Victoria trip

I took a little day trip to Victoria earlier this week. Besides the really scary-looking weather (more on that later), it wasn't the notable trip that it usually is, unfortunately. Usually, I'm your stereotypical Victoria tourist, hanging out at all the tourist traps along the Inner Harbour. But this time, I avoided that and decided to check out the places that tourists usually don't go for (but weirdos like me do).

While the date was planned fairly ahead of time, the weather wasn't cooperating. This area of Canada is usually warm, dry and sunny for most of the summer (as opposed to cold, damp and rainy for the winter), but it looked like it was about to pour a new one on me as I was on the bus towards the ferry terminal in Tsawwassen. It was raining pretty significantly on the freeway and was raining slightly by the time I got the terminal.

The way there was just insane. The wind was probably the strongest I've ever experienced on the route, but it made for some good sunshine. So much for the rain... right?

Above: Sunny skies above the Strait of Georgia... But will it last?

Well, the weather decided to scare me one more time. As we arrived, the whole place looked dark due to heavy clouds. It seriously looked like it was going to be a tempest. Along the highway from Swartz Bay towards Victoria, it started raining (again) and I was honestly wondering if picking that date wasn't a mistake.

Above: The British Columbia legislative buildings (similar to a state capitol) in Victoria, the capital city of the province of British Columbia.

Luckily, the weather cleared up by the time I reached my first destination, the University of Victoria (UVic). As an amateur photographer, I tend to find university campuses great places to take photos. UVic's campus proves to be quite interesting in some ways.

The campus is centered around a road that is almost perfectly circular, and most of the campus buildings lie within that circle. It is literally impossible to get lost, if you don't cross the road.

Also, the campus is split roughly in half between two municipalities, Oak Bay and Saanich. In fact, some of the campus buildings straddle the city limits; it is possible to have your professor lecturing from the Oak Bay side of the line while you're taking notes from the Saanich side of the line.

The campus itself is pretty nice; there are some new buildings sprouting up and some of them put my alma mater's (UBC) buildings to shame. However, even the nice architecture was overshadowed by one thing. Actually, make that hundreds of things. To be more specific -- rabbits.

Above: A lone rabbit at the University of Victoria.

There were rabbits everywhere on campus. And I mean that quite literally. I have a feeling that rabbits actually outnumber students at UVic. I've honestly never seen that many rabbits in one place before in my life. I'd hate to be swarmed by a rabbit posse after a night class.

One thing about the campus layout that's pretty good is the presence of a campus center, near the UVic Quadrangle. UBC doesn't have that; the closest we have to a campus center is the Student Union Building, which is usually too far from the students in the south end of campus. It's amazing how one realizes how big of a sprawling mess the UBC campus is when compared to other universities.

After UVic, I hit several malls in the area, including Mayfair Shopping Centre and Hillside Shopping Centre. They're your typical suburban malls, but I managed to get a pretty good deal for a new Anaheim Angels clock. However, it doesn't work properly, as I later found out at home. There's something wrong with the motor, which makes the hour and minute hands malfunction. Gotta fix that later. Oh well... It's $40 elsewhere (I got it for $10), so it doesn't feel quite as bad.

Back in downtown Victoria after those trips, I had some time to kill before heading back. So I went to Victoria's Chinatown, which is the oldest Chinatown in Canada and the second oldest after San Francisco's. In there, I stumbled across a place that I somehow missed during my previous trips to Victoria -- Fan Tan Alley.

Above: Fan Tan Alley in Chinatown, Victoria.

Fan Tan Alley is known as being quite possibly the narrowest street in Canada. Its narrowest point measures 90 centimeters (just under 3 feet) wide. It used to be a hotbed for gambling and opium dens, but now houses tourist gift shops, some art galleries and boutiques. It's a pretty bizarre experience to find a mini-community inside a narrow alley between two old brick buildings, that's for sure.

The journey back on the ferry was quite turbulent. The waves were pretty punishing and I was feeling thankful I decided to delay dinner until I arrived on the mainland, because I would've certainly lost that dinner several times over.

Overall, it was an exhausting day (I was awake for 22 hours straight, because I needed to catch the early ferry there and ended up taking the last ferry back), but that's what trips to Victoria usually call for, in my case. Let's see how long it'll take for my body to catch up with the sleep it was begging for throughout that trip.