Spending the Night in a Frank Lloyd Wright House

by Neil Woodburn on


Frank Lloyd Wright houses can often be admired from afar and can sometimes be admired from within. Unless you’re fabulously wealthy, however, they can almost never be admired as a resident.

We’ve got some good news for you, however, if your dream is to spend the night in a Wright masterpiece. For just $385, visitors can shack up in the famed Duncan House, located in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

The house, which was built in the 1950s, was originally located in the suburbs of Chicago. Its present owner has not only relocated it, but modernized it as well. This means that guests can relish in the Usonian architecture of half a century ago while at the same time surfing on a wireless connection or popping popcorn in the microwave.

Now that, folks, is the best of both worlds.

Name That Hat: The Hmong in Laos

by Brett Atkinson on

Thanks to those who posted on the most recent Name That Hat. It’s shared honours this time round between Tyler and Oddsocks. The country was Laos – I bought the hat at the Vientiane market – and it’s headgear normally worn by the people of the Hmong hilltribe.

The Hmong are a sub-group of the Miao people and live across South East Asia in Laos, Vietam, Myanmar and Thailand. In the early stages of the Vietnam war, the CIA recruited Hmong tribesmen to join the Secret War fighting the North Vietnamese army along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Big in Japan: Bandages and Eye Patches are the Hottest New Fashions

by Matthew Firestone on

Think mummies are hot? How about pirates?

What if they were scantily clad women?

This week, Japan’s Weekly Playboy magazine reported that the otaku (geek, ?????????) community is starting to lose interest in eyeglasses and maids. Although these two styles have dominated the geek-friendly Tokyo neighborhood of Akihabara in recent years, ‘one-eyed virginal maid mummies’ is the hottest new fashion.

This increasingly popular style is known as kegadoru (????????????), which roughly translates as ‘injured idols.’ The look popularizes women who wear cute, frilly Lolita-style dresses, and then accessorize with bandages and eye patches.

Only in Japan could gauze and Band-Aids become the latest must-have fashion item!

The idea is simple.

According to a young woman interviewed by Weekly Playboy:

“When you’re covered in bandages, everybody pays attention to you and worries about you. They also provide a chance to start talking to guys, who’ll ask you how you hurt yourself, so the bandages are really, really good. One guy told me he likes seeing a thin woman’s body wrapped in bandages because it made him think about bondage, and made him want to protect me from harm.”

Wow…

But not everyone is convinced that mummies and pirates are going to be taking the catwalks in Paris and Milan by storm. According to psychologist Yu Yuki, the rise of kegadoru is a sign of rising gender equality in Japan.

In an interview with Weekly Playboy, Yu Yuki states:

“Women feigning injury but still swathed in bandages and eye patches look as though they’re weak. This makes the men want to protect the women. In our age of gender equality, the number of strong-willed women has increased. Men still want to protect and look after women, so they seek out those who seem to be in need of help.”

As strange as it may seem to Westerners, the Japanese obsession with cosupre (costume play, コスプレ) has recently exploded in popularity, particularly amongst teenagers and young adults. In a country where individual thought and expression is frequently squashed by a society that values conformity and order, dressing up in bizarre fashions is one of the few outlets that rebellious teens have.

In the teen-fashion district of Harajuku in Tokyo, cosupre has even become a weekly scheduled event, taking place every Sunday in front of the bridge leading to Meiji Shrine. For most of these teens, who grow up in sterile, concrete housing blocks that are typical of much of urban living in Japan, the Sunday street show is sadly their one chance to break away from a repressive culture.

Like most pop fads in Japan, kegadoru is not likely to maintain its popularity for too long. In greater Tokyo, which numbers upwards of 30 million souls, fashions wax and wane in popularity with frightening speed. However, even if kegadoru is short-lived, it’s almost certain that another equally shocking fashion trend will replace it soon enough.

For more on cuteness in Japan, check out Hello Kitty and the Culture of Cute.

For more on the weird, wacky and wonderful world that is Japan, don’t miss the feature column Big in Japan.

For pictures of Japanese fashions, from kimonos to costume plays, see the photo gallery below.

**Special thanks to stock.xchng user Shibuya 86 for the picture of the Harajuku girl **

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Current Issue of New Yorker is a Traveler’s Treat

by Catherine Bodry on

You should approach reading the September 3rd and 10th issue of the New Yorker as you would grocery shopping — don’t do it when you’re hungry. This one is all about food, and travelers generally enjoy eating. One of the greatest joys of traveling is eating local food like a local, whether at a street stall in Asia or off a prix fixe French menu.

This week’s issue of the New Yorker features Calvin Trillin’s exploration of street food in Singapore (street stalls have been corralled into large, clean, and open-air halls — I was salivating just reading the article and imagining all the delicious smells combined under one roof), a look at Claudia Roden’s Egyptian food in London, and John McPhee’s tour of culinary oddities around the world (grizzly bears, lions, and Rocky Mountain oysters, oh my!).

My favorite is the smattering of narratives called “Family Dinner,” in which writers including David Sedaris and recall flavor-infused memories. In one, critical movie reviewer Anthony Lane opens up about learning to eat artichokes — a story that makes Lane seem surprisingly human (as long as you’re not a film director, I suppose).

And just to make this issue even more relevant for Gadling readers, on the financial page in an article titled, “The Unfriendly Skies,” James Surowiecki analyzes the airline industry’s recent lack of customer service. Unfortunately, Surowiecki concludes, there’s not much incentive for airlines to change. Just like Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza wrote, customers will keep buying the tickets that save them money.

Too bad there’s no debate over airline food.

Laughter Yoga Takes To The Ocean Waves

by Brett Atkinson on

It sounds like it’s been a stressful time to be a traveller in the United States across recent months. If it’s any consolation, we’re getting more used to travel delays in New Zealand, but I’m sure it’s nothing in comparison to what Stateside travellers have to put up with.

Back in June we reported on marie claire’s guide to Global Stress Busters. Included in the mix was Laughter Yoga which promotes the benefits of having a damn good belly laugh. The movement of mirth has spread to 5000 clubs in more than 40 countries, and on November 24 a special Laughter Yoga cruise leaves Miami to chuckle through the Caribbean and maybe lose it totally in the Lesser Antilles.

The downside is you’ll probably still have to negotiate the American aviation system to get to Miami. Some things just aren’t very funny.

Thanks to Laughter Yoga for the pic.