The Whirlwind Part 3

"Those who know nothing of foreign cultures knows nothing of their own." - Goethe

After blasting through books, social outings and school, I decided to suck up some culture from a place I have yearned to see in my few years. I have been to the British Museum of Art, the MIA, and a few other places here and here, but the ROM will always hold a special place in my learned little heart of hearts! It also gave Laura and James (the fancy couple I am staying with) a chance to finally go themselves, even though they've been living here for nearly two years.

May 7, 2010

The Royal Ontario Museum on Bloor


A sea of trilobites trapped in time

It was a rainy evening - as has become the norm in the last several days - and through ankle deep urban water we waded to the ROM. First of all, what a beautiful building. I thought the museum of modern art installation in Minneapolis was crazy (it's a towering bastion fabricated entirely out of sheet metal), but this is just beautiful. The interior was absolutely stunning as well, and the stark contrast of the modern vs. the traditional worked to this building's advantage.

So in short this place was epic. We were there for three and a half hours and didn't even get to see it all. We stopped short of Egypt, just in time for my batteries to cruelly run out. I did not even get a chance with Rome or any of the other civilizations on the last floor! But here is a quick peek at the ROM's highlights:

Asia - featuring fantastic art from China to Japan, the ROM's collection of ancient Asian art and artifacts was absolutely out of this world. Though I was exposed to a lot via MIA, this was a really extensive and varied collection, ranging from snuff bottles to twelve foot high thousand year old wall murals, to golden Buddhas in the Gandaran style, Boddhisattvas in the Cambodian motif, to a fully restored rickshaw, burial mound and full front facade of a temple. After having taken Indian Religious Art and Architecture (and studying it for a few years), wandering these vast rooms of cultural boons was a nice refresher to a really fascinating Ancient World.

Paleontology - this room was totally out of this world. Oh man. I have never wanted dinosaurs to be real more in my life. Although yes, we all saw how that turned out in Jurassic Park - it is still mind blowing the advances and discoveries we have made! Most of these brilliant bones are over a million years old! Like holy. I cannot even comprehend that much time. This floor was extensive and I stayed here for about an hour just gawking at the ridiculous size of many of the specimens featured here. From your basic raptor, the nearly 1 km spine of a brontosaur, the skeletal pterodactyl overhead, the stone encased leoplurdon, to wasp eggs the size of my thumb, a mammoth incisor the size of James' head, ad nauseum, this room was JUST AMAZING. I could gush and gush, really. I took about a bazillion pictures to demonstrate my urgent joy. It's stuff like this that makes you wonder why you didn't become an adventuresome archaeologist, paleontologist, biologist or just plain historical hero. In my next alternate reality life we'll see what I can come up with. I beg you to come to the ROM for dem bonez!

Animal Kingdom - Okay, I'm going to just be brief with this one. So many animals. So beautiful. The bird portion was my absolute favourite - that albatross was gigantic! Laura freaked out a little because she hates birds, but that is OKAY! The mammals, sea life and especially the bat cave were all incredibly nice touches (the bat cave was immense in scale, scope, and sheer volume of bats in there). More than once James and I were down on the floor trying to look at these animals at all angles (especially the giant amphibian-mudpuppy-thing!), and the tropical insect portion made me want to visit the Butterfly Sanctuary more than ever. Again, needless to say, why was I not a vet! Like...a safari vet! Haha. Anyway!

And so it went on. All the way through Medieval Europe to present day modernism, until we hit Ancient Civilizations and my heart was dashed by the museum closing time. I will probably return in July when Keith comes to visit, mark my words! Until then, the ROM is one of my all time favourite hang outs in Toronto thus far (though hey, I haven't had time to pass judgment on all of them) and I can't wait to return. Though the journey home was extremely cold and wet, the struggle was well worth it.

About half of my pictures can be seen here since I don't have a full account, haha. If you want to see more, just email moi.