Vancouver Trip 2010 part 7 - City (2)

This will be my last and final post on my trip. The last few days of my trip were spent in the city. Visited a few sights like Stanley Park, Deep Cove and Robson Street. Ok, Robson Street isn't really a sight but a shopping street, although I didn't really buy anything. But something did happen there which I shall share later.

Stanley Park is supposedly the "tourist" attraction of Vancouver and so far, we haven't really been to the "touristy" parts that much. So the spot most go to? The totem poles section. After the "obligatory" photo stop, we made our way to Deep Cove, to take the Baden Powell Trail. But we stopped at Beavers Lake first, which at first glance, you wouldn't know it was a lake by the layer of foliage on it. No beavers there, but we did catch a pic of a mother duck with its ducklings and a heron, plus a squirrel.

 

We proceeded to Deep Cove and had our lunch there first at this place called Honey Doughnuts & Goodies before climbing the trail. The view at the lookout point was amazing, but having height phobia made me wary of the edges and I literally "crawled" on the rock surfaces for our photo shots. 1 of our water bottles had the misfortune of rolling down, but was caught safely in a crevice, of which my friend stoically went to fetch it. They would probably have to fetch me if I were to go and fetch it as I would be "frozen" stiff. It was a good 2-hour walk and we rewarded ourselves with a good steak dinner downtown after that at The Keg, meeting up with our PhD ex-colleague again.

Since we were in Vancouver, where a lot of Hongkongers were now residing, we had to try the dim sum there. So we went to the Red Star Seafood Restaurant in Richmond for brunch. My favourites would have to be the egg tarts, almond tea and steamed beancurd skin roll. My friend and I (just 2 of us) then headed to Robson Street to attempt to do some last minute shopping (me). However, I wasn't really in the mood for much shopping and furthermore, my friend's car got impounded! Well, we kind of wrongly parked at a 'no parking during peak period' zone (although it was metered). We didn't really understand the sign and against our gut feel that we might be parking wrongly, we parked there. We did start our parking at a valid time though. We should have parked on the other side of the road. Imagine our bewilderment when on returning to the "crime scene" there was not a car in sight on that particular stretch/side. So we quickly called the hotline indicated on the meter (which was still ticking) and took the sky train (like our MRT) to the impound centre area. We were pretty surprised by how new, big and techie the impound lot was, as compared to what was usually portrayed on TV, and concluded they must earn a lot. So it was that we got the car back. We decided to have a healthy meal that night (my last night in Canada) and headed to the grocers to get some supplies. Had stir-fried spinach cooked by 'yours truly' :), frozen pizza and left over frozen 四季豆 from the other day. All very green!

So it was how my trip ended.

Vancouver Trip 2010 part 6 - Vancouver Island (4)

We started the last day on Vancouver Island off with a French breakfast at Mon Petit Choux, a cafe round the corner. I had the Croque Madame, which was decked out like a smiley face, and once again, a London Fog. It has got to be my favourite drink on this trip, just like how Tully's matcha latte became my favourite drink in Japan. I wonder if Singapore sells it, or even brewed to the way I like it. Anyway, after breakfast, we drove to Cathedral Grove (Macmillan Provincial Park) to have a stroll through the trees and see "The Big Tree" which is the largest tree in the park, a douglas fir. We had some fun taking some shots with it, acting like spiderman. 2 guys helped us take a group photo and one of them said he had actually worked in Singapore before, with the air base. He was trying to remember the name of the air base which he pronounced as "pile-of-bark"...it turned out he meant Paya Lebar. We had a good laugh.

After the touch of nature, we headed for Chemainus, the mural town, to walkabout for a few hours before taking the ferry back to the mainland. There, we had one of the best scones with heavenly clotted cream and gooseberry jam (me), at this quaint little tea cottage called Twisted Sisters, which was owned by a pair of twins. We had initially thought it would be a rocker-chic place by its name, but was obviously to the contrary. The scones were baked specially by the local bakery for them.

After that, we made our way to the ferry point where we took the ferry back to the mainland and docked at Horseshoe Bay. After my friend (Viv) and I checked into our hostel (we were taking turns with another colleague to stay at my friend's place), 4 of us headed for dinner. We managed to find a Jap place called Guu which was still open. Yeah! I found my ocha-zuke (rice in tea).

Vancouver Trip 2010 part 5 - Vancouver Island (3)

Now back to more trip reports.

Bidding farewell to our hospitable B&B host, we began with a trip to Butchart Gardens. It's a must-go if you love flowers. Of course, the "trigger-happy" us went crazy trying to photograph all the flowers we could. We rounded up our photo outing with a sumptuous English afternoon tea, complete with tiers and giant pots of tea. The greedy us realised we should have just ordered 2 pots of tea, but we wanted to try many flavours.

After Butchart Gardens, we headed towards Nanaimo, but not without stopping by a winery. We came to Church & State Wines where we did some wine tastings. The result? I bought an award-winning rosé (although strangely, it was called Cabernet Blanc), the very last bottle they had, which was actually the display bottle with a medal draped round its neck. Of course, they kept the medal. The wine smelled like honey and had a tinge of honey taste. After that, we made our journey to Nanaimo, where we were staying for the night at a hostel, Painted Turtle Hi-Hostel. I'm not really one for hostels (the last time I stayed in a hostel was in Uni days), mainly because I prefer ensuite bathrooms, but this was surprisingly not too bad, relatively new, with a nice common area and rather clean (quite different from another one I was to stay later). 4 of us shared 1 room, which was a bit squeezy, but it was just for 1 night.

We were rather full from our tea, so we just had poutine and perogies at this place called Pirate Chips, followed by a stroll along the wharf. We saw an otter/seal (too dark to tell), but couldn't get a shot of it. Nanaimo was practically a dead town at night this time of the year as the shops were all closed, except for food or pubs.

When God Made You

I recently attended a friend's wedding and they played this beautiful song by Newsong, with Natalie Grant.

So touching and sweet. :)

Love Never Dies

I recently purchased the OST of this musical, which is a sequel to Phantom of the Opera, talking about what happens after 10 years. It's set on Coney Island, which with its "carnival" setting, makes it a good place for magic and of course, the phantom to use his talent. Before I go on to my review, the album was pretty well-packaged, as it comes with the libretto, where one could follow through the whole production and a DVD like a "making of" video.

When I first started playing it, I was honestly disappointed by what I was hearing. You must understand that I really loved Phantom, the magic, the music, etc. (I watched it twice and listened to the original cast recording dozens of times) and this production wasn't like it. It was more "modernised" in terms of the music at the start and I would say, a little "American" initially. I guess it's because it was set on Coney Island. You can say I was a little "culutre-shocked" as I was not expecting that. However, on playing it a second time, it sounded a bit better, as I overcame my perceptions. Slowly, there is still a little semblance of the musical style, as the songs progressed. There are actually some repeated musical sequences like the end of the track "Before the Performance" where it had appeared in Phantom.

I didn't really like the story as it kind of "destroyed" the original love element. Furthermore, I have actually read the original book by Gaston Leroux, where you will know that the phantom was actually an escaped criminal/murderer. The characters were also much changed from the impression given in Phantom. The story was more "typical" in a way and I felt the magic was lost. Partly maybe because the music wasn't as "surrounding" as Phantom, if you know what I mean. In Phantom, the whole show was more driven by the music and the mystique of a phantom "haunting" the group. But it isn't in this case. I don't really know how to explain it.

Maybe you can call me biased, but I think it couldn't live up to Phantom's expectation or Andrew Llyod Webber's standards as that. Well, maybe I'll feel different if I ever get to watch it.

Vancouver Trip 2010 part 4 - Vancouver Island (2)

Second day on the island, we took another ferry out to Salt Spring Island to check out the Saturday Market, which was rather "hippie" I would say, with handmade products, local produce, buskers and a laze on the lawn, eating bagels and cheese bought from the market. Carefree.

Well, the day wasn't getting younger and we needed to head for the ferry, while stopping by some places for quick peeks. We stopped at a rather "homely" vineyard and also a goat cheese farm.

Back on Vancouver Island, dinner was at a brew pub called Spinnakers near our B&B where they brewed their own ale. I ordered a beef pot pie and tried an ale. I must say I'm really not one for beers. Wine and cocktails are more my cup of tea in the alcohol department.

We woke up the next day to a nice home-cooked breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup (finally!) and sausages. Yum! We asked for a lighter breakfast as we were taking a (dinghy) boat to go whale-watching. We had to have some restraint though with such a nice breakfast, but we took some seasickness pills just in case. We had the dinghy (Orca Spirit) all to ourselves. Dressed in bulky life suits (not vests only), we experienced a bumpy ride out to sea as we searched for whales. However, the resident whales were away, so no whales for us. :( But we did spot some bachelor sea lions. The guide was telling us that these were the sea lions who lost out during mating season and had to be stuck here, alone, trying to build up "scars", while the winner had a harem elsewhere.

The 3-hour ride resulted in me having a backache the next day, which thankfully was gone by the following day.

We were pretty hungry after the "hunt" and headed to this place (again read about by my friend) called Pagliacci's in downtown Victoria. The starters were bagels with cream cheese which we devoured. It's interesting that the bagels in Vancouver that I tried were softer than the usual American kind, which made it all the more appealing. I had the nice and warm Sunday in the Park with George pasta which is like the pasta special for the day. They served in half and full sizes, leaving me some room for dessert (as I ordered the half-size), which was a decadent "Chocolate Oblivion", shared of course.

We decided to have a more leisurely afternoon (which we seem to be having each day already) and popped by the Craigdarroch Castle, which to be honest, looked more like someone's home built to look like a castle, rather than a 'real' castle. I think it serves as a hotel. It had a nice lawn though, with lots of daisies.

We followed this with a visit to Anne Hathaway's Cottage, which we discovered was actually just next door to our B&B! Ha! After we've been trying to find out which part of the street it was on. No, it's not the actress, but actually with reference to the wife of Shakespeare. The original is in Shottery, Warwickshire, England, which was badly damaged in a fire. So this cottage in Victoria is supposedly the oldest.

After that, we decided we should have a simple dinner of cup noodles so we headed out to the grocer's. A supposedly 5-minute ride became a 20-minute ride as we searched for the supposed address of the "nearby grocer". Ha! In the end, we managed to "accidentally" find the grocery and got our cup noodles dinner.