Last week
Hi everyone, sorry I've been away for a while. A friend of mine visited last week and so I had to show this person around the city!
There is actually a huge amount of things to do in Victoria, and it's not all that insanely expensive. You can range from doing stuff that's totally free (biking to Mt. Douglas or Lake Thetis and looking at nature) to stuff that's quite costly but worthwhile (seeing the fireworks show at Butchart Gardens). The museums are each about $10 per person.
However, Victoria is costly when it comes to food. Most sit-down places charge over $10 for an entree (usually more like $12-16), and then you have to pay tax and tip on top of that. It actually makes Japan look cheap, in comparison. When I went to Japan about two months ago, you could easily get a full meal for 800¥ ($8.00) eating out, which isn't cheap, but isn't unreasonable either. Tax is included in the list price, and you don't tip in Japan. If you are picky, you can find places to eat for even 400¥ at noodle shops around Osaka or Amagasaki. You *can* get ripped off in Toyko easily (many places charged upwards of 1000¥ for a full meal) but there are tons of restaurants that are always open, so you have a lot of choice. There are ways to eat cheaply in Victoria, though. You can always go for $1.25 pizza slices or find the $4.25 deli bar, but most places are not that cheap.
We went to the University on the first day because I had a few things at work to take care of before the vacation, and then saw Finnerty gardens, a volunteer-maintained garden. We also went biking through Uplands, which is the neighbourhood of some of the most expensive houses in Canada, and then around the Cattle-something Boat Launch, which provides a majestic view of the ocean and of the Oak Bay marina. The next day, we went to see the Victoria's Inner Harbour (just steps from downtown. I forget sometimes how lively the harbour is) and then to see the absolutely magnificent Butchart Gardens fireworks show. It's very good and it's worth the expensive admission price. It definitely didn't disappoint me. On Sunday, we biked out to Lake Thetis with an office-mate of mine and his friend. I thought it was a good experience because it got us out of Victoria proper for a while and showed off a bit of the natural beauty of the island. Lake Thetis is a protected park and the lake itself is quite nice-looking, surrounded by tall trees and hills in the distance. Later, we went off to see the Royal Wax Museum (it was okay) and the Miniatures Museum (which was a bit hokey). Finally, we went up to the top of Mount Douglas, which offers a great view of the penninsula, including the city of Victoria. Things we didn't do, but would have been nice to do (remember this for next time!) include the Moss Art Gallery, Craigdarroch Castle, the Governor's House, the Crystal Gardens, Abkhazi Gardens, and Salt Spring Island.
After spending about a week in Victoria, we went to Seattle. We arrived yesterday, and kind of ended up doing all of the wrong things. Seattle is an EXPENSIVE city! We got into Seattle and checked into our hotel at about 4 PM and then decided to go see the Experience Music Project (EMP) and the Science-fiction Museum in the Seattle Centre. It was expensive (like $20 a person for the EMP alone; it was $26 total for two) and overall not really that impressive. The EMP had potential to be interesting, but it was crowded and to get the full tour, you needed to rent for $2.50 these M.E.G. somethings where you can point at displays and get visual and aural explanations of what they are. I presume that they would have shown you what instruments sounded like, for example, if you were looking at the guitar history display. For a museum that's $20 on entry, it's really insult to injury. The museum was also poorly-laid out and didn't really seem to have a good idea of what it was advertising. It advertised a lot of "learn to play guitar" and "learn to scratch" and similar; I thought it would have been much more interactive. Even the name suggests it - "Experience Music". I would have expected to be able to play around with old analog syntheziers, strum guitars, pound on harpsichords, and lay out grooves on beatboxes, but there was very little of that, overall. The sci-fi museum was a bit better but it was still rather hokey. We ended up leaving early and wandering around the downtown for a while, but everything in Seattle's downtown ended up closing and it was difficult to see anything. We couldn't even get ice cream. And eating was very costly around downtown and the Seattle Centre. Fast-food joints charted $6 for a burrito (not even a value meal). It was a big burrito, at least. I think it's the tourist-trap syndrome, but Victoria is also a tourist trap and its prices aren't even that high.
Today, we discovered the Pacific Science Centre and its special exhibit, "Game On", a display of video-gaming history. It was actually rather weak on the history (PC gaming was vastly under-represented, and they didn't have much in the way of timelines, and MMOGs weren't even mentioned) but they were something like 100+ video game consoles set up there with various games from every age, from Spacewar and Pong right down to the newest XBox 360 and Nintendo DS Lite games. There was also a big portion about video game development, as well. We found "Fighting Street" (later known as Street Fighter) on the PC Engine (i.e. The TurboGraphix 16), old tank games, the Eye Toy, many really old arcade games, and scores and scores of games on modern consoles. In a way, it's like having an arcade that has a $13 all-day admission price (plus you also get access to the Pacific Science Centre). It was Saturday afternoon, but the museum wasn't very crowded, so there was always something to play with.
My friend and I cursed our bad planning because THIS would have been the way to spend Friday afternoon. We could have easily killed four or five hours playing Pitfall, Pong, Spacewar, Gradius, Lemmings, Nintendogs, Pokemon, Street Fighter, NHL 2006, Kameo, Gran Turismo 4, Bomberman... you name it, we could have played it. But today was our departure day so we could only spend about two hours inside, which was incredibly disappointing.
My friend's left now, and as usual, the post-meetup crash is sinking in on me. This weekend is actually a long weekend in B.C., but I'll probably get to work on Sunday to not only distract myself from the slump that you have after a great vacation, but also to catch up on a week's worth of work.
On Pretty Cities
After going to Seattle, I think I've began to realise how pretty Victoria is. It's VERY pretty. Vancouver is pretty too (in my opinion it looks prettier than Seattle) but it doesn't compare to Victoria. Ottawa is a nice pretty town as well but again it doesn't have the look of Victoria. One thing with Victoria is that the landscaping is amazing throughout the entire city. There's thick lush bushes, green grass, colourful flowers, all against very stylish buildings, new and old. You don't get as much of that in Vancouver (Vancouver is much more modern in appearance and has less grass) or Seattle (Seattle has a decent amount of trees, but the city is very old and there's too much concrete). Although Osaka and Tokyo are full of concrete as well, I think those Japanese cities are filled with a different kind of life. Tokyo has the tacky multicoloured neon lights. They both are packed with people at every hour of the day. Both of those things make up for the fact that there's very little plant life in the big Japanese cities. :)
On Future Travels
I'm going to be gone to Minneapolis from September 11-15th for the RE06 conference. I'm presenting a paper there at a workshop. Yes, I am going to be a published author. ;) It's just a workshop paper but it's a predescessor to great things to come, I think. In mid-October, I'll be going to Porto Alegre, Brazil, and spending two months there before going back to Victoria. My trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts might be delayed until Summer 2007 to allow me a bit of time to analyze the data that we'll get from Brazil, though.
There is actually a huge amount of things to do in Victoria, and it's not all that insanely expensive. You can range from doing stuff that's totally free (biking to Mt. Douglas or Lake Thetis and looking at nature) to stuff that's quite costly but worthwhile (seeing the fireworks show at Butchart Gardens). The museums are each about $10 per person.
However, Victoria is costly when it comes to food. Most sit-down places charge over $10 for an entree (usually more like $12-16), and then you have to pay tax and tip on top of that. It actually makes Japan look cheap, in comparison. When I went to Japan about two months ago, you could easily get a full meal for 800¥ ($8.00) eating out, which isn't cheap, but isn't unreasonable either. Tax is included in the list price, and you don't tip in Japan. If you are picky, you can find places to eat for even 400¥ at noodle shops around Osaka or Amagasaki. You *can* get ripped off in Toyko easily (many places charged upwards of 1000¥ for a full meal) but there are tons of restaurants that are always open, so you have a lot of choice. There are ways to eat cheaply in Victoria, though. You can always go for $1.25 pizza slices or find the $4.25 deli bar, but most places are not that cheap.
We went to the University on the first day because I had a few things at work to take care of before the vacation, and then saw Finnerty gardens, a volunteer-maintained garden. We also went biking through Uplands, which is the neighbourhood of some of the most expensive houses in Canada, and then around the Cattle-something Boat Launch, which provides a majestic view of the ocean and of the Oak Bay marina. The next day, we went to see the Victoria's Inner Harbour (just steps from downtown. I forget sometimes how lively the harbour is) and then to see the absolutely magnificent Butchart Gardens fireworks show. It's very good and it's worth the expensive admission price. It definitely didn't disappoint me. On Sunday, we biked out to Lake Thetis with an office-mate of mine and his friend. I thought it was a good experience because it got us out of Victoria proper for a while and showed off a bit of the natural beauty of the island. Lake Thetis is a protected park and the lake itself is quite nice-looking, surrounded by tall trees and hills in the distance. Later, we went off to see the Royal Wax Museum (it was okay) and the Miniatures Museum (which was a bit hokey). Finally, we went up to the top of Mount Douglas, which offers a great view of the penninsula, including the city of Victoria. Things we didn't do, but would have been nice to do (remember this for next time!) include the Moss Art Gallery, Craigdarroch Castle, the Governor's House, the Crystal Gardens, Abkhazi Gardens, and Salt Spring Island.
After spending about a week in Victoria, we went to Seattle. We arrived yesterday, and kind of ended up doing all of the wrong things. Seattle is an EXPENSIVE city! We got into Seattle and checked into our hotel at about 4 PM and then decided to go see the Experience Music Project (EMP) and the Science-fiction Museum in the Seattle Centre. It was expensive (like $20 a person for the EMP alone; it was $26 total for two) and overall not really that impressive. The EMP had potential to be interesting, but it was crowded and to get the full tour, you needed to rent for $2.50 these M.E.G. somethings where you can point at displays and get visual and aural explanations of what they are. I presume that they would have shown you what instruments sounded like, for example, if you were looking at the guitar history display. For a museum that's $20 on entry, it's really insult to injury. The museum was also poorly-laid out and didn't really seem to have a good idea of what it was advertising. It advertised a lot of "learn to play guitar" and "learn to scratch" and similar; I thought it would have been much more interactive. Even the name suggests it - "Experience Music". I would have expected to be able to play around with old analog syntheziers, strum guitars, pound on harpsichords, and lay out grooves on beatboxes, but there was very little of that, overall. The sci-fi museum was a bit better but it was still rather hokey. We ended up leaving early and wandering around the downtown for a while, but everything in Seattle's downtown ended up closing and it was difficult to see anything. We couldn't even get ice cream. And eating was very costly around downtown and the Seattle Centre. Fast-food joints charted $6 for a burrito (not even a value meal). It was a big burrito, at least. I think it's the tourist-trap syndrome, but Victoria is also a tourist trap and its prices aren't even that high.
Today, we discovered the Pacific Science Centre and its special exhibit, "Game On", a display of video-gaming history. It was actually rather weak on the history (PC gaming was vastly under-represented, and they didn't have much in the way of timelines, and MMOGs weren't even mentioned) but they were something like 100+ video game consoles set up there with various games from every age, from Spacewar and Pong right down to the newest XBox 360 and Nintendo DS Lite games. There was also a big portion about video game development, as well. We found "Fighting Street" (later known as Street Fighter) on the PC Engine (i.e. The TurboGraphix 16), old tank games, the Eye Toy, many really old arcade games, and scores and scores of games on modern consoles. In a way, it's like having an arcade that has a $13 all-day admission price (plus you also get access to the Pacific Science Centre). It was Saturday afternoon, but the museum wasn't very crowded, so there was always something to play with.
My friend and I cursed our bad planning because THIS would have been the way to spend Friday afternoon. We could have easily killed four or five hours playing Pitfall, Pong, Spacewar, Gradius, Lemmings, Nintendogs, Pokemon, Street Fighter, NHL 2006, Kameo, Gran Turismo 4, Bomberman... you name it, we could have played it. But today was our departure day so we could only spend about two hours inside, which was incredibly disappointing.
My friend's left now, and as usual, the post-meetup crash is sinking in on me. This weekend is actually a long weekend in B.C., but I'll probably get to work on Sunday to not only distract myself from the slump that you have after a great vacation, but also to catch up on a week's worth of work.
On Pretty Cities
After going to Seattle, I think I've began to realise how pretty Victoria is. It's VERY pretty. Vancouver is pretty too (in my opinion it looks prettier than Seattle) but it doesn't compare to Victoria. Ottawa is a nice pretty town as well but again it doesn't have the look of Victoria. One thing with Victoria is that the landscaping is amazing throughout the entire city. There's thick lush bushes, green grass, colourful flowers, all against very stylish buildings, new and old. You don't get as much of that in Vancouver (Vancouver is much more modern in appearance and has less grass) or Seattle (Seattle has a decent amount of trees, but the city is very old and there's too much concrete). Although Osaka and Tokyo are full of concrete as well, I think those Japanese cities are filled with a different kind of life. Tokyo has the tacky multicoloured neon lights. They both are packed with people at every hour of the day. Both of those things make up for the fact that there's very little plant life in the big Japanese cities. :)
On Future Travels
I'm going to be gone to Minneapolis from September 11-15th for the RE06 conference. I'm presenting a paper there at a workshop. Yes, I am going to be a published author. ;) It's just a workshop paper but it's a predescessor to great things to come, I think. In mid-October, I'll be going to Porto Alegre, Brazil, and spending two months there before going back to Victoria. My trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts might be delayed until Summer 2007 to allow me a bit of time to analyze the data that we'll get from Brazil, though.