Happy Birthday to my father David on this day as well as a Happy Anniversary to my big brother Dennis and his wife Susan.
After a lovely breakfast at our hotel overlooking English Bay, we headed out on the sea wall into Stanley Park for a 2.5-mile round trip walk. The weather has been spectacular with plenty of sunshine and temperatures up to about 65 degrees. It has been raining here for weeks but we brought some San Diego sunshine with us.
This morning our friend Bryan took us out to the University of British Columbia (UBC) to visit the museum of Anthropology. The Museum of Anthropology is a collection of world arts with a special emphasis on the First Nations peoples and other cultural communities of British Columbia. The museum was designed by architect Arthur Erickson with cedar post and beam construction found in traditional Northwest Coast Aboriginal Villages. Built on a steep promontory overlooking the ocean, a great hall includes massive First Nations sculptures. Unfortunately, this large main gallery was undergoing seismic retrofit and was temporarily closed. Many smaller galleries include exhibits from First Nations communities of Pacific Islanders, Africans, Asians and Latin Americans. The museum is a public research and teaching facility with one of the most advanced and comprehensive research infrastructures of any museum in North America. Included are state-of-the-art conservation and research laboratories, audio visual and oral history studios, library and archives, as well as modern storage facilities. This modern facility allows works to be preserved, researched and interpreted.
The collections at the museum not only consisted of Canadian First Nation artifacts but there are other collections from many cultures around the world. On the day we visited, there was a temporary exhibit of Latin art with a very diverse look at their people and culture.
After our museum visit we met up with friend Ken Kwong for a wonderful dim sum lunch at a restaurant called the Golden Ocean Seafood. We sat at a large round table with a lazy Susan and the servers brought baskets and dishes of assorted food. Most dishes consisted of four pieces of items like stuffed rice balls, fried taro root balls, meat balls, and desert pastries. Everything was very tasty and we enjoyed catching up with Ken.
After lunch, Ken took us on a driving tour in his Mercedes convertible. We visited various parts of the city and enjoyed driving through the UBC campus.
For dinner we took a short walk to a quick serve Greek restaurant for a light bite to eat. As this weekend is a long weekend for Victoria Day here in Canada it was very busy on the streets. The streets were busy with cars all afternoon and the streets were filled with people in the evening.