When Curtis showered, Kim started to pack. We need to pack one of our bags to take with us on one trip and another bag to leave here during that time.
We spent a couple of hours packing and getting it all sorted.
A Brief Walk
We went for a brief walk so we could get some air.
We went to the supermarket, but before that we went for a drink in Starbucks.
Curtis had a flat white to try it and see if he can get a coffee he likes from Starbucks. Kim had a hot chocolate, as usual.
Surprisingly, the flat white was great! We sat around for a bit and then left Starbucks.
Pizza!
We saw the pizza place when we walked out of Starbucks, so we just HAD to have it!
We had a large slice each, of just a cheese pizza, which hit the spot perfectly.
We left here and went to get orange juice from the supermarket.
We walked back to the apartment and just relaxed in front of the TV with Linda until dinner.
Dinner
We had leftovers for dinner from the roast chicken the other night, which was excellent, just what we needed.
Another Brief Walk.
We walked downtown again, planning to get a bit of dessert.
The chocolate shop we went to for dessert wasn’t providing the dessert we wanted, so we left and just walked back. It was nice to have an evening walk.
We watched some more TV and then went to sleep! We only have 1 more full day here.
We started the day as usual – eating breakfast and drinking coffee.
We were up pretty early for us so we were out of the door at a good time, too.
We walked to Beacon Hill Park, past Ogden Point, to go and see the world’s tallest free standing totum pole.
Possible Seals?
It took us a bit of time to get there and, on the way, we saw something flopping around in the water! It was either a whale or seals, but more likely to be seals.
The Totum Poll
We got to a large flag pole with the Canadian flag flying and then had to walk through some light forest to get to it. Unfortunately, this meant accidentally walking past a creepy man living in the woods, but we got past all fine and arrived at the totum pole.
The 39 metre tall totum pole!
This pole was built in 1956 and restored in 2011 as it was showing its age. It was cool to see, but we weren’t there for long.
We walked around the park for a bit and saw a gathering of people around a tall tree, taking photos. We were unsure what they were taking a photo of, which turned out to be a peacock in the tree.
The Killer Peacock
Curtis is not a big fan of peacocks as he was attacked when he was a child, so of course, as we were walking past the big tree, the peacock flew past us and scared him!
Beacon Drive In
We stopped at the Beacon Drive In and curtis got a coffee whilst Kim got an award winning chocolate swirl ice cream.
We all went back to Linda’s and chatted for a couple of hours and then, when everyone left, we all sat and relaxed for about 30 minutes before going to bed.
We now have a logo! This logo is on the blog as our logo, as well as on Google Chrome tabs. We are really excited to have a logo and we hope you like it, too!
Royal BC Museum
Today, we went to the Museum to have a wander around. The weather was much milder today, too, so we didn’t have to wrap up super warm!
The museum is split into many, rather large, sections. The first section we went to was a temporary exhibition for widlife photography.
Wildlife Photography Temporary Exhibition
The exhibition began with photos from children aged under 10. These were incredible, considering the age of the photographers!
There was then photos from children 12-14 and 15-17, which were, again, amazing.
This was a decent sized room which also had photos of incredible natural wonders and incredible close shots of predators.
Mammoths & Fossils
The 2nd area was mammoths and fossils. The mammoth re-creation they had stood out the most with its incredible size.
The, rather large, Mammoth
We had a discussion on the size of a mammoth in comparison to elephants and Kim had said it was the same size as a African elephant and Curtis thought it was much bigger, but, with the help of Google, we confirmed that Kim was correct.
Weather & Climate Change
We entered a small area discussing the effects of climate change and a well known heatwave in Kelowna 2003, causing fires and multiple houses were destroyed.
After the weather facts, we entered the forest animals section, which included many facts about bears, elk, deer and more, as well as their habitat and their ways of life.
A Deer
The Sea Mammals
Just out from the forest area, there was the sea mammal section. This area primarily showed the difference between the sealion and seals, as well as the true scale of a sealion, especially in contrast to a seal which looks very small beside it.
Sealion Compared To Seals
Birds
We then came to our least favourite section of the museum, which was the birds section. This only included ‘regular’ birds such as ducks and swans, but there was a bold eagle, though, which looks incredibly majestic.
Floor 2 – The First People & Becoming BC
The second floor was based around the ‘First People’ of British Columbia as well as ‘Becoming BC’ which is all the history of BC from 1700.
First People
Languages
The first area on floor 2 that we arrived at was a room filled with many columns with speakers in them with ‘hello’ and ‘how are you?’ in each of the 36 indigenous languages of British Columbia. These languages often had odd sounds in them and some interesting letters, too.
After learning of the languages of the First People, we moved into a tall room with many totem poles in. These were mainly used as decoration around houses, but the carving usually had some meaning or significance.
After the totum poles, we walked through a re-creation of a standard home of the First People, which was a simple wooden shack with seating and a fire in the centre.
Tools, Clothing, Masks & Weapons
The next few areas were largly displays, but these were of crafts, tools, weapons, masks and clothing of the First People.
Masks were not too dissimilar from totum poles, in which they all had different meanings.
The clothing was fairly simple, but could often be heavy and uncomfortable due to it being made of bark or heavy threads.
Tools aren’t too dissimilar from what is used today, but just more basic, as you would expect from the time frame, and the same goes for weapons and hunting equipment.
Treatment of the First People
Later in the exhibits, it explains the history of ill treatment of the first people, once the non-indigenous became powerful. This was hard to read, but an example was a law to stop traditional dances being performed as well as traditional celebrations.
Small Pox
Small pox was the cause of a lot of the First People population dwindling. Over 1/3 of the population were killed by small pox (around 20,000 people) whilst the people in charge of the country were unwilling to help. There was a couple of walls of writing explaining the timeframe and what happened, which was incredibly interesting but also hard to read.
The Past 100 Years in British Columbia
After the hard hitting history of the First People, we moved onto the past 100 years of BC.
This room included multiple easy-to-read yet informative boards regarding the history of BC, starting from the 1800s.
There were multiple glass displays showing items from each era, including a 1990 section, which we found facinating as it was when we were young. It was amazing to hear children saying “what is this?”, “That’s not a computer!” & “That’s a big phone!”.
An Old Town
The last area of the museum was styled like an old town. We were able to look around the town and see through the windows, but we could also enter some places!
One Angle Of The Old Town
We entered the old style movie theatre which was showing Charlie Chaplin, which we watched for a bit.
After this, we walked up some stairs into a recreation of an old hotel, which was incredible and felt just like a hotel.
We took a look at the remaining areas of the old town and then left the museum, having gained in knowledge and had a great time!
Another Section Of The Old Town
The museum was just $17 and we would highly recommend!
We got a starbucks on the way back as a reward for taking in a lot of knowledge!
We walked back to the apartment and got ready to go out for dinner.
The Steamship Terminal
Linda was kind enough to take us for dinner to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary!
The restaurant is an old Steamship Terminal, hence the name. This is the former customs building for the steamship and it is now both a Starbucks and a restaurant.
Linda had mentioned the steak, so we all just had to get one!
Curtis got the filet with whiskey crab sauce and shrimp and Kim got just the filet.
Filet Steak With Crab, Shrimp, Mashed Potato & Asparagus
We loved our steaks, but Kim’s was a little too rare.
We left here and walked Linda home and then we went out for an evening stroll and some dessert.
Dessert
We had been scouting a chocolate place for a while and decided to get dessert there today.
They do a ‘sweet poutine’ which isn’t even really poutine. This is basically churos with ice cream, marshmallows and melted chocolate. This was the perfect amount for us to share and then walk back to the apartment.
After breakfast, Curtis called up a bank from the UK as he had an ISA which he hasn’t even looked at for 2 years and he wanted to take that money out of the ISA. It was an easy phone call and Curtis even had a lot more money than expected, which is great!
We spoke with Kim’s family for a while as we are planning a trip with them again, so we had to smooth out the details for that as well as book accommodation.
We eventually left the house just for a walk down town, but we then got hungry so we went to Tim Hortons for a toasted wrap each with a doughnut and hot drink.
We left Tim Hortons and had to go to the shop to get milk and orange juice, so we made our way there.
It started snowing again when we left the supermarket, but we got home without getting too covered in snow.
We spent some of the evening booking other flights, and we are nearly finished with that which is good.
Linda made us chicken cutlets with vegetables and a baked potato.
Curtis then watched the Leafs game as it was a 19:00 game, so that went on until bed time!
We walked up to Fort St where we caught a bus up to Saanich as Kim had a doctors appointment up there.
We got to the appointment early and Kim was seen early, which was a result!
We left the doctors and walked around the corner to a bus stop and caught a bus to Uptown mall.
We were on the hunt for some new winter shoes again.
After looking at uptown, Kim put aside some Timberlands and Curtis found nothing.
We walked down to Mayfair, the other mall, to look for shoes some more.
We went somewhere Linda suggested which is a big warehouse of shoes.
Curtis, after trying many pairs of shoes, was able to find some really nice dark brown timberland boots, too!
We succeeded! We celebrated by having a KFC, which was similar to the ones we get in the UK, which was great!
Unfortunately, whilst we ate, we found out that our travel plans have changed slightly. We had planned to go to another city to a concert, but the dates have now been moved to October, just 10 days before the show! We only just booked the flights to go and that was around £500.
We are going to make the most of it and go to this city for 4 days as planned, but it doesn’t seem that there is much to do. It is a real shame and we are both disappointed as we were really looking forward to the concert!
We made our way back to the shoe shop for Kim to collect her shoes and we both changed into our new kicks before we headed home on the bus.
Once we got back, we chilled out and did some admin regarding us having to change our plans and then we had dinner. Linda made crispy chicken thighs with vegetables and some delicious bread.
Once we ate, we watched some TV but all started to fall asleep, so we headed to bed.
Odd day today, having a great success with the shoes and then having the bad news about the concert….but that’s traveling for you!
We woke up at 10:30 and Kim made and egg, bacon & cheese muffin each for breakfast, which we had alongside coffee and orange juice.
After breakfast, we got some warm clothes on to go into the balconies and shovel snow so it doesn’t seep into the apartment! This meant throwing it over the edge which Kim had a great joy doing!
Once we finished shovelling, we got showered and ready for the day.
Curtis booked himself in for a haircut at a barber down town, so we watched some YouTube videos to kill some time before we had to leave.
We walked down to the barbershop and Curtis got his haircut! It was a really good barbershop and the barber was very knowledgable and listened to what Curtis wanted and it seemed to turn out really well!
We left the barbershop and went to Tim Hortons for a coffee and Kim got a doughnut.
We then walked back to the apartment where we relaxed for an hour and then had our leftover pizza for dinner.
At around 18:00, Curtis watched hockey and then after the game, we watched an episode of FBI with Linda and then went to bed.
Depending on if buses run tomorrow, we plan to head to a place looking at shoes again.
