Part 2 (contd..)

Sunday July 1st, 2007 - Canada Day

We slept in this morning as we were still tired from the previous day. Had a late brunch and decided to go to Niagara Falls to watch the fireworks at night. We wanted to go to the CN tower as well so thought we'd do that first and then go to Niagara at night. Plan sounded good at that time not realizing that EVERYONE will be going to see fireworks at Niagara that night. It was Canada Day, afterall. Gawd, the traffic! A 1.5 hour drive took 3 hours. Anyhow, the CN tower looked good :) Visibility was excellent that day.


Taken by Sony DSC P73


Taken by Canon Rebel XT


Taken by Canon Rebel XT

I found it very disheartening that there was a Starbucks but not a Tim Horton's at the CN Tower. That just isn't right ;) Anyhow, we had tea and snacks there and hung around for more time than we should have. We had used our 'Express passes' to get past the crowd downstairs, and were confident we'd be using those. Not so! The passes are only for the first floor. Here, we had to stand in the queue for 1 hour. Crap. Anyhow, more pictures -





We went down to the Glass Floor while Arjun was holding our place in the queue. I JUMPED on the GLASS FLOOR at the height of 1,122 ft. Eeeekkk! Girish didn't even walk on it. Just put his foot there to take a picture. Mehul and I were all over it. LOL!


Technically, that isn't my foot but that's a better picture with someone else's foot. The floor is made of 2.5 inch thick glass. No way it would break :0

Anyhow, more pictures were taken from the Sky Pod, which is at the height of 1,465 ft. I'm sure they're mixed up with the photos above. By the time we came downstairs and met Uncle and Massi, it was 6:30.

Karan had gone to work in the morning and was back home by this time. He had called and upon learning we were still in Toronto, he wanted to go along with us to Niagara as well. We went back home to pick him up and Mehul stayed home with Uncle and Massi. No way it was appropriate to take him with us now, since it was so late. So we went and sat in traffic for hours. Watched the fireworks from the car. I think we finally reached around 11PM. Had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at Niagara. We have been to the one in a mall at Boston but Karan and Arjun were there for the first time. They LOVED it. Wish Mehul was there with us. We have one in Tyson's mall here in VA that we'll be taking him to very soon. Girish's birthday is coming :)

I hadn't charged my camera battery the previous night. Crap. I was not letting anyone review the images on the viewfinder. We got out of the restaurant at 12 and checked out the area around. We FINALLY went to see the Falls at 2 AM. The lights were OFF. Damn. I didn't take a single picture of the falls that night. Too depressing LOL! Surely we'll be coming back next day in daylight and staying till night.

We went to the Casino after leaving Arjun at the Arcade. He's underage to go to the Casino. I lost money at the slot machines. Girish and Karan made double at some table. It was a lot of fun. When we went back to the arcade, Arjun had won so many tickets. I think he had something like 1,200 tickets collected. He got some cars for Mehul from the loot.
We reached home at 4:30 AM. Mehul was sleeping in Massi's bedroom with them. He'd pushed uncle to the side of the bed. LOL!

Monday July 2nd

Woke up late as usual. Mehul was already up and playing with Uncle. He slept well the previous night and asked for me one time only after he woke up. That makes me feel good. Both that he asked for me and that he was distracted soon after. Hehe After shower we (Karan, Arjun and me) dressed him as a punk. Complete with the gel in his hair. Alas, the hair was too wet for it to hold up. Look for yourself -


The clothes are 3T hence they're oversized and long. Adds to the punk look we were going for. The waist was altered to fit him.

Ok. The first picture I have of the Falls was taken at 6:30PM. I have no idea we were that late.

American Falls view from Canada

Canadian Falls (also known as Horseshoe Falls)

I love this closeup of Horseshoe Falls

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Girish and Mehul

And finally, one more time because it's so cool.

Falls at night

I love this picture. I took it by setting the camera on a surface. Hand holding the camera was making the night pictures blurry. I took a ton of bad shots before I realized exactly what was going on. And I realized the same thing had happened in the Aquarium at Zoo. I love that there isn't any noise in this photo. That can happen in long exposure situation.

Tuesday we just took it easy and didn't do anything. Just rested, roamed around the local area and had chinese food for dinner. Back home on Wednesday.