Images

Orcas

DSC_6265

In the ads and documentaries, whale watching looks like you go out on the boat on a beautiful day and watch the whales jump right next to the boat.

In reality, whale watching is cold and rainy, can make you motion sick, and the whales stay far away – mostly underwater.

Still worth doing, but it’s good to have realistic expectations.

Yellow Throated Marten

Yellow Throated Marten_4

A weird thing about visiting a lot of zoos is that they specialize in rare species. This is not a rare species. It’s all over Asia … but it’s the first one I’ve ever seen and I had to go to France to do it. I’ve seen tons (literally) of animals rarer than the yellow throated marten, but this was the coolest animal of the visit – because it was new to me and that doesn’t happen that much anymore.

Orangutan

Orangutan_3

Fabio* was airbrushed**

* For those of you who haven’t seen 40 yet, Fabio Lanzoni was a famous model in the 1980’s*** and 1990’s*** who only looked like this around the (bleached) hair.

** For those of you who haven’t seen 30 yet, airbrushing was an analog**** version of photoshop.

*** For those of you who haven’t seen 20 yet, I am talking about things that happened in the last century.

**** For those of you haven’t seen 10 yet, this means “in those ancient day before computers existed”.