Rogers Chinese Lantern Festival

This weekend my family and I went to the Rogers Chinese Lantern Festival at Ontario Place. We started our day by going nextdoor to The Exhibition (aka The Ex) and then crossing the bridge over to Ontario Place after dinner.

The festival is a once in a lifetime opportunity since this kind of thing doesn't happen everywhere. One of the more interesting lanterns that was created was this ceramic dragon that was made completely out of Chinese plates, bowls and spoons!

Because we arrived just as the festival was starting the sky wasn't too dark yet so we had the opportunity to view the lanterns in the daylight and then again in the dark when they were lit up.

As you walked down the pathways there was a slight smell of cedar from the chips that were strewn on either side of the pathways used for visitors. This was to keep the mosquitos away since they don't like cedar, good thinking!

The festival ends on October 1st, 2006 and I would highly suggest that if you haven't seen it yet go see!

London Hot Air Balloon Festival 2006

Yesterday Craig and I went to the London Hot Air Balloon Festival in Harris Park. We arrived a little after 6pm and made our way down to the festivities down by the river.

The night's events started with the ascention of the Canada Flag balloon; it took a few minutes to inflate it ...

...but it was soon on it's way (Approx 6.9Mb).

It was then onto the rest of the balloons which were slowly inflated a few at a time due to the limited space on the field; it was quite noisy with all the fans going.

There were all sorts of balloons flying about that afternoon of all shapes and sizes.

After the balloons floated away we walked around for a bit and eventually got something to eat, there were all sorts of vendors there selling food of all different kinds. There were of course the usual fare of burgers, fries and funnel cakes but there were also more culturally diverse selections including Italian, Mexican, Nigerian and Greek.

Once the sun started to dip down onto the horizon the balloons had returned and it was time for the "Friday Night Balloon Glow". The balloon operators anchored the balloons to the ground and lit up the balloons with a bright burst of flame from the burners.

To add to the festivities of food and balloon they also had live bands playing in the beer gardens, some famous and some not; the band Sloan is scheduled to play tonight.

Craig and I had a good time and I even had a chance to play around with some night photography. My only complaint is that I wish there had been more balloons, otherwise it was a great time.