5 Amazing restaurants and geek bars

1. Miracle of Science (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Opened in 1991, Miracle of Science stands strong as the leader in geek-chic. Its menu is hand written onto the wall and it was one of the first restaurants to employ the open floor concept. This place is always packed with artists, musicians, geo physicists and computer gurus who know they don't have to go anywhere else looking for a good time.

2. Hajime Restaurant (Thailand)

The Hajime Restaurant in Bangkok is Thailand's first Japanese robot restaurant, where all the serving waiters are robots.

Customers order their food on a touchscreen display and their robotic waiter will whizz into action. The friendly robots will also dance to entertain as they work and go out to collect empty dishes at the customers' table. The owner of the Hajime Japanese restaurant, Lapassarad Thanaphant, said she spent 30 million baht ($927,600) on the restaurant including the purchase of four robots from Japan.

3. Barcade Bar (Brooklyn, NY)

In 2004, five friends came together and opened their own bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Each had been working in either film/TV or graphic design in New York and four of them had attended Syracuse University together. They were enthusiastic about American craft beer and had grown up in the 1980's playing classic arcade games. Looking to start their own business, they decided to take a chance and combine the two passions. Barcade bar with a dual focus; an endless rotation of American craft beer and an equally eclectic lineup of classic arcade games.

4. World of Warcraft Restaurant (China)

A World of Warcraft themed restaurant in central Beijing, serving WoW inspired food under Azeroth-themed murals. The food remains a mystery - if any readers want to translate the menu please do - but there do seem to be PCs there so we suspect a slight LAN party ambience. Maybe not the ideal venue for that anniversary dinner you promised your significant other.

5. Mundo Tapas Bar (Sydney)

Mundo Tapas in North Sydney provides an iPad as the menu for customers to browse and order from. Diners can now see a picture of what each dish looks like and view tasting notes before making that all important decision of what to order. So come on in and spice up your senses and be part of the new way to dine

Creative necklaces art | Necklaces made from human hair

Kerry howley, a creative necklaces art student, from cambridge, england, is creating quite a buzz in the art world, with her collection of delicate necklaces made from human hair.

The idea of creating jewelry from human hair was inspired by people’s aversion to cut hair. Hair is usually regarded as a very important part of the human body and is worn with pride, but once its connection to the body has been severed, it’s viewed as slightly disgusting. Through her art, the young middlesex student “hoped to create a delicate balance between the viewer/wearer’s feelings of aversion and attraction.” She wanted to see if she could make cut hair attractive again.

The main material for howley’s masterpieces was provided by one of her mother’s friends, a japanese woman with hair down to her waist. She only cuts it once every five years, and when she had 30 cm cut off the bottom, she gave it all to kerry. The 23-year-old art student used broken saw blades to cut and weave the strands of hair into abstract shapes inspired by wallpaper patterns, and spent over 60 hours working on each of the five hair necklaces she has created so far.

kerry howley’s collection of unique human hair necklaces has already won an award, and will on display at the business design center, in london, from june 29 until july 2nd.

Huge shopping malls | Mega malls | Shopping center in the world

10: Siam Paragon (3.22 million sq ft)
Large shopping malls provide a one-stop shopping for anything imaginable. Our list of largest malls in the world is based on the amount of “Gross Leasable Area”.

This is the number of square feet the property has for revenue-generating activities like retail, dining and amusements. The building boom in Asia, where land is cheap and labor costs are low has produced the largest shopping malls. Only two shopping malls on this list are located outside Asia.

Siam Paragon in Bangkok is one of the largest shopping malls in Thailand. Only the nearby Central World is larger. It includes a wide range of specialty stores and restaurants as well as a multiplex movie theater, the Siam Ocean World aquarium, the Thai Art Gallery and an opera concert hall. It also has a large bowling alley and karaoke center.

9: Berjaya Times Square (3.44 million sq ft)
Located in Kuala Lumpur, Berjaya Times Square is a twin tower complex containing a shopping center and two five star hotels. With 7.5 million square feet (700,000 m²) of built up floor area it is currently the fifth largest building in the world.

It includes more than 1,000 retail shops, 65 food outlets and several entertainment attractions such as Asia’s largest indoor theme park, Cosmo’s World and Malaysia’s first-ever IMAX 2D & 3D theatre which is located on the 10th Floor.

8: Istanbul Cevahir (3.47 million sq ft)
Located on the European side of Istanbul, the Cevahir Shopping and Entertainment Center opened its doors in 2005. It is the largest shopping mall in Europe.

There are 343 shops, 34 fast food restaurants and 14 exclusive restaurants in the shopping centre. Other facilities include a large stage for events, 12 cinemas, a bowling hall, a small roller coaster and several other entertainment facilities.

7: SM Mega mall (3.6 million sq ft)
Opened in 1991, SM Mega mall in Metro Manila is one of the largest shopping malls in Philippines. The mall attracts a daily foot traffic of 800,000 people with a maximum capacity of 4 million people.

The mall has two main buildings. Building A features cinemas, a bowling alley, food courts and the Toy Kingdom. Building B features the retail shops. The bridge-way connecting the two main buildings of the mall contains several eateries.
SM Mega mall is currently under major renovation and expansion. When finished, it will be able to claim the ultimate title of largest shopping mall in the Philippines.

6: West Edmonton Mall (3.77 million sq ft)
The West Edmonton Mall in Alberta was the largest shopping mall from 1981 until 2004 and is currently the largest mall in the America.

Beside 800 stores and services the mall includes the largest indoor amusement park in the world, the largest indoor water park in the world and Ice Palace (a scaled down version of a NHL regulation sized ice rink, so not the largest in the world). Other attractions include an 18-hole miniature golf course, a movie theater and a bowling alley.

5: Dubai Mall (3.77 million sq ft)
The Dubai Mall is part of the Burj Khalifa complex, the tallest man-made structure ever built. At over 12 million square feet (equivalent in size to more than 50 soccer fields), the Dubai Mall is the largest shopping mall in the world based on total area but about the same size as the West Edmonton Mall if based on leasable space.

The mall contains more than 1,200 shops including the world’s largest candy store, an ice rink, a SEGA game center (featuring a 3D bowling game), a 5 star luxury hotel, 22 cinema screens plus 120 restaurants and cafes. The mall also contains one of the largest aquariums in the world.

4: SM Mall of Asia (4.2 million sq ft)
The SM Mall of Asia in Metro Manila, opened in 2006, consists of four buildings interconnected by walkways. It features a 20-seater tram which takes shoppers around the mall grounds.

One of the mall’s main attractions is an IMAX theater with one of the world’s biggest 3D screens. The mall also features an Olympic-sized ice skating rink. It can accommodate both recreational and competitive figure skating, as well as ice hockey.

3: Central World (4.62 million sq ft)
Opened in 1990, the eight-story Central World is the largest shopping mall in Thailand. It marketed itself as a middle class shopping center, opposed to the upper class-marketed Siam Paragon.

On 19th May of this year, Central World was one of the many properties set on fire by anti-government protesters. The fire raged for two days and the Zen department store collapsed in the fire.
After months of repair works, the shopping complex reopened on 28th September with 80% of its retail space open for business.

2: Golden Resources Mall (6.0 million sq ft)
At 1.5 times the size of the Mall of America, Golden Resources Mall was the world’s largest shopping mall from 2004 to 2005. Although the developer of the mall initially estimated that the mall would have 50,000 shoppers a day, as of 2004 the actual number was far smaller, as few as 20 in an hour.

One problem was that prices of most items sold were far beyond the purchasing ability of most ordinary Chinese. Another barrier was the inaccessibility of Golden Resources Shopping Mall to foreign consumers due to its location outside the heart of Beijing.

1: New South China Mall (6.46 million sq ft)
New South China Mall in Dongguan is the largest mall in the world based on gross leasable area. The mall features seven zones modeled on international cities including a replica of the Arc de Triomphe and a canal with gondolas.

It also has an indoor-outdoor roller coaster. What is doesn’t have is customers. Since its opening in 2005, the mall has suffered from a severe lack of occupants.
Much of the retail space has remained empty,