Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 168
December 18, 2020
December 17, 2020
A Food Tour Of The Strangest Holiday Dishes Around The World
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
The holiday season has traditionally been a time to eat, drink, and be merry. From delectable Thanksgiving feasts to lavish Christmas dinners, it’s a time for togetherness, celebration, and peculiar holiday traditions!
A traditional holiday celebration looks very different in different places around the world. Things have changed over the years, too—in fact, Christmas used to be a time for the sharing of spooky ghost stories! Yule meals themselves are very varied too. Today, people around the globe enjoy a range of tasty traditions over the holiday season.
From China’s ‘peace apples’ to England’s spotted dick, here are some of the more intriguing and exotic examples.
Sweden: Gubbröra
The name of this delicious dish translates to old man’s mix. As is common in Scandinavia, it’s a seafood-heavy concoction, a salad mainly consisting of anchovies and eggs.
Other fish can be substituted and methods of preparation will differ. Pickled herring is especially popular, but there are two times at which this meal is traditionally enjoyed in Sweden: Christmas and midsummer.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Michael Björklund (@michaelbjorklundchef)
China: Peace Apples
In China, Christmas isn’t a widely celebrated festival. After all, it’s a Christian holiday. Nevertheless, recent years have seen a slow but steady rise in the popularity of the holiday in China.
One wholesome new tradition that has emerged as a result is the giving of ‘peace apples,’ which tends to take place on Christmas Eve. While apples aren’t the most exotic or intriguing of fruits, these elaborate iterations are carefully carved with intricate patterns and gifted to friends or family wrapped like a Christmas gift.
December 16, 2020
December 15, 2020
Bugging Out With Kelvin Wiley
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In 2016, Chapman University performed a survey about fears in the United States in which 25 percent of the respondents admitted to having a fear of spiders and/or insects. While these are common phobias, one man has made it his mission to help people better understand our creepy crawly friends the best way he knows how: by putting them in his mouth!
Kelvin Wiley, 23, calls himself an invertebrate hobbyist and insect enthusiast, and since 2018, he has been posting videos and pictures on his Instagram getting up close and personal with insects, spiders, and more. On his account, which currently has over 94,000 followers, Wiley can be seen holding a yellow garden spider, letting a horsefly crawl across his cheek, and even opening his mouth to reveal scorpions, yellowjackets, assassin bugs, and a host of other creatures.
Since 2015, Wiley has been keeping insects, spiders, and more, as pets in his basement. Although he’s always loved animals, his fascination with insects was what eventually became his focus at a young age. This is because of the diversity one can find when studying these creatures. “[There are] so many in the world; you can never stop learning more about them.”
One of Wiley’s favorite insects seems to be the mantis. He often poses with different species of them and stated in a recent YouTube Q&A that, if he could create any insect, it would be a venomous form of mantis. For his dream bug, this would involve adding a venom gland to the front of their raptorial forelegs so that they could inject their prey with poison upon grabbing it.
View this post on Instagram
December 14, 2020
Ripley’s Oddidays Gift Guide
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
It can be tricky to find the perfect gift for someone—especially the family oddball! Have no fear. Ripley’s is here to help you spread oddiday cheer with a curiously-curated gift guide of Believe It or Not! adventures, obscure oddity shops, and much more!
Give the Gift of Ripley’s
Stuff your friends and family’s stocking with the strange by gifting tickets to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! With over 100 Attractions around the world, they’re great for anyone on your list!
Replica Relics that Won’t be Regifted
Believe It or Not!, these vintage designs were once used to promote the sideshow and carnival curiosities featured at Robert Ripley’s earliest Odditoriums at the New York and Chicago World’s Fairs. Decorate with these replica relics to share your space with the Pain Proof Man, the Queen of Sword Swallowers, and other living wonders of the past! Shop a size that works for you and your space—framed or unframed—printed on museum-quality, matte paper.
Shop Small
A good portion of the Ripley’s exhibit collection can largely be attributed to independent oddity collectors, constantly seeking out the strange from around the world. I mean, just check out the gigantic taxidermy giraffe that the Ripley’s Exhibit Coordinator recently picked up from Darwin and Wallace Store!
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Darwin and Wallace Store (@darwin.and.wallace.store)
We’re also having major kapala envy with the offerings at Philadelphia’s Little Devils Curiosities!
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Little Devils Curiosities (@littledevilscuriosities)
Sand fish lizard stocking stuffers, anyone?
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Dark Interiors (@dark.interiors)
Not Your Typical Christmas Sweater
Ugly sweaters? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we are fa-la-la-la-ing in love with the latest offerings for both children and adults on our online Ripley’s Shop!
Whether you want to rock around the Ripley’s wreath—decked with classic exhibits like the Fiji mermaid and Tibetan kapala—or keep it classic with a cross-stitch design of shrunken heads, two-headed reindeer, and topsy-turvy Christmas trees, you can bring the holiday weird, and stay comfy and cozy at the same time!
Other oddity accounts to check out, courtesy of Harrison DeBord of Little Devils Curiosities: @theendtimesboutique, @natural_selections, @anastaciasphilly, @clevelandcuriosities, @woollymammothchicago, @obscuraantiques, @curiositiesfromthe5thcorner, @thecopperhammer, @skeletor_keys, @freemanandfugateoddities, @old_ghosts_odditorium, @deadskullcurio
Source: Ripley’s Oddidays Gift Guide
December 13, 2020
December 12, 2020
Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog
- Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s profile
- 52 followers
