Lomo in Paradise Island & Nassau, Bahamas

post from Ivan About Town on 17 January 2008 10:06:00 PM. © Ivan About Town

Since Nassau, Bahamas is sandwiched in between two of our great beaches, I'm posting photos taken by my younger sister Ria in Paradise Island and Lighthouse Beach in Nassau the other week. She writes, "The place looks like Pinas with the beach and the coconut trees everywhere. Well, the ocean was beautiful but rough. The waves were huge. The birds were flying so low that I could take a shot of them flying while my LC-A was on the 0.8 distance notch.[...]

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Boracay and Cebu top popular beaches list

post from Ivan About Town on 17 January 2008 09:29:00 PM. © Ivan About Town

Yahoo! Travel came out with a list called The Most Popular Beaches of 2007, the ten top-rated beach destinations by Yahoo! users last year. And look what we have here:1. Boracay Island, Philippines2. Nassau, The Bahamas3. Cebu, Philippines4. Phan Thiet, Vietnam5. Montego Bay, Jamaica6. Phuket, Thailand7. Cozumel, Mexico8. San Diego, California9. Honolulu, Hawaii10. San Juan, Puerto Rico[...]

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Ivatan joins Dinagyang to promote Batanes tourism

post from Philippines Travel Blog on 17 January 2008 09:10:38 PM. © Philippines Travel Blog

Being adjudged as the country?s best tourism event, Dinagyang Festival has attracted even the northernmost province of Batanes to have their place promoted by joining the celebration.Batanes Rep. Carlo Diasnes said bringing Tribu Ivatan to Iloilo City as one of the vying tribes in the Dinagyang competition is the best ?tourism vehicle? to promote the [...]

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Steps toward buying a property through a
fideicomiso trust

post from Living Without Borders on 17 January 2008 06:24:35 PM. © Living Without Borders

We’ve worked through a number of documents aimed at orienting and helping the people joining[...]

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Extreme Multi Jump Rope Challenge

post from Japan Probe on 17 January 2008 04:57:56 PM. © Japan Probe

The Haneru no Tobira guys clown around tying ridiculous amounts of jump ropes together. Anyone who fails to make three jumps will face the putrid breath of the spider women:

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Inventions & Visions of the Urban Future [The
Past Is Tomorrow]

post from Gridskipper on 17 January 2008 04:40:40 PM. © Gridskipper

Last week, I posted about a 1932 vision of future urban transit from Modern Mechanix, a site that posts old (1920s-1960s) magazine articles covering everything from strange predictions for the future to crazy "new" inventions like contact lenses and rear blinkers. I've been wading through the archives, and though I found a lot of disturbing and hilarious pieces about general life ("Proving Women Also Have Ideas", "Machinery to Eliminate Humans", "Death Chamber for Dogs is Built Into Truck"), what I was really searching for were pieces relating to urban life. The result is a collection of great city-themed stories of "new" inventions and predictions, explained and illustrated for your retro-nostalgic pleasure.

Magnets Drive High Speed Suspension Trains Thru Air (1931): Of course. It makes perfect sense. Trains are slowed down by all that friction from the wheels. This article posits that If you just get rid of the wheels and engines, and control trains instead with giant magnets, then you'll get a perfectly smooth and hyper-fast ride. Not quite maglev, but getting there.

Flying the Subway Express (1938): This piece explains to train buffs how the New York City subway works. The author also recommends enjoying your ride in the first subway car, where "an open doorway with guard-chains hung across it is all that stands between you and the stretch of gleaming track."

Propeller Driven Car Hangs From Monorail (1933): This is one of the scarier transportation proposals I've seen (published in Popular Science), only because these airplane-like cars attached to this suspended monorail are meant to go 155 m.p.h.

Future Cities (1927): This one is pure gold. If you have the patience, read through all three pages of their predictions for the year 2000, when cities will have 30 million people, moving sidewalks will be everywhere, and all apartments will be flat to accommodate personal airships.

Automatic Serving Counter for Lunch Rooms (1923): I know this is so hokey 1920s-style futuristic, but I think the idea is kind of cool. Customers write down their order, send it down to the kitchen, and the order is filled and sent up on a belt of some sort. It's like those sushi conveyor belt restaurants, but far less practical.

Ambulance Radio Controls Traffic (1948): This little article announces the invention of a transmitter between ambulances and lights, so instead of just using those useless sirens, ambulances can actually make lights turn green on their behalf. Sounds oh so incredibly dangerous.

Sectional Buses (1948): I'm not sure I get the point of this sectional bus -- where the front, driver's seat, and the back (where the engine is?) can all be removed. Whatever the advantage, I love the illustration.

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Berlin's Palast Dies a Slow, Ugly Death [Berlin]

post from Gridskipper on 17 January 2008 04:00:37 PM. © Gridskipper

berlin%20palast%20dies%20slow%20ugly%20death.jpg After more than 15 years on death row, the Palast der Republik really looks ready to breathe its last. But the final blow is now not set to be delivered until late in 2008. At a painfully slow pace, the eyesore that was the former East German parliament building is being demolished to make way for the reconstruction of part of a Prussian castle, the Berliner Schloss, that once stood in the platz. But looks can be deceiving.

Despite being ugly stepsister to the buildings of Museumsinsel and Unter den Linden, the Palast was once an important building, politically, culturally, and historically. And though not all former DDR citizens have warm fuzzy feelings toward the old governmental building, many actually do. In addition to serving an official purpose, the Palast was open to the public and contained auditoriums, restaurants, art galleries, and a bowling alley. So despite its political use, many former East Berliners feel that it embodied the idealism of a socialist state (minus the repressive regime, of course). Incidentally, if you want to get sentimental about it, this was also where the freely elected post-communist East German parliament voted in 1990 to reunite with the Bundesrepublik.

Many argue that, in the aftermath of reunification, the Palast didn't receive a fair trial. As the pride of East German architecture, the jury was biased against it from the start. The first push to tear down the "poisonous" Palast cited asbestos contamination as an irrefutable basis for the decision (though other asbestos-filled buildings in Berlin were cleaned and renovated -- discrediting the "that would be too expensive" argument, especially in light of the ?480 million price tag set for the new building). Then, in 1993-1994, the "aesthetic" camp erected a canvas version of the Schloss in the platz, just to illustrate how "pretty" and complete the city would look with a castle there (a blatant attempt by the prosecution to sway the jury). With the exception of a period during which contemporary art installations were staged there, the Palast stood deserted in the years to follow, like an invalid with a hopeless prognosis. The final indignity was how it was left cruddy and in disrepair for all to see.The Palast lost its final appeal in the summer of 2006, at which point the demolition began. Stripped of its walls, its naked frame now towers monstrously over a heap of rubble.

The popular arguments in favor of the planned "new" building, a partial reconstruction of a Prussian castle that was severely damaged during World War II and demolished in 1950, are that it will be "prettier" and that it will bring architectural unity to the platz. Sacrificing historic unity for aesthetics? This type of Disneyworldization doesn't just erase the East German era from the cityscape -- it also circumvents National Socialism by rebuilding the Berlin of Kaisers and castles. (This is certainly not an original argument; my ideas here are inspired by Brian Ladd's The Ghosts of Berlin).

Of consolation is the proposed use of the Schloss, once completed. As decided by the Deutsche Bundestag in 2002, the Humboldt-Forum will use the building to house collections from the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst; Humboldt-Uni and the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin will also get a chunk of the real estate.

If you want to pay your last respects to the Palast, you'll need to stop by sometime in 2008.

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Off the Grid 'In Bruges' [Sponsored]

Escape to Bruges, Belgium. World premiering as the prestigious opening night film at this year's Sundance Film Festival is the new movie from Academy Award Winning Director Martin McDonagh. Never heard of Bruges? Well, it's pronounced "broozh" (rhymes with "rouge"). This fairy-tale Flemish town, with its canals and bridges and old cobbled streets and swans, sets the scene for In Bruges, the irreverent new comedy from Focus Features. The film stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, and is out in select theaters February 8th.Bruges is the historic capital of the West Flanders region of Belgium, and is one of the country's most popular tourist destinations. The next time you are looking to plan an original and peaceful trip to Europe, consider visiting Bruges - just remember to leave your Uzis and Dum-dums at home. Click on each location to learn more about the best spots in the city and to uncover clips from the film!

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Off the Grid 'In Bruges' (Sponsored Post)
[Sponsored]

The following post is from our advertiser Focus Features: Escape to Bruges, Belgium. World premiering as the prestigious opening night film at this year's Sundance Film Festival is the new movie from Academy Award Winning Director Martin McDonagh. Never heard of Bruges? Well, it's pronounced "broozh" (rhymes with "rouge"). This fairy-tale Flemish town, with its canals and bridges and old cobbled streets and swans, sets the scene for In Bruges, the irreverent new comedy from Focus Features. The film stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, and is out in select theaters February 8th.

Bruges is the historic capital of the West Flanders region of Belgium, and is one of the country's most popular tourist destinations. The next time you are looking to plan an original and peaceful trip to Europe, consider visiting Bruges - just remember to leave your Uzis and Dum-dums at home. Click on each location to learn more about the best spots in the city and to uncover clips from the film!

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http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gridskipper/full/~3/219010843/off-the-grid-in-bruges-s
ponsored-post

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Family adventure holidays

I know from experience that finding the right family holiday can be hard. The Adventure Company have a great range of holidays for active families including their new range of Teenage Adventures. There are many adventure tours from which to choose such as Slovenian Winter Adventures in the Tatras mountains, Walking with Mules in Switzerland, [...]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/europealacarte/~3/218451351/

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