Remember our friends Lee and Sachi over from TWINF? They set off to see the world through the world’s experiences and clearly it seems they’ve been having a good time. Seeing how Lee has taken a moment to upload some of his pretty, well, amazing shots from places like Sri Lanka, Thailand and India into our Gadling Flickr pool in the middle of their great big adventures tells me they haven’t forgotten about us here at Gadling. This shot of a young girl at the Amber Fort in Jaipur, India just grabs me. I can only imagine what’s beyond and outside that window.
Asia
Travel through Asia by country:
Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam
Travel through Asia by popular city:
Bangkok, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Moscow, New Delhi, Tokyo
Travel through Asia by popular things to do:
Travel through Asia with our writers:
Infiltrating North Korea, Keyhole Into Burma, Band on the Run ... in China, Chinese Buffet, A Canadian in Beijing, Volunteer Vacation: Tajikistan
Lonely Planet's Passport Passion
Is this the
terrifying scream of evil spirits inside your house. Nope, this is the call to action from the folks at Lonely Planet, who want nothing more
than for you to leave the country. You see, they are suggesting a really wonderful idea. By getting away, they suggest,
you do your own country some good. Not because we didn’t really want you here in the first place, but because when you
go abroad, you act as an ambassador of goodwill…assuming you’re not some loud, drunk, arrogant, hat-turned-backwards
frat-boy…in that case, we suggest you not only stay home, but go somewhere with all your friends and bang drums by
yourselves in the wilderness. Anyway, the LP points out (rightly) that American travelers can serve as "agents of
understanding, tolerance and mutual respect " as they travel out into the world and interact with people in other
nations. But they also say that just 23% of Americans have passports. Could that be true? My, that’s a low number.
Well I for one couldn’t agree more that travel helps you and helps others know you. Nothing will make this
world a more lovely place than greater mutual understanding. It’s much harder to hate someone you know than it is to
make up a blanket statement about them and channel all your personal fears and hang-ups into a self-created image…if
you don’t mind me getting psychological on your a$$es for a moment.
Anyway, take the LP advice. If you don’t
have a passport now, go get one. You’ll be doing all of us a favor.
Iraq Skier
We’re just about through with ski season, but let me call your attention to online travel magazine Stellar, which is running a rather unusual series by Bob Dedic called Miles From Home in which this avid skier from Colorado ruminates on family, fighting and the joys of hitting the powder. The magazine series is really quite good and comes with a ton pf photos. I haven’t read anything quite like this about Iraq, an odd mixture of outdoorsiness and, well war.
Word for the Travel Wise (05/04/06)
Known for its incredible weather around this time of year it’s no wonder South Korea would play host to their spring-time, Hi Seoul Festival. Running from today until May 7, 2006, the event gives touring visitors the opportunity to explore the city and learn a tremendous amount about Korean culture through classic music performances, parades, and various other acts. Now would be a good time to go, but if you can’t make it due to the last minute heads up, perhaps it is time to prepare for travel next year.
Today’s word is a Korean word used in Korea:
yuh heng – travel
My past lessons focused a little more on Korean dining which can be consumed about anywhere though finding a good restaurant might be tricky. For more vocab words found on the menu check out Korea infogate. Several more words in the Korean alphabet with excellent pronunciation guides can be found at Mr. Oh’s Learn Korean website. It’s a fun place to start to learn the basics. KBS World Radio has a three part, 30 chapter online learning guide all for free. I can’t get the hangul text to show up, but they’ve got sound clips of all the sample conversations available. Learn Korean dot net has most of the aforementioned along with a forum to meet other speakers both fluent natives and beginners. For a list of Korean language programs in the country click here.
Past Korean words: shik-sah, sollongtang
World's Oddest Museums
Ah, the great museums of the world: the Louvre, the Met,
the Hermitage, the Sulabh International Museum of
Toilets. What? You’ve never heard of the toilet museum? And you call yourself cultured. Pshaw.
OK, I’d never heard of it either. Nor several of the other rather odd museums mentioned in this piece by Jason
Volker. Volker covers a lot of territory, spanning the globe in search of the weirdest places that people have
collected weird things and put them on display for (let’s admit it) weird people.
Also making the
list is the Meguro Parasitological Museum in Japan, and the
British Lawnmower Museum in Lancashire, the kind of place that Monty Python
fans would most definitely feel at home. So next time you’re in India, drop in on the toilet museum. I’ve always
wondered where all the toilets in India went.