I'm still alive and I'm still in Montreal.

My papers are due next Wed, the day of my exam, so I'm currently frantically trying to finish it before then so I can revise it. It's not like my grade would transfer back to UBC anyway but I like the teacher so I don't want him to feel like his students don't really care about the course, etc. & besides, I'm kinda a "rep." of UBC. Better show the McGill people that UBC people ROCK too! (-> the kind of university pride that would have never came across my mind if I've never left UBC). Whatever. Gotta get back to work. & days without a printer just right beside moi is horrible. I have to walk all the way to the other side of the campus just to print stuff. UGH!

(this is a summary of mai 25-28, & 30-31)

& The weather here has major mood swings! It's so freaking cold one day (like 4C) & it's super sunny & hot the other day! It's 21C right now!

Finishing up Vieux Montreal; World Trade Center & Berlin Wall

Mai 24 (Mardi)
Realizing that I only have about a little bit more than a week left in Montreal, I'm trying to go to as many places as I possibly could from now on considering I still have a paper to do and a final to study for. After all, I'm "supposed" to be studying here.. not rampanting all over the place.

So today's route: Travel Agency in China Town (get Quebec City info) ->Vieux Montreal: Bank of Montreal Museum -> Saint-Sulpice Sminary -> Centre d'historie de Montreal -> Place D'Youville -> Royal Bank Building -along rue Saint-Jacques->World Trade Centre Montreal -> Square Victoria -> back to McGill at 12:30

My floormate said that there was a Chinese travel agency that offers 1-day tour to Quebec City for $38. I thought that was a pretty good deal considering that I probably have to pay $60 just for the return tickets. But I have to see whether there are cheaper bus tickets b/c I want to stay at Quebec City for a night but I have to pay 2x if I go with the Chinese tour. I'll think about that later.

So then I went to the Museum inside the Bank of Montreal. The bank was founded in 1817 - the oldest banking institution in the country. The architecture was designed by a New York architecutral firm in 1905.


The exterior of the Bank viewed from Place d'Arms. It was designed in the style of ancient Roman and Greek santuary with all the coloumns and the dome, etc.


The lobby of the BMO (Bank of Montreal) building.It's huge! Sorry the pic looks quite dark b/c the building was still being used as a 'bank' with all the tellers & etc. so I didn't exactly want to be flashing all over the place with my camera, attracting unnecessary attention from the security guards.


An antique staff magazine published in the old days.


The statue of an ancient goddess at the main entrance. She represents Patria (home land)and is a memorial to those who died in WWI.

There was a one-room museum inside the bank and it was about the early history of banking in Canada.


In the museum! It's really small but it's ok~


What you would see when you see ads of the museum - a wax figure behind the counter of a old bank.


A painting of what the BMO building and the surrounding would have looked like in the old days.


The reason why I included this painting here is b/c I think I have been to the place where this took place - BMO's VP drove the spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway Transcontinental Line. Craigellachie, BC. 1885.


MONEY MONEY MONEY~


Walking out of the museum you would see this wall sculpture. This piece was originally commissioned for the exterior of the first head office. It remained out there for 60 years.


Across from the BMO main entrance & the Place d'Arms & right beside the Notre-Dame Basilica was the Saint-Sulpice Seminary. Constructed in 1685, this is the oldest building in Montreal. It was first used as a headquarter forthe Sulpician priests who owned the island of Montreal 'til 1854. Now it's still used as a residence for the priests. Its clock (dates to 1701) is the oldest of its kind in North America.

Walking south to where the Pointe-a-Calliere Museum that I went the other day (b/c Centre d'Historie de Montreal was just right beside it). & there were a lot of houses that looked old and similar in style like this one:


Then I came across the Place de la Gande Paix where Centre d'Historie de Montreal was.

Looking at the colomun in the Place. The Pointe-a-Calliere Museum is the building to the right of the pic.


Opposite from the colomun was the back of the Centre d'Historie de Montreal.


The front entrance of the Centre d'Historie de Montreal.


One of the first things you see when you're in the museum - the names of some of the major streets in Montreal!


The REAL Lord Nelson statue. Remember in one of my Vieux Montreal posts in which I talked about the Lord Nelson statue in Place Jacques-Cartier? This is the REAL statue removed from the monuments b/c its material (the revolutionary Coade artificial stone at the time) could not stand the 'elements' (ie wind, rain, etc).


A powder horn (inscripted with a map of Quebec) that was used on the Plains of Abraham. Every soldier carried a powder horn.


Time moves on~ Some fashion and tech development.

The temporary exhibit was: "Jazz, Swinging Nights in Montreal!" - CHECK IT OUT!

ALL THAT JAZZ~


Entering! The place looks so like a night club with all the nice lighting, eh?!


JAZZ IN MONTREAL! COOL~ I wish I could stay for the largest International Jazz Festival happening here at the end of June! But too bad.. maybe NEXT TIME~~~!!


Montreal, City of a Thousand and One Clubs! - starting from the 1920's. You get all these match boxes from Jazz clubs that would advertise their own showbiz.


Jazz Night Clubs in Town.


In the background -> this is what the big jazz clubs look like.


Shall we dance? Try to follow the steps and do it really fast! haha.. the crazy swings.


BEBOP! YAY! For friends who took MUSC 221 -> THIS IS IT! Remember Charlie Parker, the famous sax player? He made several trips to Montreal and greatly influenced the jazz styles here.


A board that explains different kinds of Jazz and the development of those different kinds.


There was a recording room where you could hear old jazz recordings on 'records' (yes..those big discs).


A "jazz cafe" at the top floor of the museum where you get to see the video tape of a live jazz performance and more songs to listen to

Then I went out of the museum to the Place d'Youville right outside of it. It was built over the former Saint-Pierre riverbed (canalized in 1832). The remains of the old Grey Nuns Hospital (one of the oldest hospital in Montreal)was nearby.

A building right opposite from the Centre d'historie de Montreal.


The Canadian Music Centre (it stores a lot of Canadian music; over 600 Canadian composers, etc.) I didn't go in 'cause there seemed to be no one in it.


Walking along the Sainte-Helene - a beautiful Victorian business district.


Walking along rue Saint-Jacques - Canada's "Wall Street" in its heydays (1920's). I think this particular building is a hotel attached to the World Trade Centre of Montreal.


The Royal Bank's head office erected in 1928. It was designed by New York architects York & Sawyer.


The Molson Bank a street away from the Royal Bank. It was built in 1866.


Centre de Commerce Mondial de Montreal (aka MOntreal World Trade Center).


Inside the center is another city. It kinda feels like the Vancouver Public Library in downtown Vancouver. But this one has a more business feel to it b/c, after all, it's a WTC in the second largest city in the country.


The BERLIN WALL - a piece of it, really.


I'm not joking. That piece of concrete was a part of the infamous Berlin Wall that separated the city.


A lobby-kind of place right oustide of the Nordheimer (a part of the WTC complex where the Inter-Continental Montreal hotel is). THe building once had a small concert hall where famous musicians such as Maurice RAVEL(!!!) and Sarah Bernhardt once were.


Going back down to the first floor and walking toward the wester entrance where the fountain was.


"The semireclining statue of Amphitrite (Poseidon's wife) overlooking the fountain. It's an 18th-century piece from the municipal fountain of St-Mihiel-de-la-Meuse in France. Photographers would often use this space to do fashion shoots or wedding pictures.


The "outdoor" cafe in the building, right beside the fountain. Tres elegante! Went back to school, ate lunch at the cafeteria in the music building & went to class.. etc. etc. HARP concert tonight at 8pm. The person would be playing the Sonatine by Tournier that my friend -Joy Yeh - The UBC concerto competition winner of the year - played b4. We'll see~

The STRANGEST THING! & the Islands.

Mai 23 (Lundi)
I just gotta tell you this. As I came back from the Islands of Montreal (Sainte-Helen Island) with my friend Tamami, I saw the guy who was in my "some kind of exotic encounter?!" post -> at the metro bk to McGill! His friend (another one) came up to Tamami and said "Hi" in Mandarin & then I told him we were not Chinese, which was only true for Tamami. So then he said "Hi" in Japanese & I was like.. 'crap! does he know how to speak jap too?!' but he apparently did not, which was good. Then that guy I met came along. & His friend was asking us how long we were here for & stuff like that & I didn't bother to answer & just said bluntly to the guy I met at another time -"I recognize you!"

I guess it was a signal of "game over" for them 'cause they looked shocked & then they were trying to say something like ohh.. you guys are good friends.. blah blah.. & I was just like.. "whatever". Too bad people. I just didn't care. haha.. with my attitude like this to strange men who looked pretty handsome, no wonder I don't have b/f.. hahahaha..ANYWAY.

That was the end to that. I quickly got Tamami to go into another cart, separate from the one the guys entered and just waved bye. This is a pretty un-juicy incident that I'm telling you here. Sorry people. I think exotic encounters are not possible for me unless something really unusal happens b/c I would always be suspicious of strange men who come up to me. But it's just funny how I thought I might meet this guy again & *boom* there he was a week later. Nay... chance guarantees things like this are bound to happen, esp. when I live in the middle of downtown with convenient metro. There's really not much to it.

Move on! > to where we went today. We went to the Sainte-Helen Island but the weather was HELL. It was rainy and windy but it wasn't TOO cold. Sometimes you just can't wait for the weather to be the way you want it to be so SO BE IT. We went in the bloody weather to some artificial islands built from the rubbles dug out for the construction of the metro in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.

It was raining really hard so after we got off the metro station, we went straight to the most visible indoor attraction nearby. That was the Biosphere - the only museum of water in North America. The place was the American pavilion in Expo '67. Later it was known as the world's largest bird cage. A fire in 1976 destroyed the acrylic on the dome, leaving the metal skeleton behind.

Walking towards La Biosphere. A science-world like place dedicated to the conservation of the St. Lawrence RIver and the Great Lakes.

We went into the first room - It was very much like the Vancouver Science World and it was actually FUN.

Some displays about pumping water from underground.

A picture in the room showing the difficulties involved in navagating in the winter, esp. in St. Lawrence River.

Tamami trying to walk on the floating pads that were used to demo. how water striders could walk on water.

A pic in the display room that shows what happens when there's no consideration for buoyancy and stability.

And.. That was IT! The rest of the place really had nothing really fun - there was only that one room that was fun & there were all kids or adults w/ kids.

We went up to the upper floors where we could get to view the scenery around the place.

Viewing some architecture down there and the St. Lawrence River.

Another view of the river from the window with huge raindrops on it.

Then we went up to the highest floor where there was an exhibit called the Planete Bucky. The big room has a few smal and cute displays of Bucky's (some imaginary character) inventions or visions of the better (ie environmentally friendly) world.

This is Plante Bucky!

Wouldn't you like to have a house with a roof made out of hay/grass/straw where your cows could graze?

A look at the cows on the roof - they're so cute! This Bucky reminds me of Le Petit Prince with his innocent imaginations.

Wouldn't you like some energy-saving houses that look like these?

Or why don't we build a city under some kind of sphere so we can control the temperature, weather, vegetation, and etc.? This was getting really sci-fi I thought.

& Remember! This place was built for Expo '67. It had its glorious past very unlike the empty, deserted scene we saw today.

The admission to the Biosphere was originally $6.50 for students but the place was undergoing renovation so it was half price. You know.. if it were six bucks, it would have been so NOT worth it b/c there was almost nothing there to see.. They had these planned activities but they were really for kids. We went to one about the varying sea levels of places around the world. The knowledge was so basic that we, or at least I felt kinda "dumb" being in there. It was a kid's paradise, not university students'.

Then we went out in the bloody weather again so that we could get to the Notre-Dame Island where the Casino de Montreal was. It was a LONG walk to get from the Biosphere to the Casino. To do it in such a beautiful weather like this, it was almost too much. But we went anyway... some things just needed to be dealt with.

An architecture that we suspected to be some kind of museum but we weren't entirely sure.

Crossing a bridge while looking at the Pont Jacques-Cartier (Bridge).The river was crazy! You seriously wouldn't want any part of yourself to be in it. The wind + rain was so strong that I was so scared that my only umbrella would just take off to lala land~

Passing another smaller bridge. Isn't it almost poetic?

Some Easter Island copy-cat right in the park (Jardins des Floralies).

The Jardins des Floralies. It had many parts to it - The Belgium Garden, The English Rose Garden, & etc. but as you can see there were NO FLOWERS!! Bad weather + Bad season, what more could you ask for?

FINALLY! Viewing the Casino from a distance. It looks so much better at night with all the lights, and w/out the rain and cloudy sky.

Casino de Montreal is owned by the Quebec provincial government. It was meant to be built like a Monte-Carlo like European gambling palace, combining the two buildings (the French and Quebec Pavilion) of the Expo '67.

We thought about going in but usually you need to wear quite formal to enter those "high-class" ('tho they do pretty low-class things like gambling) places. So without proper "gear", we decided not to go in & embarked on our long journey back to the metro station.

Tamami was going back to Trois-Rivieres today. Too bad the weather wasn't being friendly. But hopefully she enjoyed her stay in Montreal. Now I have to get back to my papers!