Montreal - Day 3

Day 3 brought us to Montreal's Olympic Park, Biodome and Mont Royal (St. Joseph's Oratory).

The Olympic Park is over 30 years old, home to the 1976 Summer Olympics so I expected it to be a little run down and less sophisticated. I thought by putting such expectations beforehand, I wouldn't be too disappointed when I visited the place. The Park looked abandoned but something was going on over there. There were signs of construction everywhere. No doubt that the Park is going to have a face lift soon.

We took the 2-tiered cable car to the Observatory and took some photos of the City and the Biodome (see below) which houses several interesting exhibits & aquarium.

The Montreal Biodome

Moi outside the Biodome, a long shot

Adrian just outside the Biodome

Stuffed animals exhibit in the Biodome...

In honor of the Year of the Pig (2007), here I am with a stuffed Wilbur, oink!

After the Olympic Park, we drove towards Mont Royal and grabbed a quick lunch on the way. Not knowing where to eat, we thought a short stop at McD's for a light munch made sense. Nothing could go wrong right?! Well, not this time.

First, our soda was flat. No bubbles at all. Second, they ran out of ice so we had to slurp room temperature soda :(. Thirdly, their fries was flat as a deflated tire and to top it off - drum roll please! I saw a kid hurled big time in front of the store counter. Yup! His entire lunch was on the floor in just seconds. They were so short-staffed that day, nobody was interested in cleaning up the mess. Yuck, yuck! Please do not ever go to McD's at Mont Royal Park.

On that note, we quickly left that sorry place and drove on to Mont Royal. We reached L'Oratoire Saint Joseph du Mont-Royal in less than 10 minutes. Ahh...what a sight to behold after such an unpleasant lunch experience.

This is my picture perfect, postcard view of the Oratory. It would have been a better photo if the man in blue shirt wasn't waiting for the shuttle to the Basilica there. Grrr..!

We climbed many, many stairs...pant! pant! Thank God for escalators inside the Oratory. Yes, it's a very sophisticated and modern Basilica.

View of the top (Basilica) - front garden

One of the prettiest and most serene area of the Oratory is the meditation garden depicting the last 12 hours of Christ's life.

Here are the disciples dozing off in the garden...zzz!

Lots of sculptures around the garden. Here's another of JC carrying his cross.

After the Oratory, we drove back to Mont Royal Park trying to find the gigantic cross by the mountain. Unfortunately, it was no where to be seen so we decided to go back to the City. In the evening, we took a stroll through McGill University; whereby we saw a typical college scene. An open field party with co-eds smelling of booze and other booze related weirdness.

Further down the road, we came across some modern sculptures such as this one. Its supposed to depict human reaction when confronted with some kind of danger??? Interesting...

This one is of Adrian trying to steal the boy's apple although it looked a bit like him touching something else??? Maybe he shouldn't have touched the apple.

After the long walk, we had a nice dinner at Quartier Chinois and called it the day.

Au revoir Montreal!