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Big Money — Literally — on Yap Island
by Amanda Arnold | April 12, 2012
On a tiny Pacific island called Yap, coins aren’t the kind of thing that jingle around in your pockets. They’re the kind of thing you prop up against your house.
The huge coins, called “rai,” are made of limestone and can range from 1 to 12 feet in diameter. In fact, some coins are so heavy — a large one can weigh thousands of pounds — that they’re virtually impossible to move.
On April 1, 2012, artists gathered in Tottori, Japan, to construct sand castles that look an awful lot like the city of London.
The sculptures are meant to honor the 2012 Summer Olympic Games; therefore they represent Great Britain’s greatest icons — from William Shakespeare and the Tower of London to the London taxi and the imperial guards. The sand art exhibit will be open to the public at the Tottori Sand Dunes on April 14, 2012 and will remain through January 2013.
This is pretty cool: The folks at NASA compiled a bunch of data they collected on ocean currents (between June 2005 and December 2007) to create a very artistic image of Earth — one that looks a whole lot like Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”
One of the frustrating things about travel is you often don’t get a good sense of the place you’re actually visiting on your typical 7-10 day jaunt. Having experienced that myself, I’ve found an easy way to get a taste of local life is to do something very ordinary – the kind of thing I would do at home but wouldn’t usually bother to do on vacation.
White Horses Carved into England’s Hillsides
by Amanda Arnold | March 28, 2012
In southern England, pry up the green, green grass and you’ll find white chalk beneath. That’s how white horses came to be carved into hillsides.
The oldest white horse, Uffington, was carved in about 1200 B.C. It’s 374 feet (110 meters) long with a rather abstract and beautiful physique, and is most easily viewed from the air.
Most historians agree these concentric circles were created by the ancient Incas to test out potential new crops for the Empire. Each terraced level has its own microclimate, marked by a certain range of temperatures, exposure to wind and humidity levels.
Not only that, but the rings also look awfully cool — from the sky and from the ground — so these days they attract tourists like you and me.
If there is one trip I’d want to make this year, it would be to the London Olympics. I’d love to see my fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt win a track gold medal or two. Not to mention taking in the gymnastics, the diving and the other track and field events. Heck, I’d even watch handball or caneoing.
Cute Animal Friday: Peruvian Hairless Dog
by Amanda Arnold | March 16, 2012
If you’re wandering around the historic ruins of Peru, you might happen upon a fur-less dog with a Mohawk.
The Peruvian Hairless Dog, sometimes referred to as a “punk,” is Peru’s official dog breed. It was man’s best friend back before the Inca Empire, as evidenced by 1,200-year-old artwork that depicts the canines, according to HuffPost. In fact, the dogs were so beloved that they were sometimes mummified.
“Snow Circles” Stitched into a Field
by Amanda Arnold | March 7, 2012
Just stumbled across these lovely snow circles, stitched into the fresh snow in Steamboat, Colo. Don’t they look like they were made with a sewing machine?
They were actually snow-shoed into a field/canvas by artist Sonja Hinrichsen and a few others she enlisted to help carry out her design, according to Steamboat Magazine. The thing about drawing in the snow is that it’s an etch-a-sketch situation: Your work will disappear with additional snowfall. Fortunately, she took some wonderful aerial shots and this video from a helicopter to document her artwork:
Evidently the last person an American wants to run into on vacation is … well, another American. According to a LivingSocial-sponsored study, the 4,000 Americans surveyed ranked themselves as the worst tourists in the world; after themselves, they named the Chinese, the French, the Japanese and the Russians. The Australians and Canadians who were surveyed also rated the American as least likeable tourist. Meanwhile, the Irish ranked the British as worst, and the British named the Germans.
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