Trip to Montreal

Yesterday Camila, Laura, Nancy and I went to Montreal. Here is Camila at the Canadian border.

We visited the Olympic Park, site of the 1976 Summer Olympics. Check out these winners!

The famous inclined tower is rising over the Olympic Stadium with its retractable roof. (Both the tower and the roof were not completed until a decade after the Games.) We went up the tower and enjoyed the views, but did not tour the Stadium.

We visited the Biodome, the Botanical Garden, Notre Dame and Old Montreal. We did not by any means see all of the Botanical Garden, but we did see the "Magic of the Lanterns" display in the Chinese Garden (Sept. 7 - Oct. 31, 2007). Here are Laura and Camila in the Chinese Garden:

And here is a more direct view of the display behind the girls:

There was a sign explaining that this display told the story of the following legend:

Between Heaven and Earth
Chang E flies up to the Moon

This legend dating back over 2,000 years tells of the love between Yi, the celestial archer, and Chang E, a young mortal orphan girl. Yi, a skilled bowman, was ordered by the celestial Emperor to come to the assistance of Yao, the terrestrial Emperor, and shoot down nine of the ten suns that were scorching the Earth. He spared one sun, for the benefit of humans, animals and plants. He became a hero to the people and decided to remain on Earth. There Yi fell in love with Chang E, and refused to leave her to return to Heaven.

In order for him to live for ever with his wife, the valiant Yi accomplished 1,000 feats and was granted an extremely rare pill of immortality by the Queen Mother of the West, who lived in the Kunlun Mountains. She told him that he and his beloved must share it – but one day, by mistake, Shang E swallowed the whole pill herself. Whoever took the entire magic tablet would be drawn up to Heaven forever, with no hope of returning. So it was that Chang E floated up to the Moon all alone. Since then the Moon has shone especially bright and, because of Chang E, it is rounder and whiter than ever on the fifteenth of each lunar month.