Smoont » Travel

Temple built using recycled beer bottles

admin — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:43:16 +0000

I am always amazed at the ingenuity and creativity of people. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you find something else amazing…

Built using more than a million beer bottles, this incredible temple in the northeast of Thailand is a novel way to recycle any empties. The resident Buddhist monks at the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew complex encourage local authorities to deposit any used bottles at the temple which they then use to build new structures. Having already built the a temple and even shelters, the monks who live in the town of Khun Han really have got into the spirit of recycling.

Sometimes known as Wat Lan Kuad, or Temple Of A Million Bottles, the temple uses the discarded bottles to construct everything from the crematorium to the toilets. Altogether there are about 1.5 million recycled bottles in the temple, and the monks at there are intending to recycling even more. “The more bottles we get, the more buildings we make,” says Abbot San Kataboonyo.

Recycling doesn’t stop at building the temple’s buildings – mosaics around the temple, predominantly of Buddha, are made out of bottle caps. Besides being ego-friendly, the disused bottles don’t fade, provide good lighting, and are easy to clean.

They kept this up until they had nearly one million recycled bottles ready to construct their pagodas and temple. “Even though drinking is a sin in Buddhism, this still seems like a positive use of beer and lager bottles.”

Source

Jumbo sized Airplane Art

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:34:29 +0000

Take a look at this jumbo sized art from around the world. Creativity certainly abounds with these flights of fancy.

Japan Airlines – JAL – Boeing 747-446D.

Southwest Airlines – Boeing 737-3H4

Continental Airlines – Boeing 777-224/ER.

Alitalia – Boeing 747-243B – Advertising for Bulgari Designer Watches.

Japan Airlines – JAL – Boeing 747-446D.

Qantas – Boeing 747-438/ER

Flying dragon. This acrobatic airplane model has a very attractive ornamental painting.

All Nippon Airways – ANA – Boeing 747-481D.

Western Pacific – Boeing 737-301.

Etihad Airways – Airbus A340-642 .

Austrian Airlines – Airbus A321-111

German Tornado Formation Flight 2003 – st. Tornado (white with yellow/red flames) German Naval Airwing 2 Eggebek – now in a Museum
2nd Tornado (blue airbrush design) German Airforce – 31th Fighter Squadron Boelcke – now a Gate Guard
3rd Tornado (green coloured) – 38th Fightersquadron Jever – now scrapped
4th Tornado (in front with tiger colours) – 51th reconnaissance squadron Jagel – now scrapped
5th Tornado – 32th fighter squadron Lechfeld
The MiG 29 was the last MiG29 in the German Airforce

Slovakia – Air Force – Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29A (9-12A)

Astraeus – Boeing 757-23A.

Netherlands – Air Force – Fokker F-16AM Fighting Falcon.

Belgium – Air Force – SABCA F-16AM Fighting Falcon.

Air New Zealand – Boeing 747-4F6.

Article Source

Be careful where you’re walking

Michael — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:22:13 +0000

The photos below are a reminder why it’s never a good idea to walk home in the dark or after you’ve had too much to imbibe. I ran across the photos below on smilepanic.com related to some of the biggest holes on earth – no doubt!

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Mir Mine was an open pit diamond mine located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia, Russia. The mine is 1,720 ft deep with a diameter of 3,900 ft, and is the second largest excavated hole in the world. Even the airspace above the mine is closed to helicopters because they have actually been sucked in by the downward air flow.

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The Big Hole is located in Kimberley, the capital of the Northern Cape of South Africa and is 1,500 feet wide, over 42 acres in surface, and over 700 feet deep.

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The Great Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 62 mi from Belize City. Looks like a great place to go diving!

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The Glory Hole at Monticello Dam, California. A glory hole is used to drain water from a reservoir when the dam is at full capacity. It is the largest in the world, enabling it to consume 400 cubic feet of water every second. You definitely do NOT want to fall into this area when the Glory Hole is in operation!

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These sinkholes are called “Las Simas de Sarisariñama” and can be found on the Sarisariñama Plateau in Venezuela. They are some of the largest sinkholes in the world. The sinkholes measure 350 meters wide and 350 meters deep and are a geological marvel.

photo source: amazonair.com

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The Bingham Canyon Mine is the largest man-made excavation in the world. Located near Salt Lake City, Utah this open-pit mining operation in production since 1906 extracts copper from the Oquirrh Mountains. The pit is 2.5 miles wide, over 0.75 miles deep, and covers 1,900 acres.

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Guatemala City Sinkhole. On the 23rd of February 2007, a 330 foot deep sinkhole swallowed up part of a crowded neighborhood in Guatemala City and killed two people. The video below is in Spanish but still gives you an understanding of the enormity of this unexpected natural phenomena.

Unique and Artistic Painted Houses

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:04:30 +0000

I am always amazed at how creative people can be. Take a look at these uber-artistic painted houses from around the world…

Large scale Stanley Donwood piece painted on a side of a house in Ladbroke Grove in London. photo by artofthestate

Rainbow House in San Francisco. Named after a real woman named Rainbow. mybluemuse

Colorfully painted house in Basel photo by m.a.r.c.

Newlyweds Christian and Angela Hesketh, from Rochester in Kent, returned back from their honeymoon in 2000 to find that their house had been painted tiger skin by a friend. Unique wedding gift or prank?
telegraph.co.uk

Jason Gundy painted his house in Usk, South Wales, in a tribute to the Disney film 101 Dalmations. telegraph.co.uk

Artist Jens Werner Andersen from Norway painted his house in Burberry check pattern. He said he woke up one day and thought it would be a fun idea. The 33-year-old decided to turn his home, a former public lavatory building in Larvik, Norway, into a “gathering place for happy people. dailymail.co.uk

The Farm pub in St Werburghs, Bristol, was painted by graffiti artists Xenz and Paris. telegraph.co.uk

This is the home of window cleaner Vince Holden, 47, in Penrith, Cumbria. He attempted to brighten up his neighborhood by painting his terraced house pink with yellow spots. telegraph.co.uk

Lesedi Cultural Village South Africa photo by Anna Louise

Cape Town’s Bo Kaap quarter Photo by Mervyn Hector

This artistic endeavor goes beyond just painting the exterior walls of the house – an architect in Klagenfurt, Austria painted his entire house and everything surrounding it bright blue. Arty Peter Kaschnig said he wanted to see the psychological effects of living surrounded by just one color. telegraph.co.uk

Interesting concept apartmenttherapy.com

The brightly painted houses of Illulissat, a town in western Greenland where tourists travel to look at the icebergs.Photo: Reuters

Ice Hotels – The Coolest Hotels on Earth!

Michael — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:08:03 +0000

The first ice hotel came about rather by accident. In 1990, French artist Jannot Derid held an exhibition in an igloo shaped building in the Jukkasjarvi, Sweden area. One night when there were no rooms available in the town, some of the visitors asked if they could spend the night in the exhibition hall. They slept in sleeping bags on top of reindeer skin. And thus a new concept in “cool” hotels was discovered.

The temperature inside ice hotels is usually kept between 17F and 23F degrees to avoid melting. All the furniture, including the beds, couches, and bars are made of ice. They’re covered with fur, skins, and sleeping bags for warmth and comfort. Fortunately, the bathrooms are located in a separate heated building.

The hotels have to be rebuilt every year. This is great opportunity for different artists, architects, and students to be involved with the concept and planning of the hotels since the designs change every year. Dynamic Art so to say.

Ice hotels often have very unique “Ice Bars” with beautiful works of art created entirely from ice. At these ice bars, even the drinking glasses are made from ice. Some hotels even have their own ice restaurants!

So pack up the thermal underwear and head off for an experience of a life time. Guaranteed to be a chilling experience of a positive kind.

Snow Village of Lainio in Finland

snowvillage.fi

Lumilinna SnowCastle in Kemi, Finland

CEHOTEL Kiruna, Sweden

S. Herz / ICEHOTEL

Kirkenes SnowHotel in Norway

Alta Igoo Hotel in Norway

Bjorli Ice Lodge in Bjorli, Norway

Bjorli Ice Lodge

The Ice Hotel in Romania

icehotelromania.com

Hotel de Glace – Quebec

hoteldeglace-canada.com

*Note – The United States used to have an ice hotel, the Aurora Ice Hotel about 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. However, in its first year of operation, the hotel was shut down by Alaska’s Fire Marshall until all rooms had smoke detectors and fire extinguishers installed. It has now been converted to a museum. Maybe down the line the US can join the ranks of its neighbors in the northern hemisphere and give this very unique experience another shot.

Lose Yourself and then Find Yourself in Life Size Mazes

Michael — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:36:59 +0000

Mazes and Labyrinths have been around for thousands of years and are still thriving today. While labyrinths are often meant to help with spiritual enlightenment, mazes are usually designed to be a lot of fun and also to provide a strategic challenge.

The images below are certainly not meant to be an exhaustive list of mazes, just some of the oldest, largest, best known, or most unique…

Garden Mazes:

If you have a chance to travel to Oahu, make sure to stop by to visit the Dole Plantation Pineapple Garden Maze which reclaimed its World Record after having 36,800 square feet and 4,710 linear feet added to the original maze.

photo by cosmic_kid99's

Hampton Court Maze is possibly the most famous maze in the world. While Hampton Court Maze is not particularly difficult, it is one of the oldest surviving hedge maze still in operation.
The maze was originally part of a network of paths and labyrinths that made up William III’s ‘Wilderness Garden’, planted around 1690 by George London and Henry Wise. It covers a third of an acre and contains around half a mile of paths.

Longleat Hedge Maze
Made up of more than 16,000 English Yews, Longleat’s spectacular Hedge Maze was first laid out in 1975 by the designer Greg Bright. The Maze covers an area of around 1.48 acres with a total pathway length of 1.69 miles.

Wandiligong Maze is Australia’s largest living hedge maze with 2km of pathways, surrounded by gardens.

The Garden Maze is the largest garden maze in the Mid-Atlantic states – a one acre ornamental garden at Luray Caverns.

Fence Mazes:

Glacier Maze is a Fence Maze that can be found in Coram, Montana, right outside of Glacier National Park.

Cowtown Cattlepen Maze is 5,400 sq.ft. of frequently changed wooden pathways made to look like the cattlepens of the Old West.

Snow Mazes:
Bundle up and don’t take too long to find your way out!

photo by Vanessa Smith

The Snowflake Maze

Towering sides in a Snow Maze

photo by Nat - Photostream on Flkr

Corn Mazes:

At over 40 acres, Cool Patch Pumpkins holds the title for the largest corn maze in the world in the 2009 Guinness Book of World Records

Davis Mega Maze in Sterling, Massachusetts, has been a popular seasonal attraction since 1998. Davis’ Farmland, a seventh-generation family-owned farm, holds this unique maze that changes completely from year to year.

Really Unique Corn Mazes: See lots of crazy and fun mazes at: The Maize

Amazing View from on Top of the Burj Dubai Spire

Michael — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:02:01 +0000

The Burj Dubai is opening soon but you can see a preview of the view today. This video was filmed by one of the construction engineers from the vantage point at the very top of the Burj Dubai Spire.

An amazing view if you don’t suffer from vertigo

Top of the Spire

Views from Above – photos taken from airplane windows

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:02:10 +0000

I always ask for a window seat when I fly. The views can be amazing and spectacular. I often think about how never before in human history have we ever been able to fly above the clouds and see the world in a whole new way than our ancestors.

The images below are from The Weather Channel – Weather.com.

Over Denver, CO

Taken by chrphi

Looking Down on Sierra Nevada Mountains

Taken by seasab

Over Daytona Beach, FL

Taken by benrio

Sunset Over Saint Croix, VI

Taken by shasmi

Storm System Over Flint, MI

Taken by nicgay

Over Talkeetna, AK

Taken by loulas

Over Everglades City, FL

Taken by ivamir

In the Sky Above Nashville, TN

Taken by ransch

Cloud Formations Over Dallas, TX

Taken by graowe

Cotton Balls over Nashville, TN

Taken by Ransch

Thunderstorm Over Minneapolis

Taken by micief

Cold Front Over Corpus Christi, TX

Taken by budtoe

Space Shuttle Launch View

Taken by rsbennett3

Cool Crosswalks!

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:57:14 +0000

Artist Peter Gibson –aka Roadsworth, often referred to as Canada’s own Banksy– creates fascinating artworks over pedestrian crosswalks. A direct response to what he calls the ‘car culture‘ that has gotten him into trouble with the law –he was arrested and charged with 53 counts of mischief–, he began painting the streets of Montreal in the fall of 2001 and received almost universal praise from the public for questioning the impact of our dependency on automobiles on society. Meet some of his finest works.

The Deepest Step Well in the World

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:32:26 +0000

Chand Baori is a famous stepwell situated in the village Abhaneri near Jaipur in Indian state of Rajasthan. This step well is located opposite Harshat Mata Temple and is one of the deepest and largest step wells in India. It was built in 9th century and has 3500 narrow steps and 13 stories and is 100 feet deep. It is a fine example of the architectural excellence prevalent in the past.