Dunbar
Much like Christmas, Halloween has become a month-long event so there's lots going on for October.
This year the family from the Dunbar Haunted House is presenting The Daily Grime, based around "typical" stories featured in generic newspapers, but with a dark twist. (It can't be any scarier than working at the real thing.)
Featured stories/themes include Health Care, Education, Business, Law & Order and Entertainment. I can't wait to see what they do with Science & Technology.
The best part is you don't have to wait until Halloween to have any urge you ever had to work in the newspaper business scared out of you. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children under 12.
Proceeds benefit the B.C. Professional Fire Fighters Association Burn Fund.
The Daily Grime opens Oct. 12 and runs until the 31 at 8934 Shaughnessy St. For more information, hours of operation and photos from previous years, visit dunbarhauntedhouse.com.
Chinatown
The serene souls at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens are offering a chance for people to try their hand at ancient Buddhist art forms while helping to raise funds for a Tibetan monastery at the same time.
Visiting monks from the Dzongkar Choede monastery in India will be on hand this week to show how to create sand man-dalas, intricately patterned circles made with coloured grains of sand that Buddhists believe leads to wisdom and enlightenment, as well as butter sculptures. Contributions go towards providing much-needed solar energy panels that will help allow children at the rustic monastery to study at night. The event runs Oct. 12 to 16 from 10: 15 a.m. to 4 p.m. It's $30 for a five-day pass.
Visit dzongkarchoede.org for more information.
False Creek
This should be a good weekend for science nerds. Not only is admission free at Science World Oct. 13 to 14 but visitors will also have a chance to meet a Canadian astronaut and/ or take a look-see inside the world's largest particle accelerator.
Maj. Jeremy Hansen, a crew support member for NASA's expedition next month to the International Space Station, will be giving talks at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday and otherwise floating around the building chatting with the public.
On Sunday at 12: 30 p.m., SFU professor Bernd Stel-zer will give a presentation called "Higgs for the Masses" as part of a live virtual tour of the control room at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, a $10 billion atom smashing facility buried 500 feet below Switzerland.
"We are actually connecting live with a host and scientists in the ATLAS control room and somebody will be touring us around the offices," said community outreach manager JoAnn Coggan. For more info, check out scienceworld.ca.
