One thing that you immediately notice as a Westerner in Korea, in the first few hours in fact, is how homogenous Korea is: there are very few white people. For the first time in my life, I felt very conscious of how my white skin set me aside from others in society, as I walked the streets of Korea. Korea, I remember reading a year ago in the Korean press, is made up of close to 96% Korean and only about 4% non-Korean people. Take a walk around London, England and you will notice how multi-cultural the city is. Seoul is, I understand, the most homogenous capital city in the world – or at least in the developed world.

If we travel abroad from our home country we all become foreigners. As a Korean in England you would be a foreigner and as an Englishman in Korea I became the foreigner. The only thing is, in Korea as a foreigner one becomes far more aware of the fact because of the homogeneity. My experiences were though, very positive, as I first stayed in the area of ‘Miasamgeori’ in Seoul. Children automatically would say ‘hello’ in English and start giggling and people in most situations were almost always very friendly – although sometimes too friendly. A few times on the subway within the first few months, a few people started testing their English out on me, at times when I sometimes did not feel like teaching English out of work. Within ten minutes I would also usually have a business card thrust into my hand without asking.

During the first few months in Seoul, with the Iraq war on (as 2003 approached), I was also conscious that, as a white person, I would be automatically presumed to be American, such is the influence of America on Korean culture and politics. There was the odd negative stare, but it was always from middle or older aged men. Comparing to landing in the U.S. for the first time, such as J.F.K Airport in New York, with the policemen walking around with guns and people twice the size and twice the weight as Koreans, Korea from the first moment felt pretty comfortable to be in. The expected culture shock did not happen, maybe perhaps because I have travelled a lot over the last few years.

No British Please. American preferred

I came to Korea without already having a job set-up, but I knew that English teaching jobs are plentiful in Korea. Searching for an English teaching job in Korea was a strange experience though. In England, English people talk about American English as though it is a bastardised version of the Queen’s English. I have travelled and lived in the U.S.A. extensively and personally I really enjoyed America and I like some of the American English expressions. If you go to America they usually love the English accent. In Europe though, Europeans usually dislike the loud, brash American accent. It was thus a surprise on attending my first interview for an English teaching job and then being rejected, because I was from England. I was told that an American or Canadian accent is preferred. The perfect country I would have expected, to be from if teaching English, was England. Clearly when first arriving in Seoul, I was a virgin in terms of knowing how much of an influence America has been on Korea.

Let me use this opportunity just clear up three things that I was asked literally a hundred times and which even to British people can be confusing.

What is the difference between the U.K., Great Britain and England?

Answer: The U.K. is a country that comprises of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Great Britain excludes Northern Ireland and England is just England – a territory in the U.K. Confused? Don’t worry about it.

2. How come England, Scotland and Wales all have separate International football (soccer) teams?

Answer: I don’t know. Please can someone tell me the answer by emailing me.

3. How did President Bush in the U.S. manage to get elected 3 times?

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-W’rtemberg and is beautifully positioned at the edge of the Black Forest; and as one of Germany’s leading industrial cities, it is a hive for both holiday and business travelers from around the world.

With a friendly atmosphere and easy hospitality, the charms of this city do not always unfold immediately to visitors; instead, they sometimes need to be sought out or looked up through tourist information before they will offer their full reward. A good starting point for any visit is the restaurant on top of the TV tower; while slightly pricey, it provides a great view of the city and the Neckar valley.

Stuttgart is enclosed by hills on three sides of the city, while the fourth side opens up toward its river harbor. Notable attractions include the nearby four castles and the famous Weissenhof estate, and it is a mecca for car fanatics. As the home of the Porsche and Mercedes Benz car companies, it is not surprising that the Mercedes Benz and Porsche museums act as focal points for petrol heads.

Food and drink also usually feature heavily in any visit to Stuttgart. The city is dotted with a multitude of restaurants and cafes offering local or international cuisine and beautiful views of the city, alongside all types of nightclubs, discos, bars, and pubs encompassing various themes and providing something for all different clientele. The region in which Stuttgart is situated also has a long history of winegrowing, and for the last 800 years, winegrowers have been permitted to serve their wine in their own private households. This leads to a relaxed atmosphere where home made wine and food can be consumed in comfortable surroundings while hanging out with the locals. The many great wines which are made here have international appeal, and the region’s long tradition can be seen by taking the wine hiking trails which are carefully documented in the winemaking museum or directly experienced in the various seasonal wine rooms and taverns.

Finding accommodation to stay in and around Stuttgart is easy, as there are many great quality B&Bs, hostels and hotels available, including a lavish new Hilton Garden Inn which has just opened near to the Mercedes museum.

For visitors looking for a touch of peace and tranquility, the many wide ranging parks across the city offer an ideal chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of normal life. The city is renowned for its range of boutiques, exclusive stores, and shopping malls which have something to offer even the most hardened of shoppers. A stroll through the busy Koenigstrasse pedestrian zone is a must for any power shopper, while lesser shoppers will still find themselves enticed by their fabulous range of products available, making it very difficult to leave empty handed.

Walking around Stuttgart is a great way to see the sights, and many urban trekkers may like to walk through the Rosensteingarten and up to the Killesberg for a fabulous view. Specific walks have been set up around the city, starting at either the central train station or the Altes Schloss, and are highlighted by yellow sign posts which point out modern and historical areas of interest.

Business, pleasure, shopping or resting, Stuttgart has something for everyone.

If you’re craving a shopping experience of a lifetime, Riverchase Galleria in Hoover, Alabama is guaranteed to surpass even your highest expectations. The enclosed shopping centre, boasting the world’s longest skylight at two-hundred feet, is among of the state’s most frequented tourist attractions; and what’s more, curious crowds are known to flock in from the neighbouring states of Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia to get a glimpse of this spectacular site that is deemed to provide ‘one of America’s most unique shopping experiences.’

The galleria is anchored by five major department stores, including Macy’s, Sears and J.C Penney, and holds a total of two-hundred stores and eleven restaurants – making it almost inevitable that there is something for everyone. Even children will be delighted with attractions such as the central carousel ride which replaces its traditional carousel animals with reindeer during the holidays. Riverchase Galleria also organizes community affairs, such as the ‘Mall Walker’s’ program, which admits anyone into the mall from 8:00 a.m. onwards to get their exercise by striding along the second level’s 1.14 mile perimeter; and new community programs are continuously added and publicised directly through the Galleria’s website.

Needless to say, one does not have to love shopping to have an enjoyable experience at the Riverchase Galleria. The shopping centre itself is beautifully structured, with an amazing nine-storey glass atrium to admire – so guests can simply take a leisurely stroll, read a book, or possibly dine at one of the mall’s many restaurants. Whether you’re planning to visit the Galleria on your own, with friends, or with your family, the various options for things to do are countless – therefore don’t expect to accomplish it all in a single day. In fact, it might be a wise idea to book a nearby hotel for a few nights, so that you’ll have enough time to absorb all the splendours of the Galleria. And with a number of other fantastic attractions nearby – such as the Birmingham Zoo, the Botanical Gardens and the Museum of Art – you’ll be kept pleasantly busy for days at a time.

So if you’re planning a trip to Alabama, you simply cannot pass up the opportunity to visit Riverchase Galleria; after all, doing so would mean missing out on one of the most spectacular attractions – if not the most prominent – in the state.

Las Vegas shows, entertainment and family fun

Las Vegas,or as it’s otherwise known “Sin City,” is well known as the casino town and it is the city’s main attraction. However, more and more tourists are seeing Las Vegas as more than just a gambling town and the non-gaming revenue for Las Vegas and other casino towns are growing. Casinos invest much of their resources in hospitality – hotel amenities, exciting shows, animal exhibits, extravagant dining, pools, amusement parks and more and many of these things are becoming the main attractions.Not everybody is a gambler and a trip to Vegas offers much more. There are plenty things to do in Las Vegas that doesn’t involve dropping quarters in slots, throwing dice or doubling down.

Best Las Vegas shows

First of all, casinos are just as famous for their entertainment and high-class shows as they are for their gambling. From the standard chorus girls with feathers and fringe dancing around to magic shows, acrobatics and adult shows – Las Vegas has a wide variety. Here are some of the best Las Vegas shows to see. For amazing acrobatics, see Cirque Du Soleil at the MGM Grandor the “O” Cirque du Soleil show at the Bellagio.For music, see Celine Dion at Caesar’s Palace or Barry Manilow at the Las Vegas Hilton. There’s “Bite” at the Stratosphere for adult entertainment, Penn & Teller at the Rio Las Vegas for laughs and Lance Burton Master Magician at the Monte Carlo Las Vegas for kid-friendly magic shows. From adults to children and men to women, there is a show for everyone in Las Vegas.

Food/buffets

Casinos in Las Vegas attract some of the culinary world’s top chefs and the city offers a wide variety of fine-dining options. For tourists who don’t live in large cities, Las Vegas offers up a chance to try delicious dishes and exotic cuisines at reasonable prices. And of course, who could forget the famous Las Vegas buffets – just be careful not to eat too much.

Kid fun

Many families with children vacation to Las Vegas and the city has plenty to offer for kid fun. First of all, there is the hotel pools and poolside food and beverage service. Kids can play for hours in the pool and adults can sit poolside chatting, drinking and eating. For adult and kid fun, visit the roller coasters at New York – New York, the Stratosphere Tower and Casino and the Adventuredome, a 5.5-acre indoor amusement park at Circus Circus Casino. Casinos also have extensive arcades and midway games for additional entertainment. There also are animal shows, zoos and aquariums on and off the Strip like the Lion Habit at at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino or the Shark Reef at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

Shopping

From casino shops and small shopping galleries to mini malls, there is tons of shopping to do, even if it is just window shopping. Consider the Forum Shops or Appain Way Shops at Caesar’s Palace, the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, and the Via Bellagio at the Bellagio for casino-close shopping. For designer clothing, visit the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, for the mall atmosphere visit Boulevard Mall, which is just minutes from the Strip and last for specialty shops and tantalizing restaurants go to the Desert Passage.

Outdoor fun (golf courses)

Need to get out of the always dark and flashy casinos? Las Vegas offers wonderful outdoor activities from great golf courses to balloon riding, horseback riding and hiking. Areas like the Red Rock National Conservation Area and the Grand Canyon National Park are not too far of a drive away. Of course, if you don’t want to wander too far from the Strip, casinos do have outdoor spectacles like the volcano at the Mirage Casino, the fountains at the Bellagioand the pirate battle at Treasure Island.

Spas

You’re on vacation, treat yourself! Head to the newly built Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa for relaxation – it’s only 10 miles from the Strip. Try other spas like the Artisan Hotel and Spa, The Westin Casuarina Hotel, Casino and Spa, JW Marriott Las Vegas Resort and Spa and The Platinum Hotel and Spa, to name a few. After all the shopping, show seeing, gambling, golfing and roller coaster and amusement park fun; you’ll need some time to relax.

Hostels working to accommodate flashpackers need for wifi

Don’t worry a flashpacker isn’t some student backpacking Europe flashing people and it’s not somebody that packs very quickly or anything else you might imagine it to be- flashpacking simply is backpacking with a lot of high tech gear. Flashpackers generally come in two types, the younger group, still in college, who have all the gadgets but not all the money for luxury accommodations and the second group of individuals is in their late 20′s who have a little bit more money to spend and carry iPods, digital cameras and laptops.

Oftentimes over a third of the stuff a flashpacker brings along on vacation is technology related. Not only laptops and digital cameras are brought with, but also extra batteries, camera cords for uploading pictures to share while traveling, portable wifi finders and international plug adapters to name a few. Let’s face it, in the past decade technology has changed our everyday lives and things like laptops, cell phones, iPods and digital cameras come with us everywhere, especially on vacation.

According to a survey completed by 2,561 visitors to Hostelworld.com this year, 21% travel with a laptop, 54% with an MP3 player, 83% with a cell phone and 86% with a digital camera. Hostels have been noticing this trend and have been trying to accommodate the flashpacker’s needs. Just because you have an iPod, a laptop and a digital camera, doesn’t mean you can afford to fork out $200 a night for a hotel.

Truthfully though, this new “flashpacker” phenomenon doesn’t seem that shocking. The generation of kids that grew up in the 90′s, grew up with the Internet and cell phones. It only seems natural that they would want to bring them with while on vacation. Plus if it is a student backpacking Europe, they’ll be gone for awhile and will want to communicate with friends and family back home and will want to share their travel adventures.

While some hostels have been making changes, in particular offering free wifi, a large majority of hostels don’t offer all the high tech accommodations that flashpackers desire or they charge for Internet access. If you’re going flashpacking, here’s list of a few hostels that offer budget accommodations and wifi to help you on your quest for Internet while backpacking Europe or across the country.

- Hostelling International – New York, New York

- Hostelling International Chicago – Chicago, Illinois

- Hostelling International Santa Monica Santa Monica, California

- Bellavista Hostel Santiago, Chile

- Green Tortoise Hostel San Francisco, California

- Banana Bungalow Maui Hostel Wailuku, Hawaii

- The Generator Hostel London, United Kingdom

- The Tropics Hotel and Hostel Miami Beach, Miami

- USA Hostel Las Vegas, Nevada

- Yosemite Bug Lodge Hostel – Midpines, California

After only one month in South Korea as a Westerner, things already seemed a mismatch of the ingenuous and the illogical. One minute you will be blown away and pleasantly surprised by something and then, an hour later you will see or experience something which to a Western mind, is peculiar or plain odd. It is probably true to say that as a Westerner, there is no reason to suggest that the Western style of doing things or thinking is the correct way. The observations below are simply my observations according to what I have become used to in the Western world and from my travels.

You walk into an apartment and the first thing you have to do is take your shoes off and after two years in Seoul, I still have this habit wherever I live these days. Tramping around outside with your boots or shoes on and then spreading the dirt inside one’s house surely is not a hygienic way to live, like us Westerns do. The Korean idea of no shoes indoors definitely seems to make a lot of sense to me. Once you get into an apartment, you are quite likely to then also be pleasantly surprised by the delightful way in which the heating works. Under floor heating in Korean apartments seems like a very sensible thing and I missed it a lot when I left Korea. Thirty minutes after putting the heating on, you can usually turn it off and the room will stay warm for hours. Just like the under-soil heating which some English Premier League football clubs use for their football pitches, the heating involves hot water pipes under the floor/soil, which have hot water pumped through them and the heat created rises. In England, central heating with vertical units against one wall now seems so impractical. Heat rises. Surely the Korean style floor heating is a better idea.

The best ideas in Korea are sometimes the simplest. A trip to McDonald’s and you will notice the difference from a Western McDonald’s. If you want take-away food, the staff (server) will tape the top cover of the drink to secure it. It is very simple but effective. In the convenience stores in Korea (often a ‘Seven Eleven’ store as in the United States), unlike in the USA and many other countries, there is a hot water tap and a counter-top in the middle of the store for people who wish to eat the noodles there and then. You can buy a plastic container of noodles and you can eat it there – Plastic fork and spoon also provided – What a great idea. You can even get hot coffee in a can; the coffee kept hot in a small oven type display. The coffee does not taste very much like coffee but it is a good idea. Why these simple ideas are not available in Europe is baffling. I noticed that Koreans also hold their burgers with their wrappers, seemingly as a matter of cleanliness and this always seemed like a good idea. Some fast food restaurants such as in the Subway station in Kangnam, have automatic wet towelette dispensers so that you can wipe your hands before eating: This also seemed to be standard in most Kalbi/Samkyaetang and other restaurants.

Let us not be under any pretensions. Foreigners in Korea can also be a crazy and weird bunch of people as well. I am sure Koreans struggle to understand some of the things that foreigners do in Korea. I can also only begin to imagine what Koreans think when they travel to countries such as the U.S. or the UK and see the strange things that Westerners do. Seeing Western men for example, walking around topless with their beer bellies hanging out, the sun turning their skin bright red in the summer-time. Why would Western men and women place their skin directly in front of the sun for long periods of time and why do the men sometimes walk around with no t-shirt on? Something you would never see in Seoul. Alternatively, why do Westerners walk into their own homes with their shoes on? Surely carrying the dirt and waste from the bottom of your shoes and distributing the dirt throughout the house is not wise.

I was also impressed quite early on, with the ingenuity of Korean people. One young student told me the story of her quest to learn English. She was lucky enough to be able to travel to California, USA and backpack around for a few months. Travelling alone, aged 23 and not really knowing anyone, she started attending the local church on Sundays despite having no real interest in religion. Knowing that people in church are usually quite friendly and open to conversation, she used this opportunity to get free English conversation. Morally it may or may not be right, but it is a creative idea. Another one of my Korean students told me of how whilst travelling the U.S., she naturally said that she was Korean when the subject of nationality came up. But, if she accidentally upset someone or got into an embarrassing situation due to her lack of understanding of Western culture, she would say she was Japanese.

I found Koreans to be very open from the very start. Some Koreans told me you should not talk about certain things i.e. politics, but it was my own personal experience from the start that students often enjoyed and wanted as much as possible, to know the views from a Western perspective. The same students were also often more than willing to share their own thoughts, thoughts that were always interesting and often different to my own. Once people get to know you they are keen to know your opinion on almost anything, including taboo topics such as sex, politics and religion.

Winding through the Tuscan hills, the wine roads offer travel itineraries within remarkable viticulture areas which are characterized by vineyards and wine cellars and also by landscape, historical attractions in a frame where all kinds of comfort is offered to welcome tourists.

Along the wine road signs point out clearly places for lodging, especially farm holidays. Information services are available all over an area where vineyard control is guaranteed by strict quality standards. Any time of the year is suitable to participate in these itineraries, whose beauty reveals itself in various ways at any change of season.

The approach to wine is not only characterized by the simple act of tasting it, but it goes along with visits to vineyards, tastes of typical dishes and attendance to cultural events.

Tuscany is the first region, among all the others in Italy, which has promoted the realization of these itineraries.

Tuscany, which is well-know for its extensive and fascinating landscape, is as well as famous all over the world for its good quality wines and the special taste of its gastronomy.

Along the wine road itinerary in the Tuscan region, and even beyond the beaten tracks, a full patrimony of culture and popular knowledge is offered to those who really want to appreciate the high value of discovering tastes and emotions in relation to wine and all life’s aspects associated with it.

Along the road wine in the Pisan Hills you can found an important project named La Mia Toscana? (My Tuscany), that offers tourists solutions in fascinating itineraries. You can choose from the wine and gastronomic itineraries (Tuscan cooking classes, wine tasting and tasting of other typical products, escorted gastronomic excursions), to trekking itineraries (escorted excursions on the Tuscan hills, by foot, on mountain bike, horse-riding), cultural itineraries (escorted excursions in the discovery of medieval villages, castles and handicraft products, Italian language lessons) up to relax and comfort itineraries (with treatments at the Thermal baths) and to golfing (in combination with culture, gastronomy and art).

Pisa Airport “Galileo Galilei” is the main destination for Tuscany and central Italy (after Rome), and is served by several airlines operating hundreds of weekly flights to national and international destinations. Numerous companies offer charter flights to and from a number of European and non-European destinations. Flying to Pisa is really cheap and easy: the most important low cost flights companies reach Pisa, and the airport is 5 minutes away from the centre of the town by bus, train or taxi.