There is no shipwreck more popular than the Titanic so its only fitting there are a few museums that are devoted to the ship that would be nearly 100 years old today. Recently Belfast announced a £100 million plan for a Titanic museum on the shipyards where she was built, that is due to open on the sinking’s centenary in 2012. There is also a travelling Titanic exhibition that we have seen in a few places as well as this interesting one in Branson, Missouri. Shaped like the front bit of the Titanic in half scale, the museum claims to be the worlds largest museum attraction The museum looks cool with recreations of the grand staircase as well as other parts of the ship, an iceburg and a bit of memorabilia. We understand the reason for Belfast building their museum but we just wonder who come up with the idea to build a ship shaped attraction in the landlocked state of Missouri. A TV ad for the museum is above that should give you an idea what its grand staircase is like. Read the rest of this entry »
Posts under ‘Youtube of the week’
Tasmania, it is part of Australia
Tasmania is a pretty cool place that the rest of Australia often forget about especially when drawing a map of the country, often annoying the Tasmanians, Recently Tasmania has fought back with a clever ad campaign that mimics the trailer for the Baz Luhrmann film Australia. The movie has been hyped a fair bit as being the next big thing with tourist operators hoping it will attract a bit of extra coin into the country. Watch the Tassy ad above and you can check out the trailer for the movie via the link below. Read the rest of this entry »
Burning Man
The week long Burning Man festival has just finished and anyone who hasn’t been there may be asking what it is all about. Burning man is a type of festival held in the Nevada Desert in a temporary mini city constructed for the event known as Black Rock City. The festival gets its name from the huge wooden effigy that is burned at the end of the event each year. The event is often described as an experiment in community and self expression and is well known for the spectacular art instalations and mutent vehicles that get constructed for the event by anyone who feels like. This years event attracted just under 50,000 people and with a “leave no trace” and now that the event is over most of these participants will be working hard to make sure the desert looks just like the way they found it. There are quite a few videos on Youtube of the event, we thought the one above from 2002 was a good quick timelapse of what the event is about.
Baggage Claim down that chute Madam!
We hear a lot of stories about confused travelers but this one takes the cake, apparently recently at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport a 78 year old woman mistook a baggage chute for the boarding gate. She wasn’t discovered laying down on the chute until it was too late but was eventually helped to her gate by baggage handlers once she got to the baggage handling centre. You got to wonder what she was thinking, is she just a silly old cow, been watching too much Futurama or was she trying to pull a stunt like the guys in the video above. (note: fruity language may offend) Read the rest of this entry »
World’s highest observation deck
The world’s highest observation deck is set to open this Saturday at the Shanghai World Financial Centre in China. Like Beijing, Shanghai has seen huge investment in recent years to turn the city into an almost futurist metropolis with their new 474m tall World Financial Centre building being one of a few huge skyscrapers to be built in the Asian region over the coming years. The video above is a quick promo building that shows how the building operates from its huge foundations to the air conditioning systems. If anyone out there gets a chance to get up to the deck drop us a line in the comment form below, we are interested to know if there is a good view of the city or a good view of smog from the deck. Read the rest of this entry »
The Singapore Flyer now is Feng Shui
Ferris wheels have been making a come back of late and it seems many major cities around the world are trying to build the biggest and best. The Singapore Flyer is currently the largest in the world after overtaking the title from the London eye but when they built the wheel they never took into account that the direction of the wheel was taking away all the good energy from the city. Apparently the operators of the wheel have now reversed the direction of the wheel after being contacted by several Feng Shui masters who where concerned about the effects of the wheel on the city. Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese practice that is popular whit Singapore’s largely ethnic Chinese population. The Singapore Flyer will hold the title as the world’s largest ferris wheel until a new ferris wheel in Bejing is opened in 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
Wicked campers slogans may be a bit too wicked
If you have ever traveled anywhere near where you may find a backpacker you may have seen a Wicked Camper, ie: an old delivery van or people mover converted into a camper with graffiti artwork all around it. While they look pretty cool are a cheap mode of transport for thousands of backpackers, they have recently landed themselves in hot water with the slogans on the vans. Several of the vans have the slogans “save a whale harpoon a Jap”, and other things like “if God was a woman, sperm would taste like chocolate” or similar. According to this news.com.au article today the Advertising Standards Bureau has asked the company to remove the slogans they think are offensive. What do you think? Offensive or a bit of fun, hit up our comment form below. Read the rest of this entry »
Explore your sences in Greece
Today’s You Tube video is a very classy advertisement for Greece called Explore your Senses. With some magnificent imagery of some of Greece’s heritage and some very beautiful young people combined with a clever soundtrack this ad just makes you want to get on the first plane to Greece and head to their crystal clear blue waters or beautiful courtyards. The ad was produced by the EOT or the Greek National Tourist Organization last year. It was very successful in the USA and other countries. Tourism is one of the major lifeblood’s of Greece’s economy with over a billion euro of revenue generated every month. Over 16 million visitors visit the country every year, a number which has increased about 10% every year for the past few.
LA to Vegas in 2 hours by train
Now if it is 3 top things we like about traveling it would be fast trains, Disneyland and Las Vegas. Unfortunately you can’t combine all three in the one trip, but that may change in the future according to this Slashdot story. Apparently the Bush administration has approved 45 million in funding towards a 300mph maglev train to link Disneyland to Las Vegas in under 2 hours. Maglev’s have been touted as the future of train travel as their speed is comparable to an aircraft but by being a train can move more people to and from a central city spot. The biggest problem with maglev’s is building the track that allows the train to levitate magnetically is frightfully expensive. The Shanghai system in China (video above) cost around 1.2 million US to build a 30 klm track and experts predict that this money will never be recouped over the life of the train via its fares. Apparently the 45 million set aside for the US system is to pay for environmental studies on the first leg of the project. With the length of the proposed track being around 250 miles we hate to think how much the train will cost if completed. Perhaps Bush’s plan is to make it so expensive GM will never be able to buy it to close it down! What do you think great idea or white elephant? Hit up our comment form below. Read the rest of this entry »
The Standing Water Slide
You may have noticed we love fun parks, we also think water slides are pretty cool too but when it comes to water slides we never imagined there would be much in the way of new styles of slides. Most slides work on the process of lay down in a tube and let gravity do its thing to get you to the bottom. The slide in the German video above differs in the fact you start off on the slide standing up, once the trap door below your feet pops open you are then propelled around a loop that seems to defy gravity. It all looks pretty cool, we would like to know where this one is so if you are familiar with it hit up our comment section below. Read the rest of this entry »
