Celebrities arrived at 66th Annual Golden Globe

Celebrities arrived at 66th Annual Golden Globe

World’s Most Spectacular Roads

World’s Most Spectacular Roads

By: Hal Amen


1. Milford Road, New ZealandNot to be confused with the famous Milford Track trekking route, the Milford Road State Highway 94 passes through the Southern Alps of New Zealand’s South Island.Photo: macronix

2. Stelvio Pass, Italy48 hairpin turns up to a 2757m (9045ft) pass in the Italian Alps, and Top Gear’s pick for “greatest driving road in the world.”Photo: Damian Morys Foto

3. Great Ocean Road, AustraliaThis coastal road in Victoria runs for 241km, between Torquay and Warrnambool. The car-less might consider the Great Ocean Walk as an alternative.Photo: Stas Kulesh

4. Chalus Road, IranTehran is connected to the northern city of Chalus via this road through the Alborz Mountains. Check this site for more images.Photo: ninara

5. Cabot Trail, CanadaWrapping around northern Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island, the Cabot Trail is mountainous and windy with near-constant ocean views. I recommend biking it.Photo:kennymatic

6. I-70 at Glenwood Canyon, ColoradoThe Colorado River, of Grand Canyon fame, carved this canyon billions of years ago. The U.S. government built the 12-mile, $490 million interstate route through it, which was only completed in 1992.Photo: Payton Chung

7. Millau Bridge, FranceSouthern France’s Millau Bridge is the tallest in the world — taller, actually, than the Eiffel Tower.Photo: tibchris

8. Karakoram Highway, PakistanThe “highest paved international road in the world” connects Pakistan with Xinjiang, China. It is currently closed at the Hunza Valley due to a massive landslide.Photo: Umair Mohsin

9. Mountain road, Snowdonia, WalesMountainous northern Wales is traversed by many of these ancient, narrow, stone-walled roads. I’ve experienced the challenge of navigating them at night. With oncoming traffic. Car renters beware.Photo: Richard0

10. Ice Highway, CanadaWinter means greater accessibility in northern Canada. This frozen road runs up the Northwest Territories.Photo: madmack66

11. Chapman’s Peak Drive, South AfricaAnother great coastal road, this one just 15 miles south of Cape Town.Photo: Raveesh Vyas

12. Mountain road, central PeruMost mountain pass roads in Peru qualify as “spectacular.” This one runs north from the Sacred Valley town of Ollantaytambo and is part of the car route to Machu Picchu.Photo: ThiagoJ

13. Liwa, UAERoads through the desert oasis of Liwa, Abu Dhabi, stretch long.Photo: Luca Assen

14. Going-to-the- Sun Road, MontanaThe only route through Glacier National Park was featured in the opening scenes of “The Shining.”Photo: Colin Gregory Palmer

15. Mývatn, IcelandMývatn is a volcanically active region in northern Iceland. This road will take you there.Photo: Francesco_G

16. Seven Mile Bridge, Florida KeysU.S. Highway 1 runs for miles over the water, connecting the Florida Keys to the mainland. It includes this long span of bridge.Photo: milan.boers

17. Gotthard Pass, SwitzerlandTraveling north from Italy into Switzerland, you’ll come to Gotthard Pass, which you can cross on either the new, straightforward road, or the old roller coaster above. My money’s on the latter.Photo: Mikael Miettinen

18. Tichka Pass, MoroccoI recently drove over the 2260m Tichka Pass on my way to Zagora to ride a camel. The pass was cooler. No offense, camel.Photo: cliffwilliams

19. Pacific Coast Highway, CaliforniaThis is the only road getting reprised from the original post. It seems to deserve it.Photo: tibchris

20. Dingle Peninsula, IrelandThe roads of western Ireland are narrow, flanked by green, and sometimes charmed.Photo: ktylerconk

Madhurima Latest look in Saree

Madhurima Latest look in Saree

Madhurima Latest look in Saree. Presently she doing Main Female lead in Vamsi's Saradaga Kasepu with Allari Naresh In Lead. rechagotte vidam ga chira kattukunna madhurima. More images after the break...

Crop Art - INCREDIBLE!!!

Crop Art - INCREDIBLE!!!

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted. Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colours of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge. Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan. The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September.
The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.
Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee. Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen. The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces.

In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.
In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art.
A year later, organizers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life. The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate, 600 miles north of Tokyo, where the tradition began in 1993.
The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horsebacks, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall. Napoleon on horseback can be seen from the skies, created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate. A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants; the color's created by using different varieties, in Inakadate in Japan. More than 150,000 visitors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals. Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields. Another famous rice paddy art venue is in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture. This year's design shows the fictional 16th-century samurai warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose lives feature in television series Tenchijin. Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa, Japan. And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs. Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year, including designs of deer dancers.