Around the world (Places out of India)

The five gardens set across a modest 5.5 acres in the Portland Japanese Garden make up a place of tranquillity and contemplation in the city’s west hills. Influenced by Shinto, Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, designers make use of the three essential elements in traditional Japanese gardens: stone, the “bones” of the landscape; water, the life-giving force; and plants, the tapestry of the four seasons. The pond below Heavenly Falls (pictured) is filled with koi that help bring the landscape to life.

The Rosengarten Estate marks both its centenary and its 20th year as a public garden in 2013. Pharmaceutical business owners Adolph and Christine Rosengarten chose land 30 minutes northwest of Philadelphia as their country retreat to escape the heat of the city. As the private estate was converted to a 35-acre public garden, designers transformed the tennis court into a five-bed garden – each with a distinct flower arrangement – while the large vegetable garden became the source for cut flowers. Head to the Teacup Garden (pictured) where black stemmed bananas are draped in clematis vines

About 25km south of Puerto Vallarta, the Vallarta Botanical Gardens is perched on a hillside at the edge of a tropical wilderness. Head past the orchid and vanilla conservatory to the Hacienda de Oro Visitor Center (pictured) for excellent views of the surrounding mountains, forests and rivers. The desert and rainforest gardens are dedicated to native habitat and biodiversity, as well as colourful birds such as squirrel cuckoos, trogons and military macaws.

The Butchart Gardens – Canada At the turn of the last century, Jenny Butchart set about beautifying the bleak pits her husband’s limestone mining company had left on their Vancouver Island property in British Columbia. Still owned by the same family, most of the 55 acre property is open to the public, including Butchart’s first creation, the Sunken Garden (pictured), as well as those that followed – the Japanese Garden, the Italian Garden and the impressive 300-species rose garden. Visit on a summer Saturday evening for a creative fireworks display set to the music of show tunes

The Montréal Botanical Garden is a quiet 75-hectare oasis at the heart of Quebec’s largest city. With more than 22,000 plant species and cultivars, an insectarium, biodome, planetarium and themed greenhouses and gardens, like the popular Chinese Garden (pictured), a visit to the Montreal Botanical Garden lives up to its motto: “a trip around the world”. Of course, visitors can also just stroll the grounds and enjoy the stellar views of gardens, ponds and trees.

Created in 1976 by civic-minded Atlantans, the Atlanta Botanical Gardens welcomed just 50,000 visitors in its seventh year. But by 2004, annual visitation had increased to almost half a million, thanks to popular holiday light shows such as Musical Orbs (pictured), hands-on garden and art classes, a plant help hotline and the Orchid Display House, with its more than 2,000 spectacular flowers. From May to September 2013, see Imaginary Worlds, an exhibition of 19 living sculptures made of hundreds of thousands of plants

The botanical gardens at the Springs Preserve, located just three miles north of the Las Vegas Strip, light up each December like the city itself when the rose trellis (pictured) and other gardens are decorated for the annual Holiday Spectacular with more than half a million sustainable LED lights. The 110-acre grounds are home to more than 1,200 species of native and desert-adapted plants in several themed areas such as Cactus Alley and the Palm Garden. More than just a garden, Springs Preserve also has hiking trails, interactive science and nature exhibits and indoor galleries dedicated to art and travelling exhibitions.

The world’s largest cast iron statue, Vulcan, towers over the city from its perch on Red Mountain Vulcan Park and Museum in Birmingham, Alabama

Ruby Falls is a 145-foot high underground waterfall located within LookoutMoutain, near Rock City and Chattanooga,Tennessee in the United States.The cave which houses Ruby Falls was formed with the formation of Lookout Mountain. About 200 to 240 million years ago (in the Carboniferous period, at the end of the Paleozoic era) the eastern Tennessee area was covered with a shallow sea, the sediments of which eventually formed limestone rock. About 200 million years ago, this area was uplifted and subsequent erosion has created the current topography. The limestone in which the cave is formed is still relatively horizontal, just as it was deposited when it was below sea level.

The Lookout Mountain Caverns, which includes Ruby Falls Cave, is a limestone cave. These caves occur when slightly acidic groundwater enters subterranean streams and eats away at the relatively soft limestone, causing narrow cracks to widen into passages and caves in a process called chemical weathering. The stream which makes up the Falls entered the cave sometime after its formation.

The Falls are located at the end of the main passage of Ruby Falls Cave, in a large vertical shaft. The stream, 1120 feet underground, is fed both by rainwater and natural springs. It collects in a pool in the cave floor and then continues through the mountain until finally joining the Tennessee River at the base of Lookout Mountain.While Ruby Falls Cave combines with Lookout Mountain Cave to form the Lookout Mountain Caverns, the two caves were not actually connected by any passage. Ruby Falls Cave is the upper of the two and contains a variety of geological formations and curiosities which Lookout Mountain Cave does not have.

Electric lights were installed in the cave, making it one of the first commercial caves to be so outfitted. Motorists travelling on I-75 in the 70’s were subjected to dozens – maybe hundreds – of billboards along their route with the words “VISIT RUBY FALLS” beginning hundreds of miles north and south of the falls itself. Ruby Falls remains a staple of Chattanooga tourism, operating daily. Ruby Falls is owned by the Steiner family of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Marina Bay, Singapore

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view of swimming pool at 55th Floor of a Hotel

London

Atlantic Road (8 km.) , Norway

Sky bridge, Norway

super collection …

World’s largest solar powered hospital opens in Haiti

The world’s largest solar powered hospital has just opened its doors in haiti and boasts over 1800 solar panels on its elegant and otherwise, stark,
white rooftop. haiti’s central plateau is riddled with intermittent flows of energy- a fact that derails the possibilities of large-scale healthcare
infrastructure. in the specific region of mirebalais, located 30 miles north of the capital port-au-prince, outages occur for an average of three
hours each day. the new hopital universitaire de mirebalais, a venture of partners in health, will cover an area of 205,000 square feet and its
300 beds will assist in correcting a national healthcare system with scarce or disparate resources.

most impressively, however, is the employment of design solutions in the building system as a whole, wherein the building is set to generate
more energy than the hospital will consume. even before the complex officially opened, the german-supplied solar panels reportedly produced
139 megawatt hours of electricity- enough to charge 22 million smartphones and offset 72 tons of coal. the architecture is solving myriad
problems and composed such that it provides rather than garners resources. the surplus electricity will be funnelled back into haiti’s
national grid, a testament to the ability of the built form to create a sustainable system for survival.

local electricians were trained to maintain the energy-catching system and will remain employed by the hospital

in progress view of the installed cells

Zig zag road in Japan

The Hindenburg outside the U.S. Navy hangar. New Jersey, 1936

Members of the Italian Air Force, the ‘Frecce Tricolori’, perform with their Aermacchi MB-339 aircraft during the International Air Show at the Hungarian
Air Force base in Kecskemet.

great work, barood bhai!

A plane coming into land at the most dangerous airport in the world, Lukla Airport, Nepal. Those with a fear of flying and a ticket to Lukla Airport will want to look away now. This airport boasts the unwanted honour of being known as the world most dangerous airport and one look at its unique airstrip will explain why. With a fall of 9,200 ft awaiting passengers at the end of the runaway, flying to or from this Asian destination is not for the faint of heart.

Norway looks like a scary place ……..

Barood bhai when are you retiring