Gadling Take FIVE: Week of September 20-26

by Jamie Rhein on

In the ever changing scene of world travel, this week Gadling pointed to some of the highlights of change.

  • If you want to see Angkor Wat before it goes totally upscale, you’d better hurry. It might be too late. Josh wrote about how high end development is going on all around the complex.
  • In the world of gadgets that make travel easier, Scott posted about the new T-Mobile G1 which should make several aspects of staying in touch while on the road easier and cheaper.
  • In Jerry’s Talking Travel conversation with Snake Charmer author Jamie James, part of the talk was about how James’s interest in China changed after he wrote about Shanghai in 2001. As he points out, one’s interest in a particular can changed based on exposure. For James, China has lost his attention.
  • Jeremy’s latest addition to his New York series is a lush piece on the changes in Staten Island’s landscape over the years–more specifically, the section of Staten Island where old boats and ships are put to rest.
  • When it comes to politics, Grant has his attention on the changing of the communist guard due to the absence of Kim Jong Il and Fidel Castro. He imagines them sitting on a beach somewhere chatting it up while drinking out of coconuts. Grant is a little weird that way.

What I hope isn’t changing is people’s ability to have a grand experience, even if it’s one they find in their own neighborhoods.

New Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center grand opening this weekend

by Anna Brones on

Nearly two million visitors visitors come every year to explore the Gettysburg National Military Park to learn about both the Civil War and the infamous 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. But two million visitors is a lot, and in order to better accommodate them, new facilities had to be built; in order to expand educational opportunities to visitors and to highlight the historical importance of the site, the Gettysburg Foundation and the National Park Service therefore pooled together $103 million and constructed a new visitor center.

Although it opened in April 2008, the new Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center kicks off its official grand opening celebration tomorrow, Friday September 26. The new visitor center has an extensive collection of artifacts and archives. And like any good visitor center, there are plenty of interactive displays, complete with a voice theater for readings from battle participants — well, people acting to be them.

The grand opening also marks the debut of the Gettysburg Cyclorama painting. A colossal circular oil painting, the Cyclorama is the only one of its kind in North America. The painting has been undergoing a $15 million restoration effort for the last five years; that’s certainly one expensive face lift worth seeing.

The grand opening is set to start at 11 a.m, and even Governor Edward G. Rendell will be making an appearance. You can find a full schedule of events here.

Woman ends up in Sydney, Nova Scotia by mistake. She wanted Australia

by Jamie Rhein on

Okay, listen up. If you are getting on an airplane and you get an inkling that something is not quite right, that perhaps you are off course, PAY ATTENTION to that feeling and double check.

If you want to head to Sydney, Australia but something seems amiss, ASK, for heaven’s sake. Otherwise you could be like Monique Rozanes Torres Aguero who boarded an airplane in Buenos Aires, Argentina with visions of taking in the Syndney Opera House, perhaps, and trying out phrases like “G’day Mate,” only to land in another city–another Sydney, a town in Nova Scotia that does not have one tourist attraction listed on its Web site, according to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald. It does have the largest Ceilidh Fiddle in the World, though.

Ms Torres Aguero’s situation was not the first time this gaff has happened. Sydney, Nova Scotia, located on Cape Breton Island, has had other visitors unwittingly arrive at the airport expecting that they have landed Down Under.

Instead, there they are in an industrial, former coal mining town making the best of it since they are on vacation after all.

The problem that causes such errors is the drop down menu box that list airports with when you book on line. booking. Highlight the wrong airport and BAM, there you are one fine day in an unexpected place. This is kind of like Dorothy stepping out of the house in Munchkinland I would imagine.

There was a comment left on the post I wrote about a woman my mom met on a Greyhound bus who thought it only took one day to go from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, California. She thought she’d be in L.A. by morning.

The commenter told about one woman he met who was heading to Manchester, New Hampshire, or so she thought, but ended up in Manchester, England.

If you do ever end up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, by mistake or on purpose, it has a “beautiful island coastline” and you can use it as a springboard to a trip on the Cabot Trail, the trail followed by explorer John Cabot.

I hope there are some good restaurants at least and a decent hotel in Sydney, Nova Scotia. If you think about it, this travel story is a far better one to tell the grandkids later in life. Lots of people have the “my trip to Sydney, Australia” story. This other version gets you interviewed for a newspaper article.

Check out other troublemakers in the skies!


Undiscovered New York: Life and death in the graveyards of Staten Island

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Staten Island. It’s a name many New Yorkers invoke with disdain. And tourists? The city is lucky if they venture beyond Manhattan to the borough of Brooklyn. But despite this poor reputation, there are plenty of reasons to visit New York City’s fifth borough.

True, it’s never going to offer the glitzy shopping and haute cuisine of its ritzy neighbor Manhattan to the north. But urban explorers, history buffs and adventurers take note: what the borough lacks in picturesque vistas, it more than makes up for with “edgy” character and quirky sites of interest. My favorite? The Staten Island boat graveyard.

For those that do not know, Staten Island is home to what used to be the world’s largest trash heap at Fresh Kills. For years, the city of New York dumped thousands (if not millions) of tons of garbage on this site, creating one of Staten Island’s more imposing geographical landmarks. Gross, right? While even an adventurous traveler like myself might skip a site filled with old diapers and decaying chicken bones, all that trash has provided an interesting side-attraction in the form of huge fleet of half-sunken abandoned boats. Want to know more? Click on through the link to continue.Rather than sink the vessels elsewhere, the city of New York has chosen this sliver of water between the island of Staten and the coast of New Jersey as the final resting place for dozens of ships. The many boats sit half beneath the surface, silent sentinels to formerly productive seafaring lives.

As these old relics of wood and steel are ravaged by the salt and air, their decay leaves behind some strangely beautiful works of art. As wood rots away, rusty metal skeletons emerge and decks lie at odd angles, half submerged and half afloat above the murky water’s surface. Just beyond lies the hulking mass of the former landfill, gently sloping off in the distance. Needless to say the atmospheric surroundings make for an awesome setting for photography buffs.

Perhaps even more intriguing is that this isn’t the only graveyard in the area. Yet another forgotten Staten Island graveyard lies within easy view, but a graveyard of a very different sort. At the edge of the salty marshland leading to the boats is a small cemetery called the Blazing Star Burial Ground. The cemetery houses the final remains of Staten Island residents dating back to the 1750’s when the area was the site of a popular ferry crossing and roadhouse. As you stroll among the small plot of ancient gravestones it’s hard not to wonder about the inhabitants who made this once-pristine vista their final resting place. Could anyone have imagined how drastically their view would change?

So how does one find this hidden gem? Well, first you need to find a way out to Staten Island. Although it’s not impossible to use a combination of mass transit with ferries, trains and buses, a car is much preferred in this case. The site is located near the town of Rossville, on Arthur Kill Road. Not to be a tease, but that’s all we’re giving away. That’s what Google Maps is for, right? This is supposed to be an adventure after all, and any good adventure is not without its intrinsic risks and uncertainties. Happy exploring!

Gadling Take FIVE: Week of September 13–September 19

by Jamie Rhein on

In a week where Wall Street has gone haywire, and Hurricane Ike made it to the Midwestern part of the United States creating a whole bunch of mischief, this has been a week at Gadling for waxing nostalgic and feeling gushy.

  • Scott took us on a trip down memory lane with his post on vintage airline commercials.
  • Matthew got all poetic on his cup of ramen noodles, and told us just how to jazz up our own bowl of the good stuff.
  • Jeremy gave us a up close and personal look at the architectural gem of Grand Central as part of his new series, “The Undiscovered New York.”
  • Heather lamented a bit for the good old days of air travel when there were decent layovers and when airline food service was adequate enough to make both the flight crews and the passengers happy.
  • And, Meg pointed out one way Portland, Oregon remembers its history through horses–fake horses that can be found at various locations about town.

As for me, personally, I’m feeling nostalgic about electricity. We haven’t had it at my house since last Sunday. Of course, I realize this is a minor nusance. The upside is that electricity has been a great conversation starter as of late–as in, “Do you have any?”