I'm Back Bitchez Part 2

There's a place in Victoria's inner harbour called Fisherman's wharf, where seafood is sold freshly caught from individual vendors. We tried a meal of fish n'chips (halibut) which was delish, and I of course could not leave without procuring some crab. Sweet christ, I love crab. Here's $70 dollars worth of freshly caught steamed dungenous:

Drooool. A nice lady at Barb's fish store on the water was good enough to steam these up for us first thing in the morning and wrap them in brown paper for transport back to the hotel. A few lemons and a half pound of butter later that night and we horked until we could not eat another bite. It was soooo good. Totally fresh.

She was also nice enough to throw on some honkus steamed prawns from the morning catch for us too:

Not the most attractive creatures I've seen, but hot dayum they were yumaaay.

There are a couple of very plump seals who have taken up residence at the wharf, and by the looks of it, they are very well fed. Check out chubs:

What a face!

For 5 dollars, you can purchse a bowl of smelt fish to hand feed him and his friends. By the look of it, this happens quite often. We fed them a couple of times while hanging out down there - it was pretty neat. You have to watch for large and in charge seagulls though - they swoop right in and steal the fish from your hand. I had one land right on my shoulder flapping it's humungoid wings in my face and then stelaing the fish in my hand in a flash. I screamed. Those things remind me of flying rodents - blech.

During another day excursion, we headed to a place called Butterfly Gardens. We didn't really know what to expect of the place, but it turned out to be really cool. It was like an indoor rainfroest with hundreds of different kinds of butterflies flying about freely. The guide told us that if one lands on you, it's supposed to be good luck. Lucky for us, one landed on each of us.

On Sandy's arm:

In my hair:

Pics of some of the other butterflies inside:

Look at this one! Apparently these ones stay in a cocoon for up to 5 years, and die 3-5 days after emerging. Isn't that strange? Like why.
It hatched the morning of our visit and was drying his wings in the sun. He was about the size of a large bird, pretty incredible:

Here are some shots of the rainforest vibeage inside:

The Royal BC Museum had a Titanic exhibit going on during our visit too! I'm pretty much a freak for all things Titanic, so this was definitley up my alley.

Now this was really something to see. They had over 220 recovered artifacts from the wreck on display, including unopened wine bottles, White Star Line china, people's luggage, wallets, letters, grooming items, eye glasses, medicine bottles, money, lumps of coal, tools from the boiler room, etc. They also had one of the bronze cherubs from the famous skylight/clock area in First class on display. So cool.

They even had a REAL iceberg on display, positioned in front of a black starlight wall. You can touch it and everything!

The museum staff were dressed in replica lifejackets from the ship and they also had a Captain Smith impersonator dressed in full uniform talking to the visitors. He handed out replica Titanic boarding passes to everyone that told you which passenger you were from the original passenger list, which class you were in, how old you were, who you were married to, etc. At the end of the exhibit, there is a wall of memorial listing the fate of each passenger on the ship which you check to see whether you lived or died. I survived, but my husband did not. Sandy's character did not survive.

There were no cameras allowed inside to preserve the items from too much light exposure, so unfortuantley all I could get were the pics from outside the exhibit. Too bad. It was totally effen cool.

Jeff, if you're interested, this exhibit is running until the middle of October 2007.
Definitely something worth checking out if you're into it - you'd really love it. There is also an IMAX film you see before entering the exhibit - it wasn't as cool as that 3-D one we saw a few years back, but it's pretty sweet nonetheless.

And finally, some random shots taken while out and about: