"Buddha in Japan"

Ushiku Daibutsu Amida Buddha in Japan is the world's tallest freestanding bronze statue. Completed in 1995, it stands a total of 120 meters above the ground, including the 10 meter high base and 10 meter high lotus platform. An elevator takes visitors up 85 meters to where an observation floor is located.

Lenin: "I'm still here"

Moscow metro Prospekt Mira station mosaic of Lenin from the 1930's

Lenin in the Moscow Metro

I guess MacDonald's is everywhere

This is one of many McDonalds in Moscow.

Onizuka

There is almost nothing to suggest the wild, frontier past of Onizuka Street in Little Tokyo.

Nothing to suggest that it once was traversed by racing stagecoaches in the 1850s, "with passengers and drivers yelling, and wheels often locked hub to hub to bring up a cloud of dust," as recounted in the history book "Nuestro Pueblo."

Onizuka, formerly named Weller Street, is now a sedate one-block stretch of road, renamed for Ellison Onizuka, the astronaut who was killed in the 1986 Challenger explosion.

About the only clue to Onizuka Street's colorful role in L.A.'s early history is its unusual configuration -- it runs diagonally from the corner of 2nd and San Pedro streets to 1st Street.

That's because Onizuka Street, as "Nuestro Pueblo" put it, was "the homestretch" of the 21-mile stagecoach route from San Pedro to downtown L.A., a shortcut carved out by rival drivers whose passengers frequently wagered on who would arrive first.

It's "code" again

This fall, there will be nothing bigger in bookstores than Hurricane Dan. On Sept. 15, Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol," the follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code" -- which sold 80 million copies worldwide and is said to be the biggest-selling novel ever -- arrives with high expectations; fans have spent six years waiting for Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon's next adventure.

You can feel the magic of Big Sur

There are many state parks and beaches along Big Sur's winding Highway 1. With 1,006 acres and 204 campsites, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park is the biggest campground in the Big Sur area, complete with lodge, cafe and market, not far from Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (where the big waterfall is), Nepenthe restaurant (since 1949), Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn (since the ’40s) and Bixby Creek Bridge (since 1932).
Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn

The Ledge at Willis Tower

The glass boxes known as the Ledge in Chicago's former Sears Tower (now known as Willis Tower) jut out from the 103rd floor for an exhilarating view.

A Chicago Dream . . .

The Willis Tower lobby (formerly the Sears Tower) expresses Chicago's desire to host the 2016 Olympic games. The city will find out Oct. 2.

Visiting Gettysburg

Visitors watch and listen as lighting and sound bring the battle to life inside the park's cyclorama theater. The massive painting depicts the ill-fated Confederate charge led by Gen. George Pickett. In its 19th century heyday, it reportedly brought veterans to tears.

Too many people today have forgotten the message of Abraham Lincoln

A copy of Abraham Lincoln's immortal speech is etched in a glass window at the Gettysburg museum. A visitor listens to a dramatic reading of the two-minute speech.

Robinson Jeffers' Big Sur Explored

A time-exposure photo shows traffic on Pacific Coast Highway going over the historic Bixby Bridge in Big Sur. Click on the link below for the full story.

Here's a beach in China where you don't have to worry about sunblock

I WONDER WHERE THE TOILETS ARE????

A Water Bridge

Even after you see it, it is still hard to believe!
Water Bridge in Germany . What a feat!

Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long.......now this is engineering!

This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and West Germany , as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg , near Berlin ..

The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.

To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists.

Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?


Answer:
It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water!
Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.

A SCHOOL BUS IN JAPAN

"Kaitlyn's got talent"

Kaitlyn Maher stood at the window of her suburban home, waving and smiling, excited about the interview. Inside, three dolls waited on the stairs, a "welcoming committee" she had arranged for the occasion. Kaitlyn, one of the top 10 finalists on "America's Got Talent," who has an upcoming Disney movie and debut album, was still very much a 5-year-old.

An American Superhero Geek

With his blue eyes, tousled blond hair and foreign passport, Charisma Man is a sake-sipping man about town, suavely negotiating the intricacies of Japanese culture. Women adore him. Men respect, even fear, him. Life in the East bends to his every whim. "It's great to be a Western guy in Asia," he says. "I've got lots of money, chicks dig me -- everybody respects me."

"Creative Operative"

Barbara Lauwers Podoski, who launched one of the most successful psychological campaigns of World War II, which resulted in the surrender of more than 600 Czechoslovakian soldiers fighting for the Germans, died of cardiovascular disease Aug. 16 at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington, D.C. She was 95.

One of the few female operatives in the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime predecessor to the CIA, she found creative ways to undermine German morale. The multilingual Barbara Lauwers, as she was then known, primarily interrogated prisoners of war from her base in Rome. An antagonistic Nazi sergeant under her questioning in 1944 mentioned that Czechs and Slovaks were used to doing the Germans' "dirty work" along the Italian front. Lauwers, a private, realized there was an opportunity to flip the loyalties of her former countrymen. She quickly borrowed the Vatican's Czech and Slovak typewriters and prepared leaflets in both Czech and Slovak languages that urged the conscripts to change sides, telling them that they were being used. "Shed this German yoke of shame, cross over to the partisans," she implored them. Within a week, many Czech and Slovak soldiers who had been working for the Germans crossed the Allied lines and surrendered. At least 600 had her leaflet in their pockets.

Makeover for Battleship Missouri

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii - The "Mighty Mo," the World War II battleship best known as the site of the formal surrender of Japan in 1945, is heading to the shipyard for repairs.

The Missouri, now a decommissioned vessel called the Battleship Missouri Memorial, will leave its historic spot at Pearl Harbor's Battleship Row in October.

Our Hero . . . Ichiro

Barring injury, Ichiro Suzuki easily will exceed 200 hits again. It will be his ninth consecutive 200-hit season, breaking the record held since 1901 by Wee Willie Keeler.