Saturday, August 16, 2008

Saskatchewan is not all flat (Regina)

I just spent a day in Regina, arriving on an overnight bus and leaving on another overnight bus. If I had thought that Thunder Bay reminded me of Edmonton in appearance, Regina jolted me into remembering what Edmonton looks like. The residential lay-out is the same: close together houses of concrete-like stuff with high stoops, no driveway in front but off the back alleys - single lane streets that run behind the houses, so that the back yards are large and long.

I got to the bus station and looked around for the tourist info that one can usually find, and there was absolutely nothing. My guidebook indicated to me that there wasn't any tourist office in the downtown (it's an old guidebook), and I couldn't find one. It's like Regina doesn't want tourists.

I headed to Wascana part, quite pretty, and then to the Royal Saskatechewan Musuem when it opened where I was greeted by a lady so enthusiastic about teh museum I couldn't help feeling it as well. It was a really cool museum though, with exhibits that had just the right amount of reading to supplement the otherwise visual exhibits. There were diorama of all Saskatchewan's ecosystems (I learned that the prairie part is just in the very south) that were so well done I could imagine I was in amongst the landscape viewing the plants and animals myself.

Afterward I tried to walk out to the Mountie museum, and was thwarted by fenced off highways and then a fence off, unsigned compound when I got near. My foot was so sore by then (I hurt it somehow in Winnipeg) and I was so hot that I just caught a bus back to the downtown and spent the rest of my time there reading in Victoria Park (that lady got around).

Again, unedited photos in My Photos 2

No comments: