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Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Insects in my apartment is a bad thing; however, insects in a museum is a thing of beauty, and the largest museum for insects in the United States may be found in Philadelphia, Pennyslvania, known as the Insectarium . Here, you’ll find a kitchen swarming with cockroaches. The good news is that it’s not your kitchen and the cockroaches, while uncovered, are kept in place by two electric barriers. The museum began in 1992 by Steve Kanya of Steve’s Bug-off Exterminating Company. The museum began small, as a way to display the extermination company’s best weekly catch, which was then displayed in a fish tank in a window. The display proved popular, and Steve turned the top two floors of his building, an old firehouse, into an insect museum.

On the second floor, displays meant to educate you about the insect world are in place. There’s thousands of dead insects pinned inside show boxes. The floor also contains a fully functioning beehive and a live scorpion in a box, which glows in the dark (actually, all scorpions will glow under a black light; in Arizona, where scorpions are abundant, you’ll find “scorpion finding” black light flashlights at some of the convenience stores). The Model Roach Kitchen is a featured attraction, with a sink and counter-tops and cabinets inside plexiglass walls of about five feet in height. It’s here where you’ll be offered the chance to eat beetle larvae with cheddar cheese flavoring.

On the third floor, there’s live exhibits: tarantulas, beetles, stinkbugs, centipedes. Black Widow spiders and bird-eating spiders from Ecuador. You’ll even find a table where you might pet the creatures. You can actually stroke the back of a Madagascar hissing cockroach and a whip-tail scorpion; although, the name alone, whip-tail, might give you pause.

Philadelphia has a number of attractions for any visitor, such as Independence Hall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art , the Liberty Bell Center, there’s nothing like an Insectarium to make you return to a clean, comfortable room and have a nice warm shower. If you didn’t book a room before your visit, you can do so now at this website .

Do you want to know one of the most romantic places in the world? Of course you do and so did I, though that’s not what I was looking for exactly when I discovered that it was true. It turns out that my husband and I accepted an invitation by his former co-worker to spend a weekend in Ogunquit, Maine and we accepted thinking it would be a nice chance to get away from it all. We had both had an extremely busy and stressful couple of months so we were just looking to get out of Boston, we weren’t expecting anything else and had no idea what to expect from Ogunquit or the area.

However, from the moment we arrived, which was in the late evening so we pretty much just settled into the comfort of our fireplace warmed room accommodations. However, the next morning we were all up at sunrise and enjoyed a great coffee and pastry breakfast with an incredible view of the water and surrounding trees. There was just enough of a breeze to remind us that we were free and my husband and I looked at each other with a familiar, yet estranged knowing smile. We suddenly laughed at an odd realization we couldn’t quite yet vocalize and our friends wondered what was the joke.

We had a beautiful, quiet day and walked along the water’s edge and found out information on the Playhouse, which is the town’s theatre and is reported to put on some quality productions as well as the museum, which we decided we would visit the following day. That night the four of us enjoyed some delicious hot cocoa and felt almost like kids who were on our own for the first time. We had such an amazing time there that my husband and I agreed it would be our regular preferred escape location and we’ve even begun talking about buying a summer home there.

Upon our descent into Miami, our pilot announced that things might get a little bumpy; there were several storms in the area. As soon as he announced that, we felt like our plane had entered into a war zone, it was really very violent, but fortunately, it only lasted about 2 minutes. That was really very scary, my husband wasn’t bothered at all.

When we landed, the caught the shuttle bus to our hotel, but we were right in the middle of a deluge of rain. My husband was preparing himself for the conditions, by heaving our bags up and over the back seat of the vehicle, so we wouldn’t have to go around to the back of the van to get our bags. I but on my rain poncho. We were ready for wet Florida, but as the driver pulled up to our hotel, the entrance was covered! We didn’t have to go through all that rigamarole. We had booked the hotel online and we knew it would be a nice place to stay but we had no idea that it would be luxurious. We emerged from the shuttle van feeling that we over did it with the rain gear.

Miami is the last stepping stone for our month long travels through the US. Our next stop is South America. The reason why we made Miami our last stop, was for the art, and we don’t mean Art Deco, but for body art. There’s this TV show called Miami Ink, the show is about a tattoo studio and their clients. We just love the stories that go behind the reason for getting tattoos. Plus, we both decided that this place would be the first place for us to get our first tattoos. We came up with a design that captured our month away and will encompass our most memorable experiences. I’ve sketched it out, adding things and taking away other things, and my husband liked it. So, next time you see us, we will both have matching tattoos on our backside!

Two brothers, Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, developed a famous substance used to this day, a helpful salve known as Tiger Balm, which you can find in any drug store.  In 1937, they constructed a park in Singapore known as the Tiger Balm Gardens, meant to be a place to teach Chinese traditional values.  In 1979, the park sold to the Singapore Tourism Board.  A few years later, it was renamed and opened as an amusement park in 1990 as Dragon World.  The park is a collection of fascinating and bizarre statues and figurines that depict Chinese folklore.  Over a thousand statues, in fact, that represent mythological characters, such as the Laughing Buddha, the Goddess of Mercy, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and more.  Even more interestingly, perhaps, is the Ten Courts of Hell, an area that features the ten steps of judgement before reincarnation, which is pretty direct in its depictions.  These underworld tortures and torments are set inside a 60 meter long dragon’s mouth.   I wouldn’t bring children here, as the statue and sets depict moral values and the punishments received for wrong-doing.  Children might have nightmares afterwards, but young adults may really enjoy it, for the gruesome aspects if nothing more.

Today, the park is known as Har Par Villa and also contains a Chinese Immigration Museum inside the gardens.  While entry to Har Par Villa is free, you may have to pay a fee for the museum, where you may learn about how Chinese people moved from China and settled in other places around the globe.   Even if you elect not to go to the museum, the park itself may be worth a couple of hours.

You can find a great room simply by clicking here, then take in the Tiger Balm brother’s tribute to Chinese folklore.  From there, you can spread out through the city of Singapore, to the Singapore Flyer, to its fascinating Chinatown, and on to the theme parks of Sentosa Island.

If you like art, music and movies that you may be like me and wonder where the famous artists and entertainers come from or live today. When you are looking for a fabulous hotel in San Francisco click here also look for some of your famous favorites. There are so many famous people of all sorts of careers that come from or live now in San Francisco. There are also some crazy people who have made some headlines like Charles Manson who was really from Cincinnati but made is crazy debut in the bay area. Zodiac Killer who is still unidentified also ran his crazy streak in northern California.

I like to think of artists like Ansel Adams. He was born in the big city and became a house hold name with his amazing black and white photos of some of the most beautiful places in America. He loved the National Forests of the country like Yosemite and the Grand Tetons near Jackson Hole. Then you have Isadora Duncan who was the creator of Modern dance. But the biggest list of famous people falls into the actor category. It is endless. Where does one start. There are a few of the classics such as Gracie Allen who gained her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her comic brilliance. Natalie Wood was also born in the city and gained her fame with performances in movies like Miracle on 34Th Street and Rebel Without a Cause.

Then we can jump to some of the modern actors still putting on great performances like Benjamin Bratt, Danny Glover, Rob Schneider, the sweet Alicia Silverston and he intense Liev Schreiber. Wow! He ha an amazing career going. I love him as the brothers he played in the latest films Defiance and X-Men Origins Wolverine. He is a powerful, versatile actor. He is also a director and screenwriter. He has also performed on Broadway most notably in the show Glengarry Glen Ross where he won a Tony Award.

What’s the best zoo in the United States for children?  The world famous San Diego Zoo or the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida? According to Parents’ Magazine, it’s the Lowry Park Zoo, with San Diego coming in at second.  To qualify for the honor, a number of factors were considered, such as were the exhibits at the eye level of a preschooler, were any exhibits hands-on, and did the zoos have enough strollers to rent or tables on which to change young ones?  These factors mean it won’t always be the best known or the largest zoo that wins the top recognition.

If you’re traveling through Florida, stop in and stay at one of the luxury Tampa hotels and see this number one rated zoo.  It contains one thousand six hundred and fourteen animals over fifty-six acres.  Out of those fifty-six, four and a half acres are devoted to an Australian themed children’s zoo, a place where the kids can pet and feed wallabies and kangaroos, play as if they’re sheep-herding, and also play in and around fountains and statues of animals.  Devoted to safety, the zoo has eight first-aid stations, and conducts drills bi-monthly to rehearse what to do if animals should escape.  And, as long as the zoo is open to the public, there’s police security.   Your kids will also see a Safari Africa exhibit, the first phase of which has opened, and features a number of interesting animals, such as zebras, elephants, bongos, warthogs and giraffes — even the African ground hornbill, which is a species of bird with elongated eyelashes and big bills.

Second in the top ten was the San Diego Zoo, which is twice as large as the Lowry Park Zoo and holds four thousand animals.  It’s known for a very well educated staff, ninety-five percent of which have degrees in zoology.  It also operates a children’s zoo containing thirty exhibits and a petting zoo where children can touch goats, sheep, and even miniature horses.  A main feature is the polar bear plunge, where kids can watch two polar bear cubs play in a pool of a hundred and fifty thousand gallons.

All of the top ten zoos have something to recommend them.  The rest of the top ten were the Oklahoma City Zoological Park and Botanical Garden (number 3), the Brookfield Zoo of Illinois (4), the Phoenix Zoo (5), the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden (6), the Bronx Zoo (7), the Toledo Zoo (8), the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, Indiana (9), and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium (10).

Along the Merrimack River, thirty miles outside of Boston, you’ll find Lowell, Massachusetts, a city designed and planned as a complex for manufacturing textiles in the 1820s.  Within thirty years, it had become the biggest industrial center in America.  It’s life as a city waxed and waned for years, falling into difficult times during the Great Depression in the 20th Century, and reviving as the home of Wang Laboratories in the 70s.  While Wang Laboratories went bankrupt in the early 90s, the city remained a strong cultural center for people via the Lowell National Historical Park and the Lowell Folk Festival (occurring in July, one of the biggest free folk festivals in the country).  The annual festival brought new life into the city, allowing it to build a new ballpark and arena, and bring in two minor league teams, the Lowell Spinners and the Lowell Devils.  Over the decades, museums were established to explore Lowell’s heritage in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century, museums that examined the life of the textile worker and immigrant of the 1800s, in places such as the Boott Cotton Mills Museum, the American Textile History Museum, and the National Streetcar Museum.
 
Each of these museums are worth a visit, but if you’re a history buff and coming to stay overnight in one of the hotels Lowell has available for its travelers, then don’t overlook the New England Quilt Museum.
  
Through February 25, 2010, the museum is currently exhibiting Masters: Art Quilts, which examines the state of the art in quilting.  Martha Sielman, guest curator, has arranged for works to represent master art quilters, and so has on display quilts from international artists, such as Australia, Japan, Israel, South Africa, Denmark, the UK, France, and Belgium.  If you go, you’ll see work by Noriko Endo, whose quilts feature realistic and detailed landscapes, and Jane Sassaman, whose work consists of strong, waving designs.  You’ll see what’s possible in the world of quilting, and it goes far beyond what you might consider — there’s portraits, sculpture-like works, narratives, still lifes, and so on — indeed, there’s as much diversity in art quilting as there is in painting or sculpture!

In between the glitz and the glamour of Broadway, and the fierce calls of punk rock, there are other cultural forces in New York, helping to shape its identity over the decades.  There are many different kinds of music that find their home here, just as many cultures find their home in the city.  It’s probably got the most spoken languages on the streets at any given time than any other city in the world, and if you’re looking for something, anything, you can find it here or it probably doesn’t exist.  Some of the greatest contributions to music in the world have roots in Latin America, and find their perfect expression in the hands of the people who live here.

Generations of skill are sometimes passed down, and sometimes it comes up spontaneously in a new generation, but its evolution is strong, and its roots are very deep, and also enormously complex.  It’s an exciting place to come to look into the history and the present, booking New York hotel suites so that you can stay here in style and luxury, and make your way to the Bronx to visit Casa Amadeo.  This a place where every lover of Latin music needs to go at least once in a lifetime.  The 75-year old proprietor Miguel Angel Amadeo will be there, and would probably enjoy teaching you a little about the history here.

The shop is the longest-running Latin music store in the Bronx.  It opened in East Harlem as Casa Hernández in 1927, and Amadeo took over in 1969.  He’s the son of the famous Borricua composer Titi Amadeo, and his knowledge of the records he sells is extensive.  He’s seen a lot of music history firsthand, and is very well-respected among the musicians who play the music in its current evolutions. He also still sells vinyl, and only takes cash, so this is the kind of mom and pop store that everyone misses, but in our lifetime, we can visit, and learn a little something about the music that shapes us in the process.

Within sight of downtown Miami, you’ll see Biscayne National Park, the site of fifty islands of ancient coral reef, established in the late 1960s, about forty years ago, preserved by people who had a unique sense of what a national park might be — one covered by water, one that protected not only islands and the bay, but the reefs.  At first there was opposition to this idea, with some people favoring developing the land for homes, while others insisted on protecting it.  After a prolonged fight, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill for the park in October 18th, 1968, creating the Biscayne National Monument to protect terrestrial, amphibious and marine life.
 
Once you’ve settled into one of the Miami hotels, take a ride out to the park and be prepared to experience a world unique to the National Park system, one in which a great deal of the park is best seen underwater.  Here, in a setting of blue-green waters, green islands, and coral reefs, you’ll find proof of ten thousand years of humans living their lives, evidence of pirates and shipwrecks as well as presidents and farmers.
 
The park also offers the Maritime Heritage Trail, which will provide a chance to examine the area’s shipwrecks.  The Shipwreck Trail has six wrecks available to the public, ranging over a hundred years.  You’ll only be able to see these by boat, and they’re best seen by scuba divers, including The Mandalay. 
 
This particular boat was a 128 foot schooner that ran aground on New Year’s Eve in 1966 upon Long Reef next to Elliott Key.  The crew and passengers were all rescued, but The Mandalay was not as fortunate.  The boat was affixed to the reef, hard aground, and looters came pretty quickly to strip the boat.  When tug boats attempted to pull her off the reef, they ripped open the hull even more, and The Mandalay sank.  It rests now in ten feet of water, the best of the wreck dives in Biscayne National Park.  If you’ve ever watched the cable television series about what will happen to the Earth if no people existed upon it, the Mandalay is an excellent example of what happens after over forty years below the waters, with its hull coated with hard corals and sea fans, the home now for schools of fish.

I will never forget the feeling of walking into Grand Central Station for the first time.  New York to me, presents a lot of excitement mixed with a bit of eeriness.  I have only visited the city twice, and so I am not familiar with the city in real life, but growing up and watching old movies, new movies, and various television shows or music videos, the city has been a standard backdrop for years, and so many of the buildings in the financial district, some of the famous and finest restaurants in New York, the skyline, and Grand Central Station are all very recognizable.

So many films have had scenes in this building, so when I walked in for the first time, I was blown away with first, just how big it really is and just how many people there were, then I felt a bit odd as it felt a little like coming home.  Not that I had ever thought that I “belonged” in the city, not in that way of coming home, but just coming to the familiar.  It is a strange feeling that is kind of deja-vu in a sense.

The station was constructed a ten year period beginning in 1903 and lasting through 1913.  There are sixty seven sets of tracks taking up two floors.  This is mind boggling.  This is the second incarnation of the station, as the first one constructed in 1869 was built for steam engine trains.  The smoke caused an accident in the Park Avenue Tunnel, as the visibility was greatly reduced by all this smoke.  They built the Grand Central Station of today, with electric trains, and by 1910, no steam engines at all were allowed within the city limits.

The art and the architecture of this building is just as impressive as it is breathtaking.  The ceiling mural was painted by Paul Helleu, who was inspired to paint the zodiac by a manuscript from the medieval time period.  The building and the design, is Beaux-Arts Design at it finest.  This is one of the icons of the city, and should you find yourself standing in the middle of it some day, you will understand the immense feelings that Grand Central Station evokes.