Vancouver Island is definitely NOT like the rolling English countryside

... as they claim. There's bears for one, which I don't see a lot of in Kent. You might have the occasional badger, but an irate grizzly (they're always irate apparently) would definitely be out of place in Westerham.

And everything looks too LOW. I've spent too much time in London, I realise that, but I thought we were still in some out-of-town shopping centre suburb when the bus pulled into the throbbing, beating heart of Downtown Victoria. Talk about a high degree of fake, as Ellie puts it. Clapboard over concrete seems to be the standard building type here. But the other thing is the proportion seems all wrong. Because everything has enough space here, too much in fact, and buildings aren't piled on top of one another, they haven't been forced UP enough. Everything's on its own plot, 40 yards back from the road, disconnected to anything else around it. But they love big, so they go out side ways and back... but not up. So all the buildings are long smudges, and you get the feeling everythign is too... squat.