Butchart Gardens

Jack, Mana and their 2.5+ year old daughter, Lindsey, came to visit us last weekend. I got to see the Butchart gardens for the first time. It was beautiful and very well maintained. I realized later that with all the plants and trees around, I didn't see a single fallen leaf or flower rotting on the ground or pathways. They were being picked up or cleaned even before they begin to fade and fall off the branches. Given the vast land area, that was not a small feat.

Seing the potted pots of assorted flowers in the rose garden, I began to percolate a dream of owning a similar potted garden somewhere in my future, with those round flower collections hanging on arched trellises and a wishing fountain at the side that would make me feel like I'm transported to one of the scenes in Jane Austin's novels. Flowers do that to you I guess. They add some magic into an otherwise ordinary landscape or existence. With flowers, you became aware of beautiful possibilities.

Here are some pictures of my favorites: the sunken garden, fountain and japanese garden.

(I must admit that I was a teeny bit disappointed to find the japanese garden ponds lacking of koi's, which to me was a key thing of such a garden.)

Thank you Jack, Manna and Lindsey, for the most wonderful time!

Seeing Pink

It is unusual to see the color pink on the ground. I would never have thought it to be naturally associated with the colors of the ground but I was mistaken.

Julia's Paintings at 3 years old

Julia just turned three last April and together with it came both subtle and not so subtle changes in her. One of them can be seen in her paintings. Her one color lines, circles and curves have evolved to multicolor spirals and rainbows. She also now begins to fill the whole page instead of just painting lines and shapes. A year makes a lot of difference when you are a child.

Losing My Religion

I have found myself developing an odd behavior these days. I am sneaking in a bag of McDonalds breakdfast meal (egg mcmuffin with hash brown) in our office, as a thief would sneak in a bag of crown jewels and eating it on my desk like a fugitive. It never had occurred to me till within the past months that a majority of Canadians are very health conscious. If there was a major religion in Canada, as we have Roman Catholicism back home, it would be the religion of Healthy Living. I have never seen so many products labeled 0 trans fat on the shelves before, raw broccoli, celery and green peppers eaten like chips and such ardent followers to the cause. Eating a Mcdonalds breakfast meal is to most Canadians, THE most grievous sin on earth imaginable, that definitely buys me a fast train ticket to hell.

The first few times some of my co-workers have seen me eating the obnoxious thing, they had politely asked - Oh, you are eating Mcdonalds? (with barely hidden disdain on their face). When they found out that subtle messages didn't work, they finally just told me up front that I would die a most painful death by eating McDonalds meals. It has too much salt, too much chemicals, too much preservatives, too much fat, that if I don't "repent and change my ways", I will not only be eating McDonalds in hell but will slowly be an outcast here on earth - specifically in Victoria and more specifically, in our office.

I don't even like McDonalds. I buy it because it is the most convenient stop open at early mornings on my way to work after dropping Julia off her daycare (an activity which usually leaves me starving). And I don't even like it when I was back home either, where home is a country of McDonald outlets and McDonalds-like fastfoods (Jollibee) are found in every few blocks in the main cities and you would have been a serious outcast yourself it you haven't eaten one of those kind of meals at least twice a week. I don’t even like eating a bun for breakfast and I don't like their coffee much. So why am I risking a lifetime of hell and continue to suffer in sneaking it slowly into my desk, careful not to make the distinctive crunching sound that their recyclable paper bags make, keeping it hidden in my bag while I slowly nip pieces off when nobody is looking and praying that the smell would make it's shortcut way to the open window?

I could say that it may be because of the convenience of having the place being located on my way to work at the time when I am starving or perhaps because of the cheap price. But I guess as I pondered on it, I realized that what keeps me going back and committing the most grievous sin in Canada, is mainly because McDonalds is the only common thing between this new strange country and my own country that is home. I haven't seen any Filipino restaurants here (except for the bayanihan center which serves food during Sundays and which doesn’t look anything like any Filipino restaurant I have been to) in the year that we have since moved here. And even though I don't miss home as much as my husband does and their Mcdonald's food here is different (they have buns instead of rice) and the staff look different, the feeling of eating a cheap breakfast meal at McDonalds here still in some odd way elicit similar feelings that had gone through me while eating every single McDonald (and Jollibee) meal back home - which may have been hundreds of times by now. When nothing else around me is familiar, I find myself hanging on to the most unlikely habit which even I didn’t realize I had. And I am not sure if I am willing to let it go just yet - not even for all the years that I gain through eating more healthier foods. I think that the day that I give up fastfoods and solely eat the greens, 0 trans fat, low salt, and organic foods, would be the day that I loose my "religion" and can be called a Canadian.