Top 10 food festivals in the world interesting01-04-2012 00:00:00 | PrintThao Nguyen - The MaskOnlineWhen traveling to any places that you definitely want to enjoy great food, famous in that locality. Let's visit the famous Food Festival in the world.
A. Food Festival in Reykjavík, Iceland
 Reykjavík is the capital of Iceland. Here is a culinary festival full of fun and a chef competition between international and local chefs of the best restaurants in Reykjavík was held in March every year.

 

Chef at the Food Festival Reykjavi'k.
 This is an opportunity for you to enjoy many delicious dishes of this little island as hangikjot (smoked lamb made into sandwiches), skyr (a yogurt-rich protein), Puffin or hardfiskur (dried fish protein) ...Two. Love Oyster Festival (Oyster Festival)
Love is the Oyster Festival Food Festival is organized on oysters oGalway, Ireland in September every year. Here, the champion of oysters from around the world to Galway to attend the World Championship Oyster expansion. Galway International Oyster award and long-term extension with the seafood festival lasted three days.
 

 

 The girls at the Oyster Festival.
 If there are opportunities for you to remember to enjoy the freshest oysters, beer festival in the bars. Who knows you might be lucky girls meet Miss Oyster Pearl crown.3. Festival in Hokitika wild food, New Zealand
Every year in March, about 20,000 visitors flocked to Hokitika to enjoy the best dishes of the world's wildlife from the bee larvae, sushi, deep-fried grasshoppers to chocolate bread satay huhu grub (a beetle long-horned) ...
 

 

Guests enjoy your meal at Hokitika Festival.
 Also seen enjoying the food and there are strange repertoire singing, guitar - the spirit of all festivals.4. Garlic in the Garlic Festival, California
Garlic Festival held in June every year to praise the value of garlic, planting garlic honor of the locality. At the festival you will enjoy the delicious food such as bread garlic butter from roasted garlic, garlic pizza, garlic fried ...
 ...

 

Chefs cooking garlic festival.
 Moreover, not only satisfied with the dishes from garlic, visitors are sure to surprise with the desserts as well as vanilla ice cream made from garlic, garlic, garlic chocolate ...Five. Mango Mania Festival
The festival was held in June every year in Delhi, India. There are about 500 icons fruits of the spirit, joy in Hindu mythology mango on display at the international festival. Mango fruit is the largest exporter of India, is the king of fruits here.
 

People sell mangoes at the festival.
 At the festival many activities such as eating contest mango, mango pruning demonstration art, enjoy food and drink from mangoes.
 6. Whisky Festival, Scotland
 Whisky is Scotland's traditional wines. Whiskey festival held in May every year at Highland Speyside. You may be aware of the legendary names such as Cardhu, Glenfiddich, Strathisla and drank them but if they enjoy in the place of production is actually a great thing.
 

 

Scotland Men wine at the festival.
 Attending the festival would you be attending a tour from the distillation of wine, try drinking the wine that has never been exported, attending parties whiskey ...
 7. Asparagus Festival, Germany
 Asparagus is a popular vegetable in Europe, was considered the king of vegetables in Germany. Asparagus is honored to join the royal festival. With the local soil, Schwetzingen asparagus proud repository of the world.
 

 

Asparagus processing at the festival.
 Asparagus Festival in Schwetzingen held annually in May with a lot of processed foods such as asparagus asparagus with smoked ham, asparagus salad, asparagus Hollandaise sauce sprinkle ...
 8. Niagara Wine Festival, Ontario, Canada
 

Enjoy your wine at the festival.Ontario wine region is famous Ice wine exports worldwide. The grapes are harvested in -5 degree weather after the new year period, ie they are frozen while still on the vine layout. Now the water and just freezes while the sugar and other substances shall be retained, so with each grape only be refined to a drop of wine ice wine, but first make sure the wine is excellent, very sweet!
9. Korean rice cake festival

Rice Cakes.Rice cakes are traditional food of Koreans are very popular. Every year in May Institute for Korean food are rice cakes organizing international trade fairs in the capital Seoul.At the fair people can register to attend classes or wander Bakery little sip rice wine and devoured the delicious rice cake.
10. Fair cuisine Mistura, Peru

Fair cuisine Mistura be held in September each year in the Peruvian capital Lima. Here is the place to broadcast and display of food, food from all over the country Peru.

Boiled corn at the fair.
 Here you can enjoy traditional dishes from Peru to the dish of mixed style of European and Asian countries such as rat meat grilled, fried bread round (including potatoes, squash) ... Peruvian food enjoyed from potatoes and corn.

Despite big economic difficulties, Vietnamese still spend money on traveling

VietNamNet Bridge – Though the May holiday will come in only one month, a lot of domestic and outbound tours have been fully booked.

The forecasts that the demand for traveling would decrease as people have to fasten their belt in the context of high inflation have not come true. Vietnamese people still spend big money on traveling and entertainment services. While the Ministry of Planning and Investment reported that more than 3000 businesses halted operation just in the first two months of the year, travel firms still have reported the sharp increases of the tourists in groups.

May holiday tours fully booked

The May holiday is believed to be a busy season for travel firms, as employees would have four days off. Therefore, though the holiday would come only in one month, travel firms now do not receive more travelers for some tours.

Quoc, an officer of a bank branch in Thu Duc district in HCM City, said that he booked the tour for the bank’s staff to the central city of Da Nang on the May holiday in February already. Now he wants to book the tour for some more officers, but the travel firm has refused to serve.

Not only the tours to Da Nang, where the international firework festival will take place, but other tourism sites also have also become the destinations of people on the May holiday. Dan tri newspaper has reported that the demand on the May holiday has increased by 15-20 percent, despite the big difficulties and high inflation.

Nguyen Minh Man, a senior executive of Vietravel said that a lot of tours for the May holiday have run out, while other tours have seen the occupancy rate of over 70 percent. He said that the travel firm expects to serve 25,000 travelers who take domestic and outbound tours this May holiday, an increase of 20 percent in comparison with the same period of 2011.

Saigontourist has reported that it has sold 65 percent of the total 16,000 seats offered for the May holiday, an increase of 10-15 percent over the last year. Fiditour, which has received bookings for the last two weeks only, has also reported that 40 percent have been booked.

Especially, travel firms all have reported the sharp increase of the travelers in groups this year. In general, businesses do not organize tours for their staffs on big holidays, because they fear the overcrowded tourism sites and low quality of services. However, things seem to be quite different this year.

A representative of Hanoi Redtours said on Lao dong newspaper that the 4 day and 3 night Da Nang – Hoi An – Ba Na tour proves to be the most favored one this year, because travelers would have the chance to attend the 2012 international firework festival.

Demand for outbound tours on the rise

Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai, a senior executive of Fiditour, said that the travel firm now has to contact airlines to ask for more flights to Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia because of the increasing demand. Vietnamese travelers not only choose near destinations with low fees, but they tend to go to farer markets this year.

Besides the familiar tours to South East Asia countries, travelers have booked the tours to Japan, South Korea, the US and Europe. A travel firm has revealed that the number of travelers booking tours to the US for April increased by two folds in comparison with the same period of the last year.

Travel firms have said that the number of travelers keeps rising steadily, because they have been trying to keep the tour fees unchanged, or the tour fees have increased very slightly by five percent, because travel firms signed contracts before with service providers at fixed prices.

C. V

In London, Victoria’s secrets revealed

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InLondon

26 March 2012|By Lonely Planet Magazine

The ivory silk wedding dress worn by Queen Victoria in her 1840 marriage to Prince Albert is on display as part of the "Victoria Revealed" exhibition at Kensington Palace. (Matt Dunham/Associated Press)

Queen Victoria is often thought of as a solemn old lady who was unamused on a regular basis.

Once upon a time, however, she was a child princess, blithely bouncing about the gardens of Kensington Palace in west London with her pet spaniel. A new exhibition in the palace, Victoria Revealed, will put on display objects amassed during her life, spanning from her silk baby shoes to the black garments she wore as a grieving widow. At least she’d be pleased to see her childhood home looking sprightly following a £12m facelift, with new walking routes around state rooms that will have seen their fair share of royal soap operas in their time.

• Kensington Palace reopens to the public on 26 March (admission £15).
• Direct train services run to Euston from Manchester (from £35) and Birmingham (from £10).
• Stay at the St John Hotel, an eccentric residence near Leicester Square (from £150)

This article was published in partnership with Lonely Planet Magazine.

Spring skiing, Japanese-style

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InJapanSnow & Skiing

26 March 2012|By Tim Hornyak, Lonely Planet

The Japanese ski resort of Niseko is famous for the quality and consistency of its light, powdery snow. (Aaron Jamieson/Niseko Photography)

This winter may have been somewhat of a bust in much of the United States, logging the warmest temperatures since 1999, but skiers and snowboarders on the other side of the Pacific are not complaining about snow drought.

• Related blog post: The etiquette of Japanese onsen

Even in late March, the Japanese ski resort ofNiseko is still getting plenty of fresh powder. An astounding 20m has fallen thus far and snow depth reached a peak of more than four metres.

The abundant snowfall bodes very well for spring skiing in Niseko, the catch-all name for four linked resorts on the 1,308m Mount Niseko Annupuri, some 100km southwest of Sapporo, on Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island. Niseko has one of the longest seasons in Japan, with most of the runs staying open until early May.

Niseko became famous about a decade ago, especially in Australia, for the quality and consistency of its light, powdery snow, the result of Siberian winds interacting with moisture from the Sea of Japan. An influx of Aussie skiers and snowboarders and both local and foreign property developers transformed the centre of Hirafu from a sleepy village into an international resort town, with new accommodations and excellent dining options. Though visitors are slowly returning to Japan, deterred in the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the resort town has been virtually crowd free this winter, with no chairlifts lines.

On Mount Niseko, chairlifts and gondolas whisk skiers and boarders to within striking distance of the peak. Then, it is a 20-minute hike to glide down off-piste slopes that link up with groomed trails or roads near the mountain’s more remote areas. For those who want to try backcountry skiing for the first time, the Strawberry Fields forest run in the Hanazono resort provides thigh-high powder that is within easy reach of chairlifts and groomed trails. The three other areas at Niseko – Annupuri, Niseko Village and Grand Hirafu – also have a good mix of beginner, intermediate and expert trails, with a total of 48km of groomed runs. Grand Hirafu, which has the most night skiing on Niseko, features a number of ungroomed powdery trails such as Miharashi, an expert run that winds into Holiday, a wooded intermediate trail that is one of the mountain's longer runs at 2.8km.

Some serious backcountry skiers and snowboarders, however, leave Niseko altogether for powder trips. Earlier in March, powderhounds could be seen climbing five hours up and then carving giant S's back down Mount Yotei's alabaster flanks, a volcano 13km southeast of Mount Niseko Annupuri.

Apres-ski in Niseko is often just as fun as zipping through the flakes and is best enjoyed with a rental car to let you take full advantage of the area's muscle-tenderizing onsen (hot springs). The Niseko Yu Meguri pass (1,400 yen) gives you free access to any three of the participating baths in the area. If you are feeling adventurous, take the two-hour drive to Niimi Onsen, located on a remote mountain road, for  a quiet, lantern-lit outdoor bath often cocooned in winter by an overhanging snowbank.

Back in Hirafu, the unwinding continues at Ezo Seafoods, which serves up succulent snow crab legs, sweet Akkeshi oysters from the coastal region of eastern Hokkaido and a variety of fresh sashimi. Wash it all down with mulled wine or single-malt Hokkaido whisky at nearby Gyu+, a wooden, cottage-like bar accessed through an old fridge door that is nearly invisible in the snow drifts.  

When you are ready for a break from the Aussie ski set, the fishing port of Otaru on Ishikari Bay to the north seems worlds away. With a picturesque canal, glassworks studios set in vintage slate buildings and the entire street of Sushiya-dori devoted to sushi shops, it is well worth the 70-minute drive from Hirafu. A two-hour drive south from Hirafu will get you to volcano-rimmed Lake Shikotsu, the second-deepest lake in Japan, renowned for the clarity of its frigid waters. Set in a national park and blissfully undeveloped, Shikotsu has extremely panoramic onsen, including Marukoma and Ito, with outdoor baths overlooking the ancient caldera. It is the perfect way to boil the ache out of your muscles before a long flight home.

Getting there
From Narita Airport or Haneda airport outside of Tokyo, flights run to Shin-Chitose Airport outside of Sapporo, where buses take two and a half hours to reach Hirafu. Skybus runs regular services through the end of March, after which private shuttles are the best choice if you are not renting a car from the agencies at Shin-Chitose.