In just one short week we will finally be on our way to Thailand. This trip is all about elephants, and we'll be spending our time volunteering at two different sanctuaries where captive elephants rescued from lives filled with hard labor and mental and physical abuse have an opportunity to spend their days in as natural a state as possible.
In April 2012 I wrote a post about the harassment and raids at two highly respected animal sanctuaries in Thailand, Elephant Nature Park and Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand. With less than a month to go before we embark on our adventure to to the country, I wanted to write a follow-up post to unravel what has proven to be a very convoluted sequence of events and find out whatever became of the confiscated animals and the criminal charges.
"Africa is Africa because of the animals there. But we can no longer take their presence for granted. At this rate, within the next twenty years, they will be gone. Imagine a world where very soon, these animals can only be seen in the sad, drab confines of a zoo."
"Language bearers, photographers, diary makers, you with your memory are dead, frozen, lost in a present that never stops passing. Here lives the incantation of matter, a language forever. Like a flame burning away the darkness, life is flesh on bone convulsing above the ground."
Like many of the world's fine metropolises, Vancouver is an immensely walkable city and one best explored leisurely on foot.
"The wilderness is a really simple place. It is about survival, life, death, and birth. It is about living in the present! Humans have created so many façades that we live behind. We have made life complicated to the point where we have lost touch of why we are here. We are so set on planning for the future, or reliving the sorrows and misfortunes of our past, that we forget to enjoy the 'now.'" -Adam Bannister
Just a couple of weeks ago we were sitting on the front porch of Willows Inn, drinks in hand, gazing out over the shimmering Salish Sea on a warm, sunny afternoon and waiting to enjoy what The New York Times claimed was one of the ten restaurants in the world worth a plane ride to dine at.
With summer finally here I thought I'd give a shout out to some of my favorite dining experiences of the past few months that didn't get a dedicated post. If you haven't been to these six restaurants, put them on your summer to-eat list
“I would say that volunteering and seeing the world can be so eye opening and life changing if you allow it to be. You need to always keep an open mind and put in the time and effort to meet new people and become close with them because that is how your views change and you start to see things in a different way.” -Emma Yuh Coleman
At seventy-one years old, Shiro works just three nights a week. One of those was a recent Friday when, for my birthday dinner, Craig and I dutifully lined up forty-five minutes prior to opening and breathed a sigh of relief when we realized we'd get two of the eleven seats at the sushi bar.
kimpluscraig.com
