The Butchart Gardens

The Butchart Gardens is one of the world’s premier floral show gardens and we are so fortunate to have it located in Victoria, BC of Canada. The landscape established in 1904. Many features in this garden have breath taking view and magnificent landscapes; including Sunken Garden, Japanese Garden created in 1908, Italian Garden created in their former tennis courts and the Rose Gardens replaced a larger kitchen vegetable patch in 1929. The public area of Butchart Gardens covers 22ha (55 acres).The Butchart Gardens remains a family business and has been very successful since. It becomes one of Victoria most famous tourist attractions.

Each year over 1,000,000 bedding plants in some 700 varieties are used throughout the gardens. Different season, the tourist offered a full bloom of beautiful flower plantation. In spring, the perfumes of tulips, daffodils fragranced throughout the gardens. During the peak of the summer’s season, we will see flower such as; Acanthus, Amaranths, Roses, Dahlia, Fuchsia, Germania, Hydrangea - just to name a few. In winter, we will see berries type flowers such as; Cotoneaster, Holly, Pansy and occasional Bellies (English Daisy). Close to a million people visited the garden each year from all across the world.

Firework entertainment is offered to the tourists every Saturday night during the summer between July and August. People would just visit the garden just for the magnificent firework entrainment and it has becomes famous. Between the month of December and January, a phenomenal display of colored lights and decorations with an outdoor ice skating rink. Christmas light-up ceremony starts in December 01 of each year. Ten thousands of lights and decorations spark up the entire gardens which created a Christmas spirit atmosphere.

Butchart Gardens open every day of the year from 9:00am-9:00pm except on Christmas day, they open at 1:00pm. Admission rate rank: adult (18+) from $16.00-$29.00, youth (13-17) from $8.00-$14.50 and child (5-12) from $1.90-$3.00. I would recommend this tourist attraction to anyone who visited Victoria. It’s definitely an eye opening experience of a life time.

Seafood Noodle Soup (Bun Rieu)

My son doesn’t like to eat the traditional Chinese dinner with rice and three courses meal. So I decided to cook something really light and yet it's not filling for dinner. Its cold out and we need something that is warm and tasty. Seafood noodle soup fit perfectly for this occasion.

 This soup noodle is very easy to make and take no time. One pot of soup fills with all the ingredients and with another pot to boil the noodles. The time to create this dinner approximately 1 hour and the serving is adjustable to however many people

Ingredients:  (serving for 3)

1 egg

1 can of crab/shrimp paste

4 large tomatoes

1 bag of fish tofu

2 garlic cloves (minced)

1 small onion (diced)

1 bag of dry noodle (thin noodle type)

1 tbsp of fish sauce

1 tsp of salt

3 scallion of green onion

4 cups of water

1 lbs of pork neck bone

Cooking instruction:

Bring the pork neck bone to boil in 4 cups of water. Pan fried the garlic, onion, fish tofu and tomatoes on a separately pan. Put all spices. Cook it for 15 minutes until tomatoes become all soggy. Mixed them with the boiling soup stock and cook it together for 45 minutes. In a separate bowl, mix an egg to the crab/shrimp paste together. Wait until the soup is almost ready (approx. 45 minutes later); put the crab/shrimp in the soup base. On a separate pot, bring the water to boil and put the dry noodle into the water.  Boil it until the noodle is softens then drain out the water in the sink. Place the noodles in a bowl and pour the soup over it. Finally, put some chopped green onion on top.  Wah-la! Dinner is served!