- StumbleUpon. The Other Siberian Railroad. MOST visitors see Lake Baikal only from its populated and developed southern shore, where the Trans-Siberian runs. But from our side of the lake, 400 miles north of there, Baikal emerged as something primordial — an inland sea of cobalt waters the size of Maryland ringed by mountains without a road or house in sight along the shores that disappeared into the horizon. We rolled into the BAM-spawned city of Severobaikalsk, nestled between the bare rolling hills overlooking Baikal. We thought that we had become inured to architectural eccentricities but Severobaikalsk’s station, which appeared to have a giant concrete ski-jump on its roof, surprised us.
It turns out that the roof is meant to represent sails, symbolizing the station’s sponsoring city, the sea-oriented metropolis of St. Petersburg. Immersing ourselves, very slowly, into the 110-degree pool we perked up as we heard a BAM train rolling through the forest on its way to the Tran-Siberian line and, three days later, Moscow. What You Need to Know to Travel the Alaska Highway. ROAD TRIP It pays to plan ahead if you're driving the Alaska Highway. When the road opened in 1942, even military trucks did not always survive it. What you will see are snow-covered mountains, spruce forests, wildflowers, tundra and eagles, bears, caribou, moose and even the occasional bison grazing along the side of the road.
“The Alaska Highway is the legendary road of the north,” Syd Cannings, a zoologist at the Yukon Conservation Data Center, writes in a coming book on the ecosystems the road crosses — among them the Rockies (and the Continental Divide), the Yukon River and the St. Elias Mountains (which include the highest peak in Canada). At its northern end, it enters Beringia, one of the few northern realms untouched for millions of years by glaciers. This was the landscape the ancestors of today’s Native Americans encountered when they crossed the land bridge from Asia in the last ice age. When the road opened in 1942, even military trucks did not always survive it. A $100 Weekend in Oslo. Slide Show A $100 Weekend in Oslo Tell people you’re off to spend the weekend in Oslo with $100 in your pocket, and the warnings start flowing. Some came in the form of legitimate research like the UBS report that has ranked Oslo the world’s most expensive city for the last three years; others were shock-and-awe anecdotes, like “Food in Oslo is so expensive you can actually buy half a cucumber.”
I’m not easily spooked. Seven previous $100 weekends in pricey places like Paris and Rio de Janeiro have shown me that such cities can be enjoyed, even on a pittance. But I’m also not stupid. Budget: $100, or 585 Norwegian kroner Friday Low budgets usually mean greasy meals. But my healthy resolve was soon put to the test during the 30-minute stroll from Vega to Frognerparken, home of the Vigeland Sculpture Garden. I’m as easily bored by sculpture gardens as the next guy who only took Introduction to Art History because his mother wanted him to. What were they doing here? Saturday Sunday. Exploring Norway’s Fjords by Car and Boat. Stung by the cost of things ($20 burgers from a street shack! $13-a-gallon gas!) , we decided to arm ourselves with groceries. We loaded up on sandwich ingredients, plus potato chips, chocolates, paper plates and plastic cutlery, at Rema 1000, a local supermarket at our point of departure, the western coastal town of Alesund, which we had flown into.
Then we packed our rented Citroën C4 with the food, mounted the GPS and were off into the Norwegian woods. That first day of driving, toward a speck of a town called Oye, took us over roads that cut through valleys. At the front desk of the Hotel Union Oye, a receptionist in a frilly frock suggestive of a Jane Austen novel handed us a key and a metal bowl holding three garlic cloves. The hotel had one foot in the raw Norway and another in the precious one. At 10:20 p.m., it was still bright outside. I had dismissed the ghost thing as clever branding and wanted to keep the bowl of garlic inside the room. Japan for the Uninvited. Seijogakuenmae, Japan Photo-Post. This is my image of Seiji. A leafy suburb with trees overhanging the clean narrow roads. This area of town is peaceful and laid back but very well organized Leefy scenery in front of the station.
Siejo Ishii on the right Looks like a public bath tower in the distance? Seijo Ishii supermarket One of the well appointed shotengai in Seijo. Chance to pick up some good wines here Small well appointed shops in the streets near the station Many of the shops have a nice well organized charm about them Lots of greenery in this area of town. The train lines looked more like a highway here. The Sengawa river runs through part of Seijo The Sengawa River looking back towards the railway line Relaxing walkways either side of the river Trees seem to come from everywhere even though the streets are quite narrow Lots of larger sized houses here with lots of greenery in the gardens A very nice looking cafe with delicious cakes This Church building fits right in and adds lots of character to the area Like this:
TOKYO VR PROJECT! The Prettiest Town Weve Ever Visited: Lijiang Old Town | Travels with a Nine Year Old. Ever heard of Lijiang? It’s an old town in northern Yunnan, in what was once the Dali Kingdom, the fought-over hinterland between China and Tibet. Curved eave buildings topple up narrow alleys towards a Qing dynasty pagoda. Willows and flowers drip over its narrow canals, crossed by slender bridges. There’s a reason they call it “the Venice of the Orient”. Old shophouses cater for the tourist trade — as always in mainland China, more Chinese than Western. There are little waterwheels in the alleyways but the big one marks where the old town ends and the new city begins, a cusp between the past and the future. Lijiang is full of flowers, all year round. In winter there are bonsai plum trees, in summer they bring out azaleas and in spring the town is full of orchids.
Chocolate box? Disneyfied? I mean, you can even play with eagles in the town square. We’ve seen some amazing places since we left. What’s yours? Our thanks to China Odyssey Tours for hosting us in Lijiang. Fenhuan - One of the Ten Most Beautiful Towns in China | China Photos Pictures. By Saif on March 12, 2011 Fenhuan considered one of the 10 most beautiful cities in China. The city was founded during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Originally the town was inhabited by soldiers sent to subdue the local Miao people. Check out the pictures given below. 29 Photos The old city walls On these boats in the warmer weather rolled tourists. The Chinese have no respect for washing machines, but everywhere there is a centrifuge for spinning. This woman is resistant to all weather, all day sitting at a Buddhist temple. the local means of transportation through the narrow streets.
Via: vizaviz. Japan Signs: Watch The Door. 5 Steps To Ordering a Meal in Japan — zonjineko! Tunisia After the Revolution. But Mr. Bourguiba’s dictatorial tendencies wore out his welcome. Mr. Ben Ali, his prime minister, deposed him in 1987, but remained committed to education and women’s rights. His smothering police state and opulent lifestyle, however, led to his own downfall. In December 2010, when Mohamed Bouazizi, a young fruit vendor in a rural city, set himself alight to protest his economic misery and harassment by police, the whole nation caught fire. Today Avenue Habib Bourguiba was peaceful. I passed the stately embassy of France, which had made Tunisia its protectorate in 1881. Inside a loud and bright cafe-restaurant called La Brasserie, I warmed up over café crème and a tarte aux fruits.
That evening, outside an Art Nouveau theater, I spotted flyers advertising a documentary film called “Chroniques de la Revolution.” “It’s not here anymore,” he said in French. Still eager to learn more about the Jasmine Revolution, I boarded a commuter line for the seaside suburb of La Marsa. The Most Desolate City on Earth: Gunkanjima, aka 'Battleship Island' - Neighborhoods. Of all the places to conduct a really wicked paintball match, Gunkanjima just about takes the cake. Utterly abandoned, the former coal-mining site stands like a rotten tooth jutting from the turbulent waters off Nagasaki. A formidable seawall protects a dense warren of empty factory buildings and crumbling apartments. Roofs have blown off or caved in and walls have sloughed off their skins, leaving the skeletal underpinning of buildings visible. Dark hallways and dangerous, twisting staircases abound in M.C.
Escherian complexity, leading to ruined vistas with names like "Block 65" and the "Stairway to Hell. " The government is pushing for World Heritage recognition for the island's role in the Meiji Era, characterized by a blitzkrieg push to industrialize the country using Western technology. Tourists can hop in a boat and motor out for sight-seeing around Gunkanjima, although they're not supposed to go deep into the failing structures. Richard Branson launches journeys to the centre of the Earth through Virgin Volcanic - News. Republic of Vanuatu Richard Branson launches journeys to the centre of the Earth through Virgin Volcanic.Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks to join first expedition. Only 500 people have been to space, only three people have been to the bottom of the ocean, but no one has ever attempted to journey to the core of an active volcano. Until now. Using patented carbon-carbon materials pioneered for deep space exploration, Virgin is proud to announce a revolutionary new vehicle, VVS1, which will be capable of plunging three people into the molten lava core of an active volcano.
In its first three years of operation, Virgin Volcanic's VVS1 will target the five most active volcanoes in the world: Etna - Sicily, Italy Stromboli - Aeolian Islands Yasur - Republic of Vanuatu Ambrym - Republic of Vanuatu Tinakula - Solomon Islands Virgin registered Virgin Volcanic in the late 1990s in anticipation of the development of technology to explore active volcanoes. 36 Hours - Cologne, Germany. 36 Hours in Vientiane, Laos. Now Is the Season for Japan. India in One, Two or Three Weeks. Travel Tips - Cool Travel Destinations at WomansDay.com - Womans Day. Castles are already pretty impressive, even when they're not perched atop a mountain.
But put them at the edge of a cliff, and you've elevated their awe-inspiring beauty to a whole new level. Touting amazing architecture and great historical significance, these eight structures are sure to impress any traveler. Swallow’s Nest—Crimea, Ukraine Built out of wood in the late 19th century as the private quarters—and rumored love nest—for a retired Russian general, this romantic castle, situated on a 130-foot-tall cliff overlooking the Black Sea’s Ai-Todor cape, was modified to its current stone structure in 1912 by oil big-wig Baron von Steingel.
Though threatened by an earthquake in later years, the landmark—which is surrounded by swallows and white-winged seagulls—now houses an Italian restaurant. Aragonese Castle—Ischia, Italy Alcazar—Segovia, Spain Gyantse Fortress— Gyantse, Tibet Gillette Castle—East Haddam, CT, United States Peñafiel Castle—Valladolid Province, Spain. Hike the United States' most stunning trails from the comfort of home. From the soaring heights of Denali (Mount McKinley) to surreal slot canyons chiseled below the earth's surface, the National Park System comprises some of the most stunning, superlative lands in the United States. To explore all of them would take an incredible amount of time and resources, but the new Nature Valley Trail View website is making it a little easier. View all Earlier this month, Nature Valley launched what it calls the first ever street-view-style national parks experience. The granola bar maker has long been instilling a sense of place in the wilderness in its advertising, and the new website appears to serve as a natural extension of that.
The Nature Valley Trail View website provides a step by step tour of 300 miles (482 km) of trails in three of America's most popular, iconic parks - Grand Canyon National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Yellowstone National Park. I tried the site out and found the movement at 2x speed jerky and the images blurry. - StumbleUpon. The Top 50 Pictures of the Day for 2011 - StumbleUpon. Every day at 5pm the Sifter posts the Picture of the Day. Below you will find a collection of the Sifter’s Top 50 from 2011. It’s hard to imagine the year is almost over, time seems to fly faster each successive year so it’s fun to take a moment and look back at the year that was. Click any of the pictures below to be taken to the individual post to learn more about the photographer and picture taken. Enjoy and stay sifty my friends! Thin Places, Where We Are Jolted Out of Old Ways of Seeing the World.
Cambodia, in and Around Kep, Open but Undeveloped. Countries. Google Maps publishes aerial images of murder scene. Tuesday, 31st January 2012 by Alex Turnbull The continuing rollout of 45° “birds eye view” images across the globe1 has now revealed a real-life tragedy. On the railroad track near Sanford Avenue in the city of Richmond, California, we can clearly see a corpse lying on the rails.
Camera facing north The ever increasing resolution of Google’s imagery has continued to reveal greater detail people’s lives – particularly through the Street View imagery – but this is the first time an aerial photgraph of such a graphic nature has been published on the site. Camera facing west We can’t be sure about the details of the scene – there’s no sign of injury from this distance – but the number of police officers and vehicles (both marked and unmarked) suggests that this is unlikely to have been a case of accidental death.
Camera facing south The location however gives us more indication of what might have happened here. Thanks to @KeirClarke. A Guide To Getting Lost. From Waterfall To Lavafall: Yosemite's Fleeting Phenomenon : The Picture Show. If you head to Yosemite National Park this time of year and stop by Horsetail Fall at just the right time, you might see something spectacular: As the sun sinks low in the sky, the waterfall glows with streaks of gold and yellow — and it looks just like molten lava. Photographers like Michael Frye flock to the park every February to try to capture the phenomenon. Frye, author of The Photographer's Guide to Yosemite, describes the sight to NPR's Audie Cornish.
"It's this narrow ribbon of water falling from this high cliff, the eastern buttress of [the El Capitan rock formation]," he says. "Just that narrow little ribbon of water is lit and everything else around it is dark. According to Frye, what makes Horsetail Fall so unique is its topography: The waterfall is perched high on an open cliff where it can catch light from the sunset — but not just any sunset. hide captionOn very rare occasions, the light of a setting moon can create the same fiery effect as that of the setting sun. Emergency and Disaster Information Service. Nogales, Mexico - A Few Steps, and a Whole World Away. 10 Most Terrifying Places on Earth.