Anything but the ROM!

#37 THE ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM

DATE: Friday, February 24, 2012

TIME: 3:56 - 6:53pm

As the fifth-largest museum in North America, the ROM is a great place to catch traveling exhibits, though the museum also boasts its own collection of more than six million items. Whether you're interested in ancient Egypt or contemporary deisgn, the building's extensive halls offer the opportunity for a wonder-filled walk.

Well, welcome to 2012 and another year of walks! Our goal is to get to the half-way mark of the pack and finish our 25th walk this year. We can do it!!!!

Okay, so let's begin by explaining the title of this walk. See when we purchased the cards way back when, we thought it a little weird that the ROM was an entire walk in itself. I mean, it absolutely should be included as a site in the walks, (and it is! - walk #36 "University of Toronto (EAST)" ) but why a whole walk in itself? Other museums and lengthy sites don't get this treatment. It just seemed a little weird. Especially since the card for this walk doesn't specifically point out a route to take through the ROM. So anyway, when we first got the cards and would often randomly pick one out of the stack to do a walk for, there was a time where we just kept pulling out this one, and we'd just shove it back in the stack. We kept saying to ourselves we'd do it in the winter when the streets are gross with dirty slush or when there was a special exhibit we both really wanted to see.

tee hee! It was funny rummaging through the cards and being utterly disappointed to get the ROM each time! I must say...There's nothing wrong with the ROM... Mon and I just wanted to explore the city! And saving this walk for a winter day is exactly what we did! 

A "major" snow storm was forecasted this day and since Toronto hasn't really been hit by any heavy snowfall this year, our city kinda panicked... maybe not panicked... but several schools were cancelled. While there was snow flurries in the morning... by the time I met up with Mon, all the snow had melted and it was a pleasantly nice afternoon... 

In the end, our motivation for doing this walk today, was the price: FREE!!! See earlier in the day, I had taken my Grade 12 IB Bio class to the ROM to do an Evolution lab. So I got in for free.... The lab itself includes an hour guided tour through the Evolution related exhibits in the museum (with a ROM science teacher) and an hour in a lab room looking at fossils and other stuff. For the rest of the day we are allowed to roam the ROM as we please until closing. My students were dismissed at noon, and after lunch with my friend and colleague Bianca, Alma and I met up and went in to explore.

It's my 3rd visit to the ROM for this exact same field trip in about 1 calendar year. The tours are always nice, cause the ROM Science teacher always has good ancedotes (and I love a good ancedote) (Me too!) and even though I've had the same person twice in the last 2 months, she did give some different stories. Hopefully I'll remember them all for you. Even though I've been here often since being a teacher, I've never stayed behind to look at the other exhibits after the school visit was over. My last trip before becoming a teacher would have been when Alma and I visited the ROM library - it's a UofT library. Remember that Alma??? How can I forget?! That library is tiny and taking pictures inside was tough... I remember we had to sign in, though I'm not sure if I used an alias... did you? No I didn't. I was legitimaltely getting a book (for a classic's course).Oh right... they didn't have it did they?!
The last time I was here, I was with the girls... We went on half price Fridays. It was a good time cause all the girls were able to make it that night. I miss those girls. We had pho across the street afterwards... and I remember they were closing, but we still forced ourselves in to eat.

Before, I used to go once in awhile when I lived at Loretto (just around the corner) during 1st year. Free admission on Friday's after 4:30(?). And then of course there was the time we had to go as part of a BIO 150 lab in 1st year. We were given passes by our lab TA to go independently and had to complete an assignment. I went with Jeanne, and Chris, and .... Steven !? I remember our classmate Dave (?) getting me an extra pass... he actually had to get one for his gf, while our TA had stepped outside our lab. He got caught too... oops. But I'm certain I went with Stef to do the lab.
The ROM used to have these free weekly musical nights, where they explore different music from around the world. I'm sooo cool.. that I used to go by myself and check them out. I even got to talk to a couple of performers afterwards and use them in several of my music assignments... 

Incidently, that BIO 150 lab was where Alma and I first met. But we didn't become friends then. We knew each other, became aquaintances... (haha...our conversation- Monica -"hi",  Alma- "hi") imagine if we actually sat at the same table back then, we may have become friends then instead of in 4th year in Intro to Fungus. And speaking of fungus, Jean Marc, our fungus prof, had his office at the ROM. We should have attempted to find it! We should have! Ah fungus! One of the best classes ever!

So that was our longest preamble ever. Ready to get going? (yes!) As mentioned the cards don't give us a set path to take, nor are there official "sites" on this walk. But it does mention some exhibits and gives a vague guideline so we'll follow that.

1. ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM

"Start at the museum entrance on Queen's Park south of Bloor St. W. (via Museum Station)." I just can't shut up. Have to interupt to say that (1) this Queen's Park entrance is no longer the main entrance. And if you try to leave from it the alarm goes off. I've have experienced this first hand. The crystal - off Bloor St. is the new main entrance. (2) I like the pretty redesign of Museum station. The pilars are designed to be sacophaguses, and totem poles and other museum-like artifacts.   

                   
                                 BEFORE                                                     AFTER                                

In the old days, at the south end of the platform there was like a caged area. When I was a kid and my imagination got the better of me, I was convinced that it once held animals like a zoo.

There is an odd smudge on the tip of my nose. I'm hoping that the lens on Alma's iphone was a bit dirty and I wasn't actually walking about with a dirty nose. (Hey! - like Ron in the first HP book on the Hogwart's express on the way to Hogwarts. And I don't even need this to be my HP reference!)
Our walk starts with an HP reference! Really?!
That was fast... I'm sure there was supposed to be one further in!
Also... You had a dirty nose.. jk.. it's prolly my phone. 

FIRST FLOOR: The ROM  boasts Canada's only permanent gallery devoted to Korean Art and Culture. A Ming-era tomb helps make the ROMS's collection of Chinese archetecture one of the most significant outside of China. Also on hand are a signigicant dsplay of Yuan dynasty paintings, ukiyo-e prints, and North America's only Japanese tea-master's collection.

Is this a Yuan dynasty painting? Whatever it is, it's so big and impressive. Look at the size of it compared to the dude.



I'm really into horses these days...
I guess I should've read what these were used for. 
Imagine they were used for a game... like their version of chess.
not so imaginative - they were used for decorative purposes. Lawn ornaments! 
Mon, get on that Audubon!  







Well I'm fairly confident these are some ukiyo-e prints.


Some fancy warrior helmets. Feel like there was something related to this I was supposed to mention....
That it looked like a dragon's head?! Cause it kinda does...
cause dragons are real...



Check out Mon's new samurai hat...
maybe it's once size too small.
Mon seems pleased with the fit! 



Gorgeous!



More horses!
Which reminds me... we should go horse back riding again! 



Before this point I was wondering, "Where's the Korean section?" And hence it appeared at my command. (Almost by magic.....)


Oh geeze. What were these again? Alma?

Hair pins!
Fancy, no?!


For awhile were were perplexed about the Chinese architecture the cards speak of. Then we come across the next section including this fancy doorway (which we cannot go through).



Love the bold colours!





Spoons!
 eating at a distance... 
or for feeding ppl at a distance


Alma always wanted to pull a rickshaw

notice how my hands are not even touching the handles...
 i know how to obey signs... unlike others





MON!
Haha, mon does this in another one of our walks -
name that walk!
(that shouldn't be hard)






See the monkey carrying the fruit? The tomb itself was massive. Looks so heavy, wounldn't be surprised if one day on the news there was a story of it falling through the floor. A wonder how they transported it....

FIRST FLOOR (continued): A considerable collection fo 19th - and 20th centruey North American Indian artwork and clothing is complemented by a theater devoted to traditonal storeytelling.

Before we go into the North American section, we wander into the Canadian wing - a wing I'd never been to.

As the next picture indicated, the painting above is of the Toronto skyline from the Toronto Islands as it was in the 18OO's. Bizzare.
Though Mon pointed out her condo...









nice illustration... 


We both liked the shadows these weather vanes cast.

dragons are real...

Monica "hi", Alma "hi"

Yeah, we're cool!

Oh i forget who's door this belongs to... a politician?! 
Well Mon... let me in!

Native American artwork.

I thought you took more pictures from the Native American wing Alma? Ah well. The Native American wing was where the gift shop was before the reno.
Apparently not... oops... 
There were a couple of art pieces that gave me the creeps at the end of this exhibit... 


Oh here it is! This is a smaller version of a larger piece. Can't remember what it was about though.
Not sure... but you can see this also at replica of it at Museum Station!

The totem pole guides the way to the next floor. Awesom pic Alma! Looks like it's infinitely tall and leading the way to the heavens above.

Pretty amazing!

2nd Floor

Finally we enter the realm of stuff I actually know a thing or two about because of my many school visits. The second floor is my favorite as it's the Science sections.
I don't recall a lot of things from my university days (did I really learn anything?!)  so really, Monica is my tour guide today! I learned a lot! Anyone looking for a science teacher?! Call Mon!

So the picture above is of a smallish display in a hallway off to the side. However, as the ROM teacher Bethany says, they're probably some of the most important and oldest fossils that the ROM owns. Lots of simple, early eurkaryotes. A lot of them are called "penis worms" because of their suggestive phallic shapes and the lack of imagination by the scientists who discovered them. And these fossils will be moved into the new wing (that they are currently just sitting outside of) once the appropriate funding is procured. So all you billionaires reading our blog, empty your pockets please.


This is a Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur which are flying reptiles. It was one of the largest flying creatures to evolve, with a wingspan of 12 meters! Oddly, it was believed that on the ground, it awkwardly walked on all fours.

ancient hieroglyphics -
first recorded evidence of the use of headphones

Ah, the barosaurus. So many ancedotes about this guy. Okay so first of all, he's massive! 90 feet long. The largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in Canada. 


See, there's his tail. LONG!!! It's tail was quite strong and muscular. It could slice a smaller dinosaur in half with one swoop.
Incredible!

In the pic below you can see his femur:

So thick. In the lab portion that we do with the kids, they present them with a fossil from a barosaurus and they have to figure out which bone it is - comparing it to a human skeleton (a real one!) and some diagrams. They always initially say a femur but the one they look at in lab is a phalanges of this dinosaur. It's about half a foot wide and long (my memory and measuring skills aren't that great but trust me, it's big. And the phalanges (they're your upper digits) are the smallest bones.
Phalanges... what an awkward word. (loving my contribution to this walk, huh?!)

Anyway, back to my barosaurus ancedotes. This is one of only 5 (maybe 4) barosaurus fossils. The head though does not belong to a barosaurus. See, none of the remains ever found of a barosaurus include the head. So it's a cast of another dinosaur head. Why has it never been found with a head? Probably has to do with the way it died. These big barosauruses would be herd animals. But when they get older, they're slower and they tend to get separated from the herd. At this time, it's easier for smaller, carnivorous, pack hunting dinosaurs to prey on them. 

Another little ancedote about this guy (and I'm going to apologize for my missing details):  a few years ago, the curator/palentologist for the museum was looking for a big dinosaur to have on display. He called up lots of other museums and tried to procure one for the ROM, with no such luck. Finally, he was sent on a plane to go dig and hopefully find one to bring back to the ROM. Well, on his way to his dig, on the plane or waiting for the plane or something or another, he was reading a magazine and in it they talked about big dinosaur fossils and they mentioned in the article how the ROM had one of the few relatively complete fossils for a barosaur. When the curator read this, he was dumbfounded. He'd know if they had one. But the article talked about how they bought it from another museum. So he returned to Toronto, did some searching and sure enough, in several packages there was a barosaurus fossil tucked away in storage in the basement. With staffing changes and renos, it got forgotten and uncatalogued in the shuffle. It hidden, forgotten in storage for 45 years! But now, as you can see, the barosaurus is displayed.



This guy is super famous - the most famous dinosaur the ROM owns. It's a Hadrosaur. The most complete Hadrosaur fossil in the world - and the only skull in the world! Any picture you see of a hadrosaur, is of this skeleton or a cast of this skeleton. And whenever palentologists find a fossil that they think might be the same species, they have to compare it to this guy. Because of that, the head that you see above is a cast. The real one is in the ROM labs, readily available for comparison if needed.



These helpful plaques not only have info on the species but the diagrams show which bones are real and which are casts. (Blue are casts)




Drop something?

Well this is an interesting fossil that caught our eye. The signage tell us us its a Coelophysis bauri. Notice the small scattered bones within the adominal cavity? Looks like it ate something - bones and all! The sign tells us that they were the bones of an infant coleophysis. This led to an "awwww, she was pregnant?". Then I had a brain wave and realized this doesn't make sense; dinosaurs laid eggs. So I continued to read the sign which revealed that it was thought caelophysis displayed carnivore behaviour. We stopped and commented and then I decided to read the rest of the sign. Apparently, the bones have recently been identified as crocodile bones. 
Reading the complete paragraph before drawing conclusions is ideal... 
(which is something I never do when reading monica's text messages)






An ichthyosaur! One of my favourite examples of convergent evolution. It's was a swimming carnivore. Other swimming carnivores? Penguins (which are birds), dolphins (mammals), sharks (fish) and the aforementioned ichthyosaur (reptile) all evolved streamline body shapes and have other similar features (fins, flippers) to fulfil their swimming carnivre niche.
This is where Monica quizzed me.  
I was in with the love the pattern on the fin. Not sure why...


This is rock taken from Newfoundland. Embedded in it are the oldest complex, multi-cellular fossils. Can you see them?



Here's a close up. Upon first look, they may look like plants. But these organisms would have been at the bottom of an ocean - too far from sunlight to be photosynthetic. They are heterotrophs that anchored themselves to the ocean floor.
Ooo! Ahh!

There's actually a Newfoundland commercial about these fossils. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxFSkBK8Vf4&feature=relmfu

don't you just want to go in?!


This was a tooth of...help me Alma? This is your jurisdiction. And I was allowed to touch this.
It's a molar ;)
Yay! 



Remember Mon and I were looking at this dinosaur's teeth for awhile... 
Notice that he only has posteriors... before assuming he'd need a partial denture...
we figured his anterior teeth were really large and stuck out of his mouth. No orthodontics needed here... cause they must've really help in biting his meal!

the inner structures of the crystal
and of course 
good old Bloor St. W 

That's a whole lot of bone!

Imagine carrying that on your head!

the fin's pattern! love.

Aha! This is was my spontaneous Harry Potter reference. When I saw this dinosaur, it triggered a Threstral memory. See in the land of Harry Potter, there are these creatures called Threstrals. They are basically winged horses, that are usually invisible. They are only visible to those who have seen someone die. Very dark JK Rowling! So the 1st time Harry see one is in Book 5 (at the end of Book 4 he witnessed Cedric Diggory die). Anyway, they are described as skeletal, and reptileish so that's why I thought of them. Just missing the wings.

Imagine how massive those wings would have to be to pick up this fella?! 

In the Gallery of Birds, armchair ornithologists can encounter a passenger pigion species.

Ahh! Birds! 

So here's my preplanned Harry Potter reference. A while before actually going to the ROM, in my usual rambling text messages to Alma (that she has already admitted she doesn't read) (Doesn't read properly!... I jump to conclusions while reading your texts... get it straight, Monica!) I went on a rant of the usal of owls in the wizarding world. And so this is of our the natural place to bring it up. (Yes!) See, in in the wizarding world, they often correspond using owls to deliver mail. Doesn't make any sense. They know magic! They coudn't come up with a better form of communication. There does appear better ways (like sticking your head in the fireplace and communicating via the Floo Network or the enchanted mirror that Harry and Sirius had - though never used between the two) and it doesn't make sense that other methods would not become more popular. I mean, owl mail has got to take time. And how on earth is the owl supposed to know where to go. When Sirius is a fugitive, he tells Harry that his owl will be able to find him. If it's that easy, how did he remain a fugitive on the run. Why couldn't the Auror's find him by just sending him a letter and following the owl???
You should take this up with J.K. Rowling! Anyone else with Monica?! I must say...She does make a good point...

Whoa... not the happiest fella...

but I guess I wouldn't be either....

being stuffed and all.

We were hoping to find a courier pigeon, but no such luck. 

Birds flying south for the season?! Or just part of "The Birds III?"
A couple of months ago, I watched "The Birds"... and the birds that just hang outside the school and around the home ,really give an eerie feeling. Reading on imdb, apparently they gave the birds whiskey to make them stand around the set a long time.

This is a Crested Oarfish. Bethany the ROM teacher told my class a fun little ancedote about this guy, but I couldn't confirm it. It may have been for a different fish. Anyway, she said that this was the female. The males are really small. And they basically exist just to release their testicles on the female. The female floats around with testicles of many males attached to her and then uses the goods for fertilize her eggs.

A hands-on Bio-Diversity Gallery allows younger visitors time at "touch tables."

We didn't actually visit the touch tables. But we did go into the new and improved bat cave. "New and improved"? Well the picture below shows the newest part... which is really a pretty spiffy entrance to the bat cave! Think the inside is pretty much the same but with added commentary. oops, did i just spoil it for everyone?! 

 Welcome to my laboratory!
We don't find a unicorn's horn here... 
cause unicorns are also real!

Cool.

Were we hoping he's a carrier pigeon?!

Thought you had a story about this guy, Mon...

He looks neat though... turns into a ball?! like a potato bug?!

Think Mon also had a story about this guy...

Was he donated by the Toronto Zoo?!

This Biodiversity section is sponsored by Shad Valley. One of the conditions is that all the stuffed animals have to have died naturally - not hunted. This rhino's name is Bull. He's was from the Toronto Zoo. The Zoo doesn't have much storage so when Bull died, he was given to the ROM. He's been revamped a bit to look younger, but he was pretty old and ugly according to Bethany before he died.

Think someone needs to add this to their rock collection...

These were cool. They are barite crystals that form "petals" in a rose like cluster. They are known as "barite roses", "rock roses" and "desert roses". How on Earth did I remember this??? Well I looked up the details but the name.... it came to me more than a month after this ROM walk, while on our next walk..... (Check out our blog on Dundas Square for that story.)

3rd Floor: Judaica, Islam, and Europe are showcased in respective galleries, while an extensive crowd pleasing Egyptian Gallery showcases the life (and afterlife) or ancient Egyptians- mummy included.

I haven't said much about the 3rd floor exhibits cause everything was a bit of a blur by this point - a long day! But there was definately some interesting stuff. I think the next time I visit the ROM I'd start at the 3rd floor to give it the attention I didn't back then. Having taken quite a few Classics courses in university, I find antiquity quite interesting. Did a lot of walking that day. Before we entered the Egypt section, we sat on some chairs in a corner. Dangerous. We almost didn't get up.

Yeah, really! So tired! But yes, that's actually a good idea to start at a different floor...too much to absorb in one outing, maybe the cards should've made this into 3 walks! and if they did... just imagine how many times we would've thrown this back into the deck!
My only recollection of this area was looking at some mascara pots and brushes... one of the mannequins was kinda creepy (though, i find a lot of things creepy, huh?! well being next to mummies doesn't help...).
Oh...and  just for your information... this is where i offered alex a stick of gum on our first date. how romantic. 

Nice bust! or busts...
Some guy was doing a charcoal drawing of another bust nearby.
we didn't get to see his work, but drawing from life is tough!
Makes me want to get better in drawing...

We witinessed a wedding rehersal!
... which we initially thought was the actual wedding! i mean... look at the couple! they're pretty dressed up for a rehearsal! Also that lady's dress was really cute... though monica and i both agreed that the front of it was kind plain. Anyhow, we figured it was a rehearsal since all the bridesmaids and groomsmen were talking amongst themselves while "they were exchanging their vows"... But who uses fake flowers during a rehearsal?! They do!


These chairs may look cool, but I assure you, they're not practical or comfortable.

It's worth nothing the Daneil Libeskind - resdesigned north facade of the museum.

We simply call it "the crystal".

Since it was pretty dark when we left - not to mention cold - we didn't stick around long to get many pics of the outside. So I've included a google pic:

While I like the crystal itself, not crazy about the fusion of the modern reno with the rest of the ROM architechture. Though it may be growing on me.... Yeah... I have mixed feeling about it... think the ROM pays a lot of money each year cause the crystal juts out onto the sidewalk... maybe for insurance reasons?! I can't remember...
We ate at the Gabby's across the street and could see through the crystal our beloved dinosaurs.

MONICA RATING: Definately a different walk. I really liked it though. The ROM is awesome. Feel kind of bad for looking down on this walk before. I'd like to see more Science sections, and more hands on stuff. And, hey, remember the Planetarium? The building beside the ROM. When I was a kid, I remember admission to the ROM included admission to the Planetarium. They're connected by a walkway. I believe it's now the Children's Museum, but couldn't find useful information about it. It would be awesome if they brought that back. Hint, hint to the billionaires reading this blog. Anyhoo, I'm giving it a 3.75 out of 5.    

Alma Rating: I also feel bad for constantly turning this walk down... It's a great museum! I mean, for us to go and not rush through it... is pretty good! Especially if you consider how many museums we went to last year! I'd go again... even just to see the dinosaurs. There's much to explore...I bet mon see's something new each time she's there!
So, I guess I'll also give this walk a whomping 3.75 out of 5! 

Also... don't forget to tip our tour guide (monica) next time you see her! She's pretty awesome in recounting stories!