Travels

Aldeburgh notes

by on May 5, 2013 at 5:53 pm in Travels, Uncategorized | Permalink

I long had imagined a perfect English seaside town and it turns out Aldeburgh is it.  Attending a German-Nigerian wedding here makes it all the more so (photos of town are here).

It is more like New Zealand than any other part of England I have visited.

Other than those here for the wedding, there seem to be few non-English people walking around town.  The working class people are fond of discussing the best fish and chips in the area, while one of the (apparently) visiting English women standing next to us in line started lecturing us about “Maggie the Milk Snatcher.”  Even the minister performing the wedding ceremony got in a dig at Thatcher (NB: this is not not not the Vicar of Aldeburgh, who sometimes comments on national affairs, but rather a visiting minister).

In 1908 the town elected the first female mayor in England.  The ships of Sir Francis Drake were built here.  The Benjamin Britten homage scallop-like sculpture structure has been vandalized thirteen times and there is a petition to have it removed.  A long time ago the “North Sea” was called the “German Sea.”

Once you get past London, Oxford, and the like, England is more exotic than most of the places I visit.

The local chocolate caramels go under the brand name of “Seagull Droppings,” with comparable packaging.  (No need to leave this link in the comments.)  You can find them in the Royal Navy store next to the water and the fishmongers.

23 comments

Calgary notes

by on March 11, 2013 at 2:49 pm in Current Affairs, Travel, Travels, Uncategorized | Permalink

They refer to themselves as Calgarians, which makes them sound more closely related to science fiction than in fact they are.  On Saturday I walked around in a sweater only.  In the span of little more than an hour, I was told numerous times that Calgary and southern Alberta have more U.S. citizens living there than any other region in the world.

Canada just had a very good job creation month.  About a third of the Albertan provincial budget comes from resource revenue, and bitumen prices have been falling, leading to some tough fiscal choices.

The city has elected a Muslim mayor.

On Snowquester virtually all flights out of DC were cancelled, even though Reagan National Airport had literally no snow.  Only Air Canada was flying a normal schedule and thus I arrived.

There are some excellent food choices in Calgary, although it is a city for ordering main courses, not appetizers.

There is no good reason to turn down a trip to Calgary, even in the winter.

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Calgary bleg

by on March 2, 2013 at 3:05 pm in Travel, Travels, Uncategorized | Permalink

I will have one free day there, so your advice is most welcome…I thank you in advance for the suggestions.  I already have noticed that Frommer’s is not exactly rich with suggestions about what is surely an interesting locale.

49 comments

High School Safety in Northern Virginia

by on February 15, 2013 at 7:24 am in Education, Travels | Permalink

Here is a letter I wrote to principal of my son’s high school:

Dear Principal _____,

Thank you for requesting feedback about the installation of interior cameras at the high school. I am against the use of cameras. I visited the school recently to pick up my son and it was like visiting a prison. A police car often sits outside the school and upon entry a security guard directs visitors to the main office where the visitor’s drivers license is scanned and information including date of birth is collected (is this information checked against other records and kept in a database for future reference? It’s unclear). The visitor is then photographed and issued a photo pass. I found the experience oppressive  Adding cameras will only add to the prison-like atmosphere. The response, of course, will be that these measures are necessary for “safety.” As with security measures at the airports I doubt that these measures increase actual safety, instead they are security theater, a play that we put on that looks like security but really is not.

Moreover, the truth is that American children have never been safer than they are today. Overall youth mortality (ages 5-14) has fallen from 60 per 100,000 in 1950 to 13.1 per 100,000 today (CDC, Vital Statistics). Yet we hide in gated communities, homes and schools as never before.

When we surround our students with security we are implicitly telling them that the world is dangerous; we are whispering in their ear, ‘be afraid, do not venture out, take no risks.’ When going to school requires police, security guards and cameras how can I encourage my child to travel to foreign countries, to seek new experiences, to meet people of different faiths, beliefs and backgrounds? When my child leaves school how will the atmosphere of fear that he has grown up in affect his view of the world and the choices he will make as a citizen in our democracy? School teaches more than words in books.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Tabarrok

186 comments

Digitalization and the value of various tourist locales

by on January 16, 2013 at 4:21 am in Travel, Travels | Permalink

Miles, a loyal MR reader, writes to me:

I’ve spent a fair amount of time today at my desk in California looking at this, and it got me thinking about an interesting interplay between the tourism industry and the “digital revolution”:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/Gigapans/EBC_Pumori_050112_8bit_FLAT/EBC_Pumori_050112_8bit_FLAT.html

(use the +/- buttons to zoom and drag to shift the view)

After finding people and understanding the scale of those mountains, I am in awe of Everest and the Himalayas, but feel absolutely no need to travel there. A digital representation has given me an amazing experience of a place on the other side of the world, and at least for this particular occasion, has convinced me never to go there (try to find the people climbing the upper portion of the glacier and you’ll understand why). So maybe some amazing (non deadly) location would convince me that I need to visit in person, but at some point, the digital experience gets so good that it’s a better, cheaper alternative to travelling. If in a few hundred years we can create digital experiences far more immersive than physical visits to locations, what experiences/amenities/etc will induce people to travel? Where will tourism die off (Himalayas), where will it increase (Paris)? As you say, solve for the equilibrium.

Thought it might make for an interesting discussion.

I predict that bustling, interactive locations — such as Guatemala — will do fine, and it is the static nature settings which will face a bit more competition.  That said, while I have never visited the Himalayas, I suspect the trip there involves a lot of bustling interaction with local cultures and that the final destination is in part an excuse for the process.  Keep also in mind that most of us do not in fact enjoy travel but enjoy only the memories of travel, with our minds playing a fairly active role as editor.  I doubt if the memory of visiting the digital image will ever compare, even if the image itself is more beautiful and more convenient than the reality of an actual physical site.  Finally, there is marketing to consider.  The digital image may market the original, just as the rather vivid LOTR movies have boosted tourism to New Zealand rather than replacing it.  So overall I still see tourism as a continuing growth industry.

47 comments

The Hindu Nudge?

by on December 15, 2012 at 11:13 am in Food and Drink, Travels | Permalink

On the plane to Chennai, the stewardess said to the man next to me: “Sir, are you the one who ordered the non-vegetarian meal?”

41 comments

Israel notes

by on December 10, 2012 at 1:27 pm in Travels | Permalink

The food is quite good, as is the gelato.  Don’t forget the Libyan, Ethiopian, and Yemeni offerings.

Poverty is more evident than I had expected, and one wonders whether extreme Israeli income inequality is a harbinger of a broader global future.  A simple, small bottle of mouthwash costs about $10.  It is surprising, for this American, to see beggars wearing yarmulkes.

How much of the high cost of living here is from inefficient retail and consolidation?  How much from “the Island effect”?  Since the locals feel the high costs too, we cannot rely on the productivity of the tradeables sector as an explanation.  As for the rent, when it comes to construction permits, Israel ranks #137 (!, pdf) on the World Bank’s Doing Business Index.  Yet the quality of the construction is often somewhat ramshackle, although I expect the Wall and the Iron Dome to last for some while.

Cost of living aside, I imagine living in Tel Aviv as quite pleasant, and I prefer it to most of the other Mediterranean cities I have visited.  The Israel Museum in Jerusalem displays its collection wonderfully.

This place is now a preliminary R&D laboratory for good U.S. TV shows.  Hani Furstenberg is Israeli, it turns out, and Tel Aviv has been named the world’s #2 city for high-tech start-ups.

I am basing this following comment on a limited sample, but so far I have found this country to have a disproportionately large share of taxi drivers who are Jewish, at least compared to anywhere else I have visited.

The Segway seems to have some commercial viability in Israel.

Sometimes the security question consists simply of “Do you have a weapon?”  I do not.

Against my expectation, Jerusalem is a more populous city than Tel Aviv.

Natasha cannot pass for an American here.

43 comments

Busan notes

by on October 16, 2012 at 2:53 am in Travels | Permalink

Busan is the best success story I know for the Avent-Yglesias approach to urban density.  Imagine taking a city that looks like San Francisco, or more concretely Nagasaki, and letting millions of Koreans in to live there.

They served me the live, still-wriggling and squirming sea worm entree, which you are supposed to dip into sauce and push down your throat; it was neither the best nor the worst course of the meal.

White sashimi, dipped into hot bean paste, is the preferred manner of eating raw fish here; tuna, salmon, and eel are not popular.

On the beach, on a clear day, you can see Japan across the water.

In a nearby rural area, the populace would appear to go to Sunday church, dressed up in their finery, and then hang out at the museum and welcome center for the local nuclear power plant.

A day tour of Hyundai City, the special economic zone, the chemical-industrial complex (reminds me of New Jersey), and the new port is better than a day tour of Korean temples.  They are all targets for North Korean missiles.

The people I have asked predict reunification within ten to fifteen years.  They are ashamed to have such a brother in the family.

If you visit Korea you should come to Busan.

24 comments

A Brief Visit to North Korea

by on October 14, 2012 at 7:35 am in History, Travels | Permalink

Tyler is in North Korea, Alex is in South Korea.

Alex is in North Korea, Tyler is in South Korea.

If we look a little tense it was because it was tense, perhaps even more than usual since just days before a North Korean soldier had killed two of his commanding officers while defecting to the South. North Korea also appears to be undergoing greater food shortages than in many years which no doubt adds to the tension. I had not realized, by the way, that you can see North Korea from a major highway in South Korea and the land is clearly stripped bare of trees which have been cut down for firewood and what little nutrition the bark offers.

Here are the North Koreans watching and photographing us to put into their permanent records.

 

43 comments

Seoul notes

by on October 13, 2012 at 4:00 am in Travel, Travels | Permalink

It is remarkable how well everything works here, even relative to expectations.  The economic ascendancy of South Korea has been more rapid than that of Japan, and for a larger group of people than Hong Kong or Singapore.  The initial level of education was much lower than in Japan.  The Korean social miracle is no less impressive than the Korean economic miracle.

By the way, can you explain the South and North in a single unified theory of culture and regimes?

French-Korean bakeries are extremely common here.

The Samsung Museum is of higher quality than the National Museum, including for patrimony pieces not just Warhol and Koons.

My hotel toilet is complicated and I am afraid to press the one button which simply says “Enema.”

I saw the two main Korean presidential candidates “debate,” both of them using communitarian redistributionist rhetoric with a rather flat delivery, preceded by and followed by a bow.  Toward the end one of them endorsed the work of Malcolm Gladwell, in front of Gladwell.

I am pleased to have spent one minute inside North Korea, with Alex, guarded by five South Korean martial arts experts and one U.S. soldier.

The question I hear most often is what I think of Gangnam style and the video.  The second is whether I am a Christian.

There are so many coffee shops here.  But why?

South Koreans have now dominated the game of Go for about fifteen years.

64 comments

Seoul food notes

by on October 8, 2012 at 2:04 pm in Food and Drink, Travels | Permalink

There is always a pumpkin, smoked duck, or clam and noodles dish you haven’t seen before.  The way to eat well here is to seek out the small restaurants, on the edge of residential districts, with no English language signs, which appear to not rely very heavily on the division of labor and which serve not too many dishes.  Bibim bap (shaken vigorously inside a lunch box, I might add) is like a fine risotto and the quality of cabbage alone makes Seoul a world-class city.

Particular restaurant recommendations are pointless, and in any case hard to track down.  Just follow basic principles.  The street food, by the way, is only so-so.

At one restaurant, as a kind of joke, I asked “What is best?”, not even expecting my English to be understood.  The waiter became very excited and opened the menu to a page entitled “Best food,” which listed five dishes.  I ordered two of them.

I see no reason to explore upscale dining here.  For surprise and uniqueness, I am not sure the world currently offers a better dining city than Seoul.  My most expensive meals are still falling below $20, averaging $10-$12, and they are occasionally below $5.

41 comments

Beijing notes

by on August 1, 2012 at 2:11 pm in Travels, Uncategorized | Permalink

It is a gargantuan, imperial city, and while there is always a walking path the point of walking is not always clear.  “The Middle Kingdom does Dubai.”  There is no need to tell me about all the parts of the city which do not look like Dubai, I have seen many of them, and furthermore Dubai has such parts as well.

An iPad, plus Baidu access to Chinese characters, makes it easy to ask questions of strangers.  Hardly anyone speaks even minimal English.  It is less harried than I had expected.  The sky rarely appears, at least in late July.  The contemporary art district, 798, is worth more than one visit.  I am not interested in seeing the Great Wall.  My hotel, rather than having a “Medical Devices” conference, has a meeting on “Australian Property Holdings.”

The main problems here are the air pollution, and that no one, including taxi drivers, seems to know how to get anywhere.  The rate of change is high and many people are from the provinces, so there is a real information gap.

The main upsides stem from what scale enables.  Even if you have been to many places, Beijing will manage to astonish you.

Most of all, I am struck by how Taiwan is more Chinese than is China.

72 comments

Manila bleg

by on July 25, 2012 at 3:12 pm in Travels | Permalink

As this bleg is posting I am on a flight to Beijing.  After that, Manila.  I’ll have plenty to say about China, but in the meantime your Manila suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks!

37 comments

Toronto food bleg

by on July 18, 2012 at 2:36 pm in Food and Drink, Travels | Permalink

I won’t be there until September, but someone I know (who lives in “our world,” most likely you have read him on economics) will be there sooner.  Please help us both out.  He has very good taste in food.  We both thank you in advance.

55 comments

Which are the best walking cities?

by on June 7, 2012 at 3:41 am in Travel, Travels, Uncategorized | Permalink

I will nominate London, Paris, and Buenos Aires as leading contenders.  New York is for me too familiar for me to judge objectively and so I exclude it.

Reasonable safety is a prerequisite, and then we have the following dimensions:

1. Chance of seeing a striking yet non-famous piece of architecture.  All three cities are strong here.

2. The right mix of broad boulevards and narrower streets.  Ditto.

3. The chance of spontaneously encountering good bookstores or excellent dark chocolate:  London wins the former, Paris and Buenos Aires win the latter.

4. Cheap, convenient cabs, and places to sit and drink sparkling water: Buenos Aires is #1 on these.

5. Strangers are willing to talk to you: Tough to call, though NYC would win hands down if it were in the running.

6. Strategic and frequent use of historic plaques: London wins; yesterday I saw “George Canning lived here” and “Clive of India lived here,” among others.

B.A. loses points for imperfect safety and also capital confiscation, though it has by far the warmest weather of the trio.  Overall I am inclined to pick London as first, perhaps because I prefer English to French for bookstores.  Paris offers fewer surprises, even if it has a higher average level of beauty.  Paris is also worse for spontaneous cheap dining in restaurants, though it has far better food stores for urban picnics.  Berlin is perhaps the best city right now for living, but it is too spread out, and with too many broad boulevards, to be the best walking city.  It is an excellent city to take a cab in.

Walking cities on the rise: Istanbul.  I suspect it’s long been splendid, it’s now reaping the gains of being modern.

Underrated walking cities: Moscow, Mexico City, Toronto, parts of northern England, Los Angeles.

Overrated walking cities: Budapest, Krakow, Munich.

Best city to take the subway through: Tokyo.

If I had to pick a fourth in line: Barcelona.

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