Hi Folks:
Today, July 7 (the first Saturday in July every year) is International Free Hugs Day!! So hug someone you love today. Or a stranger. Or, preferably, both!! This is our third year of hugging Victoria, so if you’re in Victoria today, drop by the Homecoming Statue (near the Tourism Victoria building, downtown by Ship’s Point) and we’ll be happy to share a hug with you!! Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
It’s now well into the evening and the last of the Canada Day fireworks will be drifting away down at Victoria’s Inner Harbour. The weather here was absolutely perfect for a celebration – sunny and warm but not too hot. As is our wont, Marcia and I brought our ‘Free Hugs‘ posters downtown with us and invested some four hours this afternoon giving out Free Hugs to anyone who was willing to share one! It’s always a delightful experience for us. We hugged someone who was two weeks old, and someone who was celebrating his birthday today – possibly into his nineties. We shared hugs with a couple from Brazil on their first day in Canada, and we hugged a gentleman who knew about two words of English – ‘Thank-you’ and ‘Iran’. There were people from Australia and Ireland and the US, from Alberta and New Brunswick, and yes, people from Victoria! We even had two young women ask us for the loan of a marker and two sheets of paper torn from a notebook – they made their own ‘Free Hugs’ signs before heading on their way. Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
UPDATE: This post is about the 2012 event. If you’re looking for our 2013 Victorious Voices post, you can find it here.
Although Marcia and I have both been writers for most of our lives, our introduction to ‘slam poetry’ is somewhat recent – only since Shane Koyczan performed at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Like all forms of poetry there are a few rules to follow, and since slam poetry is spoken, most of those rules relate to presentation. Poetry slams are ‘competitive’, but competitive in the true sense of the word – from the Latin, meaning ‘to strive together’. All work must be original. Poetry may be spoken individually or in ‘teams’. Each poet has up to 3 minutes to perform his/her piece, with a 10-second grace period following that. Any longer and the poet begins losing points for going over time. The time begins when the poet first engages the audience. The poet may not use props or musical accompaniment, and may not wear a costume. That’s the essentials of it.
Last night marked the 3rd annual ‘Victorious Voices‘ final – Victoria’s Secondary School Slam Championships. The semi-finals were on Monday night, but unfortunately we missed that event. Eight teams from local secondary schools made the semi-finals, and the final four teams performed last night. The students were from Esquimalt High School, Pearson College, and Reynolds Secondary (Junior and Senior). The event was held at the Victoria Event Centre, on Broad Street between Johnson and Pandora. Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
As you probably know, Saturday night from 8:30-9:30 local time was ‘Earth Hour‘. Originally conceived by the World Wildlife Fund and the Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney, Australia in 2007, it has since become a world-wide event. Marcia and I were wondering how much participation there would be in Victoria so we headed up to the top of Christmas Hill to find out. Christmas Hill is part of the Swan Lake/Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary here in Victoria, and being a large rock outcrop in about the middle of the city, it affords a spectacular view of the city and beyond. We were pleased by what we saw. Although street lights and outside lights for some businesses needed to stay on for safety reasons, much of the city was otherwise dark. I made a quick video with my cell phone camera, a 360° panorama, which you can see below. NB: I’m a photographer not a videographer, and there places where it was so dark that the camera had to hunt for focus. That however, is the point!
Our thanks to everyone in Victoria and around the world who participated in Earth Hour. It’s a way of saying that you care about this little blue marble we call ‘home’.
Hugs,
Marcia and Mike.
Hi Folks:
This being April 1, I thought the image below would be appropriate for the photo of the month for March. Back in the film days I used to do things like create photo montages by sandwiching two slides together into a single frame, but when I first got into graphics programs (CorelDraw 3) I started being more creative with a few of my images. One technique is to take an image, cut it in half either horizontally or vertically, take one half and mirror it, then stick the two halves together again. The results are always unknown and often unexpected. I did a blog post a while back on ‘Making Mirror Images With Lightroom‘ that showed one way of making such images while making them look realistic at the same time but ‘realism’ isn’t always a necessary goal. Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
Well, my first photo of the month post for 2012, and also my first image posted here that was processed with Lightroom 4 Beta. Marcia and I were ‘up island’ briefly in Campbell River this past month, and took the opportunity to go for a short walk along the shore at Willow Point. The tide was out and some of the rocks that were revealed were incredible. I liked this one in particular. This is an HDR image, 3 exposures at -1/0/+1, shot hand-held and joined together with Autopano Pro then finished off in Lightroom. I trust you like it!!
Now go out and make some photographs!
Mike.
Hi Folks:
Well, last Saturday was Marcia’s birthday and since she was off on both Friday and Saturday we (I) expanded her birthday celebration into a two-day event. Fortunately Marcia was willing to go along with my schemes! Before I continue, I should add a little backstory…
Back in 1995 we shared our first two-bedroom apartment together. For Marcia’s birthday I invited a ‘few’ friends for a pot-luck surprise party and we managed to pack 37 people into our little apartment! Everyone had a great time, including Marcia, but she also casually mentioned that she’d kill me if I ever did it again. Well, since we no longer live there, and keeping to the ‘letter of the law’ so to speak, here’s a quick summary of some of the things we undertook over our weekend. It also highlights some of the reasons we love living here in Victoria! Continue Reading →
Hi Folks!
Well, on this one night of the year where perhaps more candy is consumed by more people than any other night, we have two restaurants to share with you from this past month. Both are places we’ve been meaning to go to for some time… Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
September was a pretty busy month for us in terms of food – and when I was at the Bengal Lounge at the Empress Hotel the other night I remembered I hadn’t written that blog post yet. So, without further ado…
Nando’s
Nando’s restaurant in Victoria is on the NW corner of Pandora and Government streets, across from Centennial Square. One quick note: while there is an emergency exit door on Pandora, one can’t enter that way. The main entrance is around on the Government St. side. A note in the window would help, as we redirected several parties while we were there. Nando’s is one of those places where the aromas enticed us every time we passed, but we’d never gotten around to trying. So we did. The essence of Nando’s is ‘Peri-Peri chicken’, reportedly a centuries-old collaboration between Portugese sailors and their discovery of the East African Bird’s Eye Chilli. The chicken is marinated for 24 hours and then slow-roasted over an open flame. It’s hard to describe the atmosphere at Nando’s – more upscale (and healthier) than a fast-food restaurant, but one orders from the menu at the counter and the food is brought out to your table. Take-out service is also available. One can choose the level of ‘spice’ desired, from Mild-Medium-Hot to Extra Hot. We decided on Medium, which Marcia was quite pleased with, and I took advantage of some of the hot sauces on the table. As sides there are rice, potatoes, salads and vegetables. The food is tasty, and while the server did come by our table once to see how we were doing, we were essentially abandoned at that point and I had to bring what was left back to the counter in order to have it wrapped for home. In keeping with our policy of only writing about places we would visit again, this one makes the cut on the strength of the flavours.
In the middle of September we took the ferry over to Saltspring Island in order to take in the Saturday Farmer’s Market and also the Saltspring Fall Fair. Both were wonderful; it’s been some time since either of us have been to a traditional fall fair, and the freshly made Aeropress coffee we discovered at the market was worth the wait. We picked up some organic apples and veggies, and a taste of a Blizzard cookie sample brought us back to buy a whole one. We had intended to go to Auntie Pesto’s Café in Ganges for a late lunch, but by the time we arrived at 3:00 we were told they were closed – quite simply because they’d run out of food. That’s either bad planning or a serious recommendation; we’ll go with the latter and try them the next time (when the Fall Fair isn’t on!) As an alternate we went to the Tree House Café instead.
The Tree House Café is not (to my secret disappointment) a restaurant built off the ground in a tree, but it is essentially an indoor/outdoor patio with a tree growing up through the middle of it. Quite fun, actually. We had a table right beside the trunk of the tree, which was handy when the rain began to fall as the leaves kept us ‘mostly’ dry. We loved the eclectic atmosphere (so typical of Saltspring – if “typical eccentricity” is even possible) and the made-to-order lunch menu, and will definitely go again. Maybe next time we’ll go for dinner and take in the live music on offer.
Back in Victoria, a friend invited me to dinner in exchange for some help. We went first to Santé Gluten-Free Café on Quadra, but they were closing within 20 minutes of our arrival. Another one for the list; so many restaurants, so little time…! Instead we went to My Thai Café on Cook Street. A little ‘hole in the wall’ family restaurant, don’t let this dissuade you. The food here is very good. Again my friend and I went for ‘Medium’ on the heat level, and it was just about as much as she could stand. If you can take the heat, they can definitely dish it out! We’ve been to a few Thai food restaurants in Victoria and would recommend this one.
And finally, another place on our list of ‘must-dos’ was ‘Habit Coffee‘ in the Atrium at the corner of Yates and Blanshard. They have a second location on Pandora in Chinatown but we haven’t yet been there. We’ve been to a number of excellent coffee shops in Victoria, each one unique. The atmosphere at Habit is definitely more urban, with a modern, industrial look. They do make excellent coffee, and they’re serious about sustainability with everything from composting to CFL light bulb recycling and reclaimed wood used in construction. They have a ‘Sustainability’ page on their website that explains more ways they’re going ‘green’. Being in a building that’s targeting LEED Gold, perhaps it’s not surprising. They also have healthy cookies and other delicious treats available. Next time we’ll have to check out Zambri’s restaurant next door…
Okay, that’s it for now. Wherever and whatever you’re eating today, remember to take the time to celebrate the food, the company and the very act of eating.
Hugs,
M&M
P.S. You can read more of our Food posts and restaurant reviews here.
Hi Folks:
I remember reading somewhere that Victoria has the second highest number of restaurants per capita in North America… so much good food, so little time… With all of those choices Marcia and I have become a little sedate in our selections – frequenting mostly places that we’ve been to before like Floyd’s and Red Fish Blue Fish. We ‘ve written two ‘Eating Our Way…‘ posts now on some of our favourite coffee (and tea) tasting places in town, but we have another few to add to the list: Continue Reading →