Author: Ms. R.

Inside an aging industrial park, a nutty, sweet aroma wafts through the air. Smoke billows out of one particular shophouse in a row of red-brick, one-story factories. Inside, four men clad in polo shirts, hair nets, masks, and heavy-duty gloves emerge from the smoke. With metal rods, they repeatedly slam a mound of caramelized coffee beans inside a tub, breaking them apart. These are employees of Kim Guan Guan, one of the last traditional coffee roasters in Singapore. Jason……

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In the rolling grasslands north of Yellowstone National Park, along a path used for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding, stands a giant chicken.  The chicken stands about nine feet tall and is brightly painted white, yellow and red. It is a surprising discovery for anyone exploring the trail, as the chicken is largely hidden from view by hills. There is no marker or plaque indicating why the chicken is here, but it’s believed to have once belonged to a short-lived……

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How often do you get a chance to see two 2,500 year-old bronze warriors from classical Greece?  These statues in Reggio di Calabria, Italy, spent more than 2,000 years submerged under the waves of the Ionian Sea. A diver discovered the pair in 1972 and within a week the bronzes were recovered by an elated Italian government.  Stefano Mariottini chanced upon the bronzes while snorkeling off the coast of Riace. He noticed an arm emerging from the sand, which……

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Beneath the sands of a deserted Sudanese town called Old Dongola, on the eastern bank of the Nile River, archaeologists have discovered traces of a time when the place bustled with life. Specifically, they’ve revealed a church that appears to be the largest ever discovered in the Nubian region, comprising parts of present-day Egypt and Sudan. Archaeologists from the University of Warsaw’s Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA) believe they have found two walls of the church’s apse, painted……

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The team first arrived in the rural English town of Trowbridge in the summer of 2000. There were two brewers, two engineers, and eight government officials. They were all from North Korea, and they had come to take the brewery. Their leader, Kim Jong Il (nicknamed “Kim Jong Ale” by the residents of Trowbridge), had recently decided that North Korea needed a proper state-run brewery. But instead of building a brewery from scratch, the North Korean leader decided to……

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Overlooking the dangerous waters of the Hālona Blowhole, the Japanese Fishing Shrine, Umi Mamori Jizo, stands guard. Composed of lava rock, the main part of the alter features Bodhisattva Jizo, an important saint of Mahayana Buddhism and the guardian of children, women, and travelers. Dating as early as the 1800s, the first-generation Japanese fishermen of Hawaii established shrines along East O’ahu beaches to protect them as they surf-cast for deep ocean fish.  The present-day alter was built in 1940……

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This 10th-century castle was constructed by the Bonacolsi family, the leading family of Mantua before Gonzaga. Later, the castle was used by the Gonzaga and Scaligeri families. The fame of the castle is also linked to the history of Modena. In 1311, Francesco I Pico was designated by the emperor to manage the city of Modena. After only one year, he was hated by both the two major factions of the city (Guelph and Ghibelline) and was betrayed with……

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In 1934, Exequiel Bustillo, president of the Argentine National Park Service, created Nahuel Huapi National Park. He called upon his brother, famed architect Alejandro Bustillo, to design a resort to attract wealthy tourists to the area. First opened in 1939, Llao Llao Resort was built in the style of the great Canadian lodges. Five thousand trees were cleared to build the resort. Soon after its completion, the building burned to the ground but was quickly rebuilt and reopened in 1940…….

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In the winter of 1867, William Graham, Thomas Graham, and Alfred Herbert Burman (aged 4, 5, and 7) went for an adventure in the Victorian bush near Daylesford. This area is packed with dense forests and sprawling grasslands, somewhere that would make a great area to adventure, but unfortunately, the young boys vanished.  Their disappearance caused a massive stir in the local community. The boy’s bodies were discovered three months later in a hollow tree trunk.  This memorial takes……

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