One morning in Beijing on the China 2.0 Tour, I grabbed a selection of newspapers as our group gathered at the gorgeous Marriott City Wall hotel , and I thought I’d share some tidbits from my haul since many PT blog readers may not have easy access to papers like the China Daily.
- A unique complex, the Emperor’s Lodge inside Beijing’s Forbidden City , will open next year after extensive restoration.
- The city of San Francisco is actively seeking more ties with China , especially sister city Shanghai (Mayor Gavin Newsom went to school in San Francisco’s Chinatown.)
- China Daily journalist Hong Liang gripes about less-than-stellar Chinese convenience stores .
- Wonderful article entitled Lost Horizon Found , about Shudu Lake and Potatso National Park in Shangri-La country (Zhongdian) plus why China needs more national parks .
- The South China Morning Post had a very interesting article about a Dutch man, Sebastian Straten, who is pursuing his dream of a guest house business in Iran. The link to it doesn’t have the whole article (silly! but I did find the full article in the Brunei Times .) I liked this quote:
“His guiding principle is simple: it is better to be among the first foreigners investing in Iran’s nascent tourism industry than a latecomer in nearby Dubai, the Gulf’s commercial hub – especially during a financial crisis….Iran sees tourism as a priority and wants to invest more than US$30 billion in the sector over the next two decades, according to Iranian media.”
- They’re building a high-tech urban planning vision for book nuts about 30 km north of Seoul, South Korea: Paju Book City . For more, see this Bloomberg article.
- From the UK’s Financial Times, a whole section called Global Traveller that deals with how businesses are coping with travel costs . The short answer? It’s a buyer’s market, and deals abound. Global Traveller also had blurbs about Lima, Mumbai and Florence .
- A couple of museum exhibit notes: Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum will open Chalo! India on 22 November, and the British Museum’s blockbuster Babylon looks really impressive.
I love the different perspective you can get by skimming the available local papers; a traveler’s bliss!
