Queen Elizabeth Park

No wonder Queen Elizabeth Park is famous to Vancouver citizens, but also to the people of Hong Kong. The Miss Hong Kong pageants flew a long way from Hong Kong to Vancouver to take an outdoor video. At the park, the dome-shaped Bloedel Conservatory was the most distinctive structure inside which plants, exotic birds, fish and a Gift Shop could be seen.


The first extraordinary animals we saw were the beautiful ducks at the roadside of the drive. The ducks had their paradise – a natural pond big enough to house around thirty to forty ducks. Most of them were on shore welcoming us. Little Abby feared nothing of these animals, so she shouted as she walked towards them.

We did not worry much about these tame animals, but simply afraid that the ducks would bump Abby into the water or that Abby would drop into the water.

Turning a loop-shaped drive, our car arrived at the parking spaces at the top. There we dismounted and took a few photos of the fountains, at the Conservatory and the look-out. From the latter, a favourable high point in Vancouver where we could glimse at the tall buildings at Downtown as well as the mountains in North Vancouver. Lower down were paths with beautiful flowers on their sides.

ADS

ADS means Abby Delivery Service. It was a lovely scene of Abby driving a red truck loaded with two bottles of milk. She was going to deliver milk to her customers of “Safeway” supermarket.
The truck had two steering wheels. I wonder what will happen when two drivers sitting simultaneously in the same truck, one turning the wheel to the left and the other right. Ha! Which direction will the truck go?



Towards afternoon, Monday, September 29, we spotted out such a truck for children, unoccupied, outside the supermarket. Rushing at it for a few steps ahead, I snatched it and let Abby mount on the driving seat. She chose to take the left-hand drive. The“true” drivers were Connie and me. We pushed and steered the “truck” through aisles between racks of goods.
We have seen such truck-and-trolleys at “three sixty”, a high-class “Wellcome”, at Elements, Tsimshatsui, Hong Kong.

Colourful Turning Wheels

What a lovely frog and a beetle riding on colourful wheels at a shop at Steveston, Richmond, Vancouver. The colourful wheels turned so beautiful under moderate light winds that stopped from walking. They had just enlightened my heart with admiration of such a design, “Statics and Dynamics”.

I supposed they could be posted at a garden, front yard or backyard for decorations.

On a paper were written these:
“Not toys! Please do not touch. Thanks.”

I agree. The wheels are for seeing, but not touching. Similarly the fishes inside an aquarium are for viewing instead of touching.

The First Masterpiece

This is the first masterpiece of Art work of my grand-daughter, Abby, at her preschool. I think this painting was made in water colours.

Let me analyze a little about her painting:
[1] First she used Yellow colour to start with. She loves eating bananas. She might be thinking of a banana at first sight and put it at the centre of the picture, but lettng, the “banana” curve downwards.

[2] Next she used Green colour to draw some plants. A bold stroke went across the lower part of the paper to show the clover of grass on the ground. Then the vertical lines might represent the tree trunks and the patches of green at the top represented the crown of the tree.
I guess she is mostly affected by greeneries (trees, grass and shrubs) she sees every day when she travels to school. The eaten peas, lettuce and cabbages inside her stomach could have stimulated her hands to use the lovely “green”.

[3] Last of all, she used Purple, the colour of her favourite blueberries, to dance her paint-brush all over the paper. She did not repeat the strokes meant that she never hesitated a moment. The movement of her brush is sometimes light and sometimes heavy, thus creating dark and light colours of purple.

[4] The whole picture, in my opinion, shows the “time tunnel” she has to walk through in future, full of difficulties, but yet, I believe, she can overcome them.

[5] The absence of Red Colour here is obvious. The fact that she does not like to eat apples may be one of the reasons. I remember once she pushed away a red angry-looking doll (something like Keroro). I can never understand why she did not use Orange and Pink since she likes eating oranges and wearing pink clothes.

It is really astonishing for me to see such a three year-old girl to step into an Art Wonderland. I am earnest to see if she will use other colours next time when she paints.

Quilchena Park

Here we went to Quilchena Park on the sunny afternoon of September 19th, 2009. It was warm. We decided to walk to a supermarket on a Main Street to buy some oranges and apples before we went to the park. Having mounted Abby on her simple designed cart and turned into a winding steeper street, we found Abby dip her eyes and fall asleep. We passed street by street, shop by shop and picked some Australian navel oranges and good-looking red apples (we just did not know where they came from), The above said two kind of fruits were sold at C$0.99 per pound alike.
Abby must have calculated the time right. She woke up before we turned into the street where Quilchena Park lay.











Quilchena Park was just an open ground with a grassy football field at the fore ground. Trees embraced the park on three sides. There were not many trees on its western and eastern sides, but thickest on the northern. Abby chose to play at the playground further into the park. Slides and Swing were two favourite games. I was her bodyguard as well as her photographer, Two roles meant Double Fun. On a larger slide, Abby enjoyed picking up small rocks from the ground and transferred them onto the slide track bases. What I expected to happen was that the one who slid down would face rocks going inside their trousers or, to the worst, scratching their skin or trousers. To avoid this to happen, I removed all the rocks before we went away, The temptation of a chocolate ice-bar could bring Abby homeward bound.

How many people went to Quilchena Park that day?

Our New Star of the Family

Elly becomes our New Star at home. Her face looks round like a ball. The skin on her face is firm like a fully inflated balloon.

When her eyes close during sleeping, the two tiny slits are straight dotted lines running across the face. Her eyebrows are not conspicuous. In the same way, her nostrils are small holes going into her medium-sized nose. The lips, when slightly opened, form a triangular opening.

When her eyes open during awake, they look round and are able to catch moving objects before her. Her ears lie flat on two sides, but are sensitive to the source of a sound because her eyes will move to detect it.

Dust Storm experienced in Sydney

Here is a special report from Sydney: Thanks Ho Keung and Yin Ping!

“On 22/9/2009 Sydney was under the blanket of dust storm. Here are some photos from the newspaper. I have taken some outside our house this morning around 07:50am, and sending you one of them. The reddish-brown dust coating cars, clothes and people in Sydney today came from two flooded rivers in western Queensland. That the tiny particles made it more than 2,400 kilometres from their origin to the noses, mouths and lungs of people in Australia's largest urban centre required a rare confluence of environmental factors not seen in decades, according to the country's leading scientists. The air pollution in Sydney was 1500 times more than usual.”


One who has never experienced such a phenomenon may think that the end of the world has come. If I were there, I would be scared too!

The top photo shows part of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The second photo shows the Centrepoint (Sydney Tower). The third photo shows the Opera House. The bottom photo shows the street scene in the outskirts of Sydney.

Fisherman’s Wharf at Steveston

On Sunday, September 20th, the dream of visiting the famous Fisherman’s Wharf in Vancouver came true. Philip drove us to the south-west corner of Richmond, which was at the delta of Fraser River.

Steveston is a fishing port where quite a number of fishing boats, speed boats and launches anchored.

People gathered here are mostly tourists or local people. The fishermen were busy selling their catches of fishes, prawns and even octopuses. No fishing activities could been seen, but eating sea food or sipping coffee leisurely.

We lunched at Pajos, a floating fast food fish and chips shop linked with the shore with a narrow slanting footbridge. Halibut, Cod and Salmon were fishes we chose. We could not exclude other food such as potato chips, crab cakes, seafood chowder, salad and drinks. The chowder was thick and the potatoes were not outstanding. The salad and fish were nice to eat, but their sizes were not big enough for our satisfaction. I could only rank them all as dear food (C$13 something for 3 pieces of fish meat).

Library at UBC

On September 15th, we visited UBC (University of Columbia). There were two libraries, one new and one old. The old one was named Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. At first sight, I chuckled because I thought it was the place for barbers to learn hair-cutting . I did not know that “learning centre” meant “library” here.

We entered by the New Wing (a modern one) and soon reached the Old Wing (a “church” feeling to me), The two wings had been fused together and there were quite a lot of “learners”, mostly students, sitting, reading and surfing computers . It was really quiet inside.

Since we were just passers-by, we did not stay long. We next walked to the back of the library to take a photo of the new and the old wings. The clock-tower to the left stood outstandingly than the old library which I should say, the old learning centre.

Living Lanterns

What a nice name " Living Lanterns" is given to these flowers! These orange flowers look like paper lanterns hanging down from the plants. Where are they? Well. They are displayed on the floor before a supermarket called Save Way. Of course they are for sale for people who want to decorate their homes with this kind of special plants.

Never before I have seen such plants, I take a picture and store it in my photo album. Do these plants remind you of the Mid-autumn Festival?

A Big Contrast

Two sisters showed different expressions. It was interesting, wasn’t it.

Elly was crying while Abby smiling. Elly cried because she was hungry or soiled. Abby, wearing her bag, was ready to leave home for a car ride to UBC. She had a happy heart. When I called her to take a photo with her baby sister, she was willing to do so and gave me a pleasant smile through the lens of my camera.

Good girls they are. One showed her desire for feeding or changing diapers. Crying a little is beneficial to her. She was just giving a signal for the parents to take immediate actions and at the same time she was increasing her lungs’ capacity. The elder sister showed either her willingness to take a picture with Sister Elly or her strong desire to go out after the snapshot.

What do you think is the title of this photo?

On the way home this Wednesday with Abby after school, we found a lovely doll, Ernie of Sesame Street, lying at the side of a tree.

A question came to mind. Why was it there?

What do you think?

Here may be one of the reasons.
[1] An unwanted doll/A deserted doll
[2] A drunken doll
[3] Tumbled and fell
[4] For decoration
[5] Taking an afternoon sleep

Please suggest a title to this photo.

Trees in Vancouver

Trees in Vancouver are natural beauties to me. They are much healthier and stronger than those in Hong Kong because they are spaced out wide enough for growth and the air is not polluted.

The climate in Vancouver is mild, warmer than other cities in Canada and influenced by the Pacific Ocean. Many varieties of trees adapt to it. The drizzle and sunny periods nurture the trees in every way.




















What I saw along the streets are trees of different characters and shapes. Their colours vary from different greens to orange, to red and brown. Some look simple in structure, but some complicated.

Along the streets, the trees are spaced out at regular intervals for growth and development.

The photos show some of the trees I saw recently in Vancouver.

A Big surprise to me

Hollies are evergreen trees or shrubs which have shiny leaves with sharp points and red berries in winter.

It was a big surprise to me that I came across them as a natural fence in front of a house. This “fence” looked like a fortified “wall” of a castle. One never knew what was behind the “wall”.











The berries of these hollies were not fully ripe. Some still remained green and some appeared orange, but not yet red. Very often in the past, I saw these lovely leaves and berries on Christmas cards. It is the very first time I witnessed such real shiny and sharp-to-touch leaves in my life! Interesting!

Our New member of family

We have not seen our grand-daughter, Elly, face to face until we arrived at Vancouver. She is now six weeks old. On Tuesday, September 15th, her weight reached eight pounds seven and a half ounces. We are gratified by this new record.

The mid-wife at the UBC clinic said that Elly was in good progress in growth. We hope that she grows well with breastfeeding. She drinks milk with great satisfaction almost once every three hours. From my observation, she begins to look at things round her and is able to detect the sources of sounds.

Abby’s First lesson at Preschool

On the first day of our arrival at Vancouver, Abby had her first lesson at her preschool. The door of the classroom was still closed because we arrived at school a little earlier. We chanced to meet Teacher Olga who came out of the classroom. She greeted Abby and us at the corridor. Her spoken English was wonderfully clear and nice to hear. I think Abby will benefit much from her.

One by one, Abby's classmates came. We met more girls than boys. In particular, we saw a couple of twin sisters, a Chinese boy who wore glasses and two girls, one Indian-bred and another blond-haired.

Soon it was time for lesson. Each student was assigned a racket to keep his or her belongings. Abby was asked to hang her beautiful bag and she knew that she had to take her shoes off. She wore another pair of shoes at the centre of the room where eight students, I thought, would sit in a "U" shape. The children’s name cards were placed on the mat.


Abby was able to recognize her name card and sat before it.

Then parents or grand-parents had to leave the classroom so that the lesson could run smoother. Although I did not attend the lesson, I supposed the first lesson would be for the children to know one another. Songs such as “The more we get together, the happier we will be” would be most appropriate. Shaking hands and hugs might go through the children. Knowing one another is the way to success in a small society like this.

What we knew from Abby was that she brought home a sheet of drawing-paper, rolled up. When we unrolled the paper, we found the “masterpiece” of a small talent in Art.

Let me observe what Abby has learned at her Preschool in the days to come.

First Ride on Air Canada

The top photo shows the “Rudder” of a Boeing 777 that guided the plane which my wife and I were on board to Vancouver, Canada yesterday.


The plane left the bridge at Chep Lap Kok at 12:50 p.m., but thrust into the air at 1 p.m. The sky began to rain and the jet propellers sent out not only air but rain water. We sat at the end of the plane, Economy Class. The seats were in blue colour.

Most of the seats are in 3-3-3 arrangements, but the seats we selected were twin-seats, easily accessible to toilets and the window seat suited my photo-taking. I managed to take just a few photos during taking-off and over North Lantau . The next half-an-hour we were flying in thick clouds, so there was nothing I could do with my camera. What a pity that I missed the beautiful aerial photos of our coast-line of Hong Kong.










The flight-attendants of this plane were not a “young” team. They brought us a lunch of either Chicken with rice or beef spaghetti. Of course there were others like fruit, a sweet dessert and a small piece of bread.










The small screens on the backs of the seat before us did not give surprises because there were no current films or famous ones to watch. What a poor thing that we had to nail ourselves to the seats in those eleven hours of flight.

Next we had a small sandwich and cake as afternoon tea. Meanwhile the sky outside the window dimmed and ran into completely darkness. In the last one and a half hour flight, we were served with a breakfast of either congee or scramble-egg. It was a wrong decision that I chose the former.

The last hour on the plane was the most exciting one for me because Vancouver was near. I wondered what it looked like. The scene of coastal islands or undulating lands added great fun and curiosity to me.










The last right turn from the sea brought our plane safely on land once again. The flight finally ended and we, around 300 passengers on a plane with a flying “Maple Leaf”, queued up at the bridge gate for initial check on passports by some security officers. Another half-an-hour queuing took us to an immigrating counter to answer a few questions and another half an hour for picking up our luggage. The long hours of flight, the stiffness we attained at our seats and the jet-lag would have turned us into much physical confusion for a day or two. I believe a visit to this famous city on the west coast of North America can widen my scope a great deal in the days ahead.