********** TRAVEL **********
return to top
China’s economic need and soft diplomacy spur about-face on visa-free entry
Wed, 22 Jan 2025 02:01:47 GMT
It was once a privilege afforded to only Singapore, Brunei and Japan but now travel rules have been relaxed for dozens of countries. But are many people coming?
A few years ago, getting a visa to visit China was a “ball ache”, says Kate Murray. The Australian was going for a four-day trade show, but the visa required a formal invitation from the organisers and what felt like “a thousand forms”.
“They wanted so many details about your life and personal life,” she tells the Guardian. “The paperwork was bonkers.”
Continue reading...Pollution aside, the problem with expanding Heathrow lies in the disruption and delay inevitable in such a complex project
Get ready for another season of that interminable saga, Heathrow’s third runway. There was a lull during the Covid pandemic when the airport’s owners, despite winning permission from the supreme court in 2020 to submit a planning application, cooled their jets while they waited for passenger numbers to recover. Now the whole thing is back, courtesy of Rachel Reeves. The chancellor is reported to be preparing to use a speech next week to declare support for a third runway at Heathrow alongside wider airport expansion in the south-east.
The best form of airport expansion is none at all, environmentalists (some of them in the cabinet) will argue, but it looks as if Reeves has dismissed those objections in the name of economic growth. A £1.1bn investment in Stansted, to enable it to grow its annual capacity from 29 million passengers to 43 million, was welcomed by the government last year.
Continue reading...Museums and galleries announce festival of events and exhibitions to celebrate influential British artist
He is considered to be the one of the greatest and most influential British artists of all time, who travelled the length and breadth of the country to capture some of its most dramatic scenery.
Now, 250 years after the birth of JMW Turner, cultural institutions in Britain have announced a year-long festival of special exhibitions and events to celebrate the man and his work.
Continue reading...Having left the library behind, the once budding academic talks about building JP Morgan’s UK digital lender from scratch
It all started in spring 2019, in a secret office on the seventh floor of JP Morgan’s London headquarters in Canary Wharf. Tucked behind the bustling staff canteen, at the end of a corridor that snaked past the office gym and in-house doctor, future Chase UK chief executive Kuba Fast was digesting the task ahead of him: helping build a new digital bank – from scratch – for the Wall Street giant.
He had been selected to join the project months earlier by fellow McKinsey alumnus Sanoke Viswanathan, who had been travelling the globe to learn from other successful digital lenders, including Fast’s former employer, Poland’s mBank. JP Morgan gave little detail about its venture, which was then known by its codename, Project Dynamo. But Fast dived headfirst into the blank-slate project. “I agreed to join before knowing where I would live,” Fast says.
Continue reading...In its heyday, Chettinad in southern India was a thriving hub of international traders. Today, the grandeur of their homes is being restored by a community keen to celebrate the houses’ cultural importance and promote them to tourists
The single-stone granite pillars and Burmese teak beams of Chettinad’s heritage hotels are adorned with strands of marigolds, while the verandas and corridors are hung with small, handmade palm-leaf parrots that sway gracefully among fragrant blooms. Six-metre-long banners made of Chettinad cotton sarees proclaim “The Chettinad Heritage and Cultural festival”.
At first glance, it is hard to believe that these grand mansions turned heritage hotels were ever neglected. Built by the illustrious Chettiar merchant community from the middle of the 19th century to the 1950s, they spread across the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, eventually dwindling to the 73 villages and two towns that remain today across 1,550 sq km (600 sq miles).
Visalam hotel decorated for the Chettinad Heritage and Cultural festival
Continue reading...Almost two centuries after its creation, Hokusai’s print is more popular than ever, featuring on everything from nail art to Lego to socks. What is its appeal?
You are never far from a great wave. Its foaming crest froths and sputters like ghostly fingers or monstrous claws raking over tote bags and journals. You can probably find it miniaturised in your emoji keyboard on your phone, and fading on a mouse mat or pair of socks somewhere nearby. The image – officially known as Under the Wave off Kanagawa, from Katsushika Hokusai’s series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji – depicts small boats facing down a large wave, and almost two centuries after its creation its appeal spans generations, continents, and socioeconomic bands.
In 2023, a Great Wave print sold for a record $2.76m (£2.26m) at Christie’s in New York. The following year, in Japan, the image debuted on the new 1,000 yen banknote, the country’s lowest-value paper money. You can equally well hang the wave from your keyring or apply its decals to your Porsche. British heritage companies such as Dartington Crystal sell it wrapped around fusty-looking vases, while at the edgier end of the high street, Urban Outfitters has printed it on to clothing. It is almost impossible to imagine where a Great Wave would look out of place. You can even buy it splashed across an umbrella. It must feel strange to keep dry under a great wave, but this artwork has become a catch-all image, the ultimate mixer of metaphors. The design itself – with its tiny Mount Fuji and vast wave – seems to give permission to play with scale.
Continue reading...A new Syria is emerging from the shadow of the brutal Assad regime. The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan and Ayman Abu Ramouz meet people celebrating their hard-won freedom, but also those grappling with a traumatic past. The pair travel to the notorious Sednaya prison, where they meet a former prisoner who was liberated by his family just days before
Resistance was not a choice’: how Syria’s unlikely rebel alliance took Aleppo
'The Syrian regime hit us with chemical weapons: only now can we speak out' – video
Syria’s disappeared: one woman’s search for her missing father
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...RSS Rabbit links users to publicly available RSS entries.
Vet every link before clicking! The creators accept no responsibility for the contents of these entries.
Relevant
Fresh
Convenient
Agile
We're not prepared to take user feedback yet. Check back soon!
