3/26/2006: Japanese indoor beach
 

http://cellar.org/2006/indoorbeach1.jpg

Widen your browser windows and enjoy this amazing item via a blog called Impact Lab.

Looking to get away? About $50 gets you into Ocean Dome, the world's only indoor beach.

http://cellar.org/2006/indoorbeach3.jpg

Every hour, the volcano erupts and the wave machines produce a few minutes of surf.

http://cellar.org/2006/indoorbeach4.jpg

Right next to the real beach, but... uh... better?

http://cellar.org/2006/indoorbeach2.jpg

It looks like a fair sized water park with numerous pools and slides at the end of the building.
It seems like a lot of trouble to keep people from traipsing across the golf course but these pictures were taken in beautiful weather. Japan gets a pretty serious winter too. :thumb:

We're in a serious public brouhaha here in KC over an upcoming tax increase vote which is designed to fund complete overhaul of Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium (our side-by-side dedicated facilities collectively known as the Truman Sports Complex). Part of the deal is a rolling roof which will be able to cover either, but not both, facilities. It is a feature that was originally planned when TSC was built in the early 70's, but scrapped when construction costs were higher than planned (yes, that happened even in the 70's).

I find it interesting that a private enterprise has the balls to put together such a massively hi-tech entertainment site, but people here in KC are bitching about "corporate welfare" because the teams are demanding facilities that are on a par with other cities. In my mind, this ultimately isn't anything to do with corporate welfare...it is about public entertainment, much the same as this water park. A goodly chunk of the eventual taxes paid will come from purchases of tickets, parking, concessions and souvenirs at the improved facilities. The sales tax increase in question is rather small to begin with, and the investment in public pride and stature is enormous.

In any case, it seems to be an interesting and well-conceived plan.

Amazing how I got all of that sort of thought process out of an indoor pool, huh?

That much, huh? I'm sure everyone can relate to exactly how much fabric it takes to make a Statue of Liberty robe. :lol2:
But what about the people being taxed that don't give a rats ass about sports? It's like taxing Christians to pay for the coliseum or the cost of importing Lions.

Those wacky Japanese, what will they think of next? An indoor mountain? That would only take more money than most small countries have, but why should they worry? They can always cram people into 6x2x2 hotel pods and pay for that, too.

Yeah, that's one of those typical "gee whiz" facts for the rubes.

Not to worry...this thing doesn't have a prayer of passing, and with its defeat, we will, before too long, have two large, empty, deteriorating stadia sitting right alongside I-70, testimony to the one horse town Kansas City once was and will be once again.

Meanwhile, in a town somewhere else in America, there are people who have never had a football or baseball team who are ready to kill each other to get to the polls first to vote to be taxed to have what we are going to lose.

if i were really rich, i'd go here in the winter, and to dubai in the summer (for the indoor skiing)

I've been lurking here for some weeks now, and finally I have something to contribute:

This dome is in Germany and as I know the greatest dome of it's kind. It was the cargolifter (kinda zeppelin) building facility, but the whole idea died, just the dome was left. A foreign(asian) investor spend a lot of money to transform it into a tropical island.

http://www.my-tropical-islands.com/f...en/e-dome5.jpg

http://www.my-tropical-islands.com/f...en/e-dome4.jpg

It looks so orderly...

Welcome to the Cellar, StereoMike. :D

Do you really think a population should judge their worth, as a whole or as individuals, on the possession of sports franchises? Can't you think of better things to spend hundreds of millions on than a bunch of overpaid whiners? :eyebrow:

Not ass-cold, like their real ocean is. You'd need a wetsuit to enjoy the real beach it is next to most of the year.

It would be slightly more understandable if it were possession. As it is, the sports teams are rentals. And expensive ones at that.

/living through the DC baseball extortion phase.

Thank god you guys got that stadium, and it didn't come to Virginia.

It's NIMBY for me, but I do feel for the people whose BY it's I. Plus, I hate to see DC's scarce funds heading into the pockets of people who can afford to buy a sports team.

Yeah I saw some of it on TV, because there were a few people doing base-jumping from the top of the dome...

First, welcome StereoMike!
Second, If you've ever been to Cape Hatteras in November, you will know what that feels like.

[quote=Undertoad]
Right next to the real beach, but... uh... better?
QUOTE]

It DOES appear that the ..uh.. indoor beach has more sand.

The beach without actually being at the beach. This could work for me.

This is really important to know before I sign up: do they have a heating element underneath the sand to make sure that it's kept at unbearable temperatures?

And false sand which doesn't itch in/between every part of my body...

Indoor beaches, indoor islands - why doesn't someone get a dozen of these big hangars together and construct an indoor Palestinian homeland? With waterslides!

:thumb2: Excellent idea, milkfish.

you mean an indoor isrealy homeland so the palestinians get theirs back? :D

Is it salt water or fresh water?

In a similar vein, we could imagine evacuating the Green Zone in Baghdad, convert it to one huge amusement park, and give every resident under the age of thirty free a day pass provided that they surrender an improvised explosive device or a weapons cache or something on that order. In half a year they will be so soft and decadent that they will pose no trouble at all. In fact they will be begging to become the 51st state.

For areas in country distant from the capital, we'll just air-drop pallets full of game consoles and the like.

I think this might be less expensive than the current military operations, especially if we get Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to underwrite part of the cost of the air-drops.

Well, sure, there's lots of better things. But people aren't going to pass that, either (although we are now building a shiny new arena that was badly needed). But - it is a definite facet of a first-line city that you have professional sports, and preferably not just Arena Football, Team Tennis or Minor League Hockey. I don't make the rules, I just note them.:D Society is funny that way. No major league sports franchises build their own stadia anymore, anywhere. The business of pro sports is conducted in venues paid for by public funds. Sometimes the teams will pay for lavish window dressing and excess that the public just won't spring for, but the basic stadia, arenas and ballparks are virtually always public edifices.

Besides...I think pro sports fill the niche left empty by the collapse of the Roman Empire, taking gladiatorial contests with it. Football is ritualized combat, complete with everything but swords and shields. I think society needs that sort of thing. However, because it is inherently anti-intellectual and pretty much stupid to pay gazillions of dollars for it, a city/county/state has to pretty much all agree that it is worth *something*...on whatever basis...to have it. That' why we're voting - to find out if people think it is worth it.

I, for one, will miss it when it is gone. Hell, I just had season tickets. Sniff.

Well, I guess the public should kick in for the facilities, seeing how the owners spend hundreds of millions to bring us teams we can be proud of..... like the Eagles and Yankees. :rolleyes:

Are you suggesting Bush's war is a Mickey Mouse operation?:lol:

It's a dolphin.

it's a robot carp.
http://cellar.org/2006/robotcarp2.jpg