October 2008

A Trip to Vancouver Island

Helen and I frequently see mushrooms while hiking, but we have no idea what we are looking at. Helen found a course at The Aerie on Vancouver Island to help you identify edible mushrooms. We booked a spot!

We were wisked away to a secret location and Brother Michael (our guide) walked us into the forest to find some spots that he knew to be productive. As we spotted mushrooms, he pointed out what they were (or poisionus if he didn't know). We found two different types of chanterelles, as well as many lobster mushrooms.

The mushrooms we looked for are quite distinct. The Chanterelles have gills that go down their stalk and the top is not cup shaped. The stalk is firm and the mushroom isn't wormy. Lobster mushrooms are also quite distinct - covered in red all over.

The majority of mushrooms we saw were poisious. We went on this course to learn because getting mushrooms right is so hard.

After a realitivly brief hunt (perhaps 2 hours) we returned with our buckets of mushrooms. The mushrroms were sorted for quality and the kitchen at the resort cleaned up results and packaged them in take away boxes. We had our mushrooms in a nice pasta - yummie!

Parade of Lost Souls

I went last year when Helen was in Hong Kong. This year she wanted to go too. The event is put on the public dreams society and takes over a few blocks of Comercial drive and the surrounding area. We called some friends to try and get a larger group to go and headed off!

We parked and walked into the crazy zone. There are so many different things to see! Some of the houses are decorated, either in a parade of lost souls sense (celibrating family, both gone and here) or in a halloween sense. People are walking around in costumes (my second year without a costume - I really should work on it). At several points there are activities organized by the society.

One of my favorite events is the fire demonstrations. This years event was much larger than last years. Last years was on the field by the school - this years was done in the tenis courts with a chain link fence to keep people back.

The fire skipping ropes were a definite crowd favorite. The hulla hoops on fire were pretty cool too.

I had a bit more fun this year with costumes. The block of comerical right in front of grandview park is a common place for people to strut their stuff and pose for photographers. The best costumes were the ones that were clever, but so many people put so much effort into it that it was hard to pick favorites.

Last year it was raining a little, but still busy. This year it was clear (but cold) and the place was a zoo. It was fun to do, and definitly worth returning too, perhaps in costume.

Halloween Night

There aren't a lot of trick or treaters in a Condo - everyone seems to run to houses. We spent the night watching a scary movie and listening to the near constant pop of fireworks going off around. I walked out onto the deck and noticed everywhere you look, you could see mini-fireworks shows. It's impressive how much money was going up in flames every second. I tried to take a few pictures, but fireworks you can buy aren't on the same scale as the ones used by the professional shows.