Nagoro, Japan
Nagoro is a tiny Japanese village with one very notable feature: a life-sized doll population that outnumbers the human population nearly 10:1. The toy residents are the work of local Tsukimi Ayano, who began making doll replicas of her neighbors after they died or moved away. The eerie doppelgängers can be seen in various positions across the townâfishermen sitting on the riverbank, students filling entire classrooms, elderly couples resting on benches outside of buildings. There are now around 350 dolls and 27 breathing humans (the youngest is over the age of 50) in Nagoro, making it a quirky and somewhat terrifying toyland.
Hill of Crosses, Ĺ iauliai, Lithuania
People have been placing crosses on this hill in northern Lithuania since the 14th century. In the benign, throughout the medieval period, the crosses expressed a desire for Lithuanian independence. Then, after a peasant uprising in 1831, people began adding to the site in remembrance of dead rebels. The hill became a place of defiance once again during Soviet occupation from 1944 to 1991. The hill and crosses were bulldozed by Soviets three times, but locals kept rebuilding it. There are now more than 100,000 crosses crowded there, clashing together in the breeze like eerie wind chimes.
Island of the Dolls, Xochimilco, Mexico
Despite its history and status as a Unesco World Heritage Site, Xochimilco is primarily known for its Isla de las Munecas, or “Island of the Dolls.” Hidden among the boroughs’s many canals, the tiny island is famous for the hundreds of dollsâand doll partsâhanging from trees and scattered among the grass. Although it looks more like a horror movie set than anything else, the chinampa (akin to an artificial island) used to be the actual residence of a now-deceased man named Julian Santa Barrera. After finding a dead girl’s body in a nearby canal, Barrera collected and displayed the toys in the hopes of warding off evil spirits. Daring souls can hire their own boat, try to convince the driver to pay it a visit, and view it safely from the water.
Taylor Glacier, Antarctica
It may look like a geological crime scene, but the five-story, crimson waterfall of Taylor Glacier (aka “Blood Falls”) is a completely natural wonder. The phenomenon can be traced back about five million years, when the glacier sealed off a microbe-rich lake beneath it. Isolated from light and oxygen, the water became more and more concentrated, both in terms of salt and iron content. The water’s salinity level (about three times saltier than the ocean) keeps it from freezing, while the iron provides the color. It then seeps out through a fissure in the glacier, and we get to witness the gory display.
Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital, Germany
If this old German hospital looks disturbing, well, it is. Between 1898 and 1930, the Beelitz-Heilstätten complex (a 50-minute drive south of Berlin) served as a tuberculosis sanatorium. It also housed mustard gas and machine gun victims during World War I, including a young soldier named Adolf Hitler, who had been wounded in the leg. The hospital later went on to be a major treatment center for Nazi soldiers during World War II, and it was used as a Soviet military hospital from 1945 until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, a few hospital wards are used as a neurological rehabilitation center, although the majority of the complex is abandoned. The surgery and psychiatric wards have both been left to decay and give way to nature (and vandals), and the result looks like something straight out of American Horror Storyâdefinitely not an enjoyable day trip for the easily spooked.
When I was in school, back in 1990 or 1991, we had a local radio station in the state that had the very first music request show. As in you could write in to the show’s address and request a song and dedicate to your family or friends for their birthday, wedding, anniversary or just for anything. It was a weekly show and aired every Sunday for a few years. Now, we only got cable tv in India around 1990 and had only 4 channels for a while. Kerala, my home state, got cable in 1991 and my area got it by 1992.