Much to the annoyance of the tinfoil-hat privacy nuts, Street View’s spread across the globe continues with two launches today: Japan and Australia!

Japan has coverage in the following cities: Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Saitama, Chiba, Sendai, Sapporo, Hakodate, Kyoto and Tokyo.

The previously featured Tokyo Tower.

Australia has loads of Street View, with the following cities covered: Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide, Cairns, Mt Isa, Canberra, Albany, Alice Springs, Rockhampton, Broome, Tamworth, Broken Hill, Karratha and Geraldton.

The previously featured Sydney Opera House.

There’s also new Street View in many US cities, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, El Paso, Wichita, Savannah and Colorado Spring. Even more exciting, in the official announcement Google allude to a “hidden special surprise” in the US images. What could that be?

There’s hundreds of new streets covered across the three countries, so get exploring and let us know what you find!

Thanks to Google Maps Mania.

No, not that one – this cutting-edge bridge is in Japan, and it really is seriously wobbly! It’s virtually serrated by virtue of its cutting-edge wibbly-wobblyness.

It’s so wobbly in fact, that it’s only accessible to specially-built, hand-customised “wobbly vehicles”, which “snake” along the bridge in an effort to prevent traffic-jams.

As is the way with brilliant Japanese inventions, eventually someone will realise just how brilliant this design is, rename it something pedestrian like “Bridge Heaven”, and bring it to the western world in about 3 years’ time.

Thanks to gamma.

This is supposedly the Hokkaidō Centennial Memorial Tower in Nopporo Forest Park, Hokkaidō, Japan. The official site claims it’s 100m tall, and was completed in 1970 to honour the 100th anniversary of Hokkaidō’s official colonisation¹.

Of course dear geeky-reader, you will have already realised that this is simply an elaborate ruse.

Unmistakably, this is in fact Orthanc, the black tower of Isengard, atop which Gandalf was trapped by the wizard Saruman during The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

On the left, the Hokkaidō tower, and on the right, Orthanc.

The proof is incontrovertible, as I found both of these images on the Internet.

Thanks to photojennic.

In Japan’s “second city” of Osaka, space for offices is severely limited. So limited that the 16 story ‘Gate Tower Building’ had to lose the 5th, 6th and 7th floors to a raised highway!

The story goes that back in 1989 the office block was to be rebuilt, but the space was also needed for an off-ramp of the highway.

So after a few years of back and forth negotiation a compromise was reached: the building was rebuilt and the Hanshin Expressway Company took out a lease on 3 office floors to redecorate them in an unconventional way – they put in a road.

There’s some good ground level pictures (and more info if you can read Japanese) on the Japanese Wikipedia page.

Thanks to Paul Watabe.

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.