Tianmen Mountain is a mountain located within Tianmen Mountain National Park, Zhangjiajie, in northwestern Hunan Province, China. A cablecar was constructed by the French company Poma from nearby Zhangjiajie railway station to the top of the mountain.
A következő címkéjű bejegyzések mutatása: unique. Összes bejegyzés megjelenítése
A következő címkéjű bejegyzések mutatása: unique. Összes bejegyzés megjelenítése
Poseidon Undersea Resorts, Fiji
Poseidon Undersea Resorts was a proposed chain of underwater five-star resorts that was first slated to open by September 2008. The first was to be located on a private island in Fiji. The project was to be the world's first permanent one-atmosphere seafloor structure.
Poseidon was conceived and developed by L. Bruce Jones, president of U.S. Submarines, Inc. It is currently under construction on Katafinga Island in Fiji. With a design concept in mind, Jones needed to find an appropriate location. To help find it, Jones offered a $10,000 reward for anybody that came up with the perfect location for the venture.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUbkQyZrpl4?rel=0]
After taking the suggestion of a business associate, who recommended a reef off of Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas, negotiations began with the island's American owners. The negotiations did not go well, and after a year of failed back-and-forth offers the location was scrapped and sights were set on Fiji. A deal was made with the owner of a privately owned 225-acre (0.91 km2) South Pacific Island located in northeastern Fiji. The resort was to feature twenty-two 550-square-foot (51 m2) guest rooms, an underwater restaurant and bar, a library, conference room, wedding chapel, spa and a 1,200-square-foot (110 m2) luxury suite. The resort will be accessed through 1 of 2 elevators. Reservations at the resort were to be priced at $30,000 per couple per week.
Rates are based on a package price that includes round-trip transport to and from Nadi/Suva, four nights in a beach or overwater villa, two nights in an underwater suite, diving onboard a luxury liner submarine, an initiation to piloting a three-passenger mini-sub, scuba diving and snorkeling, walks on the lagoon floor, wine tasting classes, access to the resort spa (some treatments cost extra), gourmet meals and drinks, a professionally-produced photo album, and lectures and activities.
The Poseidon Undersea Resort is putting a positive spin on "sleeping with the fishes," by providing guests with the lap of luxury 40 feet beneath the waves. Nestled amongst a 5,000-acre Fijian lagoon, the resort is the world's first of its kind. An elevator provides access to the 24 suites and one apartment on the bottom of the ocean floor. Plus, 70 percent of each room is made of four-inch acrylic, allowing unparalleled views of the surrounding sea life.
Socotra Island, Yemen
Socotra, also spelt Soqotra, is a small archipelago of four islands in the Indian Ocean. The largest island, also called Socotra, is about 95% of the landmass of the archipelago. It lies some 240 kilometres (150 mi) east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres (240 mi) south of the Arabian Peninsula. The island is very isolated and through the process of speciation, a third of its plant life is found nowhere else on the planet. It has been described as the most alien-looking place on Earth.
Socotra is part of the Republic of Yemen. It had long been a part of the 'Adan Governorate, but in 2004 it became attached to the Hadhramaut Governorate, which is in much greater proximity to the island than 'Adan (although the nearest governorate is Al Mahrah).
There was initially an Oldoway (or Oldowan) culture in Socotra. Oldoway stone tools were found in the area around Hadibo by V.A. Zhukov, a member of the Russian Complex Expedition in 2008. Socotra appears as Dioskouridou ("of Dioscurides") in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a 1st century AD Greek navigation aid. In the notes to his translation of the Periplus, G.W.B. Huntingford remarks that the name Socotra is not Greek in origin, but derives from the Sanskrit dvipa sukhadhara ("island of bliss"). A recent discovery of texts in several languages, including a wooden tablet in Palmyrene dated to the 3rd century AD, indicate the diverse origins of those who used Socotra as a trading base in antiquity.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Tk7M2G4Jc?rel=0]
A local tradition holds that the inhabitants were converted to Christianity by Thomas the Apostle in AD 52. In the 10th century, the Arab geographer Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani stated that in his time most of the inhabitants were Christians. Socotra is also mentioned in The Travels of Marco Polo, according to which "the inhabitants are baptised Christians and have an 'archbishop'" who, it is further explained, "has nothing to do with the Pope in Rome, but is subject to an archbishop who lives at Baghdad". They were Nestorians but also practised ancient magic rituals despite the warnings of their archbishop.
In 1507, a fleet commanded by Tristão da Cunha with Afonso de Albuquerque landed an occupying force at the then capital of Suq. Their objective was a Portuguese base to stop Arab commerce from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and to liberate the presumed friendly Christians from Islamic rule. Here they started to build a fortress. However, they were not welcomed as enthusiastically as they had expected and abandoned the island four years later, as it was not advantageous as a base. The island was also come across by Somali sailors. The islands passed under the control of the Mahra sultans in 1511. Later, in January 1876, it became a British protectorate along with the remainder of the Mahra State of Qishn and Socotra. For the British it was an important strategic stop-over. The P&O ship Aden sank after being wrecked on a reef near Socotra, in 1897, with the loss of 78 lives.
In October 1967, the Mahra sultanate was abolished. On 30 November 1967, Socotra became part of the People's Republic of South Yemen (later to become the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen). Today it is part of the Republic of Yemen. Somali pirates have begun using Socotra as a refueling stop for hijacked maritime vessels.
Hashima Island, Japan
Hashima Island, (or correctly Hashima, as -shima is Japanese for island), commonly called Gunkanjima or Gunkanshima (meaning Battleship Island), is one among 505 uninhabited islands in the Nagasaki Prefecture about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself.
The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility. The island's most notable features are the abandoned concrete buildings and the sea wall surrounding it. The island has been administered as part of Nagasaki city since 2005; it had previously been administered by the former town of Takashima.
It is known for its coal mines and their operation during the industrialization of Japan. Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 and began the project, the aim of which was retrieving coal from undersea mines. They built Japan's first large concrete building (9 stories high), a block of apartments in 1916 to accommodate their burgeoning ranks of workers (many of whom were forcibly recruited labourers from other parts of Asia) and to protect against typhoon destruction. According to a South Korean commission, the island housed 500 Koreans who were forced to work between 1939 and 1945, during World War II.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6msT4eBba4?rel=0]
In 1959, the 15-acre island's population reached its peak of 5,259, with a population density of 835 people per hectare (83,500 people/km2, 216,264 people per square mile) for the whole island, or 1,391 per hectare (139,100 people/km2) for the residential district.
As petroleum replaced coal in Japan in the 1960s, coal mines began shutting down all over the country, and Hashima's mines were no exception. Mitsubishi officially announced the closing of the mine in 1974, and today it is empty and bare, which is why it is called Ghost Island. Travel to Hashima was re-opened on April 22, 2009 after 35 years of closure.