For all of you who love the beach . . .

Here's another nice piece of engineering andconstruction.

This time the locale is JAPAN.

Here's the exterior shot of the building. Notethe surrounding area, mountains, sea shore, golfcourse, residential area.

What do you think is inside this building?

It's the O C E A N D O M E

The roof is retractable

The SURF'S UP . . . rain or shine!

When the roof is closed, you still get blue skyand puffy white clouds

Imagine a beach where the sky is alwaysblue, it's never too hot or cold, the waterisn't filled with salt and pollution, and thesurf is always perfect - welcome to OceanDome, the world's only indoor beach.

Ocean Dome has its own flame-spitting volcano,crushed white marble "sand", and it also boaststhe world's largest retractable roof, providing apermanently blue sky. Temperature, wind andhumidity are closely controlled to provide anultra-safe "sea-side experience.

Every hour, the volcano erupts and the hi-tech wave machines start up, starting afew minutes of sanitized surfing.

Entrance cost is US $50 per person,which seems especially expensive given thatthere is a free, natural beach only 300meters away.