Wikivoyage:Discover/2007

December 2007

 * The cobbles paving the ground in Moscow's famous Red Square are black, not red.


 * If you visit the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine, you can learn to drive a streetcar.


 * Among the attractions of the Argentine city of Cordoba is the Museo Paleontológico de la Universität Nacional de Córdoba, featuring the largest fossilized spider in the world.


 * Nanjing, China had the world's longest city wall. Large parts of it are still standing, though much of the modern city is outside them.


 * A dam in Switzerland's Verzasca Valley was featured in the James Bond movie Goldeneye, and is used for what's claimed to be the longest bungee jump in the world.


 * Where did that come from? Solvang, California is best known for its Danish theme (architecture, cuisine, etc.), but also included among its attractions is an ostrich farm.


 * Competitors in the North Bay Triathlon, in the Canadian town of the same name, are allowed to wear wet suits for the swimming part of the competition, because of the cold waters.


 * Arkansas' state capitol, in Little Rock, is built on the former site of the state penitentiary.


 * Mr. Bean fans visiting Portsmouth in Hampshire, England should stay at the Queen's Hotel - the episode Mr. Bean in Room 426 was filmed there.


 * The Bahamian Junkanoo festival, celebrated on Boxing Day and New Year's Day, involves dancing in disposable crepe costumes while clanging cowbells.


 * The Wheels O' Time museum in Peoria (Illinois) features a mechanical barbershop quartet in which all of the figures bear faces of former US presidents.


 * The Bolivian mountain Chacaltaya is the site of the world's highest-elevation Alpine ski area, but it's threatened by global warming.


 * The minor-league baseball team in Charleston (South Carolina) is known as the Riverdogs.


 * Verftet USF, a notable night spot in Bergen, Norway, is located in a former sardine factory.


 * The castle in the small Japanese city of Himeji was, for a time, the largest in all of Asia.


 * If you're allergic to bee stings, be careful when visiting Parque Simón Bolivar in Guaranda, Ecuador; the park's statue of the hero harbors a bee's nest in one of its armpits.


 * It's possible to go scuba diving at Crater Lake National Park, but only if you can carry your gear up and down the mile-long Cleetwood Trail to the eponymous lake.


 * The Grenada Chocolate Factory, on the island-nation of the same name, produces chocolates with machinery powered by solar energy.


 * Several hotels in Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia are built out of salt.


 * Red Hook Ale Brewery in Portsmouth (New Hampshire) is located on the grounds of a former Air Force base.


 * Local beers served in Moshi, Tanzania have the labels Kilimanjaro, Safari and Tusker, among others.


 * If you go scuba diving in Lake Atitlan near Panajachel, Guatemala, be careful: you can burn your hands on the lake's bottom, which is heated by volcanic activity.


 * Walkie-talkie, a dish from Cape Town's impoverished townships, is made from chicken beaks and feet.


 * Arachnophobic? Just wait until you see the holographic projection of a 3-foot-long, crawling tarantula at the Museum of Holography on Chicago's Near West Side.


 * Bandung's prison has been turned into a shopping mall &mdash; except the one cell where Indonesian independence leader Sukarno was held.


 * In Honolulu, escape from the hot weather to the last place you'd expect to find - an ice rink.


 * The holes in Swiss Cheese - known locally as Emmentaler in its native Switzerland - are made by gas-excreting bacteria.


 * The replica of Independence Hall in Buena Park, California is so accurate that the original structure in Philadelphia borrowed the blueprints for its restoration.


 * The $50,000 honeymoon suite package at the Peninsula Hong Kong, a hotel in the Kowloon district, includes a helicopter tour of the city.


 * A Salzspeicher (salt warehouse) in Lübeck, Germany was the lair of the title villain in two movies featuring the vampiric Count Nosferatu.


 * The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina is the largest single-family home in the United States.


 * Among the exhibits at Egri Vár, a castle-museum at Eger, Hungary, is an ancient, makeshift motion detector that uses peas.


 * A memorial in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA honors World War II's most decorated battleship (the USS South Dakota), even though the town is hundreds of miles from any ocean.


 * The volcano on the eponymous island of Vulcano is hiker-friendly, and is one of the few places in the world where you can view droplets of molten sulfur.


 * Laos derives its roots and its name from a 14th-century kingdom with the name Lane Xang -- meaning "Million Elephants".

November 2007

 * The English town of Woking was the landing place for the aliens in H. G. Wells' original "War of the Worlds" fiction, a fact commemorated by art work around the town.


 * The Aloft Loft on Chicago's Far West Side is home to a theater group composed entirely of trapeze artists.


 * Ketchikan, Alaska is one of the rainiest cities in North America, with just over 150 inches of average annual precipitation.


 * The Nongae Shrine in Jinju, South Korea memorializes a courtesan who seduced an invading general and then killed him (and herself).


 * The Liberty Hotel in Boston occupies a former prison.


 * Town names on the Malaysian island of Langkawi include "Gravy", "Broken Crockery" and "Seeping".


 * The written language of Thailand is notoriously difficult to read because of a complete absence of space between words.


 * A move is afoot to rename Volusia County, Florida to NASCAR County (note the caps) because of its main attraction, the Daytona International Speedway.


 * In Bangladesh, don't miss the chance to have a bony bite of hilsa, the officially designated national fish.


 * Access to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, USA is occasionally interrupted by missile tests launched from a nearby Air Force base.


 * The beach at Pantai Sabak in Kota Bharu, Malaysia doesn't have much sand any more due to erosion, but it still features pillboxes left over from World War II.


 * The "living ghost town" of Chloride, Arizona is named after the ore silver chloride, formerly mined nearby.


 * Hotel 1929, a boutique hotel in Singapore, is famous for its collection of chairs.


 * In Kemi, Finland, you can go for a spin on Sampo, the world's only cruise icebreaker.


 * Seattle used to have a district called Sodo -- "South of the Dome" -- but the term is now largely obsolete because the Kingdome has been demolished.


 * Sculptures in Sligo commemorate the town's importance as a port of embarkation during the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century.


 * Place Maréchal-Foch, in Nantes, contains one of the few existing statues of Louis XVI left in France.


 * Traveling through Chicago's O'Hare International Airport with time to kill? Spend it staring at the complete fossil skeleton of one of the world's largest dinosaurs.


 * Trapizza in Singapore is simultaneously a pizzeria and a trapeze school.


 * A part of the table service at the Wuji Rib House in Harbin, China is plastic gloves to keep the rib eater's hands clean.


 * The Druid Hills district of Decatur (Georgia), United States of America provided the scenic setting for the movie Driving Miss Daisy.


 * Malaysia may be an Islamic country, but its Genting Highlands casino is so popular, it has the world's largest hotel.


 * Funazushi, the traditional sushi of Shiga, Japan, uses fermented, not raw, fish.


 * Don't worry too much about the morality of The Annual Hookers Ball in Chatham, Massachusetts; it's by, for and about fishermen -- rather than other kinds of hookers.


 * Brasilia, capital of Brazil, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site even though it's less than 50 years old.


 * Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico, USA features not only the remnants of a supervolcano but also scenic, abandoned movie sets.


 * Now there's one less reason to get caned in Singapore &mdash; on October 26, 2007, oral sex was legalized. (Unless you're gay, that is.)


 * The largest lizards in Japan, reaching a length of two feet, are found on Iriomote Island.


 * The Little Rock Zoo is home to the world's only waving carousel.

October 2007

 * The town of Pontianak, Indonesia is named after a mythical baby-eating undead female vampire.


 * The two distinct sections of the Old Town district of Quebec City are connected by the Escalier Casse-Cou -- "Breakneck Stairs".


 * Nha Trang, Vietnam contains a museum dedicated to the memory of Alexandre Yersin, who discovered the bacterium that causes bubonic plague.


 * Fort Denison, a complex at Sydney Harbour that tourists can visit, was originally built to guard the city against Russian attack.


 * Parkersburg, West Virginia, USA holds an annual Volcano Days Festival, even though there has been no volcano (apart from an extinct town by that name) nearby for millions of years.


 * The theoretical net worth of every citizen of Abu Dhabi is $17 million.


 * Singleton, Australia is home to the Southern Hemisphere's largest sundial.


 * On historic Route 66, look for the world's largest cross and a leaning water tower in the small Texas town of Groom.


 * The house from the film A Christmas Story is in Cleveland, Ohio, and is now a museum dedicated to the film.


 * The name of Mexican city Guanajuato means place of the frogs, but it's also a place of tunnels, with many roads running under its sloping surface.


 * One of the exhibits of the pint-sized museum in Hydra, Greece is the embalmed heart of Admiral Andreas Miaoulis.


 * The ivory-billed woodpecker, long believed extinct, might still exist nearBuffalo National River in Arkansas, USA.


 * Built at a cost of over $3 billion, the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi is probably the most expensive hotel in the world.


 * The luxury Volkswagen Phaeton car is contructed in Dresden's Gläserne Manufaktur, a transparent factory.


 * The most visited grave in Buenos Aires's Cementerio de la Recoleta is that of Eva Perón.


 * The Singaporean district of Bugis, named after pirates and once infamous for transvestite prostitutes, is now a shopping mall.


 * Kalimotxo, trademark drink of the Basque Country town of San Sebastian, is made of equal parts wine and Coca-Cola.


 * The Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago was founded in 1874 with the $10 purchase of a single bear cub.


 * The false morel mushroom is considered a delicacy in Finland, but it's so poisonous that eating a single one raw can kill you.


 * Much of New Zealand's capital city Wellington is built on reclaimed land raised up by a major earthquake in 1855.


 * The 110,000 people that crowd into Beaver Stadium during Penn State football games are claimed to (temporarily) make State College the third largest city by population in Pennsylvania.


 * The Maldives forbid importing pork and exporting sand.


 * The fur seal colony that lives on Montague Island, Australia during spring months is an all male colony: the seals that live there have been unable to assemble a harem.


 * The Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, is a full-scale replica of the original structure in Athens.


 * The site housing the Mu-dom Bar in Freiburg, Germany once served as a morgue.

September 2007

 * Coca-Cola was first bottled in the Biedenharn Candy Store in Vicksburg, Mississippi.


 * Waterloo, Ontario has the second largest Oktoberfest celebrations in the world, after those in Munich.


 * If you venture out from Iriomote, Japan to nearby Yubu Island, you'll ride in an amphibious cart pulled by a water buffalo.


 * Sahti, a traditional Finnish type of beer, is flavored with juniper berries.


 * The USS Razorback submarine in Little Rock, Arkansas, is named after a whale, not the University of Arkansas mascot.


 * The Hotel Grand Canal in the Dutch city of Delft occupies a former prison.


 * Despite its name, Casa de las Chimeneas, a B&B in Taos, New Mexico, offers non-smoking rooms only.


 * According to local legend, the bauru sandwich, a trademark food item in São Paulo, was invented by a law student.


 * The classic photo of Harry Truman with the incorrect "Dewey Defeats Truman" newspaper was taken at St. Louis Union Station.


 * Nostalgic for Cold War days for some odd reason? Then visit the Polish city of Szczecin, and go on a tour of Poland's largest fallout shelter.


 * There are five million people in Finland... and two million saunas.


 * The Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run, starting in Silverton (Colorado), is often called the toughest endurance race in the world, yet is so popular that would-be runners must enter a lottery to register for it.


 * In a bit of national one-upmanship, the Parliament building in Budapest is claimed to be one meter longer and wider than its English counterpart.


 * The Sink, a bar in Boulder, Colorado, USA, once employed a janitor named Robert Redford -- yes, that Robert Redford.


 * There used to be a nutmeg orchard owned and run by a Mr Orchard on Singapore's Orchard Road.


 * Salmiakki, a popular Finnish candy, is flavored with ammonium chloride.


 * The Unsichtbar, a bar/restaurant in Cologne, is designed to let guests experience blindness; patrons get a private butler, who is a blind person, and eat in total darkness.


 * Hot Doug's, an eatery in the Far Northwest Side of Chicago, specializes in sausages, with ostrich sausage among its offerings.


 * The Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas is responsible for over one tenth of the country's gross national product.


 * The San Fernando Valley in California is home to over a thousand exotic wild parrots descended from pet-store and theme-park escapees.


 * The shrine at Phra Nang Beach in Rai Leh, Thailand holds offerings to a legendary princess claimed to have drowned there: carved, red-tipped phalluses.


 * The city of Tenney, Minnesota bills itself as the smallest statutory city in the United States, with a fully functioning government and six full-time residents.


 * Atolls in the Maldives all have handy code names: instead of Maalhosmadulu Dhekunuburi, you can just say Baa.


 * Most of the animals at Star Eco Station, a rescue center/teaching zoo in Culver City, California, are illegal animal immigrants seized during Customs operations.


 * Among the events of the Indy Irish Fest, a September festival in Indianapolis, is a mile race in which all contestants must wear kilts.


 * A centerpiece of the September Fiesta de Santa Fe (New Mexico) is the ceremonial burning of Zozobra, a huge animated figure also known as Old Man Gloom.


 * The original church at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Dubrovnik, Croatia was said to have been built using funds donated by Richard the Lionhearted.


 * The city of Kagoshima in Kyushu, Japan was recently given a grant of several billion yen for the purpose of covering its streetcar tracks with grass.


 * The old hangar at the Pearson Air Museum in Vancouver (Washington) once housed not only airplanes but prisoners of war.

August 2007

 * Festivals in the Finnish city of Oulu include Garlic Night and the International Air Guitar Festival.
 * The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah, California is the largest Buddhist temple in the Western Hemisphere, measuring over 2,000 acres, and has a hall filled with 10,000 golden Buddhas.
 * The Matsuyama youth hostel in Matsuyama, Japan runs courses in spoon-bending and aura imaging.
 * The figures of angels and saints that once adorned the Astronomical Clock in the Czech town of Olomouc were replaced during Warsaw Pact days by depictions of scientists, laborers and athletes.
 * A jewelry store in the arts-and-crafts district of Santa Fe (New Mexico), one of the world's great art centers, recently suffered a midnight break-in -- by a mountain lion.
 * The Crowne Plaza Hotel in Akron, Ohio, USA is constructed from old grain storage silos from a former cereal factory.
 * The surface area of Saint Martins Island in Bangladesh varies from 5 to 8 square kilometers, depending on the tides.
 * The river running through Hue, Vietnam is named Huong Giang -- translating into English as Perfume River.
 * Casa Peralta in San Leandro, California is a former adobe built by the Spanish during the state's missionary times.
 * Sado Island drummers Kodo once performed in Boston &mdash; immediately after running the Marathon.
 * The Rustic Nirvana spa in Singapore's Chinatown offers a Kung Fu Bouncing Herbs treatment.
 * The House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin features the largest carousel in the world, with 239 carousel animals &mdash; not one of which is a horse.
 * Cafe 100, an eatery in Hilo, Hawaii popular with locals, has been destroyed twice by tsunamis.
 * The first of the Big things in Australia was the Big Banana, which you can still see today near the city of Coffs Harbour.
 * Novelist Natsume Soseki and haiku poet Masaoka Shiki lived together in a Matsuyama house called Gudabutsuan, or Stupid Buddha Hermitage.

July 2007

 * Zeche Zollverein in Essen, Germany has been called the most beautiful coal mine in the world, and in fact, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
 * The statue of Will Rogers and his horse Soapsuds at Texas Tech, a university in Lubbock, Texas, is oriented so that the horse's rear end points at Tech's collegiate rival, Texas A&M University.
 * The name of Tōge-no-Yu Bihoro (峠の湯びほろ), a hot spring in Bihoro, Japan, translates as "Pass Hot Water Bihoro".
 * The average annual temperature in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, exactly matches the world average temperature to within a tenth of a degree Centigrade.
 * Part of the cuisine of Huaraz, Peru and vicinity is cuy, better known in English as guinea pig.
 * The authentic Sopwith Camel aircraft in Little Rock, Arkansas is the only one in the United States.
 * The women of Kochi, Japan are known as hachikin, or Eight Testicles, as they reputedly hold their liquor better than four men.
 * Every floor of The Basin Park Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas is a "ground" floor.
 * By tradition, members of the crews that finish last in the annual Punt Boat Race in Tübingen, Germany must drink a half liter of cod liver oil.
 * Los Alamos, the "Atomic City," is sited on the slopes of a slumbering supervolcano.
 * The Cube, a sculpture by Tony Rosenthal in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, is a 15-foot-tall, 2400-lb glossy black cube that spins on its axis when pushed.
 * Redwood Empire Ice Arena in Santa Rosa, California is also known as "Snoopy's Home Ice", because it was once owned by cartoonist Charles Schulz.
 * Okhotsk Ryūhō Museum in Abashiri, Japan is devoted to the meteorological phenomenon of pack ice.

June 2007

 * The Church, a popular bar and dance club in Denver, is housed in a former Episcopalian church.
 * The Grand Mosque in Muscat, Oman claims to house the largest hand-made Persian carpet in the world.
 * It is said that there are 365 ponds in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- one for each day of the year.
 * You can take a land-and-sea tour of Dublin, Ireland in World-War-II-vintage amphibious landing craft.
 * Where did they get that name? Travelers flying to Dehradun, India land at Jolly Grant Airport.
 * Ever felt like joining the circus? You can come close at the ¡Explora! Science Center and Children's Museum in Albuquerque, where one of the "hands-on" exhibits is a high-wire bike.
 * The water from Devi Falls, one of the scenic attractions of Pokhara, Nepal, drops into a cave and is lost from sight.
 * Ichiran, a famous noodle restaurant in Fukuoka, Japan, forbids cellphones, children and conversation.
 * Juneau, capital of Alaska, is not connected by road to the state's other major cities (Anchorage, Fairbanks, etc.), even though they're all on the mainland.
 * Visiting Montreux, Switzerland? Make sure to see Marmots' Paradise, with specimens of the little squirrel-like animals from all around the world.
 * Kugleralm, a beer garden in Munich, was the birthplace of Radler -- beer diluted with lemonade.
 * One of the thermal areas at Lassen Volcanic National Park in California bears the curious name Bumpass Hell.
 * The Brew Kettle, a microbrewery in Cleveland, Ohio, allows some customers to brew their own beer.
 * If you're capable of some acrobatics, when visiting the Öpfelchammere (Apple Chamber) bar in Zurich, you may win a glass of wine and the chance to drink it while hanging upside down.
 * The Marzipan Museum in Szentendre, Hungary has a life-sized statue of Michael Jackson made of marzipan.
 * In the Bahamas, you can get three-dollar bills and 15-cent coins.

May 2007

 * Miss Tiffany's Universe Pageant, held every May in Pattaya, Thailand, is a beauty queen competition with a difference - all the contestants were born as men.
 * The Kowloon district of Hong Kong is the most densely populated place in the world.
 * One of the events in the Yankee Homecoming Festival in Newburyport, Massachusetts is a bed race, where beds with occupants are pushed along a main street.
 * May 5th is Coronation Day in Thailand, in tribute to the world's longest-serving current Head of State.
 * In Singapore, chewing gum is available only in pharmacies -- and you need to show ID to make a purchase.
 * The visitor center that welcomes newcomers to Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA is located in a former bordello.
 * Popular nightspots in Turku, Finland include a former nursery and a former public lavatory.

April 2007

 * At Karim's Restaurant in Kebab Lane, Old Delhi, the most famous dish is Tandoori Bakra &mdash; an entire stuffed goat.
 * One of the attractions of Bilbao, Spain is the Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas -- dedicated to copies of the world's great art.
 * In South Korea, roasted silkworm larvae are a popular streetside snack.
 * One of the many museums in and around Tucson, Arizona features a disarmed but formerly nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
 * Up until the 1980s, Singapore's anti-hippie policies required that all male visitors get a haircut and a shave before entering the country.
 * Songkran, the Thai New Year, is celebrated in mid-April with a three-day nationwide water fight.
 * The remote Shimokita Peninsula of Japan is famous for squid ink noodles.
 * Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, a pub in Nottingham, claims to have been founded in 1189, making it the oldest inn in England.
 * New Zealand's Bay of Islands has fine natural scenery, but it also boasts not-so-natural but scenic(?) public toilets designed by architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
 * In Turkmenistan, the month of April and the word bread were renamed after the mother of former President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov.
 * The Cooper Skull, a 10,000-year-old bison skull on display in a museum in Norman, Oklahoma, is the oldest known painted artifact in North America.
 * Namibia isn't a dictatorship, but its capital, Windhoek, contains streets with names like Fidel Castro St. and Robert Mugabe Ave.

March 2007

 * The pilgrimage route to the summit of Mount Ishizuchi, Japan involves climbing up 166 meters of metal chains.
 * Exhibits in the Lao National Museum, Vientiane include socks worn by Politburo members during a prison escape.
 * The dome of Mills Observatory, a free, public astronomical observatory in Dundee, Scotland, is made of papier-mâché.
 * Chateau Louis Liquor Store in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada was the scene of a whiskey kidnapping, as a bottle of rare malt was stolen and held for ransom.
 * A church in Almaty, former capital of Kazakhstan, was built in 1870 without using nails.
 * The Berjaya Time Square shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur has a five-story indoor rollercoaster.
 * Driving a dirty car in Oman is illegal and may render you a fine.
 * Ice fishing is a popular winter pastime in Sudbury, Ontario - but ice fishing huts must be off the ice by March 1st