Hey Hive!
If you missed the last few posts, we're currently on our first trip up into the mountains of Malaysia, specifically to Genting Highlands, where there's an integrated resort there! I've heard about it a lot but never actually been, and Sean was excited to show me around since he used to go there with his family.
Last week, after exploring most of the resort complex (which spans multiple malls, hotels and theme parks), we enjoyed a refreshing herbal jelly dessert before going to Ripley's Adventureland! And since this was Ripley's place, it only made sense to visit his "museum" of sorts, aptly called the Odditorium!
We started going through the Odditorium, encountering some truly weird and unbelievable things and people. Thankfully the museum was mostly empty so we could take our time to enjoy the exhibits and activities there.
There was a lot to see in the Odditorium, mostly art made from different materials and objects (including packing tape and even mustard and ketchup). There were also lots of optical illusions and figures of people with weird quirks and abilities.
But there's still a lot more to the Odditorium so let's continue!
11 September 2022. Sunday.
We left off at this futuristic area after encountering a lot of stuff and people from olden times. Somehow this felt like we were going into a set of a sci-fi movie/show though.
There was a lot of NASA memorabilia on display here, from the mission badges to one of their astronaut jackets.
There were also many awards, medals and I suppose letters written by astronauts back in the day. I doubt these are real though they're probably replicas of the real thing.
This area felt more like a science museum than the Odditorium and we were kinda puzzled as to how this relates to Ripley's stuff, but it was still cool to see.
There was also an interactive space shuttle here that you could enter.
But there wasn't much inside tbh it was completely dark and full of mirrors and sparkly lights.
After that was a tribal/Egyptian area with some cool looking statues.
There was The Amazon Collection of pottery, masks and other artifacts that were uncovered in the Amazon Rainforest.
They had various drums, bowls, instruments and weapons on display here that Ripley must have collected over the course of his travels around the world. These were from Africa, Tibet and Nepal.
I've seen stuff like these as props in movies and TV shows but it was really cool to be seeing them in person! Although since it was in the Odditorium we weren't really sure if they were real. They did seem quite legit though.
Apparently this was a genuine Shuar Indian shrunken human head from 1900! The Shuar Indians of Ecuador used their enemies' heads as war trophies and shrunk them by peeling the skin away, removing the skull and boiling the head! Urgh sounds quite brutal and disgusting tbh.
The architecture here was really cool though with the hieroglyphs on the walls.
There were some huge tribal masks and other stone carvings on display here as well.
Next was the optical illusion area!
This area was probably the most fun since there were more activities and we paused at each one trying them out or deciphering the illusion.
There was this comic about a man named Willard who made micro-sculptures after he got ridiculed in school for having dyslexia. He grew up and became a Member of the Order of the British Empire because of his microsculptures though! I thought that was really wholesome.
There was a weird archway in the optical illusion area that looked like something out of a sci-fi show again.
There were some interactivities here and it reminded us of that Mr Bean episode where he cheated at the carnival with the wire game. xD
We tried our best to do it but it seemed rigged since it would buzz even when we didn't touch the wire only when we got it to a certain point. After a few tries we gave up.
We went past the curtain into the temporal distortion area and behind the curtain it was just a bunch of screens that showed ourselves but distorted in different ways.
There was also some glow in the dark stuff that would light up different things on the wall based on what colour lights were shining on it.
Turns out we had to go through this area to continue our journey through the Odditorium since we came out into another optical illusion area and these looked familiar.
There was a huge game of operation here but with someone called The Human Ostrich? Apparently it's because this guy named Edmond Nickels had "pica" - a disorder for eating non-digestible objects and since ostriches are known for eating whatever they find, they called him the Human Ostrich.
According to Ripley, he apparently swallowed 607 foreign objects but actually died of pneumonia!
There were more optical illusions here including some figure on the wall hiding a jewel in his mouth? I didn't dare put my hand in there though.
There were some auditory illusions here as well with old-style radios. I think they played clips like the yanny-laurel voice clip from a few years ago.
There was a giant Lite-Brite display where you could rearrange it into different things, and more optical illusions on the wall.
When we saw they had the trick camera room we had to try it of course!
That's how we got this shot! It's too bad we couldn't get one proper one from the screen so you could really see the illusion.
There were so many illusions here, most of which we'd seen before.
I remember reading a book of optical illusions back in elementary school and there were so many of these in that book as I tried to figure them out together with my family.
I think this was just a video player where you could control the speed. Not sure why it's an optical illusion though rather than visual effects.
There were a lot of hypnotising things around that I tried not to stare at too much.
I think this was definitely the most colourful area and probably where a lot of kids would spend the most time here.
There was just so much stuff on every wall it's like they went to the internet and found optical illusions to put up here.
This was another photo portrait that looked better through the camera lens. This one was actually made of Legos too which is really amazing since irl you can't really tell it's Iron Man.
After that we ended up in some maintenance area where there was a creepy old man figure and a fake office.
There were more exhibits here like this xylophone made of kitchen counter.
A display of despicable world leaders painted on cockroaches?
Miniature pencil carvings where the led was made to look like buildings from Malaysia!
There was also an Indian elephant in here made of metal.
As well as a two-headed dragon made of wooden matchsticks and a lion made of tyres?
There was even a movie prop from 1959 of this 20 feet long wooden model boat! I'm not sure what movie this was from but it was pretty impressive.
They sure made this area to look like a back warehouse rather than part of the museum, with random things on display that looked like they were taken off the shelves and kept in storage.
These tiny toothpick carvings were so impressive I have no idea how people did these it's insane working on such a small object!
We met "someone" who looked like he got detained in the security office but it was a dummy.
We also managed to get round to the security office itself and found more weird fake things in here.
We thought we met some actual people here but it turns out they were just figurines. Initially out of the corner of my eye I thought they were real people and waited patiently for them to take their photo at first. XD
Guess what was on his phone though xD
There was some cool pirate stuff on the walls here. Maybe Ripley had a run-in with some pirates back in the day?
There were also some impressive recreations of famous paintings on the wings of giant butterflies! I thought these were truly astounding, even if they weren't real.
There was a whole zoo area over here with fake animals. I'm not sure what this was but it felt like a collection of animals Ripley must have seen during his trips.
There were also some artistic recreations like this velociraptor made of pumpkin and sunflower seeds!
It really felt like we were browsing Ripley's collection of stuff.
But thankfully none of these are real especially this humongous moth on the wall!
The last section was a curious one, starting with a display of notes from different currencies that are now out of print.
This was a full size replica of an American mountain lion, made from over a million dollars worth of shredded American dollars!
Apparently this was supposed to be the Luckiest Room in the World, with a horse made of golden horseshoes!
And of course just like in Penang there was another one of these Luckiest Chairs in the World!
I'm not sure why it was next to a model of David Beckham's legs but okay.
There was also the Million Dollar Buddha who apparently will grant happiness and luck if you make a wish while rubbing his belly!
That was pretty much the end of the museum! After that we wound up back at the entrance again but on the other side.
And we finally got to take a pic with tyre King Kong!
as well as the car made of random instruments and junk.
After that we left the Odditorium and realised that this Adventureland was very similar to the indoor theme park we visited in Penang since they also had Zombie Outbreak and a Jurassic area here.
There was a fish spa area with tiny fishes that would eat the dead skin from your feet.
We looked around the rest of Adventureland and there was nothing else of interest since we'd already seen it or it was mostly for kids.
It was late but we hadn't had dinner yet since we had a big late lunch, so we went to get a snack from Texas Chicken since that was one of the few places that was still open.
Since the casino is pretty much open 24 hours we weren't surprised to see people still around at 10pm.
We decided to try one of their wraps since we'd never tried it before.
It looked pretty decent with a big piece of chicken taking up the bulk of the wrap.
There was some veggies and peppers in there too and the chicken was actually a little spicy. It wasn't as crispy as I thought it was going to be but it was still quite meaty and tasty nonetheless. The mayonnaise nullified the spice a little but it was still too much for Sean. I liked it though!
On the way back to our hotel we passed by Wolfgang's which is probably one of the most expensive restaurants here. They even had a semi-outdoor lounge where a live band was playing!
On the way back we also stopped by this bakery we saw earlier called Donutes and they were having a discount since it was getting late so we decided to try their donuts!
Their pastries looked so good! While it wasn't warm the donut was still very fluffy and sugary so it was a nice dessert.
And that's it for this day! Sorry for the long post but I hope you enjoyed it and stay tuned for next week where we visit the theme parks!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #220 (Genting): Visiting Ripley's Odditorium! 👀
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Hiya, @lizanomadsoul here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Travel Digest #2002.
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hey thanks for the Honorable Mention @lizanomadsoul! ^-^
You are welcome @taco.cat 🐝
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