Hello from Victoria (1) - Reaching the West Coast
Jetlag is an amazing thing. It's barely after 5 am and I have
already been reading for an hour an a half. So I figured I might
as well use this bout of sleeplessness and record my first
impressions of British Columbia.
My WestJet flight out of Toronto left a 7:15 am yesterday, so
that meant I got up at 4:30 am, after 2.5 hours of sleep, to
check all my luggage, eat a brief breakfast and get myself out
to the airport. Sometimes a little travel savvy goes a long way,
I had decided to use my Airmiles to go to BC and upon doing some
research I found out that WestJet had a special on that only
required me to use 1600 Airmiles instead of the regular 3900
Airmiles, so off I went and booked the trip, saving myself 60%
of the Airmiles that I would have otherwise spent. When you
travel frequently, you have to look at every available option of
savings costs and my travel reward miles came through big for
me.
I was able to book a flight from Toronto to Calgary and another
from Calgary to Vancouver. WestJet is always an interesting
experience because its flight attendants are known for cracking
jokes over the PA system. The flight to Calgary was actually
really bumpy and for about an hour we went through what felt
like a dirt road in the sky full of potholes, hitting the
occasional air pocket and dropping a few feet. But the WestJet
crew brought us down safely and humorously, something I was very
happy about.
In retrospect I actually felt pretty lucky, considering that the
very night before my departure an Air France flight had
crash-landed in Toronto. Fortunately, all 300+ passengers and
crew survived and only 43 people ended up with light injuries,
despite the fact that the plane went up in flames. Not
surprisingly the newspapers referred to this incident as the
Miracle Flight.
Well, my aerial transport went a lot smoother and after about 7
hours of flight and transfers our plane touched down in
beautiful Vancouver. The natural setting of Vancouver is indeed
impressive: it is set in the Coastal Mountain Range, surrounded
by Vancouver Island and the Pacific Ocean. It certainly looked
breath-taking from the air, but my exploration of this city had
to wait since my first item of the agenda was to get myself to
the City of Victoria, on Vancouver Island.
I located the Pacific Coachlines desk at the Vancouver airport
and for just over C$70.00 I bought a return ticket for a coach
and ferry ride across to Victoria, the capital of British
Columbia. I only had about a half hour between my arrival at the
airport until a comfortable air-conditioned bus whisked us to
the Tsawassen Bay Ferry Terminal, following which the bus went
onto the BC Ferries boat itself.
The ferry was a very large vessel with 3 different decks for
cars, trucks and buses. There are 3 additional passenger decks
including an open-air sitting area in the front of the ferry. We
slowly started our crossing of the Straits of Georgia and I
thoroughly enjoyed the panomara of mountains and water. Due to
my lack of sleep my head got a little heavy and I fell asleep on
the open-air deck. When I woke up we were just chugging through
the narrows between Galiano Island and Mayne Island. The narrow
channel is embedded in between these islands which are covered
by coniferous forests. The entire approach to the Swartz Bay
Ferry Terminal was one of the most scenic waterways I have ever
seen.
Punctually at 2:25 pm people headed back down to the bus, at
2:35 the bridge was lowered onto the ferry and our bus was the
first vehicle out of the boat. Another 45 minutes later and we
arrived in downtown Victoria at the bus terminal, right next to
the Fairmont Empress Hotel, one of Victoria's most famous
landmarks. Designed as a chateau-style luxury hotel, it was
built in 1908 for $1 million and was extensively restored in the
late 1980s to the tune of $45 million. But more extensive
exploration of this stunning building would have to wait, since
a local friend was picking me up at the bus station.
My co-worker Clare, who works with me in my full-time business
in new business development, relocated to Victoria with her
husband Haishan in March of this year, and the two of them have
been graciously accommodating me since my arrival yesterday.
Both Clare and her husband are originally from mainland China
and have been calling Canada their home for the last few years.
Haishan came to pick me up and after a beautiful drive through
Victoria and some of its suburbs, I arrived at Clare and
Haishan's beautiful house in a little hillside community outside
Victoria. After a couple of hours of rest due to my utter
exhaustion, I got up to a beautiful Chinese dinner complete with
3 different meat dishes and the most delicous chicken with
chestnuts dish I had ever eaten.
While we were savouring this gourmet meal, a deer made its
appearance in the backyard, and Clare had already informed me
earlier that deers show up in the backyard on an almost daily
basis and take care of all newly planted landscaping and
flowers, much to the chagrin of the residents.
After this delicious dinner we went on a little drive in the
neighbourhood and drove down to the lagoon from where we had a
perfect lookout to the Olympic Mountain Range in Washington
State, across the narrow strait from Vancouver Island. One of
the mountains was snow-covered and this majestic mountain range
combined with the waters of the Pacific creates one of the most
stunning sceneries this lovely planet of ours has to offer. We
had a view of a historic light house and the Esquimalt navy base
and after a brief drive through the hilly coastal roads (and
another close encounter with a deer) we drove back to Clare's
beautiful house on the slopes.
After another hour or two of shop talk I was positively
exhausted and dropped into bed like a sack of potatoes, only to
wake up before 4 am, unable to sleep. Well, this early rise has
given me a chance to record my first impressions, and I have
avidly been reading my guidebook on Vancouver and Victoria,
laying out a draft itinerary for today. The sun is coming up now
so I've got another couple of hours of reading ahead of me in
preparation of today's discovery.