Today turned out to be a really beautiful warm day, with blue skies and puffy clouds, such a nice contrast to the last 2 days. Ma, Shih Ay Yi and I went downtown for the afternoon. We started in Yorkville to wander around the pricey shops and boutiques. Lots more sales signs and empty storefronts than I saw at Bayview Mall. Maybe selling $500 spring coats is not such a great idea. After a snack break, we headed to ROM to check out their chinese collection. The museum has a new entry, designed by Daniel Libeskind (it pretty much looks like most of his buildings do, see photo). We weren't all that impressed with the new entry. It seemed kind of dark and barren on first entering. ROM has a very nice chinese collection, nicely displayed. There were some beautiful landscape paintings (spanning several hundred years) showing all kinds of techniques.
In the evening, we stopped for hot dogs and sausages from a street vendor before heading to see the National Ballet of Canada do Giselle. A very nice production, beautifully danced by the leads and the Myrtha (she was a little scary!) and I was impressed with the realistic 'acting/mime' of the background peasants in the first act. They were not doing the typical stage mugging I see so much in story ballets, it made the mad scene that much more affecting. The theatre is quite a beautiful place, a more vertical type seating arrangement. We were in a section behind the main orchestra, slightly elevated but almost 1/2 the price. Very good sight lines and still close enough to see facial expressions without binoculars. This was a great deal. I look forward to seeing more productions in the future, and Ma and Shih Ay Yi were both eager to do so as well.
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