Victoria, Vancouver Island

So turns out I'm terrible at Skype! Today I dropped the iPad on my face and hurt my tooth, misdialled a few times and get distracted making faces to my lovely viewers....

Anywho

So today Monica and I went on a HUGE ferry to Vancouver island and it is as beautiful as people say it is! Very very stunning! On the way we came across a pod of whales!

I got there too late to see them proper and take a photo so I'm hoping on the way back we will see another pod of whales! 

We visited miniature world first where there was an hours walk worth of little villages and settings of WWII and the American civil war and fairy tale books and famous castles and everything!

The details were amazing. So much time and effort had gone into making these little villages.

Jack and the bean stalk:

Then we went for coffee after the miniature world and a bit of shopping! Didn't buy anything but we discovered our totem animals! I'm a bear and Monica is a snake haha, I Defs got the better one hehe😋

Next we moved onto a tour of BCs Parliament building. What a fantastic building! The architect lied his way into getting the job saying he had done heaps of massive buildings when really it was his first and he was English not Canadian! Liar! But his work is amazing and he went on to make several other buildings in the area including the empress hotel (which is GORGEOUS!)

This is British Columbia's suit of arms. The Latin means "splendour without diminishment" which completely speaks to my provinces everlasting beauty. The stag represents the Vancouver islands and the big horn sheep are the rest of the BC colonies which joined together under the crown (the lion over the crown represents England) then the shield itself has white and blue stripes which show the borders to either side of BC - the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. And there's a setting sun because BC is the western most province and is the last to see the sunset in Canada. The flowers are the dogwood flowers which is BCs provincial flower! I found it so interesting to learn of the crest for BC! (Best province in Canada!)

The window above has genuine Jade stone embedded within the glass. Jade stone is BCs provincial stone! No idea that NZ and BC shared that stone :) that's pretty cool!

This stained glass window was first put in the building in 1800's then removed during a remodelling and placed in the basement where it was lost for 67 years! I thought that was really funny!

It was a miserable day weatherise but man today was awesome I loved learning so much of my province!

Parliament building at night time!

Such a stunning building!

There was this flash party happening it was soooooo cool! Monica and I joined for a few stops! 

I thought it was pretty hilarious for a crowd this size drew a dozen police officers haha oh Canada, you guys are funny. The officers just watched from a super far distance and hung out really, I love Canada!

This guy seemed to be the leader of the flash dance party!

You can see the gorgeous empress hotel back there.

To finish off the day we went to the hotel bar and played some pool (which I won my very first game ever!)