To celebrate the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989 La Grande Arche was commissioned as a modern interpretation of the Arc De Triomph which is Paris’s most important war monument. The Grande Arch was designed by Danish Architect Johann Otto Von Spreckelsen and is a nearly perfect cube with a height of 108m a depth of 112m and width of 108m. The huge concrete structure is covered in marble from Italy and glass. Inside the arch houses an exhibition centre, government offices and viewing platform with views across Paris. Visitors rise in a glass lift which runs along a very impressive scaffolding like structure in the centre of the structure.
Anglesea on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road has a very unique Golf Course where you play your 18 holes with herds of Kangaroos watching on. Established in the 1950’s the golf club is one of the premier clubs in the region. The club is visited by hundred’s of visitors every day who stop by for a close up look at these beautiful animals. The kangaroos don’t seem to care too much about the flying balls and can be often seen enjoying the sun right in the middle of the green while golfers are trying to play shots.
During the Vietnam War in the late 1960’s early 1970’s the area of Cu Chi was heavily bombarded by the American’s using their huge B52’s and monstrous fire power. The Viet Cong in the area moved their offensive underground in an expanded tunnel system first used during the war with the French in the late 1940’s. The tunnels were an incredible maze holding hospitals, storage for food and weapons, schools, weapons factories and command centres not forgetting hundreds if not thousands of people. They stretched over 200km through the country and had an amazing array of booby traps and security mechanisms built in for protection. The entrances doors were in many cases no bigger than a A4 piece of paper and very well disguised.Today the some of the tunnels remain and have been widened to allow visitors to experience the conditions and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people. Many small tourist operators from Ho Chi Min City offer day trips to the tunnels which are about 70 km out of town.
Mount Prometheus is an active volcano on Mysterious Island which can be found off Tokyo Bay in Japan. Well its not quiet active, although it spits lava and smoke out and makes some pretty deep bellowing noises. It’s also not a real mountain, it’s made out of a lot of steel and concrete- infact it is the centerpiece of DisneySea at the Tokyo Disneyland Resort. The mountain is a ride based on the Jules Verne novel Vulcania. It is a fast moving (75km) an hour journey to the centre of the earth in a drilling capsule designed by Captain Nemo. The three minute ride is one of DisneySea’s most popular, people queue up for hours to experience the ride which travels through mine shaft which goes to the Earth’s core, well at least into the bowels of DisneySea. Read the rest of this entry »
In the late 1950’s a milkshake salesman came across two brothers Mac and Dick McDonald running a small but innovative hamburger restaurant in Bernardino, California. He got friendly and ended up going into partnership with the brothers and later buying them out in 1961 for $2.7 million dollars- the rest is history. Now McDonalds is the worlds biggest restaurant chain stretching to the four corners of the globe. The first branded McDonalds was opened in 1955 at Des Plains in Illinois, after decades of modifications and change what was left of the original building was demolished but a faithful replica of the original building has been built on the site using the original blueprints. It has been transformed into a museum with plenty of photos, memorabilia and presentations from the famous franchise. Strange thing is you can’t buy your favorite hamburger there, but there’s a nice new McDonalds just across the street.
A new attraction has opened in the West Rim of Grand Canyon, a about 2 1/2 hours drive from Las Vegas and is sure to be a huge hit with tourists. Its a glass skybridge which horseshoe like walk is suspended 4000 feet above the Colorado River. Over 200,000 visitors have walked the bridge since it opened in March this year and now other tourist facilities are popping up to cater for the visitors to the area.
The skybridge has met with mixed reation, some people love it while others think it the $75 enterance fee and no camera policy stinks expecially when the only photo you can get of you on the bridge costs $25. For more information: www.grandcanyonskywalk.com Read the rest of this entry »
ASIMO the amazing walking robot built by Honda is one of the feature exhibits at the Miraikan Emerging Science Museum in Odaiba the futuristic city in Tokyo Japan. ASIMO or the ‘Advanced Step in Innovative MObility” robot is an incredible humanoid robot which can even walk up stairs. It is hoped that with constant upgrades one day the robot will be able to take visitors on guided tours around the museum.
The museum has an amazing array of technological feats, many of them Japanese, including robotics, interactive displays featuring the Linimo Maglev 300km ph plus train, space and mining exploration and plenty of hands on interactive educational entertainment for people of all ages.
Geelong, Australia moments ago became home to the 2007 Australian Rules Football Premiers. Geelong is a beautiful bayside city about an hours drive south west of Melbourne. Only minutes from some of the world’s best surf beaches this town has a year long calendar of events, great attractions and shopping. But today the focus on Geelong is football and the Geelong Cats have just been crowned the best in the land!
Although the Ute or Utility was invented by Ford in Geelong Australia in the 1930’s, Deniliquin in New South Wales holds the title of the Ute capital of the World. Deniliquin is on the edge of some of the driest and flattest land on earth a farming and grazing region and home to the annual ute muster. In 1999 Deniliquin wrote itself into the history books with the largest parade of registered utes with 2939 vehicles taking place, and since then the number has grown to 6211. People bring their utes from all over Australia to attend and some even transport them from overseas for this huge event. This years event is on this weekend and it promises to be bigger than ever. To celebrate this feat the town has even erected a WB Holden Ute up a pole in all its glory. Read the rest of this entry »
The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the centre of Berlin is a stark reminder of the horrors of war. This church was built between 1891 and 1895 in honor of the then Emperor Wilhelm II’s grandfather. But during the extensive bombing raids of 1943 the church was virtually destroyed. The only thing left standing was the belfry. Between 1951 and 1961 a new church was rebuilt next to the ruins, and the ruins were kept intact as a reminder of the destruction of war. The church was actually opened on the same day as churches rebuilt after war damage in Conventry England and Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Russia as a symbol of reconciliation between the three countries which were once at war.
