Alex Invades the Animal Kingdom

Hello everyone!! Day 5 in the land of the Canucks and Alex and I have basically become locals, Alex even stole- not stealing, getting some of my $4 back!- from BC Transit (the province's equivalent of Transperth). We also took TWO bus rides today and managed to both fall asleep. Luckily our stop is at the end of the line!

Today we got up quite slowly after a late night... darn this blogging keeping us awake. We were too slow for pancakes, so had to make do with Cheerios and Cornflakes (yes, they have them here too) but the plan for tomorrow is so far including some mapley goodness...
Hopped on the bus into Victoria, we missed the express so it was a solid 1.5hr journey. By the end we were pretty famished so we headed to the Bay Centre food court for some 'Sizzling Wok'. This turned out to be an epic fail, the sesame chicken, sweet and sour pork, chow mein combo was too filling in the end. Should have gone for the pizza. Did we mention they sell it by the slice here?? Crazy! We chowed down on the patio outside, didn't even think it was cold, I think we are acclimatising! (finally). Nick, Alex's cousin-in-law (Gillian's husband), was working on a boat show at the wharf and came and joined us for lunch. It was here we took the below picture of the giant seagull - Nick thought we were pretty odd, especially considering we stopped mid-sentence to take photos of it.

After our thoroughly regrettable lunch, we thought a stroll was in order. We managed to walk ALL the way down Douglas St (which is a fair trek... Google Maps it) and then back again... cool story...

After consulting our free list we obtained from the Tourist Centre, we headed to Beacon Hill Park, the Kings Park of Victoria. It was a really nice place, filled with Mallard ducks, giant gulls and their even more giant offspring, and a squirrel that was game enough to jump on Alex's foot. Unfortunately we have no photographic evidence of this because I was laughing too hard to take a focussed shot. In fact, Alex chased much of the wildlife in Beacon Hill, as you can see from the photos below.

We finally obtained the coveted seagull photograph, we hope that it truly relays to you simply how massive these creatures are. A few of them flew overhead and we reckon if you pinned one down and measured it wingtip to wingtip (I think Alex has dreams about doing these sort of things....) it would have about a 2m wingspan. We really cannot put into words just how INSANELY MASSIVE they are!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, if you would like to check out the places we have been, check out the Google Map we made here.-You're lucky enough that whit has put any place we have ever been ever on it...YAY- And don't worry parents, its not listed on the public archives so no one is going to be able to hunt us down. Anyway we only put places we have been, not places we are going. CALM DOWN


P.S. Anne, if you are reading this, PLEASE reply to Alex's emails... she is feeling unloved ;(.... and would also like to know about the computer situation...

Here are the photos from today/last night:

Me blogging the last entry


Gigantic seagull!!


This one is only a baby and it is still enormous


Alex and the squirrel


Alex and the duck


The squirrel eating a peanut