Pretty much got the place to myself. Something about recent riots and current huge-gun-toting men in combat fatigues everywhere seems to have taken most people’s minds off of the planet’s marine life. (Pun about marines goes here.) So it’s just the dark massive sharks (housed on the evil creepy lowest level of the place, with menacing music piped in) and ol’ UD.
UD will make the obligatory travel snob statement here, since she can’t resist: Having visited the Sydney Aquarium, where the sharks are under, over, and around you in even greater profusion, she was thrilled but not peeing her pants at this display. More wonderful have been the profuse reefs, which remind UD that it’s been years since she’s snorkeled, and she misses it.
Without crowds (with nobody, basically – a few stragglers like myself), you can really hear all the hokey recorded animal sounds, and that’s fun too.
One of the guards escorted me up into the rain forest (I was today’s first customer) and insisted on showing me where the tamarin monkeys (reminded UD of the ill-fated Marc Hauser) hid in the mornings. Bird life up there is even more impressive than bird life in UD‘s own half acre.
March 9th, 2022 at 11:13AM
[…] UD‘s wild and crazy city. Last time UD visited the city of her birth there had just been a big riot. Inner Harbor, once a real draw, has apparently all but collapsed. Hotels are […]