The word Geek It is a neologism and a term of daily and informal use that has come to designate those people who have strange tastes. I know in hobbies, in their wardrobe, their consumption or their behavior. Or, since we are, in your tastes when it comes to traveling.
That's right, geek there is everything so today we have some geek travel take note of.
Geek visits in Japan
If we talk about geek things or geek people, there is no way Japan and their subcultures. This country gives for everything, really, and just as you can be impressed with a temple entirely built in embedded wood, a jewel of architecture, you can also be impressed with a robot show, waitresses dressed as lolitas, a factory of clones on request or a museum of parasites ...
Let's get started: the Kabukicho Robot Restaurant It is in Shinjuku, a district with a lot, a lot of nightlife. When you walk through the door during the day, a silver front in a narrow street catches your eye. At night it vibrates.
Here the leit motivate it's the robot and it's about enjoying a dinner with show: robots women that huge breasts in the best Aphrodite robot style from Mazinger Z, or Gundam robots that dance and move doing pirouettes and different choreographies. The faces express certain emotions, very robotic, and the breasts grow or decrease thanks to hydraulics and pneumatics. They are gigantic and colorful Amazons who are presented accompanied by flesh and blood girls in bikini dancing gogo.
The show lasts three hours and is very kawaii. Tickets for this geek show are bought online and you must show up half an hour before. Dinner is a small thing, a couple of menus, a lot of beer and nothing else, but here it is not about eating but about the show.
Another geek site in Tokyo is the Kawaii Monster Cafe, in Harajuku, another very youthful and trendy neighborhood in the Japanese capital. The cafe is the work of Sebastian Masuda and pop star Kyary Pamyu, and it is a weird mix of pop culture, kids' shows and some twist Sinister adult.
The coffee is entered through the mouth of a monster with huge eyes, there is colorful bears everywhere, cupcakes, sweets of all kinds and much more. The cafe has four different sectors: the Milk Stand or Milk Stand is beautiful, with a bunny and a unicorn, the Experiment Bar takes customers to drink cocktails inside an indigo jellyfish, the Hongo Nightclub is very psychedelic and has a mushroom giant and of all colors, and finally there is the Mel Tea Room with columns of macaroons.
The cafe staff are not far behind with their names and costumes and neither is the food, nor in colors, shapes and flavors. This site is at YM Suquare 4F, in Harajuku, Tokyo.
A geek visit but much more expensive than going for a coffee with psychedelic macaroons or a show of giant and sexy robots, is to go to the clonefactory. This site is in Akihabara, the quintessential electronics and manga / anime neighborhood. What is it about? Well, in this place they are made 3D digital models of your head. That's right, just the same but in miniature. A mini head to which you later add the body with the outfit what you want.
A pocket version of yourself for a price of around U.S. dollar 1.700. How about? Not geek enough? Of course, although this place has been talked about for a long time, many recent travelers have not managed to find it. Good luck! Finally, to say goodbye to the global geek mecca that is Tokyo we have the Meguro Parasitology Museum.
Meguro is another Tokyo neighborhood. Here is this small museum not suitable for people with hypochondria. It is small but has two floors: on the lower floor it is quite quiet with maps and drawings of different parasites that infect animals or people, but already on the second floor things get heavier because we get involved with parasites that infect humans.
There are many photos, because the collection is of about 45 thousand parasites and everything, but everything is impressive. Can we really have that bug in it? There are two stars in the collection: a photo of a pair of dissected testicles with a tropical parasite inside and a worm almost 9 feet long. And before we go, why not take a tour of the curious and geek gift shop?
Admission is free but if you liked the visit you can leave some money. The museum is only a 15 minute walk from JR Meguro Station. 4-1-1 Shinmeguro. Now we cross the Pacific Ocean and come to United States, to the fascinating city of New Orleans: here is the Historical Museum of Voodoo.
This place It was founded in 1972 by Charles Massicot Gandolfo, a local artist with a passion for voodoo, a religion brought from Africa by the slaves. It is a small museum where you can see that strange combination of cultural syncretism between America and Africa. Louisiana is a place with a lot of slave history and in the museum you can see different objects: voodoo dolls, taxidermy, talismans and personal belongings that belonged to an acquaintance local voodoo priestess named Maria Laveau.
From the same door of the museum the Guided tours of the St. Louis Cemetery, where is the grave of this well-known lady around here. Obviously, there is a very original souvenir shop where you can buy from snake skins to books and candles to magic potions. The museum is on Dumaine Street, 724.
And finally, although there are many other possible geek trips, we return to Asia to visit, in China, the Chinese Watermelon Museum. Yes, you read that right. South of Beijing is this curious museum that It was founded in 2002. The place makes a complete watermelon journey, from its origin in southern Africa to its journey around the world and outer space: history, cultivation methods, growth and the Chinese delight for this fruit.
The building is of futuristic architecture and there are wax watermelons everywhere representing all the varieties in the world. They are accompanied by very strong and bright neon lights that make the tour almost surreal. It must be said that there are real watermelons on display outside the museum. Yes indeed, there is not a single sign in english. A shame
You get here by subway, Line 4 to TianGong, then take a bus to Panggezhuangqiao. It closes on weekends and opens from Monday to Friday from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, costing 20 RMB the entrance.