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the vancouver aquarium, stanley park 6:51 PM

This is quite random but I realized today (Saturday) why the air here is so fresh. Apart from being environmental-friendly, even the public transport system adheres to the campaign for anti-pollution. In fact, public buses here run on electricity, similar to the cable cars in San Francisco, where they are pulled along by a vast network of overhead cables instead of running on petrol. Another interesting thing about public buses is that passengers have to push the door themselves when they wish to alight – I believe I’ve seen this in the US the other time as well. Buses are also wheelchair-friendly; passengers are not allowed to board until a wheelchair-bound passenger alights via an automatic ramp that emerges at the push of a button by the driver. I guess such behaviour is a mixture of being law-abiding and gracious, and it was certainly an experience taking the public transport again today (we returned the car this morning).

We visited the Vancouver Aquarium today, a must-see public aquarium located in Stanley Park. In addition to being a major tourist attraction for Vancouver, the aquarium is a centre for marine research, conservation and marine animal rehabilitation. We saw a whole lot of fishes, creatures and mammals, including seals, sea lions, sea otters and huge belugas whales! The beluga was the most significant attraction as the Aquarium recently had a new addition following the birth of a baby beluga, and it was taking utmost care to facilitate the bonding between mother and child – hence a lot of hoo-ha and documentary talks/shows on the entire process. It was really interesting though; the facilitators were interesting and engaging, sharing a lot on what they know and other interesting facts about belugas (for example, the father beluga has to be separated from baby since birth till even after the latter matures, just as to prevent father from going after and mating with its daughter, and many more!). We were also told that there might be a public bidding held for the naming of the baby beluga, an act that really signifies how much the aquarium (and hence animals) mean, to such an environment-cherishing city.

There was also a Tropics Area in the Aquarium, which provided a slight overlap with the exhibits we usually see at the Underwater World. Yet the Amazon Rainforest section here gave us a creepy and eye-opening experience where piranhas and alligators swam around threateningly, amongst others. I think I kept going “yikes” and “eeyer” all the time when I saw weird anemones, starfish and meat-eating predators which looked scary and alien-ish! Haha.

  

WINNIE'S BENCH!

One of my favourite shots for today, haha.

A "false" killer whale at the bottom of the food chain.. interesting. Killer whale's at the top.

The touch pool is super duper cold.. but there are only little fishies that can be touched.

  
Seal and Belugas, and a whole lot of other things:

 

Jellyfish, big ugly starfish and small cute ones

 

Strawberry anemone and vegetarian mosquitoes (!!!)

  

A cute suave stingray and many more...

 

Gifts at the souvenir shop, and this picture of 2 otters is kinda sweet.

"Awww.. c'mon!"

Anyway we headed over to a Japanese eatery for dinner, and this place is said to be a local favourite amongst the foreign Asian students in Vancouver. And it was indeed, because we found out that this place is along Robson Street, apparently where many Asian grocery stores and restaurants can be found! We saw many Hong Kongers, Japanese, Koreans etc., and also managed to grab a few Japanese biscuits and snacks for ourselves for tonight. :)

Walking home after dinner, Robson Street felt just like Orchard Road, with HMV, Aldo, Zara and other stores we use to see back home. Window-shopping in the cool weather was a not-bad experience, especially along a street that felt so very familiar with its Asian faces..

Did you know?

1) You might have already known that Canada’s flag features the motif of a maple leaf. But did you know that it is famous for its maple syrup too? All around, we see maple syrup candies, maple syrup in bottles shaped like maple leaves.. yada yada.. see picture below!

2) I mentioned that the shops along Robson Street were similar to those in Orchard Road. I am totally right about that except for one thing – Hui Lin and I noticed that shop mannequins here have bigger boobs than those in Singapore! Haha.

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Winifred Lim
Arthur V Mauro Residence, Box 436B
120 Dafoe Road, Winnipeg, MB R3T 6B3
Canada

About me
You are an enthusiastic innovator, always seeing new possibilities and new ways of doing things. You have a lot of imagination and initiative for starting projects, and a lot of impulsive energy for carrying them out. You are stimulated by difficulties and are most ingenious in solving them. You can get so interested in your newest project that you have time for little else. Your energy comes from a succession of new enthusiasms and your world is full of possible projects. Your enthusiasm gets other people interested too.

Your feeling preference shows in a concern for people. You are skillful in handling people and often have remarkable insight into the possibilities and development of others. You are extremely perceptive about the attitudes of others, aiming to understand rather than judge people. You are much drawn to counseling and can be inspired and inspiring teacher, particularly where you have freedom to innovate. With talent, you can succeed in almost any field that captures your interest.

A difficulty for you is that you hate uninspired routine and find it remarkably hard to apply yourself to sometimes necessary detail unconnected with any major interest. Worse yet, you may get bored with your own projects as soon as the major problems have been solved or the initial challenge has been met. You may need to learn to follow through and finish what you have begun, but are happiest and most effective in jobs that permit one project after another, with somebody else taking over as soon as the situation is well in hand.

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