I was in Montreal for NIPS 2015 conference from 7 - 12 Dec. The trip was only confirmed about 2 weeks before departure, and I was busy worrying about moving house during that time. I moved into my new house on 4 Dec, and I flew on 5 Dec night. Before the trip, I only had time to worry about buying enough winter clothing and making sure that accommodations and flights are in order. It was my first time traveling to a cold country for winter, so all my winter clothings were new!!
As it was a work trip, there was very limited time for exploring the city. The conference schedule was quite crazy, it usually starts around 9 am and the schedule runs till 11.59 pm including the poster sessions. The lunch breaks were long though, usually 2 hours and sometimes more. Sometimes we use the lunch break for a much needed nap to overcome the 13-hour jet lag, sometimes we explore the region a bit. Below is a summary of the places we explored during the breaks.
Mont Royal, McGill University
We took a lunch time hike up Mont Royal. That was when we found out Montreal downtown is very small. It took us just slightly over an hour to walk from our conference place at Palais de Congrès, past McGill University, up the observatory chalet at Mont Royal (190 m high) and back down. We were walking very fast though, at a slightly uncomfortable pace for me.
It was an easy hike up to the observatory deck, because it's just climbing stairs all the way. At the observatory chalet (190 m), you get a nice city view of Montreal. The summit is just another 30 m higher but the horizontal distance was far, and I think there's no view at the summit, so we didn't summit. People say that if you are just going to visit one place in Montreal you should come here. That's not a bad advice, considering that you can see most of Montreal downtown from here. You can even see the Jacques-Cartier bridge at the far left too.
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| Panorama view from Chalet du Mont Royal |
The walk along McGill University felt European, I liked it. There was supposed to be a reservoir in the University, but it was all dried up at the time we visited. Lol.
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| Views along McGill University | This was supposed to be a reservoir |
Shopping Street at Rue Ste-Catherine
I read about the Montreal "Underground City", and it was supposed to be very near where we stayed, so we attempted to look for it a few times. Why a few times? Because the "Underground City" indicated on Google Maps was totally wrong. We couldn't find it, and we thought the railway station was it.
Actually, the "Underground City" was just referring to the shopping street along Rue Ste-Catherine. It was just many shopping malls lined up together, the biggest being Le Centre Eaton. I actually got there on my first day to sign up for a mobile data plan without knowing where I was. I was just asking random people where could I go to sign up for a mobile data plan, they pointed me the directions and I didn't know I had already been to where i was looking for. The nearest metro station is McGill, but it is easily walkable anywhere from downtown Montreal.
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| Eaton Center in the day | The same place at night |
Basilique Notre-Dame
It was rated #1 attraction to visit on TripAdvisor, i still wonder why. Yes it's nice architecture and interior, but it's not unique. It feels like any other European churches to me. Here's a Notre-Dame in Paris too, but I've never been to Paris.
The admission is $5, whether you take the guided tour or not. I heard it's supposed to take place every hour. Our friends said they went for a 1pm tour, so we turned up at 11.55am on another day thinking there is one at 12, but the next available one was 2.30pm. We could leave and come back with the same ticket if we wanted to. Not sure how the schedule works. Anyway here's how it looks like.
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| In the day | In the evening | The inside |
Old Port Montreal
The Old Port of Montreal was a charming place to walk along. It is located near the conference place and the house, so I always try to take a small detour to walk along Old Port when going home from the conference. One day, I was there during sunset. I didn't catch the sun setting, but the sky changing color was just as beautiful.
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| Nice Sky | Old Port Montreal |
In the vicinity, there was the Montreal City Hall and some other nice looking buildings and sceneries.
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| Montreal City Hall | Jacques-Cartier bridge at the back |
Chinatown
The Chinatown was located right beside the conference place. One day, I went there to find food. I heard the noodles were quite authentic. In the end I had a big and cheap 菠萝包 for lunch. It's fun to visit a Chinatown in a western country - there's a scent of familiarity with those Chinese words and people.
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| Chinatown street view | A temple, some people meditating? |
Event - Salon des Métiers d’Art de Montréal @ Place Bonadventure
During our stay, there was an event where professional artisans in Quebec present their hand-made craft works, most of them for-sale.
Salon de Montréal is a unique opportunity for you to meet over 350 artists and artisans, discover their new works of art and see and touch Quebec talent and creativity. It's a place where artists and their audience come together.The exhibition was organised by craft type, some of which includes woodcraft, soaps, clays, Jewelry and wine. I went down to this place twice, the second time to buy something I decided to buy. Overall, I bought a bottle of ice wine, a bottle of honey, a cute hand-painted tortoise scent diffuser and a wood magnet. However, I gave away the ice wine at the end of the trip to someone who helped me.
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| I bought a tortoise scent diffuser from her |
Event - Lights Festival
There was a mini lights festival at downtown during our stay in Montreal. The light shows on buildings weren't great, at least in comparison to those I've seen in Singapore and Berlin. The cool stuff was the lighted-up see-saw. It's like those toy piano key, it lights up and plays a tone when the see-saw goes down. As far as I could remember, I think that was the first time I played on a see-saw, fun!
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| Lighted up see-saw! | Plays a tone when you go down! |
My Apartment
We stayed at a very cool apartment for the week. It's extremely decorated and funky, loved the place. There's one room with a door, and the other room was just the entire upper deck. There was a big full-height bookshelf beside my bed - book lover's paradise! I enjoyed the books selection, the owner seemed to dig the concept of "too much happiness", contentment, mindfulness, psychology and food.
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| My room for the week! | The living space |
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| Even the bathroom was decorated | The (underutilized) second deck |
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| The house owner seemed to have a special liking for frogs. |
Something cool..
On the night I arrived at Montreal, I took the airport shuttle to downtown. When approaching, I asked the driver if it's approaching my stop. When I went back down, a girl asked me if I'm Singaporean. Singaporeans usually have no problems identifying their species overseas! She said her husband is here for the same conference too. The next day, I went her and her husband on the street, and found out I've met her husband before 3 years ago at ECCV 2012, what coincidence! Over the week we met up a few times for dinners and going for the events.
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