DAY ONE IN HAWAII (BIG ISLAND) FEB 22, 2020

Saw the above Native Canadian(Haida art) art in the Vancouver airport on way to Hawaii ...the color of the lights kept changing and this is such a lovely symmetrical piece of Haida art.

Above you see green grass growing in a colorful contrast to the black volcanic rock on a beach in Hawaii's Big Island with the fog covered mountains in the distance under the light of the evening Sun. It was so beautiful!

These weird agate looking rings of white are, My guess...salt deposits on the black volcanic rocks on the beach, after the sea water has evaporated.

This may be a shell...it was hard and broken...ly8ng on the beach. My guess is that it is a sea shell but I have never seen one like this before...on a Big Island of Hawaii beach. found it today! (Happy to say, I did not pick it up and so am not guilty of destroying the ecology!)

 I believe the worm like white and red/brown thing is a "living" coral in the above photo and the one below is dead coral. Once again, it's my guess. Fond in water on the beaches of Hawaii.

Below are a few of the huge amount of black volcanic rock found in Big Island. These rocks are porous,as you can see by the various sized pores and holes; they are black and grey, they are found in abundance here. Some of the buildings and compound walls are built with these rocks here. They are extremely photogenic ...the sombre color, the pores and most importantly, the appearance of movement in these rocks make them so interesting.  Also the fact that they were once (recently) red hot molten rock, deep in the earth and surfacing on top in the form of a flow which cannot be controlled by man.

 Below you can see that the "molten flowing movement" of the lava has been captured and solidified. Though the rock is solid, one can still see the movement frozen.

Expenses if you are interested: 4249-22 Canadian $ to book for 2 adults, 7 days in Hawaii from 22 to 29 Feb 2020 : This amount includes flight, car and hotel.

But the expenses pile on quite a bit during  travel and stay and it all adds up ! So if you are planning to visit Hawaii be sure you are prepared for these expenses if you follow our itinerary.
DAY ONE
We had to pay for the following
uber from home to airport: 55-00(CAN$) (as we had to leave at 4.15 and no TTC at that time)
coffee and light b'fast in Toronto airport:5-00 or less
Lunch in Vancouver airport for 2: 25-00 or less (Mexican. it was delicious and filling)
Insurance for car (though we have one already!!!) approx 300-00 US$ (we had NOT planned for this!)
This guy asked us to upgrade our car saying that the one we had booked does not have pulling power as we will be driving in mountainous regions but we declined. That would have costed us 200-00 + US$ extra!
dinner expenses: Dosa ( a lady from Chennai has a food truck at the petrol bunk at the intersection of Hualalai road and Kuakini pky 21-00 US$ (she was there in the evening on 22, FEB , 2020 and I am not sure if she's there at all times) and juice 7-00 (US$)(Pau Pau is a drink made of coconut, peanut, banana and liqued chocolate)

I want to start the day with a good-news newspaper

Waking up, I start the day with coffee and the internet..the things I check online every morning are Toronto weather (I never checked the weather information in India!), Toronto star(newspaper), CNN, BBC news, msn.com, yahoo.com, facebook, my emails and my blog(how many readers today and from what parts of the globe and I look forward to finding the rarely occurring  event of receiving a comment from a reader).

 There is so much news today and though I read, I cannot recall the news by the time I am reading the next day's news, next morning! I am losing track of the time and place of most of the events I read about ...all news seems to merge into one floating, changing blob of mixed up information.
It's the bad news which stays long and clear in my memory than the neutral news i.e. information about politics, sports, science, etc. Why? Is  poor memory part of my aging or is it simply information overload in this day when we can get all the news from all over the world all the time ....

I wish someone creates a "Happy newspaper" with no negative news. Just videos of puppies and kittens and babies, funny u-tube videos, "Good" news from all over the world. I do not want to see, first thing in the morning,  news about death, murders, terrorism, accidents, wars and suicides. I want to start the day with a smile on my face..I want to see happy news from around the world as I sip my first cup of coffee. I can get to the bad news from the regular news channels later in the day.

Winter Station installations, 2020 Toronto. February 16, 2020

McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinberg, Vaughn, Ontario Feb 16, 2020

Visited the McMichael's Canadian Art Collection today.
Today was beautiful, at 3 degrees celsius and sunny...vastly different from yesterday's grey, minus 12 degree celsius chilly day!

It took less than 40 minutes from midtown (east) Toronto to reach this museum in Kleinberg. We reached a few minutes before ten (the museum is open from 10am to 4pm, in winter, 6 days a week and closed on Monday). Parking was 7$ and the entrance fee was 18$ per adult, which I thought was pretty steep as the number of art works on display was much lesser than during my previous visit, a few years ago.


The art works included the works of the Group of seven and works of a few native Canadian artists.

A native Canadian, who had been abused in the residential school run by Christian Caucasians, at a time when the native Canadians were forced to give up their language and forced into residential schools, after being forcibly torn away from their families...had displayed his art works based on his life and his experience of abuse in the residential school. These works moved me.

Outside the log and stone museum building, was 100 acres of snow covered parkland.  There were huge sculptures in one part of the park by a Winnipeg sculptor. There was also the shack in which one of the group of seven artists had painted for a while, in this place. There were  the graves of the group of seven in one part of the park. It was nice  exploring the quiet, peaceful, snow-covered park, with only a few dog-walkers and dogs around.
Below are a few photos.

Above you can see a part of the sprawling stone and log building which houses the art works.
Below is etching on a large rock, possibly native american, but modern? art.

Below are native Canadian artists works.

Below are art works by the group of seven.

I loved most of these art works. Above and below, I loved the color of the water. The color makes the water look like a liquid jewel!

Below are the sculptures we saw outside, by a Winnipeg artist, Evan Eyre

 Above and below are 2 photos of a bronze work called Sun Gown.

 Above and below are photos of a sculpture called Yell.

The above one is Lady Love.

 Above and below is named North Watch.

The above two are of a sculpture named beach moment

 Above and below are two views of artist Tom Thomson's shack where he painted.

 above and below are side views of the the building housing the art collection

 I fell in love with the coloring of the wood caused by weathering, the black of what I think is fungus and took several photos of this building below. It's by the main building, looks abandoned and it stole my heart!

Below are photos of a quaint building in the village of Kleinburg

And that's all for today folks!