Th Twilight Zone. Ontario Place Edition.

I have the best niece and nephew out there. They are polite, courteous, smart, good looking (not that that is important of course, but it doesn’t hurt) and athletic. Last weekend they were in town to do the Kids of Steel Triathlon. Not a full on “official” triathlon, but one that many adults would likely not finish.

Afterwards, we decided to head down to Ontario place to see the much hyped Chinese Lantern Festival. It is worthy of the hype it has received, provided you see it at night. All the press however, means massive crowds and quite a bit of bumping about. My height gave me a clear advantage however, so I really can’t complain.

My favourite exhibit was a dragon that must be 200 feet long and is made out of china dishes. The scales are oval serving plates, the teeth are spoons and the beard is made out of tea cups. Truly amazing. Unfortunately it doesn’t do much except sit there and the longer I looked at it, the more I wanted to go for dim sum.

Fortunately however, your pass also gives you access to the Ontario place rides and being late in the evening, there were NO lines. We hit the log ride twice, with no waiting, and fell victim to the cheesy snap shot they capture as you go down the big ‘splash’. It was a good time despite (or is it because of?) the soaking we received.

We also went through the house of mazes. What spooky fun! There is a mirror maze, one made out of tubing, another of wires, a tilty floor one etc. all on different levels. At the end is a dark room with a bunch of lightweight punching bags hanging from the ceiling that you run through smashing into each other. Jackson, Emily and I hid at the end and made the rest of our party practically wet their pants.

Particularly fun to watch, was the boyfriend. He leapt about six feet in the air, landing in the arms of my sister-in-law.

We were a little disturbed as we went through the mazes. There was a little girl – picture children of the corn – who appeared out of nowhere. She kept turning back to us saying “follow me”, “I know the way” and “come on, hurry”. Once we exited, she was no where to be seen. She disappeared somewhere amongst the punching bags. Weird.

Laura hit the nail on the head when she suggested that she had probably been in there since 1942. Creepy. I wonder if you can rent that for a Halloween party?