Saturday, July 26, 2014

'রিপ্লের আজব খবর'-এর দেশে

When I was a li'l kid, I did not have much toys, nor any kind of cool gadgets to play with - what I had was a bunch of story-books & comics, and that also not too many in numbers. So I, as well as most of the kids in that time, used to read the same books, same pages over and over again !! It is like, first you read only the main story, ignoring the supplement ones - then you again start over and read the main story together with the supplement ones, and so on and on... And this is the way I started to like the "রিপ্লের আজব খবর", which used to be covered on last few pages in many 'Indrajal Comics' issues. Mostly the eerie, scary, strange-looking, weird pictures made us all feel interested about "Ripley".


Robert Ripley was sculpted in stone (1937) by a 25 year old
blind artist, named "Mark Shoesmith"
At that time I never imagined that such a place exists on earth, or rather I will be ever be able to visit such place. But God has the final say!!  In July 2007, I, together with my friends decided to visit the world famous "Niagara Falls" and "CN Tower (Toronto)". Going there I came to know that there is a popular local attraction, called "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" museum. I was so thrilled and excited that others started laughing!! It is not like that I am, or I ever was a big fan of Ripley's facts/stories - but it is more of something that you can really touch coming back from your long-lost childhood days, which you ever thought to be possible !!

So, one cloudy day we all started to visit to the famous "Ripley's Believe It or Not" museum @ Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls city. The place was pretty kooky, creepy, mysterious and spooky with all kinds of strange things. If you flip inside a "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" book - basically that's what this place is, in glorious three dimensions.
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
(4960 Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls, Canada)


Ripley's isn't the largest, but if you take your time to "appreciate" the cheesy reproductions, you can spend a decent hour here laughing, getting grossed out, and taking photos. It is a self-guided tour, so you can spend as much time as you'd like once inside. Luckily it was a slow day, not too much crowded,  which was good for us - we got chance to stop and look for a while without feeling rushed or claustrophobic with people.
We examined lot of the displays, read their facts, but soon we realized there's a lot of that. The items there ranged from interesting to gross to beautiful, to really creepy, to cool, to weird - just like I found on the IJC book pages. 

I love reading the placards and checking out what each exhibit has to offer - places like this always intrigue me. Despite their lack of updates, I still had a genuinely great time here at the museum. The mirror, rolling barrel,  interactive games, illusions, disorienting black-lit  spinning tunnel, were definitely the highlights. There were actually some pretty interesting, wacky stuff and some of it is actually rather educational - although much of the stuff is real, you should definitely not believe everything you see!! But I doubt that I would return here again as the second time around, was more of a walk down memory lane than a truly enlightening experience. 

Download here few of the vintage "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" comics and have a happy reading ! 

রিপ্লের আজব খবরের দেশে




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