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Asian link list

Today I visited the NYT website for some of it´s asia related articles:

• Two days in Tokyo with frugal traveller on US$ 500
• Bejing choking on growth: environmental pollution may put the 2008 olympics at danger
• Winter fashion in Japan: a nice way to combine fashion with the view of japanese spa´s
• Hidden Tokyo: clubs you´ll never visit
• Losing an edge, Japanese envy India´s Schools

An interesting quote (from the frugal traveller) - after all, the NYT is a US newspaper:

But given today's strong euro, Tokyo can actually be less expensive than some major European cities (and even cheaper than New York)

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

On friday I did a short visit to the medieval town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria, Germany. Worth visiting: town hall square, buy some teddy bears, shop for Christmas souvenirs in June at Käthe Wohlfahrt and get some Schneeballen (4th photo below). Noticable: many japanese tourists and even japanese salesclerks. Enjoy the photos below!

Munich

Today. Spent the weekend in Munich visiting friends. It was great.

World

Horst has a great post asking visitors to post cities they visited in 2006:  This year in cities. Here´s what I added:

Vienna, Austria
Crakow, Poland
Tokyo, Japan
Yokohama, Japan
Kyoto, Japan
Himeji, Japan
Osaka, Japan (just a train station, though)
Hiroshima, Japan
Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan
Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan
Wakkanai, Hokkaido, Japan

airports: CDG, Paris, France; Narita, Japan and Vienna of course

Japan VR

Still now having returned fully - in my mind - from my trip to Japan, I´ve been looking for VR pictures from that great country. Here are a few from places I actually visited:

• Yokohama, Minato Mirai 21 area - at night: It really looks great. Too bad it was raining when I got there. At least I changed trains several times at nearby Yokohama train station.
• Himeji castle: you can actually click through the VR tour, but you can´t enter the inside of the castle. It´s difficult to find the way without being able to look up (and see the castle tower). 2nd image.
• Tokyo, Meiji Jingu and palace
• Several images from Nara - though I haven´t been there at night.

Finally, panorama journey has some great japanese panoramas too, but I could find any places I actually visited (found via QTVRDiary).

Go East

I will be offline for the next 3 weeks. Good-bye Europe, konnichi wa Japan.

No so bad

Visited countries in Europe:

Visited countries in the last 48 hours: Austria, Germany (map created by using this service)

Leaving LA, heading for NYC

Drive!. (via IT&W)

It seems as though this video is the product of some crazy high school student - but rather it´s Michael Gondry, who´s latest work is the fabulous masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And like some other work from him, this is also a music video - for the french artist Lacquer.

Polen

Andreas Haible auf Tour durch Polen. Schon Anfang Oktober, aber ich hab´s wohl übersprungen. Lesenswert.

Das polnische Fernsehen ist der Hammer. Es läuft gerade Nash Bridges oder so mit Don Johnson. Die amerikanische Sprachversion läuft leise im Hintergrund. Im Vordergrund, drübersynchronisiert der polnische Sprecher.

No skytrain ticket

highlyoverrated is blogging from Bangkok about the desperate attempt to keep a ticket from Bangkok´s skytrain (in German):

guter tipp auch mal an alle parkgaragen in oesiland / ich brauch das ticket nicht mehr, wenn ich die garage verlasse, also gleich einziehen, bei siemens anrufen wie das geht

Cool trend to blog from the holidays.

Vienna street music

Ralf Graf comments on street musicians while touring Vienna:

Und an jeder zweiten Ecke steht ein Straßenmusikant mit durchaus wechselhaftem Qualitätsniveau. Da kommt es dann auf die richtigen Marketing-Methoden an, die bezaubernde Cellistin im halbdurchsichtigen schwarzen Kleid hatte doch erheblich mehr Münzen im Kasten als die beiden Russen zwei Ecken weiter

At every second corner a street musician which varying quality level is standing. The right marketing matters, the cello playing woman in her half-transparent black dress had substantially more coins in the box than the two Russians two corners further.

Japan

In German: Die Zeit über Studiosus Young Line Japanreisen.

Bunt gemischt und im Badeanzug stieg man in das Männerbassin. Als ein nackter japanischer Herr das Bad betrat, schaute der etwas befremdet und wollte nur wissen, woher die werten Badegästee kämen.

Vienna

Mark Hemphill spent some days in Vienna and took a few pictures.

To nowhere and beyond

Cool!

Sweden

Dan Cederholm has posted pictures from his trip to Sweden. Ah, I love Sweden. Summer there´s great, if you like the sea and don´t depend on overly hot weather - it can be hot there too, but get´s colder in the evenings.

Unique Accomodations

This hotel has rather unusual rooms! Where? Of course - in Berlin.

Phrasebook

Useful translation for American travelers, well, unusual translations sort of:

There's a corpse on the bed. Please change the sheets.
Il y a un cadavre sur le lit. S'il vous plaît, faites changer les draps.
Hay un muerto en mi cama. Por favor, cambie las sábanas.
Da liegt eine Leiche auf dem Bett. Bitte wechseln sie die Laken.

plus:

I may be drunk, but tomorrow morning I shall be sober, and you will still be ugly.
Girls with big mazongas usually can't rhumba so well.
Well, you see, we thought at the time that a limited engagement in Vietnam was necessary to prevent the rise of Soviet Communism.

Crazy!

Enjoy the silence (part 2)

There´s some discussion on the web whether the story on motorcycling through Chernobyl is real or a fake as in this german article by Fiete Stegers. A short googling revealed a Wikipedia entry, though there isn´t much information: just her homepage, the original slashdot entry that started it all and a motorcycle forum thread. After some more googling I found another page mirroring an older version of the pages with more pictures of Elena and a blogger in contact with Elena (who refuses to reveal her email address).

Terra Lycos announced that Elena´s Angelfire Web site has become the most visited site among Angelfire member sites over the past four years. And you can also find her postal address: Ukraine 03187 Kiev-187 Zabolotnogo 20/A Post Box 25.

But some mystery remains unchallenged - like why did Elena blur something (and what!?) on the first picture on this page? Why was the contact information (WHOIS record) of the kidofspeed.com domain changed (with no real email address available there)? With whom is she traveling to the ghost town? Anyone eager to find out?

Music that inspired me while writing this post: Anastacia - Left outside alone.

Ultimate holidays

Looking for the trip destination for a holiday over easter? Here´s a selection of very good tropical island holiday resorts: The Residence on Mauritius is really nice, pricy, but not yet so crazy as the others: The One&Only Le Saint Géran, also on Mauritius, is even more exclusive, splendid, wonderful - rates for a junior suite in mid season (now) are 585 € (single) and 435 € (double) per person per day with breakfast and dinner. And if that´s not enough, check out Banyantree on the Seychelles - the Beachfront Spa Pool Villa costs now only € 1.400 (for 2 persons) including an american breakfast. Heck, it´s really beautiful!

Enjoy the silence!

Elena rides her motorcycle through Chernobyl and the ghost towns in that area:

This town might be an attractive place for tourists. Some tourists companies have been trying to arrange tours in this town, but the first group of tourists found the silence unnerving and downright SPOOKY. And it is. They charged 1200 hryvnas for a 2 hour excursion and after some 15 minutes, they wanted to flee to the outside world. The silence here is deafening.

(thanks KM)