Summer vacations are not what they used to be. Gone are the days when you could just quietly park yourself in a picturesque resort to enjoy the serene bliss of pure relaxation. Now it’s all about appearing interesting on Facebook.
The greed to accumulate ‘Likes’ on every teensy outing has changed the way we holiday. The focus is more on stringing together a necklace of ‘say cheese’ moments that stoke Facebook envy.
Given the new paradigm, everyone’s on this adrenalin rush to try something new. Which is precisely why, we’ve put together a list of the most offbeat experiences your taste buds can savour. See if it tickles your fancy.
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If you’re the type who reads obituaries for entertainment and watches zombie flicks for kicks, you’d love Eternity, the world’s largest coffin restaurant located in the quaint town of Truskavets in Ukraine. Shaped like a giant funeral casket, liberally embellished with morbid wreaths, black walls and mournful candles on tables, the eat-out serves dishes like ‘Let’s meet in heaven’. A killer venture from some enterprising undertakers, Eternity is the place to go when you’re bored to death.
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In the idyllic beach town of Lloret de Mar, Spain, is a thriller restaurant called Disaster Café. The setting is straight out of a dystopian Hollywood movie. The cavernous ambience, helmeted staff and mysteriously heavy plates prepare you for the unexpected. A powerful earthquake measuring 7.8 is simulated all of a sudden. Plates rattle, lights flicker, the ground quivers and screams fill the air. Having whipped up a seismic sizzler, normalcy returns only to shake you up again. NOT recommended for the faint hearted.
Where you can have hamburgers in a hospital.
Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas is the go-to joint for those who indulge in medical fantasies. Replete with buxom nurses, who hop from patient to patient prescribing 8000 calorie bypass burgers, no-filter cigarettes, beer and saccharine colas, the restaurant lives by the credo of dishing out ‘food so bad for you that it’s shocking’. Stretchers are kept on stand-by just in case you develop a cardiac arrest!
Where they mix yuck with yum.
Imagine gorging on ‘green dysentery’ ice cream, plonking on a dysfunctional potty, in a restaurant adorned with faeces shaped lights, glass-topped bath tubs masquerading as tables and miniature urinals acting as soup bowls. Modern Toilet in Taiwan has been wowing customers with this stomach-churning experience ever since 2004. All we can say is ... Holy crap!
Where you can eat James Bond style.
It’s the best kept secret in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Operating under the covert name of ‘International Exports Ltd’ is a spy-themed restaurant named Safe House. To enter you need a password. Once inside, you’ll discover mirrors with hidden chambers, chairs that pop out of trapdoors, surveillance cameras, revolving booths, chunks of the Berlin Wall, Austin Powers’ guitar, and a menu card with drinks like Silencers and Undercover Girls. Exit is via an ingenious phone booth it seems. What are the odds the dessert section is called The Pie Who Loved Me.
Where the female body is your plate.
Japanese do a lot of kinky things. Nyotaimori (female body presentation) should easily make it to the top of the heap. The concept is simple. You eat fish, meat and sushi placed tastefully on a nude model lying in front of you. No touching. No giggling. No communication is allowed. If your feminist anger kicks in, you can sample Nantaimori (male body presentation). These body sushi boutiques are mushrooming all over the world. If Norman Mailer were to write about this, he’d call it The Naked and the Bread.