StrangeSights

StrangeSights has been noticing a growing number of out-of-the-norm theme parks and museums. Here’s some you might want to add to your next travel itinerary:

• Creation Museum - this Kentucky-based museum, opened only recently by the group Answers in Genesis, has exhibits depicting the creation of the earth and early Bible history such as the story of Noah and the Ark.

• Dickens World - reportedly costing $148 million, this recently opened theme park is recreation of Victorian London (as Charles Dickens would have known it) at Chatham in southeast England. And yes, it does include a gift shop appropriately named Ye Olde Curiosity Gift Shoppe.

• Holy Land Experience - Based on Orlando, Florida, this theme park includes a reconstruction of Jerusalem and what it may have been like in the year 66 AD.

• Diggerland - UK-based adventure parks where people can drive diggers and other construction machinery.

What are some other out-of-the-norm theme parks or museums that you may have been to?

IN OTHER NEWS THIS WEEK:
• Reports recently of a growing trend for “butt facials” in the US which sees people’s rear ends undergo the sort of pampering once reserved for the face;

• A new study has shown hearty laughter can help burn off those extra kilojoules but the sad news is that it would reportedly take 150 minutes of solid laughter to burn off a single 1,712 kilojoule Mars Bar; and,

• Peruvians recently held a ‘punctuality’ campaign to remind people of their duty to time.

StrangeSights has already mentioned the international Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament but here’s some further competitions that border on the…well, odd.

• Vinkensport - a 400-year-old Flemish tradition in which finches sitting in boxes pit their singing voices against each other;

• Frog-jumping - inspired by Mark Twain’s novel The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, the annual event in California draws a crowd of thousands;

• Nathan’s famous Hotdog Eating Contest in Coney Island, New York - perhaps the most high profile of the world’s odd eating competitions, it’s governed by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. The 2006 winner was Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi who ate 53 and three-quarters hotdogs and buns in 12 minutes;

• Sheep-counting - yes, it’s Australia’s own and is simply one on a long list of odd contests we’ve invented to pass the time, including everything from the annual Henley-on-Todd regatta near Alice Springs to gum leaf blowing and gum boot throwing championships;

• And finally - because while the idea of the competition itself is not bizarre, some/many of the acts certainly are - the Eurovision song contest. What was the Ukraine thinking with this year’s entry?

That kicks us off - there’s bound to be many, many more. What’s the strangest competition you’ve come across?

ADDENDUM I (30.5.07): OK, we have to add another - Britain’s cheese-chasing competition in which competitors chase a cheese as it rolls down a steep hill in Gloucestershire. This year’s winner was reported as Jason Crowther from Wales.

Regular readers will know how we live a list at StrangeSights! This time it’s Time magazine which has released their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world (Sight actually started compiling a list of the 50 most influential Christians in the past 100 years some time ago and will hopefully publish this list later this year).

Anyway, those on the Time list included the likes of music and movie heavyweights Justin Timberlake and John Mayer, Leonardo DiCaprio and his pal Martin Scorsese, our own (by that I mean Australia’s) Cate Blanchett and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Borat) as well as the likes of model Kate Moss (huh?), Queen Elizabeth II, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Osama bin Laden, US talk show host Oprah Winfrey, tennis player Roger Federer, climate change spruiker Al Gore, Pope Benedict XVI, British billionaire Richard Branson and US presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. Notable exceptions include US president George Bush.

There were also a whole range of people whose names will probably mean very little to Australians and as has been it’s trend in recent times, Time has employed high profile people to write the pieces on those who’ve made the list (including some on the list themselves) - people like David Beckham, Martin Scorsese, Russell Crowe and Condoleezza Rice - which all seems a little nepotistic. They also published a separate list of “power givers” who include actor Angelina Jolie, Queen Rania of Jordon and George Soros.

Interestingly, Time also ran a reader poll with very different results with a top 10 including Korean R&B artist Rain, author JK Rowling, notorious anti-creationist Richard Dawkins (he also made the other list) and the star of 24, Kiefer Sutherland.