China Looking to Close Starbucks in Forbidden City

by Neil Woodburn on

Globalization is always a big topic here at Gadling. Sure, it’s great that our fellow countrymen are running successful businesses abroad, but there are certainly times when I’m half way around the world and find myself cringing at a nauseating slice of pop culture or fast food imported from my homeland.

Most recently, we posted about the arrival of KFC in Hanoi. Now, the news from Beijing is that a local Starbucks is causing all sorts of controversy amongst the Chinese.

It seems that people are upset that such an icon of American capitalism is entrenched in the heart of the Forbidden City–the emperor’s palace and one of the holiest of Chinese landmarks. As a result, a petition signed by 500,000 Chinese is requesting that the government evict the caffeine-peddling, American usurpers.

Starbucks, which has been in the location since 2000, deserves some credit, however. They were able to occupy the space by promising to donate proceeds towards much needed reconstruction of the palace grounds.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one. The company has managed to somewhat blend in with the surroundings as you can see from the photo above, and they are undeniably helping out. I guess I’m just glad it’s not a McDonald’s.

Groundhog Day: Punxsutawney isn’t the only option

by Jamie Rhein on

Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania has competition. Stiff competition. Phil may have been a star in the movie Groundhog Day but there are other woodchucks who have a following.

There’s Jimmy the Groundhog in Sun Prairie, WI; General Beauregard Lee in Lilburn, GA; Smith Lake Jake in Birmingham, AL; and Sir Walter Wally in Raleigh, N.C. And that’s just for starters. What I discovered when I went poking around is that Groundhog Day is indeed a tourist draw. You have to love the fun of loving a groundhog. Punxsutawney has the festivities down pat. They’ve been going on all week. In Canada, though, Wiarton Willie is the famous one. In 2002, The Wiarton Willie Festival won the distinction as the Greatest Festival on Earth by Festivals.com. One year, when one of the Willies died before the event, a stuffed replica was used as a funeral stand-in. You have to read the story.

All of the groundhogs mentioned are making appearances on February 2 to let us know how long winter will last. For more groundhog fun, check out 123.Holiday.net. There are even some songs to learn. And here are some more groundhog events in other parts of the U.S. to give you more travel options.

Wine Regions Shifting

by Neil Woodburn on

Napa Valley in California is one of the world’s most successful wine growing regions due to an extraordinarily favorable climate which helps produce world-class vineyards.

We’ve been posting recently about the impact of global warming upon tourist destinations around the globe and how warmer temperatures are literally transforming places like Glacier National Park, Greenland, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and many others. Can you guess where I’m going with this?

Yep, global warming is also affecting the wine growing regions of our world.

According to a fascinating article in the LA Times, wine making is a very fickle process easily impacted by climatic change. Writer Corie Brown goes so far as to describe vino as the “canary in the climate-change coal mine.” As temperatures warm around the planet, she explains, they will “shift viticultural regions toward the poles, cooler coastal zones and higher elevations.”

In other words, as Napa becomes too hot in the next 50 years, future oenophiles may find themselves heading elsewhere. If trends continue, those searching for the best Rieslings (produced today in Germany) may have to travel to Sweden while Germany itself might take over production of the famous red wines traditionally found further south.

Even today the impact is being felt. Wines produced in warmer climates such as Spain and Australia are struggling. Those produced in England and Canada, however, have improved with the warmer weather.

Will it all come out in the wash? Will we have the same great wines in the future but just produced in different parts of the world? Or will we all just have to drink beer?

I don’t know. In the meantime, check out the LA Times article–especially if you’re a serious wine connoisseur.

Cross-Cultural Smoking Etiquette

by Iva Skoch on

I witnessed an interesting cafe scene in Prague the other day.

Two local girls are sitting in a packed local cafe, drinking coffee and chain smoking. Two Americans at a table next to theirs start eating and politely ask the girls if they could stop smoking while they eat. The girls are visibly annoyed, but they do stop smoking. For the rest of the lunch hour, they talk about being fed up with foreigners who bring their healthy-living, assertive attitudes and impose them on the locals. Why don’t they stay at their smoke-free homes, they said. The American guys were thinking more in terms of “your freedom ends where my freedom begins.”

Mind you, it is virtually impossible to find a smoke free restaurant in Prague and about one half of the adult population smokes. Unlike the US, smoking is still kind of cool here.

Is it OK for a foreigner to ask a local to stop smoking in a place where smoking is allowed? Hmmm, what’s a health-obsessed, smoke-hating American to do?

Los Angeles’s Coolest New Neighborhood

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s nice discovering a cool niche in your hometown before a major publication like The New York Times plasters it across their travel page as a “hot destination.”

I’m rarely ahead of the curve but I managed to find myself in that situation almost a year ago when I “discovered” Culver City long before word got out about it.

Culver City is one of Los Angeles’s many suburbs and for years it was an anonymous part of town hardly worth a second glance.

Now it’s cool.

Sure, if you’re visiting Los Angeles, there are plenty of other places to visit first. But if you find yourself with a bit more time, swing over to this small slice of town where you can chow down at Ford’s Filling Station (a gastropub owned by Harrison’s son), drink up at BottleRock (a wine bar with tasty cheeses and salami), catch a show at the Kirk Douglas Theater, or browse through a variety of art galleries (my favorite, The Wonderful World of Animation, was sadly neglected in the NY Times article).

A dozen or so new restaurants have popped up in the last year, including the upscale, but more-affordable-than-it-should-be, Wilson. Most are walking distance from each other (and the bars as well), making Culver City very pedestrian friendly–a rarity for Los Angeles. This helps give the town a quaint, friendly vibe that is neither pretentious like Beverly Hills nor overly hip like Silver Lake or Eagle Rock.

I quite like it myself. Swing by this upcoming weekend and you just might find me hanging out enjoying the scene.