We drove from Ann Arbor to Toronto this morning, arriving at 2 PM. Amazingly, there was NO line at Canadian immigration at the Blue Water Bridge. The agent looked at the outsides of our passports, asked one or two questions, and sent us on down the Queen's Highway. As always, it's quite fascinating to drive through the Niagara Escarpment, where a steep discontinuity separates two large, flat planes near the lakes. Obviously, we did not take the road in the direction of the Falls, but turned the other way, along the lakeshore to Toronto.
We checked into the Holiday Inn and spent the rest of the afternoon at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Oriental art collection is spectacular. We enjoyed the beautiful stone and polychrome statues of Buddhist religious figures, the cases upon cases of Chinese and Korean ceramics, Japanese armor and helmets, as well as a special exhibit of photos of Shanghai in the early 20th century and during the "liberation" in 1949. We enjoyed looking over the collections of art from the American Southwest, Africa, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. The "First Peoples" exhibition includes remarkable materials from a number of sources, such as a woman named Evelyn Johnson, who donated art and everyday objects illuminating the history of her family, members of the Mohawk tribe (I think). Several native dolls were especially appealing in this collection. Last year, only a few of the museum areas were yet open, but now much more is available.
I will have some photos later on. Lenny's camera is remarkable at low-light no-flash pictures.
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