Travel Blog
Photo: Hong Kong Skyline, With Plane
by Jim Benning | 11.08.07 | 12:36 PM ET
The (very cool) photo below was shot in Hong Kong recently during the filming of the next Batman film, “The Dark Knight.” That’s a C-130 cargo plane. As an interesting aside, all hasn’t gone smoothly with the filming. Reports the Guardian: “The trouble began when director Christopher Nolan requested that Hong Kong’s inhabitants leave their lights burning during the film’s night-time shoots in order to present the city in its full, illuminated glory. Letters were reportedly sent to 60 companies along the city’s waterfront area, while building managers were told to ask all residents to comply with the request.” Nolan was met with a collective shrug. According to reports, 80 percent of those asked ignored the request.
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Yahoo! BuzzLuxury Jets Are a Girl’s Best Friend?
by Eva Holland | 11.08.07 | 11:15 AM ET
Media in India have been buzzing over news that the nation’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has given his wife an Airbus A319 jet (like the one pictured) for her 44th birthday. The $60 million birthday gift is tricked out with satellite TV, gaming consoles, wireless Internet, and a sky bar, according to Reuters. Wrote one commentator: “In a country that prizes asceticism—think of Mahatma Gandhi, who visited Buckingham Palace in a loincloth and little else—Ambani is setting spectacular new standards for conspicuous consumption. In Mumbai he’s constructing a 27-storey, US$150 million high-rise apartment block that will house his family of six.”
Karaoke + Cab Ride = Cabaraoke
by Michael Yessis | 11.07.07 | 12:12 PM ET
This has to be the most entertaining way to get around Kansas City. A cab company called Cabaraoke has outfitted its vehicles with karaoke machines and toy musical instruments, allowing passengers to air guitar and belt out songs while they get around town. Even better: Cabaraoke records the performances and uploads the videos to YouTube. The performances are, like most karaoke performances, generally pretty bad but relentlessly entertaining. Like this version of Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville”:
Jan Morris in Berlin: ‘Ooh, That’s Nice!’
by Michael Yessis | 11.07.07 | 11:54 AM ET
Legendary travel writer Jan Morris had a revelation about Berlin: The city “where Hitler strutted” and that had “haunted and disturbed” her all her adult life is “really rather nice.” She writes in the Financial Times: “Was it all guileless innocence? Of course not.”
Seoul Does Brunch: South Korea Embraces the Newfound Weekend
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.07.07 | 9:59 AM ET
Photo by Presta, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
As globalization continues its culture-morphing march, it’s brandishing a powerful weapon: brunch. In Seoul, once a city so overworked from a six-day work week that tired South Koreans only socialized late in the evening, a Western-style brunch of toasted bagels and blueberry pancakes is the latest way to bond with family and friends, according to The New York Times.
USA Today on Airport Delays: It’s Not so Bad!
by Jim Benning | 11.06.07 | 4:31 PM ET
While flights out of New York City’s major airports are frequently delayed, “Most of the nation’s aviation system actually is performing relatively well and reducing delays,” USA Today reports. In fact, according to government data, for the first eight months of this year “the largest 31 airports outside the New York region had 8% fewer total delays than during the same period in 2006,” the newspaper adds.
Have U.S. Travelers Been Price Gouged on Their Passports?
by Michael Yessis | 11.06.07 | 4:19 PM ET
Big time, according to U.S. Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Chuck Shumer (D-NY). They have released the results of a study by the Government Accountability Office that reveals travelers have been charged double on certain fees involved in the handling of passport applications by the State Department and the Postal Service. From the AP:
Delta Ups the Meal Ante on Short Flights
by Terry Ward | 11.06.07 | 1:17 PM ET
I knew it spoke sadly for the state of in-flight food affairs last week when I found myself thrilled with the prospect of free Doritos and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee on a JetBlue flight from Orlando to New York (to the airline’s credit, it is one of the only domestic short haul carriers still offering free snacks—and, just my opinion, but I think Dunkin’ Donuts coffee rocks). The days of free food on short flights in America have been gone for a while. So I was pleased to read this AP story about Delta’s decision to enlist celebrity chef Todd English to create a new line of “upscale” in-flight meals that will be available for sale on all Delta flights of 90 minutes or longer by spring 2008.
Nuclear Tourism: Still Hot, and Getting Hotter?
by Eva Holland | 11.06.07 | 8:27 AM ET
We’ve written before about the steady trickle of visitors to the infamous Chernobyl site, and to lesser-known, functioning nuclear power plants in Japan and the United States. Now we can add Sweden to our list of “hot” nuclear tourism destinations. A staggering one-third of Swedes have visited a nuclear plant in the country over the past 35 years, writes Barbara Lewis in a Reuters story. And they’re still going to Forsmark, one of the three main plants on Sweden’s Baltic coast, even after a safety scare in July 2006.
From New York City to Los Angeles, Michelin Aims to Crack Zagat’s Hold on U.S. Restaurant Guides
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.06.07 | 8:07 AM ET
For decades, travelers in the United States have favored the Zagat Survey to find restaurants. Like the popular hotel guide TripAdvisor, Zagat rates restaurants based on reviews from frequent diners. But now France’s storied Michelin guides are challenging Zagat in hotel and restaurant recommendations in the U.S., writes Adam Goldman of the AP. “Our star system is the measure against the world,” Jean-Luc Naret, director of the Michelin Guides, told Goldman. “The chefs see us as the only independent benchmark.”
Students Abroad: Escaping the American Bubble
by Julia Ross | 11.05.07 | 2:24 PM ET
As we’ve noted before, rising interest in study abroad programs has sparked discussion about how to reduce costs and improve access so more American college students can take part. Now a lengthy Read More »
See ‘The Last Supper’ as Leonardo Never Imagined
by Michael Yessis | 11.05.07 | 12:49 PM ET
By no means does the 16 billion pixel digital image of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece “The Last Supper” offer the experience of visiting the real thing in the refectory of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent in Milan, Italy. But it is rather spectacular. Italian cultural officials teamed with high-definition photography experts HAL9000 to create what they’re billing as the world’s largest highest definition photo. It offers clear views of sections of the painting as small as one square millimeter, close enough to see every detail—and every crack in the paint. Good luck getting so near to the original.
Related on World Hum:
* ‘Rome Reborn’: Journey to the Eternal City, Circa 320 AD
* French Museums to Offer Free Admission
Twelve Books to Read Before Traveling to China
by Jim Benning | 11.05.07 | 12:04 PM ET
That’s right. Not two or three. Twelve. UC Irvine history professor Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is often asked for reading suggestions by people traveling to China. So he put together a list of 12 books, choosing titles “with an eye toward liveliness, links of some sort to Beijing as a city or the Olympics as an event, and also stylistic and topical variety.” Wasserstrom knows a thing or two about China. He’s the author of the recently published China’s Brave New World—And Other Tales for Global Times. His full list appears on the History News Network. Among his more intriguing selections are:
New Travel Book: ‘Around the World in 57½ Gigs’
by Eva Holland | 11.05.07 | 10:44 AM ET
Author: Dave Bidini, also the author of Tropic of Hockey: My Search for the Game in Unlikely Places and guitarist for Canadian indie legends The Rheostatics.
Released: Oct. 30, 2007
Travel genre: Musical quest
Territory covered: Gigs on four continents, from Mongolia and Finland to Sierra Leone and Newfoundland
Culinary Explorer: Getting to Know a Culture by Creating its Cuisine
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.05.07 | 9:47 AM ET
It’s been said that the best way to get to know a country is through its food. As a fan of the food writers Diane Kochilas and Corinne Trang, who combine a traveler’s cultural awareness with a chef’s creativity in their cookbooks, I believe cooking authentic cuisine from abroad helps you get closer to a culture. Dorothy Aksamit went one step further on her trip to the river town of Hoi An, Vietnam: She took a cooking class led by a local chef.
