mindless ramblings

Our final day in Victoria started off by checking out from our hotel. With that out of the way, we walked over to the Parliament buildings. The good thing about Victoria is that all the major sightseeing attractions (and our hotel hehe) are located within walking distance of each other.

The Parliament building was designed by a 25 year old architect named Francis Rattenbury in 1893 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The building currently has over 3,300 bulbs affixed to the exterior, they even put up red and green ones for Christmas!

Although we were 10 minutes late for the tour, we managed to catch up to them and listen in to interesting facts about the buildings.

Very pretty stained glass…

House of Commons: This is where all the MLAs meet and chit chat, pass bills and stuff.

Smile!

Designed by a 25 year old… wow!

After the tour, the rest of the building had nothing to see anyway, so we left and headed across the road to the Empress Hotel. Our main objective was not to tour the hotel, but instead to visit our final tourist attraction: Miniature World.

Of all the sights I saw in Victoria when I last came as a 8 year old, I remember Miniature World most vividly. They have over 80 very detailed dioramas depicting a variety of things, from the American Civil War to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The fanciest diorama was one that must have been almost 100ft long! It started from British Columbia on one end and slowly moved across Canada, passing Calgary, Regina, Toronto and Quebec before finally reaching the Maritimes. All the proper physical and human landmarks were there, the Rocky Mountains section even had the Spiral Tunnels and Rogers Pass!

With Miniature World done, we had done all the sightseeing that we wanted to do. However, it was only 1pm and we had originally intended to take the 7pm ferry back to the mainland. For lunch, we headed to the place we were supposed to have dinner at last night: The Noodle Box. It’s supposedy a “Southeast Asian Noodle Bar”, but it’s more a chic noodle place, with meals served in either porcelain bowls or those Chinese square takeout boxes.

I was craving for a spicy soupy dish, so I got the Tom Yam soup with shrimp. While waiting in line to order, I noticed a little sign explaining how their “hotness” scale works, with the “hot” level being something like “fiery, but still nice“. Sounds good I though, so I got my meal done “hot”. Turns out that “hot” acutally means “burn your throat and leave your gasping for air“! The soup was so spicy I found it difficult to drink it at all. There was red pepper, intensely hot red chilies, and a spicy soup base to begin with. I’ve never had soup this spicy before, even in Singapore! The meal was OK overall I guess, the place had people coming in non-stop, so they must be doing something right, even with charging almost $9 for a bowl of noodles.

The fancy takeout box

Damn spicy soup!

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in downtown, didn’t buy anything but nevertheless had fun walking around! In an effort to avoid rush hour (if there is one in Victoria), we left downtown early and got the ferry terminal at 515pm. We spent the next hour or so just chatting/eating/sleeping. The good thing about going early is that you get to park your car early, thus you get to the cafeteria before anyone else and get your food quickly. Got a White Spot burger which was tasty as always thanks to Triple O sauce. The fries weren’t too great though. The ride back was pretty choppy due to high winds, the captain even had to request that people sit down unless necessary. After lots of churning around in the chopy waves, we made it back to Tsawassen more or less on time, with a slight delay as the ferry before us broke down and couldn’t leave the dock.

And with that, our little trip to Victoria came to an end. Lots of fun packed into 3 short days, sightseeing, great food and those Cranium nights… if you have never tried Cranium, you really should!