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!

Commemorative Coins of Vancouver 2010 Winter Games

Of all the 17 commemorative coins (issued in three years time) for Winter Olympics to be held in Vancouver, 2010, I have collected only three through daily buying of things.

It is great to own some which I can bring home for collection. To be greedy, I want to collect the whole set, but it will be costly and time-consuming.

The three coins I have collected are of three events of the Games 2010:
(1) Biathlon (the one with an athlete shooting)
(2) Bobsleigh (athletes riding on a fast and aerodynamic bobsleigh)
(3) Curling (teams of athletes pushing 19.1-kilogram stones towards a series of concentric rings or circles. The object is to get the stones as close to the centre of the rings as possible.)

Another coin is about ice-hockey, but at first sight, it seems to me that it does not belong to the same series. Now I learn that it is my fourth commemorative coin collected.

Let us see what happened in 2002:

An historic Olympic hockey victory for Canada is now forever etched on a 25-cent coin. The Royal Canadian Mint is inviting Canadians to save the latest circulation coin in its Vancouver 2010 collection – the 25-cent coin celebrating the men’s hockey gold at Salt Lake City in 2002. The launch of the coin was commemorated today at a special event for local hockey youth with special guests including NHL hockey star and member of the 2002 men’s Olympic hockey team Michael Peca, Ottawa 67’s head coach Chris Byrne and members of the Ottawa 67’s hockey team.

“Many Canadians from coast to coast remember where they were on February 24, 2002 when the final seconds of the game counted down to the exhilaration of Canada’s first Olympic gold medal in men’s hockey in 50 years,” said Ian E. Bennett, President and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint.

On the two coins with the face of Queen Elizabeth II, the well-known logo of a “standing man” (stone-hedge like) can be seen at the lower left corner.

Fairmont Empress Resort Hotel

Anyone who walks along Government Street or Belleville Street in Victoria will not miss the majestic buildings of the famous Fairmont Empress Resort Hotel.

It ranks first in all the hotels on Vancouver Island in 2009. The hotel has long been accustomed to entertaining kings, queens, movie stars, Hollywood celebrities and many famous people.


In 1965, there was much debate on whether to tear this hotel down to make room for a more modern, functional high-rise one. One local newspaper warned the people that, 'Without this splendid relic of the Edwardian era, literally tens of thousands of tourists will never return. This is the Mecca, this is the heart and soul of the city.' The decision was announced on June 10, 1966: The Fairmont Empress would not be demolished. Instead she would embark on a $4 million campaign of renovation and refurbishment, named as 'Operation Teacup.'

One remarkable sight of this hotel is that red and green creepers are covering its walls and they have been so “shaved” that they leave out the windows and give “life” to this grand hotel.

In my opinion, its outlook is much better than that of our Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. The hotel buildings also include Victoria Conference Centre and the Miniature World.

Dramatic Poses at Lynn Valley

Having crossed the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, Philip suggested to us taking photos of different poses.

There we raised our hands, twisted our body and made strange, rather funny looks as far as possible on a raised concrete path.

What do you think of our poses?

Elly on her Rock chair

Recently a friend of Philip gave Elly a chair that could “rock”.

The chair has a mechanism that can stop it from “rocking”. A simple designed “T’ shaped waist belt protects the baby from falling off. The chair is light and fits Elly well. She enjoys sitting there for a while, but longer when she watches TV. Whenever we have dinner, we place her near us so that we accompany her while we eat.

Two-door Cars in Vancouver

On this rainy Tuesday, November 10th, I strolled along 41st Avenue, West Boulevardand its neighbouring streets. What attracted my attention were these two-door cars.

The silvery Accura in the top photo attracted me because it had a special nose for breathing. The headlights were stylish and its mouth (mask) was smiling.

The yellow “beetle” won my heart for its colour and shape. I considered it as a toy rather than a car.











The red “Thunderbird” had a classic look, but must have made recently. The round windows at its sides gave the passengers a feeling of sitting inside a ship.











The silver Nissan Sports car was well-designed in shape rather close to a “Porshe”. The headlights were long like a “twisted” parallelogram. Interesting!

Busy hands

What did the busy hands in the photo help doing?

They were going to help
(A) measuring Elly’s feet
(B) exercising Elly’s feet
(C) tracing Elly’s foot-shapes
(D) making Elly’s foot-prints
(E) washing Elly’s feet

A Spiked fruit

One afternoon I found a light green fruit lying on the pavement in the nearby street. This fruit had been broken and the seeds inside revealed themselves owing to the force of falling and the impact with the solid ground.

This fruit made me think of a puffer fish (河豚/雞泡魚) when they swell up their bodies. The fruit looks very much like the spiked iron ball of the weapon called Flail (流星錘) used by knights in the Middle Ages.

The falling of this fruit is half successful because it was broken the seeds had been exposed, but it was on the hard pavement, not on the soil. What it needed was a kick of a human foot or a blow from winds or the rushing water during heavy rain. I hoped the seeds could germinate into new plants with the above favourable conditions.

An Interesting Wall-map

I love maps of this kind and it so happened that I could see one on a big wall in a street perpendicular to Government Street in Victoria. I did not miss the chance of capturing it into my camera.

The map was quite colourful and nicely drawn.

From my observation on the map:
(1) The Parliament buildings has been magnified many times.
(2) The main roads and routes of Vancouver Island are clearly shown,
(3) The various activities such as hiking, sunbathing, camping, whale watching and yacht race are introduced here.
(4) There are quite a number of lakes and several ranges of mountains on Vancouver Island.
(5) The coastline is irregular and there are long narrow sea inlets that go inland.
(6) The map also shows where we could see whales.
(7) Vancouver Lookout at Harbour centre, the Science World and B.C. Sports Museum stand out in Vancouver.

The map also gives a brief history of Pemberton Family, Vancouver Island and Fort Victoria.
Let us look at the last two:

Vancouver Island: Royal Navy Captain, James Cook landed at Nootka in 1778. Captain George Vancouver, arriving in 1792 befriended Captain Bodegay Quadra of the Spanish Navy as they debated coastal sovereignty before the Nootka Convention, and this island was originally named Vancouver and Quadra’s Island. They enjoyed a good relationship with Mowachabt Chief Maquinna. Captain Vancouver circumnavigated the island surveying its coastline, missing the cross-continent explorer Alexander McKenzie by two weeks on the mainland Bella Coola coast.

Fort Victoria:
Fort Victoria was established in 1843 by Hudson’s Bay Company Chief Factor James Douglas, who thought the area “a perfect Eden”. The fort’s southeast corner was here. Douglas was named Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island and of the Colony of British Columbia before the union with Canada in 1871. This city, named for Queen Victoria, is the provincial capital.

Arms of Canadian Provinces and their Territories

Near the end of Menzies Street neighbouring the Victoria Parliament buildings at Victoria, there was a circular wall embracing a big water-running fountain. On the wall were the Arms of all the ten provinces and three territories of Canada.

Can you recognize some or all of them?

The second photo shows 1 territory and 5 provinces.
Here are the hints the first letter(s) of the names of the territory and provinces:
From left to right: Y, BC, A, S, M and O.

Then the hints for the next 2 territories and 5 provinces in the third photo are:
From left to right: Q, NB, NS, PEI, N, NT, N.

The bottom photo shows Abby watching the fountain.

Elly and the Bees

Yesterday, November 6th, I took some photos of Elly when she was lying on a inverted “U” cushion. I select this photo for display because she was calm and comfortable at that moment.

She was wearing a brown body-long bag-like clothe with red, pink white and blue dots. There was a pink flower at her left chest. The photo was so taken that it seemed that the flower had attracted a number of bees flying around her
.
Elly was puzzling with a frown not at me, but at my camera lens. It was good that she remained motionless, otherwise the photo would become blurred. I knew why she was so peaceful, simply because she woke up after a nice long sleep.