Friday, October 10, 2008

WOW

Interesting facts

I watched a documentary on Discovery channel today about the construction of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. It took like 10 years of planning and building because of considerations like strong sea currents and winds. The bridge has opened recently this year in May and it is the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world, standing at around 36km long. It links from Shanghai to Ningbo, shortening the distance by about 120km. Whoa, isn't that amazing or what!
For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangzhou_Bay_Bridge



Another programme on National Geographic channel was about the moving of a 3000 year ancient Egyptian temple- the Abul Simbel temple. They had to move the temple as the River Nile would flood and cause this ancient temple to disappear forever. Achitects across the world came up with several ideas, like building a dome around the temple and tourists can take an underwater elevator to visit the temple, but this idea was rejected. In the end, they had to cut the temple up into about 1050 blocks and shift it to another site to assemble it. I think it took about 9 months in 1964 to cut and shift the blocks, but more time to assemble the blocks. Fortunately, the Abul Simbel temple stands safe now.
For more info and pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_simbel

These are so interesting! :D Hope you find it cool too!

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