Vancouver Follies - chapter 4a: Butterfly Garden

saturday was all planned out - get up early, go to Victoria, see Butterfly Garden and Bushard Garden, come back early, hit Nightmarket, eat eat and eat...

however, at 10am we were roaming through the streets of Richmond trying to find a chinese place opened for chinese-style breakfast food. (since we were in Vancouver/Richmond area, the girls refused to have anything but good chinese/asian food at every meal, making us spoiled little chinese girls...) Unfortunately for us, lots of places weren't opened (which surprised us...) By the time we finished eating, since the ferry ride to Victoria was every hour, we barely were in time to take the noon ferry over...

Cars lined up after you pay (including the car and 4 of us the ferry ride was $80!) and then all the cars load in, and then all the passengers rush upstairs to 2 levels of seating, souvenir stores, and a diner-sponsored cafe where passengers can hopefully spend some more money during the 1.5 hour ferry ride. The ride was peaceful - the ships were so large you don't really feel the movement of the waves... i am including a bad picture of me on the ferry here - bad because it is so typical tourist (at least i did not make a V for Victory sign with my fingers) and also because i look like shit still because i was still hella sick. but hey whatever...

anyhow... the ferry landed and we were off. First stop was the Butterfly garden. This is one of the famous Victoria tourist traps, where they have 40 types of butterflies in this beautiful indoor sancturary. we got the student discount because i still had a valid student id from the local community colledge online course i took 3 years ago (Allied Health Science), so the 8$ entrance fee didn't seem so bad. The butterflies were beautiful, but they really had neat flowers, trees, waterways, and other living lives like ducks and other small animals to make the place pretty.

the highlight for me is when a butterfly landed on my finger... come to think of it, any other "bug" i would've screamed bloody murder, but since it was a pretty butterfly, i let it hang out with me for a minute. took this picture with my left hand which turned out surprisingly clear... i also pretended i was a good photographer with my 'idiot camera' (1-click digital) and took some semi-artistic shots of the flowers i liked. i figure i can save 5$ and enlarge these prints and do better than the typical ikea print sets everyone now owns...