Today we have something slightly different planned. Specifically instead of going outside the city as usual we are going inside the city. Instead of hiking we are going for a day of food tasting and culture. And the day starts with a stop at an Ethiopian restaurant we really wanted to try for some time. We ask for Ethiopian coffee ceremony to start and while the server seems hesitant if it is possible in the end we get the full ceremony and it is cool. And the coffee is really strong.
And then it is time to wait for the mains. While waiting we enjoy the traditional decor, cool to see so many objects from Ethiopia.
And then the mains arrive and they are huge. Not necessarily the meat portion but the injeras on which they sit. And we have even more injera, it is safe to say that for a whole week afterwards we ate injera from these portions. But overall the food was good and now refreshed we are ready for the main attraction of today which is nearby in the downtown area.
Finding parking is more difficult than expected as a couple parking areas are full or closed but finally we find a good enough parking from which it is walking distance to Conference Center South, where the Oddities Expo is which is our major goal today.
We pay the entrance and in we go, we are quite surprised at how busy and how large it is. It looks quite interesting also so on we go exploring.
A lot of the focus is on taxidermy, some actual and some in different artworks. It can be quite interesting to see what people can think off.
Some are a bit more weird like turn your blood into art. Where they take your blood on site and then use it for a ring or other jewelry. Interesting idea but not for us at least not today.
Some of the taxidermy is more innovative, it is used to creatte mythological animals like a jackalope or even a bobcatlope or whatever the name would be.
Another thing to do here is people watching. As usual at the festival there are people that dress as they do normally and some that dress to the topic and those can be quite interesting to watch.
We arrived relatively late in the day so as we explore the last performance of the day is starting. However it is not exciting to us so we decide to skip it and explore the show more.
We really like and think of getting the scary plush animals. It would be quite something to give them as gifts to our relatives. But maybe not welcome? So in the end we skip them, they can be quite big also.
As it gets late in the day most people start leaving, now it is the time to see the most hardcore of the hardcore that stay till the end of the show. These are also more likely to be in costumes like the interesting costume with a taxidermied bird attached, quite striking visually.
And then we do one more tour, buy a few souvenirs and jewelry, who can resist, and then it is time to leave after an interesting visit to this expo that we visit in the previous years. Overall it was a great day out with good food and lots of exciting things to see but no nature, something we plan to remedy the next week.
