‘Wannabe Ninja’ Tourists Can Train In Japan

by Libby Zay on

Have you been aching to test your skills with a bō staff ever since watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid? Now you can do just that at a ninja training camp in the town in Iga, just east of Osaka, Japan. During the hour-long class, ninja trainees can test their skills in star throwing, scaling vertical walls, crawling across a rope strung between two trees and more.

The town itself would make a great stop for anyone obsessed with ninja culture. Iga’s ninja history can be traced to the 15th century, when students trained at Iga-ryū, one of the two most well-known ninja schools in Japan. Today, the town has a ninja museum with plenty of ninja tools and gadgets (as well as revolving walls and trap doors), and an annual ninja celebration, the Iga-Ueno Festival.

Of course, this is far from the first “wannabe” tourist activity out there. From a day-long venture into the life of a polygamist to slum tours of India, here are a few other adventures that satisfy tourists’ wildest curiosities.

Fake Plastic Food In Japan Evolved From Less Than Appetizing Origins

by Reena Ganga on

Walk through any food court or eatery in Japan and you’ll find yourself face to face with walls of plastic food. These displays are designed to show potential diners exactly what they’ll receive if they order a particular dish, from the portion size to the ingredients right down to the little garnishes. They’re helpful for foreigners who can’t decipher Japanese menus but even the locals have come to depend on the fake food when eating out.

These sample meals have always had an uncanny realism to them – and now we know why. It turns out these plastic food replicas were borne out of a more scientific art form. The original maker of fake food started out creating models of human organs and diseases, with the realistic plastic replicas aimed at helping doctors study illnesses. Pretty soon, restaurants came knocking on the artisan’s door – despite it’s unappetizing origins, they figured fake food was the perfect way to familiarize country folk with the unique fare city restaurants had to offer.Like most things in Japan, the plastic samples don’t come cheap, especially since the food samples are modeled off real dishes and created for each individual restaurant. A life-like plate of plastic sushi or a heaping bowl of fake spaghetti sell for around $100 each, although budget-conscious restaurants can rent their fake food for about $6 a month.

The sample-making company says they haven’t been able to get the concept to take off in the Western world… after learning the less than appetizing story behind the samples, we’re not sure they ever will.

Do you like the idea of plastic food? Do these samples help you pick your meal or are they are turn off?

What’s Making Chinese Travelers So Angry?

by Elizabeth Seward on

Air travel delays in China are becoming epidemic. According to an article published today in Time, only 18 percent of flights departing from Beijing in June took off on time.

Chinese travelers are understandably frustrated with this problem, but their collective anger has taken a turn for the worse. Physical altercations, as seen in the video above, and arguments between travelers and airline workers have been documented. The latest protest tactic enacted by the travelers affected by the prevalent delays are sit-ins: passengers have been refusing to leave grounded planes that were subject to delay until compensated for the inconvenience. On July 28 in Dalian, passengers on two separate planes allegedly refused to exit and stayed put in their seats instead.

But staging a sit-in or becoming aggressive toward airline employees isn’t going to affect the problem because the core of the problem is centered in the very infrastructure of Chinese air travel: poor management by airline operators. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has attributed a whopping 42 percent of delays to mismanaged operations of airline carriers –- a problem that trickles down to individual flights from the top of the corporate airline pyramid, not the other way around.

The problem has gotten so bad some airlines are training their crews to defend themselves.

Stolen: A One-Mile Road In Russia

by Michael Yessis on

The unorthodox crime was allegedly committed by a 40-year-old Russian resident of Syktyvkar. The road had linked Parcheg with the Vychegda River before the mastermind carried in off in 82 reinforced concrete slabs.

How does one steal a road? NBC News reports:

Police uncovered the highway robbery when they pulled over a convoy of three heavy trucks carrying the slabs, which they said had been removed with a manipulator, an industrial machine that combines a bulldozer and a forklift.

The Interior Ministry valued the slabs at 200,000 rubles, or about $6,095.

The penalty for stealing a road in Russia? Up to two years in the pokey.

[via msnNOW]

This Might Be The Weirdest Thing Someone Tried to Smuggle Through An Airport

by Libby Zay on

A Chinese man hatched an ingenious plan to get his pet turtle through airport security: he disguised it as a hamburger. It looks like he discarded the normal meat that comes in a KFC burger, placed the turtle between the bun and then re-wrapped the “sandwich” before making his way through security.

Here’s what South China Morning Post reported:

As Li passed through airport security, X-ray screening machines detected a few “odd protrusions” sticking out of a KFC burger that the man had packed in his bag.

Airport staff determined that the protrusions looked suspiciously like turtle limbs, and asked to inspect Li’s luggage.

“There’s no turtle in there, just a hamburger,” Li reportedly insisted. “There’s nothing special to see inside.”

Li finally acquiesced to an inspection after repeated requests from airport staff, who uncovered the pet turtle hidden inside the burger. When asked why he had devised this strange idea, Li said that he had only wanted to travel together with his “beloved” turtle.

He didn’t make it through security with the reptile, but we have to hand it to him. His scheme is much more creative (and more humane) than the guy who stuffed a Chihuahua in his luggage and the guy who strapped lizards to his chest. And there’s always the people who have tried to smuggle monkeys under their shirts, in their hats or in their underwear. And in case you’re wondering about what happened to the turtle, Li was able to get a friend to care for it while he was away.

[via Grist.org]