knows what ppl would do when it's all the sudden sunny & 25C".

I guess he must have been laughing at us for the whole weekend. It's "supposed" to be rainy/cloudy.. but IT'S NOT! It's ALL THE SUDDEN super HOT + SUNNY. Everyone must be cursing the exam and papers at home. But I finished my papers yesterday. MUAHAHA.. But I was cursing the weather yesterday 'cause it was really sunny too.

Anyway!~ Today is the day to go to Museums for FREE~~ Gotta go to museums that I would probably not go if I have to pay. So first one: McCord Museum (to see a pic of its exterior, see my previous post).

Current Exhibitions include: Growing Up in Montreal - "experience Montreal through the eyes of a child", Simply Montreal - Glimpses of a Unique City, & Cross Currents - 500 generations of Aboriginal Fishing in Atlantic Canada.


Growing Up in Montreal - FOOD!


Rocking Horses~ (sorry about the blurry pic; there's too many ppl around so I had to be quick & etc etc)


Little sailor suits


Glimpses of Early Montreal, esp in WINTER. Look at all these diff snow shoes.


A cute jazz pianist thing in the jazz club display section. It moves its head up and down. I just thought it looked kinda cute.


Lady & Gents, Fashion at the Ball for Ladies.


I dare you wear that. hahah

The wire-walrus in the Aboriginal Fishing Exhibition. There were many replicas of stone tools and explanations about how natives gone about fishing.


The whole mechanistic philosophy replay in this piece of work.


Someone's fancy wedding gawn. I wish I could try it on.. haha.. It's so preetty~

Then I took metro to Guy Concordia station & walked to Centre Canadien d'Architecture. As you can tell from the name, it's all about architecture in Montreal. It has models, designs, floor plans, pictures of a lot of important buildings in Montreal & a lot of them were sky-scrapers.


The south end of the building - the mix of new and old. I think the one on the left is the Shaugnessy Mansion, built for the Canadian Pacific Railway chairperson in 1877.


A model of some skyscrapers in Montreal.


You can kinda see that there were quite a lot of people in there.


An example of one of the exhibits - pro. architecture plans.


Another display room with a huge projection of a documentary film on a platform. The black-and-white pics on the walls show various stages of Montreal's architecture development.


A quiet corner in the Centre, right outside of the library.


A column in one of the display room. I like the elegant design.


Right opposite from the Architecture Centre is the Esplanade Ernest-Cornier. It's a small green space designed by Melvin Charney.


The sculpture garden right behind those walls shown in the previous pic.

Then I walked ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way to the planetarium (about 9 blocks east, 3 blocks south) b/c I had to wait 20 mins for the bus that runs along the main road. So I just decided to walk. & I almost got ran over by an eyeless loser who thought he looked cool in his crappy out-dated car with his g/f. A lot of Montrealers have NO RESPECT for pedestrians. SERIOUSLY! They HONK at pedestrians, speed up when they're turning left even when there's pedestrians crossing. It's unbelievable. & you hear slame-the-brake tire squeaks almost every 5mins if you're walking on a major traffic zone.

Anyway.. I got to the planetarium and I just couldn't believe how many people were lining up outside! It was crazy! I guess if it were not sunny/hot today, the scene should be quite different.


Just take a look at the statue outside of the entrance of the planetarium. People are really into this free-museum thing.


Pretend that you were taking my previous picture and look to the left, this is what you would see.

So I didn't want to wait under the burning sun. I went to take the metro to the Vieux Port again to see an exhibition at the Pointe-a-Calliere that I missed last time. It's called Montreal- Love Stories. The title sounds attractive eh?! It's supposed to be about why people come to Montreal.. & why do people fall in love in Montreal.. etc.etc. at least I thought it was about that. But it turned out to be more of an exhibition celebrating the ethnic and cultural diversity of the city.


One of the displays - Summarizing places in Montreal.


Some cute Chinese paper lamps hanging from the ceiling.


The big dinner table that has projections of a video of Montreal on it. I just thought that was pretty cool~


Here's one love letter.

I was so glad that I went in from the Place Royale side of the building b/c the lineup outside of Pointe-a-Calliere was LONG! It was about the length of the one in front of the planetarium. I think I wasn't suppose to walk in from the exit but I did it anyway. It's not like I was going to the main Pointe-a-Calliere museum building. I just wanted to see the small exhibition right above the boutique store. I think that was why a few guards were looking at me weirdly. haha..


Right outside of the exit were these little restaurants that don't seem to have a glass window. I was thinking: "WOAH.. What do they do when it's rainy, snowy, etc. " But it was one of those HUGE windows so yah.. There is supposed to be some kind of cover. An alternative of an "outdoor" cafe.

So I walked all the way from the east end of Vieux Montreal to the west end of Vieux Montreal. That was about 10 blocks. But one of the things that you just have to get used to when traveling is "WALKING". It's totally unavoidable.


Passing by the Montreal Science Centre. It's free to enter today too but just seeing the # of kids walking toward that place makes me don't wanna go. I just don't like going to places where a lot of kids are.. It's really complicated.



All along the Vieux Port and Place Jacques-Cartier, you can see PPL! & A LOT of ppl! It's UNBELIEVABLE. I've never seen so many people on one street in Montreal 'til now. It's crazy! & all the double decker tour buses and horse-drawn wagons lining up by the port. This place is amazing.


A nice terrace in Place Jacques-Cartier. It really has a summer-feel to it.

So I went to the far east end of the Vieux Montreal to see the Sir George-Etienne Cartier Museum. Sir George-Etienne Cartier was one of the founding fathers of Canadian confederation and he was one of the guys who persuaded the French Canada to join the confederation.


The outside looks like this. The interior is REALLY elegant. It's mostly Victorian.


A cool display in the first room. It pretty summarizes everything in the Canadian history.


some interesting dolls modeled after a few giants of the Canadian history. See John A MacDonald in the middle. haha.. some guy came in, saw the name & said.. "John A MacDonald.. OHHHHHHH! lOOK! iT'S JOHN A MACDONALD!!!" he sounded like he knew MacDonald as some kind of celebrity of some sort.


The tea room. It's soo Victorian + elegant.


The piano in the tea room.. keke..


Can you tell who is real & who is not?


Zoom in on the small models in the middle of the table.


"The" guy with the books about confederation, politics, etc. I thought those figures looked pretty authentic.

After the Sir George-Etienne Cartier Museum (a National Historic Site of Canada), I took the metro to the Sainte-Helene Island AGAIN! 'cause last time I didn't go to the Steward Museum b/c it was all stormy & rainy. This is the weather to go to the Island~


Passing by the Biosphere again~ But this time it's SUNNY~


One of those spur-of-the-moment detours that I do. I saw the direction sign for Tour de Levis & I just know it's some kind of tower so I climbed the hills to see what it was. & there's the tower.


There's really nothing there. The tower is locked.. I thought I could go up there to see the city or something.. but apparently not. But the tower was still interesting to look at. There was a look-out place just beneath the tower but I couldn't really see anything b/c the bushes were so tall.


Finally back to track but saw this Monet-bridge-looking thing in the midst of the woods and decided to take a closer look at it. But there was no water.. it was just wet mud.


Finally at the Steward Museum.


In summer they have costumed interpreters and soldiers of La Compagnie franche de la Marine and the Olde 78th Fraser Highlanders who perform 18th-century military drills. I think these are the French soldiers.. not too sure.


And these are the Scottish Highlanders..


After rifles, CANONS! Let's stuff the gun powder in this old thing!


Why not train the kids too?


Some lady dressed in 18th-cent. colonial style. It kinda reminds me of Cold Mountain for some strange reason.

Then there was a pretty long lineup into the museum too but too bad. I just had to lineup after all that long-distance traveling across the St. Lawrence River. I couldn't take pics in the museum so no pics here~ But the museum has a pretty cool collection of old maps,documents, weapons (a lot of SWORDS & GUNS), scientific instruments & navigation aids (the Enlightenment inventions), & 18th-cent kitchen stuff. Pretty interesting~


A collection of weapons in a display room outside of the museum. Humans are pretty brutal eh?!


A lot of GUNS!


The gate that leads you to the main parade ground where the costumed soldiers in the previous pics did their drills & where the museum entrance was.


Two Scottish-looking soldiers practicing w/ the guns?!


Another drill on the other side of the fort. Are these the British soldiers?! I think the French army costumes make the soldiers more handsome.. haha.. ANYWAY.


The flutist in the group. The sound of it really evokes a colonial mental image.

Then I took the free shuttle bus, not exactly knowing where it was going to take me to. I just didn't want to walk all the way across the Jean-Drappeau Parc to the metro station again. So the shuttle bus took me to the Biosphere (YAY~)


A pic of the busy Museum Day shuttle. Most of the buses I saw were all packed.

& I decided to go in to the Biosphere again. & I must say I have to annul my previous comments on the Biosphere. It has more than 1 cool place in it! I guess one of the rooms wasn't open when we were there the other day & we didn't see the multimedia presentation on the 2nd floor - It was pretty cool. There were 6 screens placed on a circular track. & As those screens slides around to create diff 360-degree images.


The 4th-floor look-out to the St. Lawrence River and the Casino on the Notre-Dame Island.
There were a few raindrops when I was walking back to the metro station but nothing really big happened. Went to China Town via metro (I was maximizing my use of my $61 transit pass) to eat dinner & went back (via metro) to my rez. The end. Now I have to seriously start focusing on my final.