Posted by On Sep 28, Su and I woke up early morning to start our journey to the city of Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. We had heard so many good things about the city and its beauty that we never questioned our decision to spend a day there.
However, the commute to Victoria downtown from Vancouver was over 5 hours, which killed most of our day.
Three bus rides from where we were staying took us to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal, where we embarked on a 1.5 hour journey on a ferry through the Pacific to Swartz Bay Ferry terminal, where a bus picked us up to drop us off in downtown Victoria after another hour. I must mention though that the ferry journey was quite nice. It is apparently not unusual to see Orcas from the ferry, but we did not see any. We did see a lot of Harbor seals though.
By the time we reached downtown we were exhausted. But something super exciting happened on the way. On the sun-deck of the ferry we bumped into Frank one more time! Remember the Frank whom we hitched a hike from in Jasper to go to Maligne Lake? What are the odds! And it turned out that none of the three of us had an idea of what we really wanted to do in Victoria. So we decided to stick together and spend the afternoon walking around.
Being located on the southern tip of the Vancouver island, off the Pacific Coast, it has a very “tropical feel” to it, with lots of beaches.
We walked through the Beacon Hill Park to the beaches/waterfront and walked on the harbor to reach Fisherman’s wharf. In the park, there were many peacocks, just chilling out. So cool. However all peacocks decided not to display their feathers to us.
On the Fishermans wharf, there were three seals, right at the harbor. We realized that they were hanging out so close to the humans because apparently one can buy fish to feed them. In the 15 minutes we were there, the three seals were given at least 10 plates of fish by tourists, and they fought each other to get the fish. Although fun to watch for humans, I am really not sure how healthy a habit this is. It seemed quite unethical and definitely influenced their behaviour.
We continued walking through different parts of Victoria, old and older parts. This city is also known for its oldest Chinatown in Canada and the second oldest in North America, after San Francisco’s.
We had Japanese dinner at Nubo Japanese Tapas – a fusion Japanese restaurant. Amazing Sashimi salad!
We did not have enough time to really do much more, but if we are ever back again, we will definitely come with more time in hand and visit the Mount Douglass peak for the best view of the city, go to Butchart’s garden and kayak in the waters of the Pacific (taking the ferry is just not enough).
The next day, another 4 hours in buses, ferry and trains finally got us to Vancouver Downtown.
Our main aim for today was walking through Vancouver, and getting to Granville island to check out their brewery.
The Pacific Ocean, with the mountains in the far horizon make this city extraordinary. How many cities in the world has both? I actually don’t know but I can’t imagine it being very common. We walked a little through Stanley Park, on the north side of the city, which reminded us of High Park of Toronto, albeit larger. From the park, we walked on the beach of the ocean till we had to take a ferry to Granville Island (actually a peninsula) to visit the Granville Public Market. There we bought some nuts as gifts for the family, and some Vancouver-made solid shampoo and lotion. Renee joined us for dinner at the island, where we met up some more friends for a mash-up final dinner get-together.
Our days are ending… reality is about to hit.
The Never-ending Quest for a Passion 