Montreal en Lumiere: Biodome, Planetarium and Olympic Stadium!

Last Saturday was the Nuit Blanche for the Montreal en Lumiere.  Otherwise called Festival of Lights! If you missed my weekend post, March 1st 6 years ago at this same event was when my relationship with my boyfriend started.  Seeing as it had such a deep meaning to us, we emptied out our schedule and had a night out to celebrate! Usually, most festivities happen in different areas of downtown, especially in Old Montreal but we decided that we wanted to go check out the Olympic Stadium area.

There were a few things there that attracted us!

1. FOOD TRUCKS!

Our dinner: Das Food Truck

Fries Cone with Chicken Schnitzel

I’m a really simple person.  I mean, our first date was going to do a delicious diner.  For me, its not about how expensive a meal is but holding good company and for us, even though it was ridiculously cold to be eating outside and the food was cooling down faster than I could stuff it into my mouth, it still was really good and the experience was so awesome.  I’d definitely be scouting out more food trucks when the weather gets warmer 🙂

2. PENGUINS IN THE WILD!

Penguins in the early evening

Penguins at night along with flurries

For the festival, Biodome (which I’ll talk about soon) took some of their penguins and let them wander outside in a little area.  They gave little informative speech about the penguins and their habitats, behaviors, etc. My mom just went to see King Penguins in Antarctica for $8000CAD or something.  Its not the same thing but I can’t dish out that amount yet so I’m very pleased with my free admission of seeing 5 (or 6) little penguins in the open air 🙂 Look at them! Aren’t they adorable?

3. RIO TINTO ALCAN PLANETARIUM

Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium

Planetarium Exhibit: EXO

Artsy picture of the interior design of Planetarium

The Montreal Planetarium used to be situated in downtown.  Actually you can still see the sad structure there because no one wants it anymore but after Rio Tinto Alcan funded it and revamped it into this area with some awesome interactive technology on the walls.  You can see it on the top picture with lights and everything. This time, the exhibits were cheaper than a normal day so my boyfriend and I both bought the combo tickets for both Planetarium shows + exhibit and the Biodome. They use Apple computers now to control the lights and they put the old projector on display in the basement.  The show includes two segments: one is called the sky of San Francisco, which is educational and you learn about star gazing and seeing constellations across the sky.  I was super tired and the whole leaning back in a calm atmosphere made me fall asleep so I can’t say that I can give you much insight on it because I watched only half then dozed off for the next 10 minutes….sorry *blush*!

BUT…the second show was much more original and super awesome called Continuum.  It was like moving from a calm lake with forest and fireflies around and then going layers and layers up into space with asteroids, black holes, planets, and then coming back with all the sounds and effects. It was really awesome! Now, that one was worth the ticket price! 🙂 It was mesmerizing, pretty and at times, intense!  If you come to Montreal, I’d definitely recommend going to check that out!

4. BIODOME

Flowers in the Tropical Rain Forest

Flowers in the tropical rain forest

Sleeping parrots in the Tropical Rain Forest

Sleeping birds in the Tropical Rain Forest

The little bits of light in the Tropical Rain Forest

Laurentian Forest (home sweet home)

Chalkboard with scribbles from visitors

Sleeping Puffins

Sleeping Penguins

I’ve always loved the Biodome even though I know where everything is.  Its different being there at night because for the Festival of Lights, they kept the atmosphere with dimmed lights for the animals living there, to not turn their living habitat upside down and incorporated a little mystery story where we had to listen to clues from witness and suspects of the Biodome worker that was killed and at the same time, find the vanished animals hidden in the dark. At the end, you made a choice and looked at the answer.  My boyfriend said that he was going to choose the last person he heard in the story and you know what? He guessed it right!! That was super hilarious!

As for Biodome, as much as I love it in the day because its easier to take pictures of ALL the animals, these pictures were the ones that turned out better.  I’m still learning about night shooting and being sandwiched between lots of people is not the easiest to do it so I tried my best.  Some shots, I was very happy with, others, not so much.  Still, it was a very unique experience.  The animals I usually saw sleeping was awake and the others was, like the alligator was wondering if it was a log or an animal until we got relatively closer along the walkway, plus the Capybara was actually awake.  A lot of the animals were sleeping so they were hidden in their dens.  Still, it was pretty cool 🙂 Another place, I’d recommend if you ever visited Montreal!

5. OLYMPIC STADIUM

Olympic Stadium

As much as the Olympic Stadium is a joke in Montreal because it costs more to tear down than to keep it under maintenance, (especially with its constantly toppling roof which seems better in the recent years).  It is a beautiful structure and reminds us of how the city was revamped for the Olympics 1976.  I’m rarely in this area at night and standing right next to the stadium on top of that so I admire it for what it is.

Olympic Stadium

In honor of recommendations month, I’d like to give mention to fellow blogger  Jack Flacco because he had asked for a vlog at the Olympic Stadium, which I was going to do until there was too many people around me and I chickened out. So I piled it up in photographs 🙂 Hope he’ll be happy with that. He (or anyone else) is free to suggest other locations to do a vlog.  I’m way overdue for one (since the last I did one was in July, I think). As for Jack, you need to check out his awesome blog that talks a lot about zombie-related subjects and I love his Women Who Wow Wednesday, plus last year he launched his first book called Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse that I reviewed right HERE!  In short, if you like Zombieland style stories with a group of people fighting for survival, then this book is for you! I loved it! 🙂

Have you been to Olympic Stadium/Biodome/Planetarium? How about Montreal? If you  have, any  memories? If not, what places have you heard of in Montreal?

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