Day 117

August 21st

We woke up at 3:45 to get showered and walk to the Bus station. Our bus left at 6am and they suggested being there an hour before but that was very unnecessary. We probably could have showed up just 20mins before. We both managed to sleep a bit on the 2 hour ride there which was nice. When we got there, we took the subway to Olympic Park only to find out that the Biodome and Insectarium were closed due to a strike :< That was a bummer but we quickly made a plan B while waiting for the Botanical Gardens to open. The Gardens were beautiful and had sections like Japanese, First Nations, Rose, Chinese, Alpine, Water, Greenhouse, Vegetable and Toxic Gardens. I didn't realize how big the place was until we decided to skip the vegetable and toxic gardens because we were tired of walking. We spent about 4 hours walking through the gardens and some of them like the Japanese and Chinese ones had little Pavilions in their garden. The Japanese one was all about lacker (how to gather, how to use) and displayed the pieces of art that were made with lacker. The Japanese Gardens had a pond with carp in it and I touched them. They seemed to like attention from ppl and thought that we were going to feed them. After eating lunch we moved on to the Chinese Gardens which were pretty cool too. There was a tea house in the middle but part of it was closed for the day. There was also a house where we got to practice our calligraphy. It was quite relaxing and a lot of fun. I also enjoyed the greenhouse. There was a lot of variety and a lot of cool plants to see. It's amazing how many plants are in the world! Our next stop in Montreal was the Bio-sphere which is all about being environmentally friendly. It was a great place for kids and we had fun there too! I learned that I need to step it up and be more environmentally friendly from one of the self quizzes that I did. Then our next stop was the planetarium near Old Montreal. We had supper and then caught a show which brought back childhood memories for me. It was really nice to see all the stars without light pollution. After the show we walked around Old Montreal and then went back to the Bus Depot. The ride home was less enjoyable because we kept stopping to pick up more passengers. Both Dustin and I were glad when we finally arrived back at Carleton!