Saturday, September 09, 2006
I had promised Erika to take the kids out for breakfast as she had worked the previous evening on a shot that lasted until the wee hours of the morning. The thing was what to do afterwards.
It was raining when I got up, and the weather forecast called for more of the same. The previous weekend Erika had thought of taking the kids to a place she'd heard about called the Rainforest Café. I had looked it up and it turned out to be at Yorkdale Shopping Mall, which was not where she thought it was. We ended up having Dim Sum that day instead. It was still a good idea, and a glance at CinemaClock revealed that there was a kid's movie playing at the cineplex located adjacent to the cafe. So after breakfast we made our way to Yorkdale.
We arrived before lunchtime, so we killed time at the adjacent Indigo bookstore, Annie happily enthusing through Barbie picture books and Vanessa engrossed in a Tintin comic.
At noon we headed to the cafe, which rapidly started fill up after we arrived. A real kid magnet, there were animatronic elephants, monkeys, a talking tree, large aquariums containing colourful (real) tropical fish, while overhead shooting stars darted across a twinkling ceiling.
All of the following pics are from Vanessa, who happily took snaps of the things that interested her most:
The Animatronic Alligator by the Entrance
The Animal-Footed Chairs by the Bar
Giant Plastic Toucan
Small Purple Plastic Elephant
The Talking Tree
One of the Ubiquitous Animatronic Butterflies
The Starry Nighttime Ceiling
The food? The food was okay. Happy kid food, consisting of such dishes as macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken fingers and so on. The wait staff was excellent however, and very attentive, despite the fact that the place was full by the time we were finishing our meal.
Afterwards we headed upstairs to see Barnyard. Yet another animated film featuring computer-generated 3D animals. It was more enjoyable than the reviews led me to believe, but that's not really saying too much. And the fact that the two main protagonists, a father and son pair of bulls who both sport udders just struck me as being some weirdly misguided executive decision by someone who probably shouldn't have been close enough to the film to make such decisions. Bizarre.
Afterwards I indulged myself by walking the length of the mall and then cross Dufferin Street to visit Efstonscience, a science-oriented store best known for its selection of astronomical gear. While I gazed longingly at some of the larger scopes (Erika wouldn't mind too much if I dropped $2K or more on a good scope, would she? ;-) and the girls had a good time looking at and playing with various science-oriented toys. I ended up buying Annie a kaleidoscope, Vanessa a crystal growing kit and for myself I bought some super-strong rare-earth magnets.
A long ride home, but everyone came away happy.
Labels: Efstonscience, Rainforest Café
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