It was a sunny Canadian morning at our hotel room.
Victoria's Chinatown is the second oldest in North America, after San Francisco.
"Fan Tan Alley is known for being the narrowest commercial street in North America, being less than 3 ft wide at its narrowest point."
"The alley became known for gambling and got its Fan Tan name from the board game of the same name during the 1910s. Police raids on the illegal gambling clubs and declining visitors led to the closure of the gambling clubs in the 1950s and 60s."
We made a little visit to Friends & Family Bake, a locally owned, family-run Filipino bakeshop.
They had some fun flavors like pandan
and ube.
I got some choco crinkles BUT my mom's are way better.
The Bay Centre shopping mall was having a Festival of Trees. I can't turn down a Festival of Trees.
Lunch was served at Irish Times Pub. True to its newspapery name the menu looked like this.
An article caught my wee little eye! Printing a picture on top of my beer sounded very rad. And for the price of a solitary loonie?! I'm in.
I was proud to be the only cool kid in the house that day.
I was pretty proud of my artistic creation. For my muse I used Zoe's scary face from a recent trip to Mercer Island.
I believe after a Guinness or two I was doing research into buying myself one of these amazing machines.
I got the bangers and mash. Partially because it's fun to say bangers and mash.
We experimented with printing on other drink surfaces but it just wasn't the same.
Butchart Gardens in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia had even more lights to look at.
They had humorous displays of all the characters in "The Twelve Days of Christmas". These were the three French hens.
We walked around inside the Fairmont Empress.
"The hotel was built between 1904 and 1908, opening for service in that year and named for Queen Victoria, who was also Empress of India. In 1919, Edward, Prince of Wales attended a gala at the hotel's Crystal Ballroom.
In the 1930s, Shirley Temple arrived accompanied by her parents amid rumors that she had fled from California because of kidnapping threats, a story borne from the presence of two huge bodyguards who took the room opposite hers and always left their door open. On May 30, 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth attended a luncheon at the Empress during their 1939 royal tour of Canada."
