Seattle Nice
Posted by admin on July 30th, 2010 filed in Travel
It’s one of the loveliest cities in the country, and it has a pretty solid reputation in the rest of the world as well. Visiting Seattle and living here are two different things, many people might tell you.
But the truth is, they’re really not that different. It’s fairly subtle, like the rain, where the gradations in intensity might be apparent to a long-term resident, but to most folks it’s just misty and it smells nice here. In fact, it is nice here. There’s a phenomenon in these parts known as Seattle Nice , and it might be something only people who move here encounter in any extended and noticeable way.
Weekenders and those in town for trips, staying at Seattle business hotels sometimes only get a taste of the city’s posh downtown areas. There’s a lot more to it, as is true of any city. But here, when someone moves to town, it doesn’t take more than a week or so to realize that this is a nice place.
People do wait at four-way stops in Seattle , and it’s not like other cities where people will take the initiative. They wait. They want to make sure they give you the chance to go first. It’s almost as if they behave like they have time.
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Historical Dining Spots in Phoenix
Posted by admin on July 27th, 2010 filed in Travel
Every city has its legendary places to dine and Phoenix sure does has its own. It is always so much fun to find the local history intertwined with your dining experience. The best hotels in phoenix can direct you to some of the cities cherished dining establishments.
Everyone has to eat at Durants while in Phoenix. This restaurant has been a local staple since 1950. If you wanted to find the traveling entertainment in the 50s at dinner time, this is were you would find them, chatting over martini’s. You enter in the back door and through the kitchen. They seat you in one of the red booths next to the red velvet walls and serve up some excellent fine dining meals.
Another fun stop for a more casual lunch is at Mac Alpines Soda Fountain on 7th Street. You will be walking back into the 1920 when you step into the place. They are serving up every kind of soda fountain ever created. The old fashioned milk shakes are amazing and the kids are going to have fun with the candy selection.
Other notable historical restaurants and cafes in Phoenix include El Chorro Lodge in Scottsdale, the Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix, Monti’s La Casa Vieja on Mill in Tempe, Sockyards Restaurant and 1889 Saloon and Trader Vic’s in Scottsdale. They all carry a unique piece of Phoenix history.
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San Diego Live Music
Posted by admin on July 24th, 2010 filed in Travel
There are plenty of great things to do during the day while visiting San Diego California. You can find lots of tours either of the landmarks or the ocean islands. The other party of a good vacation is what sort of fun you will have at night. San Diego has some great restaurants, clubs and bars. Live music is on fire when the sun goes down.
Don’t just sleep the night away in the 5 star hotels san diego California has, get out and see some live music every night. There are many great live music clubs featuring all styles of music, most nights of the week.
You want to check out a place called Belly Up which has been voted a best club to see live music many times in its long history in San Diego. The host the best acts from all styles of music every night but Monday.
Other great music clubs include Humphrey’s Back Stage, House of Blues and Croce’s. Each has its own unique style and lots of entertainment to enjoy. So if you have four nights for music in San Diego, than you have four different great clubs to hear it all.
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Festivals and Other Fun Stuff to Do in San Diego
Posted by admin on July 21st, 2010 filed in Travel
San Diego is most known for its beautiful beaches and is famous for Sea World, which are probably the two most popular attractions for guests in the best resorts San Diego . However, the city actually has a great number of interesting cultural attractions and is a thriving and progressive urban community. It is the smallest of the three main California coastal cities thought it is not small on culture and entertainment offerings. Tourists are frequently surprised to find out the city is not limited to a great beach community, though that most certainly exists there. San Diego also has an incredible night life and club scene, which is extremely popular not only with the residents but also with most tourists.
There are numerous great restaurants located throughout the city and they represent food genres from around the world. San Diego also has great festivals and fairs that take place throughout the year. This is one of the benefits of existing in Southern California, outdoor activities and events are not restricted to specific seasons. Some of the city’s famous festivals are coming up next month and they include the La Jolla Music Society SummerFest , which will begin on August 6 and last through most of the month, concluding on the 29th. The US Open Sandcastle Competition only lasts three days, it begins on August 6th, though it is one of the most mainstream popular events that occurs in the city. The dynamically designed and intricately developed castles attract attention from around the world.
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Cape Town: Coffee or Tea?
Posted by admin on July 17th, 2010 filed in Travel
The history of South Africa plays out in the present in Cape Town, where the multiple indigenous cultures here, along with British and Dutch presence, makes for a lively scene any day of the week. It’s also a particularly exciting city, and this brings in influences from all the other corners of the earth. While many come to Cape Town wondering what the locals drink in the morning, coffee or tea, the answer is actually both.
It doesn’t matter what one’s preference might be, because the local restaurants and hotels in Cape Town will offer plenty of choices for the early pickup. There are plenty of high teas that are offered throughout the city, for a taste of colonial style served up with all the right manners. There are also specialty shops, like the Tea Emporium , where locals can sample and purchase their teas in the way they’re meant to be enjoyed.
Tea culture isn’t as deeply ingrained here as it is in other countries that bear the influences of the British empire. There are many coffee joints that will gladly pour espresso that tastes as good as it can get. Roasters like Origin Coffee provide fresh beans roasted on the spot for an even more delicious cup. No one will go sleepy in Cape Town, that’s for sure.
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Costumes and Masks
Posted by admin on July 13th, 2010 filed in entertainment
There are few things that are really universal about human behavior, and most of the things that all people have in common come up when they start to play. Taking on roles comes easy, even to young children, and that explains some of the appeal of wearing theatre costumes . There are many cases where it’s a formal occasion, such as attending a party or a dinner, and of course, putting together a play, when a costume is necessary. It always seems to bring out the inner child in people, however, to put on a costume and mask and become someone else.
The origin of masks precedes the theatre of ancient Greece by far, and probably exists somewhere in the origins of all human civilizations. It was formalized in that very theatre, however, coming directly from the rites of Dionysus . Participants would don masks to show states of trance, or other alterations in the personality. Its effect when it came to the stage was immediate, and very powerful. As the theatre tradition grew, so did the methods of mask making. Today, the craftspeople making masks and costumes for performance use very sophisticated means, with new technologies, to participate in an art, and an impulse, that is itself very, very old.
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Fun Activities in Grand Prairie Texas
Posted by admin on July 2nd, 2010 filed in Travel
There are some fun things to do in Grand Prairie that will get your whole family out for the day. There is nothing like spending time out on the lake and Grand Prairie has the Joe Pool Lake to splash away in. There are some beach areas to set up your day camp and check in for some swimming and tanning. There is a play ground for the littler kids to play like monkeys. If you have a boat, you can bring it along, drop it in and spend the day touring the 7,500 acre lake. Drop a fishing pole in from boat or shore and see what you might catch. Take an afternoon hike around the lake and do some bird watching.
For some local history find your way to the Dr. H.V. Copeland Home Museum. Your going to have to get directions and information from one of the hotels grand prairie has available to see this turn of the century farm house. It was occupied by the town doctor who kept his long medical practice going for five decades. He delivered most of the town and now his home and life story are a state landmark.
To get more thrills in the area check out Hurricane Harbor a Six Flags adventure for all the thrill seekers in the family. This water park is guaranteed to cool you off in the hot summer sun.
The night time has even more things to add to to day. Find your way to the Nokia Theatre , which is now called the Verizon Theatre, and see what amazing act is being featured while you are in town. They showcase everything from comedy, theatre, dance and concerts to entertain the area. I sure hope there is something great going on while you are in town because the theatre is a fun experience.
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There is More Than Great Art in West Palm Beach Museums
Posted by admin on July 1st, 2010 filed in Travel
Whether your stay in the West Palm Beach area of Florida is of a personal or business nature there is plenty to see and do while you are there. Through the summer months be aware that the temperature can range from very warm to hot. Summer is also the time of year that the area receives the most rainfall. Should your trip to West Palm Beach be in the summer don’t let the weather stop you from enjoying all the fun and exciting things the area has to offer. If your interest is in museums, West Palm Beach has everything ranging from converted mansions to maritime and science museums, as well as art and history museums.
Co-founder of Standard Oil Company Henry Flagler’s turn of the last century Whitehall mansion is today’s Flagler Museum. What was once a grand 55,000 square foot home now houses a valuable collection of turn of the century antiques, and many of them used by the Flagler family while they lived there. This grand old mansion turned museum is a must see while staying at West Palm Beach luxury hotel . West Palm Beach’s Norton Museum of Art houses a collection of some of the areas greatest works of art from the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection includes but is not limited to works by Europe’s Matisse, Monet, and Picasso and Americans Hopper, O’Keeffe and Pollock . Known around the world is the museum’s permanent collection of Chinese and Contemporary art, American and European art and photographic images. Having activities designed with children in mind The Norton can be a family destination.
The Palm Beach Maritime Museum is another place of interest for the vacationing sightseer or business traveler who has some free time. The museum is located on four different sites, which are in close proximity to one another, and you’ll want to check with them for information on the ferry’s schedule. There is plenty to see for the person who loves all things ship related. A few of the more poignant items on display are uniforms found in perfect condition recovered from the sunken Battleship Maine that went down in Havana Harbor. The command post and bomb shelter built on Peanut Island for President John F. Kennedy is another example of the museums many attractions.
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Strange Austin
Posted by admin on June 29th, 2010 filed in Travel
There are a number of people every year who drop some cash and head down to Austin. Best hotels are not hard to come by as it is a city made for tourists and there are a number of tourist traps that you can avoid altogether. However, it is a town of strange things and some of the best ones are hidden away. You can find them with a little bit of effort though.
The first one you have to go to is the Museum of the Weird , featuring the best weird things in Austin. The good news is that since it’s opening, visitors and and residents have loved this museum and because of that it has grown nearly three times in size in just about as many years. It was originally created in the spirit of the old dime museums, and was opened in the back of a gift shop. It is complete with shrunken heads, freak animals, a Fiji mermaid , and will be featuring a big foot exhibit. It is cheap to get in too at $3 for adults and $1 for children under 12. It is also free for anyone who buys a poster.
Before you move on to the next thing you will want to do in Austin. best hotels in the area will offer some good rooms for freshening up and putting on some bug spray. If you don’t do this you are going to regret it later because the mosquitoes come out in droves when the light goes down. Luckily other things come out as well. If you love the weird you also might love bats. Either way it is a popular spot for tourists and locals alike to head over to Congress Avenue and check out the world’s largest urban bat colony take flight as the sun starts to set. The funny part is that the circle of life continues as the visitors sit there waiting on the bats to emerge, giving the mosquito one last meal before being taken away by the swarm of hungry flying mammals. If the bats try to fly close to you it’s probably just because you have a few mosquitoes munching on you while they try to hide.
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Amarillo BBQ
Posted by admin on June 26th, 2010 filed in Travel
Texas and its early cattle drives helped the American BBQ evolved into some of the best food in the world. This is one cuisine that is all American and Texas does it right. When you are traveling through you will find plenty of places to stop for BBQ. Amarillo Texas has a number of great BBQ restaurants that are note worthy.
One of the restaurants that seems to be on the top of the locals list is Beans N Things Bar-B-Que. This restaurant can be found on Amarillo Boulevard at the end of a building complex and it is worth looking for. Beans and Things has large portions of some of the most amazing flavors. The sauce is great and the ingredient was fresh. The service was also great we got everything we asked for and in good time with a smile.
No far from your hotel, Amarillo has another great BBQ place called Dyer’s Bar B Que . You can’t miss the horse statue out front of the place. It has a really Texas rustic cowboy country look to it. The dishes are as they should be for Bar B Que. Moist and sticky beef, chicken or pork served up with some great onion rings, fries, coleslaw and beans. They have some great sausage dishes as well. It is all served up in with a nice casual presentation and delivered with a smile. Can’t get much better than that.
If in doubt, one can always head over to the local Famous Dave’s for some good BBQ. They are consistently good and the atmosphere is really fun and lively. I try to give the little local places first dibs on my business but Famous Dave’s is a great place to have a meal.
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Austin in ‘69
Posted by admin on June 23rd, 2010 filed in Travel
It would take a city like Austin to consider remounting a work that evoked Greek tragedy in New York in 1969. It would take a group like the Rude Mechanicals to set out and do a performance the way that the Performance Group presented it back then. Of course, when it happens here, it’s absolutely celebrated, and it has nothing to do with the weird factor in Austin, but is related to the excellent talents of its local artists.
The Bacchae is a difficult work on its own, and Euripides’ version of it is not one of the most popular Greek classics, but when it’s done right, it’s pretty extraordinary. To do it right, it almost always necessitates a retelling, in order to help place the play in a context that an audience can enter into. Otherwise, it’s watching a version of a lost ritual, and it’s sometimes interesting, but in a very academic way. But the Greeks had a need to make the audience feel something deeply, and to move them in ways that they would never forget. The purpose of these plays, after all, was more in line with ritual than with entertainment, and the audience should expect to be transported.
The ideas were appealing then, and it’s easy to see why they were appealing in 1969, but to stage them today, in Austin, it’s not easy, and it forces the audience to ask questions as they are going through the rite. Fortunately, for those who are already ritually inclined, this doesn’t take anyone out of the space, and in fact helps to enter it more deeply. And visitors from out of town had the chance to be transported from the idea of their Austin luxury hotels into another space, one that looked like a theatre, but was in fact, quite out of time.
Ecstasy means to be outside of oneself, and it is the Greeks who gave the language the word, and also the idea. The Rude Mechanicals have undertook the task of making this visible, and like everything they do, it made for an amazing evening in a history of the same.
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Reason’s to Extend Your Stay at Washington DC
Posted by admin on June 20th, 2010 filed in Travel
Washington DC is a wonderfully vibrant destination point for a summer vacation. The city isn’t just a place for history buffs, architecture enthusiasts, shoppers or even people exercising their rights and marching to the Capital. There are many other reasons to come visit our nations Capital, some that may make you want to lengthen your stay at any hotel Washington USA has to offer, which is a common occurrence believe it or not, and that’s why DCs hotel scene is big enough to accommodate everyone.
One of the reasons to extend your stay is the Smithsonian Folklife Festival at the National Mall, beginning June 24 to July 5, 2010 at 11am. The Festival is a time for the many cultures in the district to come together on the National Mall and celebrate the city’s cultural diversity. This year’s festival is featuring cultural highlights from Asian Pacific Americans and Mexico, as well as chances to see dances done in their countries authentic costumes. Plus, there will be art, food and more. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is open to the public and what’s even better, is it’s free of charge.
Another reason to extend your stay, is the 4th of July Celebration , held at the National Mall, which is an all day and night event. There’s literally no better place to celebrate Independence Day than in Washington DC. Every year, 4th of July celebrations commence in DC’s National Mall, complete with a parade along Constitution Avenue and followed by a spectacular fireworks display. The parade will start around 11:45am and will travel down Constitution Avenue from 7th to 17th Streets. It includes everything from beautiful floats to marching bands and military units. You really do need to get there early, because this celebration show is expected to fill up quickly.
Washington DC is the kind of place where you could literally spend over a month vacationing and you still wouldn’t have enough time to see everything, so remember: book your room now and keep the dates open ended.
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Day Trips from Las Vegas
Posted by admin on June 17th, 2010 filed in Travel
There is endless fun in Las Vegas which is what attracts millions of visitors each year. Most of the fun includes some entertainment going on at the 5 star hotels. Vegas has so many you would think that would be all there is but it isn’t. Nevada itself is a beautiful state that ranges from desert to mountain terrain. There are many different landscapes to see beyond the city lights of the Las Vegas Strip.
One of the big attractions to see outside of the city is the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead . Spending time in this area is not far from the city and is a great way to unwind in the desert sun. This is the dam that tamed the Colorado River at a time when people were looking for any kind of work they could get to feed their families. During the Depression, men brought their families to this intense environment to work on a massive project for five years and after all these years it is still considered an engineering wonder.
The Red Rock Canyon is another short trip from the strip that offers up a beautiful early morning or late afternoon hike in the desert. Bring lots of water, sunscreen and a hat along while you see all of the pale yet rich colors of this unique area. There is also a wonderful museum that will give you some great information on the local wildlife and the history of the land. They offer some guided hikes through some special trails as well as other programs. Each layer of the canyon has a story of how it was formed with the wind, rain, sun and the earth’s movement. If you go it alone on a rainy day, make sure you stay out of the dry washes. Don’t let them fool you. A desert dry wash can be a flood in fifteen minutes on a solid rainy day.
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Shopping Tour of Orlando Florida
Posted by admin on June 15th, 2010 filed in Travel
There are a number of great things to do on vacation in Orlando. There are theme parks , swamps, hang gliding, zoos and of course shopping tours. That is right, someone else will drive you around to a variety of stores and you can shop to your heart’s content, or at least your wallet. This is a great opportunity for those who save up a lot of money to go on vacation and know that they are going to come home with a number of new things. It is also great for those who can afford it and who find shopping to be cathartic.
There are a number of pick up points as well as some great stops. There are set arrival and departure times from each store, so if you stay too long you may find that you will feel a little hurried, but for the most part they give a significant amount of time at each of the stops. The whole tour takes around eight hours and there are only four stops, but those eight hours and four stores will fly by. Because it does take so long there is included breakfast and lunch. The lunch is provided by them giving you a voucher and you can return it at one of the various restaurants for some good food.
As for the shopping locations, the four main stops are usually the World of Denim which has more types, brands and styles of denim than you have ever seen before. Because they are in Orlando of course there will also be some Disney styles for those who have a favorite Disney character. Next is the Lake Buena Vista Factory Outlet. They advertise savings as high as seventy five percent off all merchandise. The next stop is the Walmart Shopping Super Center with the Disney Store inside . Even if you miss going to the Disney park for this shopping trip you are sure to get all the best Disney merchandise for prices much less than those you would have paid at the park itself. There is also an international food isle packed with British teas and much more. The final stop is the Florida Mall with more than two hundred fifty stores. If there was anything you missed at the other stops it will more than be made up for when you get here. In between each one you travel in an air conditioned bus and when it is all done you can be dropped off at a convenient location near one of the five star hotels in Orlando .
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DC Duke
Posted by admin on June 12th, 2010 filed in Travel
Washington, DC is unquestionably one of the big centers in the world where things happen. This is not only politically, although that’s very true here, but artistically as well. Lincoln Center is one of those iconic places that many great talents come to play, but also to be recognized for lifelong contributions to the arts. They also foster young, fresh talents, and make for a pretty fortuitous introduction to the world community. Art, theatre, and music, are certainly big attractions for the city, and along with washington usa luxury hotels , they make up all sorts of good reasons to come and visit the town.
The music scene has a lot to offer. Local bands play a number of styles that run all over the map, from Latin to hiphop to alternative rock. There are also excellent DJs in town, spinning beats at hot clubs where dancing all night is the rule of the day. But DC is also a great town for jazz. There are plenty of jazz clubs playing in all the jazz idioms, from bebop to progressive and experimental. It’s difficult to spend any time in town without being reminded that Duke Ellington is one of its favorite sons.
There are few jazz greats that have left a legacy as substantial as his. He’s arranged thousands of songs, and added a level of nuance to the musical form that it had never seen before. Born in 1899 to a mother who was the daughter of a slave, and a father who made blueprints for the Navy, he wrote his first song when he was just 14 years old. This love of music would continue all the way until his last days in 1974. He’s known for his compositions and his famous orchestra more than for his own playing. But he was certainly an accomplished pianist . He claims to have missed more lessons than attended them, and learnt how to play by listening to players in pool halls. It’s that kind of folk innovation that gives his music the complexity that has earned it a reputation worldwide, but it’s his style that earned him the nickname Duke.
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Friends with You in Miami
Posted by admin on June 9th, 2010 filed in entertainment
Winners of the Best Local Artists category in last year’s New Times city poll in Miami, Friends with You solidified their reputation as world artists with something to say. They also offer something to do, with their wildly attractive and interactive installations. For visitors staying in the local hotels, Miami, USA offers some splendid diversions that make this city like none other on the planet.
Aside from the beaches and the clubs, where the appeal is already well-established, and the reputation is very well earned, there is a terrific art scene in town. Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III are two friends that have found a way to tap into all that is exciting in the city, and make art that’s entirely fun, and also very interesting. They’ve presented works at events as prestigious as Miami’s Art Basel, and are a central attraction at Toronto’s Wish Come True festival , where they create an interactive city within a city. Their emphasis in on fun, color, and friendship, and the works are very distinct from each other while still remaining entirely distinctive of their visions.
Bright colors have an appeal that speaks to children, or rather, speaks to the idea of childhood in adults, as the ability to perceive color doesn’t come immediately at birth. But their colors do immediately remind everyone of a kind of carefree innocence, and it is certainly a lot of fun. There does seem to be a very profound artistic voice behind the fun as well, hinting at a larger purpose for the artists.
They have a few lines of merchandise that they sell, furry, plush creatures and creatures made of wood, that can grant certain powers to the holder. Some of these are simple and delightful, where they bestow friendship and fun, but others can bring great fortune or death to the owner. It’s a remarkable scheme, where the art world is encouraging more ephemera that the artists can sell to viewers who might not otherwise buy complicated concepts. It’s rather ingenious, but it is also a whole lotta fun.
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Ex Teresa D.F.
Posted by admin on June 2nd, 2010 filed in Travel
Mexico City is the largest city in the world, according to some charts, but there are many others that put it somewhere around number 10. It can, at times, feel like the biggest city in the world, and for many artists and intellectuals it’s the only city in the world. There’s really no place like it, and it changes often enough that it is no longer like itself. It defines itself moment by moment, and the citizens of the place are in a constant dance with it, participating in a co-creation of something that is simultaneously disorienting and radically sublime.
It’s a magnetic force for the creative types from all over the country, and all over the world. It has its fair share of politicians, and political assassinations, to make record books for sure, but it’s easier to notice the art in the streets than the politics, unless one loses their passport. People come here for a variety of reasons, perhaps as vast and dense as the city itself, and there are always those who book a hotel in Mexico City in order to catch a live performance. For all of the performing arts, it has geniuses of every age and in every discipline. In terms of the cutting edge of contemporary art, the gallery known as EX Teresa Arte Actual has an incredibly impressive roster of upcoming artists, as well as artists from the past.
Their Muestra Internacional de Performance is one of the most exciting in the world, but it’s been happening on and off enough that it’s hard to make travel plans. However, that’s sort of how things are here. Many of the most exciting events happen at the last moment, where word of mouth drive the crowds who are in the know to the local performance space to see something incredible. It happens like that in a lot of the bigger cities, and in ones where artists seem to have some place of prominence, it can be the rule rather than the exception. It’s a fair exchange, considering the work that’s coming from here.
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Touring Lisbon Portugal
Posted by admin on May 25th, 2010 filed in Travel
There are a number of ways to enjoy your stay in Lisbon Portugal. It is a very developed large city with all the modern activities mixed in with such rich history. It has a wonderful suspension bridge that connects lands on each side of the Tejo river. They call it 25 de Abril Bridge and it looks a bit like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. No surprise there, it was built by the same company, the American Bridge Company, in 1966. If you happen to be visiting during football season you will have to catch a game. That is were most of the city will be on game day. Football, or Soccer, is a huge sport in Portugal and they have a really great team. The stadium is truly amazing to experience.
When you check into your hotel in Lisbon have them point you in the right direction for some city tours. When you make your reservations you may want to ask them if there are attractions you need to make prior arrangements to visit and have them set you up with reservations.
How about hitting the town on a bike. Bikeiberia has some great bike tours that take you through the city and outer areas. They have guided tours, independent self tours and tailor made tours. They have great equipment to rent and a friendly knowledgeable staff that are excited to take visitors through the area. Some of the tours take days to complete and is a quite the adventure.
Tram 28 has vintage trams that take visitors from the center of Lisbon through the narrow winding streets up to the Saint George Castle. The trains are really charming and is a wonderful way to see Lisbon. Once again check with your hotel for more information.
Another company that has it all in local tours whether it is by land or sea is Inside Lisbon . They have some amazing adventures through the area with days at the beach and days roaming castles. They have boat rides that attract the dolphins and are a great all around company for some real fun in Lisbon.
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Pattaya Has One of the Best Sports Clubs
Posted by admin on May 21st, 2010 filed in Travel
If Pattaya’s beach and nightlife is not your cup-of-tea, then check out The Pattaya Sports Club
, which was established back in 1979 when a couple of foreign residents, Vietnam expatriates, who were sports minded formed a Charter and created what is known internationally as one of the best sports clubs in all the world. The clubs members, over 30,000 have grown right along with the club when it was only an occasional golf outing with it’s original members, but now offers daily golf competitions, weekly lawn bowls, darts, ten-pin bowling, fishing and softball.
The Pattaya Sports Club, just recently add in Lawn Bowling, basically because most of Thailand had little knowledge of the game, but with the ever growing memberships including people from the United Kingdom and Australia, this activity couldn’t be held back. If you attend the club for the first time, you first bowling session is free; each game after that costs baht 150 per person. The bowling green is fully lit in the evenings allowing play to last well into the night, which is prefect for those who like to beach it during the day, but not participate in Pattaya’s wild nightlife. If your hotel is in Pattaya , see if guest services offer any discount tickets for the PSC, if so, this will be you invitation to participate in any of PSCs amateur sports events. PSC members are invited to visit the Bowling Green any time and enquire about playing opportunities, or just sit and watch a great game of lawn bowling.
Another Charter in which the original members created is that the Sports Club support local charities; this still remains the main objective of the club and since the club has grown exponentially, their donations to charities have grown. The clubs main charities focus on needy children, the handicapped and the underprivileged. In 2008 and 2009, the club donated over 3.9 million baht.
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Lolita in Corsica
Posted by admin on May 15th, 2010 filed in Travel
Corsica has all of the components of a romantic masterpiece, with its rugged and striking mountains that can be lovely and dense, and its miles of coastline that invite exploration and ways of inventing relaxation. There are many opportunities to get lost in thought here, and on a vacation, this can be the most welcome thing in the world. There is an idyllic perfection here, and also a dramatic element, one that was inviting enough for the Legion so long ago. Adventure and romance are the rule of the day, and these do come together in the persona of Alizee .
Her work has attracted million of fans all over the world, and the Corsican singer has difficulty in traveling in any country unnoticed. Now that she’s in her 20s, married happily and has a child, the critics will have to take back a lot of the criticism of her in her early years, because she’s coming to show that every promise from those times is finding its fulfillment in the present. Her voice is very provocative, feathery, and deft. It was evident before, but she was often written off as being too derivative, but now that there are a few years of life experience in the voice, it’s got weight behind it.
It might be a stretch to hope to catch a glimpse of her in a hotel lobby , but it’s an interesting dream. It’s also a stretch to think that she’s reached her mature phase, now that she’s past 25.
Her new album, Une Enfant Du siecle does show a remarkable restraint, and the three years off have been worth the wait. Her early debut was so very sudden and striking, however, making it a hard pattern to live down.
There were plenty of comparisons with Lolita, and this was rather self-imposed, too, as the then 16 year old singer broke into the charts with her song, Moi Lolita. It wasn’t a big stretch, and there was a machine ready to make a mold for her to fit. But now it seems that she’s released from that, and lately some of her Corsican roots are showing through, and it’s pretty exciting to see.
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How to Choose the Right Cash Advance Loan
Posted by admin on May 1st, 2010 filed in Finance
With business booming in the cash advance loan industry, and it already being a slightly shady feeling business to begin with as it is connected to that dirty word “loan” at all, it is no wonder that there are a lot of companies out there that you should not take a loan out from.
Now, obviously since you are looking for a cash advance loan, you will want them to be hassle free, no need for faxing documents over or spending a lot of time on it. If you can’t complete the paperwork in less than ten minutes, you don’t want to borrow from them. You will also want them to take you with bad credit score and not ask for anything to hold onto, except maybe a check if you are borrowing from someone in person. The best places will have some kind of 24 hour service, even if it is just online, you will want this in case there ends up being something that you can’t figure out. You will also want the loan contract to be fairly straight forward and it shouldn’t be filled with legal mumbo jumbo to confuse you. This is a very bad sign if it is, and you should run away now. If it isn’t too complicated read through the whole thing and make sure that you are not agreeing on paper to pay more than you agreed to pay before, and remember that if you calculate out the APR it will seem very steep for any of these types of companies.
Some people insist on only getting loans from companies that have been reccomended to them by someone they trust. This is why various companies vie for star attention and live on word of mouth recommendations. This is also why Montel Williams endorses Money Mutual , because he knows that he is a trustworthy person and that Money Mutual is a good company to borrow from. There have been others who have tried to get celebrities like him as well. If you feel that you can trust the celebrity, then you might feel that you are willing to buy something they recommend. Do some research on the celebrity and the company before jumping in head first though.
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Good Morning America in New York
Posted by admin on April 21st, 2010 filed in Travel
There are so many great things to do and see in the city of New York it can almost feel impossible to list and especially visit and experience all of them. However, no one has ever said you can’t try and this is typically one of the most fun projects any guest in a New York City hotel room can set out to complete. However, to make things a bit more simply, only for the purpose of offering the chance to complete a list, it can be beneficial to limit or break down the agenda according to specific topic, region or genre. And since only engaging in events from one particular topic or cultural genre might feel slightly confining or even redundant, to go a little more extreme, selecting a particular area in New York to explore can be extremely rewarding, exciting and even possible to do.
And for this reason, numerous tourists are more than happy to base their entire trip around the events and attractions that are located on and around Times Square. This alone can take up an entire trip and is well worth the time and attention when many of the city’s important landmarks and events occur there. In fact, the activities can begin early in the morning and many people are well aware of this as can be testified by the amount of people standing outside Times Square Studios during the filming of Good Morning America. In addition, various news programs and sports announcements are based here. The popular and respected journalistic program 20/20 is based out of these studios and the ever popular Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve has been based here since it began on December 31 of 1972. This annual event is one of the most popularly viewed programs that is watched across the nation on one evening every year. This busy studio is a great place to begin your day, but after all, the day is just getting started.
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Sam’s NY
Posted by admin on April 3rd, 2010 filed in Travel
To think that Greenwich Village could have ever been cooler is difficult, but it’s also true. It’s always been true, however, or at least true in contemporary terms. The revolutionaries of the 60s couldn’t hold a match the the revolutionaries of the 20s, and they knew it. The literate ones did, anyway, and for a short time, everyone there was literate. Those were the days when even a rock and roll drummer from the midwest, with experience in the 4-H Club, got educated in the great world writers.
Sam Shepard came here when he was just 19 years old, on a tour with a Drama Club with a religious mission. Obviously, they failed to do their work on him, and that’s a great gift to the people of New York. And also to the theatre world at large, more or less. The combative figure, the maladjusted playwright, has made a lot of friends, and upset a number of people, too, in his time. In the early years, the only ones who knew about him couldn’t possibly get upset, because he was writing their stories.
This is reason enough to check into a cozy place in the city and walk through some of the history of the 1960s here. It was an uncomfortable and sometimes even nightmarish time, and Shepard never spoke well of it after it was over. But it was a remarkably creative time for his body of work, and the voice that was just developing.
It was also a remarkable time in the history of theatre in the US, and right here there was an epicenter, where the Off-Off Broadway movement took off. Sam was here at the very beginning of the wave, and he now considers that twist of fate nothing more than dumb luck. These years saw a spectacularly unstable Sam Shepard , who was never known for being particularly stable. These were the first plays, the dozen or so riffs of magic jazz, speaking at a level of consciousness that everyone had access to, but very few paid attention to. Maybe everyone is a shaman, but there are very few who are in their right minds enough to recognize they have to do something about it.
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Fort Collins has a New Vegan Restaurant
Posted by admin on March 31st, 2010 filed in Travel
I was visiting my niece who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, and during my visit, she took me to my very first vegetarian restaurant. Coming from cattle country, Texas, I wasn’t too sure about eating nothing but greens, it’s all rabbit food as far as I’m concerned. But, I was here to patch up a rocky relationship, so I bent over backwards to please her. My niece is attending the Colorado State University – Fort Collins , for her masters in education, and I’m so proud of her.
A little history about my niece, I raised her ever since she was eleven years old. Her only known parent, my twin sister, died in an automobile accident. Ever since she turned a teenager, we’ve never seen eye to eye. Enough said. So, here I am, watching this once unruly teenager turn into one of the best people I’ve ever had the privilege to know and sitting at a vegetarian restaurant called Tasty Harmony . The place is your typical college student arena, no fine dining, only the casual fare. The servers are the granola-types, you know the young hippie wannabes, but really are.
When my niece picked me up at the only hotel Fort Collins had available at the price I wanted and at the luxury I require, she only would tell me that she’s treating me to dinner; only when we arrived did she tell me the place was vegan and that it just opened. I don’t even know what Vegan that means, but I bet it’s even worse than vegetarian. She explained to me that all of the food is organic, healthy and contains no animal products whatsoever, not even animal by-products like eggs, dairy or honey. I couldn’t imagine what we could even eat. But, when I looked at the menu, most of the dishes sounded quite good. When I saw the dishes served at the table next to us, it really look very appetizing.
I ordered the the soup of the day: Turkish lentil soup, the fresh raspberry crisp, and the jackfruit tacos. I have to say that the presentation was splendid and every bite was a delight, and there was no meat involved! We happened to be there on a Thursday night, and that’s when the Tasty Harmony has live music and they serve a variety of local brews on tap. The local brew I had the pleasure of downing, was from New Belgium. For dessert, I ordered the Raw Key Lime pie, which was wheat free and sugarcane free, and was very, very satisfying. Since the place was relaxed, I too became more relaxed and for the first time, felt that my niece had something to teach me, instead of me showing her the ropes.
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Best food in Singapore
Posted by admin on March 27th, 2010 filed in Food
Our first destination in Singapore was Chinatown. We just missed the celebration of the Chinese New Year , which this year is the year of the Tiger. We missed the celebrations by one day, but luckily, the spirit of the festivities were still in its death throes of passion. The Chinese New Year is unique both in spectacle and in color and we found this most colorful spectacle of a tiger dancer tossing mandarins, which is a symbol of prosperity, in a street next to Chinatown. The Tiger dance is a dance with Chinese origins, it is intended to scare away evil spirits. The dancer was very good and he moved with grace, but less could be said about the accompanying musicians that blasted our ears. We could only handle five minutes of his dance because the music was literally hurting our ears.
While in Chinatown, we searched for a cafe’ called Joo Heng. Our parents always came here when they traveled and could only rave about the food and the service. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we found the place, it looked like any other plain ol’ coffee shop in Singapore. Joo Heng is Cantonese and it serves what locals call ‘Cze Char’ or better known as comfort food. Joo Heng employees skilled and experienced chefs who know how to master a wok and control the fire in order to impart the dishes smoky flavor.
Cze Char is an art-form that is dying, especially if you equate it with excellent home-style cooking. Being a chef in a Cze Char kitchen is no easy feat, especially with the high humid weather of Singapore, because to qualify as an authentic Cze Char eatery, the kitchen should have no air-conditioning. That’s how exacting cooking Cze Char style can be. So, being here, even though the place doesn’t look like much, was actually a privilege.
We started with the soup of the day, which was lotus root with pork ribs. If this soup was made any other way than how Joo Heng prepares it, it would not be soup at its best, because Joo Heng simmers the soup for 4 hours before they serve it. For our appetizers, we ordered the sharks fin and crab meat scramble, served with lettuce leaves laced with belacan chili paste and a squeeze of fresh lime. For our main course, we ordered the steamed fish head with yellow bean paste, which came garnished with spring onions and deep-fried pork lard cubes. The other dish was the steamed minced pork patties, stir-fried potato leave that comes with prawn paste chicken.
We’ve never eaten such wonderful food in our entire life, our dishes were so savory, so comforting and so fulfilling. Our parents were right, Joo Heng is a must when traveling in Singapore.
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The Inner Harbor of Baltimore
Posted by admin on March 24th, 2010 filed in Travel
In the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, you can take your pick of sights above and below the water. Above sea level, you can explore the USS Constellation , a tall ship from the time of the Civil War; below sea level, you can board the USS Torsk , a submarine from World War II.
The USS Constellation, in fact, is the last of the all-sail warships and was commissioned by the US Navy in 1855; even more, it’s the last floating Civil War ship. It took years to restore the ship and return her to the water, where she’s been for the last eleven years, since 1999. The USS Constellation is known as a sloop-of-war, or a corvette, a name we now typically associate with an automobile instead of a 19th Century sailing ship.
Three ships in the U.S. Navy have taken the name, which may come from the idea of honoring the constellation of stars on the U.S. flag. Tours are available aboard the USS Constitution, where you can see what life as a 19th Century sailor might have been like. Guided tours will inform you about the history of the ship as well as its missions to interrupt the slave trade, and how, in later times, she delivered relief supplies to help stop the famine in Ireland.
If you want to explore life below water, then you should board the USS Torsk. The Torsk’s main objective was to act as lifeguard for B-29s as they conducted raids on Japan’s empire. She operated with a number of other submarines, including the Sandlance, the Guardfish, and the Cero (subs during World War II were often named after types of fish; a custom that has largely faded into history). It was actually a quiet time for the Torsk; they found only two small ships, but did not attack them.
If you want to find a hotel close to the harbor, go to this site , where you’ll have a choice of over 25 hotels in the Baltimore area. That will enable you to indulge your maritime interest in a number of maritime ships. In addition to the Torsk and Constellation, you may also see the Taney, a US Coast Guard Cutter, and the Lightship Chesapeake — exploring life above and below the seas from the middle of the 1800s to the middle of the 1980s.
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Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin
Posted by admin on March 19th, 2010 filed in Travel
One thing is certain about the city of Austin, Texas. Okay, two things are certain about it, it has one of the top music scenes in the nation and it honors and respects Ladybird Johnson. And while there are certainly more guaranteed elements about this great Texan city, the point here is to emphasize the amount of love the citizens of Austin retain for this former first lady. During her life and career she had a tremendous impact on Austin and other cities in Texas and across the nation. One of her life long passions was to beautify the country’s roadsides and highways and she made hands on efforts in this pursuit.
Ladybird Johnson helped to plant many of the bluebonnets and other wildflowers that line the streets of Austin and this is frequently one of the first aspects of the city that tourists notice and come to love as they arrive into town and settle into their comfortable rooms in a local hotel. Of course these rooms are also likely to have beautiful wild flowers in the lobby and even some of the rooms, which adds a special touch to the accommodations. One thing that remains true is that it’s easy to smile when you’re surrounded by flowers and other beautiful aesthetic elements and Ladybird Johnson was all too aware of this.
One of the ways the city continues to honor the efforts of Johnson is through the University of Texas at Austin. The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center is one of the major horticultural programs in the country. In 1982 the former first lady and actress Helen Hayes worked together to create an organization that would conserve and protect North America’s natural landscapes and its native plants. What was then called the National Wildflower Research Center became the university program that it is today. In 2006 it became the formalized research center of the university. It retains a commitment to the public, and to students, to introduce people to the diverse species of wildflowers that exists in this country and show them the beauty of these plants.
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Green Building
Posted by admin on March 16th, 2010 filed in Home & Garden
These days it is hard to sell a new house if it is not green and energy efficient. This means straying from the traditional building styles in a lot of ways, but it also means producing a higher quality product. While there are a lot of energy saving tips that many people already know about that must be incorporated into green building , there are quite a few that people don’t know about. One of these hidden secrets is the right set of blinds.
One of the first steps you should take is deciding on the right type of blinds for your green building. It sounds silly, but the right shades can save you hundreds in energy bills. You will need to have shades that can keep the heat out of the room on a very sunny day. You will want to make sure that they are thick enough to do the task in your area on the hottest of days. The other requirement in deciding on shades to line the house with is that they have to have an electric timer. The way you make these a green element of the houses is by setting the timer in the summer to lower during the hottest parts of the day to keep the heat out of the house, saving on air conditioning bills, and to raise at the hottest points of the day in the winter to save on heating. The best ones can be set once for raise and lower times throughout the year, and left. Others will have to be reset as the seasons change.
There are a few great suppliers of blinds, and many of them can supply what you need as a builder for a house like this. In order to provide the greatest service to your customers and the best value to the house, consider looking into what sort of programs these blinds companies offer. With something that is complicated like this, you will want there to be someone the residents can call if anything breaks.
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Austin is a Great Funky Town
Posted by admin on March 8th, 2010 filed in Travel
Austin in known for live music, great college drinking places, Tex-Mex cuisine and nice weather. After coming from Newark and all it’s ugliness, Austin was a very nice treat. I knew there were plenty of luxury hotels in Austin, because I went online and did some research before I came here, <a href=’http://www.luxuryaustinhotels.com’>take a look</a> . So, for me not having any reservations, asked my taxi driver at the airport to take me to the best hotel in town! I figured, if they’re the best, then no matter what, they would naturally accommodate; I was right! I had absolutely no problems getting a room.
Newark still left a nasty taste in my mouth, so I decided to get a few wines down me so I could hit Austin with a great attitude of ‘where will I go to get my next drink’ state of mind. So, after I checked in my fabulous hotel, I took a walk. Austin is a really quite a funky town! I bar-hopped for about 3 hours and while I was at each watering hole, I’d ask the locals where the best places (besides where I was; didn’t want to offend), was to eat and drink. I got a different answer every time, I just hope I’ll have time to check them all out tomorrow.
The next day (mind you I didn’t say ‘next morning’, too much of a hang-over), I wandered around aimlessly, just like the night before. But, no matter where one wanders in Austin, there’s always something interesting to see. After walking around building after building and being totally amazed at the architecture, my beer appetite began to growl. I’ve never tried really authentic Texan BBQ, so I decided it was time to check out one of the recommendations from last night, the Ironworks. For only $8, I struggled to get through 2/3 of my meal! The portions served are huge, my dish alone could feed 3 people, but boy was it good! If you’re ever in Austin, I highly recommend having the BBQ pork ribs at <a href=’http://www.ironworksbbq.com/’>Ironworks</a> .
That night, I found a Tex-Mex dinner and proceeded to stuff myself and down some more beers before I took a tour around the University of Texas. Nice campus, but I still felt like doing some more bar hopping so I ended up at another recommended place were there were was a group of men and 2 pianos. These guys were great! They’d play old tunes, tell funny stories and jokes! <a href=’http://www.petesduelingpianobar.com/’>Petes Dueling Piano Bar</a> . I haven’t had that much fun in a long time, I highly recommend this place too!
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Austin is a Great Funky Town
Posted by admin on March 8th, 2010 filed in Travel
Austin in known for live music, great college drinking places, Tex-Mex cuisine and nice weather. After coming from Newark and all it’s ugliness, Austin was a very nice treat. I knew there were plenty of luxury hotels in Austin, because I went online and did some research before I came here, take a look . So, for me not having any reservations, asked my taxi driver at the airport to take me to the best hotel in town! I figured, if they’re the best, then no matter what, they would naturally accommodate; I was right! I had absolutely no problems getting a room.
Newark still left a nasty taste in my mouth, so I decided to get a few wines down me so I could hit Austin with a great attitude of ‘where will I go to get my next drink’ state of mind. So, after I checked in my fabulous hotel, I took a walk. Austin is a really quite a funky town! I bar-hopped for about 3 hours and while I was at each watering hole, I’d ask the locals where the best places (besides where I was; didn’t want to offend), was to eat and drink. I got a different answer every time, I just hope I’ll have time to check them all out tomorrow.
The next day (mind you I didn’t say ‘next morning’, too much of a hang-over), I wandered around aimlessly, just like the night before. But, no matter where one wanders in Austin, there’s always something interesting to see. After walking around building after building and being totally amazed at the architecture, my beer appetite began to growl. I’ve never tried really authentic Texan BBQ, so I decided it was time to check out one of the recommendations from last night, the Ironworks. For only $8, I struggled to get through 2/3 of my meal! The portions served are huge, my dish alone could feed 3 people, but boy was it good! If you’re ever in Austin, I highly recommend having the BBQ pork ribs at Ironworks .
That night, I found a Tex-Mex dinner and proceeded to stuff myself and down some more beers before I took a tour around the University of Texas. Nice campus, but I still felt like doing some more bar hopping so I ended up at another recommended place were there were was a group of men and 2 pianos. These guys were great! They’d play old tunes, tell funny stories and jokes! Petes Dueling Piano Bar . I haven’t had that much fun in a long time, I highly recommend this place too!