I Art You

Konichiwa, I am sure you will not have too much trouble guessing the theme of this weeks tech travel round up. If you guessed Japan, congratulations, have a shot of sake cause this week the tech travel roundup is headed back to Japan. Perhaps and a obvious choice, its hard to talk about technology without Japan stealing the spot light, so without further ado we bring you new McDonald’s concepts and take you down the back alleys in Akihabara.

First up is a hot new concept McDonalds has released in Japan. The Japanese have been going crazy for McDonald’s. First it was the Big Macs, next came the Mega Mac’s, and now its the Quarter Pounder. The hip new “non-branded” restaurants have been popping up in Tokyo. Its fast food minimalist at its finest, the new Quarter Pounder restaurants have only one burger on the menu, no its not the Big Mac. Source

In the United States we have elderly greeting people at Wal*Marts, and cartoon characters to great peope at Amusement Parks. In Japan they have robots! There is a new Robot stationed outside iExpo 2008 in Tokyo to warmly greet visitors. Let the eldery retire, keep the cartoons on TV, Robots are never tired, and hopefully never angry. Source

Finally, as promised a tour through a back alley used electronics Akihabara shop. The store is packed full of gems, once the height of technology these items were quickly discarded for something bigger or better, technology moves fast in Japan but these stores offer a chance to pause and remember. Source

Ever wonder what the deepest hole every dug was? OK well maybe you never have thought about it, but it is interesting to know nevertheless.  During the cold war the Soviets decided to dig a hole as deep as the possibly could, given their geographic location digging a hole to China would have been out of the question. They started digging their hole in a remote mining community named Pechenga, the goal was to beat an American scientific team to something called the ‘Mohorovicic Discontinuity’ (Moho), the heavily disputed boundry between the earths crust and magma filled mantle. The Russians continued to dig for over fifteen years eventually reaching a depth of 40,226 ft, the current world record.

There is loads of space junk right here on planet earth! Oobject has put together a great list of various Space Junk that has been abandoned and forgotten since the dawn of the space age. The lists look at abandoned space junk from both NASA and the Russian Space Agency. There is everything from a Russian shuttle that was never completed to a NASA rocket launch trailer full of equipment left out in a dessert. Gizmodo also went through the list and provided their take on all the space junk.

Star City is Russia’s own Cape Canaveral, all of Russia’s cosmonauts where trained in this once secretive facility. These days the center is more open and can even be visited as a tourist (for aprox $500), or if you have deeper pockets you can follow in the foot steps of the worlds first space tourists who trained for their flights to the ISS at Star City.

Richard Garriott a video game designer is the next space tourist to fork over the $30 million dollar ticket price to take a ride on a Russian rocket and spend a week and a half on the ISS. Before he can leave Garriott must spend eight months training at Star City. Wired has written a great article about him along with some fantastic photos of the facility.

Over the years Yangshuo County, China has been growing as a tourist destination. The county has always been popular with backpackers for it beauty and nature oriented outdoor activities.

Some of the most popular active activities in the area include rock climbing, mountain biking, as well as exploration of the elaborate system of caves in the area. Besides the great activities the main draw to the area is its scenic beauty. Beautiful mountains flow into rivers and picturesque Chinese country side, miles away from modern concrete dominated China Yangshuo offers a look back at a peaceful simple time.