Grindstone Cafe

Regular visitors here will know that I like to see murals on our buildings rather than ads or blank walls and here's another that I have not featured before though I see it several times a week. It's on the walls of the Grindstone Cafe on the corner of Herald and Store Streets in Victoria's old town. The artist is Mario Labonte.

Dragon Alley

Fan Tan Alley (yesterday's post) is only one of Chinatown's two exceedingly narrow passages. Across the street and down the block is another, Dragon Alley, that passes northward from Fisgard Street to Herald Street. We'll take a walk down Dragon Alley tomorrow.

Sue War Laundry

Here's some more ghost signs from Chinatown. The one above is on Herald Street and the clearest words I can make out are the "Sue War Laundry" which appears twice. Chinese laundries were so common in the old west that they have become a cliche. But though many Chinese may have come here as lowly laborers, they quickly moved into unoccupied niches in the business world (such as laundries) and within a few generations they had migrated into the professions as was the case in other parts of the world. While I was in Maui a few weeks ago I was interested to discover some parallels between Chinese who went there to work on the sugar plantations and Chinese who came here to work on the railroad or in the gold fields. BC was known to China as "The Golden Mountain" while Hawaii was called, "The Sandalwood Mountain."

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Fellow victoria blogger Mike Laplante has also collected some interesting local ghost signs you can see on his blog by clicking HERE.

Old Town

The sun does make periodic appearances here on the grey coast and it's nice to stroll around town and enjoy the history of Victoria. The top image is from Herald Street and the second one is (of course) lower Johnson Street. - Fern

Dragon Alley

Victoria's Chinatown has two narrow alleyways, Fan Tan Alley and Dragon Alley. Both have been restored. This is the Herald Street Entrance to Dragon Alley. A hundred years ago this alley led into an internal maze of small courtyards where brothels, opium factories, and gambling dens were located. Now there are some shops and condos but the atmosphere of an enclosed and foreign space is well preserved.

Welcome to Samarkand!

This exotic looking skyscape is actually on Victoria's Herald Street, just off Douglas Street, downtown. I don't know what this building originally was - I suspect it was an Indian Restaurant, but it now is the office of a youth program. The photo below shows the building in context and exposes a little bit more of Victoria's downtown.The skyhook visible on the top right is being used to rebuild The Hudson, subject of an earlier post.

Skyscaper

Victoria doesn't have any really tall buildings - only a few over 20 stories. This building at the corner of Douglas and Herald Streets is not the tallest but it has a mysterious monolithic appeal.