Having spent the last few months of my life walking across the country it is safe to say my feet endured some amount of wear and tear along the way. Not too much ache and pain though. However, looking at this picture captured by Irish Guy from his Round the World Trips at the Sri Mariamman Temple in Singapore makes my feet feel burned and sore. According to Irish Guy this fire-walking ceremony is a major event at this Hindu Festival where devotees honor the goddess Draupadi. After walking across the fiery coals without wincing or displaying any type of pain, they wade through goat’s milk and then stain their feet with yellow tumeric. I’m just glad that wasn’t a requirement for my tour across the U.S. Read more at Irish Guy’s photostream in our Gadling Flickr pool.
Photo of the Day (7/6/06)
Irish Guy has been posting a number of great shots of his trip around the world in our Gadling Flickr Pool. While this one wasn’t chosen for its technical expertise, it brought the type of smile to my face that only a strangely named shop, somewhere in Asia, can do. Of course, with Irish Guy being Irish, we all know why he took this shot.
Photo of the Day (7/05/06)
I love the unique perspective from which Irish Guy shot this photo of Sri Mariamman temple, apparently the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore. The colours are vibrant, and the detail perfect — and doesn’t it look like these Hindu deities are looking down at you from heaven?
If you’d like one of your travel photos to be featured in our Photo of the Day, be sure to visit our Flickr Pool, and upload your best shots there. Every day we’ll pick one to be featured here on Gadling.
Flying with Babies
Traveling with children can be Hell on two fronts; it makes your life miserable, as well as everyone else’s’ within ear shot of your wailing goober. While this can be slightly tolerable for short flights, what about the long hauls? Is there any way to minimize this hell over an extended period of time?
This question was addressed yesterday in a helpful column in The Independent (UK). A mother on the way to New Zealand asked for help in “easing the pain” and was given some decent advice about minimizing jet leg, and the best place to stop en route to break up the journey. It turns out that the Changi Airport in Singapore boasts two small playgrounds, a movie theater, swimming pool, gardens, and in-terminal hotels that charge cheap, hourly rates.
The author also highly recommends Singapore Airlines for such a journey. In addition to a staff trained to sooth and coddle babies (I kid you not), the airlines also allows families to pre-book the bulkhead seats while making reservations.
I don’t know about you, but the more child-friendly an airline becomes, the less likely I will want to fly on it without a child.
Space Tourism Training
If you thought
the 840-something vaccinations needed to go certain places in Asia and Africa was outrageous enough to keep you from
ever stepping foot on either continent or far too draining to endure before reaching the final destination imagine the
training involved before going into orbit. Seems many of you are rather excited and hopeful about touring the galaxy
one day when, say Richard
Branson’s Virgin Galactic drops prices to those similar to Southwest flights. That’s awesome! Rock on and good luck
to you.
My question now is are you cut out for it? You couldn’t have thought they were just going to seat you
in a shuttle and fling you out into the cosmos? Did you? I’m sure we mentioned this CNET news piece somewhere in the past,
but as a refresher I thought to mention again, just in case. For those seriously considering travel to space now is the
to start training and for that you may wish to travel to Singapore first.
A while
back Space Adventures announced its plans to build a space station on the small island nation with a Singapore-based
consortium. The space port will offer suborbital flights, operate astronaut training facilities and will also be an
educational visiting center for the public. Prospective space tourists can get a glimpse and understanding of the
forces experienced during the rocket launch. Medical and physical ability will be tested
and includes a simulated water landing. This is just the tip of the comet people, to see more of what’s require
check out this great photo gallery found on
CNET.