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10 Most Bizarre Museums

Burger Museum

If you spent all day thinking of the unusual items that people collect, we bet you'd never think of hamburgers. Harry Sperl, a German immigrant living in America (where else?), has collected more than one thousand hamburger-related items. including a hamburger waterbed and a hamburger motorcycle. The collectionincludes more than 500 different hamburgers and some pretty unusual burger material. There are banks, biscuit jars, clocks, hats, trays, erasers, badges, magnets, music boxes, a pencil holder, salt and pepper shakers and, of course, the waterbed, which is complete with a sesame seed covered spread and matching pillows. There are signs, posters, glasses, cups, bowls, stuffed toys, T-shirts, towels, calendars and postcards. Most of the material was picked up at flea markets and garage sales, where Harry trawled for burgers with friend and fellow enthusiast Ron Baynton. When Baynton decided to give up collecting hamburgers, Harry bought his collection and added it to his own.

Leila's Hair Museum

Leila's Hair Museum in Independance, Missouri is probably the world's only hair museum, acting as the headquarters for the Victorian Hairwork Society. The museum sports a large collection of hair jewelry and samples dating back to 1725. Hair jewelry really caught on during Victorian times when it was regularly used to honor a dead relative or loved one as part of the mourning process.

Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices shares his collection of the hilarious, horrifying, and preposterous medical devices that have been foisted upon the public in their quest for good health. Includes the Prostate Gland Warmer, Phrenology Machine, Recto Rotor, Nose Straightener, Wonder Electro Marvel, and hundreds of other weird devices. Founder Bob McCoy retired and closed the St. Anthony Main location of the museum in 2002, donating his devices to the Science Museum of Minnesota, which still displays a small number of items in theirCollections Gallery.

Museum of Menstruation

The Museum, located in a suburb of Washington, D.C., is devoted to the rituals and culture of menstruation. Visitors can see exhibits tracing the history of pads, tampons, special menstrual underwear, and more. As the Museum's brochure explains, "A particular weight is put on the history and philosophy of menstrual hygiene advertising; the museum owns over 1,000 ads from many countries, as well as patents, booklets and other printed and visual material."

Nut Museum

What happens when more than 100 nutcrackers, nut masks, paintings and sculptures of nuts, and acollection of mixed nuts from the nationally recognized Nut Museum lose their home? They find a new one at Connecticut College where author and Professor of Art History Christopher Steiner and his students have been sorting, cataloging, and archiving every piece in the collection, some of which will be exhibited at the college beginning December 5, when Tashjian will be present. He is truly "nuts".

Museum of the Penis

The Icelandic Phallological Museum in Iceland is a museum devoted to phallology. As of July 2006, the museum houses 245 specimens displayed like hunting trophies, embalmed in formaldehyde, or dried in display cases. The museum attempts to collect penis specimens from every mammal in Iceland, including several species that are endangered or currently extinct in Icelandic waters. Sigurður Hjartarson, a former teacher, is the founder and director of the museum. The museum also exhibits a few specimens from mammals not living in Iceland, as well as folkloric specimens (alleged elves, trolls, sea monsters, etc.) and penis-themed art.

The Shoe Museum

Ladies and gentlemen, gird your loins and prepare yourself for some of the most famousshoes in the world. The Shoe Museum includes the shoes of celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Sandy Duncan or Mike Schmidt, plus, the biggest shoe in the world: one made for a woman whose lek had to, later, be amputated.

Toilet Museum

The American Sanitary Plumbing Museum is the butt of a lot of jokes. It's also a shrine to the history of plumbing. The joke is that in most museums you generally have to search for a toilet. Here, toilets abound, some of them dating back to the early nineteenth century. You'll see ornate porcelain toilets, chain-pull toilets with high wooden tanks, and an "earth cabinet" that collected the user's waste in lime instead of water. There's even toilet paper from the 1800's, referred to back then as "boudoir paper." The museum was founded by Worcester plumbing equipment distributor Charles Manoog in 1979. Manoog was getting ready to retire and says he wanted to give something back to the profession. Today, his son Russ Manoog runs the distribution business. Down the street, in a refurbished warehouse, Russ's wife, B.J. Manoog curates the only known plumbing museum in the world.

New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum

The primary purpose of this museum is to represent the traditional practices of the Voodoo religion in New Orleans. The New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum brings together ancient and modern day Voodoo practices. While you are visiting the Museum, you may wish to have one of our practitioners prepare a special Gris-Gris bag just for you or someone you may know. The Museum also houses artifacts of the Great Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau.

National Lighter Museum

The National Lighter Museum in Guthrie, Oklahoma has nearly 20,000 pieces, representing over 85,000 years of lighters and fire starters. The only museum of its kind in the world, it is dedicated to collecting and preserving the history of the evolution of lighters.

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Top 10 Weirdest Toilets

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Aquarium toilet

Add a little life to your bathroom with this live aquarium. The fully functioning tank fits American Standard bowls. Custom bowl installation is available. It was designed by Oliver Beckert and it features a 3/8" acrylic tank, 1.6 gpf., and 22" x 14" x 9" deep.

Disappearing Urinal

The Urilift system is a two-meter high stainless steel cylinder with three alcoves, each with a urinal, and no doors. By day, the Urilift is lowered below street level for a nice clean look. Then at night, an operator comes by with a remote and the Urilift hydraulically lifts to sidewalk level in about two minutes. Then the unit is ready to serve all the nighttime party animals who don't mind peeing in a very exposed public urinal. The $75,000 system has been installed across the Netherlands, and have spread to London and Belfast, but Victoria will be the first North American city to try them out.

Hands-Free Toilet

A company called "Bottoms Up LLC" claims to have ushered in the dawning of a new age, with its hands-free toilet seat. It's essentially a toilet set with a motor that lifts it up and down without having to touch it. Probably a good thing for public restrooms. No more having to lift the seat with the sole of my shoe.

Incinerating Toilet

You first press a button to start the heating system and then put a special purpose coated paper bowl liner (coffee filters just won't do) down between two sloping pieces of steel. This is the gateway to Hades. You then poo or pee into the paper filter, step onto a lever, and wave goodbye to your human by-products and any toilet paper! It is manufactured by Incinolet.

MP3 Toilet

Besides including gizmos like a seat heater, automatic washer, and electronic controlled seat, this toilet includes a full fledged MP3 player with a SD card slot. The control panel with the MP3 player can be attached on the wall. 16 classic tunes are included with the SD card. The MP3 player can Random playback, One Tune playback and so on. It conserves power by studying the time patterns of usage and thus not heating the seat when the toilet is least used. The fully loaded N5A seat costs $1750.

Portable Toilet

The Insipod is a portable Toilet that works like a tent. When not in use, it fits in a small wrapped package. But when deployed, the nylon shell spreads out like a balloon to not only provide privacy but also to contain all the smells that come with using the restroom.

Public Semi-Transparent Toilet

It is impossible to see into the toilet, which is free to use, but the person inside can see passers-by. An artist has created this usable public toilet in a glass cube to challenge the curiosity -and bravery- of people passingLondon's Tate Britain gallery. Visitors have to "defy their own embarrassment" to use the minimalist cubicle, made from one-way mirrored glass.

Massaging Toilet

The Royalet super seats installs onto your standard toilet, and gives you all the functions you could imagine: washing, heating, deodorising, massaging, drying... you even set the water and seat temp!

Dagobert Throne Toilet

Take your bathroom back a few years with this pull chain antique style toilet that perfectly accents a clawfoot bathtub in your vintage bathroom. The toilet comes with an ashtray, candle holder, and hand painted toilet bowl and plaque. It includes a song when lid is raised, and features a solid ash throne with 3 layers of polyurethane coating, a pull chain flush with bell, ashtray in arm, and a candle.

Waterless Toilet

This toilet is ingenious. Although it looks like a UFO, the main purpose of this toilet is to provide a fully-functioning, hygienic toilet that contains all pollution and sterilizes all the harmful bacteria without the use of chemicals, running water, or electricity. The container is portable, compact, easy to assemble, and is great for rural, developing areas.

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World's Craziest Hotels

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Capsule Inn (Tokio): capsules instead of rooms

The Capsule Inn provides more a capsule, than a room. While the Inn provides a public lounge space, including bathrooms, guests stay in a capsule unit. These capsules, which are made of reinforced plastic, have all the required amenities, like TV, radio, lighting, and alarm clock access. While you may be asking, required amenities for who? a quick stay in the Capsule Inn just might make you long for an all access capsule of your own.

Gamirasu Cave Hotel (Turkey): a cave on a volcanic rock

Sleeping in a cave, according to the management of Gamirasu Cave Hotel, is surprisingly comfortable. The volcanic rock that insulates the cave keeps the temperature at a comfortable level, between 63 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit, year round. The cave itself used to be a Byzantine monastic retreat, dated at about 1,000 years old. Until recently, part of this retreat was used by Christian monks, and some of the individual rooms were used as cells.

Exploranter (Brazil): a hotel on wheels

The Exploranter -- a hotel on wheels -- was certainly designed for the adventure traveler. Though the digs are modest, Exploranter is fully equipped with facilities that include a kitchen, hot showers and 28 beds. The Exploranter is based in Sao Paulo and tours through Brazil, Chile and Argentina. The hotel even caters to themed private parties, such as hot-air ballooning, horseback riding, rafting, or visiting vineyards. Keep an open mind when you're traveling with the Exploranter gang: the chef on board wants guests to sample international cuisine and might surprise you with a snack of crispy red ants.

Ice Hotel (Sweden): 6,000 square feet of ice and snow

Made up of over 6,000 square feet of ice and snow, it's the largest - and the original - ice hotel in the world. Guests sleep in a thermal sleeping bag on a special bed built of snow and ice, on reindeer skins. In the morning, a cup of hot lingonberry juice is brought to their bedside. After enjoying a good (?) night's sleep on a bed of snow, that morning delivery should be quite a delight. With an average temperature of 17 degrees Fahrenheit, bring lots of layers, or just visit the Absolut ICE bar and drink some vodka to stay toasty - in more ways than one.

ld Jail Mount (Australia): an actual prision

If you've ever spent a night in jail you probably don't want to go back. However, for the do-gooders that may never get there - The Jail in Australia is just the place to get locked up for the night, sans the legal fees and court appearance. This old prison in Mount Gambier has been transformed into a lodging aimed at budget travelers. Considering guests will have to eat in the mess hall and sleep next to a toilet, it's pretty safe to say that anyone with more than budget needs should steer clear of The Jail.

Poseidon Undersea Resort (Fiji): an underwater hotel

By early 2009, travelers will have the opportunity to stay at the grandiose Poseidon Undersea Resort. Nestled forty feet below the surface of the clear blue Fijian Lagoon, the underwater suites will be accessible by elevator. 70 percent of each suite is enveloped in Acrylic walls that allow for spectacular views of the ocean. Guests are invited to interact with the surroundings. At the push of a button the fish are fed, and a flip of a switch turns on the sparkling underwater lights.

McMenemins Kennedy School Hotel (USA): back to school

Have you ever experienced the went to school in your underwear nightmare? At McMenemins Kennedy School hotel, that nightmare becomes a reality. The Kennedy School, a historic elementary school, has been converted into a delightful little place to stay while visiting the Portland area. Each room, fashioned from original schoolrooms, contains a chalkboard and comes fitted with a phone, Internet connection, and even a private bath.

Green Magic Treehouses (India): built in trees 90 feet high

If you longed for a tree house getaway as a child, the Green Magic Treehouses in Kerela, India may be a long awaited dream come true. The houses are built in trees 90 feet high, and nestled in a tropical rainforest. They come complete with running water in private baths, telephones, and if you're feeling extra adventurous - access to a hanging bridge. All of the houses are made of Eco- friendly materials, and run by alternate energy sources, avoiding conventional electricity power. This, coupled with the beautiful abundance of flora and fauna, make for a beautiful and unique place to stay.

Woodlyn Park Motels (NZ): a railcar and a plane

Planes, Trains, and Hobbit Motels? Woodlyn Park in Waitomo, NZ offers three unique lodging options. A 1950's railcar and a Bristol Fighter plane have been refurbished and transformed into small self-contained motel units. The Hobbit Motel resembles an authentic hobbit hole built into the side of the mountain. The entertainment provided at any of the 3 Woodlyn Park motels is equally bizarre. Guests are invited to enjoy a sheep shearing and fun with bush animals, such as the kiwi bird or the dancing pig.

Woodpecker Hotel (Sweden): on a park, for a single guest

The Woodpecker Hotel is among the smallest in the world. It only accommodates a single guest or a couple, which makes perfect senseconsidering that the digs at the Woodpecker are located in a tree house about 42 feet above a Swedish park. Your tree house is not completely rustic -- it comes complete with a veranda, hammock and toilet.

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