| Crouching into history | | Posted Thursday, February 01, 2007 2:59:18 PM by Blog57 Team | | 'Las Vegas is not coming to Great Britain!" announced Tessa Jowell. There would, for example, be no free booze and no oxygen pumped in to keep punters awake. Well, more's the pity. Las Vegas has fabulous entertainment, cheap food and magnificent, demented, over-the-top hotels. All right, the Mob runs everything, but what do you expect? First though, a moment of history. Yesterday, for the first time, a standing committee - the ones which go line by line through bills - heard from expert witnesses. For political anoraks, it was like being a trainspotter who sees the first Virgin Pendolino crawl into Crewe. .... | |
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| | | 14k Yellow Gold 3mm Ball Stud Earrings, Baby/Mens Fit, HypoAllergenic | | Posted Tuesday, January 23, 2007 12:44:13 PM by Blog57 Team | | Crafted of a superior strength and rich beautiful natural color 14k HypoAllergenic Gold, these beautiful Ball Stud Earrings are great for every occasion. Designed for ladies, girls and even men wearing earrings. High polished 3mm in overall diameter ball is precisely set on a 9mm length post, featuring secure clutch closure. Both, earrings and the clutches, are 14kt Gold stamped. Style: EL01291... | |
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| | | Cheap Fiji fares in post-coup campaign | | Posted Friday, January 05, 2007 1:01:29 PM by Blog57 Team | | AIR fares and hotel package prices have been cut in a Fiji campaign to restore Australian tourist numbers which slumped after the recent military coup. Chairman of the island nation's Tourist Action Group (TAG), re-formed recently, Damend Gounder, said today the campaign, supported by television advertising, was the "first step on the recovery road''. The TAG led Fiji tourism's recovery from a coup in 2000. Tourism, Fiji's major foreign income earner for which Australia is the largest market providing more than 200,000 visitors a year, has been in decline since the ousting of the government by the military on December 5. This was followed by a warning from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs that citizens should "reconsider (their) need to travel to Fiji at this time due to the increasingly volatile political and security situation '' which "could deteriorate without warning''.... | |
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| | | The view from here | | Posted Sunday, November 19, 2006 12:59:05 PM by Blog57 Team | | DANDONG, CHINA - Nightlife in Dandong belongs to the city's riverside promenade, awash in neon from karaoke halls and noisy restaurants.In the early evening, seafood joints prepare meals so fresh they writhe on the serving plate. Around midnight, in the blocks by the Yalu River, young Chinese bounce in laser-lit discos.All this light and life belongs to one side of the river. The far shore looks like a big, black nothing.That is North Korea.When the sun rises, and shopkeepers sweep cigarette butts off that same promenade, Dandong reveals its most curious attraction:Glimpses of Asia's most isolated country.Outside of special circumstances, Americans are forbidden in North Korea, which still considers the Korean War ongoing since the 1950s.Curious travelers -- like me -- are resigned to peering across the border from South Korea or Northeast China.Dandong, an up-and-coming port city situated near the Korea Bay, is perfect for this sort of voyeurism.... | |
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| | | A last-minute French adventure | | Posted Tuesday, November 14, 2006 6:58:19 PM by Blog57 Team | | My role in the family is to take well-conceived vacation plans and complicate them. Someone in every family has to be the acknowledged enforcer of the laws of entropy. Over the years I have had a gift for turning even the most sublime vacation into an ordeal. Thus almost from the moment we arrived at de Gaulle for a vacation in Paris, I began dreaming of leaving Paris behind and going on a road trip. I wanted to see castles and vineyards and tiny French villages with cobbled streets barely wide enough for a tank. (For many American males of a certain age, old European streets are inevitably associated with tanks, from watching TV shows like "Combat.") But I didn't know if a road trip would be plausible in France — a real road trip, the kind that's impulsive, unplanned and potentially calamitous.... | |
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| | | Cheap Airfare and Budget Travel Web Site CheapoAir.com Signs Up With TouricoHolidays.com Hotel Portal | | Posted Monday, November 13, 2006 3:24:03 AM by Blog57 Team | | CheapoAir.com Cheap Airfare and Budget Travel Web Site announced today that it has signed a distribution agreement with TouricoHolidays.com, one of the largest hotel portals in the world. CheapoAir.com.com will utilize Tourico's hotel properties to create hotel and air dynamic packages to sell to its more than 1 million online customer base. TouricoHolidays.com has one of the most diverse hotel-negotiated rate portfolios in the world. *(LOGO: Send2Press.com/mediadesk/logo-cheapoair_72dpi.jpg) CheapoAir.com and its technology partner, Fareportal, will integrate Tourico's XML feed of hotel properties database into Fareportal's proprietary booking engine. This XML feed will allow real time data and 2-step booking capability. Fareportal has access to more than 80,000 hotels through Sabre Travel Network and Amadeus Global Distribution System.... | |
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| | | Virgin Galactic: Anatomy of a Business Model | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 3:16:36 PM by Blog57 Team | | LAS CRUCES, New Mexico - For Virgin Galactic--the passenger-carrying spaceliner company--plans are rapidly taking shape to offer suborbital space flights in the near-term but also to eventually offer point-to-point rocket travel around the globe, as well as to space hotels, and trips to the Moon. While the business case for public space transportation has yet to be proven, sections of Virgin Galactic's spaceliner already dot the factory floors at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California--all under the watchful eye of aerospace designer, Burt Rutan. Rutan and his team built and flew the piloted SpaceShipOne on a trio of suborbital treks in 2004, winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize purse in the process.... | |
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| | | MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stocks Rally On String Of Deals; Dow Gains Hit Triple Digits | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 3:01:28 AM by Blog57 Team | | U.S. stocks rallied Monday as upbeat Fed-official remarks on the economy and a string of deals led by a $3.7 billion takeover offer for Four Season Hotels Inc. propelled the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a triple-digit gain. The Dow industrials (DJI) rose 100 points to 12,085. McDonald's Corp. (MCD) , United Technologies Corp. (UTX) , American Express ( AXP) and General Motors Corp (GM) were some of the most significant advancers. Home Depot Inc. (HD) was one of just a few Dow decliners, dipping 0.4% after UBS downgraded the home improvement retailer, citing concern over the impact of a weak U.S. housing market on its earnings. Of the 30 Dow stocks, 26 contributed to gains. The Dow has ended lower for the last six sessions and closed under 12,000 for the first time in over two weeks on Friday.... | |
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| | | The New China Syndrome | | Posted Tuesday, November 07, 2006 1:11:40 PM by Blog57 Team | | Who's afraid of Chinese imports? Not Rachid Mohamed Rachid and the handful of visionaries who are convinced Egypt can not only forge a mutually profitable relationship with China, but make the Asian superpower our leading trade partner. By Hadia Mostafa MORNING RUSH HOUR in Beijing comes to a screeching halt outside the gates of Tiantan Park, a sprawling, 273-acre public garden that houses the vividly colored Temple of Heaven complex at which the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties once worshiped. Stepping into the park is like being transported into a sanctuary a world away from the noise and pollution that is the reality of modern-day China. Here, hundreds of Chinese, the majority of them retirees, gather every day in clusters, silently performing their morning Tai Chi.... | |
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| | | For frugal traveler, try midscale hotels | | Posted Monday, November 06, 2006 3:10:33 PM by Blog57 Team | | Chris Williams appreciates plush surroundings. He and his wife have stayed in a $350-a-night Ritz-Carlton in Florida. "Marble everything," he said. But the couple from Rome, Ga., decided on the Holiday Inn Express Hollywood for a more recent getaway to Los Angeles, where room rates start about $112 a night. "It's nice to live in luxury," said Williams, who supervises technicians at a cable-TV company. "But it's not feasible." Millions of frugal travelers agree. With their help, so-called limited-service hotels — modestly priced, predictable and a cut above Motel 6, Super 8 and other economy brands — have become the fastest-growing trend in hospitality. And why not? Comfort Inn, Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express, La Quinta Inn, Ramada Limited, Wingate Inn and similar chains often charge half as much as full-service Marriotts and Hyatts just up the road.... | |
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