each red cedar is like

each red cedar is like

a human being imbued

with animal spirits -- wolf,

salmon, raven, frog, eagle, 

grizzly bear, killer whale, thunderbird

After the Butchart Gardens, we drive to Victoria for a bit of sightseeing and dinner. Nicki and I want to visit the Royal British Columbia Museum, so we walk toward the harbor. Across the street from the famous Empress Hotel, we stop to admire a cheerful yellow trike-taxi advertising "Exhaust Us Not The Planet" and I ask the driver about the flags flying at half mast. He's says it's the official day to commemorate the Canadian Corps who fought at Vimy Ridge, France, during World War I.

The horse-drawn carriage carrying tourists exhausts the planet far less than the huge bus parked in front of the copper-domed Parliament Buildings and there are other signs of attention to being "green," such as a placard for food "From our Farm to your Fork."

When we reach the museum it's nearly closing time, so we just take a quick tour of the gift shop, which sells museum-worthy art, and a leisurely stroll around a First Nations lodge and totem poles outside. I don't know if these totem poles are originals, or carved just for the museum, but I feel the spirit of each majestic cedar tree with its symbolic animals.

On our way to meet our group for dinner at the Noodle Box, we pass the Victoria Convention Center with its colorful blue and purple banners and turquoise steel and glass entry. Lots of color in Victoria. Bright blue and red mailboxes, called Post/Postes box, a reminder that Canada is officially bilingual. Reading the sign on the trash (rubbish) bin, "Downtown Victoria Very Colourful," I reflect on the difference between Canadian and U.S. words for different things, but also differences in spelling. Thank goodness for Noah Webster, who simplified words such as colour to color. Growing up, I had enough trouble learning to spell English, though it seems nowadays, with texting, all the rules are going out the window (digital screen) again and we see sentences such as "i hd nuf trubl lurnin 2 spel engl." 

Window shopping reveals more of this brilliant blue and red combination.

I love the amusing juxtaposition of images, such as a man on a balcony across the street reflected in the window of an oyster bar, with a mermaid sculpture floating in between.

The Noodle Box is also very colorful, with wild impressionist paintings on the acid green walls, chartreuse bottles of Italian Pelligrino mineral water/eau minerale and lime green sliced limes and bean sprouts.

When we leave the Noodle Box I notice some people sitting on the sidewalk across the street, with a backpack and a shopping cart parked against the HSBC building. Homeless people, with little signs saying "Share Any Change." A reminder that, although Victoria is a beautiful, clean, progressive city, there are people who are not able to share in the wealth. I have no Canadian coins but I'm suddenly sorry that I ate an entire bowl of noodles instead of sharing a carryout container with them.