World's Biggest Stuff: Part 1

Restaurant

The Bawabet Dimashq, also known as the Damascus Gate restaurant, in Damascus, Syria, is the largest in the world, with 6,014 seats. What’s on the menu? Just about everything. The huge restaurant complex has six culinary themed sections for Indian, Chinese, Arab, Iranian, Middle Eastern and Syrian cuisine. Local specialties include lamb with thyme, steak with yogurt and beans, tabbouleh, hummus and baba ghanoush. During busy summer months, the restaurant employs up to 1,800 people in the dining area and kitchen.

Roller Coaster

Kingda Ka roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J., is the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. The train climbs to 456 feet and can accelerate to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds. The thrill ride travels 3,118 feet and lasts 59 seconds.







Aquarium

Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, which opened in 2005, is the world’s largest, with 8 million gallons of water. It contains the largest collection of giant groupers, potato groupers, humphead wrasses, tarpons, giant trevallies, batfish, sawfish, blacktip reef sharks, giant hammerhead sharks and wobbegong sharks in an aquarium. It’s also the only aquarium outside of Asia to house whale sharks, the world’s largest fish.

Mountain

Mount Everest, 29,029 feet, is the world’s highest mountain and is in Nepal. In 1953, New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary and Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the summit.

Tree

The world’s biggest tree is General Sherman, a giant sequoia that’s 275 feet high with a trunk volume of about 1,487 cubic meters. You’ll find it in Giant Forest within Sequoia National Park east of Visalia, Calif. General Sherman is believed to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old.