Tag: Video
Visit Denmark! Knock Somebody Up!
by Eva Holland | 09.16.09 | 5:03 PM ET
Forget about Australia’s “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign. There’s a new winner in the controversial tourism campaign sweepstakes, and it comes from, of all places, Denmark.
The Danish ad plays like a homemade webcam clip, featuring a young woman who claims to be looking for her baby’s father—a foreign tourist whose name she can’t remember. I’m not totally sure how it’s intended to entice visitors to the country—I don’t think accidental parenthood is on most folks’ dream itineraries—but, predictably, the spot was greeted with indignation and has been removed from VisitDenmark’s YouTube channel. The AP quotes a VisitDenmark representative as saying that it was meant to be “a nice and sweet story about a grown-up woman who lives in a free society and accepts the consequences of her actions.”
Of course, the ad didn’t get yanked before copies, parodies and responses started popping up. Here’s a re-posting of the original:
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Yahoo! BuzzVideo We Love: Gliding Down the Eiger
by Eva Holland | 09.15.09 | 10:41 AM ET
- 1:08—Sweet aerial shot of the mountain
- 1:23—The descent begins
- 3:17—End of the real action
‘Dying to do Letterman’ Comic Gets Wish, Riffs About Hotel Keys and Key Cards
by Michael Yessis | 09.09.09 | 12:06 PM ET
When Steve Mazan was diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer, he decided to focus his energies on his dream: appearing on The Late Show With David Letterman. He made it last week with a bit about hotel keys and key cards.
Video: An Idiot’s Driving Tour of Moscow
by Michael Yessis | 09.01.09 | 2:38 PM ET
Here’s the idiot, who recklessly tried to re-create a car chase scene from The Bourne Supremacy:
If you want an accelerated travel experience, you’re better off doing this. (Via Gulliver)
‘While I Was Away’: Lessons in Travel and Romance
by Eva Holland | 08.18.09 | 12:42 PM ET
One good reason to stay connected while traveling? Because if you don’t, your girlfriend might forget you’ve gone to Europe, wonder why you haven’t called her back, and start sending a sequence of regrettable emails. Here’s the hilarious and cringe-inducing video:
Pico Iyer on the ‘Romance of Civilizations’
by World Hum | 07.20.09 | 11:15 AM ET
Pico Iyer at the 2007 Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.
Moving Sushi: The Internet’s Best Kaiten Sushi Video
by World Hum | 07.16.09 | 12:58 PM ET
Conveyor belt sushi videos abound online. Here's our favorite.
Dragon Boats Go Global
by Julia Ross | 06.01.09 | 10:31 AM ET
Though the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival has long enjoyed popularity in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, mainland China only made it a public holiday last year—one of many signs that traditions abandoned during the country’s Cultural Revolution are finally being restored.
The funny thing is, the festival—which commemorates the death of a famous poet who drowned himself in a river—has become so globalized that China itself looks like it’s late to the party.
A Chef’s Travels in China
by Julia Ross | 04.06.09 | 12:04 PM ET
It’s hard to resist chef Martin Yan’s enthusiasm for the innovations of Chinese cuisine in this recent conversation with New York Times reporter and author Jennifer 8. Lee, taped at the Asia Society.
The voluble Yan discusses his travels into China’s far corners, doling out praise for hand-pulled noodles in Shenzhen, the spice markets of Xian and Taiwan’s night markets. In recent years, many Western-trained Chinese chefs have returned home to introduce a new fusion cuisine, he notes, including pizza-like dishes in the north, and recipes making liberal use of eggplant and tomato, ingredients not traditionally associated with Chinese cooking.
Among Yan’s favorite Chinese comfort foods: the doughnut twist (with soy milk) you can find on just about every street corner in Taipei during morning rush hour.
Video: How to Drink Tea in China
by Matteus Frankovich | 04.01.09 | 8:34 AM ET
Grab your gaiwan and tea leaves. Matteus Frankovich explains the proper way to drink tea in China.
A ‘Twitcom’ from Southwest Airlines
by Rob Verger | 03.25.09 | 12:01 PM ET
This is priceless. Southwest Airlines’ blog, Nuts About Southwest, has posted what they call a “twitcom.” Here’s what they did: They created four characters, imagined a situation for them, and then, during an hour-long time window, Twitter followers submitted the lines the characters would speak. The incentive to participate came from the fact that Southwest picked one Twitterer in a raffle afterwards, and will send that person to the Nashville Film Festival.
The result is a 6-minute skit, acted out by Southwest employees on the airline’s emerging media team. Video below. As it says in the posting, “Please don’t laugh at our acting skills.” But isn’t that all part of the fun?
Promo Videos Gone Wrong: No Wonder Israel Didn’t Make the World Cup?
by Eva Holland | 03.24.09 | 10:31 AM ET
Here’s a pet peeve: when products that I would otherwise enjoy launch advertising campaigns that are so overwhelmingly gendered, there’s no doubt that the company in question has no interest in me, my matching X chromosomes—or my money. (See: beer ads, professional sports promos, and a certain outdoors-oriented travel magazine.)
Why, you might ask, would the brightest advertising minds deliberately cut 50 percent of the world’s population out of their calculations, by doing the marketing equivalent of hanging up a “No Girls Allowed” sign? I’m still figuring out an answer to that one. In the meantime, check out this Israeli tourism spot, and tell me this isn’t the beer ad of travel promos:
What We Loved This Week: Twitter, Portland’s Cheap Eats, ‘Before Sunrise’ and More
by World Hum | 03.13.09 | 2:18 PM ET
Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days:
Valerie Conners
Trip-planning via Twitter and the fabulous tweeps following @worldhum. I’m heading to Buenos Aires in April and have been posting questions out to our twitterverse of followers, looking for tips on sights, food, estancia tours and more—the response has been so warm and incredibly helpful. What an amazing resource. Some great ideas have crossed my path and are making their way into my itinerary.
Eva Holland
I watched one of my favorite travel movies, “Before Sunrise,” again for the first time in a couple of years and was thrilled to find that none of the crazy, spontaneous magic of Jesse and Celine’s one night in Vienna had worn off. Here’s a classic sequence:
Tonight: ‘Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches’ Debuts
by World Hum | 03.12.09 | 4:27 PM ET
This is Bridget Marquardt, formerly one of “The Girls Next Door.”
She’s now a sexy blogger, a sexy Twitterer and star of a new show on the Travel Channel, Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches. Every week, she’ll be immersing herself in beach cultures around the world.
The first season kicks off tonight at 10 p.m. ET. The destination for her first sexy beach: Australia.
For Hong Kong’s ‘Airport Auntie,’ Apology and Upgrade
by Julia Ross | 03.05.09 | 2:21 PM ET
Remember the hysterical Chinese woman who missed her flight out of Hong Kong? Cathay Pacific has apologized for causing her public embarrassment to the tune of 5 million YouTube viewers (and many unbidden late-night talk-show appearances) worldwide. Because a Cathay Pacific staff member taped the tirade, apparently the airline felt it needed to exercise damage control. “Airport Auntie,” as she’s known, also got an upgrade on her next flight to San Francisco. (via WSJ China Journal)
Where are the Elegies to the World’s Troubled Landscapes?
by Joanna Kakissis | 03.04.09 | 4:02 PM ET
The Eagles were on to something in 1976, when they lamented the pillaging of the western American landscape in “The Last Resort.” As eco-awareness of global warming makes major headlines, and movie stars and scientists link hands to march against coal-fired power plants, I wonder: Where are the music videos? The equivalent of “We Are The World,” climate-change edition? Or at least a few elegies to the troubled landscapes of our world?
Then I came across “Uyan (Wake Up),” a song about the ravages of environmental irresponsibility released late last year by hunky Turkish pop star Tarkan and baglama viruoso Orhan Gencebay. It’s a fabulous tune, brimming with eastern Mediterranean soul and accompanied by a video (see below) featuring the sexier-than-thou Tarkan and the comfortably weathered Gencebay jamming in a cracked and desiccated land—likely a reference to the fact that great swathes of Turkey are in danger of desertification.
So, inspired by Tarkan and Orhan Gencebay, I compiled a short list of place-evoking environmental songs. I’d love to hear your picks—and if you think eco-songs can save fragile lands, or at least get people thinking that they should stop abusing them.
Morning Links: Best Job in the World Finalists, ‘Narco-Tours’ and More
by Michael Yessis | 03.04.09 | 8:18 AM ET
- The 50-person short list for Tourism Queensland’s “best job in the world” includes a man who staged a musical on an Ontario street and Geek Brief’s Cali Lewis.
- The Tsunami Museum commemorating the victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami is open in Indonesia.
- China plans to open its earthquake ruins to tourists.
- Interesting essay by Alexei Tsvetkov on leaving Prague: “In the end some people here will probably miss me, but not many, not too much, and not for long.” (via The Rumpus)
- Ryan Adams: Travel writer? BlackBook has his take on Hollywood. Here are his musical takes on New York and Jacksonville.
- “Narco-tours” are on the rise in Mexico.
- Independent Traveler lists 10 reasons you should travel now.
- Esquire lists the 59 best breakfast places in America.
- Are you an, uh, anal traveler? (via BootsnAll Today)
- How great is this: John Wray will be giving a reading from his new book Lowboy while traveling on a Brooklyn-bound L train next week. Details in this video.
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Oklahoma Officially Rocks
by Sophia Dembling | 03.03.09 | 10:55 AM ET
Like I’ve been telling you, Oklahoma rocks. “Do You Realize??” by the Flaming Lips has been voted the state’s official rock song, beating out other Oklahoman-written rockers “Heartbreak Hotel,” “After Midnight,” “Never Been to Spain” (but, if you will recall, “I’ve been to Oklahoma”) and others. Read about the finalists, then listen to the winner on the Flaming Lips’ website or in concert video after the jump.
Morning Links: Walking on Broadway, Fees for Airline Toilets and More
by Michael Yessis | 02.27.09 | 9:43 AM ET
- New York City plans to turn parts of Broadway into pedestrian malls.
- The inevitable Coldplay reference comes only four seconds into this video about that ice music festival in northern Italy.
- Are the “taste police” out to get German bakers?
- The literature of men in boats vs. women in houses. (via Arts & Letters Daily)
- Here’s the latest Carnival of Cities.
- Happy belated 90th birthday, Grand Canyon National Park. (thanks for the reminder @evaholland and @AlisonSWellner)
- The economic downturn has boosted Peace Corps applications and the number of financial types snowboarding the Alps.
- Mule drivers in period costumes need TSA security clearance, too! So Boing Boing started a contest to create mule-driver TSA IDs.
- Will passengers soon need to pay to use the toilet on Ryanair? Just how ridiculous can the carrier get?
- Finally, this is fun to say: Sassy the Sustainable Sasquatch.
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Morning Links: Venice Cokes Up, an Epic (Paper) Plane Video and More
by Michael Yessis | 02.25.09 | 9:44 AM ET