One for the Road: Street World

by Kelly Amabile on

From Get Lost Books list of suggested holiday gift-giving titles comes Street World: Urban Art from Five Continents, a collection of street scenes that stretches from Mumbai to Los Angeles. The colorful hardcover is divided into more than 50 topics and includes over 500 photographs of artistic public displays from around the world.

Street World celebrates subculture creativity in all its forms: graffiti, skateboarding and bike messengering, DJing, offbeat fashion, gang life, music, as well as design, photography, and other more traditional visual art. The 400-page book looks at the artistic expressions of fashionistas, biker gangs, guerrilla gardeners, urban knitters and more. It’s the perfect gift for all your traveling culture vulture pals.

Spain to be home to Europe’s largest casino

by Abha Malpani on

Spain’s lottery market is one of the largest in the world; it is home to the world’s fattest Christmas draw (El Gordo) that amounts to Euro2.20 billion(!), the country has slot-machines in almost every bar, and countless mini-casinos in every city.

I don’t know what the scene is like in other European countries, but trying your luck at some sort of gambling on a daily basis can totally be considered part of Spanish culture and tradition. With the high variety and demand of national and local level daily ‘money-winning’ opportunities in the country, gambling has often, and rightly, been called a national obsession.

So, it is no surprise that Spain has just declared building what will be Europe’s largest casino resort in Zaragoza — the 5th largest Spanish metropolitan that is located about 200 miles from Madrid. Tentatively called “Gran Escala” (Grand Scale), this ‘Vegas’ will cover 5000 acres, include 32 hotels and 5 theme parks.

A few years ago, the estimated amount spent on gambling by Spaniards was Euro22.68 billion, with older figures showing that every Spaniard spent Euro435 annually on the same. The country’s gambling market is expected to grow to Euro39 billion by 2010.

I guess everyone would love to sweep the table in a game of poker or win the lottery and never have to work again; here Spaniards try day-in-day-out to make that dream into a reality.

Marilyn Terrell, the insider travel track

by Kraig Becker on

“Marilyn is my favorite!” writes Mort Todman in a comment posted at Intelligent Traveler, the blog for National Geographic Traveler. Marilyn Terrell is one of our favorites too. She often throws travel tidbits our way, keeping us up to date on interesting, insider news on travel trends and hotspots. I can always count on her to point me towards the humorous aspects about life on our planet.

She tipped me off to Brian Sack’s squat toilet story, a hilarious safety message by a flight attendant, and Flight delay excuses published in The Onion. Humor is not her only forte. She’s up on anything artsy, interesting, unusual, globally minded. You name it, she knows about it. If you’re looking for some Marilyn’s picks in a nutshell, tune in to Marilyn’s Miscellany, a column you can subscribe to as a blog feed. I’ve already subscribed myself. I can imagine Marilyn at her desk gathering info for her next missive.

Infiltrating North Korea Part 5: The Sexy Traffic Girls of Pyongyang

by Neil Woodburn on

Infiltrating North Korea is a two-week series exploring the world’s most reclusive nation and its bizarre, anachronistic way of life. To start reading at the beginning of the series, be sure to click here.

The most pleasant surprise in all of North Korea is undoubtedly the city’s phenomenal Traffic Girls.

Dolled up in crisp, blue and white uniforms that are rumored to have been designed by Kim Jong Il himself, the immaculately coifed women work the middle of intersections throughout Pyongyang. Every Traffic Girl is beautiful, young, shapely, and sexy in a uniform-wearing sort of way. On sunny days, they even don Matrix style sunglasses that add an even deeper layer of suggestive innuendo.

Since there are no streetlights in Pyongyang, the Traffic Girls are the only way to maintain order on the roadways, and man do they! Armed with just a whistle and baton, the girls are a one-person show beautifully orchestrating the flow of traffic with patented, choreographed moves that are crisp, robotic, and out of this world.

In any other country they’d cause accidents as rubbernecking perverts speed by gawking at them; but not in North Korea where there are few automobiles on the street and even less opportunity to be reckless and deviant.

%Gallery-11537%

Yesterday: The Architecture of Pyongyang
Tomorrow: Art and Culture, Pyongyang Style

Photo of the Day (12-9-07)

by Catherine Bodry on


This cheerful and fun photo, titled “Full Moon Offerings” was captured by LadyExpat in Indonesia. I love the bright colors and the fact that I can’t identify a lot of the what these ladies are carrying. And don’t they sort invoke the spirit of Carmen Miranda?

Upload your travel photos to Gadling’s Flickr pool to be considered for our Photo of the Day feature!