Destinations

The 100% Chocolate Cafe

If you think dessert is the best part of a meal, check out our review of the world’s best chocolate shops.

If you think dessert should be the only part of a meal, head to Tokyo, Japan and check out The 100% Chocolate Cafe.

But don’t let the name fool you. The 100% Chocolate Cafe isn’t exclusively a cafe where every menu item involves chocolate. It’s also a store — where every item for sale involves chocolate. And there’s also a street-side walk-up window — exclusively for chocolate.

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The Elephant Four Seasons

Four Seasons hotels are known for their excellent service and exceptional luxury — their Tented Camp Golden Triangle property certainly has those qualities. But that Four Seasons — located by the village of Chiang Saen, Thailand near the borders with Burma and Laos — also has a feature not usually associate with the chain: Elephants!

Spot Cool Stuff loves the combination of animals and hotels. We’ve written before about a Kenyan hotel inundated by giraffe, a Japanese style inn where guests bathe with monkeys and an unlikely California bed and breakfast surrounded by lions and tigers. But none of those accommodations offer the pampered, high-end experience that Four Seasons does.

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The Roofless Double Decker Aerial Cable Car

For double decker buses, London is famous. Among double decker airplanes, Airbus has the superlative model. For a double decker sandwich there’s no place like the Blue Ash Chili Diner in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. And for a double decker cable car ride — for that you’ll have to head to Switzerland.

It is there, near the city of Lucerne, that you’ll find The Cabrio, the world’s best double decker aerial tramway.

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7 Amazing Circular Geological Oddities

The man made hole is so large that helicopters and small aircraft can not fly near it without the very real fear of being sucked in!

Spot Cool Stuff has been thinking of cool spots lately. Big geologic spots, that is. Circles on the face of the planet of the sort that would make some one browsing around on Google Earth (or traveling in a spaceship) stop and ask What the heck is that circular thing?

Here’s an overview (literally!) of seven of our favorite such spots. They span six countries on four continents:

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The Building That Sings When It Rains

The sound of rain falling is music to the ears of the residents of one particular building in Dresden, Germany.

Their building is one of those that form five funky courtyards collectively known as the Kunsthofpassage, located in the city’s Äußere Neustadt (Outer New Town) neighborhood. Each courtyard is designed by local artists working on a theme. And in one of the courtyards there’s a colorful building with a series of metallic funnels attached to the facade. When it rains, water is channeled down the front of the building in a way that creates melodic notes as it goes. It sounds almost like this cool piece of architecture is singing!

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Sponsored Video: Hobbits Return To New Zealand

The last time Spot Cool Stuff flew into the international airport in Christchurch, New Zealand there was a big sign in the customs area that read WELCOME TO MIDDLE EARTH.

That was in 2003. The third installment of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was selling out in theaters worldwide. Word had spread that the filming location of Middle Earth in the three Rings movies — all the outdoor scenes from the volcanic landscape around Mordor to the lush green elven forest — were filmed somewhere in New Zealand. In fact, even the rings used as props in the movies were made in New Zealand. And suddenly, New Zealand, on the fringe of the planet’s populated masses, became the center of travel for fantasy fiction lovers everywhere.

Then the hype around the movies faded into shadow (as they say). But its power is about to reemerge.

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The World’s Tallest Climbing Wall

The real challenge is the overhang, which curved 11 meters out from the base.

For the ultimate wave challenge surfers head to Hawaii. For ultimate mountains hikers head to Nepal. And for the ultimate rock climbing wall? For that one must go to the north of Holland.

It is there, in the city of Groningen, that daring climbers take on The Excalibur at the Bjoeks Klimcentrum.

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Sponsored Video:
Win a Trip to Chaos Island

Want to visit the Caribbean, all expenses paid? Lynx—a brand of men’s grooming products known as Axe outside of Ireland, the UK and Australia—is giving away seven trips to a party on “Chaos Island.”

To win, participants race to solve clues that are part of a sort of online scavenger hunt. Six different races will be unlocked between August 12th and September 1st 2012. The winner of each race gets a free trip for themselves and a friend. The seventh trip goes to a lucky someone who doesn’t win, but successfully completes, at least one of the six races.

The video below sets it all up in dramatic fashion:

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