Butchart Gardens

April 7-9, 2019

The older kids are going hiking before we head back to Vancouver. The husband and I were going to take the LO to the bug zoo. Mum cannot decide which is less appealing. Luckily for her, things take an unexpected turn. The others cannot stop raving about the Butchart Gardens, forcing us to go back, even if just to see what the fuss is all about. The scene is very different when we arrive. Today, the skies are clear, sun is shining brightly and it’s neither too hot nor too cold. Yesterday, we were the only ones in the parking lot, today the place is teeming with cars.

We follow the path Akash had asked us to take and come up to a striking bird’s eye view of the sunken garden. Walking further, we reach the carousal. The LO can’t wait to get on. After a fun ride on a lion, we foolishly decide to let her explore the garden by herself, on foot. Little feet move faster than you think, and in directions of their choice. After scrambling after her down a grassy slope and somehow convincing her to run back up, we manage to get her into our trusty carrier.

Lunch, is a picnic under a flourishing cherry tree.

The gardens are beautiful and well laid out.

Our unanimous favorite is the Japanese garden. Japan is a misty island and the traditional Japanese gardens are designed to take advantage of this. It is no wonder therefore that the rest of our group, who saw it in shrouded in mist yesterday, came back so impressed. In Japan, the garden is created as a confluence of nature and artifice. Japanese gardening strives to recreate the raw majestic of nature in a small enclosed space. Highly sculpted plants are made to suggest windswept trees or rolling hillsides. Stones are strategically placed to represent islands and craggy mountaintops. The sea is simulated by carefully raking gravel. There are many different styles of Japanese gardens – the stone or Zen gardens, hill gardens, tea gardens and stroll gardens. The Japanese garden at Butchart Gardens seems to have elements of almost all of them. The dense green foliage, the rustling of the maple and beech, the soft gurgling water, the quiet little ponds and the tap-tap of the sōzu – it works both as individual parts and as a sum of the parts.

There is a little icecream parlour in Butchart gardens, but before you get there, a small window has been cut in the hedge for the best view ever of the harbor. The icecream parlour, to my surprise and delight had a couple of vegan flavours. Usually that means getting a sorbet, but not this time. We spend the next three quarters of an hour in the plaza outside the gift shop where the LO runs about and “smells” flowers. It is almost time to leave when I realized my purse is missing. I retrace my steps frantically with no success. With fingers crossed I show up at the information desk hoping someone has turned it in, and what do you know, someone has indeed turned it in. Life is beautiful.

Craigdarroch Castle

April 7-9, 2019

PC – Mahesh Raju

Today we are going to a castle. It’s not a real castle, not one with knights and ladies. It’s a mansion. The girls, I think are excited; the boys are nonchalant, but mum – she’s very kicked. Despite her knees, she climbs all the way to the top, inspects every room, and reads every last plaque. Since we all split up, I had to run up and down the castle three (3) times before I could find her again. She even wants to get a copy of a book chronicling the family’s history, till she finds out it costs $30 (CAD). “If they want us to read about them, they should be giving it out for free!,”she snorts. “They should be happy someone wants to know about them.” They obviously do not agree.

PC – Ashok Roy

The castle has a tumultuous history. It was commissioned by coal baron Robert Dunsmuir during the reign of Queen Victoria. He died a year or two before it was completed. His widow, unmarried daughters and orphaned grandchildren called it home for a while. The four-story home had intricate woodwork, stained-glass and lavish furnishings. Given the era it was built in, it is not surprising that the building does not have any ramps or elevators. However, this meant carrying the LO up and down this mansion. Three cheers for sisters and trusty baby carriers!  After the death of Dunsmuir’s widow, this impressive building served as collateral, a military hospital, college, offices, and a conservatory, before it was re-purposed into a historical museum in 1979 and now it is a National Historic Site. Craigdarroch Castle has been meticulously restored, giving visitors a glimpse of privileged life in the 1890s. I loved the wooden paneling and the very quint bathroom. The castle has a simple, self-led scavenger hunt for kids, which they all enjoyed. A family picture is taken and it’s time for lunch.

PC – Mahesh Raju

Post-lunch, we head out to the Butchart Gardens. If there is one thing everyone recommends you do in Victoria, it is this. By the time we get there the rain has picked up and the LO has settled in for a nap. We leave the older kids and adults to enjoy the gardens in the mist and rain, and head back. If the gardens are beautiful in fair weather, the mist adds a magical quality to it. Running around with umbrellas is a joy only childhood knows. In the evening, the husband and I step out to buy the LO some dinner and take mum around Chinatown. I am eagerly looking forward to taking her to a souvenir store I stumbled into yesterday. I know she will love it. But keeping with the theme of the vacation, the shops in Chinatown are closed.

Dinner at the farm-to-table Ola is slightly disastrous. The food is excellent, but the portions are tiny. This was somewhat expected, but this is the night, everyone who picks on their food decided to be hungry and it just didn’t help.

Vancouver – Day 1

April 9-12, 2019

PC – Mahesh Raju

It’s a rainy day, what should we do? Granville Island with its covered markets seems like our best bet. The kids have a field day playing in the Kids Market. The boys play video games, the girls play in the play structure with its two-story high slide and the LO enjoys the ball pit. The adults have nothing to do beyond some perfunctory supervision. Yet, other than mum and my sister, none of us could explore the market.

We headed back into downtown for lunch as the market has limited vegetarian/vegan options. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out an address on a map, but downtown Vancouver is a tight grid of one-way streets. The lunch spot I had picked was a chain, and we landed up different locations. SMAK is a quick service restaurant serving healthy, locally sourced food in compostable containers.  Totally my kind of place. Last night we tried Caribbean food at Calabash. The downstairs serves as an art gallery for local artists and a club with a live DJ. The food was excellent, the vibes  friendly, and  staff  great. However, if you choose to walk down to the restaurant, know that the neighbourhood is the opposite.  Downtown Eastside  is one of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods, and  is infamous for its levels of drug use, poverty, crime, mental illness, prostitution, and homelessness. Two blocks on every side, the city is very different.

Homelessness is a social crisis that has been rapidly accelerating over the last decade in Vancouver. The husband and I were unaware of this and were certainly not expecting to walk right into the thick of it, with our mother and child in tow. I went from being surprised to alarmed to wary. It was very disturbing. It is one of the things I will remember about this city, along with all the beautiful experiences we had hear.

Victoria and Vancouver through the eyes of a child

               My Vancouver trip     

                    By: Akash Roy

   This spring break, my family and 2 of my cousins with their families took a trip to Victoria and Vancouver, Canada. My aunt from the east coast planned an extremely fun vacation. I was not really that excited because I had to leave my pet tortoise Flash with our friends in San Diego, CA, but I was really looking forward to seeing my cousins. Also this time I got a new phone to take pictures with on our trip.

   

We first went to Victoria. We had to drive our car onto the ferry. It was a huge ferry. Nearly 200 cars could be parked on it. The ferry had lots of entertainment. You could go outside on the deck or the top deck, you could go shopping, or you could play in the miny playground. What I liked the most and I recommend that you see in Victoria is Butchart gardens. It is beautiful and magical, especially with a light drizzle.

We went to Fisherman’s Wharf  where we saw floating houses. We then took a long walk on the sea wall where we saw an awesome Otter and lots of giant kelp. We also took a water taxi to our hotel. A water taxi is a boat painted black and yellow that takes you to different ports. Another thing I really enjoyed was hiking to a waterfall. The hike was very green. When we got to the waterfall there was a viewpoint of the waterfall. There were stairs leading to the bank of the stream. There was also a mini waterfall next to the bank of the stream. It was all together quite a spectacular sight.

We also visited a castle called the Craigdarroch castle and learned that my sister and my cousin sister are so suckey at races!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There we learned about the artifacts and how people lived in the castle over 100 years ago.

    Vancouver is a fun and popular place to go to for summer break because the weather is warm and sunny. We went in spring because it is not as crowded. It was raining half the trip but it was a blast. What I enjoyed the most was Grouse Mountain and the aviary at Queen Elizabeth park. At Grouse Mountain we played in the snow, we saw bears that had just come out of hibernation, l also enjoyed sledding the amazing slopes they had. At the aviary we saw lots of birds. I also liked the bird hunt at the aviary. We saw all sorts of tropical birds. I really liked matching parrots along with the Australian King Parrot.

On a rainy morning there was nothing to do. So we went to Granville Island and saw a lot of shops which was my least favorite part of the trip. When we went to the kids market there was a game arcade which was awesome. That same day we went to capilano suspension bridge. It is a 435 feet long hanging bridge that is 230 feet above the ground !!!!!!!!! The bridge was shaky but I was not scared even though my dad was shaking with fear and I could sort of feel it.

There was a very lucky accident that occured. One of our friends from Seattle the home of the Seahawks spent their vacation in Hawaii. Except when they were coming back we were able to meet in Vancouver on our last day in Canada. I was very happy to see them.

    The weather in Vancouver and Victoria was very wet. What I mean is that it rained every day but only in the mornings and nights. Luckily, we had packed all the jackets and stuff we needed. Although, we should have brought more socks. Also luckily all the hotels we stayed at had umbrellas we could borrow. We ate a lot of cuisines like a new version of sushi, indian food, Jamaican food, vegan food. Vegan food was fine with me because I hate cheese.

What I loved that we had on our trip was something called a butter chicken samosa. I wish I could get it here. Guess what? We got gelato 3 nights in a row at 10 pm!!!!!!!!! My favorite gelato flavor was lemon sorbet. My mouth is still watering from that first taste.

In total I had a superb vacation with my entire American family. I can’t wait for the next one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!