The Sun Voyager

Location: Reykjavik, Iceland
Address: Keilugrandi Sculpture & Shore Walk
Date: September 2015
Website:  visitreykjavik.is

  A curved steel boat points out to the water in Reykjavik's harbour.  It is a beautiful piece of art that reflects the light from the sun.  It is known as Solfar, or the Sun Voyager.

  The Sun Voyager was the winning artwork in a competition to celebrate Rekjavik's 200th anniversary.  The sculpture was created by Icelander Jon Gunnar Arnason.  Sadly, Gunnar died of leukemia before the sculpture was placed at the water's edge.

  There is a walking path that follows the water around Reykjavik.  There is lots of room to add more sculptures in the future.  Sun Voyager was the main attraction when we visited.

  Behind Sun Voyager stood some temporary artwork of a raven.  Further in the distance beyond that stands Hallgrimskirkja.  Hallgrimskirkja is a church which took 41 years to build.  It was finally consecrated in 1986 which is the same year that Sun Voyager won the art competition.

Sun Voyager looks out across the water at Mount Esja.  The steel looks like people rowing with their oars curved down into the water, striving forward towards new adventures.

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Map of Our World
The Sun Voyager

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Post # 247

Big City Nights (Da Funk)

Location: New York, New York, USA
Address: 139 2nd Ave #1
Date: January 2019
Website:  daftpunk.com

  Daft Punk caught the world's attention with their single Da Funk back in 1996.  It was a purely instrumental song with a driving beat and funky synthesizers.  The music video directed by Spike Jonze brought even more attention.  The video was a short film called Big City Nights. In the video, Da Funk played in the background behind the dialogue.

  We were watching the music video for Da Funk and after the dog missed his bus (more on the video's plot later) we noticed something.   Down the street we could see a sign for the musical percussion peformance group STOMP.  In New York, STOMP has been performing at the Orpheum Theatre since 1994.  They are still going strong after more than 10,000 performances.

  We did some research and found that a large part of the music video was filmed in New York's East Village on 2nd Avenue near the Ottendorfer Library.  The building was built in 1883 and one part is the library and another part is the Deutsches Dispensary (pictured above).  The building does not make an appearance in the video but its bus stop does as do some of the surrounding buildings.

  The video follows Charles the dog as he hobbles through the street on crutches.  All the while his boom box with a broken volume knob is blasting Da Funk.  Charles is not a real dog but an actor in a costume.  Daft Punk also like to hide behind costumes and usually appear in public dressed as robots.  Charles tries to take a survey, buys a two dollar book called Big City Nights and eventually runs into an old neighbour.

  Charles the dog runs into Beatrice inside a variety store and they walk out into the street.  Beatrice invites Charles to "come with" for dinner downtown.  Charles agrees.  They wait for a bus outside of the East Village Meat Market.  The gold door on the left looks about the same but the white door (pictured above) used to also be gold back in the 90s. 

  We know this is the right place as across the road is a restaurant.  You can see the words Ukranian Restaurant reflected in the window behind Charles.

  A bus pulls up and Beatrice gets on.  Charles wants to follow her but sees a sign stating "No Radios. No Smoking. No Spitting".  Now he must choose between his music and a girl.   The bus closes its doors and drives away.  Charles hobbles down the street alone.

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Map of Our World

Ottendorfer Public Library
Orpheum Theatre
East Village Ukranian Restaurant
East Village Meat Market

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Post # 246

Ripley's Aquarium Of Canada

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address:  288 Bremner Blvd
Date: March 2019
Website: www.ripleyaquariums.com

Click here to take a virtual tour and see our collection of Ripley's Aquarium animal photos.

   Ripley's Aquarium of Canada is a relatively new attraction in downtown Toronto.  It opened in 2013 and we visited one time before becoming members last year.  Our membership is about to end so we thought that now would be a good time to dive in and take a closer look at what we have seen.  From sharks to goldfish, we did our best to see them all, but some species have still managed to elude us.


The aquarium is divided into several sections.  You can see fish from Canada's oceans and lakes.  There is a colourful tank filled with different urchins and anemones. The Rainbow Reef is filled with hundreds of fascinating tropical fish.

A conveyor belt takes you into the shark filled Dangerous Lagoon.  As sharks swim around and above you, you may even spot one of the green sea turtles that call this tank home.

The Gallery has poisonous fish, seahorses, cuttlefish and more.

Curious Creatures has unusual things like a peacock mantis shrimp, flashlight fish and even an actual shrunken head from Robert Ripley's travels.  This is more like the Ripley of Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

Ray Bay is filled with stingrays which look like they are smiling as they swim up the tank walls.  Planet Jellies has jellyfish in a tank with ever changing back lighting.

If a hands on experience is what you want you can touch the rays that swim to the top of Ray Bay.  There are also touch tanks with horseshoe crabs and bamboo sharks.  You may also like a shrimp manicure from a scarlet cleaner shrimp.

The Life Support Systems area is where you get a glimpse behind the scenes as over 5.2 million litres of water are filtered and pumped throughout the aquarium.  Fortunately, 95% of the water gets recycled. 

One complaint we have with the aquarium is their use of video signs.  These signs slowly change from animal to animal.  So in a tank like the Rainbow Reef with hundreds of fish and many different species it can take a long time to match a name to a fish or a fish to a name.  Don't worry, we posted as many of the screens as we could on our special photo page.

We will write some more aquarium specific blogs in the future, but for now you can browse the best photos from our visits. 

Click here to take a virtual tour and see our collection of Ripley's Aquarium animal photos.

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Map of Our World
Ripley's Aquarium of Canada

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Post # 245