Bloemenmarkt - The Floating Flower Market

 

So colorful, so fragrant; you're lured as if they're sirens! One can't really help but stop and smell the roses or swoon over the robust bright yellows and eye catching lavender and purples. Who wouldn't want to treat themselves a stem or two to brighten up their spaces and to provide the connection with nature that is often lost! And if not, you're yet to see Bloemenmarkt-one of the largest flower markets of the world. From bouquets that will capture your gaze and heart to multicolored cacti, this market has basically everything!

 

 

 

 

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The Bloemenmarkt is the world's only floating flower market.It was established founded in 1862 and  is situated in Amsterdam,Netherlands  on Singel canal in between Muntplein and Koningsplein. Currently there are 15 florist shops and garden shops alongwith some souvenir gift stores.This market supplies flowers to the central Amsterdam. It has since developed into the best-known flower market of Holland.It is also one of the favourite tourist spots in Amsterdam.

 

 

 

 

The Singel flower market is one of the most colorful and fragrant places of interest of Amsterdam in all four seasons. It is unique in that the merchandise is displayed on floating barges. This is a relic from the days when the flowers and plants sold at this market were shipped in from the horticultural areas around the city by barges. Fresh flowers are still brought in every day; by vans, however, and no longer by boat.

 

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Whatever your favorite flower, you are bound to find it here. Merchandise ranges from the traditional Dutch tulips and geraniums to delicate indoor cypresses and manobole plants from the Easter Islands. Typically Dutch souvenirs are sold too.

 

 

 

 

 

Everywhere you look there is color and fragrance. It's open all year, but of course the offerings of live flowers and plants are seasonal. There are hundreds of varieties of flowers, shrubs, tools, seeds and bulbs on sale. You can also find a variety of cacti and bonsai plants. Wooden tulips and tulip magnets are a novelty here.

 

 

 

 

 

The prices are reasonable and the great advantage is that the choice of flowers seems unlimited! These flowers are highly recommended to any guy who wants to make an impression and make a lady feel special. So next time when you're in Amsterdam, make sure to check out this landmark if you're a flower-lover or inveterate truck farmer.

 

 

 

Sharks: Cruise Missiles of the Deep

They are perfect, relentless and always hungry. They never sleep and prowl the seas like nuclear-powered torpedoes. That would be a pretty bad rap for anybody, even though few sharks would attack a human without being provoked. Scientists claim that sharks kill without ill will or premeditation and thus cannot be labeled 'malicious'.

Sharks: Cruise Missiles of the Deep

			Sharks: Cruise Missiles of the Deep Sharks: Cruise Missiles of the Deep - They are perfect, relentless and always hungry. They never sleep and prowl the seas like nuclear-powered torpedoes. Th...
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Great White (and Smirking) Killing Machine

These guys hang around the shores of South Australia, South Africa and often approach divers with a friendly nuzzle and a line "Are you talking to me?" -


(image credit: Sue Hickton)

Such images lend themselves very well to Photoshop:



These sharks have reputation as vicious predators, yet they are not unsystematic "eating machines". They attack from below in order to investigate what is floating on the surface.


(image via)


(image via)


(image credit: David Doubilet, National Geographic)

Great white sharks not only swim, they FLY!




See more pictures of the amazing hunt of great white sharks for seals in False Bay here.


(image credit: Eric Cheng)

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This is definitely going to increase your confidence at sea: the enormous monster breaching the waves and flying at you with bloody dripping jaws. OK, it may not happen with such vivid color, but still....


(image credit: Lars-Gunnar Svard)

The Tiger shark is the fourth largest predatory shark. This shark is a solitary hunter, usually hunting at night. Its name is derivative from the dark stripes down its body, which grow fainter as the shark matures. It is infamous for attacks on swimmers, divers and surfers in Hawaii and is often referred to as "the wastebasket of the sea".


(image credit: Lars Kirchhoff)

Make way! The Boss is coming -


(image credit: Christie Fisher)

The tiger shark with a little "afternoon snack" -


(image credit: Christie Fisher)

Bull sharks often cruise through shallow waters and can suddenly burst into speed and can be highly aggressive. They are extremely territorial and will attack other animals and humans that enter their territory. Bull sharks are among the four species considered to be most dangerous to humans.


(images by wiki and Joe)

Here is a bit more aggressive photography:


(images via)

The first image shows the Shortfin Mako shark, one of the species that's officially responsible for eight unprovoked attacks on humans with two ending in fatality and twenty boat attacks.

In terms of size though, even the largest shark found on Earth today looks simply microscopic, compared to the size of prehistoric monsters, such as this Liopleurodon:


(image credit: Mark Witton)

Note that close to Liopleurodon's mouth is not a shark, but a huge plesiosaur, in itself the size of medium boat.

A few amazing facts about sharks: - via

- A shark does not have one bone in its body. Its skeleton is made up of cartilage. Cartilage is a tough material, like the material that shapes your ear.
- The Swell Shark, found in New Zealand, barks like a dog.
- Weird things have been found inside a shark, such as a bottle of wine, a treasure chest, a suit of armor, a drum and a torpedo.
- A shark's skin is covered with denticles, which are small, razor-sharp teeth.

Not all huge sharks live in the warm or tropical waters. There is a shark species (still in many ways a mystery to biologists) that lives deep in the Artic water - sometimes as deep as 600 meters:

Greenland Sharks Lurk Beneath the Arctic Ice

The sleeper shark.... the "gurry" shark: the largest of Greenland sharks are comparable in size with the great white shark, although there is no record of them ever attacking humans. Check out these teeth though: small but razor-sharp -


(images by Nick Caloyianis National Geographic, and Canadian Shark Research Lab)

"Forget the cold. I kicked my fins and swam toward the shadowy figure. It turned and began moving toward me. I was face-to-face with a Greenland shark. I'd seen drawings and paintings of the fish, but this was utterly different. It was ghoulish. Its nostrils were the largest I had ever seen on a shark. They reminded me of a giant double-barreled shotgun. Its mouth was slightly open, revealing rows of small sharp teeth. Its eyes looked fogged over, like those of a dead fish, and from each one dangled a tasseled parasite." (Nick Caloyianis)

These guys are nearly blind, but they have a mouth big enough to eat a full-grown seal as some kind of muffin. There are also stories of these sharks attacking caribou as they drink from the mouths of rivers... and eating polar bears. So here you go.

OK, I am sure you are wondering by now, which shark has the biggest mouth and what exactly size of prey it can swallow. Check this out -

A Megamouth Shark!

This extremely rare (only a few have been seen so far) deep water shark has an enormous mouth with big flabby lips... Not just enormous, but freaking ILLUMINATED mouth (to attract some plankton to the light). Read more info here, it seems it's more of a relative to the ancient Coelacanth than normal sharks.


(image via US National Archives)


(images by Tom Haight, B. Hutchins, Marylin Baldo)

This is a species we did not know existed until 1976: only 41 such sharks have been found so far.


(image credit: Steve, Bruce Rasner)

Awesome Flooring Designs

Awesome Flooring Designs

These are 10 of the coolest flooring designs. From an optical illusion floor, to a floor made of pennies, an etched floor and even an interactive floor, this design collection has it all!

 

Optical Illusion Floor

This optical illusion carpet, spotted in a Paris video game store, provides an illusion of a vortex floor.


Leather Belt Floor

(Belt) strapped for cash? Forget 'affordable' for a minute and just imagine the curious combination of feeling aged leather beneath your feet, and the look of vintage belts lining the floors of your home. Leather flooring is fairly unusual, but these upcycled belt designs are unique – each one hand-crafted and with individually-selected old belts.

OK, but the price? Over 600 dollars for the round mat shown above from BranchHome and over 70 dollars per square foot for the floor tiles from Ting. (Link | Via)


Penny Floor

A floor literally tiled with thousands of copper pennies… it's pretty surprising to look down and see them when you walk into The Standard Grill in The Standard Hotel, New York. The design was selected by the restaurant's designers, Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch of New York design firm - Roman and Williams.


Radiant Heat Floor

Take off your shoes and feel the warmth coming up through that radiant heat flooring. It's not only one of the coolest ways to get warm (no pun intended), but it's also really energy efficient because, unlike traditional heating systems, you don't lose the heat. With traditional baseboard heating or forced hot air heating, a lot of the energy you use to heat your home is wasted because much of the heat produced is immediately lost. But with radiant floors, that warmth is transferred directly to you as you come in contact with the floor. And it takes advantage of something we all know - hot air rises - so when the heat is generated underneath the floor, it does what it's supposed to, which is go directly up. Aside from the fact that it keeps your indoor temperature up, and your heating bills down, it's just plain fantastic.

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Aerial Photo Floor

Check out the Flying Carpet next time you're in Sacramento. Created by California-based artist Seyed Alavi, the carpet is an aerial view of the Sacramento River as it flows for 50 miles, between the California towns of Colusa and Chico. The 18-foot-wide, 150-foot-long image is woven and dyed into the carpet covering a walkway that connects the main parking lot and Terminal A. Alavi won a competition of more than 100 artists that submitted proposals for upgrading the walkway.


Salt Floor

Every once in a while, though, we run across someone who has taken the industry to a whole new level. Japanese Artist Motoi Yamamoto has found his medium in grains of salt - billions and billions of them. Yamamoto adheres plain table salt to floor surfaces, creating extremely intricate patterns & landscapes. The result is pretty amazing and can be a dizzying optical illusion if you stare too long. To prep, the artist draws the most complex mazes and labyrinths imaginable, plotting out his design.

His creations are for exhibition only and aren't meant for permanent floor design, which is fortunate, because it'd take just one mildly rude friend to undo hours upon hours of work.


Puzzle Floor

This floor is something that stands out from the crowd. The new Puzzle Floor elicits expressions of surprise and amazement. A perfect solution for children's bedrooms, but not only. Available in 13 colors, the tiles can be mixed for unique, personalized installations.


Human Traffic Floor

Alistair Bramley's Dimension laminate flooring is a futuristic take on laminate floor design. The patterns are created using the natural movement of people within a set environment. Obstacles such as furniture are incorporated into the floor design. Video footage of how people used the room space was captured, processed and then printed onto the floor. This takes bespoke flooring to the next level.


Etched Floor

Some prefer the raw texture of hand-scraped hardwood floors, while others want the modern look (and low costs) of laminate wood flooring. These patterned wooden planks provide artistic relief somewhere in between – an honest contemporary take on classic material and installation approaches.

This decorative flooring series from Mafi provides a fresh outlook on manufactured floors, etching designs that range from abstract floral patterns to playfully embossed stick figures. The pre-engraved slats are shallow enough not to collect dirt and dust (at least in theory), but deep enough to be felt underfoot by bare feet or with socks – each features a darker 'burned' look or a consistent surface treatment where variation is seen only by reflection, light and shadow.


Interactive Floor

Billed as the world's first truly "sustainable dance club", Club Watt is based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and aims to use 50 per cent less waste and 30 per cent less energy than a typical club. To achieve its goals, it's working to the green guidelines of a non-profit organization known as the Sustainable Dance Club.

As well as generating energy, the dance floor has an interactive element. As you dance, its appearance changes through the LED lighting embedded in the panels, which are made from recycled materials.