By Maryanna Gabriel
Continuing with the birthday theme, I made my way to Il Terrazzo, one of my favourite restaurants, the kind has old brick work, propane flame, and tasteful plantings. Being a country girl, I tried not to feel nervous about the approaching dark. This entailed a walk through the historic Bastian Square to the infamous Fan Tan Alley. The narrow alley used to house opium dens, gambling, and prostitutes, during the good old days when the gold rush brought settlers to the wild west. The alley is named after a gambling game that was illegal.
The story goes that people hear footsteps, turn, and noone is there. Author, Shannon Sinn, in his book The Hauntings of Vancouver Island, writes that it is the murderer, not the victim, who people report seeing. A prostitute named You Kum, used to sit in the window, and was said to have been very beautiful. She had a frequent visitor named Ah Heung. He proposed marriage to her twice. It was said she did want to marry him, but she was already married. The two often argued. One day, in a fit of jealousy, he flew into a brutal rage. He stood in Fan Tan Alley and when she leaned out her window, he severed her head with a long curved knife. He was jailed then condemned to hang, but before that could happen, all shaved and combed, he hung himself with a noose made from his own shirt. The ghost of an Asian man covered in blood revisits the grisly scene. People get into the most frightful muddles, don't they?
Looking over my shoulder anxiously, I arrived intact. The squid and shrimp in a rich passata over polenta was exquisite. I just about passed out eating a sumptuous slice of hazelnut cheesecake.
"It feels like my birthday," I said to my server.
"Every day at Il Terrazzo feels like a birthday," he replied.
I have to get off the island more often.
