Shooting Stars Posts

   In-flight movie presentation!    Length: 2:42 www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k12 s3NzQBI Enjoy!       We have landed in Nowe Czarnowo, Poland!    The Crooked Forest is a grove of 400 pine trees planted in the village of Nowe Czarnowo, Poland around the year 1930. The trees bend at a 90 degree angle to the north. The curved pines are surrounded by straight pine trees in the forest. Their origin is a mystery, but it is believed that some form of human tool or technique was used to make the trees grow or bend this way, but the method was never discovered. It has been guessed that the trees were made this way to create timber for use in furniture or boat building. The trees are healthy and grow up to 50 feet tall despite the unatural curves bending three to nine feet sideways at their bases. There are many theories on the mystery, but no evidence to support any of them. One theory is that a unique gravitational pull in this region caused the tr...

   In flight movie presentation!    Video length: 5:39. www.youtube.com/watch?v=irw8 0YN15wQ      We have landed in Yekaterinburg, Russia!    The mineral carnallite causes the look of paint on the walls of the abandoned salt mines. It dates back millions of years when a salty sea dried up and left behind mineral deposits. Only accessible with a government permit, the salt mine stretches for miles. In 2014, Mikhail Mishainik who is a young Russian explorer and photographer took the first photos of the Yekaterinburg salt mines. He would even stay there overnight. Some of the tunnels stretch for four miles. The air is filled with particles of salt which can leave you with a parched and thirsty. The salt mines are located 600 miles east of Moscow and are 650 feet below the Ural city. Looking like a Vincent Van Gogh painting, the colors are a result of dried carnallite and potassium magnesiates, used today as fertilizers. The colors mainly range a...

    In flight movie presentation. Video length 3:23. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN9X pcp0JY4    We have landed in China!    Taohuayuan House is the most expensive house in China and is located in the middle of Suzhou's Dusho lake on a private island. It was build according to the laws of feng shui and the classical gardens of Suzhou are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It took three years to build Taohuayuan House and it is over 72,400 square feet. It has 32 bedrooms and 32 bathrooms with views of Dushu's lake. There is a huge walk-in cellar and a pool overhanging the lake and the garden. You can enjoy craggy rocks, typical flora and a waterfall outside. The name of the house means Utopia or Peace Blossom Land. It is about a 1.5 hours' drive west from Shanghai. All of it's 32 bedrooms face south. The recommended site seeing time is 3-4 hours. I do not think you can tour the house but you can view the gardens. The classical gardens of Suzhou consist of 9 gardens. ...