Dawn Rising Sun

The Ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles is occupied by Black Ball Ferry and they only depart four times a day, therefore we reserved our ticket online before departure to avoid crowd and unavailability of ticket on the day, there is an additional $11 for reservation fee and it costs about $75 for a vihicle and two adult on board. Due to this is cross border between Canada and US, we needed to arrive 1.5 hours earlier than departure time for custom and immigration checking. Duration of ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles is about 1.5 hours long, we still think the ferry facility from Vancouver to Vancouver Island is better and comfortable :) After arrival to Port Angeles, we took 4.5 hours of driving from Port Angeles to our apartment in Oregon, this can be considered a long journey to us. Ferry detail: http://cohoferry.com/main/

Out of Victoria Downtown, there are still some interesting attractions, some are still accessable by foot, but some you still need a car, however distance would make you feel tired if you walk there. Three are two attractions near to Rockland area, Goverment House and Craigdarroch Castle, they both have stunning building and beautiful garden, which just like a huge mansion. Well, we were walking to these two locations, so that we were quite tired, then I kept taking pictures when SL was taking break at bench :) The Government House is quite big to me and I like the garden as roses are blooming there. However Craigdarroch Castle wasn't as I expected though it still look like a castle in fairy tale, just it look too new to me. On the last day of our trip, we chose to travel by car for saving parking fee in downtown and so that we can travel somewhere further in Victoria. At the morning, we headed to Hatley Park, which is Royal Roads University as well, there we could find a castle st...

Victoria is a city located at Vancouver Island, I think no much people know how big the Vancouver Island is, but many know Victoria is a beautiful Harbour, my trip to Vancouver will not complete without visiting to Victoria. From many friend's mouth, Victoria impressed them more than Vancouver, it's true after I went to Inner Harbour, there is really beautiful and just like a Europe style town which accomodate Fairmont Empress Hotel and Parliment Building. During Sunday morning, SL and I decided to spend our time to walk around Victoria Downtown because parking was free on Sunday, so that we didn't need to worry to park our car on street. As our hostel is just at the city center of Victoria, therefore we didn't find hard to walk to attractions by foot, for sure we were walking for the whole day. First of all, we proceeded to City Hall and Chinatown area where was having public market, somehow I like to see something like this to know more their cultural. The Bay Center ...

When SL was attending to visa interview at Canada consulate, I just grabbed some tourism information about Vancouver Island outside of the office for reading, and I found that The Butchart Gardens would perform firework every Saturday night throughout this Summer (from July to August), coincidently our plan was landing to Vancouver Island at Saturday, therefore we decided to visit The Butchart Gardens on our first arrival day to witness the firework event. Well, I think this is a good plan because we would save some time on travelling because we would arrive at Swartz Bay of North corner and Victoria is located at south corner, meanwhile The Burtchart Gardens is actually at the half way from Swartz Bay to Victoria. Due to Saturday Firework, admission fee of Saturday is the most expensive compare with other day, there we paid about $64 for two adults admission. The Butchart Gardens, a garden which bloom for over 100 years, it is an artwork started by Jeniffer Butchart. Inside The Butcha...

Across the sea to south of Vancouver, there Vancouver Island is and Victoria is one of the city in Vancouver Island. Legendary from some of my friends, Victoria is a place worth to visit more than Vancouver mainland, therefore we decided to stay a day longer in Victoria. From Vancouver mainland, we need to get to Tsawwassen ferry terminal for 1.5 hours tour to Swartz Bay at Vancouver Island. Without too much worry about availabity of ferry, because it sheduled departure for almost every hour and we successfully boarded to ferry while we arrived to terminal about 15 minutes earlier. The total charge for us was around $75, which included a car and two adults, we were so excited because it was our first sail in America continental. Though we paid the expensive ticket for ferry, I still felt it was worth for it becuase I really enjoyed facilities on board as well as beautiful scenery on the sea, SL and I were walking in and out of the deck for some view seeing and wandering among the facil...

Since we had a car with us during our Vancouver trip, then we just decided to take a half day to go to further area, other than downtown and Stanley Park, of course it was a route that brought us to Vancouver's Tsawwassen ferry terminal. When we were heading to Beach Avenue and Sunset Beach for some beach view and Vancouver's Winter Olympic Inukshuk, we found there is a park with lot of bronze statues, they all are laughing happily with a lot of different poses, it is "Amazing Laughters" an art work from a Chinese. Then we just crossed the bridge to another side of Vancouver, the Vanier Park is a place for people to relax themselves with H.R MacMillan Space Center as the attraction of the Park, well we also walked along the Park for our relaxing walk. There are some special attractions in Venier Park, like Gateway to Pacific Northwest, Heritage Harbour, Vancouver Museum, Vancouver Maritime Museum, etc. There visitors can spend a day for their tour if you have enough t...

We decided only spent a night stayed in Vancouver as we got some comments from friends that the Island is more interesting than mainland itself. For visiting in Vancouver downtown, we just accessed to everywhere by foot because all attractions there were quite close to each others. In the downtown, there is a public library with special architecture like a coleseum of Rome, it was huge and beautiful and we were stopped by for some view seeing. Besides, you could find a steam clock at Gastown, which is operated by steam and I just couldn't imagine how can it works that accurately. When I stood beside it, I just felt it like a heater and kept myself warm. The clock would whistle every 4.5 minutes though at a short moment, it was still quite interesting. Of course, we didn't miss to take some photo of Gassy Jack's statue, he is the pioneer of Gastown and the town is named after him. When walking along the waterfront area, then we could see Canada Place just right sitting over ...

Just as World Cup ended at four years ago, then our relationship started, yes this years marked off a four years milestone of my relationship with SL. It was a tough year for us in 2009 because we needed to bear a lot of seperation periods, still we managed to get together finally for our anniversary celebration, it was our memorable period that I don't think we could forget it forever, of course it is our hot topic of this year. For memorise our suffering 2009, we decided to have dinner again to Saburo Sushi House this year, but we are happy mode now and we wished to overwrite last year. Yummy yummy, I was really happy this year, we really spent some quality time together for dinner and walking in Westmoreland Park later. Honestly, I always felt insecured on relationship but SL always makes me felt confident that we really can live happy ever after like fairy tale. Some relationships do last forever, I wish that we can have one and we can hold the hand together continue our journe...

For time efficiency use in our West Canada trip, we decided to visit to Stanley Park as our first venue because it is at north of Vancouver, which we couldn’t reach by foot. Admission to Stanley Park actually is almost free, except you want to visit for some exhibition area, and we only decided to drive around the park and stop at some viewpoint for a walk and photo captured. Though access to park is free, we need to pay for parking in the Park, it is CA2.50 an hour or CA10 for the whole day, we only paid at hourly base as we didn’t know if we could spend more than four hours in Stanley Park. Totally, we spent about 2 hours in the Park, however I think people can really spend more hours in there if you really look for relaxing day trip, like take a walk around the park, do some hiking, having picnic, sightseeing, so on so forth. Stanley Park is quite a big park for about 1000 acres, of course we couldn’t fully cover the whole park in two hours, so we only chose some interesting and eas...

Finally, it was another holiday in US, it's Independence Day on 4th of July, and of course we couldn't miss it and planned our West Canada trip to Vancouver and Victoria. Before entering Canada, we would need to have a visa so that we applied for a day leave on Friday for this purpose. On 2nd of July, we woke up in early morning and headed to Canada Immigration Office in Seattle for Canada visa application to make sure we could arrive to the office before it’s opened at eight o’clock. We were arrived to Century Square of Seattle about half pass seven and there were a lot of people waiting at ground floor already, we felt lucky that we went early to avoid even more crowd at later time. Due to 1st of July is Canada’s holiday and 4th of July is US’s holiday, therefore 2nd of July was an extremely busy day for Immigration Office and only the applicant allowed waiting in the room, then I just left the office to wait for SL. In the meanwhile, I grabbed some tourism information bookle...