{"id":12313,"date":"2017-07-28T13:11:36","date_gmt":"2017-07-28T18:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=12313"},"modified":"2017-07-28T13:12:31","modified_gmt":"2017-07-28T18:12:31","slug":"photos-of-the-day-la-machine-in-ottawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2017\/07\/28\/photos-of-the-day-la-machine-in-ottawa\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos of the day: La Machine in Ottawa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"drop_cap\">I<\/span>t isn&#8217;t every day that one gets to see a giant spider and a three-story tall dragon performed street theatre on busy Ottawa streets. I was curious to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ottawa2017.ca\/events\/signature-events\/la-machine\/\">La Machine<\/a>, the unique street theatre presentation featuring a giant mechanical spider and a steam-and-fire breathing horse-dragon, but was leery of the crowds. In the end, we decided to go as a family to see Long Ma, the giant horse-dragon, &#8220;awaken&#8221; at City Hall this morning.<\/p>\n<p>It. was. amazing.<\/p>\n<p>This was the scene when we arrived: Long Ma sleeping in front of Ottawa City Hall.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/35390928414\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4329\/35390928414_c2a2656d12_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" class=\"frame aligncenter\" alt=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can see the little fellow in front of me did not appreciate the efforts of the musicians playing to awaken the dragon. (You can see them on the pedestal.)<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t take long for Long Ma to awaken and start moving, and then to start breathing fire and steam.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/35390934264\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4320\/35390934264_f041e3a487_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" class=\"frame aligncenter\" alt=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-2\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/35419492343\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-3\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4321\/35419492343_8391cd6a61_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" class=\"frame aligncenter\" alt=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-3\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And then, to our surprised delight, it started moving &#8211; right toward us!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/35419491323\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-7\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4306\/35419491323_a854fd97e6_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" class=\"frame aligncenter\" alt=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-7\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We had to retreat to let it pass by. (Look at that tongue &#8211; how cool is that?)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/36090011691\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-10\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4292\/36090011691_ea86b95a55_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" class=\"frame aligncenter\" alt=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-10\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Long Ma rolled off down Laurier and then Elgin streets, in search of Kumo the giant spider. So. Many. People.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/36090009361\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-12\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4326\/36090009361_290f75c6a0_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" class=\"frame aligncenter\" alt=\"Long ma awakens #lamachine-12\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It was truly extraordinary, and worth braving the downtown crowds to see it &#8211; although I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;ll be able to entice the family downtown to go in search of Kumo the spider. I&#8217;d love to see their final &#8220;battle&#8221; on Sunday but I fear half the city will be there. If you&#8217;re curious, you can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ottawa2017.ca\/events\/signature-events\/la-machine\/\">read the back story behind the event on the La Machine page<\/a> on the Ottawa 2017 site. The gist of it is that Kumo has stolen Long Ma&#8217;s wings, and has been disturbed from her rest by the underground work on the LRT downtown, and now Long Ma roams the city in search of them.<\/p>\n<p>If you do go, I&#8217;d suggest bringing water bottles and sunscreen, a decent camera and a bucketload of patience. We were downtown at least an hour early, parked four blocks away, and the crowds were still intense &#8211; but at least good-natured. I think it will only get more crazy as the weekend goes on. There are also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MothershipPhotography\/posts\/1474193095959957\">a few more photos on Mothership Photography&#8217;s facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Have you been downtown to see Kumo and Long Ma? What did you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It isn&#8217;t every day that one gets to see a giant spider and a three-story tall dragon performed street theatre on busy Ottawa streets. I was curious to see La Machine, the unique street theatre presentation featuring a giant mechanical spider and a steam-and-fire breathing horse-dragon, but was leery of the crowds. In the end, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2017\/07\/28\/photos-of-the-day-la-machine-in-ottawa\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Photos of the day: La Machine in Ottawa&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ottawa-family-fun","category-project-365"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12315,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313\/revisions\/12315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}