Finch West Subway (new)

Finch West Station is located under Keele Street, north of Finch Avenue West. The hydro corridor to the north of the station and can accommodate up to 350 cars in the parking lot.  There's also a pick up and drop off across from Keele Street.

Passengers that approach the station from this area cross the Four Winds Drive extension to enter the station through an automatic entrance on the east side of Keele Street.

The automatic entrance, bus terminal, and secure bicycle parking are located under an elevated substation facility. The northern end of the substation box extends over the automatic entrance doors providing a canopy to this entrance. This extension is back lit to form a glowing panel to further highlight the entrance point to patrons from the parking lot and the passenger pick-up and drop-off.


The main entrance is located on the west side of Keele Street just north of the intersection with Finch Avenue West. The cool roof over this entrance and the green roof over the elevated substation box meet the Toronto Green Standard and the Green Roof Bylaw.

There is a bird-friendly fritted glass, with occasional panels of coloured art glass, in clear anodized aluminum curtain wall framing. The parapet wall and façade above the glazing are clad with fibrous cement panels in a black and white graphic pattern.

Finch West Station incorporates:

• Cool roof and green roofs;
• Increased daylight levels to reduce electric lighting power usage;
• LED lighting in pylon signs, and energy efficient lighting in illuminated wayfinding;
• Water efficient plumbing fixtures;
• Energy efficient HVAC system;
• 

  Reduced storm water runoff into the municipal drainage system by utilizing green roof landscaping and soft landscaping areas adjacent to other building runoff areas;
• 100 secure and 13 short term bicycle parking spaces; and
• Landscaping with native and drought tolerant species.

Toronto Christmas Market - Distillery District

The Toronto Christmas Market opens the month of December.  It's inspired by the Old World and influenced by the new. It celebrates the sounds, sights and scents of Christmas. Set in the Victorian-era, cobblestone-lined Distillery Historic District, the Christmas Market brings together local craftspeople, musicians and artisanal food-makers for a truly festive experience. 

Relax sipping on mulled wine and European-style Christmas cocktails as you browse through the selection of hand-made ornaments, wood carvings and crafts. Then cozy up by the fire or listen to carollers and brass bands and check out authentic European dancers. Don’t forget to stop by the giant Christmas tree for your kodak moment (I know I'm showing my age here!).

Free admission Tuesday to Friday; $6.00 admission Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. The Market is closed on Mondays.



The the Lowe's Christmas Market as it was christened is a great time for all ages, especially for the kids (which is what I think Christmas is really for anyways).  
You'll find on weekends, the crowds are over the top leaving little for wiggle room.  So if you can take some time off during the week, it may be easier to keep your eye on your kids. 
 
Every year the Market opens with the traditional Christmas tree lighting ceremony on the 22nd of November, there are Christmas carolers and dance performances, ferris wheel and a horse carousel and lots of lots of foodies. 










The kids will love activities like Santa’s House and the life-sized gingerbread house.   You will love the cold and warm brews in the beer gardens.  

A Christmas market, is known as Christkindlmarkt where it  originated in Germany and although they are held all over the world now, the basic feel to the market still remains in the Germanic theme with the street market associated with the celebration of Christmas during the first four weeks of Advent. This also will explain why Santa Claus has the appearance of wearing long robes rather than a red suit as they are keeping his attire akin to the Germanic Christmas traditions.

It's definitely worth a visit, whether you make it a part of your annual Christmas family time or just a one time visit. 

Happy 150 Years to Canada

Without the risk of jumping on the familiar band wagon and screeching Happy Canada Day in a crowd full of happy and drunken Torontonians or wherever these people are from, we all celebrated the sesquicentennial incoming with the question, "what's with the duck?"

But I was there to photograph it along with so many others trying to get that perfect shot, feeling stupid.  I even witnessed some man from Hong Kong yelling at his girlfriend for moving because he was looking for that perfect night shot of her profile in front of a giant yellow duck.  I had to laugh. 

Never before have I ever felt so stupid for being part of a 'once in a lifetime' moment.

Next up! Fireworks from the CN tower.  Are we all that spoiled that we are not fascinated by fireworks anymore?  I never heard an ooooh  or an ahhhhhh  from the crowd while these beautiful flowers of light were coming from the sides of the CN restaurant.  I did my best to take the shots as they came, but I couldn't help but feel a little bored of the colours of red.  My personal favorite is blue, so perhaps the hues of blue would have brought some more activity from my camera.

The final show was from the docks of the Asbridges Bay, where I had to chuckle as we all, as a crowd felt compelled to move and shuffle to a different direction to view because we didn't know where the fireworks were coming from.  Here's the best of the lot! :)

Scarborough Bluffs

I have often wondered if they had ever done a yearly analysis on the erosion rate of the Scarborough Bluffs, since I had noticed over time a substantial decrease in the height of the mountainous height of sand level. I did find this from a study in 1979. 

"Bluffer's Park, a 2.41km reach of Lake Ontario shoreline in the Borough of

Scarborough, was used as a case study.  The erosion rate, being an annual measure of a volume of material eroded from a linear metre of shore linehaving a bluff height of 1 metre (m3/m/m/yr), was found to be 0.34m3/m/m/yr.)  This rate is an average over the face of the bluff and is in the same range as the rates normally associated with other areas of Scarborough Bluffs. "

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Springs first thaw has created flooding in certain parts of Toronto this year.  I've never seen the bluffers with so much overflow, leaving muck piles everywhere.  Water is rising due to global warming and I've heard the cottage is flooded, but we'll wait until we can get closer to check it out.

There are certain looks that the Bluff cliffs give that makes me think of Arizona for some reason? 

The layers of sand and clay exposed in these cliffs display a remarkable geological record of the last stages of the Great Ice Age. Unique in North America, they have attracted worldwide scientific interest. The first 46 metres of sediments contain fossil plants and animals that were deposited in a large river delta during the first advance of the Wisconsinan glacier some 70,000 years ago. They are covered by 61 metres of boulder clay and sand in alternating layers left by four subsequent advances and retreats of ice. The final withdrawal of the glacier occurred some 12,000 years ago.

They also found clay minerals int he triassic rocks in the colorado plateau, which would explain why I relate the two North American sites.