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here. Hi stanzi!
Today starts off with a lot of words but then I lay off them later on so stick with me.
I forgot to mention something I noticed about Hamilton: In late November, it gets dark there at around 4pm. I live in a city where even in the dead of winter, the sun sets after 5pm, so for it to be dark
before dinner was disorienting to me. But then the sun rises so early! It was bright at 7am, when back home we're used to darkness until almost 9am. So I guess it evens out? Even though Hamilton is in the same time zone as Thunder Bay, I felt like it was much later than it really was the whole time I was there.
Hamilton's city hall at night:
The Eatons Parkade leading to Hamilton City Centre mall was lit up in different colours, it looked quite nice in contrast to its surroundings.
The inside of Hamilton City Centre was glorious. It had everything I had never experienced before. Discount stores that sold CRT tvs, cowboy boots and furniture. A Persian rug store staffed by a single seven foot tall man who looked very displeased. A multi-story atrium topped by a grand skylight lit with many incandescent bulbs—most of which still functioned! Entire floors vacant! Escalators abandoned behind "out of service" signs! The main anchor was apparently a gigantic modern furniture store with few staff and fewer customers. The only thing truly familiar about this place was the beige and teal geometric patterns in the floor but even then, they went one step further than anyone in Thunder Bay dared to: triangular tilework!! All in all, wandering around this multi-storey dead mall for about 20 minutes was one of the most magical and memorable moments of Hamilton for me. I will always remember and hold close to my heart this bizarre experiment in urban planning gone wrong.
This Fine Furniture store was the largest and most thriving store I saw there, and it seemed to kind of pop in and out. I don't know if it had multiple locations or just a strange floor plan? The 90s era elevator complete with a dome on top was the architectural equivalent of the maraschino cherry on top of a slice of black forest cake. I received great joy from its presence.
The unused chairs and tables really light up my imagination. Imagine what it would be like if the food court had a restaurant in it!
Reminds me of ancient Rome! I literally gasped when I saw this sight for the first time!!
I wish Thunder Bay had something like this.
Anyway. I have no idea what this place was but they were constantly welding things to its exterior while we were there.
The CN Tower is barely visible in the bottom right as a faint red beacon. I took a photo of the dimly lit church with my other camera when I walked around earlier that night but it was a horrible photo so I'm not sharing it. I should have brought my better camera but didn't think of it at the time.
I don't know what's more suspicious: this guy who stood here for about 10 minutes, met someone briefly and then walked away, or me taking a photo of this guy who stood here for about 10 minutes, met someone briefly and then walked away.
"Comprised of". In the library. This is the state of things today. SMH.
After about two hours of cabs, buses and trains, and at least half an hour of wandering through Union Station—the layout of which was apparently changed since I was last there a week before—we made it back to Toronto.
The headquarters of Canada's largest bank.
*Literally* clad with golden windows. (I understand they're being replaced with less obnoxious ones as we speak.)
On the Flickr page for this photo I asked "Who are the carvings on the upper floors meant for, since no one can see them?" and just now I realized, "they're for the people in the building next door, d'uh!"
I like when replacement stone doesn't match the rest of the building's exterior. It contrasts the perfection of the ornamentation.
So are those balconies or just useless caged windows? One of the old hotels in Thunder Bay has useless caged windows that look like balconies but they're not. It's very curious.
Here they are again in a slightly different composition with difference processing parameters applied to the raw image file.
Verdigris is my favourite colour.
Front Street is a nice introduction to Toronto. I could easily see a Thunder Bayer not knowing where to drive here and plowing over some people, or just getting scared and paying someone passing by to drive them instead since driving anywhere seems to be the most terrifying thought any northerners have about that city.
This office building at the corner of Front and York is was pretty neat.
That hideous brown PoMo building is ruining the photo. It's like someone wiped boogers on a Monet.
Black locust tree seed pots! Unlike normal locust trees, you can't eat these or you'll die!
Pretty though.
Our bulls are just sitting around all over the place lazy. That's why the dollar is worth less.
But seriously, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is one of my favourite architects and I was beside myself with joy at being able to photograph his last major work.
I've wanted to take this photo for a long time. It didn't turn out the way I wanted to due to the time and sky conditions but it will do for now.
I went inside and withdrew $80 from the ATM just as an excuse to go inside FCP. I have no regrets!!!
Some of the windows are slightly different colours than they should be. This is displeasing.
Bombardier is slowly Toronto's new streetcars. The order is estimated to be completed by 2153.
The Toronto Club. I think the Prime Minister goes there to promise stupid things then they sacrifice a goat or something? It's basically Canada's version of the Build-a-Burger Hotel or something.
Anyway we went back to City Centre Airport, which objectively isn't in the city centre itself but it's a hell of a lot closer than fucking Pearson.
Here are some photos of Ireland Park, a memorial to Irish immigrants to Toronto in the mid-1800s. It's a short walk from the tunnel to the airport.
The juxtaposition of the statues with the no trespassing signs was kind of interesting. It isn't intentional, but it serves as a bit of a reminder of how we treated the Irish back then.
The ruins of the Canada Malting elevator (which was supposed to become Metronome but never did) were a reminder of home. It's teeny-tiny compared to our Canada Malting Elevator (which has a large tank attached to it that this elevator could probably fit inside of) but it's a familiar sight nonetheless.
A nice view of the skyline from here.
I swapped lenses multiple times while taking photos here.
I would have preferred to take a photo of the spot I was standing when I took this photo from the place featured in this photo but alas.
Do you see it?
That condominium is positioned in front of the CN Tower in such a way that upon first glance it appears that those are the usual windows on the CN Tower but no! They have curtains! They're a condominiums!
Look:
OK, I am just realizing *now* that this photo didn't render correctly, and the bottom 5% is a grey block.
The benches are cartoon whales diving into water.
I wonder if the guy on the balcony saw me.
This used to be a refrigerated warehouse and now people live in it. I wonder what people from the 1920s would think.
After this we went through the super deep and long tunnel and went home.
There was a beautiful view of the Toronto skyline at night as we took off.
Thank you for viewing.
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