Jump off the express

Keeping up with the pace in Shanghai is a challenge but there's an oasis or two where you can take a breather, writes Winsor Dobbin.
THE sun has only just risen above the Shanghai skyline but already thousands of locals have descended on Fuxing Park - the leafy backyard for many apartment dwellers in this sprawling city.
There is an eccentric collection of Shanghainese going through their workout regimes, which range from swordplay to tai chi; ballroom dancing to calligraphy; kite-flying to head-butting a tree; playing musical instruments to playing cards.

Nightlife in Xintiandi. Photo: Getty Images
All age groups are involved; some of the dancers appear to be in their 80s. Some move energetically, others more languidly. Some are dancing to traditional Chinese music blaring from portable loudspeakers, others to 1940s big-band tunes.

A box-seat at a river crossing

Crossing the Zanskar. Photo: Christina Thompson

I STARE in amazement at the wooden box that will carry us across the river. As boxes go, it appears quite well made, if old and worn. Nevertheless, it is a wooden box, not what I would recognise as the promised "cable car".
But as I watch two local farmers sit calmly in the contraption as it is pulled across the Zanskar River by means of a frayed blue nylon rope,
I have the usual thoughts of a stranger facing a challenging situation in a foreign country: "Put your trust in the locals. They know what they're doing."

In fact, the ride looks quite exciting. The box, suspended from a cable that stretches to the stark, rock-strewn shore on the other side, will allow us to traverse a torrent of grey, silt-laden water from the peaks of the Ladakh range in the far north of India.

Endless summer: how to live in paradise

Wish you were here? Teaching yoga is one way you can earn money while living in an island paradise. Photo: Getty Images

Ever dream about running off to live in an island paradise? Megan Flamer explains how she did just that.
"Don't take this the wrong way," my friend wrote beneath my Facebook photo album, "but I hate you."
It was becoming a common occurrence: my friends, who had encouraged me to take this crazy leap in the first place, were turning against me. It seemed the more pictures I posted on Facebook and the more updates that included the words "beach", "sun" and "hammock" the more frustrated they became. What seemed to frustrate them most was my inability to explain how it had all happened, and even now, it's hard to see how it did.

Top 10 most surprising things about travelling

It's true ... when you're travelling, the ubiquity of Starbucks is your friend. Photo: Getty Images

Doesn't matter how much you've travelled, the world always has the power to surprise. That said, for the inexperienced traveller, there are certain things that are guaranteed to shock you when you hit the road...
1. Aeroplane food isn't that bad
It's an old cliché, but really, unless you're flying with an American carrier, aeroplane food isn't that bad. I've had a great meal on AirAsia – I had to pay for it, but it was legitimately decent food. Beef rendang – get in. And the noodle dishes on Singapore Airlines could be served in restaurants.
2. Starbucks is your friend
I once saw a bumper sticker in San Francisco: "Friends don't let friends go to Starbucks". And that might be good advice at home, but when you're travelling, Starbucks... isn't that bad. For starters, if you're in the States, you'll get a decent espresso coffee rather than the filter crud that the cafes all serve. Plus you get free Wi-Fi to check your emails, and a free newspaper. There are worse ways to start the day.

Top 10 Cities for Single Women

Back in early May, I wrote about the Top 10 Cities for Single Men based on housing data and other research provided by Rent.com.
We learned that single men own more often than they rent, are willing to pay more for convenience, and are (shocking!) less likely to manage their own household chores. We also learned that Texas, the East Coast and warmer climates like Miami, New Orleans and Los Angeles beckon the unmarried male renter.
Of course this begs the obvious question: What about all the single ladies? What are they looking for when it comes to selecting a city to call home? What kind of housing stock attracts independent women?
To find the answers to these questions, Rent.com recently surveyed single U.S. female renters and homeowners to better understand their habits and attitudes toward their bachelorette pads. Here’s what they learned:

• Forget about the Sex and the City stereotype of the urban single woman on the continuous manhunt. A mere 17 percent of female renters desire unattached men as neighbors. 25 percent of respondents would prefer to have a cat or dog next door in favor of a date-seeking male. This stands in contrast to the 45 percent of male renters who desire proximity to unmarried women. Sorry guys.

Sydney now seventh most expensive city

Source: UBS Prices & Earnings Report 2010

Sydney is now the seventh most expensive place to live in the world, a report says.
Oslo, Zurich, Geneva, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Tokyo are the only cities with higher living costs, according to financial services firm UBS.
The rankings, published in the annual Prices and Earnings report update on Tuesday, are calculated by comparing the cost of an average "shopping basket" of 122 goods and services.

It's not all bad news for Sydneysiders, because with high living costs come higher wages, UBS found.
Sydney finished second in a table ranking the domestic buying power of its citizens. This ranking is calculated by comparing wages in each location with living costs.

Truth of the platter

Real deal ... fine dining in the Greek isles. Photo: AFP

Heading to Europe and eager for authentic and delicious food in convivial surrounds? Here's what to look for - and avoid, writes Andrew Purvis.
EATING well is one of the great pleasures of travel. Often, it is emotive and sensuous — the thing we remember most about a holiday: a delicious breakfast of fresh cornetto and cappuccino in Tuscany; the briny indulgence of ozone-fresh fruits de mer eaten at a beachfront table in Nice with the setting sun in your eyes, salt in the air and a chilled glass in your hand.
We like to feel that we are relishing a cuisine that is rooted in a different landscape, climate and tradition.

Adrenalin in the Alps

Great outdoors ... above the clouds on a flying fox.

With white knuckles, Rob Dunlop hurls himself at Innsbruck's summer adventures.
Innsbruck doesn't so much hang on to its past glories as an Winter Olympic Games host, it's more of a steely refusal to let go - even at the height of summer.
So it's no surprise that many of Innsbruck's best experiences are framed by winter sports and its summer equivalents. This is a city where office workers alternate between visits to ski slopes and hiking trails during their lunch breaks, and where the best views in town are from an Olympic ski jump.

This is a sports-mad city in the middle of the Alps. By foot, bike and ski, its residents frolic in a natural playground wedged between mountains that reach 2000 metres and higher.
It's the middle of summer and I'm keen to join some typical seasonal activities. But I'm already looking towards the finishing line - Austria claims to be the birthplace of apres-ski and I wonder about its summer version.

Bad bet: defective, unused Vegas tower faces implosion

Casino company MGM Resorts International has asked for permission to demolish the defective Harmon hotel tower in Las Vegas. Photo: MCT

The Harmon was envisioned as a 49-story gateway to CityCenter, a warren of luxury hotels and boutiques dreamed up during the Las Vegas Strip's go-go years. Instead, the Norman Foster building was lopped in half because of construction defects and a recession that snuffed demand for condos and hotel rooms.
Now the company in charge of the Harmon may scrap it altogether. MGM Resorts International asked county officials Monday to allow it to implode the tower.
Though visitors, room rates and gambling revenue are up from last year, slow national economic growth could threaten the Strip's recovery.

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Building on the Harmon was stopped after inspectors found problems with steel reinforcing bars in 2008.

Island escape is Vietnam's best-kept secret

Sleepy ... bars on Phu Quoc's Long Beach. Photo: Craig Tansley

It may be on the doorstep of a heaving metropolis, but this island remains an undeveloped paradise, writes Craig Tansley.
In the milliseconds it takes to fall from a motor scooter at 50km/h onto a dusty, dirt road, time slows down – like you're in The Matrix - until it clicks back into real time with a thud and a whimper as you hit the ground.
And while I did see this coming, that hardly dulls the shock. The road that runs alongside the entire length of Phu Quoc's aptly named Long Beach is a never-ending, never-bending slippery slide of loose clay, deep ruts and falling coconuts. And scooters aren't renowned for rough roading - probably why you don't see them at motor cross events.

Five things you should know about Toronto’s future aquarium

 
Clad in hardhats adorned with shark fins, representatives from all three levels of government watched Wednesday as construction vehicles scooped earth around the base of the CN Tower, where Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada is slated to open in the summer of 2013. The Post’s Megan O’Toole was in attendance Wednesday at the groundbreaking ceremony, and outlines the top five things you should know about Toronto’s newest coming attraction.
1) Rob Ford likes sharks
Toronto’s mayor was particularly excited about the “shark tank tunnel” that will constitute the showpiece of the new aquarium, allowing visitors to walk beneath a sea of three-meter-long sharks. “That will be my personal favourite,” Mr. Ford said. The acrylic tunnel will cut a 96-metre-long swath through the “shark lagoon,” a habitat occupied by sand tiger sharks, sawfish and dozens of other species. Visitors can step on and off a moving walkway that runs the length of the tunnel, the longest structure of its kind in North America.
2) It will hold more than double the water volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool

Nakations: Croatia offers tourists 'nude paradise'

Three quarters of a century after a "royal skinny dip" made it a pioneering nudist destination, Croatia is striving to attract more of the world's growing army of "nakationers".
"At Kandarola nudists can find their own piece of paradise, with peace and a little space just for themselves without being disturbed," Nedjeljko Mikelic, head of the tourist board on the northern island of Rab, said.
The Kandarola rock and pebble beach, on the Croatian island of Rab, is where Britain's King Edward VIII and his future wife, American socialite Wallis Simpson, famously went for a nude swim in 1936.

Nudists had been known to visit Rab as early as the turn of the 20th century but the royal couple's dip sealed the spot's global fame as nudist resort and is considered the founding moment of Croatian naturism.