Chinese New Year started with a bang (literally) on Sunday, with firecracker ceremonies to ward off evil, and runs through the beginning of March. This year is the year of the pig, and not just any old porker, but the golden pig! The piggly portion of the chinese 12-year zodiac is supposed to bring prosperity, luck and fertility, especially so during the once-in-60 years arrival of the golden swine. For the next few weeks Chinese cities and chinatowns everywhere from Beijing to London will be a riot of all things gold and red and elaborate light displays, as everyone tries to amp up their luck for the year to come. In Boston’s chinatown, all the local dim sum palaces are visited in turn by lion dancers to make sure that any nasty spirits are scared away. User Indietrekker just uploaded a clip of the proceedings:



Get extra lucky by checking out New Year happenings in any of these cities around the world:

– New York
– San Francisco
– Los Angeles
– Vancouver
– Hong Kong
– Singapore
– Kuala Lumpur
– Shanghai
– Beijing

Gung hei fat choi!

Macau has been getting a lot of press lately, as its recent glut of casinos helped it bankroll more than Vegas this year for the first time. There’s more to Macau, though, than the splashy new Wynn and Sands that have ended Stanley Ho’s decades-long lock on the casino business. Only a ferry or jetfoil ride from Hong Kong, Macau has a distinctly different culture–because it was a Portuguese, not a British colony–with unique architecture and cuisine. So, I was really pleased to see a new clip from Indietrekker, all about Macanese street food that can be found in the back alleys of the old city.



Indietrekker is Diana Kuan, a NY-based journalist who’s written for The Boston Globe, Food & Wine, TimeOut New York, and Metro newspapers. Before moving to New York for culinary school, she had collected some serious traveling points, living in China, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and Boston, and, after working for awhile in catering, she decided to hit the road again as a writer and documentarian. You can check out Diana’s other clips here on Travelistic, or on Indietrekker.com.

– Tagged: Street Food
– Lonely Planet: Macau
– Macau Government Tourist Office
– “Gambling in Macau: Betting on growth” (The Economist)

Mark and Nate are two guys from Vancouver, who like to “get the hell out whenever there’s a chance.” Their adventures began with an ill-fated High School band trip, and after a hiatus for degrees and solo travels, they joined forces as the “GoodTimes Club” for a four-month trek through Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong, and excursions closer to home. You can see the results right here on Travelistic. Mark tells me that they’re currently brainstorming a more extended traveling and vlogging project, with a website to follow. More news on that coming soon.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Annual Geography Quiz
– “Where In The World?”

New Year’s Eve Travel
– “25 great New Year’s getaways” (Guardian)

“The LA Times’ Savvy Shopper
– “A Parisian present … pour moi?”
– “These bargains made in Mexico”
– “Hong Kong, a.k.a. treasure island”
- “In Saigon, spending is great frenzied fun”
- “Wrap up a little cultural cachet from Paris, London”

Southern Caribbean
– “In Los Roques, Venezuela, a No-Frills Vibe” (NYT)

Mozambique
– “Mozambique buries the AK-47” (NYT)

Nicaragua
– “The Rediscovery of Nicaragua” (NYT)

According to Word Spy:
aerotropolis (air.oh.TROP.ul.lis) n.: A city in which the layout, infrastructure, and economy are centered around a major airport.

Word Hum picked up this coinage via a story in the NY Times this week, about the opening of Bangkok’s massive new airport complex, Suvarnabhumi. According to the Times this “golden land” will eventually encompass “all the components of a major metropolis: shopping malls, office buildings, hotels, hospitals, an international business center, conference and exhibition spaces, warehouses and even a residential community.” Even more over-the-top new airports in Dubai and Beijing will be opening in a few years. This trend has its roots in showplace terminals like O’Hare and Charles De Gaulle 2–which turned airports from fusty warrens of passageways into shiny, white spaceports–but really got going when Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok opened in 1998 on its own island, custom built to house the massive air-travel city, which employs some 45,000 workers.

Previously:
– Airports
– Word of the Day

The travel pages kept it real this weekend, with stories on stunt trips, insider knowledge and secret destinations, tips on how to find and avoid political hotspots, and news about how growing numbers of people are changing some beloved destinations.


Overcrowding at Machu Picchu
– “Taking the Back Roads to Machu Picchu” (NYT)

Hong Kong’s Disappearing Harbor
– “Hong Kong mourns as shrinking harbour gives way to development” (Guardian)

SF Chronicle Goes for the Borat Tie-in
– “JUST BACK FROM: Almaty, Kazakhstan” (SF Chronicle)

Survival Tourism
– “Setting Out Into the Arizona Wilderness With Only a Knife” (NYT)

Steering Clear of Politics in Mexico
– “Let caution be your guide” (LA Times)

Che’s Cuba
– “Santa Clara’s rebel saint” (Globe and Mail)

Berlin’s Fast Food for Foodies
– “Street Food with Ambition in Berlin” (NYT)

Istanbul on the Cheap
– “Modernity or Tradition: Istanbul at a Crossroad Finds Its Own Way” (NYT)

Secret Baja
– “Loreto: A relaxed fit” (LA Times)

Yellowstone in Winter
– “Zipping through Yellowstone” (Houston Chronicle)

UK-based writer Rachael Glazier decided to put her green beliefs into some extreme practice this month. Looking for an alternative to carbon-belching jumbo jets for a long-haul trip, she opted to travel from London to Hong Kong, by train. Currently in day three of a planned 11-day trek, Glazier had a piece in this weekend’s London Times detailing how she planned the trip, bought her tickets, acquired visas and prepared for at least 11 days in transit in countless different climates, from frigid Mongolia to subtropical Hong Kong. Doubtless, it won’t be an easy trip, and it’s certainly more expensive and time-consuming than flying – with days of planning, a total pre-travel cost of $1,550, and dealing with a travel industry where a train crossing seems completely Victorian, if the agents even have an idea how to make the arrangements. I’m guessing though, that she’ll have some great stories to tell when she arrives at her destination.

(Image via itchypaws’ photostream)