People never seem to want to hang out at animal habitats. If they can’t see something immediately, they just leave. If you’re patient enough to stay, sometimes incredibly magical experiences happen. Like this one.
Those are California condors. Biggest wingspan in North America, incredibly endangered, and the only species with approval from USDA for emergency use of the poultry avian flu vaccine.
Towards the end of the day, once things got quiet, I sat down near where one was foraging and just hung out. Then… they noticed me.
I can only upload one video so I’m going with the one where I was showing them my glasses, since they kept trying to peck at my shoelaces and fingers and I wondered what else they'd be interested in.
They stayed there with me for at least five minutes, given the duration of video I took. Just chilling, watching me, interacting a little. It was just us - nobody else approached. Until eventually they chose to go do their own thing, and I sat there in awe for a while.
Japan, I can’t believe I will be there in half a year. I am so excited! We are going on a group trip, so many things will already be pre-planned, but there is always a little bit room for free time, and there is so much to see in Japan. I just wanted to make a little list of stuff I really want to see in Japan, and I might not be able to experience it all, but if I could, that would be awesome:…
Mark Ruffalo was in my store today. (I work at a jewelry store in NYC). He was totally cool looking, rocking it incognito. I couldn’t go up and talk to him because I was too busy losing my shit and I didn’t want to be a spaz or be rude, fangirling while he’s trying to shop.
Anyway markruffalo, thanks for stopping and supporting the store. Hope you enjoy the Tibetan crystal skull.
I don’t know if this is some Canadian stereotype (I am often reminded that it is by my aussie friends), that began thanks to ‘How I Met Your Mother’.
Well, it isn’t. Canadians are very brave, fearless souls…who also happen to know what can be lurking in the wild.
But my own fear began a little later in life:
I remember I used to love the dark, as a child, we used to vacation on the islands off the coast of Vancouver and I would relish going to bed at night…seeing the millions of stars, and snuggling into my bed like a cocoon cause it was so dark you can barely make out your own hand in front of your face.
Well I believe that all changed the moment after I saw my first horror movie (a traumatic event, see here). After that, the dark meant that I would probably be haunted by some supernatural presence that WOULD eventually kill me.
So today, I confronted that fear. I stared it straight in the eye, and I shared a meal with it. Today, I dined in the dark.
Now if this sounds mysterious, let me clear it up a little. Dark Table in Vancouver is actually a restaurant that serves all its meals in complete darkness. A novel idea to ignite the senses and a way to understand how eating is like for someone that may be blind, as Dark Table only employs servers who are either blind or visually impaired.
Getting to the restaurant, we were excited and nervous for this experience. After we ordered outside, we were led into the pitch dark dining room by our server… conga line style. It was actually impossible to see anything at all (there went my illusions that it might simply be ‘dimly lit’).
Nope, if you held your finger right in front of your nose you STILL couldn’t make it out.
But oddly enough, there was no fear, and there was no discomfort. Instead, I felt a certain sense of calm that often only comes during certain poses during yoga class – a surrendering of the senses to the immediate moment and everything around you.
You became acutely aware of the conversations around you, which were just like any other normal restaurant conversations, the clinking of glasses and the shuffling of people.
As our food came, it was a delight to the senses. Our appetizer and dessert were both ‘surprises’, and delightful surprises they were!
(We guessed) a mushroom appetizer stuffed with savory cheese and sunflower seeds, I had a prawn risotto and for dessert… cheesecake!
Throughout the meal, I also felt like our conversation became more thoughtful and introspective…it seemed that with the darkness, there was an unraveling of barriers and everything we wanted to say came out easily and naturally.
Opening up to the darkness allowed me to open up to myself as well as those close to me, and not only was it not scary, it felt right – like by simply accepting the dark we were accepting ourselves as we were.
I would highly recommend anyone and everyone to visit an experience like Dark Table, it was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had and if anything, the meal was frigging delicious.
