For the past 30 years, the monastery pictured in our June 2017 mystery photo — the Monastery of Saint Thaddeus — has held scheduled services only one day a year, the Feast Day of St. Thaddeus (which, according to the calendar of the Armenian Apostolic Church, usually falls in our late June or in July). Part of Armenia in ancient times, the region in which the monastery is located is now under Iranian jurisdiction.
In honor of Canada’s sesquicentennial in 2017, the Canadian Mint has released a glow-in-the-dark “toonie,” or 2-dollar coin. It is the world’s first glow-in-the-dark coin created for general circulation. The obverse face of the coin depicts Queen Elizabeth II, while the reverse is an image of two people canoeing underneath a glowing display of the northern lights.
You’ll need to supply your own sleeping bag and pillow, but all else is provided on a “Roar ’n‘ Snore Overnight Camp” sleep-over at the Melbourne Zoo in southeastern Australia.
Tents (with mattresses) are in the former elephant house, where you have dinner, then explore the zoo after dark, seeing nocturnal creatures and listening to camp hosts’ stories. After supper, retire to your tent. Wake to the calls of gibbons and birds, eat breakfast, then enjoy up-close animal encounters and behind-the-scenes experiences.
Train Suite Shiki-Shima, a new luxury train operated by Japan Rail East (www.jreast.co.jp), made its maiden journey on the island of Hokkaido, Japan, on May 1.
The train’s 10 cars include seven 2-story sleeping cars (with three suite options), two observatory cars, a lounge car and a 2-story gourmet restaurant. Each car’s exterior and interior are designed by car designers from Porsche, Ferrari and Maserati.
The oldest-extant surgical theater, located in the attic of an 18th-century church, can be visited in London. The newly refurbished Old Operating Theatre Museum (9a St. Thomas Street, London, England, SE1 9RY, U.K.; phone +44 020 7188 2679, oldoperatingtheatre.com) dates to 1822, when it became the surgery room for the St. Thomas Church Hospital.
Still present are the wooden bed where surgeries were performed (without the benefit of anesthetics or antibiotics) and the surrounding benches from which medical students watched.
Vilnius, Lithuania
(First of three parts)
