One of the things many young adventurers love to do is travel to Nepal and hike some of the amazing trails through Himalayan mountains. The popularity of these multi-day to multi-week hikes has lead to a more crowded and less authentic experiences of previous travelers, but you just can’t beat something like a week or two on the Annapurna Circuit.
You can also hike to Mt Everest base camp as well as often take a short trip up the nearby facing peak Kala Patthar to see both Everest and Lhotse (if the weather cooperates).
A third option is to go by helicopter. Sam Chui shows us that for about $1200, you can take an amazing few hour helicopter trip through these destintions:
1. Kathmandu (4,390 ft / 1,338m) 2. Lukla (9,380 ft / 2,860m) 3. Namche Bazar (11,290 ft / 3,440m) 4. Syangboche (12,402 ft / 3,780m) 5. Khumbu Icefall (17,999 ft / 5,486m) 6. Mt Everest (29,031 ft / 8,849m) 7. Kala Patthar (18,519 ft / 5,644m) 8. Cho La Pass (17,782 ft / 5,420 m) 9. Gokyo Ri (17,575 ft / 5,357m) 11. Hotel Everest View (12,729ft / 3,880m) 13. Lukla (9,380 ft / 2,860m) 14. Kathmandu (4,390 ft / 1,338m)
He recommends going in April or October when the weather is at its clearest and not so cold. He flies via Manang Air – who have a variety of packages.
Allan Su has traveled Iceland several times and gives a really great itinerary of how to spend 2 weeks (travel during June-Sept) visiting the amazing outdoor locations of Iceland. He hits both the famous/well traveled locations as well as lesser known but amazing attractions. He also gives a great set of advice on a number of handy resources from rentals to checking weather/travel conditions.
I love to travel, but during Covid that was not really a thing. Even if you did travel, it was a very muted experience as most places you would visit were closed, severely restricted, and (my personal real goals) of interacting with local culture/food/people severely curtailed. Even in 2023 many cities are nothing like what they were pre-Covid, and I suspect that travel and tourism is going to look very different as we come back out of Covid.
Recently I started watching the various Sound and Light shows of the various Egyptian locations. I was inspired by a scene in the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Mewhich features the famous show at the Great Pyramids.
On the morning of Easter Sunday, the 30-foot-tall antique cart (in use for over 500 years), moves from the Porta al Prato to the Piazza del Duomo. It is hauled by a team of white oxen festooned with garlands of the first flowers and herbs of spring. The cart is escorted by 150 soldiers, musicians, and people in 15th century dress.
Meanwhile, a fire is struck using the historic flints from Jerusalem at Chiesa dei Santi Apostoli. It is then carried in procession to the cathedral square by members of the Pazzi family, clerics, and city officials.
The cart is loaded with fireworks while a wire, stretching to the high altar inside the cathedral, is fitted with a mechanical dove (the “colombina”). Shortly thereafter, at the singing of the Gloria in excelsis Deo during Easter Mass, the cardinal of Florence lights a fuse in the colombina with the Easter fire. It then speeds through the church to ignite the cart outside. It ignites the cart, then speeds back inside the church. During all of these stages, the bells of Giotto’s campanile ring out.
The complex fireworks show from the cart lasts about 20 minutes. A successful display from the “Explosion of the Cart” is supposed to guarantee a good harvest, stable civic life, and good business.
I’ve gone on big vacations in Japan several times now – and I’m always astounded at the artistry and sublime tastes of their food and pastries. In recent years, this artistry and their masterful creations have graced the tradition of Japanese Christmas cakes.
The history of the Christmas cake in Japan started in the waning days of the Meiji period. In 1910, Fujiya, a European-style pastry shop in Tokyo’s port city of Yokohama, introduced what is widely considered to be the very first Japanese Christmas cake. According to a representative from Fujiya’s PR department, “the base of the cake was a rich, liqueur-soaked fruitcake” in the European style. But the bakers considered its plain brown appearance not eye-catching enough, so they decorated it with snow-white royal icing, complete with little Christmas trees. Over the next decade, bakers around the country decorated their Christmas desserts with strawberries after growing methods made them available in December.
Today, Christmas cake is synonymous with strawberry shortcake, a light and fluffy confection with alternating layers of soft sponge and delicate whipped cream, topped with perfectly sweet fresh strawberries. Some of the most amazing creations are found in the highest end hotels and come at astounding prices (the Renne (‘reindeer’ in French) cake shown above from the Palace Hotel Tokyo is topped with a tall sculpted cone depicting reindeer antlers. The cake and the cone collectively are about a foot wide and 20 inches high, contains more than 100 perfect strawberries, and sessl for the hefty price of 70,000 yen ($640))
Bryte Balance bed proports to use A.I. to sense pressure imbalances of those laying on the bed and then automatically controls a number of adjustable ‘rebalancers’ that give anyone laying on it a better night’s sleep.
Combine that with some ultra lux phone app controls and you got the making of a luxury bed being used at some of the top luxury hotels and resorts in the world – like the 5 star Park Hyatt New York and Carillon Miami.
You can own one yourself if you like. It’ll only set you back $6,299
Unfortunately, by 2022, it looks like the train ride has been converted to into a cruise. Maybe it will come back as a train experience in 2023? Here was a 2019review of the train version.
The entire experience for 2 comprises a 4-day trip to Paris to create your 1920s wardrobe and the entire 4-day cruise on the Mediterranean in a regular cabin. Included in your package: 6 nights in a luxury hotel (suite), your wardrobe for the game, as well as all your meals and bespoke cocktails during the cruise.
The murder mystery was written by an award-winning author and inspired by Agatha Christie. In this new murder mystery, you will never really know when the mystery starts, who is real, or how each of your fellow travelers is involved. All you’ll know is time is of the essence because anyone on board could be the next victim or … the murderer(s).
The adventure begins months before the cruise starts when you will receive your invitation with the date and place of departure. Then, after an incredible 4-day-long Costumes Experience in Paris to create your whole 1920s wardrobe for the cruise, your adventure will start a few months later, in September or October 2023… or is it 1923?
Travel back in time a hundred years back to enjoy an extraordinary private visit to one of Italy’s most famous ancient archaeological sites, taste the 1920s-inspired creations of 3 different famous 3 Michelin-starred chefs, dance during a Charleston party on board the steamship and so much more. But be aware that this idyllic and lavish cruise hides many untold secrets and covert riddles as nothing is what it seems.
The Orient Express. The train that forever changed luxury travel almost 140 years ago (debuted October 4, 1883) is being brought back to life yet again – but this time by French hospitality group Accor, which uses the Orient Express name under license from SNCF, France’s national train service.
Starting in 2024 this most recent rebirth of the railroad icon will gear up to resume service from the French capital to the rest of the continent, reviving the same lavish journeys of its heyday. While details and itineraries have yet to be confirmed, it’s likely that some of the routes will end in Istanbul, just as it was for the first Orient Express.
What’s more amazing is that many of the original cars have been found and are being restored right now.
In total, seventeen cars—12 sleeping cars, one restaurant, three lounges, and one caboose—will form the ‘new’ convoy. All of them date back to the 1920s and ’30s and used to form what was known as the Nostalgie-Istanbul Orient-Express (the train took different names depending on its routes).
In 2015, industrial history researcher Arthur Mettetal embarked on a worldwide quest to inventory what was left of the Orient Express for SNCF. The luxury train company had shut down in 1977, but different iterations of the Orient Express had been briefly resurrected in the 1980s, only to disappear almost completely by the following decade (save for the Belmond’s Venice Simplon-Orient-Express rail service, part of a completely separate venture). In the intervening years, many of the trains had gone off the grid.
During the course of his survey, Mattatel came across an anonymously posted YouTube video. He analyzing the clip for clues and located it on the border between Belarus and Poland.
A few months later, Mettetal traveled to Warsaw with Saint Lager, as well as a translator and a photographer and found them. They had been there for about 10 years.
“We were expecting them to be in terrible condition, but inside they were surprisingly well-preserved,” recounts Saint Lager. “Some of them still had the original Lalique glass panels that were so emblematic of the Orient Express. We also found Morrison and Nelson marquetry,” which are intricate wood carvings with inlays of precious materials like gold or ebony. “The Art Deco details were just incredibly vibrant,” Saint Lager says. Following two years of negotiation between Accor and the owner of the Nostalgie-Istanbul, the train was eventually escorted back to France where they are being refurbished.
Tickets will go on sale in 2023—but if you can’t wait, there’s always the Orient Express La Dolce Vita (another project by Accor) slated to hit the tracks soon.
