Meanwhile, some Rajasthan MLAs performed a pooja to relieve the ‘haunted’ assembly from ‘evil spirits’ recently.Actor-politicians late N. Revanna travels 300 km daily due to an astrologer’s advice.T., seem to have their own beliefs and superstition. Rama Rao, K.Politicos’ blind faithsAkhilesh never visited NoidaThe former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ahilesh Yadav had stayed away from Noida when he was the Chief Minister giving into the superstition that any UP CM who dares to visit Noida would eventually lose his power. Case in point is Karnataka Public Works Minister HD Revanna who apparently travels 350 km by road every day from Bengaluru to his home in Holenarasipura, Hassan district."To see Karnataka’s minister Revanna adopting such things (superstitions) is very strange.M. He came to power soon! Basically, this puja helps one distance himself from enemies.Kantamraju Ganapathi Sharma, a Saivagama jyothisya pandit, explains why poojas are popular among politicians. He states that addressing people’s problems is what will bring one to power. The reason for this arduous journey he undertakes every day is that he’s been advised by his astrologer against sleeping in his Bengaluru house as long as he’s a Minister.C.D. After four months, he was given a nominated post.Bala’s life controlled by the astrologerActor-politician Balakrishna consults his astrolger for every move. Every day of the week would be marked by a different colour and they would be in a wide range of at least seven colours. "A Guntur-politician asked me what he should do to come to power. Chandrasekhar Rao, Chandrababu Naidu, Nandamuri Balakrishna, etc. chandrasekhar rao, chandrababu naidu, hd revanna.D Revanna It’s no secret that Indian politicians are a superstitious lot."But when it comes to superstitions, not many politicians are immune. Because of this, the Minister spends seven hours on the road every day.Jaya believed in coloursAdvised by leading astrologers, the former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa’s beliefs would vary from season to season.KCR follows vaastuThe Telangana State chief minister’s block in the new complex being built will be the tallest with five floors, and six separate blocks; this is in compliance with Vaastu that the ‘ruler’ should function from a place that is at a greater height than others. The focus should be more on transparency of administration, positive approach, hardwork, and timely response to the voices of the people who bring them to power," he says. He recalls, "A few years back, a politician from Hyderabad approached me and said an astrologer told him that he’s unable to come to power because of a peepal tree in front of his house. On Monday, her saree would be green. For some, these manifest in the form of small quirks, while in others, these take strange and often inconvenient shapes.Karnataka Minister H.The Telangana State Chief Minister’s block in the new complex being built will be the tallest with five floors, and six separate blocks; this is in compliance with vaastu that the ‘ruler’ should function from a place that is at a greater height than others.While the debate over superstition vs hard work continues, BJP Yuva Morcha leader P. Even Sonia Gandhi can’t shake off superstitions; she observes a family tradition before filing her nomination from Rae Bareli."He further adds, "They (politicians) need to understand that it is only God who can save us; it is high time they should get educated on such matters. Rangarajan, Chilkur Balaji temple priest, downplays such superstitions. Instead, I told him to start offering prayers to the tree regularly instead of cutting it down. Even the time of his press interviews are fixed by the astrologer — if it’s 11 am, Balakrishna comes to the room and sits on the chair at 11 am sharp! Not a second before or later.S.

The politician asked me whether he should remove that tree. end-of Tags: k. Working hard and serving the people will see them through. But her faith in colours made for an intensely personal superstition for her. Their beliefs usually revolve around kick-starting their election campaigns, new film shootings, etc. Sai Prasad begs to differ. Her seat of power always faced east. Closer home, the likes of N. Her seat in the CM’s room was also determined by a direction. https://www.steady-ind.com Karnataka minister H. Based on his horoscope, I suggested Aghora Paashupatha pooja in his house. Rama Rao and his son Balakrishna aren’t far behind when it comes to holding some superstitions close to their hearts.T. If someone brought flowers of a colour she liked, she would make sure the giver knew she liked the colour he had chosen. Although Revanna has denied the news, he is known for his unshakable faith in the astrologer. It automatically brings victory to him," he says.Revanna’s story puts the spotlight on other politicians and what all they do in the name of superstition. Akhilesh Yadav had stayed away from Noida when he was the Chief Minister giving into the superstition that any UP CM who dares to visit Noida would eventually lose his power

 He told the passenger, “The area is almost empty. One driver even showed Kudo his driver’s report, which noted an unpaid fare, a real world side effect to a supernatural https://www.steady-ind.com/product/blind-rivet-nuts/ fare jumper. A few months ago a Japanese game show popularized a ghost taxi prank that scared the sushi out of unlucky passengers, but this is no game show trick.

While it may be easy to brush these incidents off as ghost stories, psychiatrists have identified “grief hallucinations” as a fairly common reaction to bereavement, and NYU neurologist Oliver Sacks noted that hallucinations can help people cope with loss. Kudo reported that many of the seven cabbies noted that the ’ghosts’ were young in age.. At least seven taxi drivers reported a similar experience. Is it okay?” The woman replied, in a shivering voice, “Have I died?” When the cabbie turned around, she was gone. The drivers have pulled over to pick up a passenger, started the meter, and asked for an address.February 05, 2016 Before you jump in a taxi on your next trip to Japan, you might want to check the back seat. The earliest incident was reported just a few months after the tsunami, when a cab driver recounted picking up a woman in a long coat who asked to be taken to the city’s Minamihama district. According to Kudo’s research, the ghostly incidents started back in 2011, just months after Ishinomaki was ravaged by a tsunami, which, The Guardian reports, decimated more than 50,000 buildings and killed at least 3,162 of Ishinomaki’s residents.

The customer gave an odd response—asking to be taken to an area of town destroyed by the tsunami or pointing at a distant mountain—and at some point on the ride, when the driver turned around, the passenger would be gone, vanished from the back seat. Several taxi drivers in Ishinomaki, in Northern Japan’s Miyagi prefecture, have reported ghostly passengers hitching a ride in their cabs, according to MSN. Asahi Shimbun reports that Yuka Kudo, a student at Tohoku Gakuin University, interviewed more than 100 taxi drivers in Ishinomaki for her graduation thesis, and found a local phenomenon of ghostly passengers drivers believe were killed a few years ago in the tsunami

Related: The Best Comic Book Stores in the U. If this is true, leaving them in checked bags would trigger a huge influx of bag searches in San Diego over the weekend. Good afternoon. United noted that the comic book ban was only in place for the weekend, so fans can go back to stuffing their bags full of rare editions in peace. The event allows fans to come face-to-face with the actors who portray their favorite superheroes on screen and also gives them the opportunity to get a few of their prized comic books signed by the authors, actors, and creators.  The restriction on checking comic books applies to all airlines operating out of San Diego this weekend and is set by the TSA. Some comic-loving travelers took to Twitter to share that they have been affected by this issue before, and were told that comic books can set off the TSA’s x-ray machines because they’re unable to properly scan their glossy pages. Several people even shared the announcement on Twitter.co/Nu00IvcZSc— TSA (@TSA) July 24, 2017 Regardless of where the odd rule came from, it’s going to be OK. “In fact, they are allowed in both checked and carry-on baggage. Pls note there are no TSA restrictions on checking comic books or any other types of books.July 24, 2017 Each summer, comic book lovers from all over the world descend on San Diego for Comic-Con. https://www.steady-ind.com Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Campbell Soup Company According to View From The Wing, attendees of the event arrived at San Diego International Airport to find screens telling them they could not keep comic books in their checked luggage and would have to instead carry them on their flights." The TSA later called out United publicly on Twitter. Related: Get Ready to Take Books Out of Your Carry-on Bags If you are at #SDCC #SDCC2017 and are flying out on @united - please take note of this and share!!! pic.com/WIYqSpzlaA— Amy, stuck @airport (@spooloflies) July 23, 2017 But, as Le Chic Geek reported, this probably wasn’t just some weird attempt to force comic book lovers to inconveniently carry their hauls with them..S. There is “no restriction on anything related to putting comics or any type of books” in baggage, and TSA never put out any guidance to that effect, a TSA spokeswoman told the outlet. ^MD— United (@united) But while United claimed all airlines out of San Diego were enforcing the ban as per the TSA’s rules, Consumerist reports the TSA denied having anything to do with it.twitter.com/s1sV269DuQ— Adi Chappo (@adichappo) July Ahaha holy shit the airport is going to be a clusterfuck. #SDCC cc @SD_Comic_Con pic.twitter. However, this year’s group of Comic-Con-goers may have a hard time bringing all that new paraphernalia home thanks to a very bizarre rule at San Diego International Airport

It’s been more rare that I’ve traveled specifically for the purpose of researching a fictional character or plot, but that was certainly the case with my most recent novel, My New American Life. On one trip to Paris, I noticed that every evening, when I turned on the TV at my hotel, the station was airing a documentary in which a peasant couple was slaughtering a pig at their farm; each night a different couple, a different pig, a different region of France. A Room with a View by E. I wanted my heroine to have grown up not only in a former Communist dictatorship, but in the most isolated and extreme Eastern-bloc nation. Forster transform himself into Lucy Honeychurch, exulting in the beauty of Florence in A Room with a View? https://www.steady-ind.com/product/ Over the years, I’ve had all sorts of travel experiences that have eventually found their way into novels and stories. “Vacation!” hearing our voices rise, as if—though we are telling the truth—we might be suspected of lying.

I passed the George W. Pleasure? If the writer were to tell the truth, it might sound something like, “Well, since you ask, the purpose of my visit is to see your country and your culture through the eyes of an imaginary person—a character I invented. In fact, it’s like no other form of travel, for the simple reason that the person who’s traveling isn’t exactly you. I noticed that everyone who could afford it drove a Mercedes of uncertain provenance, the vehicle best designed to survive the lethal potholes and frequent collisions. I crossed the shaggy lawns of the university, with its touchingly neglected science museum, deserted except for the boy who worked there and two friends—guys who could have gone to college with Lula. Perhaps it’s the fact of the uniform, or the effects of a long voyage, or the border guard who may seem intimidating but is probably just bored. But ultimately I discovered that I simply couldn’t imagine or invent Albania without some firsthand experience.” Francine Prose’s novel My New American Life was published in April by HarperCollins. I understood why Albanians are so fiercely attached to their native land, and also how its attractions would measure up, in the mind of a restless, unmarried 26-year-old girl, to what she hoped to find in New York City. Visiting the former Yugoslavia in the late 1980’s, I attended a literary conference at which I had no idea what anyone was talking about: a heated controversy that turned out to involve the return of Croatian exiles. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann Nothing has ever captured so well the beauty and the pulse-racing creepiness of this gorgeous city. As much as I adored Albania, I knew, by the time I Ieft, how Lula would answer the question of why she’d moved to New York: “Who would choose Tirana over a city where half-naked fashion models and their stockbroker boyfriends drink mojitos from pitchers decorated with dancing monkeys?” The trip to Albania gave me everything I required in order to understand my heroine. Forster Read it to find out how little the splendor of Florence has changed—and how much people have. What stays with you are the surprises, the revelations, the experience of the new, the joy of meeting interesting people and encountering unfamiliar sights and sounds, flavors, and smells—all things that I could never have constructed from the raw material of my imagination. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami My favorite of Murakami’s books reveals all sorts of familiar—and hidden—aspects of Tokyo. Gryphon by Charles Baxter The American Midwest reveals itself as a place of great beauty and strangeness in Baxter’s eloquent fictions. I am here as a tourist. Along the way, I not only observed enough to make Lula a credible character but also recorded all sorts of marvelous details that I was able to use in the novel—and could never have invented. And this somewhat bizarre and memorable encounter with French TV gave me the inspiration and the title for a novella—Three Pigs in Five Days—that was published in 1997.July 13, 2011 Even the most confident and seasoned travelers may experience a shiver of unease when they arrive in a foreign country and the official who stamps their passport asks, “What is the purpose of your visit? Are you here for business or pleasure?” “Pleasure!” we say. In any case, this moment is far more complex and fraught when the traveler is a writer who has come to do background research for a novel. Francine Prose picks eight novels where the setting is always in the spotlight. I made a short trip to Kruja, the site of a historically important castle, and to Berat, a small and very beautiful city. Bleak House by Charles Dickens Granted, London has changed a lot since Dickens’s time, but whenever I go there I feel I’ve reentered one of his novels. One of the speakers was a flamboyantly theatrical Hungarian poet who, almost a decade later, suddenly appeared (as if under his own volition) in a story I was writing about a young woman who found herself fascinated and terrified by a Hungarian poet’s intense aura of romance and high drama. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell This imaginative first novel is set in an alligator theme park that could exist only in southwestern Florida. Le Divorce by Diane Johnson Reading this smart, delightful comic novel provides all the fun of a week in Paris without having to leave the house.” By and large, it works out better for everyone if we just say, “Vacation. Is that purpose business? Not exactly. But one reward of travel (whether the journey is just for fun, or for work of any sort) is that it gives you so much more than what you wanted and needed—more than you ever suspected you desired. I came to love the beauty of the countryside, its stark medieval hill towns, its ancient churches and mosques. And so, in May 2009, I spent two weeks in Tirana, the capital of Albania. GraceLand by Chris Abani The sights and sounds of Lagos, Nigeria, pulse through this vibrant novel. In fact it’s not like traveling for pleasure, with its pure openness to the thrill of new experience; nor is it like travel writing, journeys on which that pleasure may be partly compromised by the need to find the perfect opening sentence. For the present and future, it’s probably better for everyone if I just continue saying, “Vacation! I’m here as a tourist. A young woman explained that when foreign TV, prohibited for so long, was finally permitted, her generation learned English from SpongeBob SquarePants. But that would definitely be more information than any border guard could process. M. Something occurs that lodges in my mind until a character and a plot collect around this kernel and begin to take on the peculiar life of fiction.. I’d read everything I could about the country and practically memorized the one guidebook I was able to locate. Sometimes, reading a literary classic or a contemporary novel that features a strong sense of place, I’ll find myself pausing to wonder: Did Thomas Mann look at the Lido from the point of view of the doomed, lovesick Gustav von Aschenbach, whose unrequited passion leads to the tragedy at the center of Death in Venice? At which point did Diane Johnson decide to introduce her readers to Paris through the sensibility of the bright young Californian heroine of Le Divorce? How did E. I’d read that the dictator, Enver Hoxha, had built 700,000 concrete bunkers, but I hadn’t really understood the role that these structures, resembling indestructible cement cow pies with eyes, played in the landscape and the culture. Besides, in order to see the United States through Lula’s eyes, I had to know more about the place that she was comparing it with. Perhaps I could tell the border guards that: traveling to research a novel is in many ways the same as traveling for pleasure. I needed to eat the food and smell the smells she had known as a child, to watch the play of light and darkness in the sky over her home, to see how her neighbors walked and talked and inhabited their city, to find out how heavily the legacy of their painful history still affected their daily lives. One man told me that a neighbor had been taken by the secret police because her son put a forbidden radio antenna on the roof so he could listen to a chesty Italian pop singer he had a crush on.” That initial white lie at the border is just one indication of the essential strangeness of the project: Going somewhere to observe and try to understand a place with a very real landscape, with its own very particular physical and social geography, only so that you can invent something that never happened there, or anywhere, to someone who never existed. M. Forty pages or so into a rough draft, I had an inconvenient realization: Either my heroine, Lula—a young Albanian immigrant working as a nanny in the northern New Jersey suburbs—was going to have to come from somewhere other than Albania, or else I was going to have to go to Albania to see where she’d come from. Bush café in Kruja, and ate at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Tirana where the only other customers were Methodist missionaries from the United States

Punjabi Panache"Intense! Full-bodied! Syrupy!" cries Vikram Vij, like some grand sommelier. We find our pearl tea at Fook Po Tong, a café specializing in herbal drinks. No.A." Tojo opens the show with Vegas swagger. Hello, Hong KongStephen and I finally settle on Sun Sui Wah, in a circular room designed by avant-garde Chinese architect Bing Thom. Main courses erupt with magical flavors: juicy chicken smothered with mild green chilies and cilantro; Bengali fried cod offset by a new-wave raita and a peppery mesclun salad with sesame-coconut dressing; roast quail framed by aromatic onion-seed curry. 45: The city’s definitive hot-and-sour soup, intense and transparent, teeming with chunks of vegetables, pineapple, and fish. Choosing a handful of perfect restaurants in a city known as the North American capital of Asian dining can make you hyperventilate. CEO’s suck loudly on crab claws, and families frantically spin lazy Susans. Over Sunday lunch at Mitzie’s in Chinatown, Stephanie Yuen, a reporter for the Sing Tao Daily, introduces us to fashions in Cantonese fusion: a bizarre coffee-and-tea cocktail called Special Coffee, and microwaved Coke with lemon (a favorite cold remedy). Pender St. Roast squab, the house specialty, arrives plain and plump.Vij’s 1480 W. Not a scene from your typical vindaloo dive. Another belonged in a Michelin three-starred auberge somewhere in Strasbourg: slivers of smoked goose, white asparagus, and minuscule croutons, bound by a foie gras vinaigrette. Savory semolina halva, with a texture of bread pudding, gets a jolt from mint-mango chutney and coconut sauce. Here are my favorites-- with a few occidental pearls thrown in for good measure. Wrangell Sound scallops. At the oldest mall, Aberdeen Centre, you can catch the latest Hong Kong flick, snack on a spectacular array of street food, and buy Snoopy mugs festooned with Chinese inscriptions. Lumière’s setting (austere but oddly comforting) and service (warmly professional) are true to the food.; 604/736-6664; dinner for two $27. The food mostly lives up to the buzz-- though the saskatoon-berry-tea-cured salmon with okanagan-berry aioli tastes like plain old lox to me. Columbia Valley sturgeon. Counter ProductionThe seafood at Tojo’s is so buttery, melting, and rich, you feel as if you’re eating whipped cream.Fook Po Tong 4151 Hazelbridge Way at Aberdeen Centre, Richmond; 604/279-9373; snacks for two $5.; 604/872-8822; dinner for two $30. Broadway; 604/872-8050; dinner for two $37, more for chef’s special menus. Equally suggestive are the chef’s evocations of the Pacific Northwest. The dish is slimy, fishy, and scintillating. The restaurant does not take reservations, so lines can be long. 71: The best carpaccio you’ll ever taste-- tissue-thin slices of just-seared beef bathed in an aromatic vinegar dressing. My meal?Ebony clams, gooseneck barnacles, and limpets in miso broth; weather-vane scallops with a parcel of Swiss chard and oyster mushrooms; sockeye salmon with fiddlehead ferns.

A startling tangle of flavors. 11th Ave. Desserts-- Gorgonzola crème brûlée and a rose-hip granita with honey parfait-- are fresh and exuberant. Makes you want to reach for a compass.Tojo’s 202-777 W. (Vancouver, what took you so long?) Dramatically framed by two bridges, the dining room and terrace look out on ferries and pleasure craft slicing across False Creek. The chef’s wittiest concoction is sea scallops wrapped in thin strips of grilled octopus, which we almost mistake for Canadian bacon. Skip the panoramic seating, bid for a perch at the counter, shout "Omakase" ("Chef, we’re in your hands"), and surrender yourself to the whims of Tojo-san. At Canadian prices.; 604/682-5777; lunch for two $17. https://www.steady-ind.com/product/blind-rivet-nuts/ Sooke Harbour House 1528 Whiffen Spit Rd.C 2-1600 Howe St. the restaurantsSun Sui Wah Seafood Restaurant3888 Main St. With a population one-sixth Chinese, choice real estate pumped up by Hong Kong dollars, and three Chinese daily newspapers, no wonder some call this city Hong-Couver. Broadway; 604/739-8185; dinner for two $54. To start, we have terrific oysters jeweled with three kinds of caviar; seared beef with roasted-garlic purée; and a competent spring roll. In a very Tokyo fashion, Vancouver’s sushi temple-- actually, more a coffee shop with a glamorous view-- is tucked away on the second floor of an office building. "How about daimo for ostrich congee?Or Imperial for expense-account seafood?And there’s Landmark for hot pot-- their shrimp is so fresh it comes out jumping," says my friend Stephen Wong. But then Vij, one of Vancouver’s many Punjabi residents, combines his devotion to curries with the savvy he acquired working at Bishop’s (a bastion of nouvelle américaine). Desserts?Litchi sorbet with strawberry water, and a tangy yogurt parfait with pineapple and coconut caramel. This is one of Canada’s best-- and most singular-- restaurants: a white clapboard inn overlooking the ocean, surrounded by gardens where almost everything is edible.; 604/689-9763; lunch for two $17. The staff recommends lovely British Columbian whites from a trendy, Riesling-rich list. Smoked Georgia Strait octopus confit. My friend and I started with a Venturi Schulze sparkling wine, made on the island, and ended with local cheeses and alpine strawberries.June 09, 2009 Decisions, decisions. The illusion grows stronger when you taste the Cambodian-Vietnamese food. The seafood on the menu could fill an exotic aquarium, and the house salad is a toss of rare flowers and plants. No.Lumière 2551 W. Silly thought., Sooke, Vancouver Island; 250/642-3421; dinner for two $85. It’s a small thrill, eating fish that’s a day fresher than some of Tokyo’s best. But I sharpened my chopsticks for the challenge and navigated all of Asia in just five days. Georgia St. Tangy and fiery, a brick-red tomato-and-fenugreek marinade enlivens mozzarella-like slabs of paneer. An American-style restaurant with a mostly Chinese clientele, it dishes up burgers and spaghetti alle vongole alongside pork chops with fried rice baked under a blanket of tomato sauce (surprisingly tasty) and some of the best chow mein noodles in town. No. Before we go, would I care for a curative blend of lotus seeds and fatty tissue of snow toad?Maybe next time. Yet strangely, this world is more assimilated than the aggressively segregated Chinese food meccas of New York and L. The kitchen kept landing on its feet without missing a toe loop. But waiters greet you outside with pappadum and masala chai, and regulars offer up comments on the trendiest flavors of Indian ice cream-- jackfruit and passion fruit. Thousand Island meets five-spice-- with a dash of Parmesan. Here the waiters smile sweetly, address you in English, and happily divulge their off-menu secrets. 57: Slippery rice cakes tossed with matchsticks of pork rind and tiny chili-laced shrimp dressed in coconut milk. Each dish is carefully accessorized, and the wine list is smart and concise. We land in a witches’ Sabbath of cell phones (squat, sleek, gray, black; all cackling at once).Phnom Penh 244 E. Catching the WaveTwo-year-old C touts itself as the city’s first restaurant devoted to fusion Pacific Rim seafood. This is haute Cantonese in top gear. "Where are you folks from?Hello, New York; welcome back, Vancouver. After the classicism of filet mignon topped with sweet, musky slices of porcini and Peking duck with spot prawns, Israeli couscous and curry oil sounded weird, at best. The coup de grâce is a shredded-potato basket filled with an improbably perfect sauté of snow peas, shrimp, and geoduck strips. Regulars worry whenever chef-owner Robert Feenie dashes off to New York to consult at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée: What if the Big Apple tempts him for good?I secretly hope it enchanted isle If you’re in the mood for a quiet adventure, take the seaplane (about a half-hour hop) to Vancouver Island, then drive to Sooke Harbour House. Mitzie’s itself is a curious hybrid. No. Like an expert bingo caller, my friend shouts our order numbers. We eat it with sprinkles of spiced salt, then continue with vibrant garlicky greens and black-cod steaks in a sweetened light soy sauce.; 604/681-1164; lunch for two $34. Here a cluster of malls offers acres of Pan-Asian exotica with the sanitized glitter of a fancy duty-free shop. This evening’s routine: a bowl of albacore cubes in sesame-touched sauce; sweet, spongy shrimp dumplings tossed with shiitakes; Dungeness crab and an avocado roll; a hand roll of prawns, geoduck, and Tobiko caviar; and lemony tataki (seared tuna slices)..Mitzie’s 179 E. Balancing ActHave you ever watched figure skaters, gracefully suspended in mid-triple axel, and hoped they’d land in a heap?I hate to admit it, but that’s how I felt halfway through the scrupulously elegant tasting menu at Lumière-- almost willing the next dish to turn up soggy or burned. Prices do not include drinks, tax, or tip. "If you’re in the mood for sushi or dim sum-- " "You pick," I plead, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of Vancouver’s Asian offerings. Sucking the tapioca drops into your mouth from an outsize straw is like taking your taste buds to the funfair. In pursuit of a Taiwanese teenage fad, "pearl tea"-- strong iced tea with condensed milk, loaded with big tapioca pearls that sink to the bottom of the glass-- we drive out to the new Chinatown in Richmond, close by the airport. Tuna, ruby and rare like steak, dances with pineapple chutney and crisp samosas. Famously, Tojo makes off with some of Vancouver’s best catch before it’s whisked away and sold in Japan. The luckiest number is 76, a wokful of huge, crunchy, spot prawns (a local obsession) sprinkled with bits of chili and garlic. The grand finale is a salad of raw seafood swathed in a sunset-pink sauce made of mentaiko (cod roe). It’s Hong Kong-- by way of the Great White North. The interior is a postmodern reverie of fishing motifs; even the menu cover is made of the rubber used for fishermen’s galoshes. But, hey, it worked. At Vij’s, a small, spare storefront, there’s little to distract you from the intriguing cuisine. 74: Pan-fried moons of trieu chau dumplings that burst with a spicy scallion filling. A Cambodian KitchenEnter Phnom Penh, and the pungent aromas of fish sauce, garlic, and tropical spices carry you oceans away to the clamorous night markets of Southeast Asia. Who would think tuna tartare could taste so new and refreshing, and crab ravioli, another potential yawn, so haunting and spicy?One salad paired smoked black cod and tiny potatoes in an ode to the Pacific Northwest

Please don’t call it a fascinator!” instructs the avant-garde Scottish milliner William Chambers, proudly showing me a hat that he constructed from raffia and pink drinking straws. As I stare wide-eyed at the rows of exquisitely batty caps in his second-floor atelier on Glasgow’s buzzing Bath Street, I am convinced that I am in exactly the right place at the right time. Now more than ever, the country’s sartorial influence is infiltrating the bastions of high fashion, from the pervasiveness of tartans on the runways (an affection perhaps reawakened by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent punk exhibition) to the quietly freewheeling spirit that makes a fuchsia drinking-straw cap seem as much a matter for national pride as a traditional tam-o’-shanter. https://www.steady-ind.com/product/blind-rivet-nuts/ I am not the only one who has noticed. Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld—fashion’s literal éminence grise—staged his pre-Fall Métiers d’Art show west of Edinburgh at Linlithgow Palace, dressing the models in all manner of gloriously reinvented tweedy plaids and plaidy tweeds. And what could be better, as autumn descends, than conjuring the clans of the mist-shrouded moors? The appeal of these Highland tropes—the cult of the kilt, the deep allure of a Fair Isle pattern—may also have something to do with a burgeoning longing for the artisanal, for historical roots rethought for a new generation—a response, perhaps, to the tidal wave of fast, throwaway trends. But it’s not only the charm of the old ways reimagined that seduces: Scotland has lately given birth to a host of young fashion stars—Christopher Kane, the wunderkind who designed for Versace and has his own label; Jonathan Saunders, who turns women into rock-star goddesses; and Louise Gray, who shows her joyous prints on the London catwalks. And Edinburgh and Glasgow, about an hour from each other by car, are the movement’s unofficial training grounds. After sampling the wonders at Chambers’s studio—I am especially taken with a leather-orchid headpiece, for its flapper/Emperor Nero effect—I convince my friend S., a proud Glaswegian (identified only by his initial, so as to better quote the off-the-cuff aperçus he shares), to drive me to a picturesque area known as the Lanes, in the West End, so that I can visit a vintage store called Starry Starry Night. I procure a pristine fox-fur cape-collar for a mere 55 pounds, apparently donned by some 1940’s debutante exactly once. “You can’t wear that thing in Scotland,” S. says, and though it is chilly out, especially at night, he is emphatic that anti-fur sentiments have won over the population. Around the corner is Ruthven Lane, a narrow, antique alley filled with such wide-ranging wares they could have been culled from the sets of both Braveheart and Trainspotting. The spectacular Arts and Crafts furniture at Studio is but a few doors down from W2, Ruthven’s jewel in the crown, housed in a reconstituted cowshed and bursting with off-price Comme des Garçons for men. S. and I join Mary McGowne, who runs the annual Scottish Style Awards, for dinner in the city center at Rogano, a beloved seafood haunt opened in 1935 whose interior is inspired by an Art Deco cruise-ship design. They take advantage of my jet-lagged condition to convince me to order haggis, which I adore. (Alas, my pleasure is considerably dampened when I find out later that haggis is composed of sheep’s lungs, liver, and heart.) McGowne, who formerly worked as chief buyer at Cruise, a store in a Glasgow retail district called the Merchant City (a name straight out of The Wizard of Oz), explains the local style customs: there’s lots of new money here, a growing affection for ersatz tans, and a penchant for the brash femininity of the Gucci/Versace variety. But I protest, as I also see lots of red-haired girls in vintage frocks and nipped-in-waisted jackets with a Westwoodian air. And although the scene offers its quotient of high-end international labels, it’s the deconstruction of classic tropes that fascinates me—a young tough in a leather jacket carrying a vintage schoolboy satchel, perhaps; or a bejeweled cashmere cardigan tossed carelessly atop a plaid ball gown.See Our Guide to Great Britain When I tell my dining companions that I will be heading to Edinburgh in a few days, S. snorts almost inaudibly and then says, “Edinburgh? It’s the kind of snobby, faux-polite place that when you visit someone they say, ‘So you’ve had your tea?’ ” There is a friendly rivalry between the two towns. Indeed, a Glaswegian tells me proudly “Glasgow is G for Grit; Edinburgh is E for Elegant,” while another will struggle with similes—“It’s like Washington is Edinburgh and Glasgow is New York!” In truth, none of these statements is true—each city has a distinctly individual personality—and I found the populace in both places unerringly, almost unnervingly, gracious. The next morning I have breakfast in the Room de Luxe of the Willow Tea Rooms, a Charles Rennie Mackintosh–designed salon. The 1904 tearoom has its original interior, including a pair of elaborate doors enshrined under glass and rumored to be insured for more than a million dollars. Mackintosh championed Art Nouveau throughout the U.K., and by the look of the floppy ascot he wears in his portrait in the tearoom’s foyer, he would be right at home shopping the Lanes today. I take the subway, fondly dubbed the Clockwork Orange for its cadmium hue, back to the West End to a locally famous home-design store called Timorous Beasties. Named for the first line of the Robert Burns poem, it was founded by Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons and specializes in louche products that are, despite their transgressive subject matter, perversely refined and delicately rendered. Where else can you find linen cushions decorated with Hitchcockesque crows, or toile de Jouy upholstery fabric depicting demonstrators and cops clashing in an Occupy Wall Street scenario? The wares seem to sum up the Glaswegian temperament perfectly—they may be wittily irreverent and vaguely naughty, but they are uncompromising in their intellect and craft. We set off early for E-for-Elegant Edinburgh, as I want to stop at the 15th-century Linlithgow Palace, where Lagerfeld had his show. The residents are still marveling at the whole crazy event—how he took over their little town 19 miles west of Edinburgh, and even built a wooden awning inside the ruins. We are remarkably free to roam the crumbling castle unchaperoned—no tours or docents, just perilous stone staircases, unexpected glimpses of heaven from the roofless heights, and the ability to imagine what this was like when Mary, Queen of Scots walked the halls. (Or last winter, when Scotland resident/top model Stella Tennant strode the catwalk.) Not 20 minutes later we are driving past stately Georgian crescents in the heart of Edinburgh. Joseph Bonnar’s antique-jewelry store is on narrow, cobblestoned, 18th-century Thistle Street, more suited to carriages than to SUV’s and so atmospheric it looks like a transplant from a Hollywood back lot. Bonnar, who has been in the business for more than 40 years, shows off, amid breathtaking Deco diamond brooches and demantoid (green garnet) rings, a case full of 19th-century Scottish silver-and-agate jewelry. The shop is a literal jewel box, and one could spend hours browsing the merchandise, but I have miles (or kilometers) to go before I sleep. So we head to the Grassmarket, on the other side of Edinburgh Castle, which looks over the town like a friendly craggy monster. (Even S. will admit there is something wondrous about a city with a castle stuck in the middle of it.) Currently a small neighborhood of close-knit retailers, the medieval Grassmarket has a venerable history—for centuries it was a cattle market and also the site of public executions. Even in 1977, when Bill Baber opened his knitwear shop here (sweaters in gorgeous hues, made in the back of the shop from all-natural fibers) the environs were kind of dicey. Now the street is, like Scottish style itself, a mixture of raw and refined. W. Armstrong & Son, the town’s premier vintage shop, specializes in—no surprise—a breathtaking collection of kilts, some so heavy they risk putting your luggage into overage charges; next door, Hawick Cashmere of Scotland is as sedate and spotless as Armstrong’s is fearless and dusty. Nearby, Totty Rocks offers short pinstriped waistcoats and scarlet equestrian jackets. And Walker Slater (which really is E for Elegant) reinterprets balmacaan overcoats and shirt jackets in Harris Tweed, off the rack or made to measure, and not a scrap is wasted—there is even a tweedy lipstick pouch made from tiny remnants. Edinburgh is eminently walkable, so I set out on foot the next day. At Corniche, the national enthusiasm for Vivienne Westwood—she has her own shop in Glasgow—is at its height. I am besotted as soon as I glimpse the window; who wouldn’t want a pale pink velvet ballet skirt with a vast crinoline underneath? (Okay, maybe I am the only one desperate for this—the rest of you can settle for the jaunty Westwood handbags.) But puffy-skirt fantasies are replaced, at least temporarily, when I chat with Howie Nicholsby, the owner of 21st Century Kilts. Nicholsby is the scion of a kilt-making family, and he is famous for reinterpreting this staid item in camouflage, purple denim, faux python, and other unlikely fabrics. The day I visit, Nicholsby has just arrived in his bicycle kilt to help a hot hunk get fitted for his wedding kilt, and both client and owner are enjoying a mid-afternoon tipple of Scotch. Amid the ensuing hilarity, Nicholsby tells me that this is chiefly a bespoke business—while anyone is free to look around, serious customers need to book a two-hour appointment. If Nicholsby offers the most rarefied examples of the form (the fabrics may be offbeat, but the tailoring is dead serious), it’s a different story over on Broughton Street, where Joey D. has also taken a second look at kilts. At his namesake steampunk-influenced shop, the aesthetic is deliberately rough-edged, and the deconstructed goods are made of everything from rubber to well-worn, shredded vintage tartans. They are not the only items to have received this treatment—there are handbags that combine camouflage netting and ammo belts, and leopard-print wellies customized with tweed tops. The spirit of Joey D. is the perfect example of what is so modern and intriguing—and also, so much fun—about Scottish style today. Rubber boots, gun bags, hoary old kilts, no longer confined to their assigned roles, have shaken off the circumstances of their humble births, and are ready to take on the wide world.See Our Guide to Great Britain   Glasgow   Stay Malmaison Hotel Housed in a former Anglican church near Glasgow’s Style Mile; the crypt is now a brasserie. Order the smoked-apple cocktail at the scene-y MalBar. 278 W. George St.; malmaison.com. $$ Eat Rogano 11 Exchange Place; roganoglasgow.com. $$$ Willow Tea Rooms 217 Sauchiehall St.; willowtearooms.co.uk. $$ Shop Starry Starry Night 19 Dowanside Lane; 44-141/337-1837. Studio 57 Ruthven Lane; artscraftsglasgow.co.uk. Timorous Beasties 384 Great Western Rd.; timorousbeasties.com. Vivienne Westwood Unit 43/44 Princes Square, 48 Buchanan St.; viviennewestwood.co.uk. William Chambers Millinery 183A Bath St.; williamchambers.co.uk. W2 Store 10 Ruthven Lane; shop.w2store.co.uk. Linlithgow Do Linlithgow Palace Kirgate; historic-scotland.gov.uk. Edinburgh Stay Balmoral Marked by its 190-foot-tall clock tower and sweeping views of Edinburgh Castle. 1 Princes St.; thebalmoralhotel.com. $$$$ Missoni Hotel The only five-star hotel on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile is chockablock with Missoni stripes, down to the bathrobes. Stop by Cucina for Italian regional dishes such as house-made pappardelle with rabbit ragù. 1 George IV Bridge; hotelmissoni.com. $$$$ Do Edinburgh Castle Castlehill; edinburghcastle.gov.uk. Shop Bill Baber Knitwear 66 Grassmarket; billbaber.com. Corniche 2 Jeffrey St.; corniche.org.uk. Grassmarket grassmarket.net. Hawick Cashmere of Scotland 71 Grassmarket; hawickcashmere.com. Joey D. 54 Broughton St.; joey-d.co.uk. Joseph Bonnar 72 Thistle St.; josephbonnar.com. Totty Rocks 45-47 Barclay Terrace; tottyrocks.co.uk. 21st Century Kilts 48 Thistle St.; 21stcenturykilts.com. Walker Slater 18-20 Victoria St. (men’s), 44-46 Victoria St. (women’s); walkerslater.com. W. Armstrong & Son 83 Grassmarket; armstrongsvintage.co.uk. Hotels $ Less than $200$$ $200 to $350$$$ $350 to $500$$$$ $500 to $1,000$$$$$ More than $1,000 Restaurants $ Less than $25$$ $25 to $75$$$ $75 to $150$$$$ More than $150 Joseph Bonnar Jewelers The glass cases in this boutique are stocked with notable estate pieces like vintage square-cut emerald necklaces and antique gentlemen’s pocketknives; the shimmering tourmalines, black opals, and mother-of-pearl items range from astronomical to within reach. The Balmoral Hotel Former Edwardian railroad hotel with a landmark clock tower and modern interiors in the heart of Edinburgh, adjacent to Waverly Station. Around holiday time, the fireplaces are constantly lit at this cozy baronial property. Hotel Missoni Edinburgh The colorful Rosita Missoni brings a wild palette (fuchsia and turquoise walls; patterned bed throws) to the Royal Mile.

In the past few years, Dubai—the most glamorous of the United Arab Emirates’ seven sheikhdoms—has become famous for forward-thinking hotels such as the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab, and audacious building projects such as the Palm and the World, two massive collections of man-made islands that are taking shape offshore. On my recent visit to the emirate, people were buzzing about yet another new development, a $5 billion entertainment complex called Dubailand that will be built in the desert. Scheduled to open in 2007, Dubailand will include aquatic- and dinosaur-themed amusement parks, a space-age hotel, and the world’s largest shopping center. All this is part of ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s plan to wean the local economy off its dependence on oil, in part through tourism. According to the World Tourism Organization, Dubai had the world’s highest growth rate in tourism in 2002. Last year, the emirate attracted nearly 5 million visitors, 38 percent more than in 2001. Dubailand is expected to boost tourism to 20 percent of the emirate’s GDP. Dubai’s diversified economy—with large investments in the technology and information industries as well as tourism—has made it an increasingly popular place for international companies to do business, but what struck me most in Dubai was how much the city’s ongoing transformation is being debated. Locals are wondering what kind of future Dubai is building toward—and whether it’s one they want. "There has to be more to a place than doing business," Jihad Fakhreddine, an analyst at the Pan-Arab Research Center, told me one afternoon at his office. The 47-year-old Lebanese expatriate had recently returned from Iraq, where he’d conducted polling for Gallup International. "I felt more attracted and attached to Baghdad after forty days than I do to Dubai after thirteen years." Unlike Iraq, Dubai is stable and rich, but what concerns Fakhreddine is that the emirate’s cultural com- placency may shape the future of the Arab world. "There is no interest here in forming a culture that would make this country unique," he said. "We aren’t asking things like, ’What does it mean to be an Arab?Is Dubai even an Arab city at all?’" That is a complicated question. With between 80 and 90 percent of Dubai’s population made up of foreign workers, from Pakistani laborers to Western executives, the answer is: maybe not. "Dubai’s fundamental issue is demographic," Abdelkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati native who runs a political science think tank, told me a few days later. "How can locals accept that they’re a minority in their own country?Yet the economy is tied to the presence of expats. "There are a lot of locals who look to the past and think the old ways were best," Abdulla continued. "And there are also a lot of people worried about the future. They’re afraid the bubble will burst and everyone will go home." While there is concern that the Islamist insurgency in Saudi Arabia could cause problems throughout the Persian Gulf, it is precisely Dubai’s building boom that may make Abdulla’s nightmare scenario less plausible. Much of the emirate’s pricey new real estate—a substantial portion of developments such as the Palm—is being purchased by non-Arab, non-Muslim foreigners, giving them a greater stake in the city’s future. It’s not far-fetched to think that outsiders could someday play as important a part in Dubai’s political life as they have in its economy. The emirate may be a https://www.steady-ind.com model of openness in the region, but it still suffers from a democracy deficit. And since Westerners are accustomed to political participation in their homelands, one possible incentive to keep the expat labor force in Dubai could well be democracy. "Political participation is the next step for us," Abdulla told me. "It has to come." The question remains whether a multi-ethnic, democratic society really is possible here. Of course, that’s exactly what the 21st century was supposed to look like, before September 11 left many wondering if it would instead become a jet-age reprise of historic clashes. After visiting Dubai, I found it reassuring to find that this is, in fact, a place—in the Arab world, no less—still considering that once-shared vision of the future. LEE SMITH writes a column for Slate on Islamic affairs and is finishing a book on Arab culture, to be published by Scribner next year.