Artist Mihoko Ogaki created a project entitled Milky Ways, in which she reflected her ideas about life, death and rebirth.
The project consists of sculptures shaped as figures of dying people,
projecting stars on the surrounding space. The sculptures are made of
plastic reinforced with carbon fiber.
The Ocean Dome, which was a part of the Sheraton Seagaia Resort, measures 300 meters in length and 100 meters in width,
sported a fake flame-spitting volcano, artificial sand, artificial palm
trees and the world’s largest retractable roof, which provided a
permanently blue sky even on a rainy day. The air temperature was always
held at around 30 degrees Celsius and the water at around 28. The
volcano becomes active every 15 minutes and spews fire every hour, and
incredible waves lashes the beach for surfers’ delight.
The beach can accommodate 10,000 tourists, and the kicker is that there’s an actual beach only 300 meters away.
Given the extreme depths to which scientists must go to find these frightful–and tiny–fish, little is known about the hatchetfish. Making top models around the world jealous, the morose-looking creatures derive their name from how razor-thin they are.
Anatomically speaking, the hatchetfish’s thorax is supposed to resemble the blade of the hatchet, and its cold, silver glint the metal. Their name is somewhat deceiving, though; measuring in at a mere one to five inches in length, the hatchetfish is hardly deadly. It’s just, well, pretty terrifying.
2.The Blobfish
More gelatinous than your grandma’s pudding, the blobfish’s strikingly jiggly appearance has captivated the attention of millions for the past several years. So striking is the mass with fins that just this year it was deemed the world’s ugliest animal. Life isn’t all that bad for this Oceania-dwelling creature, though. As the blobfish’s den is primarily near the bottom of the ocean, the water pressure is understandably high, causing the blobfish’s skin to have the approximate density of water.
You might think that lack of muscle tissue would prove disadvantageous, but you’d be wrong. All that means is that when it comes time to eat, the blobfish simply opens its mouth while floating merrily above the ocean’s floor. Its lack of density means that it doesn’t have to expend any energy in order to eat. Lazy chefs around the world, direct your ire to the blobfish.
3.The Fangtooth
Consider the fangtooth fish to be the underwater equivalent of a menacing pitbull with a heart of gold. Despite their threatening appearance, the fangtooth is incredibly benign–especially as its poor eyesight means that if it wants to hunt, the fangtooth quite literally has to bump into its prey in order to find it.
Its chompers certainly paint a different portrait, though: protruding from its mouth, in proportion to the fish the fangtooth has the largest teeth of any fish in the ocean. Good luck catching a glimpse of the sharp-mouthed animal: it resides as far as 16,400 feet beneath the sea.
4.The Sea Cucumber
These icky echinoderms certainly boggle the mind. Lacking a true brain and any semblance of sensory organs, the sea cucumber boasts about the same mental capacity as the food for which it is named. Nevertheless, the cuke serves as vital part of the oceanic ecosystem, as it recycles nutrients and breaks down detritus that comes its way.
Unlike the actual cucumber, the sea cuke’s collagen levels allow it to make some pretty kooky maneuvers: if the sea cucumber needs to wedge itself into a tiny crevice, the collagen will loosen and the sea cucumber will effectively liquify itself to seep into its desired locale.
5.The Goblin Shark
Deemed by some scientists as a “living fossil” and overshadowed by its flashy counterparts, the goblin shark leads a relatively mysterious existence deep below the ocean blue. The only extant survivor of a 125 million-year old family of sharks, the goblin is truly unique…and ugly. Apart from its most salient features (re: its long, flattened snout and protruding jaws), the goblin is relatively unremarkable.
Given its flabbiness, most scientists speculate that the goblin shark is sluggish and relatively inactive. It’s highly unlikely you’ll ever see a goblin shark in your lifetime; when one was brought to an aquarium in Japan, it died soon after.
6.The Flamingo Tongue Snail
Shell collectors of the world, be warned. Though the saturated snail you see above bears a striking “shell”, the vibrant patterns aren’t part of the shell itself but rather the mollusk’s living mantle tissue.
Located in the Atlantic and Caribbean waters, the flamingo tongue snail feeds on toxic sea fans and, like Bruce Willis in “Unbreakable”, suffers no harm. In fact, the cunning snail absorbs the venom and–to the chagrin of its potential predators–becomes toxic itself.
7.The Angler Fish
The angler fish is perhaps one of the most fascinating and bizarre sea creatures known to man. Not only known for their wily predation techniques (re: having a spine that grows its own fleshy mass that the angler can wiggle about so that it resembles prey, and then devouring its soon-to-be predators in one fell swoop) but also for its mating habits. When scientists first discovered the angler, they noticed that almost all of them were female… and that these specimens had what appeared to be some sort of parasitic growth attached to their lower parts.
Turns out that those “parasites” were actually just greatly reduced male angler fish, whose puny size renders their sole objective in life to finding and mating with a female. Once they do find a female partner, the male anglers quickly bite into the female’s skin and thus fuses them together. From this point on, the male’s life literally depends on its female host, as they share a circulatory system. When the female is ready to mate, he pays his dues by providing her with sperm on the spot.
… and oh, the falls. The beautiful nature
of almighty water displayed in the grandest of dramatic fashion. God
must have been truly inspired when he painted this masterpiece. Layers
upon layers, walls among walls of never-ending falling water.
I stood on the footbridge in the center of it all, mist wrapping around
me in a whirl and felt the freedom of letting go and floating away into
the fog of whiteness. It was a breathtaking romance, a real rapture between power and might, and breaths of teardrops. Iguassu Falls, when witnessed by Eleanor Roosevelt, caused her to say, “Poor Niagara!“…and I think that says it all.
The best view of the falls, however, is underneath the falls! A real river safari,
a true Brazilian adventure. We screamed, we laughed, we got totally
soaked and begged for more. There are these moments in life when you sit
back and say, “Am I really here right now?!” I knew when coming to
Brazil I was going to experience a lot of color, culture for sure, but oh, the COLOR. Such a welcome escape from the cold gray winter days back home. Sitting on a log in the middle of the Bird Park, my eyes were feasting on the red, blue, yellow, pink, and green feathers flying around me. Colors so vivid and saturated you can’t help but stare in love. The bird park, a refugee camp for birds that have been injured or rescued to recover, was a real study of natural beauty…
Cataratas, Brazil: This is what adventures are made of.
Alone in the natural wonders… if you stay here you can experience the falls before they open to the public. Wearing a white Tibi crochet dress.
Our travel companions Kelly & Zach take in one of the endless views of the falls which can only be described as overwhelmingly romantic in person.
