Seattle/Vancouver Oct 2011 - Part 4: Vancouver

Day 1 - 

We checked out of the Delta hotel in Victoria.  We found a yummy place for breakfast called Mo:Le.  It was very good.  Lisa had some sort of mushroom bacon scramble and I had huevos rancheros.  No offense to my parents, but this was the best huevos rancheros I have had.  After breakfast we headed towards Butchart Gardens.  This is north of Victoria on the way to the ferry at Swartz Bay.  We took the back way to the gardens because for some reason the Garmin didn't want to take the normal way.  We still got there though.  The gardens were gorgeous.  There were several areas: a sunken garden, which was set that way because the garden was built on a quarry, a rose garden, a Japanese garden, an Italian garden, and a couple more random areas.  We really liked some of the random areas.  There were a couple of spots with redwood trees, I liked those, and Lisa liked the area around a little red barn that had a bunch of big colorful flowers.

Sunken Garden

Lisa and the pretty flowers

Redwoods north of California

After the gardens, we had heard that there were some wineries in the area.  We drove by 3-4 of them and they were all closed for the season.  We decided to head towards Swartz Bay and check it out.  We left the gardens fairly early and our ferry reservation was at 5:00.  As we were driving to Swartz Bay, there were a bunch of signs that told us to follow to the ferry, so kept following.  All of a sudden we were at the checkin for the ferry.  Not a lot of warning, at least not that we could see.  It was about 2:30 and our reservation was for 5:00.  The lady at the checkin said we could try and get on the 3:00, but she could not promise it.  We got in line and waited for the line to start loading.  They started at about 10 til 3:00, and got to our line.  We started moving up and then would stop.  A little more, and then stop.  We got to a spot where they could have made us wait until the next ferry, but then we moved on a little further.  We ended up making it on the ferry.  We were one of the last cars in the very back of the ferry.  This was about an hour and a half ride, so we had some time.  I stood outside most of the time playing with our camera.  I was hoping to see a whale, but did not see one.

Lighthouse from the ferry

We made it to the destination and made it off the ferry no problem.  Lisa was a little worried about how us foreigners would handle the ferries, but it is a very efficient system that we had no problems with.  Downtown Vancouver was about 30 minutes from the ferry.  The traffic was terrible.  Vancouver has this system where they have signal lights above the lanes to tell you if you can use it or not.  They change depending on traffic and time of day.  This sounds like a good idea, but that was a long time ago.  They now have too many cars in the area and need more lanes.  It took quite a while to get to downtown.  We got checked in to our hotel, and then went to dinner.  

We found a sushi place called Miku.  Holy cow!  This was amazing.  We got there and they sat us outside because the dining room with reservations was full.  This was a Thursday night and they were full.  It wasn't too bad outside, but they had big floor heaters.  They were not on and it took a couple of guys to come out and start them, but it worked.  We were nice and warm after they got them started.  The menu was a little intimidating, but our waitress was great.  She walked us through, gauged our sense of adventure, which was fairly low.  We started with a sashimi salad.  Wow, this was amazing.  There was one issue, neither of us had eaten a salad with chop sticks.  And come to find out, Lisa was not the best with chop sticks.  She got it figured out though.  For some reason, I had the urge for sake.  I asked for a recommendation and we ordered some sake to share.  I don't know what kind it was, but it was very good.  One of the cool parts was they brought out a tray with a whole bunch of different sake cups and we got to pick our cups.  This was a nice touch.  Next we ordered a couple of rolls, and a couple of sashimi pieces.  I am not going to attempt to tell you what was in the rolls, but the sashimi pieces were aburi style.  This meant that they were raw, but were torched or broiled very briefly on the top.  It gave the raw fish bite and very interesting taste and texture.  Very good stuff.  The sushi at home will never be the same. We ended with a blueberry coconut tart with blueberry lavender sorbet.  A very good desert.  This was a fantastic eating experience.  The best part was the service.  Our waitress was great.  The manager came over to our table several times.  All of the servers were friendly and explained all of the food.  We talked about going back every day we were in Vancouver.  Yummy.

Sashimi Salad

Soft-Shelled Crab

Aburi Sushi

Blueberry coconut tart with blueberry lavender sorbet

Can you guess which one is Lisa's?

Seattle/Vancouver Oct 2011 - Part 3: Victoria

Victoria's Inner Harbour

Next stop, Canada.   We got to the ferry a little before 7:30 for our 8:30 trip.  There was a pretty sunrise so we took some pictures and got a coffee at a stand close to the pier.  The strange thing was that there was a raccoon on the other side of the fence and people were feeding it.  Ok, fine.  The thing is, from where we are from, raccoons are a pest and we shoo them away.  They were encouraging the raccoon to be there.  Oh well.

We finally got to see snow on the mountains

We boarded the ferry and went up to the top to the passenger deck.  After about 20-30 minutes, someone said they saw a whale. I couldn't see it, I know big surprise, but Lisa said she could see the spout off in the distance.  We went a little further and someone said they saw a whale on the other side.  We got up to check it out and there were a couple of whales pretty close to the ferry.  That was pretty cool.

The ferry arrived at the port in Victoria and made it through customs with no problems.  We went to the hotel first and checked in.  We were surprised because it was about 10:00am and they had our room ready.  We dropped off our stuff and then headed to town.  Victoria is a small quaint city with a bunch of boutique shops.  Lisa really enjoyed that part.  We started by going to Bard & Banker's, a Scottish-style pub.  It was very detailed inside.  The food was pretty good too.  I had banger's and mash and Lisa had seafood sliders.  

After lunch we started on the boutiques.  There was not a lot of stuff for me, but Lisa really enjoyed them.  There were clothes shops, housewares, outdoor equipment, nic-naks, treats and others.  We took a city tour laster in the day.  It was pretty slow at first, but it got better as the material picked up.  We got to see all parts of the city.  The shopping areas, Chinatown, Antique Row, good neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods, exclusive neighborhoods.  All in all, it was pretty good.  They dropped us off at the Fairmont Empress at the end of the tour.  We decided to walk through.  It is a very pretty hotel from the outside.  The inside was a little lacking.  The "newer" parts looked like they were from the 70s, and the older areas just needed some TLC.  

Fairmont Empress hotel

We walked back to the car to drop off our stuff and then headed to Ferris Oyster Bar.  I had seen their website and from that really wanted to try it.  We ordered a couple of drinks and some oysters.  Lisa and I decided on the trip that we really like oysters.  We had both had them before but they were nothing special.  After this trip, mmmmmm.........yummy.  

Outside our hotel before dinner

Next was dinner.  We got ready and went down to the lobby.  The hotel had a shuttle that would take you to and from dinner.  We had some additional riders on our ride.  From what the driver told us, there was a native socialization conference in Victoria.  Apparently, the natives that live on the reservations are sometimes stuck there and become, for lack of a better term, sheltered. The government and the tribes have conference to bring these people to the cities and allow them to adapt to more of a social setting.  There were several of the people from this conference on our bus.  I had no problem with them, but they were not the most well behaved people you would meet.  They reminded me of some people at home that don't get out much too.  when we got to our restaurant, Cafe Brio, the driver apologized profusely.  We told him it was no big deal.  

Dinner was very good.  We had a family style meal.  This allowed us to have 6 half items from the menu in order to try a bunch of them.  The restaurant was more than anything an Italian restaurant.  It wasn't stereotypical italian, but it was very good.  We had a beet salad, squash soup, clams in a gravy-esqe broth, seared albacore tuna, itallian steak and a pasta dish.  They were very good.  We also had a local wine.  It was good, but a little different than your standard pinot noir.  

We called to get a ride back to the hotel, and the same driver picked us up from before.  We asked him how the rest of that trip was and he just laughed.  That was when he explained the situation to us.  

Another good day.  Next, Vancouver.

Parliament building at night

Seattle/Vancouver Oct 2011 - Part 2: Olympic National Park

Crescent Lake

We got up and picked up a quick bite to eat at McDonald's.  We started driving to the Olympic National Park visitor's center and realized both of our meals were wrong.  Oh well.  We finished at the visitor's center and headed towards the sights.  As we left, it started to rain on us.  We started at Crescent Lake.  This was a very pretty spot to look out on the glacier-created lake.  The water was a bold blue color.  We took a couple of pictures and by the time we left that spot, there was a pretty steady rain coming down.  Our next stop was Rialto Beach.

Crescent Lake

We made it out of the rain briefly and got to the beach.  This was not like any beach we had been to before.  The "sand" was more like gravel.  There were trees laying on the beach with the bark worn off from the ocean waves pounding the shore.  The waves were enormous.  It was definitely not a swimming beach.  We really enjoyed this spot.  It did rain on us a little more there, but it was a cool spot.

Rialto Beach

Next we went to First beach, which was just down the beach, but it was about a 20 minute drive over there.  This was more commercialized because it was not part of the park.  This was a common theme during the day.  There were a bunch of areas that we drove through which were not part of the park and did not fit the area.  There was also a lot of logging going on around the park.  It was pretty easy to tell when you were in the park, not only from the signs, but the size of the trees.  The larger and older the trees, the more likely you were in the park.  Anyway, we made it to First beach and it was ok, mainly because of the commercial growth there.

We moved on and headed towards Hoh rain forest.  I was looking forward to seeing this area.  Olympic National Park has at least three different ecosystems:  temperate beach, coastal rainforest, and mountainous regions.  My goal was to hit all of them while we were there.  On the way to Hoh, we drove through a town called Forks.  Wow, this was an interesting town.  This was like taking Lincoln, MO and moving it to the Pacific Northwest.  The other way it was different is that we kept seeing signs about the movie Twilight.  Neither of us had seen Twilight, so this did not make sense.  Apparently, part of the movie was filmed in Forks and Port Angeles, WA.  That made the town even stranger.  We made it through Forks and on our way to Hoh.  It started pouring on us.  It was about an hour and twenty minute drive from First beach to Hoh and it rained about half of it.  We pulled into the Hoh rain forest and come to find out the visitor's center was closed.  We decided to go on a small hike(walk) and see the rain forest.  Basically it just rained on us.  We wanted to see a rain forest and got to see the rain.  It was pretty cool though.  There was moss all over the trees and moss and ferns covering the ground.  There was a phone booth outside the visitor's center that was covered in moss from all the rain.

We moved on and decided to head back to the hotel.  this is about a two plus hour drive.  We made it to Forks and it stopped raining.  As we got closer back to the park, the rain was following us and catching up fast.  We made it back to Lake Crescent and stopped at the Lake Crescent lodge.  This was a really cool little lodge on the lake.  We went inside and got a couple of souvenirs and tried to wait out the rain.  We were unsuccessful.  We decided to press on and stopped at the next lake turnoff.  The rain slowed a little so we took a couple of pictures and moved on.  As we left the area, we saw another one of the deer that we had seen in the park.  We probably saw about a dozen of them.  This one was starting to grow antlers.  They were the smallest antlers I had ever seen.  we took a couple of pictures and moved on.

Deer with tiny antlers

Rainbow in the trailing rain

We got back to town and decided to go to Bella Italia for dinner.  We were hungry so we went right there before going to the hotel.  This is probably the nicest restaurant in town. I couldn't decide where to put the " ", so add them to the "nicest restaurant in town" where you would like.  It was good.  We were very under dressed though.  There were people in there with ties on.  We were in t-shirts and hiking attire.  It was a long day, obviously, because this is a long post.  We had a good long day.  We went to bed at about 8:00pm.

To say you have been to a park, you need a stamp and a picture.
Here is my picture, and I got by book stamped too.  :)