On top of the world

The CN Tower has become a national controversy (remember our Esplanade) but it's undeniably the symbol of the city and a prominent part of the skyline. We can see the tower from our Elm St apartment and it serves as a good landmark when you navigate the city. The tower is at its most beautiful at 2 am when the streets are dark and empty and all you can see are the kaleidoscopic neon lights running up and down the tower.

While locals might dislike it, they will recommend you to visit it because it is afterall one of the main tourist attractions. Instead of paying to enter (expensive), we decided to have our dinner at the 360 Restaurant (expensive) which as the name suggests, is a revolving restaurant which takes 70 mins for a complete revolution.

I glued my eyes to the narrow windows as the lift ascended at a speed of 22km/h (the speed of falling with a parachute). According to the information panels, the tower is struck by lightning almost 80 times a year - not very comforting to know when you are 346m above the ground. What was most interesting is the glass floor on the Look Out Level. It is literally a piece of reinforced glass where you can step on and look down to the ground below. Quite terrifying at first cos it feels like you're treading on thin air. Everybody will suffer from at least a moment of vertigo when they take their first step across it. Kids who have no sense of danger jumped, laid and ran across it. I must have looked a little faint cos the boy next to me reassured me that the glass is stronger than the normal concrete ground. Not very reassuring to know either! According to the guide book, even 14 large hippos cannot break the glass (not like they actually tested it with hippos) so I guess it is quite safe afterall.


The open air observation deck was very windy but the view's obstructed by the metal mesh encircling it. It's to prevent suicidal people or accident prone people (I stumbled and fell, luckily, on the mesh) from their early deaths. The view from the restaurant was better and I couldn't help oohing and wahing at the gorgeous scenery. In fact we were higher than the layer of mist in the sky. An advantage of being on the highest structure in the world is that I could spot landmarks and identify buildings on the map without much difficulty.

The food was ok. Expensive western food you get in restaurants. I had pork ribs served with sauteed potatoes and very raw carrot sticks while the others had steak, salmon and grilled prawn pasta. The dessert was more satisfying - maple pecan pie with praline ice cream - which I found delectable. The bill however was not pleasing though not surprising. It added up to a whopping CA$350+ which probably explains why the majority of the diners are tourists.