Legends Of The Silk Road

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address: 100 Princes' Blvd.
Date: Aug 2018
Website:  theex.com

  This year the Canadian National Exhibition features an indoor lantern festival.  The displays are based on an ancient trade route between Europe and China known as The Silk Road.  According to our CNE guidebook it took 55 metres of steel and 4000 metres of synthetic silk to make the lanterns.  It took over 40 days to make the lanterns and 60 days to travel from China to Toronto.  The lanterns bring to life the stories and adventures associated with the Silk Road.  Join us as we walk the Silk Road and see these stories come to light.

  The tour starts with a silk lantern version of the CNE's Princes' Gates that welcome us.  A map shows the routes taken both by land and sea as this trade route was used. The Silk Road spanned more than 6,500 kilometres. 

The Adventures of Marco Polo

Marco Polo was an Italian explorer.  He travelled the Silk Road on an epic 24 year journey from Italy to Asia. He travelled with a caravan of people and animals he encountered on the way.

The Four Dragons

Four dragons were placed underneath mountains. They transformed into rivers to bring water to the people.

Washrooms

  After the dragons, we encountered the only washrooms on the Silk Road.  Yikes!  We had better use the facilities as we still have to walk all the way from China to Europe.

The Fairies of Lake Saif-ul-Malook

This is a tale of a prince who fell in love with a fairy.  The lake is located in northern Pakistan and on the full moon it is said the lake shimmers as the prince and fairy dance along the water.

Voyages Of Sinbad the Sailor

Sinbad had many adventures.  This time he fights a group of cyclops on the island of Krakatoa.

Odysseus and the Sirens

It is said that the beautiful song of the sirens causes sailors to shipwreck or plunge into the sea.  Odysseus tied himself to the mast and plugged his crews ears with beeswax so that he could safely listen to the siren song.

Aladin and the Magic Lamp

Aladin polishes a golden lamp and a genie appears to grant him three wishes.  If only we were that lucky.

Sancai The Tang Horse

 

Beautiful pottery replicas were made of war horses during the Tang Dynasty and displayed in tombs.
 
The Minotaur and the Maze

In Greek mythology, every nine years Minos sent seven boys and seven girls into a labyrinth where they were eaten by the Minotaur.  We did encounter the half man, half bull, Minotaur but survived as the maze itself was not very difficult.  After all the CNE wouldn't want families getting lost and missing the next performance of the President's Choice Super Dogs.

Atlas Holding The World

Atlas tried to conquer Zeus and was punished by being forced to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders.  The two photos above are of the same display from two different angles but they look quite different.  You can see how the lanterns transform what you are seeing as you wak around them.

Portraits of Power

 

This display features lanterns portraying Mulan, an Amazon woman, an enchantress, a wizard and a magician.  All powerful and wise.

Animals of the World
This display featured some legends of how animals came to look the way they do. Here is a quick summary.

How the zebra got its stripes?  A rabbit painted a donkey.

How the giraffe got its long neck? Got stuck in a tree and the other animals pulled and pulled.

How the tiger got its stripes? A farmer tied it to a tree causing rope burn when it escaped.
How the lion got its mane?  Got some sticky olive oil on its head and ran into long dry grass..

Mythical Creatures

This display features a unicorn as well as Carberus, the three headed dog.

It also has hippogriffs and centaurs which both have the body of a horse.  The other half of a hippogriff is eagle and a centaur is half human.

Phoenix Rising

Every 500 years the phoenix builds a nest and sets herself on fire.  She then bursts from the flames empowered and strong.

Jack & Beanstalk

Jack trades his cow for some magic beans and climbs a beanstalk into the clouds.  Here he encounters a giant.

Legends Of The Sky

Icarus's father made him some wings but warned him not to fly too close to the sun or the wax that held his wings together would melt.  He didn't listen to his Dad's warnings.

Also flying high above us was the winged stallion, Pegasus and a half eagle, half lion called a griffin.

The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg

Each day the goose laid a golden egg.  The greedy farmer killed the goose thinking it was full of gold.  Inside was just a regular goose that laid regular eggs.

Hansel & Gretel

 Hansel and Gretel were walking in the woods where a witch had built a gingerbread house filled with candy.  The witch was hoping to catch and eat the children but they escaped.

We had finally reached the end of the Silk Road.  We hope this becomes a regular exhibit at the CNE.  Even though the road is filled with dangerous creatures, it is great to see the beautifully constructed lanterns that bring those creatures to life.

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Map of Our World
Legends of The Silk Road

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Post # 225

Lower Bay Station Filming Location

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address:  1013 Critchley Lane
Date: May 2018
Website:  transit.toronto.on.ca

  The Toronto Transit Commission runs the subway system in Toronto.  Bay Station is one of the stations along Bloor Street.  Bay Station also has a hidden lower station beneath it which was only used briefly in 1966.  It has become known as Lower Bay and has not seen much action as far as commuters since it was closed.  What it has seen is an increase in movie stars.

  We finally visited Lower Bay during Doors Open Toronto 2018 when the public was allowed inside.  You enter the station from the platform of Bay Station.

  Then you head down a long stairwell to this hidden filming location.  Over a series of posts we will describe some of the movie scenes filmed on the TTC.  We hunted down these movies and actually watched them.  The TTC had posters from some of the movies displayed on the platform.  Also thanks goes out to Transmania Ontario for this video, Transit Toronto for this list, and Reel Toronto for these posts.  We have chosen not to get too detailed on the plot or to express our opinion of the movies. A lot of them despite featuring well known actors are not well known movies for a reason.  You will just have to decide if you want to watch them for yourselves.

Okay, let's see what Hollywood has been doing in Toronto's sub-subway.
 
SUICIDE SQUAD

  Suicide Squad is the highest grossing movie ever filmed in Lower Bay Station.  The movie is part of the DC comics universe and is about a woman who becomes possesed by a witch known as Enchantress.  Enchantress frees her brother who possesses a man.   He goes out onto the Lower Bay platform and takes over several other people.  They all fall onto the tracks and using the third rail for strength he crashes through a subway train.  We couldn't get onto the tracks during Doors Open as two subway trains were parked there for safety reasons.

  The Suicide Squad is assembled from a group of imprisoned criminals to defeat the Enchantress.  Later in the movie, the Suicide Squad wait outside Toronto's Bay Station.  They replaced the exisiting BAY sign with a different Bay St. sign for the movie.

  Deadshot (Will Smith) leans against the tiled wall on the right while Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) sits on the escalator rail on the left.  Special forces colonel Rick Flag, Killer Croc, El Diablo, Captain Boomerang and Katana are all there as well.

   Killer Croc swims into a flooded lower portion of the station and the rest of the crew walk the Lower Bay platform which is covered in remains and black residue from the Enchantress's brother's attack.  It seems they used Lower Bay to pretend it was Upper Bay for the movie.

MAX PAYNE

 

  Max Payne is a movie based on a video game.  Mark Wahlberg is a cop with a dark past obsessed with finding out who killed his wife and child.
 

  He walks along the platform and three twitchy junkies sit on a wooden bench.  They notice his nice shiny watch.  When he enters the men's room they confront him for his watch. He tells them to come and get it.  The washroom gets destroyed. One junkie runs into the tunnel where he is attacked by flying shadows. Mark keeps his watch.

RESIDENT EVIL : RETRIBUTION
 

  You can usually tell a movie is filmed in Lower Bay by its distinctive white pillars with a blue green stripe near the top.   Almost all of the movies we watched did nothing to hide them.  Resident Evil : Retribution is a zombie movie based on a video game and stars Milla Jovovich.  Milla walks along a subway platform with her daughter.  This time Lower Bay station is made up to look like a Russian subway station with large yellow and red pillars.  They encounter Michelle Rodriguez there and Milla gives Michelle a gun to defend herself from the zombie hoardes.  Milla leaves to rescue the rest of her team and after a car chase they all end up back on the subway platform.  They escape by going down into the subway tunnel.  When they climb down from the platform onto the tracks you can see the distinctive Lower Bay pillars.  You can also see the fancy Russian pillars behind them further along the platform. They only dressed part of the station for the movie and figured we wouldn't notice.

  Since Lower Bay is an unused station it also much safer to film there than at a live station.  You can cut all the power when your franchise star (from six Resident Evil movies) gets near the third rail.  Not to mention the film crew.  The photo above shows a list of required equipment for all the crew.


DARKMAN II

    Another movie that filmed somewhere on the TTC was Darkman II.  We started to realize that the posters on display were not all movies filmed at Lower Bay, but somewhere on the TTC system.  We also realized that the Darkman poster they had on display was for the original movie and not the sequel.  The first movie was directed by Sam Rami, filmed in Los Angeles and starred Liam Neeson as Darkman.  The sequel was directed by Bradford May, filmed in Toronto and starred Arnold Vosloo as Darkman.  Liam Neeson has a very particular set of skills so you just can't go and replace him.  Anyway, the only short scene from Darkman II that was filmed on the TTC is when Darkman drives his home-made train car through the tunnels.

  During Doors Open we were able to go into the front subway car and take some photos of the subway tunnels.  Many actors have run into one of the four tunnels at Lower Bay and maybe even the non Liam Neeson Darkman rode his special train car through here too.

UNDERCOVER BROTHER

  There was a poster of Undercover Brother in Lower Bay.  We could not determine where or if this movie ever filmed on the TTC.  Maybe some deleted scenes?  This seems like a good spot to end this blog post as we are going to go and watch Undercover Brother one more time.  We will revisit Lower Bay Station again in another post.

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This location is near Bay subway. Visit other Toronto TTC stations.

Map of Our World
Lower Bay Station

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Post # 224