Creation Museum: Where People and Dinosaurs Meet

by Jamie Rhein on

First of all, I love Kentucky. I really do. I was born there. I have family still there, but here’s a museum that I’m just not too sure about and it happens to be near where my relatives live. Already there’s controversy and I almost hesitate to bring it up, but here it goes, The Creation Museum opens tomorrow just south of Cincinnati. The Web site’s heading says, “Prepare to Believe.” This is an opposite look at natural history than the one depicted in my La Brea Tar Pits post.

The museum is not just a rinky-dink operation either. This is a mega-bucks attraction, as in $27 million, to highlight how the Bible is word for word true. For example, according to the word for word translation of the Bible all animals were created on the 5th and 6th day, dinosaurs included. That means that humans and dinosaurs really did live at the same time. The Creation Museum shows just what that looked like. Just think what this means for Walt Disney Productions.

To help visitors prepare to believe and connect dots between then and now, Old Testament favorites like Noah’s Ark are depicted in life-like form. If you ever wondered how the animals got off the ark this might help you out. The museum also has all the bells and whistles of visitor interaction as part of the walk-through displays. The photo is of the main exhibit hall where a 40-foot tall aninimatronic sauropod dinosaur is grouped with several others.

In Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky scientists are busy with protests since the fear is that kids, like my 5-year old son who would be enamored with this place, might have their scientific lens destroyed. For the creators of the museum, one of them a former Universal Studios director, it seems to me, that is part of the point. One of the things I appreciate about this place is that the museum says upfront what it is. The main theme is “The Bible is True from Genesis to Revelation.” This isn’t a bait and switch operation. You may not believe what you see, but you won’t be surprised by it either.

La Brea Tar Pits: A New Bubbling Discovery

by Jamie Rhein on

One of the more interesting sites of the modern world meeting up with the prehistoric one that I’ve ever seen is in the section of Los Angeles where the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits are within walking distance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and high rise buildings. The prehistoric dates back to 40,000 years according to the oldest bone fragment found in the pits.

Recently, the La Brea Tar Pits have shown up on the radar screen of interesting facts. If you’ve ever been there, you’ve seen the black tar bubble and perhaps thought about the animals trapped here before the last Ice Age. Bones of 600 animals have been recovered and are on display in at the Page Museum La Brea Tar Pits at the site. Dire wolfs, saber-toothed cats, Shasta ground sloths, a Columbian mammoth and an American mastodon are part of the bounty. The reason why there are so many? Think food chain. One sloth gets stuck and along comes a dire wolf to get dinner. Then comes the saber-tooth and so on.

Turns out the bubbling is caused by bacteria and not oil production that was thought to be happening 1,000 feet below the sticky, black goo. The bacteria feeds on the petroleum of this natural asphalt at the site and burp methane gas.

Unusual Tours You’ve Got To Take

by Willy Volk on

I don’t usually go in for tours, but sometimes I break down. After all, occasionally you run across a tour guide that offers so much knowledge, experience, and insider information that you can’t possibly do better. But how do you know which tours are right for you?

From vodka tours, to pot tours, to punk rock tours, to voodoo tours, here are some of the greatest (and weirdest!) tours to take.

Vodka Tours in Poland
Outside bustling Krakow, Poland’s countryside is filled with strawberries, apple blossom, freshly cut grass — and vodka. Krakow Tours will take you through the country’s wide open spaces in a wagon cart — through fields, forests, farms, and villages — as you sample vodka in various establishments.

From top-notch vodka-ries to illegal hooch-brewers, the tour will leave you buzzing…with excitement. Expect strawberry, pear, apple and plum vodkas; you’ll even learn how they distill the stuff the old way.

Cannabis Tours in Amsterdam
Did somebody say “freshly cut grass”? In Amsterdam, cannabis is openly sold and smoked in the city’s 300+ “coffeeshops.” Amsterdam City Tours will take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Amsterdam Coffee shop industry.

In addition to visiting some of the shops where you’ll learn about client attitudes, social reaction patterns and current trends in the drug trade, the tour will also swing by the Cannabis Museum.

Punk Music Tours in Washington D.C
Washington D.C. is known for monuments, politicians, and five-sided buildings. But did you know that it was also the epicenter of the harDCore punk scene that emerged in the late 70s?

Before you head to the nation’s capital, swing by Yellow Arrow, a site that’s produced several excellent, short video documentaries about DC’s punk scene. Watch them or download them to your MP3 player. Thereafter, explore the city via Yellow Arrow’s text message tours, guided by a downloadable PDF map.

Voodoo Tours in West Africa
After living in Africa for three years, I know juju (black magic) pervades much of the countryside. Much of Western Africa still believes in gods and ghosts; sorcerers and witches; magic spells and sacred snakes; it’s not incorrect to call it the land of voodoo.

Beginning in Lome, Togo, Explore takes you on a journey through Akodessewa fetish market (with its bizarre display of religious and medicinal ingredients) before heading to rural villages where voodoo shrines and fetish ceremonies dominate the lives of local people. In Benin, you’ll visit the python temple before taking pirogues across Lake Nokoue to the stilt village of Ganvie. Also, don’t miss out on a chance to visit the Royal Palaces of Dahomey, built with human skulls.

Cave Snorkeling in Bonaire
The Caribbean island of Bonaire consists of limestone (fossilized coral reefs). Over the years, the caves have eroded, leaving numerous caves on the island.

While cave snorkeling with Hans, you’ll visit two different caves. First, you’ll hit a “dry” cave with stalactites, stalagmites, and even the special helectites. Second, you’ll slog through a “wet” cave, where you’ll snorkel in crystal clear water looking for cave shrimp and the rare cave-fish. If Hans asks you to help him with his rare cave-swimsuit-fish, swim away quickly.

Visit Dracula’s Castle on Halloween
In addition to touring the countryside and some dramatic frescoed monasteries around Transylvania, you could spend this Halloween inside the castle of Count Dracula. Dunno if a dude wearing a cape will jump out of a casket at midnight, but it sure looks like dressing up is encouraged.

The following day, you can take a boat ride across Snagov Lake, to the island that’s the eternal resting place of the Count. (Or is it?)

San Francisco Vampire Tours
Held every Friday and Saturday night at 8, these 2-hour tours explain the history of the city and how Vampires played a role in that history.

For an idea of what the tours are like, check out this short video. While it was filmed during the day, note that the tours are much spookier at night.

Ghost Tours of the London Underground
Ghosts are everywhere, apparently — including the London Underground. Ghosts of the Underground is dedicated to tracking the reported ghost sitings in the Tube, and features many bizarre, unexplained photographs.

Download the 47-minute documentary on the subject and give yourself a self-guided tour — and a fright!

Private Eye Tours in Seattle
On Private Eye Tours, join a Seattle native with a medical and science background as you explore the dark side of Seattle’s streets and alleys.

On your tour, you’ll visit the scenes of crimes, burglaries, arson, speakeasies, and the red light district. You’ll also see where a number of famous people — including Ted Bundy, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain — lived…and died.

Wild Seaweed Tours in Canada
Meet Diane Bernard — who actually allows herself to be called the “Seaweed Lady” — at Whiffen Spit on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island near Sooke, B.C., Canada (about 40-minute drive from the city of Victoria) for her seaweed tour.

This 2-hour hands-on inter-tidal workshop teaches visitors about the different varieties of seaweeds, their nutritional benefits, and different methods of preparing them. If you’re interested, you can sample some fresh seaweeds; you can even try wearing some, if you’re so inclined — and not overdressed.

Hip-Hour Tours in Harlem
Harlem Hip-Hop Tours is a tour in style. Each tour includes a ride in a stretch limousine, and the best in the food, sightseeing, and shopping that Harlem has to offer. Tour participants will see the Apollo Theater and Striver’s Row; have the opportunity to shop along 125th street; and come to understand the true meaning of “putting your foot in it” when you savor the flavor of a home-cooked soul food meal.

Moreover, Harlem Hip-Hop Tours provides personal instruction in hip-hop dance and slang (um, like what “putting your foot in it” means). Tour participants will also travel to some of New York’s hottest television and recording studios where they can see firsthand how hip-hop music is created, and meet IN PERSON established and up-and-coming hip-hop artists.

A Canadian in Beijing: Capital Museum A Total Snooze

by Ember Swift on

I suppose if I weren’t so tired today our class trip to the Beijing Central Museum (or, ????????????: Shoudu Bowuguan) would be more interesting to me. As it stands, we’ve been here for two hours and I’m bored out of my mind. I’ve even returned to the bus early (the eventual meeting place) because I couldn’t stand the sterility of the experience any longer. My legs were so tired from the endless walking that I’m even sitting on the ground out here and, as you know, that’s not something I advocate in Beijing!

I’m just not into it. What does this say about me?

I’m actually really interested in history and I find stories of the past fascinating. I love to learn about the places I visit and how they have come to develop into what they are under my feet and before my eyes. Where a place has come from and how it has journeyed and why — I love that stuff. So, why couldn’t I get into this museum, I wonder?

The museum is a beautiful modern building made of glass and marble and full of architectural wonder. It has only been open in this current location since December 19, 2006. It is 60,000 square metres in size, five floors with escalators and elevators between each and it can accommodate up to 2,000 visitors per day. It’s majestic, really, and the photos really don’t do it justice.

It’s gorgeous. Every display is well-placed and “just so.” In fact, I think that’s the problem. I have this overwhelming feeling that this place has been over thought, and now the information being communicated about China’s history also seems over thought, as though a huge committee sat around a giant table both approving and vetoing what I should or should not be told as a visitor. Or perhaps it’s more like what I could or could not be told. I became more and more agitated by the descriptions of history with every room that I eventually just found a bench inside and watched people instead.

But, what do I know? My learning is as limited as the next person’s – it’s through my Canadian cultural lens, education, reading material, etc. – and so I can’t claim to know what “really happened.” Still, I know well enough that the rise of the republic in China was not all glory and accomplishment. There was no mention of what the people went through throughout this transition (i.e. “The Cultural Revolution”) or even what they faced throughout the “Great Leap Forward” campaign just following the end of Feudalism in China. I saw no mention of the destruction of historical artifacts, literature, cultural relics; no mention of deaths by starvation or long-term incarceration; no mention of the dislocation of people and families throughout both movements. At least, no mention that I could see in English.

The signs in English were not as complete as the signs in Chinese, either. I know enough of this language to know that, but my ability to read all of the history-related characters was pretty limited and so I had to rely on these English translations which were, of course, full of written errors. I was really shocked to see such mistakes in such an official building. This is the Capital Museum of Beijing! I’m shocked that these errors made it through and I do hope that correcting these is on the “to do” list before the Olympics. I’m sure they’ll have lots of visitors through this museum at that time who will require the English as much (or more) than I did.


[I wished I had some sort of guide, but the computer kiosks offering more detail were entirely in Chinese and I didn’t learn until later that I could have rented an English headset (like I did at the Summer Palace) to accompany my walk. Oh well, I suppose I was meant to experience it as I was and these are my honest impressions.]

Last night, I went out again with my musician friends and checked out live music at Mao Live House (and played a couple of songs too) and so I really didn’t get much sleep. After awhile, my fatigue and my irritation with these language errors (not to mention what seemed to me to be an incomplete reflection of historical events) combined to make me stop reading these annoying signs altogether. Instead, I wandered slowly and aimlessly, looking at displays and snapping pictures until even this lackadaisical passivity got boring.

What’s more, (if you’ll permit me to complain just once more about this museum!), the displays were hardly interactive at all. There were lots of paintings, wood/clay models to peer at as well as plenty of items behind glass, but there was very little for the museum goer to do besides wander and snap pictures. I’ve perhaps become spoiled by places like The Science Centre in Toronto, but I’d have to say that my one trip to the Beijing Capital Museum is plenty for me. I don’t need to go back.

Time to board the bus that will take me “home” to my quiet dorm room so that I can take a nap.

May as well continue this snooze fest!

The Birthplace of the Dollar

by Iva Skoch on

Not many people know this, but the “dollar” (and lager beer, but that’s another story) had it’s origins in the lands of what is now the Czech Republic. The word “dollar” is actually from the German word “taler.” The taler was the official currency in the Holy Roman Empire from the mid-16th century until the mid-19th century, and spread throughout the world, getting adopted as currency as far as Arab lands.

The word “taler” was a shortened form of the name of a Bohemian town, Joachimsthal, where great veins of silver were discovered in the 15th or 16th century. Joachimsthal (now Jachymov) was the main source of the silver coin, “thaler,” later “taler.” Of course, many years later, the name was adopted as the “dollar.” (Try it yourself: say it out loud.)

Much later, Jachymov was also found to have some naturally-occurring radium below ground, which, combined with hot springs in the area, helped make it a spa town, where people would “take the waters” to cure common ailments. The town is still a spa town, but there’s no focus on radioactive cures anymore…but the water is still hot!