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[raniroo]

Through all my travels I have seen some weird places and even weirder tourist attractions....so when I read this article it brought back some memories....and also made me think that some people really do collect alot of useless stuff!


Wackiest Museums

The first one leading the list is....

"Iceland Phallological Museum

Or, the Penis Museum. I know this is serious, but seriously, how can you absorb stats like this without a little giggle: 272 specimens with 55 belonging to 16 different whale species, one from a rogue polar bear (aren’t they all rogue?), and dozens from seals, walruses, and all sorts of land mammals.

The Iceland Phallological Museum proudly claims to hold in their possession “legally certified gift-tokens for four specimens belonging to Homo Sapiens” (that’s us, guys). I’m not 100% clear what this means exactly, but it sure sounds interesting. Also on display are “…other practical utensils related to the museum’s chosen theme."

Have you been to any weird or wacky museums or tourist attractions?

[starlagurl]

Ah! They don't have the famous Tokyo Parasite Museum!

http://blog.travelpod.com/2009/03/30/blogw...arasite-museum/

Woo, some TP bloggers have been to some of them, check it out:
http://blog.travelpod.com/2009/06/17/4-koo...ound-the-world/

[kathryn77]

Ha ha ha!! All the more reason for going to Iceland!

(But as I'm going to Thailand on Saturday it'll have to wait)

[wakingdream]

I've been to the Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum. Songkran was really the only place I've ever been disappointed in. The museum didn't help much either. Well, not at all.

The Museum of Bad Art. I would just never go to see bad art, let alone pay to see it.

[sianeth]

Where I used to live in Southport there was a lawnmower museum

[wakingdream]

Where I used to live in Southport there was a lawnmower museum

oh, that sounds borrrring.

[raniroo]

I've been to the Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum. Songkran was really the only place I've ever been disappointed in. The museum didn't help much either. Well, not at all.

The Museum of Bad Art. I would just never go to see bad art, let alone pay to see it.

LOL....what distinguishes bad art from good art?

[starlagurl]

Rani, it speaks for itself: http://www.museumofbadart.org/

Hey kids, let's go to Lawnmower World! http://www.lawnmowerworld.co.uk/

[sianeth]

Also in the locality there is a Pencil Museum and a Salt Museum... all the thrilling things in North West England!

[starlagurl]

That...is amazing...

The oldest pencil in the world!

The history of salt though, would be pretty interesting.

[jeremystravels]

My friends told me about the Teddy Bear museum on Jeju Island in South Korea. It was supposed to be pretty neat/weird. I've seen it on a few top ten lists for wacky museums before.

[wakingdream]

I've been to the Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum. Songkran was really the only place I've ever been disappointed in. The museum didn't help much either. Well, not at all.

The Museum of Bad Art. I would just never go to see bad art, let alone pay to see it.

LOL....what distinguishes bad art from good art?

The fact that it's labeled as 'bad' is kind of a turn off for me. I respect art and think the label is sort of silly. Maybe it's 'good', who knows. I'd just rather hit a museum where art is respected enough not to be called bad.

There is loads of bad art. What distinguishes it for me is what I personally view as 'bad' or 'good'. I suppose your own tastes determine what's bad and good for you.

[polydemic]

I would think that the Sex Museum of Amsterdam would be on the list. It includes chastity belts, dildos of various materials, & samples of porn thru the ages. That one I found out about after I left there.

Some might find the Mutter Museum, in Washington, DC, a bit whacked out. It started out as a medical school, when the USA was established, & accumulated a mass collection of medical oddities; such as a collection of skulls for ethnic comparisons, thousands of objects swallowed by people, & skeletons of deformed people.

But since "whacked out" is different to different people, it's hard to narrow them all down to just ten.

[ashleyrenee]

Redmond Oregon has a rock garden which is totally cool and very inexpensive to go to. This guy made these rock sculptures from rocks he found on his property. I have been to it and its pretty amazing.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/564692256mwAWwd

[polydemic]

Redmond Oregon has a rock garden which is totally cool and very inexpensive to go to. This guy made these rock sculptures from rocks he found on his property. I have been to it and its pretty amazing.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/564692256mwAWwd

That reminds me of a castle in Florida built by an eccentric old man. A man immigrated to the States & began building a castle, out of the coral off the coast, for his new wife. His mail-order bride never arrived but he kept on building & building until the day he died. Now it's a huge tourist attraction.

Somewhere in Colorado or Utah (I forget exactly where.), another eccentric man built a huge house, shaped like a flying saucer, which he claimed would harvest the earth's energy for the good health of the family living in it.

If these aren't "whacked out", I don't know what is.

[aopaq]

I visited the Devil Museum in Kaunas Lithuania which was interesting. It definitely presents the devil from a different perspective from that which we commonly hold in the West. Perhaps not one of the all-time wackiest museums, but still a bit unusual.

[starlagurl]

Redmond Oregon has a rock garden which is totally cool and very inexpensive to go to. This guy made these rock sculptures from rocks he found on his property. I have been to it and its pretty amazing.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/564692256mwAWwd

Ashley! Wow that's incredible! How long would that have taken???

[raniroo]

I founds some more wacky and tacky museums

Automata:
(1) Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum (Farmington Hills, Michigan)
(2) Musée Mécanique (San Francisco, California)—as mentioned in The Musée Mécanique at Interesting Thing of the Day
Bakelite: (3) Bakelite Museum (Williton, Somerset, England)—as mentioned in Jackie Chappell’s article Bakelite at Interesting Thing of the Day
Bananas: (4) The Washington Banana Museum (Auburn, Washington)
Barbed Wire:
(5) Devil’s Rope Museum (McLean, Texas)
(6) Kansas Barbed Wire Museum (Lacrosse, Kansas)
Bricks:
(7) Frank and Jane Clement Brick Museum (Orchard Park, New York)
(8) Haverstraw Brick Museum (Haverstraw, New York)
(9) World Brick Museum (Maizuru City, Japan)
Cheese:
(10) Cheese Museum of the Netherlands (Het Hollands Kaasmuseum, Alkmaar, Netherlands)
(11) Cuba Cheese Museum (Cuba, New York)
Cockroaches: (12) The Cockroach Hall of Fame Museum (Plano, Texas)
Corkscrews: (13) The Corkscrew Museum (Le Musée du Tire-Bouchon, between Cavaillon and Apt in Provence, France)
Fans: (14) The Fan Museum (Greenwich, London, England)
Hats:
(15) The Hat Museum (Portland, Oregon)
(16) Hat Works (Stockport, Cheshire, England)
Lawnmowers:
(17) British Lawnmower Museum (Southport, Lancashire, England)
Lingerie:
(18) Frederick’s of Hollywood Lingerie Museum (Los Angeles, California)
Medical Paraphernalia:
(19) Glore Psychiatric Museum (St. Joseph, Missouri)
(20) The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices (St. Paul, Minnesota)
(21) The New Orleans Pharmacy Museum (New Orleans, Louisiana)
Pencils: (22) The Cumberland Pencil Museum (Keswick, Cumbria, England)
Pez Dispensers: (23) Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia (Burlingame, California)
Rice:
(24) Muzium Padi (Rice Museum, Kedah, Malaysia)
(25) Rice Museum (Georgetown, South Carolina)
Shoes:
(26) The Bata Shoe Museum (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
(27) Deutsches Ledermuseum (German Leather Museum/Shoe Museum, Offenbach, Germany)
(28) Giant Shoe Museum (Seattle, Washington)
(29) Museo del Calzado (Museum of Shoes, Elda, Spain)
(30) The Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine Shoe Museum (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Toilets: (31) Sulabh International Museum of Toilets (New Delhi, India)
Water: (32) New York Museum of Water (New York, New York)

I can highly recommend the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto....I LOVE shoes and it was amazing!


Here is the link which will lead you to links of the museums
Weird Museums

[starlagurl]

Nice! I might make another post about it then!

[starlagurl]

Some might find the Mutter Museum, in Washington, DC, a bit whacked out. It started out as a medical school, when the USA was established, & accumulated a mass collection of medical oddities; such as a collection of skulls for ethnic comparisons, thousands of objects swallowed by people, & skeletons of deformed people.

But since "whacked out" is different to different people, it's hard to narrow them all down to just ten.

Isn't the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia? Or are there two?

I did another post about museums today with samples of blogs from them, in case anyone is interested.

http://blog.travelpod.com/2009/06/23/8-more-quirky-museums/