Ready to try your luck with a little Twitter trivia? Solmar Hotels & Resorts is going to give you a shot at free travel starting on June 7, 2010. Follow Solmar (@SolmarResorts) to see the questions as they pop up in the Twitter stream – two will be tweeted every day. One will go up in the morning, and the other will be posted in the afternoon. The first three followers to answer each question correctly will be entered into a drawing for the grand prize.
Is it worth playing? Well, the winner will pick up three nights in a Junior Suite at Playa Grande Resort & Grand Spa in Cabo San Lucas, with breakfast for two every day, roundtrip airport transportation and 25 percent off on additional nights – not a bad deal for answering a few questions correctly and having your name picked.
You’ll need to get to know the ins and outs of the Solmar properties, of course, as that’s what the questions will cover. To be entered to win, you’ll need to follow @SolmarResorts and use the “@ reply” feature with the right answer. The contest will run for a month, with the winners announced on July 6, 2010.
GadlingTV’s Travel Talk, episode 13 – Click above to watch video after the jump
We’re back & ready to hit the streets! This week we’ll take you on a tour of Portland’s legendary food cart scene and show you what it takes to make some of the most delicious food in the country out of kitchens the size of a tow trailer.
We’ll discuss some of the wildest street food around the world & give you a tip that could save your life (or at least a few evenings curled up in pain).
Don’t forget to check back on Friday for another new episode of Travel Talk for a feature on the rest of Portland’s finest and quirkiest destinations!
If you have any questions or comments about Travel Talk, you can email us at talk AT gadling DOT com.
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (M4V).
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Links Al Jazeera’s series on street food around the world!
Stay safe! Take Cipro with you before trying any of that outrageous food.
Want to learn more about Portland’s food cart scene? Look no further.
From February 2009 to February 2010, outbound non-stop air travel from the United States remained flat, a seemingly promising sign in a travel market that’s been brutalized by global economic conditions. Take a look under the covers, however, and you can see that, for some destinations, we aren’t completely out of trouble yet.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, flights from the United States to Asia grew 9 percent year over year, which is what brought the global total up to break-even. The other outbound markets – Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean, posted year-over-year declines, which were exacerbated by the fact that these are these destinations occupy the largest part of the market. Travel to the Middle East and Asia, from the United States, showed the strongest growth.
For the first two months of the year, outbound air travel grew two percent relative to 2009, continuing the upward trajectory from July 2009. Seven of the past eight months had increases in outbound travel from the United States.
In January and February this year, five of the eight overseas regions experienced growth, with Oceana, the Middle East and Africa good for double-digit gains. Canada showed an increase of 1 percent, and Mexico was down 3 percent.
Americans may be spending more, but they’re clearly chasing deals when going on trips out of the country. In February this year, U.S. travelers on foreign carriers spent $2.2 billion, which is down 6 percent from February 2009.
A 25 year old man from Mason City, IA has been fined $65 for letting his pet snake crawl uncontrolled through the hallways of the local Holiday Inn.
The man was a guest at the hotel, and apparently felt that his 5 year old pet python needed some exercise. What convinced him to let the snake loose in the hallway is a mystery, but the hotel manager says the man was apologetic about the incident.
Now, I’m not a pet owner myself, but I do understand people who love their pets a lot – but to let a python loose in a hotel hallway just boggles the mind.
The Holiday Inn manager did remind guests that the chain is pet friendly, but that their hospitality ends with cats and dogs. So, next time you take a trip, you may want to find a pet-sitter for your python.
Each week, Gadling is taking a look at our favorite festivals around the world. From music festivals to cultural showcases to the just plain bizarre, we hope to inspire you to do some festival exploring of your own. Come back each Wednesday for our picks or find them all HERE.
It isn’t known if Marco Polo stole the secrets of noodle making from China when he traveled the Silk Road, but in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China, during the first week of September of every year, it no longer matters. Chinese noodle makers have been plying their trade for 2,700 years, and at the Shanxi International Noodle Cultural Festival they show off their skills and invite noodle chefs from around the world to do the same.
Besides the wonderful food, noodle chefs in Shanxi are great performers as well. The best noodle restaurants in Taiyuan are willing to give anyone that spends enough money a show, but the first week of September is when they truly shine.
Want to learn more about China’s most delicious noodle festival? Keep reading below.
The Noodle Festival, as the locals call it, is held in restaurants all over the city, as well as along the streets in the city’s center. But most of the focus is on Yingze Park, the huge park in the middle of the city where vendors line the paths giving noodle demonstrations, or on Shi Ping Jie (Food Street), a cramped and colorful alley full of restaurants hawking noodles and other local fare.
Perhaps the best part of the Shanxi Noodle festival is trying the region’s special noodle dishes. Shanxi’s most famous noodle specialty, Dao Xiao Mian (Knife Shaved Noodles) has a very unique history. It is said that during the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), people were not allowed to own knives. Ten families would share control of a single knife, and if someone wanted to use it they had to wait their turn. One hungry father, tired of waiting for his dinner, grabbed a thin piece of iron and just started shaving away. Shanxi cooks have been using that method ever since.
Yingze Hotel, one of the better hotels in the city, is located directly between the park and the street that the festival is focused on and enjoys the reputation of having a wonderful noodle restaurant attached as well. Taiyuan has a number of ancient parks and temples, so there are plenty places to visit while waiting for the noodles to digest.
Think you know Chinese food? Think again. Shanxi’s unique noodle festival will surprise and delight food-lovers everywhere. This year’s festival will be held September 10-12.