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- 10 hostel mates you meet in hell
- Myungwolgwan restaurant: Home of the fanciest (and most expensive) Korean barbecue
- Most unusual, over-the-top hotel amenities
- Huge, huger, hugest: Shanghai skyscrapers walking tour
- So kneady: Thailand takes mass-massage record
- Is the party over in Vang Vieng?
- IFC Mall opens in Seoul
- Sento spectacular -- Tokyo's amazing public baths
- 9 places to go native
- Airline's food costs more than the flight
- The secret confessions of hotel employees
- 7 sci-fi innovations that will change travel
- How to travel with your dog
- 7 hotels that changed China
- World to tourists: 'Stop stealing everything!'
- Eating on Victoria Harbour: Hong Kong's most buoyant dinner
- Europe's most valuable monuments
- Kawagoe: The 'most Japanese' destination of all
| 10 hostel mates you meet in hell Posted: 31 Aug 2012 03:00 PM PDT by Jordan Burchette, Jane Leung Hostels are great places to cultivate friendships and share your experiences abroad. It's just a shame you can't always choose your neighbors. No matter where you are, you'll yearn to be any place else. Meet the 10 people you never want to find sleeping above or below your bed. Also on CNNGo: World's best tourists 1. The one-man eating band
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| Myungwolgwan restaurant: Home of the fanciest (and most expensive) Korean barbecue Posted: 30 Aug 2012 08:37 PM PDT by Frances Cha Myongwolgwan, the Korean barbecue restaurant at the Sheraton Grande Walkerhill Seoul, is an unusual establishment for a number of reasons. First, it is the only Korean barbecue house run by a luxury hotel in Seoul. In general, Korean luxury hotels rarely house Korean restaurants, and while this has been criticized often in the local press, the Korean hotel dining scene continues to cater more toward locals (and international guests) who prefer Western, Chinese or Japanese cuisine when it comes to finer dining.
The menu too, gets quite creative for a barbecue joint, which may have been one of the reasons why the place was voted No. 1 in the Korean cuisine category in the 2010 Zagat Guide to Seoul restaurants. read more    |
| Most unusual, over-the-top hotel amenities Posted: 30 Aug 2012 11:40 AM PDT by Pam Grout Private pools, flatscreen TVs, mega liquor bottles. Been there, seen it, drunk that. Hotel amenities these days are as much a ploy to get you to gush about them to your friends back home as they are to make your stay comfortable. This list of over-the-top hotel amenities is worth bringing up because each is a rare one-off, not available in all sizes. 1. Choice of 20 Fender guitars
Who needs an in-room iPod, when you can make your own music on one of 20 Fender guitars available for free at Chicago's Hard Rock Hotel? read more    |
| Huge, huger, hugest: Shanghai skyscrapers walking tour Posted: 30 Aug 2012 09:10 AM PDT by Casey Hall Some travelers love a walk in the woods; others prefer to stroll among a gleaming forest of skyscrapers. For the latter, Shanghai is likely the best destination in the world. The city's Lujiazui district is a wonder of urban development, with scores of impressive towers arranged like a phalanx of steel-and-glass sentinels. Taking a few hours to wander around and up Shanghai's most impressive skyscrapers is one of the city's most irresistible adventures. Our guide to the Shanghai skyscraper walking tour is Wang Fei (王飞), principal architect with Atelier Ten and an urban image theorist. Wang, 32, also teaches at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou and University of Hong Kong Shanghai Study Center. read more    |
| So kneady: Thailand takes mass-massage record Posted: 30 Aug 2012 01:56 AM PDT Guinness World Records can be baffling (most toilet seats broken by the head) or worthy (fastest hurdles wearing swim fins). But none is more impressive for a weary traveler than a mass-massaging world record. The latest has been taken by a group of 641 masseurs in Thailand, who massaged 641 people simultaneously for 12 minutes on August 30, 2012. The most impressive part of the event was arguably the absence of any string-vested tourists with gnarled toenails and salacious grins, whom you might expect to be the first volunteers when free Thai massages are being given out. This event however took place in the clinical setting of the Thailand Medical Hub Expo 2012, at the Impact Mueangthong Arena in Bangkok. Both the expo and event are supported by Thailand's Ministry of Public Health and presided by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. read more    |
| Is the party over in Vang Vieng? Posted: 29 Aug 2012 09:53 PM PDT by CNNGo staff Drugs, alcohol, loud music and crazy games on the river. Laos' notorious party town Vang Vieng may sound like a teenager's holiday heaven, but it's become too much for the country's authorities. Officials are clamping down on Vang Vieng's hedonistic ways, shutting 24 riverside entertainment venues "being operated in contravention of regulations, including the provision of unsafe drinks to customers, while some also had no business licenses," reports the Vientiane Times. The English-language newspaper said the closures follow the findings of a task force made up of senior tourism, health and public security officials. The group was sent to Vang Vieng to refocus the popular tourist destination following reports of problems in the district, from bars openly selling cocktails made with hallucinogenic mushrooms to several tourist deaths. "We have set ourselves the target to bring a new face to Vang Vieng district by October," said the leader of the task force, Boualy Milattanapheng. read more    |
| Posted: 29 Aug 2012 03:20 PM PDT by Frances Cha Seoul's Yeouido financial district finally offers major shopping and entertainment in the midst of all those shiny skyscrapers, in the form of the new US$2.2-billion IFC Mall Seoul. The mall opens today following its final few days of frenzied construction. The self-proclaimed "first international-style shopping mall in Korea" is one of the most ambitious retail projects in Korea in recent years, with 100 brands spread out over three lower levels totaling 40,000 square meters of floor space. In addition to Korea's first Hollister store and a Banana Republic flagship store, the mall also houses a nine-theater CGV complex, 35 new restaurants and the first Apple outlet (Frisbee) in southwest Seoul. Developed by AIG Global Real Estate Development in conjunction with Seoul City and operated by Taubman Asia, the mall is part of the larger IFC project, which includes two office towers and Conrad Seoul Hotel, which is slated to open in November. read more    |
| Sento spectacular -- Tokyo's amazing public baths Posted: 29 Aug 2012 03:00 PM PDT by Mark Buckton Does the thought of getting nude with the neighbors or starkers with strangers in your local sento, or public bath, raise a smile or make you cringe? Whatever your personal take, most reading this will be aware the process of bathing in true Japanese form has long been a communal, often social, activity. Even so, it's still one part of traditional life that can put some visitors, and nowadays Japanese too, on edge. Still, if you're not too far on the shy side, we recommend you swallow your pride, understand that your own bits and pieces are of little interest to anyone else and take off the towel. Then and nowTo most Japanese people, sento are a thing of the past, born of an era when houses did not have their own bathrooms in the decades and centuries up to around 1970. read more    |
| Posted: 29 Aug 2012 11:40 AM PDT by Daisy Liu Can a tourist's experience ever be truly authentic? If you talk with the locals, share their cuisine, and, heaven forbid, even do a little work while you're traveling, you can get pretty close. Many tour companies out there make an effort to submerge their guests in a local culture, sharing stories, sampling the food and practicing traditional customs. Some of these programs also help to boost rural development and raise awareness of environmental sustainability. 1. Stay with an Amazon tribe, Ecuador
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| Airline's food costs more than the flight Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:22 PM PDT by Zoe Li Frugal passengers determined to save money may want to pack their own lunchboxes, especially if they've booked with Ryanair. A meal onboard the no-frills Irish airline can cost more than the airfare, a new study by travelsupermarket.com shows. The survey found that some budget airlines marked up their food and drink as much as 10 times the price at supermarkets. Still water on Aer Lingus was marked up 1,083 percent. But Ryanair was the worst overall offender. The Dublin-based airline is famed for its innovative approach to making a profit -- see their 5 money-saving schemes that would impress Scrooge. When passengers are held hostage 37,000 feet aloft aboard Ryanair, they are charged £2.76 (US$4.36) for a half-liter bottle of still water. read more    |
| The secret confessions of hotel employees Posted: 28 Aug 2012 03:10 PM PDT What happens when someone asks hotel staff to share "things that are disturbing/interesting/unsanitary about hotel rooms" on user-generated news site Reddit? "I'm a bellman and valet at a resort. I can give you free water bottles, tampons, valet parking, tours, shuttle rides, reservations, dry cleaning, hell even an upgrade to a better room if you just ASK ME. But no one ever does because they think I'm just a doorman. Oh and room service isn't open all night so the kitchen cooks meals (like sandwiches and dessert and what not) and leaves them in a fridge near the front desk in case a guest checks in at like three in the morning and wants food. Anyways in the morning there's just free food sitting there, every morning I get a free cheesecake if I want, but the guest could have it if he or she asked." "For the slower hotel goers. Do Not Disturb signs on a door most certainly means you will not get housekeeping service at any point during the day. I don't know how many people I have had to tell this to." "I worked at a hotel with a few friends of mine while at university. The biggest thing I found out while working there was that six months previously, a guest had hanged himself in one of the rooms and was found by the cleaner. From what I gather, the hotel was particularly empty at the time anyway and it was mid-afternoon, so they did their best to keep it quiet. The police arrived with the appropriate people, took away the body, without any guest having the faintest idea what was going on. It never even appeared in local news." 10. Timing read more    |
| 7 sci-fi innovations that will change travel Posted: 28 Aug 2012 03:01 PM PDT by Hoishan Chan You may recall from January a story about a Canadian man who was able to cross the U.S. border using a scan of his passport on his iPad. Turns out that wasn't entirely true, as he also had his birth certificate and driver's license on him. Nevertheless, it's assumed this kind of digital identification will be part of the future of travel, just as some airlines already allow digital boarding passes on smartphones. More high-tech innovations that appear beyond reality now could soon become standard. Here are seven innovations that could just change, even enhance, the travel experience. 1. Driverless carsAutoNOMOS Labs tested its first driverless car in Berlin in September 2011. A similar project has persuaded the State of Nevada to allow Google to test its autonomous cars on Nevada roads. read more    |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:40 AM PDT by Karla Cripps
Out the hotel's back entrance, stainless steel dog bowls filled with fresh water are set out to rehydrate tired pets returning from brisk walks in the mountain air. Long gone are the days when pet owners were banished to grim roadside motels with their contraband canines. Thanks to a surge in the number of pet-friendly hotels, airlines with pet-friendly policies and pet immigration guidelines to facilitate international travel, more people than ever are taking their dogs overseas with them. "I travel with my dog everywhere," says TV's "Dog Whisperer," Cesar Millan. "It's the right thing to do. In Mexico, we went to the market -- dogs follow. Went to school -- dogs follow." read more    |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2012 10:00 AM PDT by Steve Bellman Hotels, in the Western sense, are a relatively new addition to China -- the oldest still standing only date back about 150 years. But in that time, they have formed the backdrop to many turbulent moments in China's modern history. Here are the hotels where you can still stay, and the history they've witnessed. The Astor Hotel, Tianjin
However, the eight-story, 152-room establishment also witnessed some of the final grand days of China's last emperor, Pu Yi (爱新觉罗•溥仪). read more    |
| World to tourists: 'Stop stealing everything!' Posted: 27 Aug 2012 09:58 PM PDT by CNNGo staff Travel guides and websites are filled with advice for tourists on how not to get ripped off when visiting the world's great attractions. But maybe it's the attractions that need tips on not getting pilfered by tourists. From pieces of the Great Wall to live penguins, travelers looking for unique souvenirs will stuff almost anything they can into their luggage. The latest uproar over theft of a public attraction comes from Boracay Island in the Philippines, where the magnificent white beach sands are suffering "blatant extraction" at the hands of the kinds of tourists that give the rest of us a bad name. Responding to the threat to its most valuable natural resource, local officials passed an ordinance last week that greatly toughens the existing law for being caught carting off sand or pebbles from the Philippines' top tourist destination. read more    |
| Eating on Victoria Harbour: Hong Kong's most buoyant dinner Posted: 27 Aug 2012 03:00 PM PDT by Zoe Li I'm on a boat in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour with a spread of crab, clam and noodles in front of me giving off maddening smells. It's quiet. There are other diners on other boats around us, but they are far enough that we can only hear murmurs. The temperature tonight is mild and there is a harbor breeze. The boat rocks gently like a baby's cradle. I can't remember the last time a restaurant in Hong Kong made me feel so physically relaxed. We're at Shun Kee, a floating restaurant made up of wooden boats in Causeway Bay's typhoon shelter, a protective area for vessels during a storm. read more    |
| Europe's most valuable monuments Posted: 27 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT by Raemin Zhang
If you thought people traveled to Paris for the romance and the café culture, you may need to think again. A new study has found that the Eiffel Tower is Europe's most valuable monument, worth US$544 billion to the French economy, nearly a fifth of the country's gross domestic product. That's substantially more than Rome's Colosseum (US$114 billion) in second place, and more than the other six European monuments included in the study combined. They included the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona and the Tower of London. The study, conducted by Italy's Monza and Brianza Chamber of Commerce, found the monetary value of monuments according to their "image, branding and aesthetic qualities," combining the results of 10 other studies and statistical analyses. read more    |
| Kawagoe: The 'most Japanese' destination of all Posted: 27 Aug 2012 12:00 PM PDT by Mike Nakada Tight streets lined with gabled buildings and tiled roofs -- it's an image many visitors, particularly those of an older, pre-Pokémon vintage, hope to find when they come to Japan for the first time. Sadly, with most Japanese cities having the architectural appeal of a pile of gray cardboard boxes, it's an image they never truly find. The truth, however, really is out there. It lies not in Kyoto, Nara or any of the other celebrated "historic" towns, but in a little city right on the doorstep of Tokyo. Kawagoe City in Saitama Prefecture has preserved an area of streets lined on both sides with buildings that look like they've been taken straight from a samurai period drama. read more    |
Myongwolgwan has a garden with a spectacular view of the Han River, a main hall and a second hall, with a total seating of 700. 
Strings attached.
"Can't wait to write about what just happened on Reddit tonight ..."
Don't deprive your dog of the opportunity to dress up in tacky tourist outfits. Take him on holiday with you. At the five-star Fairmont Whistler Hotel in British Columbia, cocker spaniels, golden retrievers and even German shepherds can be seen strutting through the hallways with their owners. 
Imagine tangoing with China's last emperor in this very ballroom.
The Eiffel Tower: the most visited paid-for tourist attraction in the world. | You are subscribed to email updates from CNNGo.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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