Destination: Asia
Zagats on Chinese Cuisine: U.S. Needs ‘Dumpling Diplomacy’
by Jim Benning | 06.18.07 | 7:40 AM ET
One day in Beijing, not far from Tiananmen Square, I stumbled upon Wu Da Niang, a dumpling restaurant I later learned was part of a popular Chinese chain. I ordered a plate of boiled fish dumplings. A woman soon appeared at my table and filled a bowl with chili oil, soy sauce and vinegar, creating a spicy, tangy dipping sauce. One bite and I was hooked. It was the first of many occasions in China when I realized we in the U.S., with our countless Chinese restaurants, were missing out on some seriously great Chinese food. Tim and Nina Zagat argue just that in an op-ed piece piece in Saturday’s New York Times. The co-founders of Zagat guides decry the sorry state of Chinese cuisine in the U.S., noting that while Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese restaurants have continued to improve, Chinese restaurants, which have a long, storied history in the U.S., have stagnated.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: On the ‘B’ List
by Michael Yessis | 06.15.07 | 1:23 PM ET
This week we’ve got mountain bikers, the best beaches in the U.S., passport blunders and the return of Bill Bryson. Here’s the Zeitgiest.
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Top 10 U.S. Beaches
* No. 1 on the list from “Dr. Beach”: Ocracoke Island, North Carolina (pictured)
“Hot This Week” Destination
Yahoo! (this week)
Hilo, Hawaii
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Where Mountain Bikers Carved Their Dream Terrain
* Not Moab, Utah. Fruita, Colorado.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
U.S. Plans Temporary Waiver of Passport Policy*
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Diary of a Trip Through U.S. Passport Application Limbo
From the writer, travel editor Catharine Hamm: “A travel editor without a passport is like Paris Hilton without a party.”
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Hertz, Avis Add Hybrids to Fleets
* Each rental car company says it will have 1,000 Toyota Priuses in its fleet by the end of the month.
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* Still unstoppable.
British Food in India: Fish and Chips With Turmeric and Chili Powder, Anyone?
by Terry Ward | 06.15.07 | 11:48 AM ET
When I visited London for the first time earlier this year, I was torn. For my first UK meal, would it be fish and chips in a pub or a bowl of curry on Brick Lane? Both meals are about as typically British as you can get. In fact, according to the”‘Curry factfile” on a UK Food Standards Agency Web site , there are more Indian restaurants in London than in Bombay and Delhi. Britain’s first curry house opened in 1809, and Indian food has since become a UK favorite, accounting for more than 40 percent of all ethnic food sales. The love affair, however, is decidedly one-sided. British cuisine—the term alone elicits snickers from food snobs worldwide—hasn’t exactly taken the Subcontinent by storm. But that’s a fact that one British celebrity chef is out to change.
China on the Rise: Stories by Jeffrey Tayler and Peter Hessler
by Michael Yessis | 06.15.07 | 10:35 AM ET
The consequences of a rising China are many, and from our perspective one of the better ones is this: Talented Western writers and journalists just keep filing terrific stories from the country. The first I came across this week: Jeffrey Tayler writes in the Atlantic’s July/August issue about Kunming, China’s “City of Eternal Spring.” In Kunming, Tayler, whose The Woman in the Kuffiya is currently World Hum’s featured dispatch, found “a potpourri of ethnic and cultural flavors unfamiliar to Western and Han Chinese palates alike.” His story is available online only to Atlantic subscribers. However, a beautiful Tayler-narrated slideshow is free to all.
Learning Mandarin and Spanish by MP3 and Skype
by Julia Ross | 06.13.07 | 2:45 PM ET
Learning Chinese is a long road: After nine months of full-time study in Taipei, I’m still grappling with getting my tones right and suffer the occasional blank look from the clerk at my local 7-Eleven. While I’ve learned grammar and characters in the classroom, I’ve found another, less traditional source a big help with day-to-day conversation: Chinesepod.com. It’s the go-to site for most Mandarin students I know, offering free, daily podcasts that introduce dialogues on useful topics like how to break up with your boyfriend. Lessons, given by podcast “hosts” who banter like DJs, are downloadable in MP3 format, so you can drop them into your iPod and go; more devoted students can sign up for voice lessons via Skype.
Japan’s Mount Fuji: Icon, Garbage Dump
by Jim Benning | 06.13.07 | 2:07 PM ET
At least we have Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji, including the one pictured here, to remember what the iconic Japanese mountain used to look like. According to an AP report, the forests at the base of Mount Fuji are strewn with rubbish these days. “We’ve found everything from household trash to broken TV sets and other appliances,” observed one environmentalist. “Sometimes we find hazardous materials like leaky old car batteries.”
From Antarctica to the Silk Road: More From the New York Times ‘Photography Issue’
by Michael Yessis | 06.12.07 | 2:18 PM ET
Howard W. French’s slide show and essay on Shanghai’s old quarters, which we recently posted about, isn’t the only piece in Sunday’s New York Times travel section worthy of note. The “Photography Issue” features several sharp audio slide shows, including Jehad Nga’s look at the Silk Road and Heidi Schumann’s tale of following in Ernest Shackleton’s wake in Antarctica, as well as a compelling essay by Richard B. Woodward about the intertwined history of photography and travel.
Secret Shanghai: Old Streets and Etched Faces Tell the Tale
by Julia Ross | 06.12.07 | 12:00 PM ET
Shanghai’s Fangbang Road is one of those places where time stands still. A stroll down the winding, dusty lane is a window into Chinese urban life untouched by modern artifice: Leathery-faced farmers sell produce from bicycle carts and spouses bicker in the street, much as they probably did 50 years ago. I stumbled onto Fangbang one Saturday afternoon when I lived in Shanghai in 2002 and was immediately seduced by its gritty chaos. It seemed almost like something from a movie set, and I eventually came to think of it as my own secret corner of the city, unknown to tourists and overlooked by developers. Now I know the secret’s out.
Think ______ is Great Now? Oh Please, You Shoulda Seen it in the ‘70s.
by Jim Benning | 06.11.07 | 8:53 AM ET
There’s at least one person in nearly every great place you travel to who will look you in your dazzled eyes and tell you in no uncertain terms that you really missed it, that you should have been there 5, 10, 20 years ago, when the place was truly magical and not overrun with people just like you. John Flinn calls it the Kathmandu Syndrome. As he defines it: “Every place used to be better, at least in the eyes of those who were there then. Now all these places are blighted, charmless, overcrowded and hopelessly touristy.” In a fine column in the San Francisco Chronicle, he explores this all-too-common expression of the hyper-competitive streak in some travelers.
Globespotters: IHT’s Correspondents Blog Paris, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Beyond
by Julia Ross | 06.11.07 | 8:20 AM ET
When foreign correspondents aren’t chasing down insurgents or dissidents, they’re wandering the back streets of their adopted cities, ferreting out the best croissant in Paris or bike path in Rome. A new travel blog from the International Herald Tribune—dubbed Globespotters—taps into this collective wisdom via posts from reporters in six world cities. In IHT’s words, it’s “an online resource where IHT reporters and editors (and readers too) share up-to-the-minute tips and recommendations about the cities where we live and visit.” So far, it’s a lively mix of local color and tips on things to do. My favorite: Joyce Lau’s take on the expat bacchanal that passes as Dragon Boat Festival in Hong Kong.
Photo by Harris Graber via Flickr, (Creative Commons).The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From the Great White North to the Land Down Under
by Michael Yessis | 06.08.07 | 12:49 PM ET
This week travelers trek the length of the globe, from Canada to California to Mexico to Costa Rica to Australia. There’s also the inevitable Paris Hilton vs. Hilton Paris match up. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
In Napa, Wilderness Above the Wineries
* That’s Napa, pictured above.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Paris Hilton accommodations vs. Hilton Paris
* Christopher Reynolds pits the two head-to-head.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Mexico to (Miss) U.S.A.: Boooooo
* Readers have mixed feelings about the now-infamous boos.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
JetBlue Tries to Bounce Back From Storm of Trouble
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Air Traffic Control System Command Center
Most Read Feature
World Hum (this week)
An Island in Costa Rica
Most Popular Travel Podcast
iTunes (current)
National Geographic’s Atmosphere
* Current podcast: Mount Everest Expedition
Cullen Thomas: Inside ‘Brother One Cell’
by Frank Bures | 06.07.07 | 2:01 PM ET
The book's author spent three and a half years in South Korean prisons. Frank Bures asks him about his travels and his love for the country that put him behind bars.
Global Warming, Tourism Among Threats to Cultural Sites
by Jim Benning | 06.07.07 | 10:43 AM ET
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