Victoria - Day Two

On the second day, we were up at 7 and went to "Smitty's" for breakfast. They were like Denny's but portion is much smaller, like a normal person's portion.

Half order of egg benedict with smoked salmon and fruit on the side .
I almost forgot to take a pic of it. What you see here is only a 1/3 of it and it didn't actually come with toast.

Skillet with toast

After breakfast, we went to the Royal BC museum.

The entrance
The mammoth
The weather station
The section about warming up in BC..
Dry coastal forest
This is my favorite section. The trees and the animals are very real.
Seals

Sea Otter: To maintain their body temperature, Sea Otters may eat as much as 25% of their body weight per day and much of their time is spent hunting for fish, crabs, sea urchins and a variety of shellfish.

Fish: Buffalo Sculpin and Kelp Greenling
Shellfish: Plane Limpet, Keyhole Limpet, Grumboor Chiton, Lined Chiton, and Wrinkled Whelk

Others: Abalone, Purple Sea Urchin, Giant Red Sea Urchin, and Red Rock Crab.

Sea lion

They have a small marine tank but it's not as nice as big als or any of the fancy restaurant or dentist office...

Cute lil guy

First Nations Exhibit

These 2 totems are interesting, with the two kids up ahead.
Sechelt Figure

"The age and use of this carved stone image is unknown. Even its subject is ambiguous: Is it a woman holding her child or a man holding his phallus? Or is it both? As for its use, it may have been hoisted by men to show their strength. Coast Salish and Kwakwaka'wakw men used to lift similar large stones at ceremonies."

Ghrrr.... I'm a lynx.

Wow this computer has a tape reader. This is in the section where it's displaying all the stuffs in the past.

Weekend Getaway

Went to Victoria over the weekend =)

We were at first thinking of flying because of the short amount of time.
But, in the end, we used the ferry because it gave us more flexibility.

DAY ONE

At the shop in the Butterfly Garden.

Here are a few viewable pics that I managed to take

They have lots of fish there
Look at the size of that
A closer look at the flamingo
The other one was asleep
He thinks I have food
Keeps staring back

The hotel we're staying at

Horsey
They all have braided tail like this
The market square

High Tea

Passed by this on the street

The gym has TV on the dashboard. How come we don't have this at home?

The legislature building at nite.The place that we were gonna go to but were full because of the dine-out event.

We ended up eating at this French bistro instead.
First off, the Nicoise salad
My halibut
John's trout

sunny weekend

Had lunch with ex-coworkers at Kirin. Their pork dumplings aren't that good, but their sweet dumplings with egg yolk is really good. Then I invited some of them to my new place to take a look at my wedding album.... yes I finally got it 2 mths after the date they promised to have them ready. Also, I should finalize which photos I want to blow up. I have 28 freebies from the aberdeen photo place.

Work has been really crazy lately. I'm already one week behind.... The functionality is there just needed to add in the error handling and double check all the scenarios. I feel like just leaving that till later. We're only supposed to do a prototype.

Did some cleanup at the living room and kitchen. Didn't do any vacuuming this week.

Went to superstore twice. One for grocery, the other for a console table that we found on sale, $129.99 to $59.99. I was thinking for an IKEA sideboard as well but that was a bit too big for the space that I's going to utilize. Now I just need to find the time to assemble it and then frame my Paris oil painting and mount it over the console table..... easier said than done.

Went shopping at Daiso. Got a few wooden things, fork, spoon, spatula, plate/coaster, and a cup rack (helps to free up space on my dish rack). They have a wooden dish rack for $8. It'll come in really handy, just that I donno where to put it. Kinda weird to have 2 dish racks side-by-side. Lately, I've been doing most of the dishes by hand and we didn't have to use the dishwasher as much. But, at the same time, there r a lot of dishes and stuffs hanging around the house... drying...

Walked around at the Garden City fake park. It's really coming along. There were so many ducks there, probably because of the pond. There r so many new buildings around that area. I wonder how they're selling.

busy weekend

Shopping
Went to Superstore on foot, bought $50 worth of grocery.
Discovered that Zellers has $2.28 almond cookies, from Yeng Kee Bakery!!
Found out that Crest floss in London Drug is $1 cheaper than Superstore.
Went to Daiso and got some bath utilities and some cutting tool and mat. Did not get any snack there, practicing some self control.
Officially got off my matcha latte addiction. I went to Starbucks and only got a reduced fat cherry lemon coffee cake, $1.98. I was extremely hungry....

Painting
Finally put up some paintings this weekend. Also went to Michael's and picked out a wall wooden frame for the painting that I bought in Paris, ~$36.00, 40% off, not bad. They're having half price for custom framing....they quoted me $185-$2xx. So, I just ended up getting a frame that sorta fits and I'm getting some textured papers to make the white border since none of their pre-cut matte is big enuf.

The painting I bought when Regis closed out, and the metal craft painting I got from my sis.

Painting I bought in New West a while back.

For Valentine's day, we went to Sammy J Peppers.
John ordered a salad and I got a lobster melt.

Chinese new year

On Thurs, went to skating class then came home late and wasn't able to go into the parkade... police blocked all entrances to the ramp. There appeared to be a crime scene. We saw some blood on the concrete. First I parked at Chapters, and then had to move it cuz they seemed to be taking forever. In the end, I was lucky to be able to find a spot near London Drugs, a permit only zone from 9am to 8pm.

On Fri, we had dinner at my folk's place for chinese new year. They made 2 dishes with the chinese moss. Then right after I went to have bubble tea with my friends, Pearl Castle at Continental Plaza. We only waited like 15mins, that's a record time for that place. Usually 30mins to an hr.... on a Fri nite. During that time, my headahce started and it didn't stop till Sun afternoon....

On Sun, I went to drop off photos at my friend's place and also helped her to paint a lil. My roller frame was making such loud squeaky noise, maybe I need to oil it. Lots of work still needed to be done at her place. Afterwards, we went to "Ginger and Garlic", the previously "Honolulu". It's surprisingly good.

Went to the WinterFestival on Sat. They had that fake plastic ice outdoor rink with soap blowing everywhere, so lame. They did have a small painting exhibit and free popcorn given out at the olympic tent.

Another busy weekend

Had Chinese New Year family dinner on Fi nite. We had reserved ahead of time but still they didn't have a table ready for us right away. Had to squeeze in 2 extra seats. The crabs were really nice, we had too much of it and then felt sick afterwards.
After dinner, we went to SuperStore and did grocery shopping in lightning speed. They closed just after 15mins we got there.

Went to Bistro pastis. It was great. I love all my choices.
Roasted Roma Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart, Prosciutto,
Onion Compote, Pesto Vinaigrette - My Favourite!!!! It's like a lite quiche and the sauce around it was just the perfect compliment.
Petrale Sole, Herbed Riz Pilaf, Shrimp and
Mushroom Fricassée, White Wine Sauce - I could really taste the white wine in the fish, the white sauce was splendid as well.
Classic Custard Apple Tart - very special, had apple slices on top and thin crust.. not like the regular pie, enormous with super sweet filling inside.

Did some cleaning around the house, cleaned both of the countertops, vacuumed and mopped all the floors. Took out the garbage and the recycle. Much still needed to be done, like the dinning table and the vacuuming of the carpet.

Went to Coquitlam to fix my skates. Had to remount the right blade. It was not level at all and it was no longer centered. All these were the results of my hard landing of my under-rotated double loop attempt. I'd love to fix my left blade as well but didn't want too many changes at once. Also he noticed that the sharpening wasn't done correctly. All these after tax is $40.... but it'll be cheaper if I needed more to be done.

Tried the $2.10 (after tax) new Quizno's sammy. I didn't use the coupon because it requires me to purchase a sandwich and a sandwich is like $4. The sammy was pretty good, but also it'd only be big enuf to feed a person of my size. So, to me it's perfect.

Church said we could skip the "Ash Wed" because of Chinese New Year.... what is that really.... i think it's totally wrong.... so maybe many of the "rules" were just made up by the church.....