November and December are the easiest months to find adventures to go on. Everything is Christmas, or winter themed. Toronto is really big on markets and lights. I have spent hours looking through sites on what is actually feasible to get into (Royal York, I love you but I'm not even trying with your lineups), worth the price, and haven't done before.
I noticed that the Toronto Zoo hosts their own holiday market. I went to the site for more information, and actually landed on their events page that told me all about Terra Lumina. The next immediate step was contacting Becky. Those who have been following me for a while know that I have a few friends that come on my local adventures with me, Becky has been there since the start and never really questions what's happening. She was immediately happy to go, and I purchased the tickets. $30 per ticket, plus $14 for parking.
Terra Lumina is an interactive lightshow that is on for a limited time and well worth it. It happens after sunset when everything is dark. They use really cool illusions to light up the forests and illuminate different parts of the zoo. There are a few sister events that happen all around the world, each tailored to the event space. The Toronto Zoo is the 3rd largest zoo in the world, and considered a conservation zoo. This means that all the animals there cannot live outside of captivity for various reasons (injured, raised by humans, etc), and they fund a lot of research into both animal well-being and the environment. Terra Lumina reflected that. The storyline is that it is the year 2099, and humans have finally learned to respect animals. They show polar bears, and talk about how through efforts we should be able to save them from extinction. There's a piece on bison and not hunting them to extinction, as well as gets into some other aspects of conservation effort. They collaborated with many Indigenous artists to ensure that everything was done properly and not culturally appropriated in any manner.
When we arrived we took advantage of the hot drink truck. I got a hot chocolate with Baileys, because I will always choose Baileys over everything else. Becky took a orange hot chocolate that contained Grand Marnier. It was a a bit cold so I'm glad I bundled up. Everything was easy to walk, and fully accessible. We slowly made our way through stopping at different points to hear the stories, and watch the lights. If you are familiar with the Toronto Zoo, the majority of the event took place in the Arctic Domain. You are not guaranteed to see any animals, we got lucky and spotted a sleeping Polar Bear as well as two tigers. They do say that sometimes you can see the eyes of the wolves. We had to laugh that the Polar Bear clearly did not care that a video of itself was being broadcast on its habitat. The Polar Bears do have the ability to go inside whenever they please, so it obviously was not bothered.
There is an interactive drum circle that lights up when you play. We watched for a bit, but when it became our turn to play I was a little put off that no one else could keep a beat.
It only took us half an hour to walk through, then we went for dinner. It is over an hour drive for us to get there, so if you are doing the same, I would recommend finding something else in the area to do as well.
Enjoy this week's video of us visiting Terra Lumina
Comentários