Luminato Closing Weekend - Sunday

On Sunday morning, after a leisurely start to my day, I got off on my Luminato wanders with renewed enthusiasm. I was plotting out my route when I heard on the radio that Woofstock was also happening. It was being held in the St. Lawrence Market area, just east of the Financial District, so with a slight modification of my route, I was able to incorporate a visit to doggie-mania during the same outing. I had planned on taking Bella with me on this trek anyway - and what better fun than going to hang out with a few hundred dogs attached to their owners?



The first stop on my route was at the Exchange Tower at Bay and King. It is called the Exchange Tower because it is where the Toronto Stock Exchange is housed and there was an installation of art there I wanted to see. The piece is called Broken Arrow, a new work by Canada’s Germaine Koh in collaboration with Ian Verchere.There is a projector which somehow is set to display the names of detectable wireless communication devices on the wall in what was billed as an undulating mass of information. They also bring sound into the mix, by outputting what Luminato's literature describes as

a stream of Geiger-counter clicks or insect-like chirps for each device or frequency detected, creating layers of sometimes-cacophonous sound.

Unfortunately, I would have been better to visit this piece during the work week, when there would have been thousands of folks around with detectable devices. The Sunday noises were slow and quiet - hardly cacophonous and the display was a slow procession of just a few names.



Then it was on to Woofstock. It is North America's biggest doggie love in -- a celebration of all things doggie... and (I read this from their website) in past years over 140,000 folks showed up over the weekend with their dogs. You see me here with Bella in her dog carrier thingy. She might not look it, but is very comfortable slung over my hip with that device and it allows me to carry her without any fuss. She is a bit of a wimp - gets a bit claustropobic in crowds and begs to get up. This solves the problem. She does prefer to walk - just when we are in crowds is not so comfortable.



I will attest to the number of dogs present of every shape size and description.




I especially liked the beer garden which was dog friendly! After wandering around and seeing everything there was to see I treked off to Harbourfront to see what other Cirque du Soleil "encounters" I could observe.




I came across those creatures who yesterday were in the Au Naturel Pond. They were being silly ducks... kind of waddling around and making quacking sounds.



At one point they all tried to get into a phone booth and I think they did get about 6 or so into it.



I also came across some other creatures who were hanging burlap on a line like they were drying clothes. The burlap pieces were being given to children to paint on.


The Cirque du Soleil event was a interactive fun, reminiscent of an old time circus with these creatures just clowning around.

I wandered the length of Harbourfront and as I reached the westernmost point the sky looked pretty threatening. I decided to head home - both Bella and I were exhausted. It would have been nice to stay and see the finale when all the creatures got together to do what I assume would be the main show at 9:00 p.m., but Bella and I had been out in the sun all day and had walked a great deal.

As it turned out, it was a good decision. Sadly, it started to rain not long after I got home and the closing Cirque du Soleil event would have been rainy indeed!