Sensō-ji is an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Tokyo. It is the city’s oldest temple, and one of its most significant.

Within the temple itself, and at many places on its approach, there are omikuji stalls. For a suggested donation of 100 yen, visitors may consult the oracle and divine answers to their questions.

Querents shake labelled sticks from enclosed metal containers and read the corresponding answers they retrieve from one of 100 possible drawers.

More stories and pictures from Japan.

Uluru, the World Heritage Site formerly known as Ayers Rock, is one of the world’s most recognizable natural icons – and along with the Sydney Opera House, an international symbol for Australia.

The sandstone monolith is culturally significant to the Anangu aborigines, the traditional landowners of Uluru.

In 1873 surveyor William Gosse, on an expedition to plot the route for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line, “discovered” Uluṟu.

In a move also known as “sucking up to the boss,” Gosse named the monolith Ayers Rock in honour of the then-Chief Secretary of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers.

One hundred and twenty years later, the Australian government adopted a dual naming policy, allowing places to use both the traditional Aboriginal name and the English name.

So today you can soak in the split personality of this oddly moving place, marveling at Uluru while staying at Ayers Rock Resort.

More Uluru pictures here.

Siem Reap, Cambodia – Cambodian monks journey each year to Angkor Wat, near Siem Reap, for meditation, reflection and renewal.

The initial design of Angkor Wat’s main temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II, in the early 1100s. Originally a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu, it was built to serve as the Khmer Empire’s capital city.

In the late 13th century, Srindravarman deposed his father-in-law, King Jayavarman VIII, who was Hindu.

Srindravarman was an ordained Buddhist monk, so when he took power he converted the Khmer Empire’s official religion from Hindu to Buddhist – and the Temples of Angkor became Buddhist shrines.  They remain so today.

More Angkor Wat pictures here.

Conor and his friends enjoy their annual pilgrimage to the Maryland Renaissance Festival, and frankly, so do I.

Is there a better place to people watch?

I wonder, though, what do these “enthusiasts” do during the week?  And where do they keep their costumes the rest of the year?

Nothing quite like a little leather and lace.

More Renaissance Festival pictures here.

Purmamarca, Argentina – Jujuy, north of Salta, is Argentina’s northernmost province and it shares a rugged border with Bolivia. Life here moves at its own pace: Adobe villages bake beneath multicolored cliffs; llamas wander the foothills; and villagers seek shade under scraggly trees and towering cacti.

The road through the Quebrada de Humahuaca (Humahuaca Canyon) leads to a string of indigenous towns. In Purmamarca, the Hill of Seven Colors (Cerro de Siete Colores) rises behind the town to form a geologic rainbow.

Further on, in the whitewashed town of Humahuaca, visitors are encouraged to gather in the central square just before noon. At midday, a clockwork saint known as San Francisco Solano appears from the church tower, mechanically blessing the assembled pilgrims below.

More Salta pictures and Argentina stories.

Chiang Mai, Thailand – A young girl prepares to take the stage as part of a Chinese New Year celebration. Chiang Mai has deep historical and cultural ties with southwestern China.

Chiang Mai was once the capital of the Lanna Kingdom (the kingdom of a million rice fields), which enjoyed a golden age throughout the 15th century.

During this time the Lanna  Kingdom came to control most of what now constitutes northern Thailand, north-western Laos,  Myanmar and Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan Province, China.

More Thailand stories and Chiang Mai pictures.

Cotopaxi National Park, Ecuador – Adventurous mountain bikers begin their decent of Cotopaxi just as the weather arrives.

For centuries local Andean Indians have honored Cotopaxi (“Throne of Moon”) as  a sacred mountain and worshiped it as the “rain sender” that made the land fertile.

Mountain bikers begin their descent near the summit, a place once revered as a home of the gods.

More Ecuador stories here.

Lake Tekapo, New Zealand – Weddings are big business at the scenic Church of the Good Sheperd.  Locals will gladly organize a church wedding, a garden wedding – or even a “glacier wedding” in the nearby Southern Alps.

More New Zealand stories here.

In 1959 Walt Disney began looking for land for a park to supplement Disneyland, which had opened in Anaheim, California in 1955. Disney’s vision had outgrown the existing park, and he did not like the businesses that had sprung up on adjacent properties.

Company research found that only 2% of Disneyland guests came from east of the Mississippi – where 75% of the U.S. population lived – so the search for an east coast site was on.

According to legend, Disney originally wanted to build his new park near the beach, a natural magnet for tourists. Disney’s search for a large tract of undeveloped beachfront led him to the Florida Panhandle.

In 1959, if you wanted to buy land near Northwest Florida’s white sand beaches, there was only one man to see: Ed Ball, CEO of The St. Joe Paper Company.

Ball was the brother-in-law of Alfred I. DuPont, the black sheep of the DuPont family, who had been banished to Florida after divorcing his first wife and marrying his second cousin.

Ball was a notoriously tough businessman, and he would end each day with a whiskey and a toast: “Confusion to the enemy!”

When DuPont died in 1935, Ball took control of the family business and spent the next 45 years acquiring land in Florida. Eventually Ball controlled more than a million acres, most of it concentrated in the Florida Panhandle.

As the story goes, Disney had his sights set on a Florida beachfront location for his new park, so he dispatched lawyers, lobbyists and friends to negotiate a land purchase from Ball, but Ball rebuffed every approach.

Finally in March 1959, in a last ditch effort, Disney made an appointment to meet Ball at his office. He was determined to buy a piece of beachfront property near Panama City Beach, Florida.

Disney arrived at the St. Joe Paper Company offices promptly at 9 am. The office was quiet as a tomb; the only sound was the tick-tock of a grandfather clock in the corner of the reception area. Down the hall he could see the door to every office was closed.

Irene Walsh, Mr. Ball’s secretary, took Disney’s coat and asked him to have a seat. Mr. Ball was busy, she said, and he would see Disney when he could.

As the day passed, every hour, on the hour, Ms. Walsh would take printout from the company’s stock ticker to Mr. Ball’s office. And each time she returned she brought Disney the same message: “He’s still busy.”

At noon, Ms. Walsh told Disney: “Mr. Ball asked me to go out and get you lunch.”

The afternoon passed in utter quiet, broken only by the tick-tock of the clock and Ms. Walsh’s hourly treks to Ball’s office.

Finally, at 4 pm, after she had taken the day’s closing stock prices to Mr. Ball’s office, Ms. Walsh returned with a note for Disney. The crumpled piece of paper had been folded eight times.

Disney opened the note: “Mr. Disney, I’m not going to see you today – or any day. I don’t do business with carnival people.”

Disney gave up on the idea of a beachfront resort and began secretly accumulating 30,000 acres outside Orlando, Florida, bordering the area where Interstate 4 was going to be built.

The rest, as they say, is history.