Spring skiing in Europe typically means hitting the slopes with warmer temperatures and bluebird skies. But, over the weekend, those barrelling down the mountains in Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Romania were met with an even more rare and delightful sight: orange snow. insert nut Factory While the sight of burnt-orange snow is certainly odd, it’s not something to fear as it all comes down to a strange natural phenomenon that brought two of the world’s weather systems together. According to the BBC, the orange snow is actually a result of sand from the Sahara desert mixing with snow and rain above Eastern Europe.

The sand/snow mixing occurs once every five years or so, according to the BBC, though this particular event included far more sand particles than previous orange snow events. Related: Venice Looks Absolutely Breathtaking Covered in Snow (Video) In fact, the Sahara storm was so big that it could even be seen from space as it made its way through Greece and into Russia. The Athens Observatory noted on Friday that it was one of the largest “transfers of desert sand to Greece from the Sahara ever,” according to CNN. Looking at satellite imagery from [NASA], it shows a lot of sand and dust in the atmosphere drifting across the Mediterranean,” Steven Keates, a meteorologist with the United Kingdom’s National Weather Service, known as the Met Office, told the Independent. “When it rains or snows, it drags down whatever is up there, if there is sand in the atmosphere.” Though the snow itself can’t harm the skiers and snowboarders, the low visibility it caused could. So if you find yourself out skiing today in Eastern Europe, know two things: No, you weren’t magically transported to the surface of Mars, and you better look out for other skiers in front of you.

inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()

To some, an incredible rescue in the French Alps on Wednesday is nothing short of a miracle. According to USA Today, a 12-year-old boy skiing at the La Plagne ski resort in southeast France was found alive after being buried in snow for 40 minutes following an avalanche on the mountain. The boy and his family had just left a run and were skiing “off piste” (off prepared ski runs) when the avalanche happened around 2 p.m. local time, RTE reported. He was the only one caught in the avalanche and was dragged at least 100 meters (110 yards), according to USA Today. The avalanche site was at 2,400 meters (7,875 feet) altitude. Since the boy did not have a transmitter beacon to help rescuers find him, the odds of finding the boy were quite slim. Luckily, sniffer dogs were able to locate the boy within the hour. However, even 40 minutes could have potentially been too late. “It's a miracle because he had no victim detection device.

The chances of survival are minuscule after 15 minutes under the snow,” a rescue worker said to RTE. “We can call it a miracle. A day after Christmas, there was another gift in store,” said Captain Patrice Ribes of the Bourg Saint-Maurice police, according to USA Today. Police also stated that one of the miraculous reasons the boy survived was that the snow did not block his airways, ABC News reported. The boy did, however, suffer a broken leg and had to be taken to a hospital in nearby Grenoble, according to RTE. Otherwise, he is doing well after the accident. Being caught in the path of an China weld studs Manufacturers avalanche can be frightening to the point where you might not even know what to do. Luckily, there are some tactics you can use in the event you happen to find yourself in the snow’s path.

inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()

 China Self-clinching manufacturers In case you didn’t know, John Stamos (of Full House fame) and his new wife Caitlin McHugh are really, really obsessed with all things Disney. In fact, the pair, who had been dating for two years, got engaged at Disneyland in October. There, Stamos staged an elaborate engagement event for his then-girlfriend, including a short compilation of their favorite Disney films. It all ended with "The Little Mermaid" and the caption “just ask the girl.” Of course, Stamos did. On Instagram McHugh posted, “I kissed the boy and said . . . yes!” I asked...she said yes! ...And we lived happily ever after💍 A post shared by John Stamos (@johnstamos) on Oct 22, 2017 at 9:09pm PDT “She loves Disneyland and [at the park], I got on my knee and asked her,” Stamos told PEOPLE of their engagement. “I pulled the ring out. I don’t know how she did it, but she went to hug me and slipped her finger right in it. When the park closed, we ran around the park in our Disney onesies.” Since that day the two went on to get hitched in a gorgeous ceremony at the Little Brown Church in Studio City, California, then partied the night away at their home. Now, just a week into their marriage, they are celebrating again at the Happiest Place on Earth. As McHugh’s Instagram shows, the pair has been spending plenty of time at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. While there they’ve even been spotted wearing matching mouse ears, though hers were a bit more spectacular as they came with a bridal veil. Perfect way to begin our #happilyeverafter Can you guess who we’re #disneybound -ing as? (Hint: I’ve painted the walls in the tower in the background) A post shared by Caitlin McHugh (@caitlinskybound) on Feb 11, 2018 at 6:08am PST McHugh shared even more of their journey through the park, where they stopped in at shops to look at tiny baby trinkets since they are expecting their first child this spring. “The very things that held you down are going to lift you up, up, up” a favorite quote from #Dumbo Ears by @le.ears #wdw A post shared by Caitlin McHugh (@caitlinskybound) on Feb 12, 2018 at 5:44am PST On his page Stamos shared his own adorable image of the pair as they smooched near the castle joking of their one-week anniversary, “and they said it wouldn’t last.” #oneweek (and they said it wouldn’t last) #happiestmanonearth #happiestplaceonearth @waltdisneyworld A post shared by John Stamos (@johnstamos) on Feb 10, 2018 at 3:36pm PST While this may be their last trip to the park before the baby’s arrival, odds are their upcoming bundle of joy will be a Disney baby, whether he or she likes it or not.


inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()

Enter Hollywood Studios today and you’ll quickly notice one thing: the construction. Large areas of the classic Disney park are currently blocked off to the public as Disney works to construct two large themed lands that will completely change the landscape of the movie-centric park as we know it.  Toy Story Land, which is slated to open this summer, and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, coming in 2019, are some of the most highly-anticipated additions to a Disney park in decades. Although the opening of both areas will happen in the not-too-distant future, the updates have been occurring behind closed doors. Disney has gifted fans with plenty of renderings and models to show what the lands will actually look like, but few have yet to see the updates in real time. Until now. Aerial mapping service Nearmap was recently able to capture telling imagery of the new lands from above, giving a comprehensive look at what these areas might actually look like, and how far construction has already come. Unsurprisingly, Toy Story Land looks to be significantly farther along in the building process because of its earlier opening date.

However, Nearmap’s shots can give us some indication as to the scale and contents of each new area. Nearmap US, Inc. The main features to point out in the shots of Toy Story Land are the easily identifiable new rides that will come with this area. The red track of the Slinky Dog Coaster can be seen snaking around much of the land and looping back to its main station at the top of the area. A careful look at the coaster also shows fun details along the route, including wooden building blocks and even a larger-than-life figure of the dinosaur Rex. These pieces seem to fit well within the theme of Toy Story Land, which aims to shrink guests down to the size of a toy in Andy’s backyard. The large white and silver building on the property can also be identified as the land’s other ride: the Green Alien spinner attraction, which will pop up inside. Nearmap US, Inc. China weld studs Factory Although large structures are certainly taking shape on the Star Wars side of things as well, this park is not as far along in the process. While we can’t as easily identify its components, we do know that the park will be divided into two sections — one devoted to the First Order, and one to the Resistance. Guests will also have the chance to pilot the Millennium Falcon on one of the area’s rides. For now, we can clearly begin to see the enormous scale of Galaxy’s Edge, which will definitely cover more ground than the neighboring Toy Story Land. While fans still have (at least) months of anticipation before either of these lands is unveiled, these detailed aerial shots might help to hold us over a little while longer. See more overhead shots and views of the upcoming areas here.

inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()

I stayed at the Sanhe Hotel, just inside the old town, where the staff was more than willing to arrange a day trip to the famous gorge. The literati believed that painting was an expression of a man's character, of his very essence. I asked her if I could meet them, and the next day I followed Li Xiu home, threading my way through a labyrinthine housing development built into and out of the karst rock and reminiscent of the slums in Fellini's Satyricon. All this they expressed with the most minimal of materials, which they called the Four Precious Things: inkstone, ink stick, brush, and paper. I first discovered their ethereal artwork by accident when I stumbled across a Chinese landscape painting at the British Museum.d.Zhu Yang Hotel 24 Pantao Lu, Yangshuo; 86-773/882-1601; doubles $35. Her granduncle, Li Tian Guan—painter, calligrapher, and poet—awaited us. To get to Yangshuo, fly west to Guilin from Kunming and take a one-hour shuttle bus. Barbara Confino, a New York-based writer and photographer, is a consultant at the Asia Society. The perfect launching pad for an excursion to the gorge is the city of Lijiang, spectacularly situated at the base of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, in Yunnan province. Spotless, if spartan, rooms and a friendly staff. Nothing could have been more at odds with the ethereal terrain surrounding the town, especially at dusk, when the landscape begins to vaporize before your eyes. Everyone seemed young in spirit, if not in fact. That afternoon I took a stroll down Xi Jie, which is lined with Western-style cafés specializing in apple pie and Bob Dylan. It was almost impossible not to strike up acquaintanceships in Yangshuo; it's a haven for the more adventurous breed of tourist: beautiful Danes, massive Australians exuding outback vigor. Yangshuo's best hotel, with Western-style bathrooms and air conditioning. One day in Yangshuo, a receptionist at my hotel named Li Xiu approached me: she had heard that I was interested in landscape painting. Evenings can be noisy, however. In the eleventh century, Mi Fu traveled to Guilin to observe its mountains and rivers. Most of the hotels rent bicycles for a dollar or two a day. He started the visit by copying one of my favorite Du Fu poems for me, then went on to tell how he had been jailed by the Communists for having worked in Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government.

Then a Chinese acquaintance told me about Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan province. The resulting shanshui (literally, "mountain/water") paintings reflect his inclination toward what he called naturalness: they nut insert Company have a simplicity of design and brushstroke, a kind of easy spontaneity. Susanna's has the best food and the longest history, but I came to prefer Serena's Bar, where I quickly established rapport with Ebo, the sweet, helpful owner. And it was a good base from which to explore the countryside, which I did often during the week I spent there. Fishermen balanced on long, slender bamboo rafts, silhouetted against the blue wash of the hills.Susanna's 54 Xi Jie, Yangshuo; no phone; lunch for two $8. That was what led me to Beijing, about to embark on a journey in search of the landscapes portrayed by painters of the Sung dynasty, which prevailed between a. Before leaving China, I wanted to see at least one of the more rugged and heroic landscapes characteristic of the Northern Sung, painted between 960 and 1126. Legend has it that at this spot, a tiger once leapt the 100-foot-wide gorge, leaving his pursuers dumbfounded on the other side. "Everyone in my family is a painter," she told me.RestaurantsLisa's Xi Jie, Yangshuo; no phone; lunch for two $8. Today, the values and techniques that shaped Chinese land- scape painting are finding new life in a post-Mao China rooted in its past yet open to the next Mi Fu. Behind them, a star-filled sky was draped like a theatrical backdrop. Progressing as on a royal barge, we passed ducks, geese, and egrets., Lijiang; 86-888/512-0891; doubles $20. Ever since then, I dreamed of visiting the places that inspired this art. It was a perfect day for a river trip, the weather warm and dry, the sun bright but not searing." I was looking for an old China, a China of exquisite refinement, of spare, breathtaking elegance—the China of the poets and painters. I spent my first day poking around town, determining to set out on my landscape quest the next. Their wildness and grandeur brought to mind the paintings of Fan K'uan, the great Northern Sung artist whose monumental style is the antithesis of the intimate Southern Sung technique. Good banana pancakes, apple pie, and basic Chinese food. HotelsSanhe Hotel 4 Jishan Rd. Still, the government is rebuilding it in traditional style, as dictated by law. Using the dot technique subsequently named for him, Mi Fu conveyed the soft qualities typical of Guilin landscapes. I left him busily editing a book-length manuscript of his poems, and I carried away the conviction that modern China has its ancient sages still.Serena's Café Xi Jie, Yangshuo; no phone; lunch for two $10. I awoke the next morning in Yangshuo, disappointed to find it tacky, commercial, cast in concrete. Here was precisely the sort of scene that had inspired the shanshui painters, giving tangible form to the Taoist idea that nature is a cosmic, living force in which humanity occupies merely a foothold. Yet he is kind and patient—not just to me but to the stream of guests who visit daily, soliciting his advice on their poems, their paintings, their lives.d. Mr. From there you can take either a 45-minute flight to Lijiang or, as I did, an overnight bus, which has reclining seats and is quite comfortable. Although he worked in the period between the Northern and Southern Sung dynasties, Mi Fu painted gentle, misty landscapes, precipitating the soft style that Southern literati later adopted. From Beijing I would fly some 900 miles south to Guilin in Guangxi province, reputed among the Chinese to possess the "most beautiful mountains and rivers under heaven.. In the company of a sturdy Irishman, an even sturdier Australian, and, sturdiest of all, an Austrian clad in lederhosen, I departed the next morning by boat for a day trip to the Guilin countryside. Heading west out of town, the road winds through green terraced fields, past water buffalo, peasants in Mao blue, and stands selling grapefruit resembling huge drop pearls.

inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()

Smith says Escape the Oval Office books up quickly for its weekend sessions, so get a jump on those reservations. beat for China insert nut Company The President of the United States accidentally left a copy of his White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech on his desk in the Oval Office.’s brand new Escape Lounge, which opened in July on H Street NE. Even if you do escape, these rooms are designed to allow you to come back for more.; it's $25 per person. Though Smith says that escape rooms “take a lot of pride in low escape numbers,” she acknowledged that frustration, especially among the competitive types these games attract. Except when you get to the Oval Office, the door locks behind you.C. At first, this was hard for Washingtonians to grasp.m. Now, about 50 percent of players escape before the end of the hour-long Escape the Oval Office game. Rather than a linear style of play—where Clue #1 takes you to Clue #2, and so on, down a numbered list of clues—the Oval Office offers a lot of repeated clues in different locations around the office to help you find that missing piece from the president’s speech. Every few months or so,

The Escape Lounge intends to change up the scenario of both Escape the Oval Office and Escape the Classroom—keeping the themes, but changing the hints and the key needed to exit. So in the past month, the Escape Lounge has started ramping up the last-minute hints the staff offers players. You can’t get out until you figure out what’s missing from the speech. to 9 p.m. Smith, her husband, and their business partner wanted to launch a family entertainment business and, upon learning about escape rooms, decided to start the kid-friendly 30-minute-long Escape the Classroom game.C. They’ve become somewhat of a thing in the city in the past year, as WAMU noted last month, making the Escape Lounge the third to open since October. This particular game lounge is also getting attention for having the city’s first escape room game set in the White House—though co-founder Ayanna Smith says that wasn’t the original intention. theme,” Smith says, adding that she’s noticed it’s an especially popular theme for tourists wanting to making their vacation as D. What do you do? So goes the scenario for Escape the Oval Office, one of two escape room-style games at D. Each game is meant to be played with five to 10 people, so if your group is smaller you might find yourself escaping the room with strangers. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()

Faced with a seemingly endless thread of natural disasters, figuring out how to help can seem like an uphill battle.S. As The Weather Channel explained, accredited relief funds like Dominica Hurricane Relief Fund and the Red Cross are the best routes to take for now, both of which are highly rated on Charity Navigator. On its site, Charity Navigator rates organizations based on where they use their donation dollars, their reputations, transparency, and accountability. and around the globe, Helping Hand for Relief and Development, a Muslims for humanity organization, and Direct Relief, which does just as the name implies. On the site users can even find “hot topics,” which are typically larger disastrous events in need of your help right now. Related: How to Help Victims of Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean Pablo Pantoja/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Hurricane Maria Though the storm clouds have barely passed for the victims of Hurricane Maria, which was a category 5 storm when it hit Dominica and Puerto Rico, they are already in need of your help. Next, it moved on to Florida, where it caused massive damage, flooding, and even several deaths. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Hurricane Harvey On August 25, Hurricane Harvey made landfall along the Texas coast, causing what has been estimated to be billions of dollars in damage.  Related: A Heroic Dog Named Frida Is Saving Lives in Mexico After the Earthquakes For more information on how you can help with these natural disasters and others, visit Charity Navigator’s homepage and be sure to check out the “hot topic” section at the top..

Helene Valenzuela/AFP/Getty Images Hurricane Irma On September 6, Hurricane Irma made landfall across the Caribbean and destroyed entire islands in its path.Charity Navigator lists the Houston SPCA, Houston Humane Society, Houston Food Bank, Food Bank of Corpus Christi, and the San Antonio Humane Society as several great options to give your money or time to during this difficult process. While the state will likely take years to rebuild, the recovery efforts are well underway. And although it’s easy to give to large national organizations, it may help Harvey victims most to give to smaller, local charities in need. Luckily, guides like Charity Navigator exist to help us sort through the plethora of charitable organizations in each location. Since Hurricane Irma impacted several different regions, Charity Navigator has listed dozens of options to choose from including Save the Children, an organization dedicated to creating lasting change for kids in the U. Disasters, sadly, tend to bring out both the best and the worth in humanity, which often includes bogus charities that look to prey on human kindness. According to The New York Times, there are several local nonprofits in need, including Topos México, a nonprofit rescue brigade looking for survivors, the Mexican Red Cross, and Fondo Unido México, which is part of the United Way network.

inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()

Yet word about Calakmul is only beginning to emerge. Although mounds of earth and trees covered nearly everything in 1931, Lundell knew what he was seeing. De la Cruz Briceño speaks little English, but if one member of your group has phrase-book Spanish, the essential information will be conveyed.April 06, 2009 I sat on a limestone block at the apex of the giant pyramid, gazing south. I moved pensively through the building, believed to have been a palace. Until two years ago, there were virtually no hotels near Calakmul.d. Immediately after discovering Calakmul, Lundell brought the site to the attention of Sylvanus Morley, the leading Mayanist of the day, who led a Carnegie Institution expedition to the site in 1932. In particular, he was struck by the huge number of stelae--tall stone slabs--he found, a few still upright but most toppled in the weeds. On a doorjamb, I found a neatly carved inscription: c. His latest book is In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest, published by Simon & Schuster. 900. By now, 116 stelae have been found at Calakmul--easily the largest number at any Mayan site. In the seventh century, this gruesome triumph was news all over the Mayan world. Sometime in the 1960's or 70's, looters sawed it into pieces and smuggled it through the black market to private collectors, most likely in Europe. Now there's an "ecovillage" opposite the entrance to the Mayan site of Chicanná (about 10 miles west of Xpujil and a two-hour drive from Calakmul), with 32 handsome air-conditioned rooms in wood-and-thatch bungalows. If they could be read, the texts carved on these stones would amount to a rich history of the great city.The best time to visit is during the dry season, November through March.

His team reconstructed these masks, as well as three others Folan unearthed during his 14 years of work at Calakmul. For the next few months or even years, visitors will be able to wander alone through a ruin as majestic as tourist-thronged Tikal. But here a cruel irony intervenes: Calakmul's native limestone is fiendishly soft and crumbly, rendering the texts illegible. You can see them at the Exposición Temporal in the Fuerte de San Miguel. Centuries of slash-and-burn agriculture have turned most of Mexico's Yucatán peninsula into a scrubby savanna, but not Calakmul." Folan has mapped a mind-numbing 6,250 structures, stretching across some 20 square miles of jungle and proving Calakmul to be one-third larger than Tikal, which was long regarded as the greatest Mayan site. ToursA daylong visit to Calakmul is included in a 10-day group-tour package offered by the Mexican adventure-travel company Quinto Sol (52-5/211-8208, fax 52-5/211-3208; or write Quinto Sol, Mexicali 36, Mexico, D. 830, and they figured out that there had been a dynasty of 10 kings, whom they designated Ruler 1, Ruler 2, and so on.F. A path through the woods took me to Structure III--as the archaeologists prosaically designate this work of the ancients. Slowly I descended the staircase of the 165-foot pyramid, which is twice as tall as Chichén Itzá's famous Castillo. Only two days before, I had seen the six masks on exhibit at the Fuerte de San Miguel, a colonial fort in Campeche. On it, an outlandishly costumed ruler, wearing a headdress, scepter, and shield, embodied the pomp of Calakmul.HotelChicanná Ecovillage Hwy. From Cancún or Mérida, count on two to three days by car.. BooksJoyce Kelly's excellent and thorough Archaeological Guide to Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula (University of Oklahoma Press) is the only true guidebook to the Yucatán's Mayan sites. Sharer's The Ancient Maya (fifth edition; Stanford University Press). 06140; tour $1,970 a person, which includes meals, accommodation, and activities such as diving, white-water rafting, rock climbing and mountain biking). Coe's The Maya (Thames & Hudson). But nothing of Stela 89 remains. In the distance I could see crests of jungle ridges in Guatemala.80 a person. lundell 12/29/31 What today we would deplore as an example of graffiti was actually standard documentation of the site's discovery by C. From the central plaza, I moved past a 15-foot-high wall and out into the "suburbs. 514 and a. As I sat on Structure I's topmost stone, I realized that beneath me lay untold treasures and secrets. At the center, I peered past a heavy stone that once plugged a spacious underground vault. On the southern fringe of the state of Campeche, it lies hidden in the country's largest rain forest. Until four years ago Calakmul was among the hardest-to-reach of the major Mayan ruins. The glyphs, reduced by a millennium of wind and rain to unreadable dog biscuits, ached with lost meaning. ExhibitThe six jade masks discovered at Calakmul by William Folan will be on display in Campeche at least until the end of this year, along with matchless ceramic objects from the site.The finest introductory book about the ancient culture is Michael D.) Lundell was guided to Calakmul by chicleros (chicle collectors), descendants of the ancient Maya, who for the last century have prowled confidently through jungles where gringos would get lost. Plumbing them will be the life's work of a future generation of archaeologists and a glorious revelation for visitors yet to come, as the city peels itself free of the jungle that has smothered it--and saved it--for more than a thousand years. Very little of the research from Calakmul has reached the popular press, but a good summary of what is known can be found in Robert J. For centuries this ancient script defied all efforts at decipherment, but in the past two decades a small group of scholars has cracked the code, setting loose an avalanche of new insights about the Mayan culture. Six years ago, archaeologists found a text claiming that, in 695, Calakmul's Ruler 4 was captured by the brazen lord of Tikal, held for 40 days, ritually adorned, and then sacrificed. The Chicanná Ecovillage uses rainwater for all its operations and runs on energy from solar panels. Butterflies in a dozen colors bounced on the breeze. In the dry season, the approach, by a series of rutted tracks whose treacherousness escalated as you neared the site, took even the few archaeologists who toiled there three days to traverse. A visit is now within reach of mildly adventurous travelers equipped with a rental car out of Cancún or Mérida. l.

inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()

For those who don’t have 80 days to travel around the world, it’s now possible to do so in less than two minutes.” Blind Rivet Nut Factory Related: The 50 best places to travel in 2017 Jiwa said he spent close to 100 hours “looking for locations, capturing and sequencing the imagery, editing and synchronising each frame, colour correcting” and rendering the video.” “I wanted to find locations that demonstrated how people have shaped their environments, creating urban geometries in unsuspecting places, which can only be seen from above,” Jiwa told Travel + Leisure. Using more than 4,000 images from Google Earth, Adnaan Jiwa created a whirlwind tour of the planet, focusing on both “environmental innovation and degradation” around the world. “Google Earth offered me the opportunity to see the world from a unique viewpoint and I wanted to make the most of that. Jiwa’s video juxtaposes the strict grids of American residential areas with the circular neighborhoods of Denmark and the “abstract circular crop fields scattered across the most arid places on earth.” And in the final moments of the video, Jiwa uses historical footage to show viewers just how constantly and rapidly the planet is changing. To source his locations, Jiwa said that he “literally scoured the globe. Related: The ultimate cheap airline guide In Jiwa’s short video, viewers leap from New York to Namibia to Denmark to Saudi Arabia, just to name a few stops.


inserts 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()