Travel Blog: Shrinking Planet
Asia’s Food Vendors: A Plus for Work-Family Balance
by Julia Ross | 05.28.09 | 1:38 PM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzHanalei Is America’s Best Beach: Really?
by Pam Mandel | 05.28.09 | 11:02 AM ET
OK, it’s a beautiful crescent of golden sand. It’s wide and clean and almost aggressively picturesque. There’s no denying that it’s an archetype of what a perfect beach should be. And it was recently selected as the “Number One Beach in the US” by Dr. Beach, a self-declared beach expert. He seems to have gained quite the cred; my Google alerts are crowded with mentions of Hanalei Beach’s new “honor.”
More Ahi, Please*
by Pam Mandel | 05.27.09 | 10:25 AM ET
You can not pile too much ahi—the Hawaiian name for tuna—on my plate. I love the stuff: raw, grilled, wrapped in rice and nori and served as sushi, marinated in soy and spice and served as poke, crusted with macadamia nuts and coconut and topped with a little mango sauce ... I swear I am turning into a big drooling mess just thinking about it.
But overfishing is depleting tuna stocks, just like it’s depleting so many of our dinner-bound, ocean-dwelling populations, driving up the price and making for scarce supply.
It’s a Reality TV World, After All
by Julia Ross | 05.26.09 | 12:49 PM ET
Is reality television a viable conduit for cross-cultural understanding? It’s an interesting question now that the world has gone reality TV-mad. Global versions of “Big Brother” have sparked discussions on everything from racism to AIDS, and wacky game shows continue to fascinate foreigners trying to understand Japan.
Lantern Floating for Memorial Day
by Pam Mandel | 05.26.09 | 10:30 AM ET
If the pictures are anything to go by, the Memorial Day Lantern Floating ceremony at Ala Moana Beach Park in Honolulu was the kind of visual feast that makes you think you’re in a dream.
2,000 candlelit lanterns are sent off into the ocean at sunset, each bearing “healing prayers for victims of conflict, famine, disaster and disease as well as our hopes for the happiness of all past and present.”
Hawaii Passes Islam Day Resolution, Haters Call for Boycott
by Pam Mandel | 05.19.09 | 3:44 PM ET
High on the list of reasons I lost my heart so completely to Hawaii?
The diversity. You’ve got your Pinoys, your Japanese, your mainland surfers, your Native Hawaiians, your Portuguese and Spaniards, the descendants of European shippers and missionaries, a whole mess of “hapa” types who are half one thing, half something else, be it Scottish, Korean, Hawaiian, Jewish ... If you’re looking for a slice of world culture, you’re as likely to find it in Hawaii as anywhere. All those cultures make for a lively and appealing place.
But a few spoilsports are calling for a boycott of travel to the islands because the Hawaii state Legislature recently passed a resolution recognizing “Islam Day.”
The New Sand: May Contain Plastic
by Pam Mandel | 05.19.09 | 10:29 AM ET
The May 2009 issue of Hana Hou!—Hawaiian Airlines’ in-flight mag—includes an article called The Voyage of the Junk. The story is about a journey from California to Honolulu via the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The ship itself was a trash heap, made out of plastic garbage and leftover bits of a Cessna. The goal of the journey was to raise awareness of the impact that all the plastic crap we create, buy and use is having on the oceans.
There’s a particularly sad and telling passage in the story. Upon arrival in Honolulu, one of the sailors decided to find out how long it would take to pull a piece of plastic out of the water. He hopped overboard, and: “Less than a minute later he was out, holding up an ‘ABC Stores’ bag. ‘Thirty seconds,’ he said, with both triumph and distaste.”
China’s Sex Theme Park That Wasn’t
by Julia Ross | 05.18.09 | 12:50 PM ET
Maybe it was the red thong. Officials in Chongqing, China, ordered the country’s first-ever sex theme park—set to open this fall—demolished over the weekend after news of its opening drew global media coverage and embarrassment among locals.
The park—dubbed “Love Land”—promised the chance to see giant replicas of genitals and exhibits on sexual history, with the goal of improving sex education in a country where open discussion of the topic has traditionally been taboo.
Can Korean Food Break the ‘Top Five’?
by Julia Ross | 05.18.09 | 10:51 AM ET
When it comes to kimchi, the government of South Korea means business. The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries recently announced a $40 million fund to enact its “Global Hansik” campaign to make Korean food one of the five most popular ethnic cuisines in the world.
The Ministry’s rather methodical strategy includes introducing Korean cooking classes at Cordon Bleu-affiliated culinary schools worldwide; promoting celebrity Korean chefs; and increasing the number of Korean restaurants overseas to 40,000 by 2017.
‘Angels & Demons’ has Arrived—and so Have the Travel Writers
by Eva Holland | 05.15.09 | 12:43 PM ET
Publicity still from "Angels & Demons" (via IGN) If you’re not interested in Dan Brown or the film adaptation of his hit novel, “Angels & Demons,” you may want to avoid the travel pages for the next few days—I haven’t seen travel-movie-mania on this scale since last year’s Sex and the City movie transfixed shoe-loving travel writers everywhere.
If, however, you’re keen to explore “Dan Brown’s Rome,” read on for the best of the near-ubiquitous coverage.
Maui vs. the Moorhen
by Pam Mandel | 05.13.09 | 10:20 AM ET
The fluffy little chick paddling in the pond at Waimea Valley didn’t look like much of a keeper of fire. She was all black fuzz and pathetic peeping. The endangered ’Alae ’Ula chick—or Hawaiian Moorhen—was the last of a brood of three that hatched this spring. There are only about 300 of the birds left, according to a State of Hawaii fact sheet.
A Poet’s Last Words: Haikus for the Traveler
by Julia Ross | 05.12.09 | 12:05 PM ET
Sad news from the world of poetry: University of Wyoming professor and award-winning poet Craig Arnold, who disappeared last month while traveling in Japan on an arts fellowship, is now presumed dead. Japanese rescue teams have called off their search on the assumption that Arnold fell from a cliff on the volcano where he was last seen hiking.
I’m not a huge poetry reader and hadn’t heard of Arnold before his disappearance made the news in recent weeks, but I was charmed when I read some of his recent blog entries. The haikus he wrote to accompany his posts—some lighthearted, others contemplative—are a nice way to chronicle the Japanese experience and now resonate as the last impressions of a traveling poet.
Luau Chow: Chicken Long Rice
by Pam Mandel | 05.12.09 | 10:33 AM ET
I admit it: I think you should go to a luau at least once. You need to see one of those big showy events where the dancers make you think impure thoughts with their suggestive hips and a shirtless guy twirls fire while drums pound. Also, there should be a huge buffet where a roast pig comes out of a hole in the ground and poi is dished up in polite amounts for the malahini (foreigners) and there’s a big gooey pan of chicken long rice.
Ka’iulani: the Activist Princess
by Pam Mandel | 05.11.09 | 2:05 PM ET
The Hawaiian Hall at the Bishop Museum is still closed for renovations (we got a sneak peak on our visit—it’s going to be stunning when it opens in August) so there is only a limited amount of Hawaiian artifacts currently on view. The Kāhili Room at the museum is open, though—it’s in a different building—and it displays portraits of the Hawaiian monarchy and their feathered standards. These torch-like staffs were carried in front of royalty to visually announce their arrival.
Two of the portraits really stuck with me: the photo of Princess Ruth, a frowning, broad woman contained in severe Victorian dress, and the portrait of Princess Ka’iulani, also in Victorian attire but looking less awkward. Princess Ka’iulani cemented her place in the hearts of Native Hawaiians by traveling to the mainland to plead with Congress and two US Presidents for the restoration of the Hawaiian monarchy.
Expat Tales: Wanderers, Starving Artists and Dissolutes
by Julia Ross | 05.06.09 | 3:10 PM ET
Novelist Malcolm Pryce rounds up his top 10 expat tales with heavy representation from Asia and the Pacific: novels and journals on Vietnam, Thailand, Tahiti and Sri Lanka make the cut.
Eurocentrics will appreciate Pryce’s inclusion of the Thomas Cook European Railway Timetable, but, for Asia travelers, the money quote can be found in his description of Bangkok: “The city is, in fact, a combine harvester for the ex-pat male heart.” Something tells me that line will come to mind next time I’m walking through Patpong.
