Destination: New York
Touring Tokyo’s Underbelly
by Julia Ross | 02.04.09 | 2:17 PM ET
I’ve been a fan of MP3 audio tours since I discovered the transporting Soundwalk series several years ago. In fact, Soundwalk’s moody MP3 tour of New York’s Chinatown still reverberates in my ears every time I walk down Mott or Bayard Street in lower Manhattan. So I wish Tokyo Realtime’s new audio tour of Kabukicho, Tokyo’s red light district, had been available when I visited the city in 2007. From the preview posted on their site, the tour mixes just the right amount of music, political commentary and local history to make at least one corner of the overwhelming metropolis accessible. And god knows, anything that helps tourists cut Tokyo down to bite-size portions is helpful.
Those looking for the peep shows and brothels documented in the tour may be disappointed, however. The Guardian reports efforts are under way to clean up Kabukicho in line with the city’s short-listed bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
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Yahoo! BuzzNew York’s Restaurant ‘Week’: Now a Money-Saving Misnomer
by Eva Holland | 02.04.09 | 9:58 AM ET
New York’s famous restaurant week—that heady few days in late January when Manhattan’s priciest meals become, er, somewhat less pricey—has been extended through to the end of February, making it more like Restaurant Month-and-a-Half. Semantics aside, though, we’ll take it. This is a great chance for more budget-conscious travelers to see the way the other side eats. So step out of the queue at Sbarro, book now at one of 150 restaurants, and you’ll land a three-course fixed-menu lunch for around $25 or an equivalent dinner for $35. (Via NewYorkology)
Morning Links: Australia’s Great Ocean Road, LEGO N.Y. and More
by Michael Yessis | 02.04.09 | 8:21 AM ET
- World Hum contributor Tony Perrottet drives Australia’s Great Ocean Road.
- Scott McCartney: “Perhaps no other consumer-service business is so rule-bound as the airline industry.”
- Travelers can now link Delta and Northwest frequent flier accounts.
- Arjun Basu meditates on the size of airports.
- Photos: The making of an Interstate highway (via Coudal)
- Slate calls Aung San Suu Kyi “the world’s most effectively sidelined leader.”
- These baggage handlers at Edinburgh Airport “played tig” while waiting for planes to land.
- I LEGO N.Y. is currently the most emailed story at the New York Times.
- Video: Did you know Steve Martin was on Flight 1549?
- I’m fantasizing about a future of travel that involves this.
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Filmed Here: ‘When Harry Met Sally…’
by Eva Holland | 02.03.09 | 3:47 PM ET
Movie tourism: to some, it may be an embarrassing, empty and needy exercise. But to me, it’s at worst a harmless detour from more weighty travel fare, and—in a best-case scenario—can even be a surprisingly illuminating way of looking at the world. By chasing the spots where ghosts of film crews past still linger, you can find yourself stumbling on unexpected treasures, or seeing well-worn landmarks in a new light.
I’ve dabbled in the practice before, but this year I’ve decided to get serious. During my present stay in New York City, and beyond, I plan on seeking out some major movie-making landmarks, and (naturally) sharing my findings here.
And where better to open an occasional series on movie tourism hot spots than Manhattan’s Katz’s Deli, of When Harry Met Sally fame?
U.S. Airways Plane Draws Onlookers Again
by Rob Verger | 02.02.09 | 2:03 PM ET
The plane from U.S. Airways Flight 1549 that splashed down in the Hudson on January 15 drew quite the crowd of onlookers (including me) when it was moored at a pier in Battery Park City in the days afterwards. Over the weekend, it became another source of attention as the fuselage was moved to a salvage yard in New Jersey, The New York Times reports. The Times article also links to this great series of pictures, and brief video, of the torpedo-like fuselage being hauled down the street and passing through an intersection (you’ll need to scroll down the page just a little bit). It’s worth watching.
What We Loved This Week: Flip Video, Language Lessons, Pandora and More
by World Hum | 01.30.09 | 4:18 PM ET
Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Michael Yessis
I love this response to the news that Birmingham will do away with apostrophes on street signs: “If you don’t have apostrophes, is there any point in full stops, or semi-colons, or question marks? Is there any point in punctuation at all?” Indeed.
Sophia Dembling
I already love my Flip Video camera, a gift from Santahubby. And I love the Hocking Hills region of Ohio. Now I learn that the Hocking Hills Tourism Association is lending Flip Ultra cameras to visitors staying at an association member property, no cost. Double shot of love! (Triple, if you count Santahubby.)
Eva Holland
This might sound crazy considering the array of not-available-elsewhere experiences that New York City offers, but what I loved most about my first full week here was having access to Pandora again. The site, which helps listeners discover more music similar to their old favorites, cut off all non-U.S. users awhile back. Yesterday, I plugged in “Etta James,” and have been enjoying Candi Staton ever since:
Standard Deviation
by Alexander Basek | 01.28.09 | 3:15 PM ET
A Half-Century Ago: Let the Jet Age Begin!
by Rob Verger | 01.28.09 | 2:21 PM ET
Martha Stewart’s Whipping Boy?
by David Farley | 01.26.09 | 11:14 AM ET
Food writer Sylvie Bigar sits down with chef Pierre Schaedelin to talk about how he went from top toque at Le Cirque to Martha Stewart’s whipping boy ... er ... chef to cooking at Alain Ducasse’s New York outpost of famed Paris eatery Benoit. What did Schaedelin learn from being Martha’s food slave ... uh, we mean personal chef? Discipline.
What We Loved This Week: Street Food, Obama’s Inauguration and More
by World Hum | 01.23.09 | 4:42 PM ET
Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Frank Bures
I loved my new cookbook, The World of Street Foods: Easy Quick Meals to Cook at Home, which has everything from Tanzanian mango fritters to Thai tom yam to Libyan almond cookies to Mexican hot chocolate. Based I what I know, these recipes look like the real deal.
Jim Benning
Malcolm Gladwell’s hour-long talk on Book TV—you can watch it online here—about the role culture and communication can play in plane crashes. It’s utterly fascinating and changed the way I think about such things. (It’s also, it turns out, quite controversial.) Still, it makes me want to pick up his new book, Outliers: The Story of Success.
Valerie Conners
The inauguration of President Barack Obama, of course! But really, as I’ve tried to absorb the enormity of Tuesday, I’ve been moved by images from around the globe, particularly in this slideshow from Boston.com, which have offered such great perspective on how this moment has affected people well beyond U.S. borders.
Michael Yessis
Going to the National Mall and watching the inauguration. So, so cold out, but an overwhelming, beautiful experience.
Julia Ross
Of the many high points this week, I loved that Obama hightailed it over to the State Department on day two in office, bucked up our diplomats, and broke out his Indonesian. A global president = priceless.
A Trip to Battery Park City
by Rob Verger | 01.23.09 | 2:38 PM ET
I live not far from the Hudson’s shore in upper Manhattan, and on Friday last week after US Airways Flight 1549 ditched successfully in the river, I took the subway down to Battery Park City, where the plane had been secured at a pier. It was a sunny but cold day, and I wandered the area. It was quite a scene: the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Katherine Walker and police boats in the Hudson, emergency services equipment and personnel, and parts of the plane’s tail and left wing (seen here, in this picture I took) sticking up out of the water.
Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune
by Alexander Basek | 01.23.09 | 2:31 PM ET
Over at the Hotel Hotsheet, Kitty Bean Yancey is up in arms about the cost of a Singapore Sling at the Raffles in, er, Singapore. Kitty is making a larger point about “hotel sticker shock,” but for our purposes, a pricey Singapore Sling is a fine example of something that’s a struggle for any frequent traveler: the paradox of drinking at the bar of a landmark hotel.
Italian vs. I-talian vs. New Yorkese
by David Farley | 01.23.09 | 9:47 AM ET
Missy Robbins, the new chef at the posh New York City eatery A Voce, was relatively unknown to the New York City fooderati. That is, until Barack Obama came along. Robbins was the chef at Chicago’s Spiaggia restaurant. Like A Voce, Spiaggia serves up lauded Italian cuisine in a chic setting. And Obama was a regular, thanks, apparently, to Chef Robbins’ wood-fired scallops, among other menu items. With the circus surrounding the Inauguration, I decided to dine at A Voce a few days ago, hoping I’d get a chance to taste what kept Obama coming back to Spiaggia again and again (he was just there last month, in fact).
Morning Links: Buffalo-Wing Boycott, Nashville’s English-Only Measure and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.23.09 | 8:18 AM ET
- Nashville votes no and nyet and nein to English-only ballot measure.
- Video: Spending Time With Poster Boy, a street artist who prowls the New York City subway system.
- Even the U.S. Marines are avoiding Tijuana these days.
- A different take on Mexico: How U.S. media perpetuates cliches about the country.
- An exhibition of Robert Frank’s The Americans recently opened at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Slate has a slideshow.
- Aboard the slow train through Senegal.
- Aboard the other bullet trains of Asia.
- Are high-end adventure outfitters rising “above the global financial crisis and recession”?
- Buffalo-wing lovers in Buffalo, New York, call for a Buffalo-wing boycott on Monday. It could get worse: Supplies are so low and prices so high for wings that there may be a shortage on Super Bowl Sunday. What will we ever do, particularly with all the accompanying blue-cheese dip?
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Morning Links: ‘Killer Blueline Buses,’ the Idea of America and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.22.09 | 8:07 AM ET
- Revealed: confessions of a hotel housekeeper.
- No little bottle of lotion in your hotel room? No fruit in your breakfast buffet? Blame the economy. Hotels are.
- “Killer blueline buses” pose a dilemma in Delhi: They’re dangerous, but they’re needed.
- MediaShift looks at Phil Balboni’s vision for GlobalPost.
- GlobalPost asks its correspondents “What does the idea of America mean to the world?”
- Newley Purnell posts about Matt Gross and multimedia travel journalism—with a World Hum shout out, too.
- Theodore Dalrymple on the “disturbing reality at a Paris Metro stop.”
- Nathan’s says its flagship hot dog shop will remain in Coney Island. Glad to hear the site of some great childhood memories is being preserved.
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