Eat, Sleep, Breathe, Travel

Fear of flying? Get an iPhone

Richard Branson and Virgin Atlantic have found a cure for the fear of flying. It’s an iPhone app called Flying Without Fear.

They say one out of every three adults has a fear of flying. That’s a shame, because it’s tough to travel to other continents without getting in an airplane. I hate to think of people missing out on seeing the world just because they can’t get there.

So this new Virgin Atlantic app sounds like a great idea to me. I don’t have an iPhone, and I’m not afraid of flying, so I won’t be using the app myself. But it definitely sounds cool.

It starts with a video of Richard Branson (the billionaire sort-of-eccentric chairman of all the Virgin companies). He eases your fears and tells you what to expect in your flight. Then you can access all kinds of frequently asked questions, with topics including airplane noises, turbulence, and so on. You also get relaxation and breathing exercises.

Like many fears and phobias, the fear of flying stems from people’s imaginations rather than any real danger. Flying, of course, is far and away the safest way to travel. But that doesn’t mean people have any less right to be scared. One of those people, it turns out, is none other than Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi actually took Virgin's Flying Without Fear course, and she has heartily endorsed it. And if you can't trust Whoopi, who can you trust?

Photo: Jake Mates via Flickr (CC license)

No English spoken here

I’ve blogged about Eurovision before. That’s the biggest music competition in the world, the original American Idol.

But today I learned about another music competition in Europe, one with a unique take on Eurovision. It’s called Liet International, and it’s all about minority languages. A minority language is basically just a language spoken by a minority of the population in a region. Many of them are dying languages, spoken only by traditionalists and people’s grandparents.

This year’s Liet International competition took place this past weekend in Friesland, a province in northern Netherlands. Musical acts included everything from a Friulian guitarist to a Sardinian hip hop group known as Dr Drer & CRC Posse. In the end, top honors went to a Sami rock group called SomBy. They’re from northern Finland. The Sami are a people indigenous to Scandinavia, with their own Sami language and customs.

For most of the contestants, singing in the minority language of their homeland is an honor and an important homage to their cultural heritage. Many of the musicians dressed up in traditional clothing for their performances. I like this whole twist on a music competition. I like the idea of carrying on the culture of one’s ancestors, doing one's part to make sure that the customs live on. I also like watching people rap in low German.

In any event, now that I know about the Liet International competition, I’ll be sure to pay attention when it rolls around next year. My money’s on De fofftig Penns.

 
Photo: Sean Rogers1 via Flickr (CC license)

Summer's end for Celtics

Well, it’s just about Samhain time.

While the rest of us are dressing up like zombies and/or Elvis for Halloween, the traditional Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-en) will be honored in Ireland and other areas with a Celtic history.

Samhain is an old Celtic tradition, and a precursor to our modern Halloween. The word means “summer's end” and for the Celts it was the dawn of the new year. They believed that on this one day the boundary between the living and the dead was weak, so the dead could come and hang out. Some of these dead spirits would play tricks on the living people; others might even cause them harm. To appease these spirits, the druids in the society would sacrifice animals.

Today, people still celebrate Samhain as an homage to the old traditions (but as far as I know, they no longer sacrifice animals). In Dublin, there's an annual Samhain Parade to honor the day. The parade follows a path through the city, usually ending up outside the Temple Bar area. The spectacle involves all the things you’d expect from a parade celebrating a holiday that spawned Halloween: monsters, druids, dragons, samba performers. The festivities end with a stirring fireworks display.

It all sounds like a fun event to commemorate ancient Celtic traditions. But it does beg the question: where’s my candy?

Photo: readerwalker via Flickr (CC license)

Eight lanes of picnicking in Sydney

It’s not often you get to sit in the middle of one of the world’s most iconic bridges and eat toast and jam, but that’s exactly what 6,000 lucky people experienced yesterday in Sydney, Australia.

For two hours on Sunday, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was closed to traffic, covered in real green grass, and turned into a giant picnic. The purpose of the Breakfast on the Bridge event was pure fun, which is a great reason for anything. It was also intended to raise publicity for Sydney tourism, which can only lead to more fun.

This video provides a nice overview of the event. The video shows everything from panoramic helicopter views, to interviews with government officials and picnic-goers, to a girl petting a large cow.

By all accounts, the picnic was a great success. I, for one, support these kinds of events, if only because I like the idea of temporarily turning functional city space into something other than what it’s meant for. As I write this, and as you read it, there are undoubtedly many cars driving on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But less than 48 hours ago it was covered in grass and breakfast eaters.

It makes you wonder what similar events and attractions could be featured in other cities. Maybe a twisty slide down the Eiffel Tower. Or a movie projected against the side of Buckingham Palace. Or water polo in Venice’s Grand Canal. The possibilities are endless.

Photo: Rgtmum via Flickr (CC license)

And the Best Jeanist award goes to...

In case you missed it, Japan crowned its “Best Jeanist 2009” earlier this week. And the winner was none other than the First Lady of Japan, Miyuki Hatoyama.

The Japan Jeans Association gives the award every year to celebrities (man or woman) who best represent the “spirit of jeans.” This year's big winner, the Prime Minister’s 66-year-old wife, took the honors thanks to her classy yet revolutionary style of wearing denim. The organization praised Miyuki as pioneering, strong, environmental and energetic.  Contest judges found her manner of jeans-wearing interesting, innovative, and appropriate for the aggressive nature of denim.

For her part, Miyuki was very honored with the award. She loves jeans, and she had always hoped to win this contest some day.

It must also be noted that the Japanese First Lady is notoriously wacky. Last year she published a book which recounts an experience 20 years ago when her soul traveled to Venus on a triangular-shaped UFO while her body slept soundly at home. She has also said that she knew Tom Cruise in a past life when Tom Cruise was Japanese.

I like this First Lady.

 

Photo: susanne anette (away) via Flickr (CC license)

Splitting the Earth

Yesterday was the 125th anniversary of the day the world decided to officially designate Greenwich, England as longitude 0° 0' 00" (the line known as the Greenwich Prime Meridian). If you like anniversaries, or meridians, this should interest you.

The Prime Meridian, which runs through the UK, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana, arbitrarily divides the Earth into the East and West Hemispheres. It allows for a universal standard of navigation, while also allowing all the world to follow the same 24-hour clock (based on difference from Greenwich Mean Time). It’s also fun for tourists, who can straddle the meridian at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich (not far from downtown London) and stand in both hemispheres at once.
 
There’s no scientific reason that 0° 0' 00" runs through Greenwich. Unlike the equator, which divides the Earth equally between the two poles, the Prime Meridian could just as well have been set at Paris, or Berlin, or Washington, D.C., or anywhere else.

Back in the 1800s, there were about 20 different Prime Meridians in use in Europe. Many countries used their own meridians, some even more than one. But as the railroad system sprung up all over the continent, and global navigation continued to expand, it became clear that everyone needed to agree on a standard for time and place. People were missing lunch meetings and bungling schedules left and right.

So in 1884, 41 delegates from 25 countries met in Washington, D.C. to agree once and for all on a ground zero for space and time. It came down to a few cities, and Greenwich won, mostly because a lot of the world’s shipping already used sea charts with Greenwich as the Prime Meridian.

And that’s the story of the Greenwich Prime Meridian.

Photo: Scootzsx via Flickr (CC license)

Skipping the escalator in Stockholm

If you’re like me, when given the choice of escalator or stairs to get out of the subway, more often than not you take the escalator. Most people do.

But not this week in Stockholm’s Odenplan subway station. Not since they installed special piano stairs that make noise as you step on them. Given the choice between going up the escalator or walking up the musical stairs, 66 percent more people than normal chose the piano stairs. Watch this video to see it in action. Of course, it's possible that the numbers might go down once the novelty wears off, but maybe not. As everyone knows, it’s always been fun to make music on a weight-sensing piano.

And fun is exactly the point. It’s all part of an initiative by the German company Volkswagen. The purpose is to encourage healthy living, exercise, environmental awareness, and anything that makes the world a better place, just by making it fun to do so. And fun it is. Volkswagen has launched a new website, thefuntheory.com, which has the video of the piano stairs in Stockholm plus another video of the so-called deepest garbage bin in the world, which encourages people to throw their trash away. Because it’s fun.

I can easily see these types of things catching on in other cities around the world. Perhaps it won’t be long until the world's population is healthier, the environment is clean, and we’re all having more fun than we could possibly imagine.

Photo: kj.vogelius via Flickr (CC license)

Enter the darkness...

I have a love-hate relationship with modern art. For instance, I don’t get much out of a painting of a blue square. But sometimes a piece of modern art gets to me. And the latest exhibit at the Tate Modern museum in London is definitely something I could get into.

It’s a giant steel box. This giant box is about 42 feet tall, 33 feet wide, and 98 feet long. And inside this giant steel box it is pitch black. So, as you walk inside, and head deeper into the blackness, it becomes completely dark. Soon enough, you can’t see your hand in front of you. You don’t know if you’re about to walk into a wall. Or a step. Or a monster. It's disorienting. In a good way.

The title of the exhibition is “How It Is.” So true. It was created by a Polish artist named Miroslaw Balka. Apparently, after a few minutes inside the depths of the box, your eyes do adjust and you can see hints of shapes and such. This adjustment is actually one of the artistic meanings of the work, according to Balka. Even when things are strange or challenging at first, in time you can adjust. That’s a nice lesson. And a nice pitch black steel box to learn it in.

The Tate Modern, by the way, is one of the world’s most renowned modern art museums. It only opened back in the year 2000 (there are other Tate museums in London that have been around much longer). Balka’s "How It Is" exhibit opens to the public on Tuesday, and it will be there until April 5 of next year. Let me know if you’re going.

Photo: nick.garrod via Flickr (CC license)

Do you have to pee before we go?

This bit of news made me smile.

In an unprecedented airline move that speaks to environmental concerns, money-saving strategies, and bathroom breaks, the Japanese airline All Nippon Airways has started a four-week trial period in which they’ll tell people to go to the bathroom before they get on the plane.

The hope is that removing the combined weight of 200 passengers’ waste will cut down on fuel consumption during the flight. I’m no scientist, but really? It makes that much of a difference? Apparently so. The airline hopes to see a five-ton reduction in carbon emissions during the one-month trial period.

During this time there will be “loo-attendants” stationed in the boarding areas (“loo” being a British word for the bathroom), who will kindly ask if you have to go pee before getting on the plane. To me that’s hilarious. I want that job.

Personally, I always do go to the bathroom before getting on a flight, if only to be more comfortable in my seat and to avoid bothering the people next to me (I like the window seat). Of course, the ANA flights still have functioning bathrooms on the planes, but they are for "emergency use" only. How embarrassing.

As I said, this is a four-week trial. If it works, and if it makes a difference in energy usage, and if passengers don’t rise up in opposition, then ANA will implement the policy permanently. I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I’m not sure that dictating passengers’ bathroom habits is going to sit well with the general public. We'll see.

Photo: Daquella manera via Flickr (CC license)

 

Giant puppets let loose in Berlin

In Germany, 2009 has been a year-long celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And this weekend was probably my favorite part so far. Because there were giant puppets walking the streets.

Generally speaking, I’m not particularly into puppets. Giant puppets, on the other hand, are another story. These Berlin puppets were incredibly lifelike, very creepy, and huge. You sort of have to see it to appreciate it, and one can imagine how much more impressive they were in person.

One of them, the “Big Giant”, is a 50-foot male, who represents the West. He's dressed in an old-timey diving suit. I'm not sure why. The other, a female, is a 16-foot “niece” of the bigger one. She represents the East. This weekend, the two puppets strolled through Berlin, thanks to the puppeteering of whole teams of professionals. They walked past famous landmarks like Reichstag parliament and Checkpoint Charlie (an infamous former passage between East and West Berlin). The culmination of the event was the two puppets coming together at the Brandenburg Gate, which used to separate East and West Berlin. In an emotional moment symbolizing the country’s reunification, the puppets embraced and kissed.

That was all on Saturday. On Sunday the two puppets symbolically returned to the crowd thousands of letters intercepted by East Germany's secret police back when the country was divided.

All told, more than 1.5 million people showed up to see the spectacle. The elaborate street show is all part of a run-up to the grand reunification celebration on November 9, the date the Wall actually came down back in 1989. Many famous people have been invited to attend that party, including Mikhail Gorbachev. I don’t think the giant puppets will be in attendance, but I’m not sure.

Photo: urbanartcore.eu via Flickr (CC license)