Victoria did not put on any fireworks to celebrate the new year. It’s the capital of BC, and is a strong tourist spot, and you would think these things alone would prompt the city to put on a fireworks show for first night. The city said there was dwindling enthusiasm for fireworks on new years eve, but I don’t buy it. What about the families with young children and tourists from the states who come up here to visit their families over the winter holidays? Last year, in Edmonton, it was something like -40C, and yet there were people in Churchill Square, and hot chocolate vendors and people selling 2009 flashing glasses, and they still had a fireworks display and music. It is much much warmer than Edmonton here, so I find it a stretch to believe people don’t want to “stand around in the cold” to watch a fireworks show to ring in the new year. I think the city was just too apathetic. I think it was a bad decision to treat new year’s eve like just any other ordinary day, because it isn’t. It should be celebrated, people should make some effort and dress up and put on a fireworks display that everyone can enjoy. And if they feel there’s dwindling interest they should step up and promote it, put some fliers around like they did for Christmas. (The downtown core was offering free horse-drawn trolley rides and free street-car rides, and several pre-Christmas events, and they put out a brochure to advertise it.)

Dev and I dressed up anyway, and went down to the beach for a quiet wander. There was a group on the beach that had bought some fireworks, and they shot them over the water, so we did get to see some little festivities after all. Mostly they were the coloured single ball kind, but one they set off was a crackling zinging sparkling rain.

We also saw Seattle’s fireworks display too, across the water. (Pretty good display actually, in miniature above their city.)

Dev had his first smoke of the new year, and we came home and toasted it in with wine.

Not a bad start to bring in the new year, despite the city’s lack of joy and illuminations. I still get to say I was on a beach for New Year’s, not in freezing snowy minus forty.

First day of the new year started out clear and fresh and mild, a balmy 10 degrees. Went for a wander downtown, taking pictures, and it started to rain heavily, but that was ok. I saw some Morris Dancing at Bastion Square. It was colourful and musical and as well as the dancers there was a man dressed as a horse with flashing mirror eyes, and a man who looked like a holly bush slash mossy stone. It was a fun way to start the new year off, tho I hear they are supposed to wear clogs instead of normal shoes, and bells on their toes too.

We went out for coffee tonight, as we did not have time to get downtown for the fireworks. As we were walking I noticed that you could clearly see the lit up dome of the legislature grounds. Once again, we were shocked to relearn how condensed the Victoria area really is. Because of this, we actually got to see the fireworks, vibrantly on the horizon.

This brought up the concept of perception; more specifically the concept of how we see differently. For example, when I look at the fireworks going off, I see the shapes of the fireworks before seeing the colour. I could see these faint smoke-trails that started eating at the negative spaces of the sky. Because of this, I knew how the burst would look well before the colours were there.

This was in direct contrast to how Kate saw the same burst. She could not see those trails without conscious effort. The colours were the first thing she noticed, and that was from the center out. I saw from the edge of the burst into the centre.

Perception is an interesting concept that we have been exploring as of late, odds are there will be more on perception as the days go by.