Double Tall Skim Catpooccino To Go

by Iva Skoch on

If you’re a coffee lover, maybe you’ll want to make a special flight on Japan Airlines to buy “the rarest coffee in the world“: civet coffee. But this specialty brew is sold only in business class, to the tune of $600 for 100 grams.

You’re not going to find this in any Starbucks. Your other options for getting the coffee are limited: if you’re not heading to Japan, a single coffee shop in Vienna sells the beans. If you’re really adventurous, maybe you can sniff out the source directly: the Philippines. An environmentalist husband and wife team, named Reyes, has made a multi-million-dollar business out of its harvest. Non-coffee drinkers themselves, they accidentally stumbled into the civet’s special gift while doing conservation work on sugar palm trees outside of Manila in 2003.

What makes the coffee so rare? It’s made from the droppings of the civet cat. Apparently, this nocturnal, ferret-like cat eats sugar palm fruit and coffee cherries. (Oh, and you can catch SARS from it too.) The coffee bean is not digested, but ferments in its digestive system and is excreted, much to the delight of locals, who collect the ready-to-roast beans, but try to keep the origin secret. The roasted beans give off a “sweet chocolatey aroma” and produce a “strong and earthy” brew.

Ah, I can just imagine the aroma!

Sock Sewers into Tea Cup rides

by Erik Olsen on

I’ve long been telling friends that when it comes to countries around the world who will be most like us…in a good way, I mean, with freedom and fun and self-expression…it will be India. And you know a country is coming into its own when it starts building massive entertainment complexes like the one now under develoment in an old textile mill in India. Forget swords into ploughshares. Today it’s sock sewers into Tea Cup rides.

The ambitious entertainment complex is being developed on a site in central Bombay, and signifies in many ways how India is emerging from a third-world country dependednt on old factories into one that begins to cater to a more service-based economy. Granted, India still has a way to go, put this is an indicator in that direction. Once complete this complex – spread over 250,000 square feet – will offer amusement facilities, adventure sports like rock climbing and bungee jumping, a chain of restaurants, a discotheque and a superstore.

The Doctor is Out

by Iva Skoch on

Thailand used to be a destination for exotic travel, perhaps even for sex travel. Now, it is a well-established member of the ever-increasing ranks of surgery destinations. Yes, travel is not just for the well or even the well-heeled, now it’s for the wellness-seeking. too. It’s not just cosmetic surgery, either. While cosmetic surgery comprises about 80% of the travel, laser eye surgery and fertility treatments make up reasons to travel, too.

A while back, our own Erik Olsen blogged about a crazy offer to get extra frequent flyer miles to get your eyes done, and also posted an article by Casey Kittrell about medical tourism. Then, earlier this year, I wrote an article about growing cosmetic surgery tourism to the Czech Republic. Since then, the pace of this traffic has exploded, and the places have gotten even more exotic. So much so, it’s worth revisiting this issue: according to the National Coalition on Health Care, over half a million Americans left the country last year for medical or dental work. A recent article even noted a man sent by his North Carolina company to New Delhi, for gall bladder and rotator cuff surgery, to save $50,000!

Tired of travelocity? A host of surgery-tourism companies have set up shop all over the internet. Costmeticsurgerytravel.com squatted on a good web address, offering “medical travel concierge” service, as well as assurance that the doctors in foreign lands are “appropriate for your procedure or treatment.” Prague a little to run-of-the-mill for you? Try Tunisia, for example, through Cosmeticatravel.com. Or Turkey or El Salvador, through Medretreat.com. Or Brazil, through Medicaltourism.com. A quick google search turns up a page-topping, paid ad for medical tourism to “Bumrungrad” hospital. Is that where you get that hemorrhoid treatment done?

Follow up: The NY Times just posted an article on the same topic.

Where to Go With A Fro’ In Tokyo?

by Adrienne Wilson on

Okay, I’ve ranted about being culturally sensitive on hair and being invisible in foreign places; all of which I think anyone can relate to on one level or another. Well, when I read this Washingto Post piece I had that same feeling that anyone could relate to the author’s troubles finding a good barber in Japan. From the sound of things Wayne Lionel Aponte has hair a lot like myself, slightly kinky, sort of curly, and an overall texture that not just anyone can deal with. Sure, it’s only hair and while it may very well grow back you still don’t want to be walking around Tokyo streets with a wacked hair do. I can OVER relate to that. I had the same troubles and feeling when I wanted my hair cut and that was only in Simi Valley, CA. Anyhow, things turn out well for the author, who gets his overgrown hair neatly cut and sets up another appointment before bowing with the barber and bidding farewell or sayonara!

Cute short read.