Beijing’s Forbidden City has long been one of China’s most popular tourist spots and iconic landmarks… but now, online visitors can experience the old dynasty culture without having to set foot on the Chinese soil.
After three years of development, the Palace Museum and IBM have unveiled on Friday (Oct 10) a virtual palace where online tourists can peek into the history and culture of the former imperial palace in a game-like 3D environment.
The project will allow people who cannot visit Beijing to experience the Forbidden City, while also providing a platform for further learning and refences for those who have visited the place in real life.
Image from the website’s photo gallery
The project looks pretty cool at first glance, but the loading speed is killing me… seems like it might take forever to download the software.
Style-arena.jp is a website about Tokyo street fashion, with weekly photo updates of latest Japanese fashion in the streets of Harajuku, Shibuya, Omotesando, Daikanyama and Ginza in Tokyo. Pretty cool site if you are into fashion and trends.
Dr Ross Garnaut, a professor of economics at the Australian National University, has urged Australians to ditch beef and lamb for kangaroo steaks to help save the planet in his recent climate study commissioned by the Australian government.
The number of Japanese people hitting the landmark age of 100 has reached record levels… there are now 36,276 centenarians in the country according to a recent report by the Japanese government.
Japan’s oldest woman is 113 and lives on the southern island of Okinawa; while the oldest man is Tomoji Tanabe who celebrates his 113th birthday last week.
According to 2007 statistics, Okinawa has the largest proportion of centenarians (by prefecture) with 57.89 per 100,000 people, followed by Kochi, Shimane, Kumamoto and Ehime prefectures. Okinawa has been maintaining the top position for the 35th consecutive year (could be 36th in 2008).
Saitama Prefecture has the lowest proportion with 13.05 per 100,000 people, staying last for the 18th year in a row, followed by Aichi, Chiba, Aomori and Kanagawa prefectures.
Btw, Japanese might be the longest living people in the world on average, but they don’t have the largest population of centenarians… the title belongs to USA instead.
US reported a number of 50,454 centenarians in 2001 and the stat is expected to rise continuously. The current world’s oldest living person is from USA as well… she is Edna Parker from the State of Indiana; she is 115.
[With reference from BBC, Japantimes and Wiki]
French Health, Youth and Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin wore a pair of pink Crocs sandals to a cabinet meeting last week (Aug 27) after losing a bet to the French Olympic athletes.
Roselyne made a promise that she would wear the shoes if the French Olympic squad could bring home 40 medals from the Beijing Olympic Games as a way to boost their morale… and the French athletes did just enough (7G,16S,17B) to claim the wager.
Went to Putrajaya on Friday (Aug 29) to catch the finale of Malaysia International Fireworks Competition 2008, with performance from the Australian team.
First serious attempt on fireworks photography; results are rather poor. Here are a few of the relatively nice photos…
