Travel Tips: Culture & Thoughts

When people travel around the world, they meet a lot of travelers and local people. In many cases, they have big culture gaps among them. When they become familiar, it's time to talk about their culture.

Culture things are very difficult to explain. 10 years ago, people worried, "What do I indicate these complicated thing?" Now you have your smartphone on your hand with public WiFi called "Hotspot". Only you search and show the images, you can be familiar with your next guys.

However, you may not talk all the your interests.

1. Religions
   Recently, this is especially important if you walk around the conflict areas such as middle east, South Asia, and Africa. One of the famous conflict in the world is between Jewish and Islam in Israel. Without this, there are a lot of similar condition in the world. In China, for the governmental reasons, the government and Tibet people(Buddhism) have strong conflicts.
2. Races
   All people belong to races. Frankly to say, people call them "White," "Black," and "Yellow." For a long years in the history, white people have been superior than others. Now their rights becomes little by little equalized. However, the feuds and the memories are still on their mind. They are closely related to their lives.
3. Political Thoughts
   If you live in a peaceful country, you may not care about this. However, in some countries, political groups are with religions such as Christian and Islam. These groups are strongly against each other. When travelers tell about their thoughts, these affect to the treatments of the travelers.

These three are on the common senses of travelers. In common of these things are: 1) they are with thoughts, 2) closely related to their lives, and 3) permanent situations. Especially, if you plan to encounter with local people, please mind these and be a beautiful stranger:-)

"Beautiful Stranger"(1999)

By Madonna

A few years ago, especially, airline companies prohibited to use digital equipments such as smartphone, music players, digital cameras on board. However, now many of them turn to permit them. Also you can use in some buses and trains. You've got a chance to talk with people. Make friends, and enjoy your summer vacation!

RSS Reader

RSS Reader is useful for everything. If you use your smartphone, I think you have one. I'm also using a RSS Reader for my life. It's called "Google Reader." However, Google announced they will shut down it, and we can't use it anymore after July 1, 2013. What do we do for this?

Here are some alternatives:

1. Feedly ( http://www.feedly.com/ )
   Feedly is very popular. We can use it with smartphones and with Firefox(You need to install the add-on). This is also with Google ID.
2. NetNewsWire ( http://netnewswireapp.com/)
   This is desktop application for Mac. After you download the subscriptions via Google Takeout, you can import the file to NetNewsWire. When you adjust the setting, you can use like Google Reader.
3. Feed Demon ( http://www.feeddemon.com/ )
   This is also the desktop application for PC. As the same as NetNewsWire, after you download the subscriptions via Google Takeout, you can import the file to Feed Demon.
4. Flipboard ( http://flipboard.com/ )
   Flipboard is similar with Feedly. It's for the smartphones and tablets. When you register for your account, you can store your information and the subscriptions. Also you can make your magazines on it.

In fact, you can subscribe this blog on these apps. I have the subscription address on the right column. When you click the subscription, you can get the address of this blog.

Reading "lifehacker," Newsblur and Netvibes are also good and stylish alternatives.

When you register your favorite information, these will be your magazine. Using these tools are a good way to rearrange your daily needs and the information. Also you can register for your next travel and the destinations.

Enjoy yourself with your favorite information!

"Enjoy Yourself" by A+ (1999)

Sochi A-Go-Go

Last year, London Olympics was open in July. The games were impressive, and many Olympians showed their artistic body moving in front of the audiences.

Well, what is the next? Some people like the Olympic Games. They can't wait for next, and prepare for the next destinations.

Here is a summery of 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi (Russia). Sochi is a leisure city on the shore of the Black Sea. This game happens from February 7 to 23 in 2014. The motto is "Hot. Cool. Yours." The tickets are already on sale on their website ( http://www.sochi2014.com/ ).

When Soviet Union was alive, Moscow Olympics was occurred in 1980. Then many Western countries such as the United States, Canada, Sweden, West Germany and Japan boycotted the games. Ironically, this was the symbolic games of the Cold War. After 34 years later, the Olympic Games comes back to Russia. In Sochi, athletes plays for 15 sports. There is no physical border on the map like the western and eastern countries, and only the athletes have the mental and financial borders for the games now.

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Personally, I checked the Internet to find about Sochi, Russia, but there are only some websites related to travel and sightseeing. I think Lonely Planet is the best one to check about Sochi.

Sochi, Russia (Lonely Planet)
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/russia/russian-caucasus/sochi

In Sochi, the games happen near the leisure city. However, the scale of the city is not big like London. If you want to visit there, carefully you need to decide the accommodations and transportation you use.