Creating Totem Poles

Next to the Public Market on Granville Island, Vancouver, was a workshop for Art students carving Totem poles. At first sight, they looked like mummies lying about. The wood was from tree trunks. I believed the carving tools were mainly hammers and different sizes of chisels and there should be some preview drawings of the totems before the wood was carved. The final work went to polishing and painting.

I just wondered how heavy a totem pole was when finished. What we can see here in the photos were only sections of a totem pole. These sections should be transported, erected and fixed together like ‘Lego’ pieces at designated spots for display.

Victoria (1)

Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is located on Vancouver Island in the south-west of Vancouver.

We arrived there on Wednesday, October 14th by car and ferry to Swartz Bay and a 25 km drive to the city. The fare for the single journey of the one and half hour ferry went to around 100 Canadian dollars (50 something for the car, 40 something for 4 adult passengers, free for small children under 4).

The road to Victoria is straight. Strange enough, close to the city, I caught sight of some double-deckered buses which I did not see in Vancouver. The nearer was to the City , the more high rises of buildings we could see.

At first sight, the beautiful sign at the roadside revealed a birdcage-like design which reminded us that we were close to Parliament House. The Parliament House looked grant and historical. Its domes, big or small, appeared green, This suggested to me that they were made of copper, not of gold. We definitely liked its shelter on the first day of our visit to the city because heavy downpour of rain began to fall over our heads when we were near.

Aquabuses at Granville Island

There are two kinds of aquabuses at Granville Island. They shuttle about the False Creek at Vancouver. The larger ones can carry about thirty passengers while the smaller ones about fifteen. They serve mainly for sightseeing rather than crossing the Creek. The water at the Creek is usually calm except during windy days or the stirring of water by larger moving yachts or launches.

There are several aquabuses shuttling and they stop at altogether 8 boarding or landing sites, 4 on the shore of downtown and the rest on the side of Granville Island and its neighbourhood. The farthest point the aquabuses will reach is the Science World, shaped like a crystal ball.

Granville Island Public Market (3) - Lunch

Fast food shops centralized at one wing of the Public Market at Granville Island. We bought and shared among us a hot dog, two slices of pizzas, two tacos, a pork-chop burger and a bottle of coke.

Abby loved eating the black beans on the dish of tacos more than the pizza. I myself liked the tacos this time, but the vegetables around them were over-spicy. The pizzas, five dollars each, were up to standard. The pork burger was not juicy as expected. Anyhow it provided another taste of meat besides the sausage in the hot dog.










Outside was The False Creek. We could see a large number of launches, sail-boats and some yachts, parking neatly there. There were two road bridges flying over the creek to the opposite shore, Downtown, Vancouver.

My Aces in Vancouver

It was a meaningful Thanksgiving Eve to me and family in Vancouver yesterday. We were invited by Terry Lo and her husband, Edward Li, to their house to have a big dinner. Peter Au and family also joined us. Without Peter, I could never have met Terry and Edward because Peter had told them that my wife and I had arrived at Vancouver.

We reached Terry and Edward’s grand house at around seven in the evening. We were just a few paces behind Peter. Our host and hostess were at the door to greet us. After a brief introduction of my family members to Terry and Edward, I took the lead into the house.


Soon we sat at a round table filled with delicious food in the dining room. The centre of interest went to the big sliced turkey. The sushi, salad, spaghetti were equally attractive to us. I enjoyed drinking the “Sparkling Apple Juice” and the special “coffee” made by Edward. With happy hearts we took some photos together to mark this well-over-thirty year reunion.

It was a warm gathering as well as dinner among us. The images of old school days at CCSC flashed across our minds and during our chats, my daughter, son-in-law and my three “aces”, Terry, Edward and Peter, talked about their life in Vancouver.

After touring round the house to look at the function rooms and sitting-room, we ate some desserts of pudding and crisp biscuits. Our chats ended at about half past ten because it was quite late in the evening. We hoped to see one another again in the near future.

The Art of Stacking up

Some of he fruit store-keepers at Granville Island Public Market possess the art of stacking up their fruits. To stabilize the stacks, they need to make use of the geometric structure and form of a “pyramid”.

It is neat, tidy and beautiful to pile up fruits in this way. The problem is that the customers cannot select their fruits freely. They definitely can’t pick their favourite ones lower down the stacks, otherwise the whole structure will turn unstable and collapse. The fruits will run down and roll everywhere.

I guess the customers cannot select at all. What they do is to request for the quantity they want and the store-keepers will then place the fruits in plastic bags and weigh them. Money is paid. Trade is finished in this way.

At a Canadian Mc Donald

It was a sunny morning. Since it was still early before we went to church, we dropped in a nearby Mc Donald for breakfast.

We ordered a Happy Meal for Abby. Here I have two questions to ask you. You may guess the answers.

1. What was Abby eating out of?

A. jam
B. butter
C. cheese
D. nectar
E. salad dressing

2. What was Abby drinking out of?

A. milk
B. milk tea
C. coffee
D. ovaltine
E. chocolate

Fallen Apples

On September 26th, I chanced to see some apples lying near the pavement before me. The apples looked red and ripe but had a few bruises or holes. I wondered why they were there. Then I went on my way.

The other day when I passed the same place, I looked up and found a large tree with hanging apples. Well, I had never seen an apple tree before, but had heard of the story of an apple hitting Newton on the head. That hit inspired Newton about gravity.

The apple tree had a large crown of leaves and branches. It did not look pretty at all. The apples were not conspicuous to find. I managed to spot them out when I enlarged my photo.

The tree looked healthy and its apples were of good quality. I was sure if they were collected properly, they could be sold at a good price.

Granville Island Public Market (2)

Let’s take a close study of sausages at Granville Island Public Market.
Without the labels, the sausages displayed in the show-windows looked very much the same.

Here, I list out the sausages as follows:
[1] organic chicken
[2] butter chicken with East Indian Spices
[3] Rose Mary Lamb
[4] Syrian Lamb
[5] blueberry buffalo
[6] coconut chicken
[7] Chipolata pork (great for breakfast)
[8] Beer Bratwrust with chicken
[9] elk with cranberry
[10] apple pork (great for breakfast)
[11] Bristol Bangers
[12] fresh Kielbasa with garlic
[13] spicy Italian (for pasta, grill, BBQ
[14] Toulouse champagne (coarse pork)
[15] duck with orange

Mouth Exercises

Recently Elly exercises her mouth by contracting her lips to a small round hole (O咀). She also practises sticking her tongue out of her mouth.

Sometimes when we talk to her, she will look at us and utter “Ur, Ur,….” to start her own conversation with us. I wonder when she will first say “Papa” or “Mama” to her parents.

Watching the Moon on a distant land

We spent the Mid-autuman Festival this year in Canada, some eight to nine thousand miles away from Hong Kong.

The top photo shows the moon on October 3rd, 2009 at the riverside on Richmond. The left-hand side shows Vancouver International Airport. The orange dots on the right show the light of the streetlights along the road. The only white circular dot of light was the moon we were longing for that day.

At that time where we were standing was a grassy dam just a few feet above river water on one side and the road was again a few feet below on the other side. I wondered if the river water might overflow one day when the river flooded. That night, it was dark there and we worried that Abby would walk or drop into the water because the river water was just a few feet away. Since it was quite dark, a little chilled and no people were seen, we just walked for a while and kept standing and eating the mini-mooncakes we brought along.


A similar car like ours arrived and a family stepped out of it They had the same will of watching the moon and eating mooncakes there. Soon we left with our two missions finished and wondered how long they would stay there!

Granville Island Public Market (1)

Without crossing a bridge or through a tunnel, we arrived at Granville Island on Saturday, September 26.

Several months ago in Hong Kong, I saw Granville Island Public Market from a TV programme on travels The programme mainly introduced a meat-selling shop and a bakery. I was wondering if I could find them in a rush of an hour including eating and walking in between stores.











The market was simply inside a large factory-looked warehouse supported by wooden beams and wrapped up in scraps of metal. It was crowded with middle-aged or old people I thought it was not the place for youngsters.










The meat- shop was right before my eyes when I entered this market. It chiefly sold processed meat such as sausages, ham, bacon and meats of all kind – deer, duck, chicken, beef, pork….. Some of the names of meat were strange to me. The prices of meat were high. To me, the meat was for the eyes only, not for buying and tasting.This shop also sold pickled cucumber. I thought people like this sweet and sour appetizer to go with the meat.










Fruit such as strawberries, oranges, grapes and apples at higher prices and good qualities, flowers, vegetables, chilled fish fillets, bread, souvenirs were found in different corners of the market.











My wife and I bought 4 cobs of corn which were sold at C$1 for 2. We would like to see if they were really sweet. In Hong Kong we have eaten corn which was described as “Extra-sweet corn” (超甜粟).

Inside Oakridge Centre

A great variety of shops had centralized at Oakridge. Shops selling from Children’s wear to fashioned clothes, mobile phones to household electrical appliances, jewellery to pottery, even a big department store could be found here.



The most welcoming ones were the cafés, cake-shops and stores at food court because people could spend some time in the afternoon sipping coffee or tea, eating a slice of cake, buns or taking food of different countries. Philip told me that it was the place that foreign people ate Chinese food.

I saw a store selling tacos here. Taco was the most impressive food that brought back memories of the lunch at Disneyland, Los Angeles. I remember on that afternoon, my wife and I had to pay that lunch ourselves. I knew nothing of the term “Taco”, but had an idea that it was a kind of Mexican food. I chose it simply because it was the cheapest at the store. A mass of beans and vegetables with salad dressing were wrapped up by a hard shell of flour.

Small cream or fruit cakes at the shop windows were attractive to me. Yet they were expensive ones. I could resist the temptation for 3 months. I would try similar ones when I return to Hong Kong.




I took a few photos of Abby when she walked on the edges of the two narrow small-but-there is fountains and played at a Children’s playground.

A Hong Kong-styled Bakery

The very first shop, Saint Germain (新之美), at Oakridge Centre was a bakery. It sold all kinds of bread that we often see in Hong Kong. It was amazing to see a queue of customers. They lined up in order to buy their favourite freshly-baked bread.

Such kind of queuing reflected two things :
[1] the bread or cakes of this bakery must be delicious,
[2] the salesladies are slow at work,
[3] the people at Vancouver learn the culture of queuing up.

We bought two meat buns. The one I had a bite contained a sausage. The taste was right and fresh, but the price was high, over 1 Canadian dollar, which meant it was about 10 Hong Kong dollars. To me, the feeling at the bite was good because it seemed that I had been back to Hong Kong.

At the time when we left the Centre, the queue became much longer. There might be s 15 or some 15 or over customers waiting for their turns.

Badges of Canadian provinces

Oakridge Centre (奧克里奇購物中心) is a modern shopping mall located at Cambie Street, south of Queen Elizabeth Park. Inside there is a beautiful hanging clock with badges showing the provinces:
[1] British Columbia [2] Alberta [3] Saskatchewan [4] Manitoba [5] Ontario
[6] Quebec[7] New Brunswick [8] Prince Edward Island [9] Nova Scotia
[10] Newfoundland and Labrador

















To enable me to recognize which is which, I make the following remarks (in brackets)
[1] British Columbia (British Flag + sea + sun)
[2] Alberta (a red cross against a white background + mountain + grassland + yellowish field)
[3] Saskatchewan (a lion + 3 bales of wheat against a green background)
[4] Manitoba (a red cross against a white background + a bison against a green background)
[5] Ontario (a red cross against a white background + 3 yellow maple leaves from a branch)
[6] Quebec (3 spearheads + a lion + 3 maple leaves)
[7] New Brunswick (a lion + a big junk)
[8] Prince Edward Island (1 big and 3 smaller trees)
[9] Nova Scotia (a blue cross against a white background + a yellow shield with a lion at the centre)
[10] Newfoundland and Labrador (a white cross against a red background with lions and horses going diagonally)