Some Odd Places to Visit

Tired of the usual tours to crowded places and looking for some unique experience on your summer vacation? Here are some weird tours that are offered for tourists. 

 Weird Meat tour, Shanghai

Fans of the reality game show "Fear Factor" are used to seeing people eat the most disgusting things. But in Shanghai, where the UnTour company says "people will eat anything with four legs except a table, and anything with wings except an airplane," dining on scorpion skewers and fried honey bees is par for the (main) course. The 3.5-hour Weird Meat tour ($220 for up to three people) visits several back-alley restaurants and night markets, where dragonflies and duck tongue — along with plenty of beer for courage — are all on the menu.

Abandoned subway tours, Cincinnati

Tired of squeezing into packed subway cars during rush hour? You won't have to deal with that headache in Cincinnati, home to the largest complex of abandoned subway tunnels in North America. Tours of the more than three kilometres of darkened tunnels are occasionally offered by the Cincinnati Museum Center and Over-The-Rhine Foundation. They consist of wandering around the spooky passageways — wearing hardhats and toting flashlights — while a guide explains why trains aren't trundling down the tracks, part of a project started in 1920 that's now known as "one of Cincinnati's biggest failures."

Trolley Dances, San Diego

This public transit tour is nothing like its Cincinnatian counterpart (or any other tour for that matter). The 13th instalment of the event — running six times daily Sept. 24-25 and Oct. 1-2 — sees guests and a guide hop on one of San Diego's quaint trolleys, which then whisks them to six stops where the San Diego Dance Theatre stages shows in the public squares, pools and fountains along the way. Think of it as a mix of dance recital, city tour and flash mob ($30 for adults).

Brighton Sewer Tours

Ever wonder what happens after you flush the toilet? Didn't think so. But visitors to the seaside town of Brighton, England, are apparently intrigued by the city's subterranean workings. Tours of the "award-winning- sewers" have "become established as a highly popular attraction for tourists and local residents," according to the Southern Water utility that runs the hour-long, $20 outings. First off, who knew sewers could win awards? It seems Brighton's system is among the best examples of Victorian waste disposal, which could be why the sewers were named the "Best Place to Visit in Brighton" in 2007. We're not sure what this says about the rest of Brighton ...

Historic Toilet Tour, York
Who knew the British were so obsessed with their loos? The northern English city of York is a hotbed of history, with a world-class Viking museum, spectacular Gothic cathedral and well-preserved Roman walls. What ties all this history together? Toilets, of course, which is why York Walk offers its "Historic Toilet Tour," a $10 "jaunt through the pungent history of the public toilet." While strolling across the famous Lendal Bridge and around Exhibition Square, visitors will learn about Viking toilets (fetid pits in the ground), Roman facilities (they had seats and everything!) and medieval garderobes (which often emptied into castle moats). Note: make sure you go before you go.

Red Light District Sex Tour, Chicago

Billed as "America's only sex tour" by Weird Chicago, this titillating three-hour jaunt takes in the steamy side of the Windy City. It includes Chicago's original red light districts (once quite racy, now quite yuppified); the world's first Playboy Club (the subject of an upcoming NBC TV series); and various adults-only toy shops and S&M boutiques. Needless to say, the $30 tour is for adults only, and according to Weird Chicago requires "clothing, open minds and polite attitudes." It's good that they're clear about the "clothing" part.

Chernobyl tours
Note to visitors: don't forget your lead underwear. More than two decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine,Solo East Travel is offering $450 "ecological tours" of the crippled power plant and surrounding region. Visitors get to see the infamous Reactor No. 4 (from about 100 metres away), the eerie "dead town" of Pripyat — complete with abandoned ferris wheel and empty public swimming pool — and the "red forest" where pine trees have changed colour because of radiation. You even get to feed catfish in one of the power plant's cooling channels and measure radiation levels yourself — just to see if the tour was really such a good idea.

Illegal Border Crossing Tour, Hidalgo, Mexico

Had enough of Mexico's cushy all-inclusive resorts and breezy cabana bars? This four-hour "caminata nocturna" — a guided night hike — skirts the desert hills and dry riverbeds of Parque EcoAlberto , an ecological reserve about 800 kilometres south of the real U.S. border. But this isn't just any evening stroll: participants follow a fake smuggler under real barbed wire fences in an effort to cross a fake border patrolled by fake police officers who'll blind you with real spotlights and even shoot at you — using blanks, of course — in an effort to slow you down.

That is it for now! Stay tuned... Next post will continue traveling topic.

Source: http://travel.ca.msn.com/international/photogallery.aspx?cp-documentid=30152324

5 Weird Animated Films

''A Scanner Darkly” (2006)
Richard Linklater's second animated feature . Instead of aimless stoner philosophizing, Linklater chose a Philip K. Dick novel about a drug enforcement agent (Keanu Reeves) who becomes a hostage of his own addiction. As heartbreaking as it is exhilarating, the breezy, impressionistic rotoscoped animation is the perfect fit for the material: when the characters are feeling anxious or high, the animation warbles accordingly. But the greatest feat is the "scramble suit," a disguise that the agents use to hide their identities. A constantly shifting mass , it, like the movie, is impossible to pin down… or take your eyes off of.

''The Tune” (1992)
Certainly any of Bill Plympton's animated features would fit comfortably on the list, but it's his bizarre musical debut that remains closest to the heart. Following songwriter Del on a quest to write the perfect song in hopes to impress both boss and main squeeze, the filmmaker takes every opportunity in this charming collection of vignettes to showcase pure weirdness, with some catchy songs thrown in for good mesaure

''Yellow Submarine'' (1968)

(As a fan of Beatles this is my favorite)

For all of its hallucinogenic trippiness, which makes it a favorite for late night tokers, "Yellow Submarine" endures thanks to its inherent sweetness, like an early-animated "Sesame Street" segment gone off the rails. Instead of trying to judge the movie based on any sort of narrative coherence or storytelling skill (basically concerning itself with the Blue Meanies, a band of monstrous cretins, and their attack on free will, imagination, and general grooviness – all the things the animated Beatles stand for), the movie works best as a kind of jukebox musical, packed with references to the band and their songwriting. The animation, for all its primal crudity, has an easily enjoyed charm, with a flower-power liquescence to the movement of characters (and the titular underwater vehicle). 

Fantastic Planet” (1973)
Now here's a film that kisses the idea of outlandish cult films on the mouth. Director René Laloux and artist Roland Topor team up for this short & strange sci-fi, demanding both attention and interpretation as they revel in their (never forced) bat-shit ways. On an alien planet, humans (known as Ohms) are cultivated by an alien race known as Draags, which are giant spiritual beings who either keep Ohms as pets or ban them from their civilization with an occasional extermination cycle. The narrative follows pet Ohm Terr who ends up learning the Draag culture and escaping to the wild, spreading his wisdom to an unwilling and religious tribe. Laloux, like a pro, keeps dialogue to a minimum and allows the weirdness to speak for itself , focusing on the two societies' rituals and relationships with each other and the wildlife. There's some ardent metaphors here, definitely, but if that's not your cup of tea, it contains probably the greatest soundtrack ever. 

“Heavy Metal” (1981)
Rewatching "Heavy Metal," which recently made its way to the glorious Blu-ray high-definition format, what becomes very apparent is the influence that the second story in the loose, tits-and-blood anthology (based on the cult sci-fi magazine of the same time), had on Luc Besson's "The Fifth Element." It, like "Element," centers around a gruff, unspeakably jaded New York City taxi cab driver (Richard Romanus) who stumbles across a beautiful girl with a secret, and unwittingly becomes her ally. The rest of the movie remains pretty cool (it's nifty to see artwork by icons like Richard Corben, up on screen, moving around), but the herky-jerky animation style is often times too sketchy to be fully enjoyed. Part of this is due to the movie's cheapness, another part due to the often rotoscoped images (sort of an early motion capture), but a lot of it has to do with the attitude of "Heavy Metal" – the source material was definitely 100% "fuck you," why should the movie be any different?

That is it for now. Don't be shy to share if you liked! Thanks :)

Source of information: http://blogs.indiewire.com

The Most Weirdest Tribes

I would like to introduce you with couple of the most unusual groups of people.

1. WaYao - clearly they are not the most usual human beings. The Yao people or waYao are a major ethnic and linguistic group based at the southern end of Lake Malawi in Africa. These people played an important part in the history of East Africa during the 19th century. The waYao are a predominantly Muslim people group of about 2 million spread over Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

2. Surma people - Surma women have the weirdest mouths in the world. Surma is the collective name for the Suri, the Mursi and the Me'en with a total population of more than 186,000. Suri is the name of a sedentary pastoral people while Mursi is the name of closely related sedentary pastoral peopleSuri or Shuri is the name of a sedentary pastoral people whose language is over 80% cognate with Suri. Here you can get a closer look to them ( WARNING: May contain some disturbing pictures) 

3. Hamer people

Hamer are tribal people in southwestern Ethiopia. Cow jumping is a rite of passage for men, that must be done before a man is permitted to marry. The man-to-be must "jump the cattle" four times to be successful and only castrated male cattle and cows may be used to jump over. This test is performed while naked as a symbol of the childhood he is about to leave behind him. Upon completion of the test, the young man joins the ranks of the maza – a group of men who recently passed the test. They will spend together the next few months of their lives in supervising the events in villages throughout the Hamer territory.
In this video you can see this ritual as a part of wedding.

4. Bushmen - Have you seen the film “The Gods Must Be Crazy”? You’ll learn more about the Bushmen if you’’ see the film. The indigenous people of southern Africa are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe. These people were traditionally hunter-gatherer. They switched to farming as mandated by the government for modernization programs. 

And there is a little insight in the lives of Bushmen

SOURCE: http://spirituality.knoji.com

The Most Weirdest Cars

Hey, there! Recently I keep stumbling on to quite weird things while going trough internet. It amazed me how much strange, interesting stuff there is, so I decided to share.

The first thing I would like to share is the most weirdest cars! It is amazing how one can think of something like car that looks like an old telephone, is made using bath tubs or with old cameras glued all over it.

Hey, cat lovers! How about a car that looks like an enormous pink bubble gum cat on the wheels? In fact, this one looks a bit scared...

... or car that looks like it had just eaten a human and it is looking for more?













I am pretty big fan of good old classic rock, so on one side I think that this next car is pretty awesome, but really? Is it the right way to express your taste in music? It can really scare some kinds on the streets, huh?

So maybe this would be much better and more appropriate way of expressing your taste in music and most likely avoid your neighbors crossing the street when they see you coming.

Next couple exemplars I think is great only for perfect summer days, but still... they are quite strange. 

The next one I kind of like, because I am into old cameras, but I am not sure if I would like to drive in one. 

This one is quite old, but still it does fall into list of weird cars.










And there are more funny, weird, strange and unique cars and these are just a small part of all of them, but these for one reason or another caught my eye.

 So this is the end of my list of most weirdest cars. Hope you enjoyed it and see you soon.

Next post - Most Weirdest Tribes!