Beautiful Victoria

Day 9:  Arrived Richmond,Canada and took the ferry to Victoria BC with dad and our family friend.  Beautiful 57 degree weather without a drop of rain.  The ferry ride took approximately 1.5 hours but we had to get in line (or in queue as the British and its commonwealth would say) and then disembark from the ferry so in all, it took about 2.5 hours.

We drove down to Government St. to browse the stores, shop for souveniers and get a bite to eat.  While having lunch at Murchee's I looked up the ceiling and thought what a great quilting pattern the ceiling tile would make so I took a photo of it.

After lunch, we walked outside and happened to see a street artist working on a couple of pictures with chalk on the sidewalk.  He was very nice and allowed me to take photos of them.

This first one is a mushroom which if someone stepped on, look like they are standing on top of it.   Pretty cool, eh?  I think he should have painted tulips so we could tip toe through the tulips.  :)

Here are a couple more of his artwork. 

There is a quilt shop on Victoria Island and it is called Satin Moon.  Of course, I had to check it out.

It is just right across the street from Chinatown and the shopkeeper, Sarah was very warm and accomodating.  I put a link to her blog becuase it is quirky and fun.  Here she is with one of her adorable Halloween projects.

And here are some photos of the shop.

They had quite a few mini art quilts on display as there is an art quilting group which meets at the store.

The one thing which disappointed me about my trip to Canada is that I did not find any Canadian or British or Australian quilting/patchwork magazines.  I was looking for "exotic" and foreign magazines just to get inspiration and really did not find any. 

Satin Moon did carry patterns from local quilt artists.

I took this photo from a floral shop.  Great idea, don't you think?

Not a lot of color in the trees and we didn't really have time to visit Butchart Gardens.  I will have to make it a point to return again and visit the gardens.

However, we did pass a pumpkin patch so here it is.

Day 10:  Cold and rainy.  Considering we have not really encountered strong rain till our 10th day on the trip is pretty lucky.  Here is the view from our host's kitchen.  It is gray and wet but at least there are purple, red and gold leaves to enjoy.

We had super delicious dimsum for lunch and went to the mall to stroll around.  We went to this HUGE 2 storied store called Daiso, which is a Japanese dollar store.  Everything in the store was $2.00 Canadian and there was soooo much to see it was overwhelming.  Unfortunately, they do not allow photography in the store so I can't show you all the fun stuff they have in the store.

(Photo from the Internet)

They have office supplies, kitchenware, food/snack items, decor items, toys, bento boxes, etc.  I would have bought a boatload of stuff but I don't want my suitcase to be overweight and so I resisted and will have to come back with a half empty suitcase next time so I can load up on cutesy Japanese stuff.

Here is a round billboard or advertisement for the Richmond Public Art program.  Since it is quilt related, I decided to post it.