Tourist Sites

Only a couple more days before I am...

...Europe Bound! I had been hoping to use my last couple weeks in Toronto to play a little more tourist and get to see the sites before getting on a plane, but things quickly started to pile up, and the amount of time I was spending getting my stuff packed up, donated or thrown out took a lot longer than I would have expected. Eventually, though, I was able to clear everything out, and spent my last couple days in the apartment sitting in a lone chair and sleeping on a carpet in a sleeping bag.

I have since moved a little closer downtown, and am staying in a hotel. Given that I am staying in a hotel and I finally don't have anything left to do to enable my move, I figured I might as well take a day and really go all out tourist. So I got my camera ready, grabbed my tourist map, put on a sweater emblazoned with the name of the place that I am visiting, and hit the town!

Seeing as I am staying at Yonge and College, I decided to head south and follow the PATH.

PATH is downtown Toronto's underground walkway linking 27 kilometres of shopping, services and entertainment. According to Guinness World Records, PATH is the largest underground shopping complex with 27 km (16 miles) of shopping arcades. It has 371,600 sq. metres (4 million sq. ft) of retail space, and connects more than 50 buildings. It's southern end would be my eventual destination for the day, and it's northern end is the Atrium on Bay at the corner for Yonge and Dundas.

On the south-east corner of Yonge and Dundas is Yonge-Dundas Square. The corner of Yonge and Dundas used to be quite a sketchy area, full of strip clubs, head shops, XXX theatres and tacky t-shirts shops, not unlike New York's Times Square back before it got cleaned up. Much like NYC's Times Square, the City of Toronto took it upon themselves to turn the dive atmosphere of Yonge and Dundas into something more tourist friendly. So they knocked down a bunch of the buildings and made part of it a square.

The square at Yonge and Dundas is now a meeting place, and they often hold music, film, and community events in the square and on the stage at the east end. This weekend was the Desi Fest, a South Asian music festival in celebration of South Asian Heritage Month. Yonge-Dundas Square is transformed into a South Asian bazaar and live music showcase for more than 20 Canadian and international artists. This picture of the square was taken this morning, long after the Desi Fest party had cleared the area.

Across Yonge Street from Yonge-Dundas Square is the Eaton Centre, a massive mall originally named after the main tenant. However, Eaton's department stores went belly up a few years back, but the name was so intrenched they decided to keep it, claiming that the complex is now named the Eaton Centre as it represents a tribute to Eaton's founder Timothy Eaton and the small shop he once opened at this location.

The Eaton Centre has a massive glass roof that runs the length of the mall, and the floors are designed to have many large gaps to allow for light to stream down, creating a very large atrium. At the south end of the mall, an art installation called Flight Stop by artist Michael Snow hangs from the roof. The art piece depicts a number of Canada Geese heading south. The artist and the management of the mall had a falling out one year, after the mall put red ribbons on the geese to celebrate Christmas. Michael Snow ended up suing the mall, and the Eaton Centre was forced to remove the ribbons, as the judge ruled that the "distortion" of the work infringed on Mr. Snow's copyright.

Personally, I thought it looked festive, but whatever... I'm no artist. Here's the geese, sans ribbons.

The south end of the mall empties out onto Queen Street. Heading west on Queen you will come across Old City Hall.

Built in 1899 and serving as City Hall for Toronto until 1966, when the city council moved west, across Bay Street to the new City Hall.

Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the modernist architecture building opened in 1965. Two curved towers flank the main council chamber, which sits like a big round flying saucer in the middle of the buildings, almost looking like it's ready for flight. Given some of the loonies we have on city council, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a few of them are aliens, actually.

In front of City Hall is Nathan Phillips Square, named after mayor Nathan Phillips of Toronto (1955 - 1962). The square often holds concerts and events, and in the winter the small concrete fountain in front is frozen over to provide a large, outdoor skating rink.

Even though my plan called for following the PATH, I decided to stay above ground and enjoy the sunny weather. I headed south down York Street, and came across one thing that you can't escape in Toronto, the hot dog cart.

Due to public health regulations requiring food serving establishments to have sinks and bathrooms and a number of other things, only "prepared, pre-cooked food" can be served by street vendors, which means that every food stall sells pretty much the same thing, hot dogs and sausages. It's one of Toronto's great failings, if you ask me, that you can't get a decent meal from a cart vendor in the city. They are working to change it, but like all things related to government, the right to sell a decent empanada or taco on the street is mired in red tape.

The other thing you run into, much like any other city, is people handing out flyers and free samples of stuff. It always bothers me when they try and hand something to me, but I must admit that I feel overlooked and sad when they ignore me.

Today I passed two young ladies handing out samples of something. I rolled my eyes as I approached, thinking, "oh great, somebody else trying to pass me garbage." The young lasses were handing out the samples to everyone but as I approached, they both looked away.

I stopped and cleared my throat. One of the girls turned to me. "Am I not good enough to receive your pamphlet and product sample? Have you thought that perhaps you've just lost a potentially loyal consumer?" I quizzed her.

Looking confused, she handed me the sample packet for new super-absorbent tampons.

"Thank you," I said. "I was running short of ammunition for my tampon blow-gun."

Okay, I admit, that last whole conversation was made up. But some girls did snub me when handing out their pamphlets this morning, though I figured seeing as they only seemed to be targeting women that there was an obvious reason why I was excluded.

Continuing south I arrived at Union Station. The main train station in Toronto as well as a bus depot and local transit hub, millions pass through the station every day. Outside the station is Francesco Pirelli's Monument to Multiculturalism, the statue depicts a naked, faceless man. The statue was a gift to Toronto by the National Congress of Italian Canadians in 1985. The statue has raised some eyebrows over the years, as some have questioned why a man with no facial features should have such an accurately sculpted groin area, but I've always liked it.

The statue, I mean, not the groin area.

The birds in flight and the globe shape have always made me think of travel, which is also helped by the fact that the statue is outside the train station.

It also makes a great place to tell people from out of town to meet you when they arrive at Union Station. "I'll be by the statue of the big naked dude." That's a hard one to forget.

Kiddie-corner from Union Station is Brookfield Place, which holds the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I guess I won't get to see much hockey over in England, so I took one last, longing look at the shine to Hockey, and moved on.

East of Brookfield Place and Union Station is one of Toronto's most iconic buildings, The red brick Gooderham Building (commonly referred to as the Flatiron Building) was built in 1892. At the triple-corner of Wellington, Front and Church streets and with the financial district as a back-drop the building and it's setting are almost an idiot-proof picture opportunity. Of course, my picture happens to come when the outer exterior is being worked on, so the building is partial obscured by scaffolding, so I guess no matter how idiot proof something is, there is always a better idiot.

I doubled back and headed west along Front Street towards the CN Tower.

The CN Tower is probably the most distinctive thing about Toronto's skyline, and is a major tourist attraction. Built in the mid-seventies to serve as a radio and TV tower, the last minute additions of a couple of observation decks turned the massive concrete shaft (nothing phallic about it) a tourist sight that has (depending on which list you read) been called one of the "seven wonders of the modern world."

As of today, the tallest man-made structure is the Burj Dubai, a skyscaper still under construction in Dubai, that has reached 636 m (2,087 ft) in height as of May 12, 2008

The CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, standing at 553.3 m (1,815 ft), was the world's tallest freestanding structure on land from 1976 until September 12, 2007, when it was overtaken in height by the rising Burj Dubai. The tower does, at this point though, still have the world's highest public observation deck, though that will most likely change once the Burj is finished and opened.

I went to both observation decks today. The lookout level is 346m (1,136’) above the ground, and from there you can get some pretty excellent pictures of the Toronto skyline.

Island Airport

Downtown core, often called the "Financial District"

Looking towards mid-town and up-town

One level down you will find not only the Glass Floor, offering you the vertigo inducing opportunity to stand 342m (1,122’) above the ground below with nothing but a few panes of glass supporting you up.

The glass floor opened in 1994, and I had the opportunity to attend a corporate event a few years later in 1995. To prove that it is safe to walk on, the CN Tower had put a sign indicating that the glass floor was "five times stronger than the required weight bearing standard for commercial floors." That's reassuring, until you are back in your office the next day, looking down at the floor below you and thinking, "Dear God, this floor isn't even as strong as glass!"

Heading up from the look out level, you get to the Sky Pod. Sky Pod is 447 metre (1465 ft.) above the ground, and offers even more dizzying views of the city. I snapped this shot, looking straight down, giving a view of both the roof of the look level section and railway Canadian Pacific's former John Street roundhouse, it is currently home to a brewery, and soon to be a furniture store and small rail museum.

Enough dizziness, and feeling adequately Canadian (see photo with moose dressed as Mountie as proof of my Canadian-ness for the day), I headed out of the tower and back east towards Yonge Street. Walking up Yonge, I pass a statue that I had seen many times before, but today it draws my attention even more.

"Immigrant Family" is a work by Tom Otterness. A bronze sculpture found at 18 Yonge Street (Yonge south of Front Street), the statue depicts a new family arriving on the shores of a new land, suitcases and baby in hand. The figures are cartoonish, which has always given me the impression that this family of newcomers was happy to be in their new land.

So it will be for me on Wednesday morning, happily clutching my luggage on the shores of my new home. Assuming, of course, that my luggage doesn't go missing in Heathrow airport.

I flipped the page on my calendar on May 1st, and realized that I really only had one month left in Toronto before departing for the United Kingdom. Despite living here all my life, or actually more likely because of it, I realized that there were a number of things that visitors to Toronto seek out that I hadn't seen in a long time, and in some cases ever.

So, along with getting ready for my trip, all that packing I talked about in my last entry, and going to for drinks with all my friends, whom I suspect are just seeing me off so they have a free place to crash in London, I have been treating my hometown like I was a tourist visiting it for the first time.

Flags of Canada and Toronto

I've still got a couple weeks to go of being a tourist in my hometown, but thought I would share some of my experiences up to this point.

First up was a trip to Niagara Falls (which actually took place in April, but we'll pretend it took place in May, otherwise the whole "Flipping the page on the calendar and realizing my time was short" literary device falls apart). I briefly saw the falls, but most of my time was spent walking around the tourist zone of Clifton Hill and in the Casino.

It is very tacky and overpriced, and in a lot of ways detracts from what is an otherwise beautiful and majestic natural wonder in the falls, but it can be a hell of a lot of fun. After all, they have a MIDWAY!

Luckily, the weather in Toronto this May has been quite nice, so it's been good weather to go and hang out on the patios of my favourite bars.

The Sports Centre Cafe, at 49 St Clair Avenue West is my favourite year round location. A good selection of beers, excellent views of multiple TV sets to watch your favourite teams and some very pretty waitresses and bartenders make it a cool place to go.

But come summer, I must admit I find myself spending more time at The Fox and The Fiddle at 1535 Yonge Street, if for no other reason then they have three patios, and that every patios provides the following view...

It always reminds me of sitting in a medieval square in Eastern Europe drinking, even though I have never been to Eastern Europe, but I imagine that you would have a similar view of an old church while sitting on a sunny, Prague patio.

The nice weather has given me the opportunity to spend some time just walking around checking out the city, and I took a few snaps of nice places and views.

The following statue is on St. Clair Ave. W, between Yonge and Avenue Road. It is a man's torso, lounging in front of a building that sells insurance. I am not sure if it is meant to represent the relaxing attitude one can take when one is fully insured, or the fact that your insurance will probably cost you a couple arms, a couple legs and a head just to afford it.

The Canada Life Building in the foreground, with the CN Tower in the background. The Canada Life Building is interesting for its weather predicting abilities. Atop the building is a weather beacon which shines red for rain, white for snow, and lights running up or down it indicate a change in temperature. It provides "weather at a glance," and if you want to be able to decode its sometimes cryptic signals, check out the handy decoder at Wikipedia.

One of my favourite buildings in all of Toronto is Brookfield Place, formerly known at BCE Place, because of this amazing atrium:

Official known at The Allen Lambert Galleria, it was the result of an international competition and was incorporated into the development in order to satisfy the City of Toronto's public art requirements. The atrium was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, and is one of my favourite places to hang out in downtown Toronto. It also is a favourite place for film directors to film, especially for crappy sci-fi films, as it looks very futuristic.

These tulips are in bloom outside of the Toronto Dominion Centre, where I had my first job in Toronto back in 1992. I was a computer programmer at a large bank in the Centre, and I put on 30 pounds that summer from just sitting behind a desk and not doing any sort of physical work. Damn you, Computer Science Degree, for making me fat!

Back to the more tourist sites, I went to the Royal Ontario Museum recently, the first time I had been there since the expansion of the museum with the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. The crystal was designed by architect Daniel Libeskind and Bregman + Hamann Architects, and provides an ultra-modern contrast to the older Neo-Romanesque building.

The ROM has lots of exhibits, including dinosaurs and Greek statues.

That's the shadow of a dinosaur skeleton on the wall. It's scary, like Jurassic Park meets the scene in Sinbad where the skeletons attack his crew!

(Make up your own Greek behind joke here)

Very impressive in the museum is also the architecture, especially the ceiling in the main atrium.

It's worth taking a short lie down just to admire it.

The ROM is in the area called Yorkville, which is a very "posh" area of town with tons of fancy restaurants and bars. It also has a pretty nice little open area, with a nice water feature that people like to have lunch or coffee nearby.

Finally, yesterday I went and saw the Toronto FC of the MLS (North American Soccer) play the Columbus Crew.

I happened to wind up, without any fore planning on my part, in section 118, which is the home of the Tribal Rhythm Nation.

The Tribal Rhythm Nation is a support group of the Toronto FC that, according to their website, "This movement was created to bring a true multi-cultural presence to Toronto FC soccer games. We represent the African, Caribbean and Latin communities in the GTA. The goal of the Tribal Rhythm Nation is to create an atmosphere at Toronto FC games that energizes the whole stadium. The beat of our drums will be heard by all."

It is a very different atmosphere than my last trip to BMO Field to see the Toronto FC, with whistles, drums, chanting, singing and lots of flag waving. It was a lot closer to the experience I had last year seeing the 2007 Under 20 FIFA World Cup finals in Toronto, and probably good preparation for what I will experience at soccer... er, I mean football matches in the United Kingdom.

Another two weeks of packing, having drinks with friends and a few more tourist experiences to go until I can see if I'm right about the atmosphere at European football matches.

The Europa countdown continues...

When one thinks of Texas, one thinks of heat, of dusty desert landscapes upon which tumbleweed rolls along. Texas is a big place, though, and Houston offers a tree-filled view, a lush river delta leading into the Gulf of Mexico. However, with a latitude of 29 degrees north, 45 minutes, a latitude further south than Cairo, Egypt, one would expect Houston, Texas to be warm, even in the January.

In fact, average temperatures for Houston in January tend to be in the high teens Celsius. That is why it was so surprising that the weekend I choose to tour the city, Houston would be experiencing a high of 10 Celsius. Unprepared for the cool weather, I had to wander down to a Target store and buy myself a sweater. Local Houstonians were wandering around in heavy jackets with scarves and gloves.

Decked out in my new sweater, providing one of the 4 layers I was wearing, I headed out from my Hotel near the Galleria on the west side of Houston, and headed East towards San Jacinto Bay.

The battlefield at San Jacinto, near the San Jacinto River and San Jacinto Bay, was the site of a very important battle in 1836 that gained Texas their independence from Mexico. In the 1800s, Mexico stretched from Columbia (modern day Panama) in the south to a northern border that included parts (or whole pieces) of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Texas. Mexico gain independence from Spain in the early 1800s during the Mexican war of Independence, and soon that large swath of land found itself under the control of president General Antonio López de Santa Anna (a man who would hold that office a total of 11 different times over a 22 year period).

In 1835, Texas declared independence from Mexico, forming the Republic of Texas. Santa Anna was not impressed, and soon dispatched troops to bring Texas back under Mexican control. Santa Anna swept up into Texas, defeating Texan troops at the The Alamo in San Antonio and later at Goliad.

General Sam Houston, on the Texans side, retreated his troops from Santa Anna’s advance. Santa Anna, feeling confident, divided his troops into multiple columns to pursue both Houston and the Texan government. This gave Houston his opportunity, and Houston set up camp on a point of land where the Buffalo Bayou met the San Jacinto River.

On April 21st, Houston attacked the Mexican camp, with a regiment of troops lead by Sidney Sherman advancing from the northern tree line, and the main bulk of the army coming up from the south. The Mexicans, unprepared that day for battle, retreated to the east, where they were cornered. 600 Mexican soldiers died that day with a loss of only nine Texans. Santa Anna was captured the next day, April 22nd, 1836, and forced to sign a treaty giving Texas it’s independence from Mexico.

Texas’ independence was short-lived, however, and a few years later they joined the USA. Following the defeat by the Texans, much of the rest of Northern part of the Mexico fell during the Mexican-American war. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded to the United States approximately 1/3 of the present area of the USA, including in whole or in part the present-day states New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The point where the battle took place is now a state park with a large monument to the battle and the Texans victory over the Mexicans. The Art Deco obelisk is the tallest free-standing column in the world at 570 feet tall, 15 feet taller than the Washington Monument. Leave it to the Texans to outdo even their own government. In addition, a number of boulders are scattered around the grounds where important parts of the battle took place, including the spot where the majority of the 600 dead met their ends.

The park is also home to the 300 acre San Jacinto Marsh, a tidal wetland that has recently been undergoing restoration. In the 1970s and 1980s as the petrochemical industry and shipping grew in the area, much the marsh lands along the San Jacinto River were converted into open water. Started in 1997, the San Jacinto Marsh Restoration Project has been working to convert the area back into a marsh. More on the project can be read on the Department of Fish and Wildlife website, or on the University of Houston / Clear Lake website

Speaking of Clear Lake, that was my next destination, to the south of the San Jacinto Park. Clear Lake is a pleasure boaters destination, with from 19 marinas and over 7,000 boat slips in Clear Lake area, the third largest concentration of pleasure boats in the United States, apparently.

My reason for going to Clear Lake was not to go boating (a little cold to be out on the open water this past weekend). Rather I was there to head north from Clear Lake and back over the city boundary into Houston and NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, which sits just over the border from Clear Lake in Houston.

The Johnson Space Center is mission control for all American Space Shuttle missions, activities aboard the International Space Station, and is the training facility for all American astronauts. No rockets or space shuttles take off from Houston (for the most part, that happens in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center). The control facility in Houston is separated from the launch facilities in the event that a disaster occurs (rocket explosion or what have you) to ensure that you don’t lose both facilities.

The visitors’ center at Johnson Space Center has an interactive museum which would probably be fun for kids, but I found a little dull. I did, however, quite enjoy the opportunity to do the NASA tour, where a tram takes you around the grounds of Johnson Space Center. We saw one of the three mission control rooms in the facility, the training center where astronauts train and a few rockets and rocket engines from past programs like Saturn and Apollo. The training area was interesting, as it included full size training models of the shuttle and International Space station, a couple of shuttle flight simulators and two models of the Canadarm, the robotic arm made by Spar Aerospace in Canada. Yay Canada! To simulate using the arm in a zero-g environment, the astronauts train by pushing around balloons and other light weight objects with the robot arm.

In addition to controlling missions and training astronauts, the Johnson Space Center is also home to the development programs for the next generation of space travel, which includes new space craft, a lunar base and a trip to Mars. In addition to the over 17,000 full time and contract employees working at the Johnson Space Center, there are more than 70 aerospace firms in the Houston area. The Bay Area (as the area around the Johnson Space Center complex is called) Bay Area Houston is home to 92 percent of Houston's aerospace jobs and 4.5 percent of Houston's total employment.

As the tour group was leaving building 30, where the mission control rooms are located, the guide motioned up to a flag atop the building. “Whenever an American is in space, the American flag flies on that pole. As there is an American at the International Space Station, the flag is flying at this point.” Looking up to the flag pole, I noticed off to the right that the moon was rising in the blue sky over the building. There it was, NASA’s next destination, the moon, just above the horizon, so close and yet actually 380,000 kilometers away. Houston is right there, at the edge of space.

Due to its important place in the Aerospace industry, Houston’s NBA team is called the Rockets, though I learned while attending a game last Wednesday that originally the team was from San Diego. In San Diego, the team was also called the Rockets, in honour of that city’s large aerospace industry. Luckily for the NBA, the Rockets moved from one capital of aerospace to another. After moving from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, the Lakers of the NBA never changed their name, even though there isn’t much in the way of lakes around the Los Angeles area.

Heading south from NASA down highway 146, I noticed that my gas gauge was getting low, so I pulled off the highway in Texas City to fill up. Buying gas in Texas City, besides for being a practical concern of not running out of fuel, was also a strong metaphor. I recently read the outstanding book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, in which the author examines the question, “If somehow the earth were depopulated of humans overnight, how long before all trace of humankind vanished?” In the book, the author spends a chapter in the Houston area, and specifically Texas City, to examine what would happen to all the petrochemical processing plants that we have created.

Why associate the petrochemical industry with the Houston Area? As the interesting article on the Houston Ship Channel called Amidst a Petrochemical Wonderland: Points of view along the Houston Ship Channel points out, approximately one quarter of the refining capacity of the United States is located along the ship channel, at over 20 petrochemical plants in the channel area. They are linked by pipelines, selling streams of liquid product to one another, and bringing in crude from hundreds of platforms in the Gulf, as well as heavier, cheaper crude from Mexico.

Texas City, south of Houston, is home to three refineries: Valero, Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC, and British Petroleum (BP). The BP refinery can process over 450,000 barrels per day, making it the third largest refinery in the USA. In addition to the refineries, there are a number of other petrochemical plants that use all that refined oil to make a number of products. With all those petrochemical plants, Texas City has from time to time, blown up. The most significant of these, known as the Texas City Disaster, happened in 1947, when a fire aboard the French ship Grandcamp ignited the 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate (fertilizer) aboard, causing the ship to explode. The resulting set of fires and explosions through-out Texas City killed more than 500 people and wounded over 5,000.

I left the gas station just as the sun was sinking in the sky, and drove through town and past the chemical plants. The lights on the pipes, stacks and processing equipment were just coming on. Looking at this stainless steel maze light up against the blackening sky, with spouts of fire shooting in bright orange and cool blue flames from venting stacks, I couldn’t decide if the scene reminded me more of a post-apocalyptic landscape ala Mad Max, or a futuristic city like something from a Japanese manga cartoon.

Apoligies for the poor singing, and the fact that my words get cut off at the end. I am a poor host and videographer, apparently. I was saying, before I apparently hit the stop button to quickly, "Welcome to Texas City, the gas station of America."

Later that evening, when driving north back towards Houston from Galveston on highway 45, looking at the row of petrochemical plants in the distance definitely put me in mind of that futuristic city. From across the water of Galveston Bay, it looked like a very distant city of skyscrapers, all lit up with shiny glass. It’s truly an impressive site, though once you get closer to the Texas City industrial complex, the vision of future cities fades into the stink of chemical processing.

But prior to heading back to Houston, I drove further south to Galveston. Galveston sits on an island in the Gulf of Mexico, and is now probably best known as a town with a number of tourist attractions. Back in the late 1800s, however, Galveston was the biggest city in the area, surpassing even Houston. However, in 1900 a hurricane struck the area, killing between six and eight thousand people and destroying a good chunk of the city. After that, many of the residents and businesses moved north towards Houston, and the city never really recovered. One can’t help but draw parallels between Galveston and New Orleans, and wonder if Galveston is a glimpse into New Orleans’ future.

I didn’t see too much of Galveston though, as I arrived pretty late in the day and needed to head back to Houston that evening. I took a quick drive around the historic Strand district, and then headed to a restaurant for dinner. It was a busy night in Galveston, and I had to wait for a table. Soon my name was called, and I was shown my table, overlooking the the tall ship Elissa. Launched in 1877, the Elissa was restored in the 1970s. As I was at a restaurant called the Fisherman’s Wharf, I figured I should get seafood, and as I was just steps from the Gulf of Mexico, I decided on an entry with three different preparations of Gulf Shrimp. The shrimp are caught wild in the Gulf of Mexico, where they live. For all I know, the shrimp could have been caught by Forrest Gump and Lieutenant Dan. Who can say?

I finished up with dinner, and soon was back on the road, heading north along highway 45 back to Houston and my hotel room. The day started with the history of San Jacinto and ended with the historic center of Galveston, and in the middle featured space travel and the futuristic landscape of the petrochemical alley. Yesterday, today and tomorrow all in one day.

Earlier this month, the New Seven Wonders of the world were announced. They are:

• The Great Wall, China
  
• Petra, Jordan
  
• Christ the Redeemer Statue, Brazil
  
• Machu Picchu, Peru
  
• Chechen Itza, Mexico
  
• The Roman Colosseum, Italy
  
• The Taj Mahal, India
  

I wrote about a similar list last year done by ABC and USA Today, but unlike that list, this one was voted on by the general public - at least those with mobile phones or internet connections. It's already caused quite a stir, some claiming that it's just a list of tourist sites, and not really a list of "wonders." The inclusion of places like Chechen Itza or the Colosseum ahead of places like the spectular Angkor Watt is seen as many as proof that this was no more than a popularity contest. As proof, they offer that last minute bloc voting by Brazilians to get their statue in Rio in the list.

However, I don't think we can be sure that the "original" list of the 7 wonders of the world was something that wasn't of a similar bent. The best known and oft-quoted seven wonders of the ancient world was written by Antipater of Sidon, a writer of the 2nd century bc and author of a travel book, and supposedly were called originally the seven "theamata," which means "must-sees," so I am not certain that the original list should be considered any better than a potential tour pamphlet by a Hellenic Lonely Planet writer.

Anyway, it is what it is. Of more interest to me this week was the news that the the Starbucks in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China had closed. The Forbidden City (or Imperial City as they call it in China) is China's most popular tourist attraction, it originally was the palace that served as home and seat of power of the Emperors of China prior to the end of imperial rule in 1911.

The coffee shop has been a source of protest since it opened in the year 2000. The protest got louder this year when China Central Television anchorman Rui Chenggang suggested that the coffee shop was ruining Chinese culture. Soon, millions of people were supporting Chenggang's online petition.

Starbucks and the Forbidden City management are both claiming the protest wasn't related to the decision to replace the coffee shop with a unbranded cafe and shop, rather it was a "move is aimed at streamlining commercial activities and recreating the palace ambience."

All this means, of course, that I was one of the few people who actually got to see the American super-chains quick and unsuccessful time in the Forbidden City. I was there in 2005, and even wandered into the Starbucks to check it out, though I didn't buy anything. I did purchase an ice-cream bar and Coca-cola from a shop nearby, though.

7 million people a year visit the Forbidden City. The Starbucks operated for a total of 7 years, which means that 49 million people passed by that Starbucks. No more people will ever do that. We 49 million, a mere 0.6% of the population of the earth, and the only ones that got that opportunity. We are a unique group. How many people can say that?

From now on, people will just have to go into one of the other stores that existed close to the Starbucks, buy a Coca-cola and an ice-cream bar, and reflect on how much less commercial and western-influenced the Imperial Palace is without the Starbucks.

John Graham Jr. was born in 1908 in Seattle, and must have admired his father very much, because he followed his father's footsteps and became an architect. His father was a famed architect who designed many of the buildings in Seattle. After graduating from Yale in 1931, John Graham the Junior developed quite a career designing shopping malls across America. In 1961, he was hired to design a mall in Honolulu called the Ala Moana Shopping Center. Looking around, he said to himself, "gosh, there is a nice view in every direction. Wouldn't it be great if someone eating at the restaurant could get all these views, instead of just one view." He then put on his favorite record of 1961, "Tossin' and Turnin'" by Bobby Lewis and watched as the record revolved around and around at 45 rpm, and it suddenly hit him. "THE RESTAURANT SHOULD REVOLVE!"

The next year, he returned home to Seattle, where they were just starting to build their Space Needle for the 1962 World Fair. Looking at Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains to the west, the Cascade range to the East, Lake Union to the north and Mount Rainier to the south, he thought to himself, "I could save a lot of work if I just reuse that tacky revolving restaurant design I used in Honolulu last year..." And thus was born The Eye of the Needle, billed as the world's first revolving restaurant (despite the fact that La Ronde in Honolulu, designed by the same architect, was already spinning in the South Pacific).

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As a relatively seasoned traveller, I like to think that I am beyond the point to be wowed by tourist sites. I've seen Niagara Falls too many times to even be thrilled by it. I've been up the Eiffel Tower, but how can that compare to sitting around in a cafe on a side street in Paris. I'm there to experience the "real" place, not the place where one is most likely to run into other tourists.

Thus, I could (and did) easily cast aside the experience of being atop the Space Needle in one of my past entries on Seattle. It was touristy and crowded and not really that indicative of the place that I was visiting. It was not a place, much like Toronto's CN Tower, that locals bother visiting.

Upon booking a reservation for four at the Sky City restaurant, the new name of the revolving restaurant atop the Space Needle, I was prepared to be underwhelmed.

Every so often in one's experiences, though, one is taken aback by the joy of an experience that one would think they would just detest. An example of this was a trip I made to Vancouver back in 2002, when my friend said, "I've rented a stretch limo for us to cruise around in tonight!"

(An aside - Sarabeth and Kathryn - I swear, I am going to mention you in my blog very, very soon. Just stick through this one small story, and you'll be featured prominently).

Now, I'd been in a limo before, back when I was a teen-ager and underage drinker and heading to prom. But frankly, as a 34 year old I was pretty sure I was beyond the point of being impressed by a limo, and was pretty sure I would just be rolling my eyes and sighing all night.

But a strange thing happened as we cruised around in our stretch limo, listening to banging rock and roll music and drinking imported beers. I started to really enjoy it. What I thought would be a tacky and embarrassing experience became something that was absolutely and totally fun.

And thus it was at Sky City on Wednesday night, revolving around at 1 revolution per 47 minutes looking out at Seattle at night, eating very pricey seafood and drinking very pricey beer and having an absolutely fantastic time.

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Myself, and three co-workers, Trebor, Sarabeth and Kathryn had booked a 6:15 reservation at the revolving restaurant. I wasn't expecting too much. But soon we were having a good time, laughing and enjoying appetizers. And then the first card appeared.

Kathryn and Sarabeth, the coolest people on the planet enjoying the coolest dessert on the planet.

The Sky City restaurant revolves, but the windows stay still, and so any item left on the window still will soon recede from you and start approaching your fellow dinners. As we sat there, a card appeared on the window sill.

"My name is Laura, and I am from San Francisco. Where are you from?" We grabbed the card, and quickly wrote down our information.

Sarabeth - Washington, DC
Kathryn - Louisville, Kentucky
Trebor - Princeton, NJ
Greg - Toronto, Canada

More cards followed - "What's your favorite song?" "What is your favorite animal?" "What's the best advice you've ever received?" (the answer to that was "you don't want to date me, I'll just end up hurting you." Unfortunately, I didn't listen. But it was really, excellent advice.). All the cards were written by children, and all were obviously having a great time.

Dinner was very good (though the price was quite high - YIKES), but the key item was dessert. The signature item of Sky City, dating back to the days of the 1962 world fair, is the Lunar Orbiter, a hot fudge sundae presented in swirls of dry-ice Seattle "fog."

And so I found myself quite enjoying what I felt I shouldn't have. It's not hte first time that's occurred recently - the same thing happened during my "all-inclusive vacation" in Panama. Perhaps I'm growing, learning to accept more and be less judgemental of experiences.

But then again, perhaps I'm just getting old and searching for better ways to justify my desires for comfort.

Hmmm...