did you know that the egg carton, that magnificent device that allows us to transport eggs safely, was invented by a canadian man?
it looked a little different back then…
… but it was still a remarkable invention! :)
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bruce trail
while in canada, we walked a tiny portion of the bruce trail, the path that follows the edge of the niagara escarpment for almost 900km, all across ontario. i didn’t know it at the time, but it’s one of the longest and oldest marked trails in canada.
what a beautiful thing to breathe all of this green! really makes us want to go back in autumn one of these years to see the colors turning. if only we had all the time in the world…
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analogue wednesday #157
went to niagara and saw the falls! it’s amazing how close you can get to them, actually… the water was *just* there!
libraries are nice places in principle… but a beautiful one, with a literary giftshop aaaaaand an arthur conan doyle room definitely takes the cake! :D
we read about the room on (where else?) atlas obscura and put it on our plans. then, on a day of walking around downtown toronto, we made a detour to the toronto reference library, to discover this room.
it looks like a place right out of baker street, with its carpet and bookshelves, where you can find not only books by doyle, but also books about doyle and his works, translations in many languages, pastiches (which are sort of fanfiction!) and more. some are rare books, but despite this, the nice librarian just let us have a look around and even read, if we wanted.
we had it all to ourselves for a while, snapping photos and taking our time admiring all the spines of books collected over the years, from collections, auctions or just donations.
for a fan, this was such a treat! :)
through atlas obscura, the boy found out about this hindu temple (or mandir) near where we were staying in toronto. it’s a special place because the whole thing was meticulously carved out of marble and other stones, and then put together here like a 3d puzzle, without any iron framework or nails even! just pieces of rock, stacked together with “glue”. it’s hard not to feel awe when looking at something like this.
given how the temple built, the scale of it was really impressive. it’s one thing to carve a couple of rocks… but to carve all these thousands of pieces (inside and out) to make a whole temple is a labour of love.
you can’t photograph inside, but the ceilings and walls in the main chamber were just amazing to look at. every bit of space was carved intricately, the light playing on its shapes and depth. flowers and patterns emerged from domes, covering everything in a canopy of beauty.
we’re not religious in the least, but i can’t help wonder if it helps, if people who pray here feel somehow different for having this physical proof of effort and devotion all around them. it was certainly inspiring to just walk around in our socks, eyes glued to the ceiling.
on our way out, a quick detour through the giftshop revealed a treasure of yummy vegetarian snacks! naturally, we tried some out and could barely contain ourselves from inhaling the whole thing on the ride home. :D
