Category: travel

The CHIHULY exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is an amazing display of creativity, passion and allows you to see the world through a whole different perspective. This exhibit, which runs from June 2016 to January 8th, 2017, features the work of internationally acclaimed artist Dale Chihuly. He uses glass, light and colour to bring his art to life.

The exhibit at the ROM features several works that were designed specifically for the museum by Dale in order to fit the space, which gives it that extra special feel when you are walking through the exhibit. The exhibit features eleven installations that includes: Lime Crystal Tower, Boats, Laguna Torcello, Jerusalem Cylinders, Sapphire Neon Tumbleweeds, Red Reeds on Logs, Persian Ceiling, Persian Trellis, Fire Orange Baskets, Icicle Chandeliers and Towers and the Northwest Room.

My personal favourite work was the Red Reeds on Logs. You find logs laid out as they would be in nature with brilliant, bold glass red reeds reaching to the ceiling bursting forward from the logs. You can almost see this exhibit as it would look like in nature and the contrast between the logs, red reeds and the dark backdrop is breath taking, I just fell in love at first sight. My sons also loved this one too but mainly because they thought that the reeds were actually spears (our youngest is still convinced they are spears not reeds). This piece of work was first created in 1995 and I was so impressed by the fact that in order to create the almost three metre long reeds, the glassblowers pulled hot molten glass downwards from a mechanical lift!

The exhibit is in dim lighting (I wasn’t expecting this) which really helps to bring his work in focus and to the fore front (it really would not be the same with full lighting). The bright glass just pops in contrast to the dark background and really puts the focus on his work and not allowing for any distractions. You can stroll from one room to the next room at your own pace, go back to a piece and even at one point lay down on the couches on the floor and look up (trust me you have to do this!). There is also a great video presentation at the end of the exhibit that I highly recommend you take a couple minutes out of your day and view it, you will be thoroughly impressed.

We all fell in love with the abundance of baskets that are located throughout the exhibit. They are stunning in their design, shape and colour. It brought back great memories for me when I visited Venice and watched glass blowing in action. The amount of skill and patience needed to create these works of art is incredible. The design makes you just want to reach out and trace the edges and feel his work.

ROM CHIHULY Quick Facts

This exhibit is open Monday to Thursday 10:00am- 5:30pm, Fridays 10:0am to 8:30pm, Saturday and Sunday 10:00am to 5:30pm. Admission is free for Museum members, $29.00 for adults, $21.00 for children and free for children under three years of age. Tickets can be purchased online, in person or by phone.

About the Artist

Dale Chihuly is an American sculptor who has mastered the alluring, transparent qualities of ice, water, glass and neon, to create works of art that transform the viewer experience. He is globally renowned for his ambitious site specific installations in public spaces and in exhibitions presented in musuems and gardens worldwide. Major exhibitions include Chihuly Over Venice (1995-96), Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem (1999), Garden Cycle (2001 – present), de Young Museum in San Francisco (2008), the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2011), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2013) and the Chihuly Garden and Glass at Seattle Center that opened in 2012.

If you are in Toronto before the exhibit ends on January 8th, 2017, I highly recommend you take some time out of your trip and pay a visit to the CHIHULY exhibit at the ROM. It is a breath taking display of light and design that you can’t help but fall in love with.

Disclosure: I received tickets to view this exhibit. All opinions expressed are my own.

Our family just recently received our passports (way over due) and we have made quite a few exciting trips to the USA. We live within an hour from the border but it never really crossed our mind to visit the local shopping and attractions. In my mind, I always thought it was just too far and too much of a hassle. So you can imagine my shock when I was talking to my co-workers and realized that Darien Lake is actually closer to us then our Canadian amusement park! We of course had to put this to the test and decided to do a day trip to Darien Lake to check it out for ourselves. Here are top tips for our fellow Canadians making the day trip down to Darien Lake (which was actually quite feasible and the park is amazing).

Leave Early! You want to enjoy yourselves and bypass some of the line ups at the border, so leave as early as you can. Being thirty minutes away from the border, we left at 8 and arrived at Darien Lake around 9:30. The park opened up at 10:30 but we were allowed inside the gates at 10 and made use of this time by planning our way through the park with their helpful site maps. My son also was quite impressed with the Pokestops and Pokémon that were there at the park (as you can see below as he made sure I capture of the Pokemon site!).

Pack light – we only brought one bag that held our bathing suits and towels. A lot of the patrons wore their bathing suits with shorts on top, which was a great idea. There is a lot of walking and you don’t want to be weighed down by heavy bags. You can always leave the park (with a stamped hand) and come back but it does take away from enjoying the park and just living in the moment. We chose not to bring lunches and instead wanted to enjoy one of the many restaurants located throughout the park. We ended up at the Boardwalk (but really wanted to try the Italian restaurant near the water park!). The food was delicious and reasonably priced for an amusement park, for four people the meal cost us $50 US. Which is actually probably cheaper than many other places and the fries were to die for! They also had large bottles for pop/water/juice that once you bought the bottle you could refill the bottle for a much cheaper price.

Plan out the rides you really want to go on so that you know where to start first, this is something we didn’t do well enough and we ended up wasting time walking around quite a bit as we searched for the right rides. We were able to hit all of the rides we wanted to go except for the Ride of Steel (and this was more due to grumpy children then the line ups). In the early morning, there were very few line ups for rides and even by mid-day the wait for a ride was pretty short. This left us with two happy kids (and even happier parents!!). Make sure you save time for the water park, it is definitely a must go to for families. We loved the wave pool and the Rip Curl Racer – I have not had fun like that since I was a young girl.

Bring lots of small change. When you exchange your Canadian currency for American, make sure to ask for at least twenty dollars in ones. This is quite helpful for the toll booths along the highway (we encountered two on the way and two on the way back) and the first toll booth I only had a twenty dollar bill which she didn’t look too happy about – lesson learned for us! The park also has many games for children to play (it reminded me so much of a fair and I loved it), so having smaller change available was perfect.

You can purchase and carry alcohol around the park. This was the biggest difference to me and felt odd at first, as we watched others carry alcohol (I saw only beer) around the park. My husband purchased his own mug to happily carry around and I must admit it did make us feel like children being bad but it was also quite fun. I was really impressed that even though individuals were allowed to carry around alcohol, we never encountered any one who had too much to drink or anyone who was misbehaving.

Our family was super impressed with the proximity, rides and water park located inside the park and the quality of the food and entertainment. It was almost hard to believe that we had travelled such a short distance, crossed the border and there was this incredible amusement park. We can not wait to visit again, this time ensuring we hit all of the must do rides.

Make sure to follow Darien Lake on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with news and events.

Disclosure: I received admission into the park in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.