Recently, a restaurant in Taiwan has been making headlines because of its interesting marketing gimmick; at the eatery known as the Modern Toilet Diner, its customers sit on toilet chairs, eat from toilet-shaped dishes, and use toilet paper in place of napkins. While its theme may be extreme, it’s not the only restaurant or bar [...]

Many world capitals have distinctive and evocative nicknames; examples include Paris (The City of Lights), New York (The Big Apple), and Beijing (The Forbidden City). These nicknames may come about solely through a historical quirk, or may refer to something specific to that city. The same is true of smaller cities and towns, whose residents [...]

In Western countries, April 1st has long been celebrated as April Fools’ Day, an opportunity to play tricks on others and to suspend seriousness for a short period of time. As it turns out, there are other holiday traditions that nearly coincide with the beginning of April; some have suggested that the start of spring [...]

I first fell in love with automatons when I visited the famous Musée Mécanique in San Francisco. At that time it was housed in a dark, low-ceilinged hall right near the beach, but has since moved to the more tourist-oriented Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a great place to visit; for a few quarters you can see [...]

Over the past weekend, the winter storm that hit the East Coast had a big effect on air travel in that area. As with some previous storms this winter, airline passengers were stranded on planes for hours without leaving the ground, sometimes overnight. To help those poor souls stuck in similar situations in the future, [...]

Next week, on March 19th, residents of Bali, Indonesia, will celebrate Nyepi, the beginning of their new year. Nyepi, sometimes called the day of silence, is a time when everyone remains indoors and refrains from their regular activities in order to reflect on the past year as well as the year ahead. Many other cultures [...]

Starting this Sunday (March 11) at 2 A.M., most residents of the U.S. and Canada will set their clocks forward one hour in observance of the start of Daylight Saving Time. This is a change for 2007, since in previous years DST started the first Sunday in April. However, there are many regions in the [...]

Today on Interesting Thing of the Day I wrote about the Chinook winds of the Western US and Canada. There are many other famous winds around the world; below are a few of the best-known ones. If I haven’t included your favorite, feel free to add it in the comments section.

Bora: Adriatic, Greece, Russia, Turkey Brickfielder: [...]

I first became interested in the phenomenon of pubs with names that contain two nouns (e.g., Crown and Anchor) when I visited Oxford a few years ago. Some combinations seemed natural, like Fox and Hounds, while others left me scratching my head (Angel and Greyhound). There are various explanations for these puzzling names, including the idea [...]

Just a few years ago, it was a novelty found only in Sweden: a hotel built entirely out of ice. Each spring it melted, and each winter it was rebuilt, bigger and better than before. The original Ice Hotel is still a hot (well, cold) property; each year thousands of people pay handsomely to sleep [...]