I Love a Parade

Oh yes, I do. And today was Victoria Day here in Victoria, so to the parade we went. Along with 65,000 other people, it is said.

Parade attendance involves strategy – where to park? Where to sit? Fortunately this town doesn’t get up very early and we were able to whistle on down to the View Street parkade, get settled on Douglas Street and get the all important breakfast in hand well before the parade showed up.

Growing up in Calgary, where attendance at the Stampede Parade is practically mandatory I have certain expectations regarding parades. There should be horses. And pipers. And lots of audience participation. Things are different here. Light on horses, heavy on pipers, and needing serious encouragement for the audience participation part. Wilf has gotten used to me hollering and clapping and whoohooing and no longer pretends that he doesn’t know me.

As I mentioned, the parade is woefully light on horses. There were only three. But three beauties they were:

They were part of the Victoria Fire Department Historical Society  display.

Of course, being lacking in the horse department meant that we were sadly deficient in the cowboy department, too.

But pipers and pipe bands – there were lots. Between the military and the American High School bands were were well taken care of:

 

We had saucy sailor girls:

and the kids from Reynolds High, on of our local schools

Once the parade was over we had a little lunch in the sun on Government Street, enjoyed some gelato while watching the people go by and went to see the newest sculpture in town – topiary Orcas!

Tourists in our own town!

2010 Times-Colonist 10k

Last year I got it into my head to enter the Times-Colonist 10k road race, as a walker. I signed up for a event preparation clinic through our local recreation centre, did the training and then did the race. It was great fun – I finished in 1hr35min. It was a great experience all around. In the Fall I entered the Royal Victoria Half Marathon as a walker, which was also great.

At some point along the way Wilf said the fatal words ‘If you can do it, so can I’. Uh-huh. And soon enough we were both signed up for the 2010 race and training clinics. And again, all went well. Some sort of miracle came to pass and for 14 Sunday mornings in a row we went for our walk with the clinic participants – and it didn’t rain! A few times it started as soon as we finished our cool down stretches, and one morning we left the house in the pouring rain, but it stopped by the time we got to Greenglade school. Race day was cool, lightly overcast – no  rain!

And here we are:

With over 13,000 registered participants this is the second largest 10k in Canada  - second only to the Vancouver Sun Run (with 60,000 participants). In the above pictures we were just moving into position for the walker’s start. The runners had already gone and we moving from our corral to the start line itself.

We tried to catch a picture along the way on Dallas Road – what you can’t really see is the line of people in blue shirts stretching off as far as we could see.

And then, after 1hr38min:

I’m clutching my chocolate milk and oranges – and amazingly enough we found Mom and Dad in the post race melee!

Other pictures are over here and here.

So – 2011 anyone?

I can see for miles and miles and miles and…..

Last month we were in Winnipeg. Usually our concern is whether or not we’ll run into winter and freeze to death. Living in lotus land means we’ve totally lost our acclimatization for winter. Turned out not to be a problem this time around. In fact, it was warmer in Winnipeg than it was in Victoria. In fact, it was 23 degrees. I mean – really? That’s a really nice summer day out here.

The good folks of Winnipeg were cavorting in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. And, while I applaud their desire to enjoy the warm weather, there’s one thing. There wasn’t a speck of green. Not a blade of grass. Not a bud open on a tree. They had vaulted straight from winter to summer temps without pausing for spring. The roads hadn’t even been swept of the dust and gravel.

From the 8th floor, Portage and Sherbrook, looking south:

Looking southwest:

If it weren’t for those pesky Rocky Mountains we might have been able to see all the way back to Vancouver Island.

We had a great visit with Wilf’s Mom, got her taxes sorted, ate at Stella's and then headed back to the green and flowery West Coast.

So – Where Have I Been At?

Well, mostly just around, in winter hibernation. Unusually for Wilf and I we stayed put this winter. And we picked a good one – mild temperatures, little rain – no snow! In fact spring came very early this year – the cherry trees were out in February, and we had our first daffodil blooms right at the end of the month. The early rhodos are out now and the garden looks good – lots to look at already.

We did take a quick trip to Seattle at the beginning of February – thought we’d get over and back before all the Olympic hoohah started. We shopped and ate and walked and had a nice few days. The bus tunnel that services downtown Seattle is back in service, which makes for some speedy moving about.

One discovery we made is that The Elliott Bay Book Company is moving. Okay, we may have been the last people to find out, but I’m glad we didn’t just show up there one day and find them gone. The actual move begins tomorrow –they’re promising a great location in another building with squeaky fir floors – and parking – so there’s that!

Well, now that spring has sprung and hibernation is over I’ll aim to update more frequently. And I’ll leave you with a picture that we took on our Seattle trip:

Yep those are four full grown Newfoundland dogs in the back of a pickup. We stopped for coffee at Sehome Village, Bellingham, as we usually do. Sitting in my chair by the window I had the sense of being watched. When I turned around I was eye to eye with a very large black dog. Being a Newf he had a ‘Wassup? Wanna play?’ look about him. His owner went out and tried to send him back to the truck, but no way, he wanted to be where the action was. It wasn’t until owner guy walked the dog back to the pickup and put him in the cab that we realized that there were four more in the back of the truck! That led to quite a buzz around the coffee shop - ‘Imagine the food for those guys! Food, shmood – imagine the poop situation!’ I wasn’t the only one out in the parking lot taking pictures of these beauties. (And yes, since we were in Bellingham in the winter it was drizzling, so those were five huge wet dogs….)

Brrr….

I was going to write about how cold it had gotten here, cold enough to open extra beds at the homeless shelters. Then I looked at what is happening in Calgary. So – never mind.

There is an upside to these arctic outflows  – sun, beautiful sun. Just cover up your tender bits!

Still here!

I’m not done with the Japan trip quite yet, I’m just trying to get my bearings now that we’re back on this side of the world.

We left Tokyo on Tuesday, November 10 at 5:30 p.m. and arrived in Vancouver on Tuesday, November 10 at 9:30 a.m. Argh – I’m just not going to think too much about that date line thing.

Thursday morning we were on an 8:00 a.m. flight out of Victoria and we’re now in Winnipeg. So, sleep comes when it does, which is usually not when the world around us is in sleep mode – we’re falling asleep all day, wide awake at night. I’m sure we’ll just get sorted in time to go back to Victoria on Wednesday.

We find things here in Winnipeg in good shape. Wilf’s mom is settled into her new home and is happy to have a room of her own.

I’ll be back soon with more pictures and stories of our adventures. I’ve really appreciated hearing from you all about these postings. I sort of feel like I’m talking to myself – it’s good to know you are out there!

Badger hunting in Tokyo

When we first arrived in Japan we stayed in Asakusa, the district that contains the great Sensoji Temple. While wandering around the grounds we came across a small shrine called Chingo-do, which is dedicated to the Tanuki, also known as the raccoon dog or badger. Here’s a rascally looking three some:

As well as being the deity for protection against fire and theft, Sir Raccoon Dog is also a symbol of flourishing business. Bars and noodle shops, in particular, usually have a statue of a tanuki out front. We figure its a sort of ‘good time  here’ symbol.

Wilf decided that he needed a tanuki for a souvenir. The area around the temple in Asakusa is thick with souvenir shops so we returned there today. I managed to find the Japanese name for the critter – trying to explain to someone who doesn’t speak English that I wanted a small statue of a badger just seemed like a recipe for failure.

Good luck cats, Hello Kitty in all incarnations, owls – no problem. Tanuki – not so easy. Asakusa is also the part of town where the restaurant supply stores are – the guidebooks send tourists there to see where all the fake food on display in front of Japanese restaurants comes from. Figuring that restaurants have to get their tanuki from somewhere we set off. Finding one with just the right facial expression was a challenge – goofy, but not too comic like. With teeth…… There were some big ones that were great and would have made a great water feature in the garden. But how to get it home? Eventually we found a little one that is actually a sake container – Sir Raccoon Dog’s hat comes off for use as a sake cup. I’ll have to show you a picture later, as he’s currently packed up for transport.

After achieving success in the badger department we decided to walk down to the river. And lo and behold – a big water taxi to take us to places unknown. We hopped on and away we went. It is easy to forget that Tokyo is on the ocean, has a big port and also has a whole river network running through it. We passed under 14 bridges, and saw many more on side channels. That explains why so many subway stations end with ‘bashi, which means bridge.

While waiting for the water taxi I bought another charm from a vending machine. This caused much excitement amongst the groups of ladies standing behind me, especially when I couldn’t get the plastic bubble it came in open. They couldn’t stand it, took it away and passed it around until they got it. I was balancing camera, purse, knapsack, packages, and when I was fumbling getting the charm onto my camera I thought the mama-san’s were going to take that over too! They were a hoot!

Once back to shore we made our way to Shibuya. If you’ve seen the movie ‘Lost in Translation’ you’ve seen this intersection. It is a scramble – the cars go in one direction, then the other. Then the cars wait and people cross however they need to . It is a sea of humanity surrounded by oceans of neon – all set to the latest J-pop blasting from the speakers!