  day trip to victoria with mommy. we had wanted to go there for the afternoon tea at empress hotel for years, but i was just afraid to drive there on my own cuz i don't like to drive to unfamiliar places. so today's the first time i drove there by myself. it was indeed quite easy like everyone else said! (^O^) so yay! now i can drive there~!!! took a freaking long time to get to victoria tho. we were gonna leave the house at 9am, but then my mom's friend who's drove there a lot of times recommended that we leave earlier as there may be long line-ups at the terminal. so we left at 8.30 and got to the terminal at 9am... and it's like what she said!!! even at such an early time on a saturday, there's a super long line-up!!! (>__ so we ended up waiting 2 hrs there at the terminal.. and finally got on the 11am one. but then that meant i had to change the reservation time cuz there was no way i could've been there at 12.15pm!
and fortunately there's another spot left for the seating at 1.45pm, whew~ so, from the time we left the house, till the time we got to empress hotel, it was exactly 5 hrs!!! (>____ as for the famous victoria tradition, that afternoon tea at the empress hotel, i found it to be only ok tho... i guess it was cuz i had a pretty high expectation for it, seeing how it's $50 per person!!! i still find the one at secret garden to be better, and that one's about $25. after i had high tea there, i just had the strongest feeling of satisfaction. but for the empress one and some other ones i've had at other places, there was no particular satisfying feeling. so i don't really know why the empress one's that expensive. it's worth twice as much as the secret garden's one, and i guess that other half is just the cost for the place huh... the hotel brand. but seriously, that hotel's sooo old i don't find it particularly pretty inside either! (^O^);;; oh! and the empress one had time limit! only 1 hr!!! that's sooo short and i felt like we were sooo rushed.
cuz aren't u supposed to take a long time to enjoy afternoon tea while u chat with others? the one at secret garden's 2 hrs and i already find it kinda short... but well, since the whole empress thing is a victoria tradition, it's still fun to try it once.. tho from now on i'll just go to secret garden for their high tea~ (^O^) cuz now i know they really are the best!!! after the afternoon tea at 3pm, we went for orca watching! not being able to get on the 10am ferry did have its merits.
cuz i had to go to the visitor info booth to ask for the empress hotel's phone number to change my reservation time, and while i was there, i found the walking guide for the victoria orcas!!!!!! (^O^)v was sooo happy!!! cuz that was what i went to victoria for!!! before i was just gonna walk around randomly and try my luck in finding the orcas... now i have a map!!! yippee~!!! (^O^) ended up walking around half of downtown victoria in search of orcas and took 3 hrs. there're 43 orcas in downtown victoria, 10 more scarttering across the whole vancouver island. outta those 43 orcas, i saw 23, and took pix of 12 of them that i thought were cute and unique enough worth taking pix (^O^) hehe! so it's not bad at all! at least i saw half of them! mom was of course freakishly tired, having to run around half of downtown victoria in super hot weather with me. and of course she thought i was absolutely crazy to chase after the orcas like this... (^O^);;; ooh, and there was a lot of ppl around the harbour... we realized it was the 10th annual dragon boat competition this weekend... apparently there's an orca in the butchart gardens too and i saw the picture of that one, it's sooo pretty!!!
we had wanted to go there cuz it's their 10th anniversary this yr, and also there's fireworks during the summertime.
oh!
and they have afternoon tea there too! i wanna try that one as well! i absolutely love high tea~ (^O^);;; but if we go there it'd mean we'd have to spend the nite... so we decided we won't go there today. hmm... but the orca and the tea~ (*O*) there's still some weeks left in the summer... maybe we should go there another saturday?!
ooh but it costs a lot for the ferry ride tho. 1 car + 2 ppl = almost $60 one way already! aaaiya... so i dunno if we'll get to go there again this summer... anyhow, we frantically got on the 7pm ferry like 10min beforehand... and finally got home at 9.30pm. just in time for me to watch this traditional chinese drama at 10pm that i've been following for some weeks!!! it's really exciting and i haven't missed one episode yet! haha! it's gonna end soon tho, probably 2-3 more episodes~ all in all, it's a really fun day!
now that i'm finished with the victoria orcas, i'm gonna go chase after the van ones sometime before the end of this month and take lots of pix!!! since i got the walking guide for the victoria ones today, i saw on it there's an official website! and i already d/l the map for the van ones!!! yay!!! haha!!! crazy whale loving me~~~ (^O^)/ urlLink (crazy me... i ended up buying 3 of those 4 posters... ^O^;;;) ------>> urlLink Orcas in the City 
