More James Bay

Found a better picture of the area in which we live (no I didn't take this!):


The large green area next to us is Beacon Hill Park, a beautiful large park featuring the world's third-tallest totem pole.

This picture looks to have been taken in spring or summer; the trees are considerably more bare right now, though we did see some cherry blossoms trying to bloom on our walk this evening. Occasionally on Monday nights, we will stroll down past the Inner Harbour (the area in the center of the picture) and walk a few blocks north of it (north is to your left in this photo) to a lovely Irish pub called Irish Times where we will partake of their fish 'n chips and/or some other goodie on their surprisingly sophisticated (and delicious!) menu.

In other news, we've set up a bank account, and we're going to try and get the van inspected on Tuesday; this is part of the process to get it registered/licensed/insured in Canada instead of the US. Later this week, I will be taking a ferry over to Port Angeles to set up a new permanent US mailing address and do some Costco shopping.*

*There is a Costco here, in nearby Langford, but the Canadian Costcos offer different goods, and so there are some items you can get at a Canada Costco that you can't get in the US -- like British candy! -- and some you can get at a US Costco that you can't get in Canada -- like my favourite liquid vitamin supplement)

Funny/angry story about that, incidentally ... I picked up some of this US-only stuff (a jar of my favourite peanut butter and the aforementioned liquid vitamin stuff) when I was in Los Angeles, but foolishly did not check my bag, so all my purchases were disqualified as contraband and thrown away by Homeland InSecurity. I was livid about this (it was a sealed bottle fer the lubba pete!) but I had to be careful not to do anything to anger them lest I endanger my immigration status. Now that I'm back in Canada I shall write a very stern letter to all their parents!

Anyway, taking a ship instead of a plane will allow me to carry all the damn liquids and peanut butter I please back to the Great White North. Really, what did they think I was going to do -- make a sticky mess on their precious plane?? Light a match to my anti-oxidants at high altitude?? Mix their chocolate in my peanut butter??

Honestly, this total liquids ban (while my USB thumb drive containing a complete copy of The Anarchists' Cookbook went completely unchallenged!) is just, as the kids today might say, teh stupid.