:eek: 
Famous thing: Jason Stratham
Surprising thing about it: It’s a short-ass. (it seems to be tallish in films)
I went to Italy expecting to be impressed with the architecture and art. I expected to be completely impressed with Michelangelo’s work. What I didn’t expect was to be completely overwhelmed by the sculpture of Bernini.
The Serengetti Plain is more than you would ever hope for, especially during migration.
Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania is one of the most spectacular sights on the planet. Nothing prepares you for it.
I expected Victoria Falls to be impressive. I didn’t expect it to bring tears to my eyes.
I agree with the views on the Sphinx. It seemed smaller than I thought it would be, but was interesting all the same.
A disappointment was the burial chamber at the top of the Great Pyramid. After sweating and climbing up inside a claustrophobic tunnel, you reach…an empty room. I had thought there might at least be some sort of display or other information.
When I lived in DC, I had the habit of bringing my out-of-town visiters down to the Mall at night. In particular, visiting the Lincoln Memorial at night is a completely different experience. It’s well-lit, but at night there is a presence there that brings the hair on the back of your neck right up.
I saw an article while I was down there on the various monuments in the city, subdivided into the temples (eg: the Jefferson Memorial), the talls (the Washington Monument, duh), and the tombs. The best combine all three characteristics.
While the Lincoln Memorial may not be technically a tomb, it certainly feels like one at night. It is definitely a temple, and it’s tall enough when you are in front of it.
The Washington Monument, on the other hand is pure tall. And, frankly, it is best viewed from a distance. Going up to the top really isn’t worth waiting through the line for… all you have is a very small room with eight tiny little windows that don’t really give a great view of the city.
The Jefferson Memorial, is pure temple. There is no “hauntedness” to it. While I am a big fan of TJ, the experience just isn’t the same as at the Lincoln Memorial.
Mine’s a local thing. The Longaberger Basket company has their headquarters in a giant basket. Hubby and I were tooling along the road in the convertible, came around the corner, and there was this building sized basket. Yes, we knew, intellectually, that it existed, but we weren’t thinking about it. It was a shock.
When I saw a total eclipse it was awesome, wonderful, and humbling.
Oh man, I second that. I stood in front of The Rape of Persephone for 30 minutes and I don’t think I breathed, blinked, or moved once.
I knew it was big…but I had no idea.
A third for the Taj Mahal. I think part of it too is the difference, from the dirtiness and crowds and general falling-downness of Agra to the Taj itself. Almost as impressive was the red Palace in Agra which also had many marble with inlay buildings and seeing the ingenious ways they got around air cooling and light needs when they built it.
Hong Kong. It’s just so massive. You think “New York City” style big when you think of it, but you just see miles and miles of 32+ story buildings. And when you go somewhere like Nathan Road and get enveloped in all the neon it’s just overwhelming. Especially during Chinese New Year.
The blue waters of the carribean. I had never seen anything so clear and clean and sapphire blue.
Any of Jackson Pollock’s paintings. The texture of the paint and the thickness give them depth you can’s see in a photo or a print. Plus when you see the large scale paintings it’s amazing to see things at that scale.
The Taipei 101. You think “tallest building in the world” and you get an image in your head. Then you see it from further away and it’s just this huge spire jutting straight up, nothign even coming halfway up it. Then you see the hotels next to it, 32 story hotels that are just like footstools. Then you take in the immense size of the individual walls.
The Chang Kai Shek memorial. The building itself is ok, but to see the giant wood statue carved out CKS himself on the throne, at least 5 stories tall. It’s awe inspiring.
I am sure there are more but can’t think of them right now.
I didn’t know it existed at all until two of my friends took me there as part of a surprise birthday present last year. I had no idea where we were going, not even that we were headed for Ohio; the first thing I saw that gave me any clue was when we drove past the Longaberger golf course. “Hey,” I said, “just like the baskets!” My friends merely smiled cryptically. And then, a few miles further along, there was a 6-story basket looming ahead of us. Yes, quite a shock.
But their factory park was kind of fun.
Old Faithful - I can’t really explain how that thing affects me, even with all the tourists around. Especially at night. Truly wonderful.
Mt. Rushmore - Truly crap. Is it the model for gift shop kitsch, or was gift shop kitsch the model for it?
Luray Caverns - Definitely worth it. The reflections of the stalagtites in the “lake” are worth it by themselves.
Kilauea - I was disappointed not to see any lava flowing (it’s all going through tubes, now), but the dead crater that you can walk across is truly awesome.
Hastings - Just amazing how the history of England turned on what happened at such a nondescript piece of land.
Eiffel Tower - Just about the coolest thing ever done with a bunch of steel.
Mt. Rainier - It’s about 7000 feet higher than anything around it. When you come around a corner and see it on a clear day, you can practically hear cymbals crashing.
Gettysburg – I was expecting to be interested. I never expected to be completely, totally, blown away by the experience.
First, let me add to a few…
Graceland - Struck me as White Trash with money. FWIW this observation is coming from White Trash WITHOUT money. 
Eiffel Tower - Structurally impressive, but when it’s time to repaint please consult the Queer Eye team for color selection.
My nomination - Gettysburg National Cemetary - Much bigger than I expected.
Reading row after row of stones - “Unknown” “Unknown” “Unknown Zouave” “Unknown” was a moving experience.
Ditto - when we arrived at the Stonehenge site, I was like, ‘That’s it? That would fit in my yard!’ Plus there were sheep grazing peacefully all about and it was just sort of incongruous.
Colonial Willamsburg - I was very disappointed with the commercialization of it all.
The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery - we visited to watch the changing of the guard on Christmas Day. We cried.
Man, that would be a pain to clean up a fallen roof there!
My sister got to actually go into one of the shuttles when she was interning down there. She said the same thing, about the scaffolding, and how, stripped down and being repaired, the shuttles are wholly unimpressive.
Another addition: The American west. It’s really, really big and empty. I was comparing side-by-side a map of my home state (NJ) and New Mexico yesterday. NM is massive. And also, very empty. Sort of everything out here is in the middle of nowhere. (Santa Fe is “close” to Albuquerque, and it’s a good hour away!)
The Hope Diamond. I don’t know, I thought it would be the size of a baseball or something. It isn’t. And since it’s behind lots of really thick glass, it looks even smaller.
Hiroshima: the peace park was truly impressive & moving, especialy the preserved ruins of the chamber of commerce building. Because of transportation schedules, I was there around 7:00 am on a July Sunday morning. If you looked up, you could almost see a glint of reflection on a silvery surface high in the sky… but what freaked me out were the KFCs and McDs right besides the park. Somehow, that just didn’t go together…
Daly plaza: I thought it was much bigger than it was too. When you look out the window, you get the impression he could have thrown a rock… didn’t look more than 30 - 50 yards down to the road…
London: food was great, from plain pubs to high tea at Kensignton Palace. I found Britain does indeed have a national cuisine: here in North-America, we call it desert.
Tonight Show set: all the set & furniture is built to 3/4 scale to make all the guests look bigger on TV; irl it almost looks like grade-school furniture for children.
(oh yeah, Kim Bassinger and Alyssa Milano are smaller in person, but just as hot and they were both guests on the show I attended!)
HMS Victory: I can’t imagine almost 900 men living abord a ship that size. All the books talk about what a behemoth she was compared to other ships of Nelspn’s navy; I was awed and impressed, but I’ve been on bigger ferries. The crowding & the smell in the morning must have been unimaginable. Oh, and the head only had 6 “seats” :eek:
Vietman War memorial / the wall: I thought it would be much longer, but it sure does have a lot of names. I read as many as I could, trying to imagine a mother, a brother, a sweethart, a favorite pet, a hometown for each. I could not look at it again the same way now that I’m a father. I thought the statue of the 3 soldiers was much more moving in person.
Lincoln Memorial: boy is that a big statue! The text of the Gettysburgh Address was much more moving that I had imagined.
Star-Trek museum in Las Vegas Hilton: the “real” props look a lot more “fake” and cludgy than some of the toys you can buy a Toys-R-Us.
You should have come to Tupelo to see the house Elvis was born in, then you would understand.
My contributions:
[ul][li] Tenerife I always wanted to visit the Canary Islands, but was totally unprepared for how much there is to see and do on just this one island. [/li][li] Italy. We stayed near Asissi. The countryside looks exactly like it is supposed to look, except seeing it first-hand is unbelievable.[/li][li] Flying over Venezuela to Angel Falls. I can’t begin to describe it.[/li][*] Hilton Head. For those of you that thought that Cape Cod was a disappointment don’t think of going to Hilton Head. You must play golf or else there’s nothing and the traffic is in a league with large cities.[/ul]
I agree. It’s pretty stunning.
I was surprised at how huge La Grande Arche was when I visited it last year in Paris. I was expecting a modernised version of the Arc de Triomphe. However La Grande Arche has a height of 110m, more than twice that of the Arc de Triomphe.
The Eiffel Tower was beige. I’m still not over that.
The Mona Lisa is smiling; who could doubt?
The Grand Canyon was so big, my mind couldn’t grasp it and it just looked like a postcard to me.
Hollywood is not glamourous in the least.
Stonehenge was behind a cheap chainlink fence.