Wednesday, March 31, 2010

A Look Inside The Doulos

The MV Doulos is the world's oldest active ocean-faring passenger ship. She is now owned by Mr Eric Saw, Director and Chief Executive of BizNaz Resources International Pte Ltd in Singapore. She was previously owned by the German charity Gute Bücher für Alle (Translated into English: Good Books for All), and was used as a floating bookshop. The MV Doulos currently holds the biggest floating library in the world. Normally there is somewhere around 3000 to 5000 books on the shelf and half a million in the hold. The ship has previously been known as the SS Medina, the SS Roma, and the MV Franca C. The Doulos Ministry stopped at the end of 2009 in Singapore, with the ship being handed over to its new owners on March 18th 2010. [source: wiki]

Built in 1914, the 96-year-old sea veteran will be getting a new lease of life as a hotel here (see the picture below - click on it to get a larger and better view).

As for me, I just like cross-sections Ha! Ha!

Here's a cross-sectional view of another ship, the Space Battleship Yamato. See the full review HERE with more pictures of this Bandai Space Battleship Yamato Mechanic File Set. Released by Bandai in 2006, this set comprised 8 different sections which formed the complete battleship when put together (approximately 36cm long). What was interesting about this set was it offered a cross-section view of the battleship, showing all the technical aspects such as the propulsion, wave motion gun - the Yamato's "trump card", torpedo tubes, side missiles and the hangar where all the fighter planes are contained.

There was also the cut-away German Tiger Tank ABS Plastic model kit made by Targa of Japan. The detailing of this model is outstanding, right down to the crew. This Tiger I tank is 1/48 scale and is about 7 inches or 18 cm long (including main gun), 3 inches or 7.5 cm wide and 2.5 inches or 6.5 cm high. This model came complete in 7 boxes and required assembly of the pre-painted sections but that was part of the fun! It may be small but it is not lacking. Click HERE to view more pictures.

Last but not least, there's this Illuminated Shark Model with dissectible body cavity from National Geographic with a clear shark's body on one side, shark muscles, glow-in-the-dark spine and skull, stomach, intestine and spiral valve, gill and circulatory system, liver, mouth and jaws! All the skeleton and organs can be removed. Only thing you can't do is make Shark's fin soup. I'd posed it with the Sideshow Collectibles "Thunderball" 1/6 scale Sean Connery as James Bond figure (pictures HERE)



5 comments:

Asrul "iLham" Sany said...

that shark is a killer.
demn, nice.

Anonymous said...

i wish they re-animate the YAMATO TV series, would be awesome to see it in HD and better computer 3D animation :)

desmond said...

Yes,I love that shark model too :P

alex teo said...

thanks asrul

agree with you AL, they should remake
YAMATO with today's advancements in CG technology

hey desmond, the great white should be still available at the National Geographic shop in Vivo City ;p

desmond said...

Okie Alex, I will go there and try my luck :)