Hop On-Hop Off in Victoria

On Tuesday, we took a Hop On-Hop Off bus tour around the city of Victoria. Our bus driver/tour guide's name was Norm, and he had a good sense of humor, like yesterday's bus driver. It was a double decker bus, and we sat on the upper deck that was open air so that we could take pictures without windows. 

Norm started off by telling us, jokingly of course, that he had cleaned the bus and washed all the windows for us. Some of the things we learned on the tour: Victoria is the oldest city on the West coast of Canada. Its population is 402,000. Norm said that despite the population, it was amazing to him that Victoria only has one Starbucks, then he added "on every corner". Haha! 

I already mentioned the proliferation of flowers in Victoria, since it has a perfect climate for growing flowers. I also mentioned the hanging baskets that are seemingly everywhere, with a couple hanging from every lamp post. Well, according to Norm, there are 1200 hanging baskets in the city of Victoria, and they are all watered every night. Later on the tour, we saw the world's largest watering can. It only makes sense that the world's largest watering can would be in a city where they have to water so many flowers every night. 

In addition to the myriad of flowers, we also saw a few topiaries, including this "Orca Topiary".

I mentioned in a previous post that because Victoria is a place that attracts honeymooners and retirees, they call it a place for the newlyweds and nearly deads. Norm added one more: it is a place of newlyweds, nearly deads, and flower beds. Nice going, Norm!

We passed through the Old Town section of Victoria that contains a lot of shops and restaurants, including Market Square which has some shops below ground. Due to the pleasant climate, there are a lot of restaurants with outdoor seating along the pedestrian walkways. 

We drove through Chinatown and again passed by the country's narrowest street, Fan Tan Alley. Norm told us that the 1990 movie "Bird on a Wire" starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn was filmed in Victoria. Apparently there is a motorcycle chase scene in the movie where the motorcycle goes down Fan Tan Alley. 

Along our drive, we saw these large fake tulips. Really?!!! With all the beautiful flowers in Victoria, and the perfect growing climate, you need to erect fake flowers?! Why?

Speaking of flowers, we passed a field of mostly weeds, with a few yellow wild flowers growing. I was quite astonished to see some signs placed among the weeds that said please do not pick the flowers, leave them for everyone to enjoy. I get the sentiment, but with all the beautiful flowers and no such sign in sight of those, you're putting these signs up in a field of weeds with a few wild flowers? Again, why? 

Our drive took us to some well-known sights, such as the Anglican Church of our Lord, which is the oldest church in Victoria. 

Church of our Lord

The people of Victoria must be very religious, as I noticed they had a nice reminder of God's rainbow (from the book of Genesis) painted along the bike path. 😂

We also saw the start of the trans Canada highway at mile marker 0. As the name implies, the highway runs from one end of the country to the other. The other end of the trans Canada highway is located in St. John, Newfoundland on the east coast. (No, we don't plan to drive it on a future trip. Unless Joe reads this blog and gets the idea in his head!)

We also passed by the provincial capitol building, as Victoria is the capital of the province of British Columbia. I had mentioned in a previous post that after going to Olympia, we've now been to all 50 state capitals. Now we've also been to all but one Canadian provincial capitals. (The only one we haven't been to is in Newfoundland, at the other end of the trans Canada highway, still not a good reason to traverse the country.)

Victoria Provincial Capitol Building

We drove through a golf course. You read that right, we didn't drive near, or along, a golf course. We actually drove through the middle of it. There were signs to drive carefully and watch for golf balls. Norm, in his typical humor, also told us to notice that all the golfers were wearing two pairs of pants, in case they got a hole in one.

Part of the bus trip involved a nice ride along a coastal road near an inlet of some sort. There were beautiful views of the coast, whatever water we were looking at (there's so much water around here, I can't keep up with all the names of the inlets, sounds, lakes, etc.), and the mountains in the background. 

We also saw a couple of Adirondack chairs, a blue and a red one, sitting atop a lookout point with a great view. Norm told us that he's been driving this route for 14 years, and those two chairs have been on this public site for all 14 years, and no one knows who put them there and who they belong to. Hmm, the case of the mysterious Adirondack chairs. I guess now they've become iconic.

We drove by a church that was being renovated. They had a sign outside that said "Currently hiring carpenters". Hmm, I know a carpenter that might enjoy working in a church.

We drove by Beacon Hill Park with a children's petting zoo. We also drove through a couple of artsy towns - Oak Bay Village and Cook Street Village. Oak Bay, true to its name, has lots of oak trees, and they even have a couple of very large acorns on display. 

Acorns in Oak Bay Village

Cook Street Village

We saw this store in Cook Street Village.

Hmm. Do they just sell clothes with pockets? Or clothes that you can fold up and put in your pocket? Or are they cheap, you can purchase them with pocket change?

There's no questions about what this store sells.

After Oak Bay Village and Cook Street village, the drive took us along the Oak Bay Marina, and along a beach road with nice views.

We saw this sign along our drive

And I thought, Wow! Gas is really cheap here. Oh, wait, that's in liters, which translates to $6.70 per gallon. Wow! Gas is really expensive here.

After our very enjoyable Hop On-Hop Off bus tour of Victoria, we wanted to head back to the Fisherman's Wharf. This was one of the locations we had passed on the tour. But it was not near where the bus tour ended. So we took a water taxi across the harbor to our destination. The water taxi was a fun ride.

Water taxi

Fisherman's Wharf has lots of restaurants and shops along a boardwalk, with a marina and some nice views of the water. We had decided that while we were in the Pacific northwest, one of the things we wanted to try was the local fish 'n chips. We heard a lot of people recommend a place called Barbs Fish 'n Chips on Fisherman's Wharf. So when our water taxi pulled up to the dock, we went to Barb's and had the best cod and halibut we've ever had. 

When we finished eating, we wanted to do the responsible thing and throw away our trash. However, the garbage can labels are so confusing here that you need a PhD in ecology or some such field (which you can probably get in this part of the world) just to understand the vocabulary (like compostables) and hard-to-decipher pictures on the garbage cans. After eating, we strolled along the boardwalk for awhile.

Boardwalk at Fisherman's Wharf

More boardwalk

Mexican restaurant on boardwalk, notice cacti on roof

After enjoying the boardwalk, we headed to the terminal where we boarded the FRS Clipper V to head back to Seattle. Again we went through customs, but this time they didn't ask us any questions, just looked at our passports and waived us through.

When the boat was approaching Seattle, it afforded great views of the city skyline.

Seattle skyline

The boat ride back to Seattle was uneventful, but what happened after that - not so much. We had planned to take an Uber back to our campground in Puyallup. When we came off the boat, a number of taxis were waiting, with the taxi drivers all standing at the curb and shouting to the passengers, looking for riders. We decided to compare the price of a taxi with the price of Uber (we already knew what an Uber would cost), and they kept yelling dollar amounts, each trying to beat the other. When they finally arrived at the lowest number, we shook our heads and said no thanks. We began walking away. They began arguing with each other and yelling after us but we kept walking. One of them caught up to us and told me to check Uber right now, see what it costs, and he would beat the price. I did, and he did. So we decided we'd go with this taxi driver. He seemed like a nice guy, and not quite as belligerent as the others. We walked back to where the taxis were parked and got in his cab. The other drivers were still arguing, by this time very loudly, and one guy slapped another guy. When this happened, our driver said to us "I'll be right back. I need to go calm him down" and got out of the cab, leaving us sitting there, a little perplexed, in the back seat. We were trying to decide if we should get out and go call an Uber after all; trying to decide if we felt safe. We decided we would stay in the cab. Our driver came back, complained about his "brothers" losing their temper and fighting, and off we went to Puyallup. The taxi driver was very nice. He was from Mali and we had a nice conversation with him on the way to the campground which, thankfully, we arrived at safely around 9:15 p.m. An interesting end to a very interesting day.