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HongKong posts
Video of the Day - Hong Kong Honey
Sep 20th, 2011 at 5:00PM:
Having spent six months in Hong Kong in 2009, I thought I knew the city fairly well at the end of my stay. I could navigate the night markets, had committed the sleek metro system to memory and even attended a few local weddings. But there was one facet of the city that I was completely oblivious to; Hong Kong's beekeepers.
Hidden among the thousands of rooftops that comprise Hong Kong's ...
Sotheby's: the museum where you can buy the art
Sep 4th, 2011 at 2:00PM: Have you ever looked at a work of art hanging on a museum wall and thought, "That would look great in my living room"? Well, at one of the best "museums" in London you really can take it home with you.
Sotheby's is London's oldest auction house, and has been a London institution since 1744. They sell everything from fine art to vintage wine to antique furniture. While most items are beyond the ...New world's tallest building planned for Saudi Arabia
Aug 3rd, 2011 at 2:00PM: Less than two years after the Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai, Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has announced a new world's tallest building to be built on the Red Sea resort town of Jeddah. The Saudi building is planned to be 172 meters (564 feet) taller than the Burj and will stand at 1,000 meters or 3,281 feet. It will be part of the $20 billion "megadevelopment" Kingdom City and will ...Traveler Q & A: Pavia Rosati
Aug 2nd, 2011 at 9:30AM: Pavia Rosati is the founder of Fathom, a recently debuted travel website. Fathom is smart and beautifully designed. It's full of exciting short briefs about various destinations across the globe.
Rosati, as you'll see from her answers below, is an experienced editor and an avid traveler. Her enthusiasm for Fathom's subject matter is palpable and infectious. We love Fathom and can't wait to see ...Top ten most crowded islands in the world
Jul 7th, 2011 at 12:30PM:
From an island microslum in Colombia to a haute enclave in central Paris, the ten most crowded islands in the world bear scant similarities in class or culture. In fact, every entry in the top ten comes from a different country. But being islands, each shares the common thread of scarcity - whether it be land, resources, or housing. In general, these islands are prophetical microcosms for an ...Gallery: More travel sketches from BBC's Tim Baynes
May 18th, 2011 at 3:00PM:
We wrote yesterday about Tim Baynes' delightful travel sketches from around the world on BBC and liked them so much we came back for more. You can (and should!) get lost for hours looking at his drawings on Flickr with fun anecdotes and scribbles bringing depth and humor to his slice-of-life artwork.
Check out some of our favorites in the gallery below, from a look inside the BBC Starbucks to ...Pop-up restaurants: dining for a new decade
Apr 28th, 2011 at 1:30PM: First, it was underground supper clubs. Now, everything's coming up pop-ups. As with food trucks, this form of guerrilla cheffing borne of economic need has become a global phenomenon. Equal parts dinner party and dinner theater, a pop-up refers to a dining establishment that is open anywhere from one to several nights, usually in an existing restaurant or other commercial food establishment.
...Watch out, obnoxious passengers! Kung fu lessons for Hong Kong Airlines cabin crew
Apr 21st, 2011 at 3:00PM: Working as part of an airline cabin crew can be a tough job, just ask Gadling's very own Heather Poole. Passengers get drunk, passengers get rude, sometimes even passengers go on strike. Now the cabin crew of one airline are getting trained to strike back.
Hong Kong Airlines staff are taking kung fu lessons, the Guardian reports. The cabin crew is learning Wing Chun kung fu in order to deal ...Cruise ships on the move as traveler demand changes
Apr 20th, 2011 at 7:00AM: It was not all that long ago that cruise lines were boasting massive deployment to European waters for 2012 and into 2013. Now, it appears those waters across the pond might not be quite as attractive as at least one cruise line thought. Royal Caribbean is bringing one of their ships back to the U.S. On the other hand, some lines are expanding even beyond Europe as Celebrity Cruises heads to ...Top 10 Hong Kong experiences
Mar 31st, 2011 at 10:00AM:
Hong Kong is all about balance. Nature and steel. Silt and sparkle. Yin and Yang. This masterpiece of divergences is a Feng shui city bereft of boring angles or a predictable head turn. Spicy aromas billow from a flaming street wok. An animated hawker peddles jade from a humble stoop, his wispy beard blowing in a gust from a passing double-decker. In a corner office sixty floors up, a suited ...Useful foreign phrases, Part 1: how to say, "I'm just looking" in 10 languages
Mar 24th, 2011 at 12:00PM: I've frequently pimped Lonely Planet's Phrasebooks on this site, but I swear I don't get kickbacks from the company. It's just that I'm a big believer in not being a). A Tourist (although, let's face it, if I'm not at home, I am indeed A Tourist) and b). helpless.
Even if you're the biggest xenophobe on earth--which would make foreign travel a really weird and pointless pastime you might want ...What are the top five cities for business travel?
Mar 21st, 2011 at 2:00PM: Some cities are better for doing business than others, it seems. Of course, business travelers (well, professionals in general) all have their preferences. Having done my time in Omaha, Winnipeg and London (Ontario), I can tell you that some places are better than others. So, I was pretty excited to see think tank Z/Yen put out its Global Financial Centres Index (PDF), which shows the top five ...Top 20 countries for life expectancy
Mar 21st, 2011 at 10:00AM:
"Old people" - we all hope to live long enough to earn this distinction. In some countries, the probability of living well into your eighties is much better than in others. The worldwide average for life expectancy is just a smidge over 67, with the highest and lowest countries fluctuating by over 20 years in each direction. 39 of the bottom 40 countries are located on the African continent, ...Fine Dining in Hong Kong: Mandarin Grill + Bar at Mandarin Oriental
Feb 3rd, 2011 at 10:15PM: If you keep up on celebrity chef buzz, you might remember hearing something about a certain renowned chef who recently aired his laundry at the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong.
Famed chef, Thomas Keller, brought his signature three-Michelin-starred cuisine from The French Laundry in Napa to Hong Kong, wherein lucky diners were able to meet him and witness his culinary talents firsthand. The price ...Chinese New Year: Fun ways to celebrate the ancient tradition
Feb 1st, 2011 at 3:00PM:
Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. Known as "Spring Festival," the festival begins on the first day of the first month in the traditional Chinese calendar and ends with Lantern Festival, celebrated on the 15th day.
This year, the year of the Rabbit, is said to be a more peaceful and placid year offering a nice break from the fast-paced year of the ...Foods of Chinese New Year, Hong Kong-style
Jan 27th, 2011 at 1:30PM: The Chinese are the butt of a lot of jokes for their propensity to eat "anything." While a wee bit of an exaggeration, it's true that the national diet is more diverse than that of the Western world. The combination of thousands of years of poverty, numerous wars, the rather imperial tastes of various ruling dynasties, thousands of miles of coastline, and a diverse geographical and climatic ...Video: Alain Robert - "French Spiderman" climbs 450-foot bank building - with his bare hands
Jan 26th, 2011 at 2:45PM:
Scared of heights? Then you most likely won't be following in the footsteps of Frenchman Alain Robert. Watch this video of the " French Spiderman" climbing the outside of the 450-foot tall Hang Seng bank building in Hong Kong.
He's climbing without any special gear, no ropes, no parachute, and the only thing on the ground floor that will break his fall is the asphalt.
Robert has climbed ...
Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong closes out 2010 with 'quirky' stats from spa, restaurants
Dec 31st, 2010 at 12:00PM: There's more to hotels than guest rooms and bars. The people behind the scenes - from the food and beverage staff to the spa therapists and general management - work to make your stay special. But did you ever stop to wonder just what they do when they're planning their daily guest check-ins?
I checked in with my friends at the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, to see how their year shaped up and ...Daily Pampering: Reidel Room at JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong
Dec 14th, 2010 at 4:00PM: What's better than a night of fine wine and cocktails? An evening of fine wine and cocktails served in some of the best crystal stemware available.
With around 40 wines to choose from by the glass and 170 by the bottle, the world's only Reidel Room at the JW Marriott Hong Kong ups the experience of a night out for wine lovers by offering pours in top-line Riedel crystal glassware. The elegance ...Lady Gaga now a waxwork model at eight Madame Tussauds museums
Dec 10th, 2010 at 10:30AM: Ah, Lady Gaga, what would we do without your telephone hats and nude suits?
Now the famous wax museum Madame Tussauds has unveiled Lady Gaga models at eight of their branches: London, New York, Las Vegas, Hollywood, Amsterdam, Berlin, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
The figure at the London branch has the crazy suit shown here: a telephone hat designed by Philip Treacy and a midnight-blue Armani ...
