When you're looking for things to do, why settle for the same old attractions? Here are some ways to refresh your summer with some truly unique options for fun.
1) Play Tug-of-War with a Tiger
Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay, Florida is challenging visitors to a game of tug-of-war with one of their several Bengal tigers. The tiger holds a rope between its teeth, and the rope goes through a hole in the fence to the challenger. The attraction, called Tiger Tugs, has over 1500 "Likes" on its facebook page, according to the website for the Daily Telegraph. The feat of strength takes place in the Jungala area of the zoo. Good luck! For those who'd rather not challenge a giant cat, there are meerkats, elephants, peacocks, and orangutangas to see.
2) Watch Animals Paint
At Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, animals made their mark by "painting" on canvases for the Pledge for the Wild campaign. A website called TheAustralian.com reports that "animals at Sydney's Taronga Zoo have dipped their paws, flippers and hooves into paint and smudged their prints onto canvasses in a bid to promote awareness of animal conservation." Currently, zoo keepers have prints from a penguin, a seal, and an elephant, along with more of the 4000 animals in the zoo.
Taronga hopes to protect elephants in Thailand's Kui Buri National Park by helpign to fund the construction of guard stations on the boarder to help prevent any elephant-human conflict. Cameron Kerr, the zoo's director, said that having the animals make their mark was a visual sign of Taronga's commitment to wildlife conservation.
This video shows zoo animals "painting":
3)See a Nature Exhibit Made of Legos
Sean Kenney has constructed the first LEGO sculpture exhibition, featuring a range of intricate animal and flower sculptures, reports the Daily Telegraph. He used almost 500,000 LEGO bricks to make 27 life-sized peices of art, arranged in 14 displays of varying sizes. It took Kenney and his team eight months to complete the exhibit.
Ther travelling exhibition is called Nature Connects, is currently on display at Iowa State University's Reiman Gardens The largest sculpture for the exhibit is a mother bison, made up from 45,143 individual toy pieces.
"Unlike traditional mediums, the toy immediately connects with so many people on such a personal level," Kenney explained on his official website. "Each sculpture touches people as both a reflection from their childhood and as a sculptural piece of art."
See a slideshow here.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
