Friday 30 November 2012

The Shedd Aquarium

My latest Chicago City Pass destination was the Shedd Aquarium. It was quite a fun experience, made slightly bizarre by the very very tacky aquatic show. Ever since I watched The Cove, I've become averse to the idea of water parks and dolphin shows. So this was actually my first aquatic show - watching highly intelligent enslaved sea creatures perform for the pleasure of humans -  unless I saw one in my childhood but can't seem to remember anything in particular. The show turned out to be less about the dolphins and beluga whales but more about Christmas. I can't tell you how cheap it was with the x-mas decorations, the stupid trio of singers singing "Let it Snow, Let it Snow," Santa's voice screeching over loud speakers over the water, and Frosty the Snowman. If I was so annoyed with the noise, what were our ocean friends going through? There was something truly kitsch about it. 

Moving along, the aquarium was quite fun to walk around in, see the various fish, the frogs, the jellies and coral reef. 

One of my favourite bits was seeing an 80-year old lungfish! Granddad was brought from Sydney for the Chicago World Fair in 1933! 

I also got a great view of the Chicago skyline. 

And lastly, I bought one of those pictures of myself that the photographer took at the entrance. 























Illustrated Truth: Part 3

With the Israeli aggression once again in the news followed by Palestine's inclusion into the United Nations as a non-member observer status, there's lots of exciting new messages being shared on Facebook. 

Doesn't it feel like these messages are like grafitti for Facebook?

On Israeli Aggression and Palestine's welcome into the UN:













Witty wisdom:





Goody-two-shoes wisdom:





General political messages:











Famous people quotes:






General humour: