Unique Places to stay Little petra Bedouin camp
, , , , , ,

7 unique places to stay in the world

From a kitschy throwback hotel in North Korea to a nudist B&B in Portugal, we found a few unique places to stay in the world. Here are some of our favorites: 1) Little Petra Bedouin Camp, Jordan The Little Petra Bedouin Camp…
, , , ,

Don’t drink from the toilet!—and other odd signs around the world

We've come across some unusual signs in our journey. Some funny signs caution people about not doing things that would seem to be self-evident. Like the sign posted above. It's in the bathrooms at the Adelaide Airport in Australia. Not that…
Kim Il Sung mausoleum Pyongyang
, ,

Visiting the mausoleums of Mao, Ho and Kim

Communist governments feel compelled to preserve the corpses of their founders and keep them on display for public viewing. It's their way of sustaining the cult of personality that keeps the current regimes in place. In the past…
Singapore skyline
, , ,

Rooms with a view

We've generally rented apartments with some hotels thrown in. A few of them have had incredible views of either city scenes or country landscapes. The picture above is the view from our flat of the Sky Tower in Auckland. This being New…

Surviving the air pollution in Beijing

Yesterday over two hundred flights were cancelled at Beijing’s airport due to smoggy skies from China air pollution. The air was so bad it wasn’t safe to fly. Like many things in China the truth behind the shutdown remains elusive. One news…

The Great Wall of China minus the tourist hordes

The Great Wall of China is one of the most popular sites on earth. Movies like The Bucket List reinforce it as a must-see place to visit. It was also high on our list of the best places to visit in China, but we wanted to avoid the crowds of…
,

Airing our dirty laundry in China

Before we left for a year one of our friends asked us what we would do about our laundry. Since our first month was in China we figured finding a laundry wouldn't be a problem. We were wrong. By the time we arrived in Shanghai three weeks into…

Sizing up the Shanghai skyline

The Shanghai skyline reveals the city's unrelenting growth. A taxi ride from the airport shows hundreds of bright yellow and red construction cranes whirling about its skyline. The parade of skyscrapers is measured not in blocks but in miles.…
,

Would you eat this?

Part the fun in visiting different countries is trying new foods we haven’t heard of or can’t find at home. Sometimes though, something gets lost in translation from the kitchen to the menu. Here are a few items we saw on our trip to…
Moped in Beijing

Run, don’t walk, in Beijing

Crossing over to the other side is usually a term that refers to dying, to seeing the bright white light at the other end of the proverbial tunnel. In Beijing it may just as well refer to crossing over to the other side of the street, a procedure…
,

A calm haven in frenzied Beijing

Published on Sun, Oct. 9, 2011 in The Philadelphia Inquirer     By Larissa and Michael Milne For The Inquirer BEIJING - It was a late-summer day, and the air was thick with the combination of humidity and smog particular to this capital…
,

A slice of home in Hong Kong

Since I grew up in New York I admit that I am somewhat picky about my pizza. I also had the added benefit of a Sicilian grandfather who ran a bakery on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Every Saturday he made the pizza that he…

Seeking the Yao Ming of baseball in China

I was riding on the new high-speed train connecting Beijing and Shanghai when I met Zhao Long, a sports reporter for China Central Television (CCTV). He was heading to Changzhou to cover the opening of a baseball academy which was…
Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center
,

Food tips in a Shanghai taxi

It was a dreary, rainy day and we were sitting in a taxi that was stuck in traffic on the way to the Shanghai airport.  A car breakdown had caused the traffic to flow to the pace of a toddler. As the minutes ticked by we worried that…

The skyscraper race in Shanghai

When Larissa visited Shanghai five years ago the tallest building in town was the Jin Mao Tower, designed to resemble a pagoda it was the tallest building in China. She marveled at the view from the 88th floor observation deck. But five…
,

Book Reviews: Lost on Planet China and China Road

Lost On Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation By J. Maartin Troost   Lost On Planet China by J. Maartin Troost is one Westerner's take on the riddle of modern China. The…