Travel Blog: Shrinking Planet
What’s Become of the World’s Red-Light Districts?
by Michael Yessis | 06.18.09 | 3:50 PM ET
A Wallpaper slideshow looks at how red-light districts in Amsterdam, Singapore, Sydney and seven other major world cities have been cleaned up. Or, as the story’s intro describes the transformation of Times Square in New York City, how they’ve reacted after after being given an “urban colonic.”
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Yahoo! BuzzWelcome to Hotel Quarantine
by Julia Ross | 06.18.09 | 12:31 PM ET
American media executive/blogger Mike Su just wrapped up five days in hotel quarantine in Beijing, after flying in from L.A. seated near someone with flu-like symptoms. Bad luck, but at least he used his time in the big house productively, chronicling The Seven People You’ll Meet in Hotel Quarantine. Yep, a few of these characters sound achingly familiar.
Hawaiian for Travelers: It’s About the Vowels
by Pam Mandel | 06.17.09 | 9:28 AM ET
Photo by quinn.anya via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Aloha and mahalo. Those will get you out of the gate in Hawaii, though it’s also handy to get a good grasp on mauka —inland—and makai —towards the sea, just in case you find yourself getting directions from locals.
A few more words might make their way into your vocabulary, especially when it comes to food—there’s poke and poi and ahi and ono. I learned how to say no problem or thanks—a’ole pilikia—from a park ranger and I can read Hawaiian out loud with a halting conviction, but there’s no way I understand it. I still stumble over directions and streets signs—Hi’ilawe and Ali’i and Ala Wai and Kapiolani and Kalakaua—they all start to run together in this haole’s mind. We were going where, now?
Shrinking Planet Headline of the Day: ‘Facebook Swahili Version Launched’
by Jim Benning | 06.15.09 | 2:15 PM ET
Facebook is now available in roughly 50 languages, and Swahili was the second African language to get its own version of the social networking site, the BBC reports.
Truman and Khrushchev: Gone to Look for America
by Michael Yessis | 06.15.09 | 11:16 AM ET
Some Cold War travel memories bubbled up this weekend in the Washington Post. Christopher Buckley favorably reviews Matthew Algeo’s Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure, a chronicle of Truman’s post-presidency road trip in the summer of 1953. And Peter Carlson follows the journey of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who accepted an invite from President Eisenhower to “road trip through the wonderland of ’50s America.”
Finding Hawaii on the Mainland
by Pam Mandel | 06.12.09 | 4:01 PM ET
I’m not sure why I’m surprised when, on the mainland in the middle of rural territory, I find a town named “Aloha,” or when a festival in Seattle brings thousands of Hawaiians out to listen to traditional music and see hula. The Hawaiian diaspora is extensive—hey, it reaches all the way to the White House these days.
English Hits the One-Million-Word Mark
by Eva Holland | 06.12.09 | 2:50 PM ET
And the milestone word? Web 2.0. The Global Language Monitor, an online agency that tracks English word use, made its official announcement yesterday, and noted that the new addition was “indicative of the age.” You can debate the methodology that they used in determining the million-word threshold (as plenty of commenters on the story I linked to have) but, as someone whose traveling life is totally wrapped up in—and made possible by—the web, I’d certainly agree with that second point.
Finding Trouble in Asia: Let Us Count the Ways
by Julia Ross | 06.09.09 | 4:31 PM ET
Is it me, or has it been a surreal few months for Americans in Asia? Guidebook writers and State Department travel monitors, take note: a few new travel “don’ts” have entered the lexicon. To recap, here’s what we know not to do next time we journey East.
Kilauea’s Hot Summit
by Pam Mandel | 06.09.09 | 12:48 PM ET
It used to be that you had to go to the end of the winding Chain of Craters road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park if you wanted to get a look at hot melted planet. I’ve never done it—once the road was closed due to excessive volcanic activity, and once there wasn’t time and once ... Oh, my excuses are endless.
But if you’re on the Big Island right now, you don’t have to make that trip. According to the L.A. Times, Kilauea is “glowing brightly as molten lava swirls 300 feet below its crater’s floor, bubbling near the surface after years of spewing from the volcano’s side.”
Samurais and Maharajas: It’s an Asian Art Summer
by Julia Ross | 06.08.09 | 3:34 PM ET
I’m fortunate to live in a city that’s home to one of the best Asian art museums in the world—the Smithsonian’s Freer-Sackler Gallery—but I’m not averse to traveling to see a really great museum or exhibit elsewhere. In fact, on a trip to Dublin last fall, I spent an entire afternoon immersed in the wonderful Chester Beatty Library, gazing at Persian paintings and Islamic manuscripts. I know, I know—I was supposed to be out drinking Guinness, but I couldn’t help myself.
Parsing East-Meets-West Sex
by Julia Ross | 06.08.09 | 1:33 PM ET
Well, well. The Asian sex trade seems to be a popular literary theme this summer. While Lawrence Osborne’s latest book, Bangkok Days, examines the issue of loneliness among Western men prowling the streets of Thailand, another new book, The East, The West and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters, takes a more academic approach to what author Richard Bernstein calls “an old and enduring story.”
About Those Souvenirs: Made in Hawaii?
by Pam Mandel | 06.08.09 | 10:22 AM ET
I find souvenir shopping tricky. I like things that really scream of place or are packed with a trip’s significance—no pressure, souvenir makers! I was eager to buy a Hawaiian-made uke on my last trip, though the one I ended up getting is more global than I’d have ideally liked—the parts are made in Indonesia and shipped to Oahu for assembly. Is it made in Hawaii? Sort of.
‘Up’ and the Spirit of Adventure
by Eva Holland | 06.02.09 | 3:01 PM ET
After keeping tabs on the hype for the last couple of months, I finally made it to “Up” last night. The latest from Pixar, which tells the story of an old man finally living out his South American travel dreams, has been pleasing critics and owning the box office, so I was keen to get to the theater myself.
And the verdict? Well, a little bit mixed.
Brother Bertram, Photojournalist
by Pam Mandel | 06.02.09 | 1:08 PM ET
Image courtesy of Lyman Museum. I’m a sucker for Hawaii’s unreachable past, a somewhat imaginary time when there really was a little grass shack in Kaleakakua to go back to. So I’m pretty excited about the photography show that’s running at the Lyman Museum in Hilo.
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.
