July 22 - CN Tower, AGO and Date Night

We took Penny and Chris’ very good advice and showed up at the famous CN Tower at 8:45, 15 minutes before it even opened.  Anyone who knows me at all, knows that, me getting anywhere by 8:45 is a feat of epic proportions!  Me + 3 kids + assorted bits and pieces for the day … miraculous!  As it turns out, it was well worth the yelling.  The line snaked behind us and we were the first up to the upper observation tower.  By the time we got to the lower deck, it was jammed and only getting busier.   We escaped the crowds and headed to the AGO for the fun kid activity room in the basement.  Canadian museums know what’s up when it comes to entertaining the little ones!  Every museum has had more kid-centric stuff than even the museums in the US.  As we discovered last summer, Italian museums are waaaaay down the list …

After we deposited the children into the loving arms of our babysitter,  we headed back to the AGO to meet Penny and Chris and take in the exhibit, Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris; curated by Steve Martin (?).  A founding member of the Group of Seven and a major figure in the history of twentieth-century Canadian art, Lawren Harris's most well-known paintings are idealized, bordering on beatific, images of the Canadian Arctic and Rockies.  I've spent some time in the north and I don't remember any divine light caressing the frozen hillsides as I trudged off to microbiology class.  That said, Group of Seven paintings are not only good, they're good for the Canadian soul and, with that in mind, I was happy to surrender to an hour in the Idealized North.

We zipped off for dinner at Penny's favorite Korean restaurant - for a girl who grew up in Creemore, Penny really knows her ethnic food!  It was delicious but we could not enjoy whatever Korean dessert was on offer because we *had* to go and get and Uncle Tetsu's Japanese Cheesecake.  This is all the rage in Toronto right now, evidenced by the line-ups down the block.  They sold out at the first UT we went to so we zipped over to another location close by and picked up a traditional (of course) and a green tea matcha angel hat cheesecake.  This whole thing is so unexpected, I don't know where to start.   The bottom line is:  the original cheesecake was quite pleasant but, if you have your mouth in shape for traditional cheesecake, you'll probably be disappointed.  The flavor is mild and eggy and the texture is somewhere between a spongecake and a soufflé.  The Matcha Angel Hat was some funky business.  To that I say, NO!