Ayers Rock is also known by its Aboriginal name “Uluru”. It is a sacred part of Aboriginal creation mythology, or dreamtime – reality being a dream. Uluru is considered one of the great wonders of the world and one of Australia‘s most recognizable natural icons.
The Great Barrier Reef is one of the richest, most complex and diverse ecosystems in the world. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park begins at the tip of Cape York in Queensland and extends south almost to Bundaberg. The area is larger than Victoria and Tasmania combined and stretches more than 2300km along the north-east coast of Australia.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Contemporary Art is the only museum in Tokyo to introduce foreign and domestic contemporary art in a systematic way. The Permanent Collection Gallery displays some 3,800 works of contemporary art, while the Temporary Exhibition Galleries host a variety of touring exhibitions. The museum includes an Art Information Centre which gathers, classifies and accumulates fine art information and also makes it accessible through various types of media. Attached to the Centre is an Art Library filled with many works on modern and contemporary art.
Kamakura is a small city and a very popular tourist destination. Sometimes called the Kyoto of Eastern Japan, Kamakura offers numerous temples, shrines and other historical monuments. In addition, Kamakura’s sand beaches attract large crowds during the summer months.
Nikko National Park is a national park in the Kanto region, on the main island of Honshu in Japan. The park spreads over four prefectures: Tochigi, Gunma, Fukushima, and Niigata.Notable attractions include:
• Lake Chuzenji
• Kegon Falls
• Ryuzu Falls
• Mount Nantai
• Mount Nikko-Shirane
• Ozegahara (Oze marshland)
Prepare to be hit by the 22nd century! With space age buildings, electric cars and fantasy shopping malls, Tokyo‘s newest district is futuristic and surreal. Built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay, a monorail links Odaiba to the mainland. Watch out too for the silent couples. As the site of the world’s largest Ferris wheel, it’s also a popular, if not compulsory, dating spot.
Defying all logic, the world’s 105th-largest country is also one of its most instantly recognizable. Think psychedelic Che Guevara murals and antediluvian American Buicks, dudes with bongos and old men slapping down dominoes, queues outside ration shops and communist cadres smoking chunky Montecristos. Cuba has a way of going against the grain. It’s all part of its historical make-up, part of its dynamism, part of its intrinsic beauty.
Most people only know Cape Verde, Senegal through the haunting mornos (mournful songs) of Cesária Évora. To visit her homeland – a series of unlikely volcanic islands some 500km off the coast of Senegal – is to understand the strange, bittersweet amalgam of West African rhythms and mournful Portuguese melodies that shape her music.
Mexico‘s Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world’s largest known natural crystals—translucent beams of gypsum as long as 11 meters. In the new issue of the journal Geology, García-Ruiz reports that for millennia the crystals thrived in the cave’s extremely rare and stable natural environment. Temperatures hovered consistently around a steamy 136 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius), and the cave was filled with mineral-rich water that drove the crystals’ growth.
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