In Osaka, Japan this group of people have gone one better than the original Mysterious Circle of People, and have created a Mysterious Double Circle of People…

Maybe this is the beginning of a new form of flash mobbing for Google Earth!

Thanks to Zeus.

The “Three Views of Japan” are just like the Seven Wonders of the World, except they’re all in Japan. And there’s only three of them.

Firstly there’s “Matsushima”, a group of around 260 miniature islands which are all covered in Pine trees (or “matsu”, hence the name). The area is apparently so beautiful that Matsuo Bashō (considered by many the grand master of the haiku) wrote the following:

Matsushima ah!
A-ah, Matsushima, ah!
Matsushima, ah!

Well, perhaps Matsuo Bashō was having an off-day, or maybe he too had only seen Google’s current satellite image - because from up here Matsushima looks like, well, a bunch of tree covered islands.

Our second View is thankfully more exciting, the Torii at Itsukushima Shrine, which has been created in such a way that at high tide it appears to be floating on the surface of the water, and seen from ground level with Mount Misen in the background is a truly spectacular sight.

Not that we’d know of course, as this satellite shot sadly looks a little like a couple of sticks in a pond.

So, onto the final View of Japan! Well, we should be looking at a thin pine-covered sandbar called “Amanohashidate“, except that it isn’t actually on Google Earth yet…

Why bother seeing the world for real? Well, clearly these sights are better seen from the ground, but without the luxury of being able to go to Japan, we recommend that you check out this flickr gallery which really does contain some stunning images of all three of the famous Three Views of Japan.

Thanks to Stephanie and Dan W.

Clearly visible thanks to an enormous shadow, this huge saw in Tokyo looks to be attempting to cut the city in half.

Unfortunately it seems that the person using it has gotten off to a slow start, and must have nipped off for some noodles and a bit of a sit down.

From this ground-level photo you can see that this giant saw really is very big, but also that it’s actually a western-style plain-toothed Crosscut saw, and not a Japanese saw, or “nokogiri”. I wonder why?

Update: Ron Vogel points out that this is actually “Saw, Sawing”, a sculpture by the excellent public artist Claes Oldenburg, whose other works Spoonbridge and Cherry and Dropped Cone have been featured on GSS in the past. Ron also found a kml collection of all of the works by Claes and his wife Coosje van Bruggen, which is well worth checking out.

Thanks to Things in Jars.

This is the absolutely fantastic Rainbow Bridge that crosses Tokyo bay, Tokyo. A 570 metre-long suspension bridge, it has two decks that carry three transportation lines - the Shuto Expressway on the top, and on the bottom, Route 357 and the New Transit Yurikamome.

The Yurikamome is actually an automated guideway transit service, which looks like a monorail, but the carriages run on rubber wheels instead. It’s a fully automated system with no drivers, which carries 100,000 passengers a day to the artificial island of Odaiba. The system has become a tourist attraction in its own right, thanks mainly to the spectacular 270-degree loop which the Rainbow bridge has to make to get the Yurikamome up from ground level. Here’s a recent ground level shot of the loop.

See also our related posts on The Lotus Bridge, a Curly Bridge Over the Seto Inland Sea, Odaiba’s Ferris Wheels, and Utah’s Rainbow Bridge (which actually features in our book too!).

As always, you can read more about Tokyo’s Rainbow Bridge at Wikipedia. Thanks to Bill Kendrick, Terry Foster, Christian Willman, and anyone else who submitted this since I earmarked it for posting… 14 months ago!

Avast Ye! Today, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day an’ we’ve got a barrel-load of piratey-themed sights fer ye landlubbers!

Las Vegas’ Treasure Island be havin’ a daily pirate battle, ‘ere the swashbucklers by defeated by th’ booty-shaking o’ “the sirens o’ ti”. Not yer usual kind o’ booty neither!

Them “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie-films wi’ buccaneer Johnny Depp, they be based on a children’s ride! Those children orta be workin’ the sail and swabbin’ the decks! Arrr!

There be a swashbuckling ship maze on the Isle of Wight! Shiver Me Timbers!

This even be a plane in middle o’ Santa Cruz, ‘ere they be callin’ it ‘Th’ Pirate Plane’! Flyin’ Pirates? Whaterenext!

Be seein’ you also The Pirate Skull of Vegas.

Thanks to these scurvy dogs: Juan Manuel Gil, bruv, Virtual Globetrotting and Munden.

There are about 80 known whale species around the globe, the largest of which is of course the Blue Whale, which can measure up to a massive 30m long.

Such a giant beast should easily be visible on the aerial and satellite photographs of Google Earth, it’s just a matter of finding them…

To start with, there’s definitely a blue whale in this Japanese swimming pool, but I don’t think that counts.

The Route 66 landmark Blue Whale slide is so famous it even appeared in Sega’s King of Route 66 video game. More info.

Outside of UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory there’s an 85-foot long Blue Whale skeleton. The female whale was washed ashore of Pescadero Beach in 1979, after dying of unknown causes.

We’ve still not found any live whales though! Off the coast of Santa Barbara there’s a 10m long grey blob that could resemble a whale, or more likely a shark. Either way it would have to be very close to the surface to be seen so easily. I’m not convinced.

‘Reverence‘ is a sculpture by Jim Sardonis, which depicts two whales seemingly diving into the grass. The tails are each 12-13 foot tall and made of granite. More info.

Back in Japan, and Ueno Park has more than tails - there’s a life size Blue Whale diving into the ground. More info.

And finally, to Argentina, where there could just be real whales.

According to whale expert wildslide these are southern right whales who breed in this area during the months of May and October. Success!

Previously on Google Sightseeing: Whales! and Beached Whale

Thanks: The many people who thought they saw a whale, including: Jonathan_Tronson, FrequentFlyer, danescombe, bagabnoosh, kjfitz, Ralph Mettier, Nick, Jim Morton, Andrew, Rking, Yoshino, Barb, Caraurta, danescombe, Todd Pearson, Andrea from Italy, Nichole, James, A30 & John Hartnup

With high-resolution images all over the globe, Google Earth has captured many sporting events actually in-progress, so today we proudly present - The Top 10 different sports you can actually see people playing on Google Earth!

As a bonus, we’ve tried to work out how each game is going, and to make things even more difficult for ourselves, we’ve limited our search to ballgames only.

10. First let’s look at the 2nd of the 18-hole Las Vegas Country Club Golf Course, where we see the pin lying on the grass and the person closest playing their putt. Everyone else is standing around, probably telling him to hurry up.

9. As the world’s most popular sport, there must be hundreds of games of football being played at any one second. Here we see students playing “the beautiful game” at the University of Tokyo. However, this looks like it’s just a practise session as there’s no goalie at either end.

8. There’s people playing tennis all over the globe but for the top 10 we’ve chosen these two games of doubles being played on clay in Germany.

The eastern game is in full swing, and on the western court the players are standing in their service positions, and judging from the shadows it looks as if the southern team are about to serve!

7. There’s a good turnout for Lawn Bowls at Bell Vue Park Bowling Green in Newport, Wales. Sadly the bowls are just too small to be seen so we can’t tell how the games are going.

6. The stands are filling up at Yankee stadium, and there’s a couple of people on the field, but we’re a little too early for the game.

Hmm, we’ll need another baseball game in progress… here’s four!

In the thumbnail we see a batter up at the plate, and I think the bases are loaded.

5. The Shay in Halifax, England is also used for football games, but today it’s a home game for local rugby league team Halifax RLFC.

The ball is probably somewhere in the west of the pitch and the team to the north are on the offensive.

4. They’re playing lacrosse in Salamanca, New York. You can tell that it’s a men’s game as there are 20 players on the pitch (women’s lacrosse would have 24 players).

3. Here is a cricket match being played in the village of Hoylandswaine, north of Sheffield. It looks like they’re between plays, as the batsman has stepped back from the wicket to the west and we can see the other batsman and the bowler at the eastern end.

2. Here we see a packed gameday at Seahawks Stadium (now Qwest field) with 63,588 people watching the Nevada Wolf Pack at Washington State Cougars on August 31, 2002.

Google Earth Community member GEChump managed to identify the exact play seen in the photo, making this 11:37 remaining in the second quarter with the game tied at 7.

The Cougars eventually went on to win 31-7.

1. Finally, we find a tense one-on-one street-Basketball game being played in Rolde, Netherlands. Due to the left-hand player’s poor defence the right-hand player has just taken a shot at the basket, however they’ve missed and the ball is rebounding back.

Have you found a ball game on Google Earth not mentioned here? Let us know!

Thanks: heamit, mike, Kegan, seamus, Jeff, John Culbert, Jeni, Kristen, Mark, shuvman, vancantona, silkobilko, Crebbin, patmonahan, Majoska, pttech, Adam Rus, Ian, Arlene and the Google Earth Community.

Continuing last week’s post about inventive use of space in Japan, today’s feature is Toyosaki, a 160 hectare area built on reclaimed land.

The development is just outside Tomigusuku City, and due to its proximity to Naha Airport they’ve made use of the advertising opportunity with some very neat large type that says something along the lines of “For Rent - Project Toyosaki under development”.

More info here (with land prices, if you’re interested).

Thanks: asteinmetz