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- in fact 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 »
Tokyo is one of the worlds most populated cities and Shibuya the busiest place in Tokyo. More than 2.4 million people use the Shibuya station on a workday but the Shibuya is more than just a mass of humanity, there’s great shopping, restaurants, cafes, bars and of course plenty of people watching. The huge crossing which is outside the station is the busiest in the world, you might remember it from films like Lost In Translation or the Fast and The Furious- Tokyo Drift.
If you have seen any TV shows featuring Seattle like Kramer, you would have seen the Space Needle its just huge, built for the 1962 World Fair this 605 feet tower has had over 45 million visitors to its platforms to see its amazing views. The obeservation deck is at 520ft above ground level and gives fantastic views of not only the Seattle skyline but the Bays, islands and surronding mountains. The trip to the top takes a mere 43 seconds and the centre is linked by a monorail system
In 1962 The Committee Hoping for Extra-Terrestrial Encounters to Save the Earth (CHEESE) claimed to have plans that the needle was constructed to send transmissions to advanced beings in other solar systems- no proof has ever been forthcomming. http://www.spaceneedle.com/
It’s well known that China is one of the most populated countries on earth, but have you stopped to think how they all get around? Check out the video above of a intersection in Shanghai, there are about 2000 new cars a day sold in China and all those car have got to go somewhere and it seems like its every man for themselves when you to to an intersection without traffic lights. Traffic jams are a constant part of life in the busy cities of China so if you plan to get around over there opt for the train over the bus. Read the rest of this entry »
With so many budget flight operators in Europe ,Dublin is easily accessible for as little as 100 Euro return from some cities so it’s a popular spot for a day trip or a fun weekend. Today we take a look at a lovely little slideshow on YouTube showing some of Dublin’s popular sites. Dublin has a rich history and has plenty to offer – don’t forget to try a Guinness Beer they are delicious.
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 »
What is a “Horizontal Lift” you may ask? Well it a unique subway station design only found in St Petersburg, Russia. St Peterburg’s subway system was built in the late 1950’s when the city was known as Leningrad and Soviet Russia was in the middle of the Cold War. The cities subway system is not only one of the most beautiful in the world but also one of the deepest with 53 of its stations being deep level. At the time of building, Leningrad pioneered the use of platform screen doors, but with a design known as the “Horizontal Lift”. Basically the station’s platform looks like a large room with lots of lift doors in it, the first time you are aware of a train being on the other side is once the large steal doors open up reveling the insides of the train. While the design has some good ideas, it was not popular and only about 10 stations were built like this. Today platform screen doors made of glass are becoming more and more popular around the world, so check out the video above to see how the original “Horizontal Lift” works. Read the rest of this entry »
