Gifts to children

When Abby entered Ivar’s, she was given a small bag of four crayons and a mask. The two holes fitted Abby’s eyes and the two rubber bands could go round her ears. Well, it was quite interesting that Abby suddenly became a diver. There were a small octopus and a fish swimming in front of Abby’s head and bubbles were coming out of her breathing tube.

There was something on the back side of the mask. What do you think it was?


A. History of this restaurant
B. A menu for children
C. A photo of dishes served in this restaurant
D. A coupon for food
E. Promotion on its food

An Expensive Dinner at Ivar’s

Philip exchanged conversations with a man standing outside the original Starbucks shop at Pike Place, Seattle and learned from him that Ivar’s Acres of Clams at Pier 54 was famous for its chowder. With the man’s recommendation, we planned to go there to have a try of its soup.

Since it was still early, just four to five o’clock, we drove around the city. The sky became dark in that hour, so by the time we got back into our car, it was completely dark already. We passed many high commercial buildings, hotels and government offices. We drove on to Chinatown and its neighbourhood. There were quite a lot of Chinese restaurants in the area, but we saw few people walking in these streets.

At last we went back to the waterfront and parked our car fifteen minutes before six. These parking spaces were free of charge after six. We strolled along the waterfront, passed a number of piers and entered a few shops.

Finally we went into Ivar’s Acres of Clams to taste its famous Chowder. Sitting at the far corner of restaurant, I could take photos of the large vehicular ferries to and from Bainbridge Island and Bermerton.

We ordered fish fillet and chips, prawns with pasta, a mixed seafood dish and four bowls of chowder soup. We thought that the soup was best, being creamy and rich in sea food especially clams. The four fish fillets were quite small in size, but the delicious potato chips compensated the deficiency. The other two dishes did not give me surprises.

The bill came to 91 dollars. With tips given, we paid 101 dollars. Such a dinner is expensive to me.

Two languages on a cup

It is not surprising to me that Starbucks and Mc Donald in Canada use two languages on their cups.

Let us study these French words on a cup from Starbucks: Amour, Joie, Voeu and Espoir.
Test if you know them.

Amour in English means
1. One more 2. Good odour 3. Affection 4. Love 5. Aroma
Joie in English means
6. Joy 7. Jolly 8. Jaw 9. Joe 10. Joyce
Voeu in English means
11. Empty 12. Warm 13. Welcome 14. Wish 15. Valued
Espoir in English means
16. Hope 17. Expectation 18. Expire 19. Explain 20. Escape

Petrol prices at Seattle

I was eager to know the petrol prices at Seattle. I did not miss the chance of taking a picture of the prices of three kinds of petrol (Shell) listed on the panel of the price-board at a petrol station nearby the hotel we were staying at Seattle.

Regular (cheapest) : US$2.999 per gallon = US$0.78749 per litre = HK$6.103 per litre
Plus (dear) : US$3.159 per gallon = US$0.8295 per litre = HK$6.487 per litre
V-Power (dearest): US$3.259 per gallon = US$0.8558 per litre = HK$6.6322 per litre

I wonder if the prices of petrol in San Francisco match with those in Seattle.

Abby’s touch of a Metal pig

At Pike Place Market, Downtown Seattle, we chanced to see a bronze pig near the entrance. We obviously sent Abby to it and took a photo of both. The bronze pig looked real in shape and size, but its skin was smooth and shiny. Its colour was golden brown unlike those white to pink real ones.

Abby touched it with her right hand. She knew that it was not a living one, otherwise she would run away instead. When we mounted Abby onto its back, she was a little scared of falling down owing to the sloping and slippery body. If there were a saddle, Abby would sit better.

Buildings and roads in Downtown Seattle

According to the landscape of Seattle, high buildings to low houses are built on slopes. In general, roads parallel to the waterfront are running horizontally. Those perpendicular to the waterfront are climbing up to higher grounds. The road-network in Seattle looks like that in Central, Western District and Mid-levels on Hong Kong Island.

Highway 5 is running in a North-South direction on higher ground above other roads of the town, so state-crossing vehicles need not enter the busiest parts of the town.
The Alaskan Way Viaduct is like our Kwun Tong Bypass. Vehicles are running on two levels. The North-bound vehicles are running northwards on the upper level while the South-bound ones southwards on the lower level. This linkage is good for vehicles without passing crossroads and traffic lights.

Corner Market

At the north-west corner of Pike Street and 1st Avenue, I took a photo of Corner Market which I considered a building in the old days. I was right when I searched its information from Internet. It was built in 1912, during the height of expansion of the Pike Place Market area.
There were shops of fruits, flowers and books at the outside. A staircase led customers to its basement.

The semicircular windows, clock, still working, and the brick-like patterns on the wall, all impressed me most. The star flag of America was waving elegantly at its flagpole immediately above the clock.

Street Lamp and Umbrella

At a corner of a street in Seattle, I discovered a lamp-post with very colourful fancy lamps hanging so beautifully that they together looked much like a bunch of flowers.







In another street, I was amazed to see a big red umbrella. I did not know why it was there and what it meant. I had the feeling that the umbrella had been blown in the wrong way by strong winds.

What do you think about this umbrella? Why was it there?

Into the streets of Downtown Seattle

It was amazing and the happiest thing to see the Space Needle pinned on the ground several hundred feet away behind the buildings opposite to Travelodge, but it was still a mystery to me what it looked like at its bottom.








Having filled the tank of our car with cheaper petrol, we decided to go to the downtown to take a look. Soon I discovered that our car was running on higher grounds.






















It did not take long before we reached Downtown of Seattle. We first descended a hundred feet to look at the piers and buildings at the waterfront. Then we parked our car and headed for Pike Place. Basically roads, residential houses and commercial buildings in Seattle were built on sloping grounds. Different shapes, heights and ages of buildings could be seen here.

The Pike Place Market was old, lined with stalls of fruits, vegetables, fish, flowers and crafts. The food, fruits and things sold were quite expensive.

Opposite the street we found the original (first) shop of Starbucks opened in Seattle, Washington, in 1971. Connie went in to buy a cup of hot chocolate. The shop was full of customers inside and many passers-by and visitors (I was among them) took photos of this famous shop from outside.

To Seattle

Our family of six crossed the border to Washington State, United States of America, on the morning of November 23rd.

It took about three-hour driving, spending about a quarter of an hour at the Immigration at the border for processing (It included taking fingerprints, photo-taking, computerizing records and paying US$6 per head for each non-Canadian citizens).

The “white door” signified the line between Canada and United States of America at the border. In the top photo, our car had passed the door and had entered the U.S. soil.

We drove onto Highway 5 and the speed limit was 60 miles per hour (around 96 Km/h). Along the way we saw fields, small towns with houses, shops, outlets, casinos, storage houses, eateries and petrol stations.

Our destination was Seattle. The sight of Space Needle told us that we had already reached Seattle, a city which Connie longs to see. Actually the film, “Sleepless in Seattle” has impressed her a lot.

We stayed at Travelodge, a small narrow hotel with four storeys near Space Needle. This one was better than the one we stayed at San Francisco. The bed was quite big and comfortable, but the facilities looked a bit old. It provided simple breakfasts such as sausages, eggs, bread, cakes, coffee, fruit juice and fruits for its customers.

Baby Face

Elly has a baby face not because she is a baby. I mean she looks cute as a baby. Some babies look very much like adults except that they are small in size.

At a Vietnamese Restaurant while she was sleeping and I had finished eating my bowl of beef-ball noodles, I took a photo of her with my handy digital Canon camera.

Elly’s eyes, nose and mouth almost come to the same size. She is nice to have a small nose and a small mouth, but it will be difficult for her to clean her nostrils and she cannot swallow big-sized food with her mouth. She has much hair, so she does not need a wig. Very soon she may keep a pig’s tail at her head.

Acrobat at play

After we had ridden an aquabus round the False Creek, we returned to the pier at Granville Island and were able to join the crowd of people at the open courtyard around an acrobat.

The short acrobat spoke to the spectators with his remote loud-and-clear microphone. He performed his balanced skill on a ladder. He invited someone (might be his friend in the crowd) to throw knives at him. One by one he caught them and swung them in the air with his hands. Later he lit four small torches and swallowed the fires with his mouth as he balanced himself on a skate-board.


















Among the crowd were six of us. The happiest of all was Abby who sat on Philip’s shoulder because she was too short to see the show on the ground. She cheered, laughed and clapped her hands for the performance. At the end of the show, the acrobat asked the spectators to give him some money as rewards. Abby helped Philip give the acrobat a coin. Having the same thought of supporting this man of acrobatics, I asked Abby to deliver another coin to him.

Richmond Olympic Oval

The Richmond Olympic Oval, or the Richmond Oval is a facility in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. It will be the venue of the speed skating events of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and will be location for the official Olympic anti-doping laboratory.

It has been built at the Delta near the Vancouver International Airport on a site beside the Fraser River, a few blocks away from Lansdowne Station on the Canada Line. From the air, it is the first Olympic venue many visitors will see flying into Vancouver.

The roof of this Oval takes the shape of a heron's wing, a tribute to the Salish First Nation and the large wading bird that lived at the riverbank at first European contact 230 years ago. It is a 33,750 m² facility which can accommodate 8,000 spectators, including a 20,000 m² main floor with a 400-metre refrigerated track.

After the Olympics, The Oval will be converted to a multi-use sport facility that will include two Olympic-sized ice rinks, up to eight hardwood ball-sport courts, a gymnasium, a 200 m track, a rubberized turf area, and a high performance centre for elite athletes. The speed-skating oval will be covered with removable flooring and could still be used for competition. The Oval is intended to be a new urban waterfront facility for residential, commercial and public amenity development.

Miniature World

Miniature World was inside one of the blocks of the Empress Hotel. We visited it on the second day of our visit in Victoria.














The entrance fee was around 50 Canadian dollars for our four adults. To someone like me who loves model-making, reading books about the World Wars and photo-taking, it is worthwhile in visiting it.

The display of space and space-crafts did not interest me at all.

Instead I marvelled at a scene of the German soldiers invading a town with their tanks. The town had been bombarded by shells of cannons, leaving behind burning and shattered houses with broken doors and windows. Debris of fallen walls, windows, bricks and wood scattered everywhere.











The scene was terrifying and gunshots might occur any moment with the ever-advancing paces of the invaders.

Triple Fruits

This bottle of jam attracts me not only because of the Maple leaf at the metal cover, but also the quantitative word “Triple”. I just want to know what the taste like when three kinds of fruits are mixed together.

The year “1882”, ever since that year the jam has been made, guaranteed that the jam produced is up to standard and the factory can last so long. In Hong Kong, I usually buy Robertson jam (British made).



Here I would like you to guess what three fruits are present in the jam.
1. apricot
2. peach
3. passion fruit
4. mango
5. pineapple

Different looks

The same street may look very different after 2 weeks. The first photo was taken on November 3rd and the second photo November 18th.

Let us look at the differences:
(1) The sky was blue in Photo 1, but grey in Photo 2.
(2) It was sunny in Photo 1, but cloudy in Photo 2.
(3) The trees in Photo 1 had quite a lot of leaves, but none in Photo 2.

What is wrong?

One night when we were walking along Robson Street where a number of Korean Restaurants assembled, we saw a restaurant with its Chinese Name contradicting that in English. It called itself Korean Restaurant, but in Chinese, 北京飯店.

What’s wrong with its name?

Does it mean that the restaurant provides Korean food as well as Peking food? If yes, Koreans and Chinese are both welcome to this restaurant.

A twisted Building

I spotted a twisted building on the opposite shore at Yaletown during our ride on a aquabus away from Granville Island on False Creek. It was still under construction and was almost completed.

I never believe that a building can be twisted in this way. I wonder what the people who live inside will feel each day. Will they feel excited and dizzy or even unsafe every minute?

A Birthday Party

Yesterday we attended a birthday party of a young kid of three at the Community Centre at Granville Island.

There was a beautiful mermaid birthday cake to be cut. Tedra dressed in the same way and colours as the sugar-made mermaid at the top of the cake. It was a chocolate cake with colourful sugar coating on the outside. The colours were mainly purple, light blue, deeper blue and green. Tetra was able to blow two of the three candles, but forgot the last one. People around reminded her to blow the last one.










It was so happy for us to see Tedra's parents celebrated her daughter’s birthday with friends and families. Besides the birthday cake to eat, we had pizzas, pastas, fruit and chips.

Vancouver City Hall

Yesterday, our car was running uphill along Cambie Street. In a distance, I discovered a beautiful clock on a building. Philip told me that it was on the wall of Vancouver City Hall building.

Since it was still a long distance away, my camera could only catch a small dot of the clock in its screen. As the car was moving closer to the building, the clock face showed the time “4 o’clock” very clearly with the hands and marks of time in red colour.

I learn later that the City Hall is located at 453, West 12th Avenue in the district called Mount Pleasant. Its height is just 47.50 metres. Its outlook is more or less like our old HSBC building (Hong Kong) in the past. The top of the building is 323 feet above sea level. In 1976, the building was designated as a heritage. The neon clocks at its top which attracted my attention had replaced the old ones (69 years in operation) in May-June 2005. What an interesting discoery to me on a rainy day!

Trees in Lynn Valley

The trees in Lynn Valley, North Vancouver, are mostly evergreen firs, if I do not make a mistake, of height about 100 feet. Since the crowns of these trees are not big and sunlight can penetrate easily them, the undergrowth is able to grow well.

Because of some reason, a number of the trees there have fallen down leaving the bottom parts of the tree trunks. What interest me are branches of small trees grow out from these stumps of wood. These outgrowths show that these trees possess great power of rebirth. Amazing!