Eat, Sleep, Breathe, Travel

A new Stonehenge theory: sounds

I like Stonehenge. It’s all mystical and mysterious, and you can’t help but get caught up in the wonder of who put it there and how they managed to do it. And now this guy has an interesting new theory behind the arrangement of the enormous circle of stones. It’s all about sound.

According to researcher Steven Waller, the stones at Stonehenge are organized according to the way sound waves interact. I’ll let you read the article for yourself, but the gist of it is that if you go walk around in a field and two ancient Britons are playing flutes, the interactions of their sound waves make certain spots louder and others quieter. And if you close your eyes, there are certain points where the sound makes you feel like a big object is in front of you. It’s at these positions that the Stonehenge stones stand. Or something like that. It’s kind of complicated.

Of course, there have been all kinds of theories about Stonehenge through the ages. At one point people thought Merlin had the stones put there by a giant. Nowadays, a lot of people think it was the work of Druids. Others think it was aliens.

Stonehenge's mysterious origin is its biggest draw. If you like such mysteries, and if you’re going to be in London with EF College Break, I highly recommend the Stonehenge trip.

Photo: IanL via Flickr (CC)

Berlin's newly re-opened Stasi Museum

Anyone going on a trip to Berlin this summer? There’s a museum that just re-opened that might be worth checking out. It’s the former headquarters of the East German secret police (known as the Stasi). It’s called the Stasi Museum.

Inside you see the rooms and offices of the Communist-era East German secret police. Everything looks just as it would have looked, with old phones and typewriters and surveillance equipment and such. It's all sort of creepy, but definitely interesting and atmospheric. The museum includes the office of Erich Mielke, who was the East German Minister of State Security and head of the secret police.

This article about the museum’s re-opening is kind of interesting too. It talks about how a lot of the old East German Communist-era merchandise has become sort of kitschy and trendy around Berlin. Tourists and others buy flags and hats and other memorabilia, which is somewhat unsettling to those who lived through those difficult times.

In any event, the new Stasi Museum is not trivializing anything. It’s the real deal. If you’re into this sort of thing, it could be a good bonus after the more famous Checkpoint Charlie Museum (which is included on the EF College Break trips that go to Berlin).

Photo: melomania-music notes via Flickr (CC)

For Halloween: world's best cemeteries

Happy Halloween, everybody. I’d like to keep things spooky today, so I’m going to fill you in on the world’s best cemeteries to visit.

This article gives a good breakdown. Happily, five of these cemeteries are in cities on EF College Break trips, so you can visit them yourself if you’re feeling up to it. I actually haven’t been to any of the cemeteries mentioned. I’d love to go to that Waverly Cemetery in Sydney. It looks amazing, with the dramatic views of the sea adding to the already-dramatic element of the tombstones.

Two of my personal favorite cemeteries did not make this list. One is Père Lachaise in Paris. When I studied abroad in Paris, I lived around the corner from this famous cemetery. It houses the remains of many famous French people, including writer Marcel Proust and mime Marcel Marceau. It’s also the final resting place of Jim Morrison (his grave is by far the most visited, always covered in flowers and notes and other tokens of admiration).

My other favorite cemetery is in Prague, where I also lived for a spell. It’s up on Vyšehrad hill. This cemetery has nice views of the Vltava River, and it houses the graves of famous Czechs like composer Antonin Dvořák and writer Jan Neruda.

I like visiting cemeteries in foreign cities. It has sort of a weird effect—somewhere between spooky and peaceful. Always nice and quiet. And seeing the final resting places of the country’s famous citizens is an interesting way of connecting to the culture.

Anyway, hope you're having a scary Halloween.

Photo: geoftheref via Flickr (CC)

Get ready for the Jackie Chan museum in Shanghai

A few weeks back I blogged about a new museum in Tokyo centered on a beloved figure from Japanese pop culture (Doraemon the robotic cat). Today I’m blogging about another new pop culture museum, this one in Shanghai, China. This is a museum dedicated to legendary kung fu master Jackie Chan.

Jackie Chan is arguably the most famous Chinese person on the planet, so it makes sense that there would be a museum dedicated to him. The star of countless kung fu movies and the always popular Rush Hour franchise, Jackie Chan personally selected the site for this museum (though he was disappointed that his hometown of Hong Kong didn’t respond to his request to open the museum there instead). That’s okay though. Shanghai is a great spot. Specifically, the Suzhou River bank area is booming with all kinds of new museums—more than 10 others are planned to open in the area in the next couple of years.

This will be the world’s first Jackie Chan museum. And it’s about time. The museum will display movie costumes, properties and posters. It will also have a gallery for movie art, a four-story Italian restaurant (seems random), and Jackie Chan’s own movie studio.

If you’re going to Shanghai (perhaps on EF College Break’s Beijing, Shanghai & Hong Kong trip) and you like Jackie Chan (who doesn’t?), this museum could be a great place to visit in your free time.

Photo: gunwoo via Flickr (CC)

New museum for Japan's favorite animated robotic cat

There’s a new museum opening up in Tokyo dedicated to Japan’s most famous animated robotic cat from the future: Doraemon.

I actually feel a little bit out of the loop on this one—I have no idea who Doraemon is. I feel like I should. The article goes so far as to call Doraemon Japan’s cartoon cultural ambassador. It says the cartoon series is translated into more than 30 languages and is beloved all over the world. Somehow I have missed him. I know Hello Kitty, I don’t know Doraemon.

I suppose that gives me even more reason to go check out the new Doraemon museum. It’s opening in early September on the outskirts of Tokyo. It will exhibit 50,000 Doraemon-related items, including many original drawings and the desk and other tools used by the character’s creator Fujiko F. Fujio (who died in 1996).

For those who also don’t know who Doraemon is, he’s a blue robotic cat with no ears who travels back from the 22nd century to help out a kid named Nobita Nobi. Doraemon uses gadgets from the future to save the day, and the episodes usually teach kids a lesson. Sounds fun.

I’d like to see this museum someday. Anyone taking the EF College Break trip to Japan might do the same. In the meantime, I think I’ll spend some time getting to know Doraemon on Youtube.

Photo: Nguyễn Thùy Trang via Flickr (CC)

Some odds and ends from Shanghai

I came across a few separate items related to Shanghai today, so I thought I’d fill you in. Shanghai is by all accounts an amazing city—temples, gardens, and the third-tallest building in the world. Here's what else I've learned today:

First, Shanghai has a new Museum of Glass. If that doesn’t get you excited, you should spend a few moments thinking seriously about glass. The museum, which opened last week, is in a former glass factory, and it focuses on the art and science of glass. You can learn exactly what glass is, find out about the history of glass, and see the role glass plays in our daily lives. There's also a gallery of glass art. It’s a dream for any glass enthusiast.

I also read that Shanghai is a hotbed of new museums. Back in 2000, the city declared it would have 100 new museums by 2005. They’ve blown past that. And many of them are free to enter, which is always nice. I found an article that highlights the eight strangest museums in Shanghai. My personal favorite is the chopsticks museum (I like chopsticks).

Finally, I came upon an amazing Shanghai video. If you have about five minutes to kill, you could do much worse than this time-lapse video of a miniature Shanghai in action. It makes me want to visit Shanghai. It shows a bustling model city, day and night, all to a nice Thievery Corporation soundtrack. It’s mesmerizing. (Side note: I’m a sucker for miniatures. This miniature airport in Hamburg, Germany blew my mind.)

As for real Shanghai, EF College Break’s China trip goes there. I have been to China, but not yet to Shanghai. It’s on my list. If you go with EF College Break, please tell me how it is. I am curious about the glass museum.

Photo: Gregory Jordan via Flickr (CC)

Dirt on display in London

Anyone taking an EF College Break trip to London this summer may return home with a newfound appreciation for dirt. Especially if you decide to spend some of your free time at a new exhibition called "Dirt: the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life".

This looks like a great exhibition. It’s at the Wellcome Collection, which I’d never heard of until today but now want to visit the next time I go to London. The motto on their website is “A Free Destination for the Incurably Curious”. I like free things, and I’m kind of incurably curious, so this sounds like a good place for me.

Anyway, the dirt exhibition sounds promising. As the name indicates, they expand the concept of “dirt” to mean basically anything people find unclean. You see everything from the historical (a 19th-century sewer worker’s iron pick) to the nausea-inducing (five blocks sculpted from human feces). There’s also a broom encrusted with diamonds, a floor pattern made from dust found in homes, and an 18th-century book of scurvy remedies that recommends cow urine. All told there are around 200 exhibits on display. That’s a lot of dirt.

I like when something makes us stop and think about things we don’t normally think about. This dirt exhibition is a great example. Its stated purpose is to make us think about humanity’s relationship to dirt. I think they've already succeeded. I’m going to wash my feet.

Photo: trp0 via Flickr (CC)

Fixing up Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar

More and more people are traveling to Turkey. So far, I have not been one of them, but I want to be, and at some point I plan to be, so I was interested to check out this article/video about the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

Apparently, the Grand Bazaar isn’t in the best shape these days (understandable, considering it opened 550 years ago). Shop owners say that parts of it are crumbling, the air conditioning is suspect, and it smells bad. So the authorities are talking about giving the historic covered market a major facelift.

By all accounts, the Grand Bazaar is an amazing place. According to Wikipedia, it’s one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. It contains 60 covered streets and more than 1,200 shops to browse (this site says 5,000). Every day, upwards of 400,000 visitors come to the bazaar to browse and buy goods. Shops sell everything from jewelry to spices to fine carpets to souvenirs.

I really like the idea of the Grand Bazaar. I always appreciate historic sights even more when they are still in use in the same manner as originally intended. I’d love the chance to walk the same covered streets that traders walked 500 years ago. Browse the same stalls. Hear the same languages. Buy the same t-shirts.

EF College Break goes to Istanbul (the Turkey, Greece & Italy trip), so if the Grand Bazaar interests you as much as it interests me, check that out.

Photo: Stew Dean via Flickr (CC)

Finally, the world has a sausage museum. Thanks, Berlin.

I like museums. And I like sausage. So I was pretty excited to hear about the newest museum that opened up in Berlin last month.

It’s called the Deutsches Currywurst Museum Berlin, and it’s exactly what you'd think it would be; a museum about currywurst. Currywurst is Germany’s most popular national dish, invented 60 years ago by a woman named Herta Heuwer. It's hot pork sausage cut up into slices and seasoned with a special sauce that combines curry and ketchup or tomato paste. You can find it at street stands all over the city. It’s cheap and delicious. Berliners eat about 70 million currywursts every year.

And now it’s immortalized in a museum. I’d like to experience this museum. It has movies about the history of currywurst, it has fake ketchup-based sauce dripping from the ceiling, it has a virtual make-your-own-currywurst computer exhibit, and of course, it has a replica currywurst stand dishing out the real stuff.

The Deutsches Currywurst Museum is the first sausage museum in the world. How it took so long for the world to open a sausage museum is beyond me. But better late than never. Now I just need to get to Berlin.

Photo: WordRidden via Flickr (CC license)