I went to Niagara Falls this past weekend to see "Whose live anyway?" (a comedy tour). It was absolutely amazing, I got to go up on stage to help in a game called "moving bodies" (the comedian is still and you have to move their bodies to do actions). I got to move Greg Proops who is one of my favourite comedians. I love his podcasts "The Smartest Man in the World" so it was basically a dream-come-true to be able to be on stage with him.
Anyways, I am here to talk about the actual falls at Niagara falls. Yes, they are beautiful, they are an amazing natural thing of this earth. If you think of the falls that way, they are gorgeous.
But if you look behind you, all you see is capitalism, tourism, attractions, etc. It takes away from the beauty of the falls. If you walk down just a bit there are souvenir shops everywhere, other places decked out. It really did disgust me.
Although I did enjoy myself at the Hersheys store and some of the souvenir shops, though. It wasn't necessarily the "stuff" that made the weekend amazing, it was the experience. I love looking at all of the things. I only bought one "Niagara Falls" thing and it was a sweater. I bought a bunch of chocolate as well.
I did enjoy myself, it's just Niagara Falls is one of the biggest tourist traps. Should we boycott things like this? I say no, even though I think it is wrong to use the beautiful falls for this. But perhaps exploiting natural beauties isn't the best thing. But the little goodies you buy at the store helps you remember the place, right? Not really. It's a tourist trap!
I suppose there is an argument that it just a waterfall, it is water falling, who cares? But I guess that the beauty of the falls is in the eye of the beholder.
Another thing that sort of disgusted me was the Rainforest Cafe. The food was decent, way overpriced, but okay. For those who do not know, the Rainforest Cafe is a rainforest themed restaurant with animatronic elephants, gorillas, simulated rainforest storms and decorations everywhere. This may seem like paradise to a kid but I was honestly a little upset. They weren't even real animals and yet another product of capitalism is exploiting beautiful nature. The animatronic creatures were a little creepy, too. Although the experience and vibe of the place was nice, the food tasted okay and my drink was amazing I couldn't stop thinking about how overpriced everything was and how fake the whole design was. (My meal is posted below, it was around $22CAD, plus I had a drink that was $6)
Overall, this weekend was honestly one of the best weekends of my life, though. It wasn't because of the shops, the games and casino stuff everywhere, it was because I got to go on stage at the comedy show I went to and I had fun hanging out with one of my best friends.
What do you think about exploiting nature for profit? It's just a circle of capitalism, and it's not really harming anything too much, I just think it's a little disappointing that as a society we find things like this entertaining. What's your opinion?
Here are some photos from my trip:
(Another great thing the falls are for, is for making you look super cultured in your profile pictures on the web... oh society)
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