Today, I was fiddling around with a computer that doesn't belong to me, and I came across the wallpaper with the three palm trees on a tiny island - if you could even call it that. Speaking with one of the guys in the office, I said that it was probably a fake. Not the picture, but the island. It wouldn't be hard for some fancy resort to throw out a couple hundred cubic yards of sand and plant three already grown palm trees in it to make the resort that much more picturesque.
Little did I know that this has been done on a scale of much greater magnitude, and the palm tree idea is just a wee bit different. It seems that the United Arab Emirates, wanting to make sure they maintain Dubai's position as a premium tourist destination, has been constructing the three largest man-made islands in the world. So big in fact that it increases their shoreline by 72 miles. Not 7.2 miles, but 72 miles. What would this accomplish you ask? Well there are three islands created in the shape of palm trees, and one island alone will support more than 60 luxury hotels, 4,000 exclusive residential villas (sale), 1,000 unique water homes (sale), 5,000 shoreline apartments (sale), marinas, water theme parks, restaurants, shopping malls, sports facilities, health spas, cinemas and various dive sites. Luxury hotels that include a frackin' (for all my BSG75 fans) awesome rendering of Trump Tower.
The islands themselves are pretty cool looking. One has already been finished and the other is still under construction. They can be viewed on Google Earth by going to 25 degrees North and 55 degrees East. But if you are too lazy to do that (and I hope you are not because it really lets you know that this is not made up) then here is a picture of one of the islands. You can check out the others by visiting the TEN site.
2 comments:
No wonder gas is $3/gallon!!
Oh yeah, I saw this jazz on the Discovery/Learning/National Geographic channel. I kept thinking how geeked out Fandango would be by this stuff.
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