Destination: Asia
Chinese Developers to Recreate Salvador Dalí‘s Hometown
by Michael Yessis | 08.11.10 | 12:06 PM ET
Xiamen Bay is the new Costa Brava! From the Guardian:
Sources at the company said they had found a spot that was geographically similar to Cadaqués, with its gently sloping hills and protected bay. “Building work will start in September or October,” a spokesman said.
More than 100 acres of land will be used to build a near replica with a capacity to house some 15,000 Chinese holidaymakers who want to enjoy the Costa Brava experience without having to travel 6,500 miles.
The Chinese version will not have the sparkling Mediterranean, the madness-inducing Tramontana wind or as many jellyfish as Cadaqués, but the promoters say they will try to get as close to possible to the real thing.
The developers are following in the footsteps of Lyon in the desert and Thames Town outside of Shanghai, among other places.
Dali would surely approve. As the Guardian notes, “One of his favourite money-making habits was to sign, and sell-off, blank sheets of paper for prints and lithographs. As a result, he is one of the most frequently copied and forged artists in the world.”
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Yahoo! BuzzWorld Travel Watch: Deadly Heat Wave in Moscow, Underground Colosseum Tours and More
by Larry Habegger | 08.11.10 | 11:38 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
Roger Ebert on ‘Lost in Translation’
by Jim Benning | 08.10.10 | 12:28 PM ET
I’ve never read a more insightful piece about the beauty and nuance in Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation”—a masterpiece of a film—than this one. Coppola has one objective, Ebert writes:
She wants to show two people lonely in vast foreign Tokyo and coming to the mutual realization that their lives are stuck. Perhaps what they’re looking for is the same thing I’ve heard we seek in marriage: A witness. Coppola wants to get that note right. There isn’t a viewer who doesn’t expect Bob Harris and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) to end up in love, or having sex, or whatever. We’ve met Charlotte’s husband John (Giovanni Ribisi). We expect him to return unexpectedly from his photo shoot and surprise them together. These expectations have been sculpted, one chip of Hollywood’s chisel after another, in tens of thousands of films. The last thing we expect is… what would probably actually happen. They share loneliness.
Among other highlights, Ebert explains why he can’t take his eyes off of Bob Harris (Bill Murray) in the film, and why whatever Johansson’s character whispers into Bob’s ear at the end simply doesn’t matter. (Via LAObserved)
Paradise, Backstage
by Andrew Evans | 07.26.10 | 11:21 AM ET
Photo by Andrew Evans What happens when a guy who buys luggage at Target finds himself in a $16,000-a-night villa in the Maldives? Andrew Evans reports from the lap of luxury.
World Travel Watch: Violence on Guatemala’s Buses, Tourist Police in the Philippines and More
by Larry Habegger | 07.21.10 | 12:35 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
Pico Iyer: ‘The Trip That Changed my Life’
by Eva Holland | 07.20.10 | 1:49 PM ET
Over at Gadling, Pico Iyer looks back, thoughtfully and lyrically as always, at his first trip to Thailand in 1983. Here’s a taste:
It wasn’t Thailand, of course, that was beckoning me, but all the force of the things I couldn’t make out. Night was day and late September was summer and men were women who became men again at dawn. The characters around me on the signs (the streets) were strange, and the language so tonal I couldn’t tell a player from a prayer. There were mirrors everywhere, in bars, hotels and what they gave me back to me was a figure I couldn’t recognize. I hadn’t realized ‘til that day that you travel to stumble into the unvisited corners of yourself.
World Travel Watch: New Trekking in Kashmir, Dengue in Venezuela and More
by Larry Habegger | 07.14.10 | 12:15 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
American Fool in the Khyber Pass
by Les Braunstein | 07.13.10 | 9:58 AM ET
To impress a girl, Les Braunstein bought a horse in Afghanistan and set out for Pakistan. It was 1971. He was sure he'd be OK.
Jersey Girl
by Abbie Kozolchyk | 07.08.10 | 4:28 PM ET
REUTERS/Christine Grunnet Abbie Kozolchyk finds herself on an unlikely quest to buy soccer jerseys from Bolivia to Bhutan
A Short History of Americans and Brown Sauce
by Eva Holland | 07.08.10 | 1:05 PM ET
Over at The Atlantic’s food channel, Andrew Coe looks into the origins of Chinese brown sauce and the undying American appetite for the stuff. Here’s Coe:
Color matters in Chinese food. You can tell the difference between, say, Sichuan and Cantonese restaurants by the palette of dishes at their tables. Sichuan dishes are often tinted by the red sheen of chili oil, while the many clear sauces of Cantonese cuisine allow the natural colors of meats and vegetables to stand out. But on the steam tables of the more than 40,000 Chinese-American restaurants that dot this land, the predominant color is brown, as in the ubiquitous beef with broccoli drenched in a brown sauce. According to the Chinese food maven Michael Gray, there’s an ancient epigram that describes what these steam tables offer: “100 dishes, all with the same taste.”
World Travel Watch: Violence in Guadalajara, Dengue Fever in Puerto Rico and More
by Larry Habegger | 07.07.10 | 11:48 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
A ‘White Guy in a Tie’ in Beijing
by Eva Holland | 06.28.10 | 2:43 PM ET
The Atlantic has a dispatch from a Beijing expat with an unusual sideline: fake American businessman-for-hire. From the post:
Six of us met at the Beijing airport, where Jake briefed us on the details. We were supposedly representing a California-based company that was building a facility in Dongying. Our responsibilities would include making daily trips to the construction site, attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and hobnobbing. During the ceremony, one of us would have to give a speech as the company’s director. That duty fell to my friend Ernie, who, in his late 30s, was the oldest of our group. His business cards had already been made.
Postcards From the ‘World’s Most Failed States’
by Michael Yessis | 06.24.10 | 10:21 AM ET
There’s a Big Picture-esque slideshow at Foreign Policy, with some horrific and amazing shots from Chad, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and other unstable places. As Elizabeth Dickinson writes, sometimes you “only know a failed state when you see it.”
World Travel Watch: Floods in China, Train to Machu Picchu Resumes and More
by Larry Habegger | 06.23.10 | 12:07 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
China Tackles Poor-Quality Tourist Tchotchkes
by Eva Holland | 06.21.10 | 4:04 PM ET
Is your cheaply made Chairman Mao statuette getting you down? Hunan’s Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision is on the case. Xinhua reports that new technical standards for the popular souvenirs will come into force July 1.
According to the bureau’s chief engineer: “The move is expected to curtail the production and sale of low-quality Mao statues that harm the tourism market and people’s feeling for the great man.” (Via Gawker)