Victoria Skyline

This building has the style and features of an heirloom structure but it appears to be a new building that echoes features other older buildings in downtown Victoria. And to my eye it does this very attractively and successfully. If any visitors know more about this View Street building I will be grateful for any additional information.

The Juliet

Though we still seem to be in an economic slump Victoria's downtown continues to grow upwards. Here's a relatively new building on the corner of Johnson and Blanshard Streets (i.e. right downtown) called "The 834". Like some other downtown developments it is a condominium development rather than office space. Though I like the idea of residential housing in the downtown it doesn't seem like it adds to the number of people who actually live downtown since many of the owners are likely to be time-share or owners who are mostly absentee. When I ride through the Songhees, for instance, it makes me a little sad that despite a great many residences the neighborhood is like a graveyard. There is no neighborhood, just a bunch of beautiful condos that are fully owned but largely vacant. At the same time, a young working class family probably cannot afford to buy their own house in Victoria.

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Thanks to reader Graham's comments this post can be corrected - the building above is NOT "The 834" though it houses the sales office for The 834. This building is "The Juliet".

Street Whales

On the corner of Humboldt and Government Streets is this fanciful bit of topiary art, an Orca (Killer Whale) and her calf shaped in plants. That's the Fairmont Empress Hotel in the background.

Bastion Square Grand Prix

On Sunday while the yachts competing in the Swiftsure were racing towards the finish line, these racers were speeding around the streets encircling Bastion Square in the Bastion Square Grand Prix, one of a series of cycling races held last weekend.

Inner Harbour

Today is the final day of the third year of this photoblog and it's fitting to end the year with a photo that encapsulates some of Victoria's greatest charms. The weather, though I often gripe about it, is some of the best in Canada and its effect is visible here in the flowering cherry (plum?) that is blossoming now overlooking what is the city's real center, the Inner Harbour. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the fourth year of Victoria Daily Photo. I promise some surprises in the months to come and invite you along for the ride.

Victoria Bug Zoo

Whether you live in Victoria or are just visiting, here's a place that is worth seeing, the Victoria Bug Zoo. This place is especially good for kids who are interested in creepy-crawlies. The bug zoo has got some of the biggest and creepiest 6 and 8 legged creatures you can imagine. And for the intrepid, you can actually handle some of these insects. Enthusiastic young docents happily tell you all about the bugs. It's well worth a visit.

World's Coolest Public Urinal

I've borrowed the title of this post from a headline in British Columbia's online newspaper (or e-zine), The Tyee. The headline is from a story describing the public facility pictured here, located downtown at the corner of Pandora and Government Streets. It was designed by Vancouver architect Matthew Soules and has won a prestigious international design award. You can read what The Tyee has to say about this pissoir by clicking HERE. I am sure there are all sorts of sarcastic and provocative remarks I could make here but I will leave that for my regular commenters, who are generally wittier and better informed than I am. All I will say is that I like this design for what I consider to be a necessary public facility.

Deck the Malls....

The rain let up yesterday afternoon so I joined a lot of other Victorians Christmas shopping downtown. The DVBA (Downtown Victoria Businessmen's Association) provides wandering groups of carolers for music in the streets as in the photo above. In the Bay Centre mall the classy duo below rendered some smooth variations on Christmas themes for shoppers. Though it was a Sunday, many people were out trying to avoid that last minute rush.

New Maltby Trompe l'Oeil

I must first thank regular visitor and commenter here, Dean Lewis, for alerting me to a new work by local muralist, Jeff Maltby. I have featured some of his remarkable trompe l'oeil in the past where it is located in Chinatown. Above is one panel of a new Maltby triptych that graces the wall of the Siam Restaurant near the corner of Fort and Langley Streets in downtown Victoria. Below is a wider shot showing all three panels. Victoria is lucky to have an artist so talented and to have patrons intelligent and generous enough to sponsor such works and share them with the public. They are a delight to the eye and I can only hope that ever more of Victoria's walls will be so beautifully and interestingly decorated in future.

Wellburn's

Here is a photo of Victoria's heritage supermarket, Wellburn's. It is situated on the edge of downtown on the corner of Cook and Pandora Streets. The building itself is interesting with quite a lot of ornate moldings and cornices but for me there is equal interest in the narrow slice of North American marketing history this store represents. This is neither a corner store nor a modern supermarket but seems to be a transitional stage in the evolution of the modern supermarket. For me this comes from the era when Department Stores had come to the forefront of marketing, before they lost out to the suburban shopping malls. Department stores didn't have much to do with food and stores like Wellburn's were an attempt to use the same everything under one roof technique to sell grocery items. I'm sure the history of marketing is much more complex than my ideas of it, but passing by Wellburn's always makes me think of how things change and how we got where we are. Wikipedia has interesting articles on both supermarkets and department stores and their development.

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I hope any local history buffs out there will tell us more about Wellburn's. I know it's been around for a long time in that building but I don't know much more than that.

The Atrium

We'll take a break today from wild Victoria and have a look at a new addition to the downtown office building population. Yes, not all Victorians spend their days strolling along scenic walkways and communing with nature. Some wear suits and work in offices. Pictured today is a new office building called The Atrium, right downtown on the corner of Yates and Blanshard Streets. I'm not an informed critic when it comes to office buildings but, while I don't find this a strikingly attractive building, my penchant for curves is satisfied here and there seems to be some nice indoor/outdoor social spaces on the ground floor.You can read an informed discussion about this building on the Vibrant Victoria Forum by clicking HERE.

Mmmm 3 - Persian Food

Continuing our culinary tour around the world via Victoria eateries, I dined Middle Eastern style last evening in the Side Dish Restaurant, Persian Food specialists. Above is the vegetable stew I had, which came with saffron flavored Basmati rice and salad. The stew had all sorts of good things in it like eggplant, zucchini, and yellow split peas and was garnished with crispy potato sticks - and it was a very tasty meal. The Side Dish Restaurant is located in the heart of downtown at 1008 Langley Street.

Mmmm 2 - The Noodle Box

Yesterday's post was Central American food at Hernandez. Today's delicious item is a recent lunch I had at The Noodle Box on Fisgard Street in Victoria's Chinatown. It seemed a bit pricier than Hernandez but there was a lot of tasty stuff in that bowl, called Cambodian Jungle Curry ($10.75). That fresh lime and those slices of fresh mango garnish were the perfect complements to the creamy, spicy sauce covering the noodles and tofu. There's lots of other good South-East Asian street food on the menu, too.

Hernandez - Mmmm!

Anyone who eats out in Victoria probably already knows about Hernandez so this post is for other people like me who are about two years behind the trends. Pictured above are the five soft, fresh corn tacos with beans, salsa, sour cream and fresh cilantro that I had for lunch yesterday. $5 for 5 of these babies, a great bargain. I'm not a great fan of restaurant food but you won't get food like this anywhere else in Victoria unless your mother or wife is from Central America. Absolutely delicious! It's right downtown, 735 Yates Street, inside an office building arcade.

Café Bliss

About a week ago I mentioned that there were only two genuine vegetarian restaurants in Victoria. I didn't know about Café Bliss, which is not only vegetarian, but is vegan, organic and RAW. In short, you can't get any closer to natural eating without getting down on all fours and grazing. But it's not just natural, it's good. In that display case just next to friendly counter-person Tyler, on the left hand side of top shelf is a platter of Bliss Bars, one of which melted in my mouth. I washed it down with a jar of Mo's Morning Mocha, a delicious warm mixture of cold-pressed coffee, cacao, coconut, hemp, cinnamon, maca, and nut cream. Despite a rather gloomy black exterior, the inside of Café Bliss is beautifully bright and pleasant and I propose to return soon to sample more of the food. It's downtown, 556 Pandora Street, opposite Market Square and just up the street from the Swans Hotel.

The Town That Time Forgot

Sometimes I look at pictures I take of Victoria and I feel like I'm in some kind of time warp. Here we are in the throbbing heart of Victoria's downtown and, if it weren't for the new model cars, the photo might have been taken in the 1950's. Anyway, here's a treat for all the red neon and classic movie marquee fans out there, Victoria's Odeon Cinema, built in 1946. Inside, of course, it's been transformed into seven little mini-theatres but outside it still looks just like movie houses all used to look. The Odeon Cinema is on Yates Street, between Douglas and Blanshard Streets. Odeon, for those interested in etymology, means "music hall."

St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Cathedral

Soaring skywards with its bold array of of coloured brick, stone and slate, St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Cathedral displays the confident spirituality that characterizes the best religious architecture of the High Victorian Gothic style. Designed in 1892 by Perrault and Mesnard of Montreal, St. Andrew's was inspired by the medieval cathedrals of Europe, whose emphatic verticality and picturesque asymmetry greatly appealed to the 19th-century Roman Catholic taste. The wall patterns, created by combining building materials of different colours, are a distinctive feature of the mature phase of the Gothic Revival style.

Thus states the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, and who am I to argue? This cathedral is right downtown, on the corner of Blanshard and View Streets and I hope I can show you the inside at some later date.

Don't...

...try this at home!

Market Square

I mentioned in yesterday's post that Market Square deserves a post of its own. There's a bit of mystery attached to Market Square. Here's a venue that appears to have everything going for it. It's all 19th century heritage brick that has been well-restored and it's located right on the edge of the heaviest tourist track. Yet it is largely deserted with many of its retail spaces empty and few long-time tenants. One tenant (now moved elsewhere) confided in me that the rent was so high it was difficult to make any money. But I suspect the problem has more to do with Victoria's weather. There is a local mind-set that refuses to recognize that Victoria is a cold place and persists in wondering why people don't throng to outdoor venues in mid-winter. The malls are full because they are warm and well-lighted. Put a transparent roof on this place and warm it up a bit and I'll bet it would begin to attract people. As it is....

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MKHansen asks in a comment on the above photo, "What did you do to this picture? - It looks almost like a painting." so I'll have to confess to doing a bit of post-processing with Photomatix HDR. While many people still don't like HDR processing, I become more enamored of it every day, though my use of it is still quite heavy-handed. To me, the HDR treated photo above looks more like what I was seeing when I took the photo than what traditional processing produces. In the (same) photo below, the left side is the normal digital output and while the right side has been processed with HDR. What I like about this is the way the HDR treatment rescues the blown-out highlights of the original and lightens the darker areas.

Royal BC Museum

Diagonally opposite to the Crystal Gardens is the Royal BC Museum, pictured above. As well as an impressive collection of artifacts and displays, it also houses the Imax theatre. The BC Provincial Archives is also located on the same property.

On the satellite photo below, upper left is the Inner Harbor, lower left is the Legislative Assembly Buildings, bottom center (large white-roofed building) is the Royal BC Museum, right middle (large white roof) is the Crystal Gardens, large white roof top center/right is the Victoria Conference Centre. The dark area between the Conference Centre and the Inner Harbor is the Fairmont Empress Hotel. The orange letter "A" is very near where I was standing when I took the above photo. And yes, this will all be on the final exam so wake up now and read this again from the beginning while locating each feature carefully on the map.
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