Start the Day Right
Posted by Admin | Filed under Health
Remember when your mother used to tell you every morning before you headed for school? That’s right - eat your breakfast.
Now the Park Hyatt Dubai is telling its business guests the same thing. According to General Manager Stuart Deeson, this program was developed because they noticed that business travelers were skipping their breakfast to attend meetings.
The Hyatt Corporation is teaming up with well-known Brazilian nutritionist Patricia Teixeira, who has worked with top European soccer clubs such as Real Madrid, to address this issue. Together, they have launched a healthy living breakfast program that features juices developed to fight jetlag, cellulite and stress, aid digestion as well as strengthen the immune system.
The insider story of Barcelona
Posted by Admin | Filed under Vacation
This story was told by Shopkeeper Rosa Baneres, who was born in Barcelona and grew up there. Here she shares her treasured spots in the city.
Favorite spot: The Romanesque church and cloisters of Sant Pau del Camp at the end of Carrer Sant pau off Las Ramblas. You can tell by the stone carvings over the main door that this is one of Barcelona’s oldest churches.
Best meal: Flas-flas (La Granada del Penedes) which hasn’t changed since it opened in 1970s. They’re known for their tortillas, but I love their hamburgers, especially the Cadillac - beef with layers of bacon, crapers, and cheese.
Hidden treasure: The Eixample Dreta - the part of this 19th-century area that lies to the right of Passeig de Gracia on the map. There’s so much to see in the buildings here - stained glass-enclosed balconies, cornices and carvings. When the great doors are open, you can see elaborate lamps and polished marble where the carriages used to be.
Best music: jazz Si club for Flamenco on Friday nights. They start at 8.30pm but by 8pm, you can’t even get in. The stage is tiny, but really powerful bailaor (dancer) can leave you in tears.
View: Go up the hill to Tibidabo on the funicular which goes to the amusement park. The whole city is at your feet.
Must have experience: A stroll starting from Jaume I, down the narrow lanes leading to Correos, the main Post Office, passing through Placa Sant Just nad Lledo. There are abandoned places, grand houses, an old shop that still doesn’t seem to have electricity, carpenter’s shops and a Roman tower inhabited by stray cats.
Quiet Spot: The laribal gardens on Montjuic - full of shady corners where you can feel quite removed from the world.
Market: The mercat Sant Antoni. Going to the indoor food market as a child with my grandmother, I used to have my own little basket and stallholders would put one of everything in it, one fish, one peach, one tomato… The encants (street market) were magical, the stalls selling clothes, shoes and toys, and they’re the same today as they were then.
This Summer Read (Part 2)
Posted by Admin | Filed under Readings
7) The Time Machine (H.H. Wells / 1895)
A Victorian scientist propels himself into the year AD 802,701 and finds himself among the Eloi, an elfin species that appears to live in a world free of suffering, but in tunnels beneath their paradise lurk the sinister Morlocks. When the scientist’s time machine vanishes, he knows what he has to do to return to his era.
8.) Doctor Who?: Revenge of the Juddon (Terrance Dicks / 2008)
A modern take on the same theme, time-traveller Doctor Who visits a castle in Scotland. The castle disappears, leaving just a hole in the ground. The Doctor realizes it is the work of the Juddon, ruthless intergalactic mercenary space police plotting to take over the world. The Doctor Who books are a tie-in with the very popular British TV series of the same name.
9) Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie / 1934)
Detective Hercule Poirot’s little grey cells whirr away as he untangles the mystery of an American tycoon found dead in his train compartment with a dozen stab wounds.
10) A quite belief in Angels (R.J.Ellory / 2007)
Joseph Vaughan is a teenager when a string of girls from his community are murdered. Ten years later, one of his neighbours is found dead, with articles taken from the dead girls. The killings resume. Who is the real killer? A bestseller on Amazon, it is this summer’s crime title smash hit.
11) The Alexander Trilogy: Fire from heaven; The Persian Boy; Funeral Games (Mary Renault / 1969 / 1972/1981)
Alexander the Great said, “It is a lovely thing to live the courage, and die leaving an everlasting fame.” Mary Renault’s trilogy is a superb fictional account of the man who spoke those words. It takes the reader on a real-life adventures story that moves from the rugged mountains of Macedonia, via Persia and Egypt, to the Indus. Along the way, we meet many intriguing characters, not least of whom is Alexander’s formidable mother, Olympias.
12) The Other Boleyn Girl (Philippa Gregory / 2002)
Nothing can come between sisters like a kingdom. Mary Boleyn becomes the mistress of King Henry VIII. When he tires of her, she sets out to school her sister, Anne, to take her place. A novel of high drama, politics and passion, It won the Parker Romantic Novel of the Year award (2002) and was recently made into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. Philippa Gregory’s other Tudor titles include The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Boleyn inheritance, and the Other Queen (to be published this august).
This Summer Read
Posted by Admin | Filed under Readings
A holiday means time to indulge in a good book. But how to choose wisely as you pack, so that your luggage does not go into excess weight? Which books will satisfy your literary soul? Below are some suggestions:
1) The Golden Notebook (Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing / 1962)
Middle-aged Anna keeps four notebooks, chronicling stages in her life. The fifth notebook - the golden one - is her attempt to pull it all together. A novel that has left its mark on the ideas and feelings of three generations of women.
2) Life of Pi (Yann Martel / 2002)
Tipped to win the man Booker Prize’s 40th anniversary Best of the Booker award this July, this is the tale of Pi, an Indian boy, the only human survivor of a shipwreck, who spends 221 days on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, and orangutan and a Bengal tiger. The novel combines a boy’s own adventure with a meditation on faith and survival.
3) Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen / 1813)
This romantic comedy continues to draw readers to this day. Heroine meets rich hero but it’s loathe first sight. She fails for a less-than-ideal choice, who causes a family crisis. The hero saves the day. This nuanced tale underscores the issues of, yes, pride and prejudice, and love’s eventual triumph.
4) An Offer You Can’t Refuse (Jill Mansell / 2008)
Jill Mansell is the best selling queen of chick lit and in her latest book, the heroine, Lola, is offered a payoff of 10,000 pounds by the snobbish mum of her boyfriend Dougine, to break up with her son. Is it true love or will money talk?
5) Frankenstein (Mary Shelley / 1818)
Forget blockbusters featuring square-jawed actors with bolts through their necks. Obsessed with creating life, a scientist called Frankenstein plunders graveyards for material to fashion a new being, which he brings to life. This creature sets out to destroy his maker. Some consider this the classic that shocked the sci-fi genre into existence.
6) Twilight (Stephenie Meyer / 2005)
Bella is the new girl in town who feels a strange attraction to a youth, who rebuffs her and then saves her life. The reason for his coldness? He is a vampire. Meyer, a cross-over young adult/adult novel sensation, has been touted as the new J.K.Rowling. Twilight, the movie, will out this December.