On Monday, May organized a guided tour of Chinatown for the whole family. Victoria's Chinatown is apparently the oldest in Canada, rivaling San Francisco's, and was once quite large (9 blocks - before Chinese exclusion laws took effect). We enjoyed learning about the history of Canada through the tour as well as seeing the various narrow alleys and streets. There's a temple still in downtown Victoria that we went into - Kim bought incense and gave an offering.
Cousins and second cousins!
The tour guide was explaining that in Chinese literature, dragons are good symbols - they traditionally stood in for the emperor and order - and asked what dragons were like in our western fairy tales. Liesl, never daunted, launched into an explanation of the mean fire-breathing dragon in the Paperbag Princess and the brave princess and "the boy, who turned out to be a bum."
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| Sebastian learning to play fantan, a Chinese gambling game. |
Fantan Alley
After the tour we went for dimsum: yum. Four tables of Mahs! In the afternoon, some of the crew went on a brewery beer tasting tour with Ken; dad visited a local used bookstore; some of my relatives went shopping and window-shopping; we wandered into a tea shop and a bookstore and a toy store, and then made our way down to the harbor, to ride the water taxis around.
We went to Fisherman's Wharf to feed the very fat seals and sea otters.
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