Strange things from around the world:

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/tr ... ost-Cities

first

hold on while i read this

That was interesting. Ghost towns are interesting, but ghost towns that were never inhabited in the first place and almost certainly never will be is more interesting. China's economy-building strategy seems... short-sighted. Unless there is more secret plan to follow?

the not so great Mall of China, as it is known

I want to know who calls it this. Because if it is native English speakers, then it's terrible, but if it's Chinese people whose first language is not English and they have such an extensive understanding of English and American tourist attractions in the Midwest that they come up with such a pun, I am duly impressed.

A gondola ride through the mall lasts 20 minutes and takes you past an unsettling and almost unending vista of emptiness.

This is clearly a horror movie waiting to happen.

jvcc wrote:

the not so great Mall of China, as it is known

I want to know who calls it this. Because if it is native English speakers, then it's terrible, but if it's Chinese people whose first language is not English and they have such an extensive understanding of English and American tourist attractions in the Midwest that they come up with such a pun, I am duly impressed.

A gondola ride through the mall lasts 20 minutes and takes you past an unsettling and almost unending vista of emptiness.

This is clearly a horror movie waiting to happen.

The Daily Mail once quoted that the policeman involved in the Madeleine McCann case was known to the locals as 'Inspector Clueless'. The problem with that is that the translation of 'Inspector Clueless' isn't actually any sort of pun.

Anyway, there's a place called Cambourne. I may have mentioned it before. Nothing on the scale of the place mentioned in the original article, but it's still weird. It's a town that they just built from scratch in 1998 just outside Cambridge. The place is just empty. I was visiting Cambridge and was staying in the Cambridge Belfry, which is situated right on the edge of the place, but next to the supermarket, pub, high street, civil offices etc. The pub was completely deserted and they were actually playing canned talking over the tannoy to give the impression that there were people in there. The Morrisons supermarket was the same, come to think of it. Nobody in there except for two members of staff. The chippy was somehow too sanitary and shiny. In short ,there were very few signs of life.

Excellent. Also from that website:

Some of those places look like they'd be interesting to explore. I'm mostly talking about the Yugoslavia monuments, although it would be a trip if we could explore those Minecraft models (and while we're at it, things made out of Legos).