Mexico

In my previous blog post, I talked about Singapore, a really fascinating island city-state. In this blog post, I will talk about Mexico! Mexico is a country bordered to the north by the United States. Some fascinating tourist attraction sites are Cancun, Mexico City,  and Guadalajara.

Cancun is a city in southeast Mexico. The sand there is made from crushed coral so that it won’t burn your feet! There is an entire Cancun underwater museum. The Maya Barrier Reef, located in Cancun, is the second biggest reef after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. After some research, I found out that Cancun has the world’s longest underwater cave! In Cancun, you can get the chance to swim with the biggest fish in the world!

Mexico City is the capital of Mexico and the most populous city in North America. It is very important culturally so there over 150 museums. There are also many, many musical festivals. It also has volcanoes nearby so it gives adventurers a chance to climb and have fun! Another cool thing there is that the monarch butterfly migration happens locally. Mexico City is not only important culturally but also historically. There are many historic neighborhoods where you feel like you stepped back in time.

Guadalajara is the capital of Jalisco, a Mexican state. It is the second biggest city in Mexico after Mexico City. The main dish there is the Drowned Bread Rolls. Guadalajara has Latin America’s largest indoor market. There are 3000 stalls of everything you can imagine. A very popular structure there is the Guadalajara Cathedral. There are also some interesting museums.

In conclusion, Mexico is a very interesting place. I only mentioned a few of the places there but there are definitely many more locations. I would definitely travel there one day because it seems like a very interesting place.

Singapore

In my previous blog post, I wrote about Dubai, which is one of the most famous cities in the world. It has so many cool attraction sites. Today I’m going to talk about Singapore, an island city-state in Southeast Asia. Some of the tourist attraction sites are Marina Bay Sands, Gardens by the Bay, and the Merlion.

Marina Bay Sands is a resort fronting Marina Bay. It is owned by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. When it opened in 2010, it was known as the world’s most expensive casino property at $8 Billion including the land cost. The resort was designed by Moshe Safdie. It includes 2,561 hotel rooms, a 120,000 square-meter convention exhibition centre, a 74,000 square-meter mall called “The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands”, a museum, theatres, restaurants with celebrity chefs, two floating crystal pavilions, art-science exhibits, and the world’s largest atrium casino. It is topped with a 340-meter long SkyPark with a capacity of 3,900 people and a 150 meter infinity swimming pool.

Gardens by the Bay is a nature park spanning 101 hectares of reclaimed land in the Central Region of Singapore. A hectare is an SI accepted metric system unit of area equal to 10,000 m². It is adjacent to the Marina Reservoir. The park has three waterfront gardens: Bay South Garden, Bay East Garden, and Bay Central Garden. The largest garden is Bay South Garden at 54 hectares designed by Giant Associates. It has a huge flower dome. This dome is the biggest glass greenhouse in the world. It was opened in 2012.

The Merlion is the official mascot of Singapore. It is a mythical creature with a lion’s head and a fish’s body. It is widely used to represent both the city state and its people in sports teams, advertising, branding, tourism, and as a national personification. The history of the Merlion is that the first person who discovered Singapore saw a lion as he first stepped on the new land. The lion symbolizes bravery and courage. The statue stands at 8.6 meters high and weighs approximately 70 tons.

After doing all that research and seeing a lot of pictures, I have learned a lot about Singapore. It is a very interesting and beautiful place. I would definitely want to go there. I would most definitely want to see the Merlion because it is a very cool statue and it looks very interesting. Singapore is definitely on my top list of places I want to travel to.

Dubai

In my previous blog post, I talked about Italy and all its amazing locations. In this blog post, I will be talking about Dubai and all its fascinating attraction sites. Dubai is the city with the biggest, tallest, and largest structures in the world. It is the most populous city in UAE. Some of the most interesting tourist attraction sites are : Burj Khalifa, Palm Jumeirah, and Ski Dubai.

Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world since 2009. It measures 5439 feet including the tip. This building is used for many purposes. It has restaurants, residences, and offices. Burj Khalifa is in the Guinness world records for being the tallest building in the world. It is a symbol of success – to show the hard work and determination. It can also be used as a projector of pictures or videos during important events.

Palm Jumeirah is an artificial archipelago located in Dubai. It is so big it can be seen from space. Also, satellites were used to create the palm shaped islands. The satellites were used to drop sand with perfection into the desired shape. Palm Jumeirah prevents tycoons and storms. According to an article titled Top 5 Facts Of The Palm Jumeirah That You Probably Didn’t Know, it says “It is made of geotextile fibre, sand, small and medium rocks that make the breakwater stable and strong.” Another interesting fact that grabbed my attention was “Over 7 million rocks were placed from the Hajar Mountains and 120 million cubic metres of sand was dredged from the bottom of the sea. So much rock and sand was used that a 2m-wide wall could be formed around the globe three times.” This is an incredibly large amount of sand and rocks!

Ski Dubai is an indoor ski resort with 22,500 square meters of indoor ski area. The resort maintains a temperature of -1 degree Celsius to 2 degrees Celsius throughout the year. It is located in the Mall of Emirates, one of the largest shopping malls in the world.

Dubai is a very interesting and cool place. Of course, I only mentioned a few places of attraction but there are many, many others. Dubai is full of fun activities to do and places to go. Dubai is definitely a place I would want to visit. It is known in the whole entire world as a very cool and interesting place with many cool locations.

 

Italy

In my previous blog post, I described the unique sites located in Turkey. In my opinion, Turkey is a very attractive and intriguing location. In this blog post, I will talk about and describe the unique sites located in Italy. Italy is a very fascinating and attractive location. In fact, it is visited by 58.3 million tourists annually. Italy is mainly visited for its culture, history, fashion, art, and its beautiful natural scenery. Some of the most popular tourist attraction sites in Italy are the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Pantheon in Rome, the Colosseum, and Mount Etna.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is located next to the Cathedral of Pisa in the city of Pisa. It took approximately 200 years, or 2 centuries, to be completely built. It was completely built in the late 13th century. The tower weighs 14,500 tons and stands at a height of 183.27 feet. It has 8 stories. Fun fact is that the tower has 251 steps from its bottom to the top. There are seven bells inside the tower and each bell represents one note of the musical major scale.

The Pantheon, located in Rome, is a Christian church. It is the best preserved ancient Roman building in Rome. Fun fact is that the Pantheon’s dome remains the largest, unreinforced concrete dome in the entire world. The word Pantheon means “honor all gods” in Greek. The Pantheon has 16 Corinthian columns that weigh 60 tons each! They are used to support the portico.

The Colosseum is a vast amphitheater in Rome. It held 50,000 spectators and it was used for watching various kinds of combats. Originally it was known as Amphitheatrum Flavium and you can still see this name on the Colosseum today. The West exit was called the Gate of Death because the dead gladiators were carried out from there. In 847, a massive and destructive earthquake caused the southern side of the Colosseum to collapse. The Colosseum appears on Italy’s five-cent euro coin.

The last tourist attraction site I will talk about is Mount Etna. Mount Etna is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily. It erupts on average once a year. The name Etna means “I burn”. On March 8th, 1669, the most violent eruption occurred causing the death of 20,000 people. Tourists usually hike up the volcano or drive up, using special vehicles. In Sicily, this volcano is called Mongibello, which means “mountains of mountains.”

Italy is a very interesting and beautiful place. It would be very fun to go visit it and experience all the cool sites and cultures there. I only mentioned a few of the tourist attraction sites but there are definitely many, many more. I would especially love to visit the Colosseum because it looks very interesting and unique.

Turkey

In my previous blog post, I talked about Hong Kong and all its amazing and cool features. In this blog post, I will be talking about Turkey and its unique and interesting sites. Turkey has many interesting tourist attraction sites. Some of those sites are Hagia Sophia, Pamukkale, Topkapi Palace, and the Grand Bazaar.

Hagia Sophia was a Greek Orthodox Christian patriarchal cathedral. Then, it became an Ottoman imperial mosque. Now, it is a museum in Istanbul. It was built in 537 AD at the beginning of the Middle Ages. It was particularly known for its massive dome. It was the world’s largest building in its time and an engineering marvel. It has a height of 180 feet.

Pamukkale, meaning “cotton castle” in Turkish, is a very popular site. It is known for its carbonate mineral left by flowing water. It is a natural site in southwestern Turkey. There are about 17 hot springs there and the water from those hot springs ranges in temperatures from 35-100 degrees Celsius. It has over two million visitors every year and it’s the most single visited attraction.

The Topkapi Palace is a large museum in Istanbul. In the 15th century, it served as the main residence and headquarters of the Ottoman sultans. It is the largest and oldest place in the world to survive in modern times. The approximate number of residents was around 5,000 people. It is built directly behind Hagia Sofia. A fun fact is that the 1000 kitchen staff prepared 6,000 meals a day!

The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. It covers 61 streets and contains about 4,000 shops. It attracts about 250,000-400,000 visitors daily. It is the oldest shopping spot in the world. It is Turkey’s busiest sites.

Turkey is a very cool and interesting country. I would really love to go there and visit all the cool and interesting places. I would especially love to visit the Grand Bazaar because it looks like a very interesting place.

Hong Kong

Background: Hong Kong is a special administrative region on the southeastern coast of China. The name of this city is a Cantonese phrase that translates to “fragrance harbor”. Hong Kong has a red flag with a five-petal flower. The red color represents the motherland. The flower is a symbol of harmony. Hong Kong was established and founded on August 29, 1842.

Summary/Synopsis: Hong Kong is currently among the richest cities in the world. Three-fourths of the cities landmass is rural, with approximately 24 parks, woodlands, reservoirs, hills, and coastlines. The city has the highest number of skyscrapers in the world. Hong Kong is made up of approximately 200 islands so it is necessary for ferries and water transportation. Some islands are uninhabited and unreachable. The Hong Kong International Airport is among the busiest airports in the world. It handles about 59 million passengers a day. Its size is that of 20 football fields combined. In general, there a lot of tourist attraction sites that people can visit. Hong Kong is a very popular place for tourism.

Important/Famous People: The city is famous for the best Kung Fu movies. It has many famous actors including Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan, currently 64 years old, has taken part in several movies. Some of his most popular movies are The Legend of Drunken Master, Police Story, and Project A. He holds two Guinness world records. One is for performing the most stunts by any living stuntman. The other record is taking part in fifteen works in his film “Zodiac”. According to an article by the name of 10 Little-Known and Fascinating Facts about Jackie Chan, he was the director, writer, lead actor, executive producer, producer, unit producer, art director, cinematographer, manager, prop man, stunt coordinator, stuntman, gaffer, theme song vocalist, composer and even the food caterer.

Details: Dim Sum, which is a popular food for many people, originated there. In Hong Kong, people who give birth to a boy and then a girl are considered among the luckiest people in the world. The Peak Circle Walk in Hong Kong is considered the world’s most scenic walk. A Portuguese man by the name of Jorge Alvarez was the first recorded foreigner to set foot in Hong Kong. Some tourist attraction sites are Hong Kong Island, Victoria Peak, Hong Kong Disneyland, Tian Tan Buddha, and Ocean Park Hong Kong.

Victoria Peak (Top). Hong Kong Island (Bottom)

Opinion: In my opinion, I think Hong Kong is a very interesting and unique place to go to. I would really love to go and experience all the cool sites and things there. I would love to try their food and see the lifestyles there. One of the sites I would especially want to go to is The Peak Circle Walk because it has beautiful scenery which sounds very cool. I would also want to go to Victoria Peak because it looks like a very interesting place.

Peak Circle Walk (Top)

Spain

In my previous blog post, I discussed French Culture and how it differs from American Culture. In this blog post, I will be talking about Spain and its amazing tourist attraction sites. Spain has a population of approximately 46 million people. It is very large, measuring about 195,124 square miles. Some of its most popular tourist attraction sites are Barcelona, Madrid, and Bilbao. Each of these cities have their own unique attraction sites.

Barcelona is the capital city of Catalonia, which is a region of Spain. Barcelona has a population of approximately 1.62 million people. Some of its most popular tourist attraction sites are the Camp Nou, La Rambla, and Park Güell. The Camp Nou is the home stadium of FC Barcelona. It has a capacity of 99,354 and is the largest soccer stadium in Spain and Europe. La Rambla is a street in central Barcelona, lined with trees, that stretches 1.2 kilometers long. Finally, Park Güell is a public park composed of gardens and architectural elements. It was first opened in 1914. Its architectural style is modernism.

Madrid is the capital of Spain, with a population of approximately 3.18 million people. Some of its most popular tourist attraction sites are the Royal Palace of Madrid, Plaza Mayor, and Museo del Prado. The Royal Palace of Madrid is the residence of the Spanish Royal Family. The residence has 135,000 square meters of floor space and contains 3,418 rooms. Plaza Mayor was once the center of Old Madrid but now it is the heart of Madrid. It was opened in 1619. It contains some of the oldest restaurants in the world! It is even in the Guinness Book of World Records. Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum. It has some of the finest collections of European art dating from the 12th to the 20th century.

Bilbao is a city with very interesting attraction sites. Some of those attraction sites are the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Iberdrola Tower, and Zubizuri. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern art designed by Frank Gehry, a Canadian-American architect. It is one of the largest museums in Spain. Iberdrola Tower was designed by César Pelli. It measures 165 meters tall and has 41 floors. It is the largest office skyscraper in Spain. Zubizuri is a tied arch footbridge designed by architect Santiago Calatrava. It was opened in 1997 and it has a length of 246 feet.

After doing some research and learning all those interesting facts about Spain, I think Spain is a very interesting place to visit. I would hope to go there some day and experience the cultures and everything there. It would be fun to try out their foods, see their architecture, and all their tourist attraction sites. It would be definitely cool to visit it some day.