Why wait a year for your next New Year’s Eve?

by Brett Atkinson on

How was New Year’s Eve in your neck of the woods?

If you were a little disappointed with how it turned out, don’t wait a full year before your next opportunity for end of year shenanigans. Just hop on a plane/train/taxi or chartered donkey and head overseas to intercept the coming of the new year in a different culture.

Chinese New Year kicks off on February 7 in 2008. Welcome to the Year of the Rat.

Around March 21, the Persian New Year or Nowruz is celebrated in Iran and across Central Asia. The traditional meal is Sabzi Polo Mahi, rice with green herbs and fish.

The indigenous Maori people of New Zealand celebrate Matariki or Maori New Year on June 5 2008. In the 21st century Matariki has been celebrated with renewed interest.

The Ethiopian New Year or Enkutatash falls on September 11. Because the Ethiopian calendar is seven years behind the western calendar, the Millennium was only celebrated in Ethiopia last year.

That’s by no means a definitive list. Let us know about other opportunities for celebrating the New Year in other cultures and countries.

Thanks to kenyaoa on Flickr for the pic of Times Square

Holy Ethiopian City Harar Hopes to Become Tourist Hub

by Catherine Bodry on

I’ve never heard of Harar, Ethiopia, but maybe I should have because it’s the fourth holiest city in Islam, behind Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. More importantly, it’s possibly the birthplace of coffee.

Last year, the city was named a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the regional government is hoping to attract hordes of tourists soon. But the town has some work to do; currently, Harar has only a few hotels and suffers chronically from water shortages. To encourage growth, 10-year tax breaks have been offered to anyone who wants to build a tourist facility.

The move into the future is an ambitious one, but it sounds as if there’s plenty to delight tourists. Besides a 13-foot wall surrounding serpentine alleys and ancient mosques, the Associated Press lists as an attraction an old man who hand-feeds 50 hyenas every night, (check it out!) “treating them like obedient kittens.”

All the more enjoyable with a cup of fine coffee in my hands, of course.

[via Msnbc]

Let’s Party Like It’s 1999

by Brett Atkinson on

Well, the year 2000 actually if you’re a Coptic Christian living in Ethiopia. According to the calendar of the ancient Coptic Church, September 12 2007 is actually New Year’s Eve 1999. Based on the ancient Egyptian calendar the Coptic Calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar (the one we now use) in 1582. The Coptic Church ignored Pope Gregory XIII’s unilateral decree and maintained their own timetable. More than four centuries later the gap between the two systems is now seven years.

Despite it being the end of the millennium, the residents of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have been surprised at the lower than expected number of visitors. Only 25,000 tourists are reckoned to have made the trip to one of Africa’s oldest cultures. A proposed food fair and a run by the great Ethiopian athlete Haile Gebrelassie had to be cancelled because of the threat of terrorism. In the absence of tasty street food and jogging, the biggest gig in town has been a concert featuring the Black Eyed Peas.

Now if only they’d managed to get Prince…

Thanks to Rudy Neeser on Flickr for the pic of downtown Addis.

Via The Independent

Budget Travel’s 10 Best Undiscovered Locations

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s that time of year again when Budget Travel reveals its Best Places You’ve never Heard Of.

Every year the editors of this fine magazine interview 10 travelers and ask them to “reveal the places they’ve recently discovered.” The underlying theme here is that these are very cool places which most people have never heard of before, but may some day become popular tourist destinations when word gets out.

True to form, nine of the 10 suggestions this year are places … I’ve never heard of! The lone exception is the city of Wroclaw, a rather nondescript Polish town I visited 12 years ago and found exceedingly boring. Things, however, have apparently changed — at least according to traveler Walter Lowry, who touts the city as having the “prettiest plaza in Poland and perhaps in all of central Europe.” He also applauds Wroclaw for its fine shopping.

As for the other nine cities, here they are. Click, discover, and enjoy!

• Castelmezzano, Italy
• Caraiva, Brazil
• Baranja Region, Croatia
• Estacada, United States
• Yirgalem, Ethiopia
• Puerto Angel, Mexico
• Jura Region, France
• Jomsom, Nepal
• Sangkhla Buri, Thailand

Gadling’s own Leif Pettersen is traveling through another not-so-well-known location: Ia??i, Romania.

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Lucy, the First Human, Is on Tour

by Jamie Rhein on

Lucy, the first known human, is on tour. Her bones made a debut on Friday at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in an exhibit called “Lucy’s Legacy: The Treasures of Ethiopia.” The exhibit, slated to appear in 9 other venues in the United States over the next few years, is not just about Lucy, but about the wealth of human existence that has come from Ethiopia. It reminds me a bit of the Africa exhibit at the Smithsonian National Musuem of Natural History that I saw this summer, on a quick road trip, except focused on one area of Africa.

For inanimate objects, these Lucy’s bones have been making a stir ever since they were discovered back in 1974. Think science vs religion–not all religions, just those who struggle with the idea of when human beings first came into existence and how it happened in the first place. Some scientists are also not pleased as punch about this exhibit. Richard Leaky, for one, is pitching a fit. He doesn’t think that bones as important as these should ever be out in the general public. Heaven knows what will happen. Besides, that, in his opinion, this exhibit is exploiting Lucy. She was once a walking on the earth human being for Pete’s sake and worth more dignity than being on display in a glass case. (my wording)

Then there are those who believe that the exhibit will step up the interest in scientific discovery, the true origins of humans and encourage school age kids and the not scientist adult population to learn factual information about science and human history. With the Creation Museum opening this year in Northern Kentucky, maybe Lucy will help balance out what the public has access to.

The Ethiopian government is quite keen on promoting interest in Ethiopia with this exhibit and was willing to let the bones travel out of the country. The exhibit caught my attention. If Lucy comes anywhere near my neighborhood, I’m in. The 3-D history, art and science lesson from actual artifacts and explanatory text always interests me, and I’ll look at Lucy’s bones with the utmost respect and awe.

For more details about Lucy’s significance and the fuss that her tour has created, check out this Chicago Tribune article by William Mullen. There are more details about the conflicts over the exhibit that call into play the various perceptions and needs people have as we struggle to be open and share.