Chinese New Year

What a beautiful spring day. No, wait. This is winter, for another four weeks it will be winter. And yet, children were to be seen wading in the tide today at Willows Beach. Willows Beach is one of my favourite places in Victoria. Technically, it's in Oak Bay, which has its own police force, fire department, council, etc. A sign at Foul Bay and Oak Bay tells me so. But if you write Victoria on the envelope it will still arrive at your Oak Bay address.

I have my favourite places in Victoria and Willows Beach is one of them. It even has its own urban village on Estevan Street, and a nice little village it is, too. The Village Deli has the best reuben I've had since I came to Victoria, and I am a big fan of that homely concoction. It also has one of the best hamburger and fish and chip places in town. I don't hold it against them that once in a while they have the 'gone fishin' shingle out when they're not supposed to.

I don't have a dog to take for walks. My little Canon does that, and at the end of a long walk with her, I like to replenish my bodily fluids at Swans, where the best beers in town are brewed. That's downtown but only a short walk from my home. The bus was crowded today. No offence to Spinnakers, their's are good, too. I have a little corner here I feel almost at home already, my back to the wall in good old fashioned prairie cowboy style.

Oh, yes, Chinese New Year. We have a little Chinatown in Victoria, one time den of iniquity where opium and gambling dens proliferated in the tunnels beneath the surface. Now it seems pretty tame, but who knows what goes on down there. Not too many Chinese live in Chinatown any more. It's more a white faux bohemian style of a place now.

But Victoria is kind of an arty place... at least its a place with an arty clique who like to talk the talk and try to copy the latest styles from Paris and New York before anybody else does.

And now it's time to bid my nonexistent readership good morrow. As the bard once said,

The weary sun hath made a golden set and by the bright path of his fiery car gives tokens of a goodly day tomorrow.