The first thing travelers and festival lovers should know is that the fun-filled Russian Winter Festival does not take place in The Russian Federation — as a matter of fact, the festivities happen on Trafalgar Square in jolly old London. Londoners and folks from around the world have grown to love the tradition of gathering together to appreciate and experience Russian culture, including food, music, dance, street theatre, military marching bands, and more. Of course, many talented artists from the Russian Federation perform in the festival, bringing east and west, and young and old together in a moving and thoroughly entertaining celebration of culture.
Kicking off it’s 4th year, the Russian Winter Festival takes place on 13, January 2008 (near Russia’s Old New Year’s Day) on the cobblestone streets of Trafalgar Square. What may festival-goers expect to experience at the one-of-a-kind event this year? Here are some highlights:
Food is a major highlight of the festival, as Trafalgar Square becomes warm and fragrant with traditional Russian dishes. Some tasty and savory treats will be pirozhkis, shashlik, borsch, and Russian pancakes, all wafting steam into the winter air of London.
Family Fun The Russian Winter Festival is by no means just for adults. Kids will be smiling from ear to ear in the children’s area made especially for them. Children will be entertained by fun Russian street games, puppet theatre, street musicians and performers, and plenty more.
Full Story Russian Winter Festival in London
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Monday, July 14, 2008
Russian Winter Festival in London
Peerless Perth - Some Enchanting Side Trips
Perth is an undeniably charming town with a host of things to see and do. But one of the great things about a holiday visit to this capital of Western Australia is that it’s the perfect base for a whole range of fascinating side trips to the delights of the state. You can pop over to nearby Fremantle, visit Australia’s only Spanish monastery, relax in national parks, head out to the wine country, and even visit penguins.
Your fist sortie should be to the port city of Fremantle, located some 13 miles along the Swan River. Here you can browse the markets, visit the splendid heritage buildings, marvel at the city’s maritime past in the museums, and sprawl on the pristine beaches. The most scenic way to get to Fremantle from Perth is to take a river cruise. It’s the perfect, relaxing day out.
For a unique side trip further afield, you can visit the Benedictine monks in the Spanish Renaissance monastery town of New Norcia, the only monastic town in Australia. Located 82 miles north of Perth, New Norcia stands on the banks of the Moore River. It’s a little touch of the Mediterranean in the midst of the Australian bush. Here’s how it got there.
Long ago in 1846, a mission led by two Spanish Benedictines visited the local aborigines and in the following year, the foundation stone of the monastery was laid. The name New Norcia is from Norcia in Italy where St Benedict was born.
New Norcia is a town of unique architecture, beautiful interiors, and olive groves. It’s best experienced on a guided town tour which unlocks all the town’s charms and secrets. You can see the monk’s own chapel in the monastery, the Abbey Church and the College Chapels with their beautiful frescoes. There’s also a museum and art gallery which include gifts from the Queen of Spain.
If you’re a wine buff or just enjoy a glass or two, you’ll want to do a day trip out to the Swan Valley vineyards for a wine tasting tour. The best way to do this is as a delightful two-hour cruise along the Swan River from Perth. You then visit the vineyards to explore the region’s wine culture and partake in numerous wine tastings.
Full Story Peerless Perth - Some Enchanting Side Trips
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Travel Destinations for a Memorable Vacation
Vacations are really great to relax, have fun, and enjoy the precious moments with family and friends. So planning vacation trips in advance is the best way to get the most out of your budget and make these moments memorable.
Travel packages, which you can book through various travel websites, can provide an amazing experience that you’ll never forget. Many merchants offer leisure and business travelers a wide selection of low airfares, as well as deals on lodging, car rentals, cruises, and vacation packages. Booking your tickets and hotels through these merchants can be savvy. These merchants offer special discounts for vacation packages and offer sale prices across various airlines, hotels, and car rental companies. Some of these travel websites also provide information on popular destinations and activities including site seeing, sports, and shopping.
Numerous travel destinations across the world are available that are both exciting and affordable. From safaris to boat trips in the Orient, from hikes up a mountain to seeing icebergs, people want to experience life.
Alaska vacation packages is the cruise package, offered by many of the leading cruise lines. With so many glaciers and so much wildlife to see, taking a cruise through Alaska is a one of the best ways to see the most hidden features of the state.
A vacation at one of the islands in the Caribbean offers excitement as well as relaxation in a stunning, tropical setting. St. Maarten, St. Thomas, San Juan and Barbados are among the most popular travel destinations in the southern Caribbean and offer tourists an authentic island experience.
Belize is an appealing destination, with wonderful Caribbean beaches and a lush tropic setting. Belize has only recently emerged as a popular travel destination, and hence travel options to this destination might be limited.
Paris, home of the famous Eiffel Tower, remains one of the world’s top travel destinations for honeymooners and travelers alike. Other cities in France that provide an ideal spot to vacation if you’re looking for beauty, charm and a rich sense of history are Lyon and Marseille.
Full Story Travel Destinations for a Memorable Vacation
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Things To Do In Cancun, Mexico - My Favorite 3
So you have booked your trip to Cancun, Mexico. So what are the top three things to do in Cancun? Cancun is the ultimate travel destination for North Americans seeking sun, fun, and a relaxing holiday. While there are a vast variety of activities and things to do in Cancun, I have selected top 3 of my personal favorites based on multiple visits to Cancun. An expanded list would also include eco parks.
Tour Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza was one of the Mayan’s most important cities, as is evident by the large number of monuments, including the famous pyramid and the largest ball court in the Mayan World. Legend holds that the losers in the game played in this ball court were sacrificed to gods. Chichen Itza is the located 2.5 hours outside Cancun. It can be reached on a day trip via bus tours or by car. If you rent a car, consider traveling on the free road, which goes through little touched Mayan country. You can stop along the way and visit the Mayan where they live, and see the way they live. A word of caution: Chichen Itza is a very hot place, so carry plenty of water, enough to drink and splash on yourself.
Snorkel in Cenotes
Cenotes are cave openings to the underground rivers of the Yucatan Peninsula. The maximum depth reached is 50 feet, with great visibility, typically little current, and fresh water. Cenotes were essential to life as they were the only source of water and revered, cenotes were believed to be gateways to heavens. At Chichen Itza (see above), various objects were sacrificed and thrown into the sacred well, including jewelry and, sometimes, humans.
There are some cenotes around Cancun, for example, Cenote Azul, which you can visit on a day trip, and is a delightful place with an overhang from which people can jump into the fresh clear pool below. You can also join tours or hire guides to reach more remote cenotes or to do cave diving. Cenotes are unique to Yucatan and are found in no other place in the world, so seek them out.
Full Story Things To Do In Cancun, Mexico - My Favorite 3
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France’s answer to global food crisis is EU protectionism
France has launched a political campaign to restore food protectionism at the heart of Europe’s agriculture policy as food riots erupt in poor countries and global leaders give warning of the dire consequences of soaring grain prices. At a high-level EU agriculture meeting in Luxembourg, Michel Barnier, the French Agriculture Minister, called on Europe to establish a food security plan and to resist further cuts in Europe’s agriculture budget.
Mr Barnier said that the EU should not bow to pressure from the World Trade Organisation to reduce further its agricultural subsidies but instead should increase aid to farmers in developing countries. The French initiative at the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council follows a week in which food riots toppled the Government of Haiti and the President of the World Bank voiced concerns about the consequences of food price escalation. It also coincides with Gordon Brown’s calling for concerted international action to tackle rising food prices, including a world trade deal that cuts subsidies to richer countries. In a speech at Goldman Sachs in London today, the Prime Minister is to raise questions about the effect that the rapid move towards biofuels is having on food production and prices. Mr Brown, who is trying to get the issue on to the agenda of the G8 summit in Japan in July, says today that a doubling of wheat and rice prices has pushed world food prices up by 45 per cent, while food reserves are at their lowest for 30 years. He will call for a trade deal that allows poorer countries greater access to developed world markets, as well as international support for agricultural research and short-term help with imports from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for countries suffering balance of payments difficulties. Mr Brown is also urging the chairman of the G8 group of industrialised nations to lead an international plan on food prices. He wants Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese Prime Minister, to ask the World Bank, IMF and UN to work together on a strategy. Robert Zoellick, the President of the World Bank, said that a doubling of food prices in two years was pushing 100 million people into deeper long-term poverty. “We have to put our money where our mouth is now, so that we can put food into hungry mouths.
Full Story France’s answer to global food crisis is EU protectionism
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Ko Phangan - Shrooms, Moons and Motorbikes
Another train took us from Bangkok, south once more overnight to a wake-up call in Surat Thani, where we departed the train, panicked over where Cary had put the bus and boat tickets, before eventually finding them tucked in her bag and boarding the bus to the port of Don Sak on the eastern coast of Thailand, just as the sun was rising with a few hundred fellow travelers, who were also heading for the Full Moon Party.
The boat eventually left at 8am, and we grabbed a seat on the deck for the three hour voyage to the island. By the time we arrived I was well and truly sunburnt. A fabulous start. Waiting for us at Thong Sala, the port on Ko Phangan was Kara, who had already had a one nights stay on Ko Samui and hadn’t particularly enjoyed the experience, so she’d come straight to Phangan to meet with us. Cary had managed to book a couple of bungalows at a resort just over the hill from Hed Rin, where the Full Moon Party was due to take place on the 22nd, at Leela Bungalows. It was a grinding walk with our bags up and then down hill from the main town, but good to their word this time, they had kept us two bungalows.
It was finally time to relax and things began to come together. Troy and Alan turned up and had themselves a bungalow too. Darren arrived and was already staying at an apartment in Ban Khai, further up the coast, but moved to join us. The illnesses from us all seemed to be receeding, although in Bangkok Cary had been munched upon by an army of bed-bugs leaving nasty bite marks all over her legs and back. But above all else the sun was shining and good, relaxing times beckoned. Not that the previous five months had not been good, far far from it, it had been amazing, but like with Sihanoukville in Cambodia, sometimes it’s good to stay in one place for a decent amount of time to recuperate from all the traveling.
Our bungalows were at the top of yet another hill, and were as basic as they come, i.e. hole in the wall for a toilet, no electricity, covered in mosquitoes and big hairy spiders, but did what they said on the label. After all we weren’t going to be spending much time there. We spent most of the afternoon lying on the beach sunning ourselves, then that evening went to sample the delights of Hed Rin for the first time. It is a heaving, manic town, especially around the full moon because of the number of people it attracts here, containing shop after shop of Western eateries, internet cafes, tour companies and souvenir shops. The shops sit back from the highlight itself, Hat Rin Beach, that from end to end has either bars opening out on to it or hundreds of small stalls all competing with one another for you to buy their buckets of potent alcohol mixtures. We duly obliged.
Full Story Ko Phangan - Shrooms, Moons and Motorbikes
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Saturday, July 12, 2008
Traveling to China With Children
Traveling through China with kids in tow is not what many would have envisioned for their next family escape. You probably have heard that the place is too crowded… the pollution un-sufferable… and all that culture and history is just “too boring” for the little ones.
With a population of 1.5 billion people, give or take a few million, it is a bit more crowded than we are used to, and air quality is a real problem, but with a little planning and an open mind, China could be indeed, a great adventure destination for the entire family. And yes, it is possible to combine 5,000 years of history with a little fun…
Where to Go?
There is a lot more to traveling to China than just seeing the Great Wall. This is such a vast land, it is a good idea to plan your itinerary with map in hand and consider what the different destinations have to offer in terms of your interests and activities to keep the children involved and out of trouble.
Here are some suggestions to help you get started:
Full Story of Traveling to China With Children
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Standing above the crowd at the Empress Chiang Mai
The Empress makes her grand entrance onto the city’s competitive convention-centre scene
Chiang Mai’s Empress Hotel rolled out the red carpet for the opening of its modernist-inspired Empress Convention Centre (ECC) last week. Located on Chang Klan Road, just 10 minutes by car from the Tha Pae Gate and a short walk from the Night Bazaar, the three-storey ECC is right next to the Empress Hotel.
With sophisticated technology and space for 1,500 delegates, the Empress is a fresh contender for the best convention centre in Chiang Mai.
“Unlike the many convention halls or function rooms in town that are part of hotels, the ECC stands alone, but with a hotel next door,” says Kanog Suvannavisutr, general manager of the Empress Hotel. “We’re very versatile. The ECC can handle meetings for 10 people or expos for a thousand.”
The modernist/minimalist complex is designed to deliver a wide variety of productive, stimulating and rewarding engagements. The convention hall boasts 980 square metres of open, pillar-less hall space and 660 square metres of meeting area.
Completely soundproof partitions ensure that parties of all sizes can be comfortably accommodated without disturbing one another.
Add to all this a comprehensive range of support facilities: small breakout rooms, a business centre, simultaneous interpretation facilities, registration counters, VIP rooms and much more.
“The Empress Convention Centre cost around Bt380 million just to get up and running,” says Kanog, who is confident that the ECC will get a good slice of the meeting and exhibition market in Chiang Mai. “We reckon that the ECC could break even in five years.”
“MICE” (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) is Chiang Mai’s answer to low-season tourism, says Kanok.
Full Story of Standing above the crowd at the Empress Chiang Mai
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Norway Travel Guide
ou need only have a quick glance at a map of Norway to guess where the main attractions are: that jagged coastline is home to Norway’s world famous Fjords. Almost 22,000 kilometers of dramatic coastline, glacial melting waters plunging down cliffs into fjords more than 100 kilometers long, tens of thousands of islands and skerries, and none of it is off limits. If the outdoors is where you feel comfortable, and if you would rather not stand in line to look at nature, welcome to Norway!Located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northwest Europe, Norway’s geography is a constant reminder of the last Ice Age.
In the central high plateaus of Southern Norway, the alpine terrain culminates at the peaks of Galdhøpiggen (2469m) and Glittertind (2468m). Several glaciers, most famous of which are Jostedalsbreen and Svartisen (”The Black Ice”) are present day remains of ice that carved the many deep fjords and left behind fertile valleys with meandering rivers. Although home to the northern tip of Europe - Nordkapp, or North Cape - the country enjoys a mild climate for its latitude, in part due to the warm currents from the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: travel to world
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Seven Inside Tips to Launching Your Career as a Financial Advisor
Seven Inside Tips to Launching Your Career as a Financial Advisor
With 77 Million Baby Boomers contemplating retirement, the employment outlook for personal financial advisors is excellent! With this massive generation being, for the most part, unprepared for maintaining their lifestyle, many are looking for the assistance of a financial advisor.
Free time, flexibility, and excellent potential income are waiting for those who choose to follow this career path.
As with many things, there is a hard way and an easy way to launch a career as an advisor. One is a more difficult trail with obstacles along the way. It begins with an MBA degree in personal finance or economics followed by intensive study for one or more NASD examinations to become a registered representative.
Then, in order to launch your career as what was known as a stock broker, you'll need to seek employment selling securities for a wire house, broker/dealer, or insurance company. Despite significant competition and regulatory compliance oversight, you'll build your "assets under management" in order to satisfy your employer and/or qualify for assistance with expensive advanced certifications.
There is, however, an alternate route that doesn't involve such life changing career moves.
For the Boomer, a fifty-something with the life expectancy of a Galapagos sea turtle but with less than two years of income saved for retirement, it's no longer about accumulating a portfolio of assets. It's about the other three quadrants of his or her balance sheet which have gone largely ignored.
1. How to get the most sustainable lifetime income from the existing portfolio of assets.
2. How to eliminate hidden and/or and unnecessary expenses.
3. How to eliminate all debt before retirement.
A true financial advisor should address these areas of concern and, to do so doesn't require a life changing career experience. There are new and innovative financial products and services which effectively address these issues, but are not securities and are not regulated by the NASD and SEC.
If you're contemplating a lucrative and rewarding career as a Financial Advisor, Here are some tips to help you down that path.
1. Be independent. No one financial entity that has all of the right solutions to all of the financial problems out there. As an Independent Financial Advisor, you'll have the freedom to choose the best financial products and services from a variety of carriers.
2. Be independent but don't walk the path alone. You need a system. Join an Independent Marketing Organization. They will, in exchange for an override commission from the carriers, provide turn-key systems including advisor training, product access, provider contracts, and assistance with licensing, marketing, and regulatory compliance. Many have spent years developing effective and predictable systems to support their network of advisors.
3. Build a professional referral network. Your clients will seek advice on a range of financial subjects including real estate, taxes, insurance, legal contracts, mortgage and consumer finance. Team up with some qualified specialists in your vicinity. Refer your clients to them and they will refer their clients to you.
4. Don't worry about your sales skills. Many successful advisors are numbers people and couldn't sell snow cones in Death Valley. It's all about positioning. The model of all successful business is the same. There is a problem. There is a solution. By positioning yourself between the two, you have value and people will recognize that value.
5. Don't talk about yourself or your business. Focus on your prospect/client and ask the right questions. How do you feel about ....? What do you plan to do about ......? If there was a way to ......, would you .....? The art of asking questions is critical to your success in attracting new clients.
6. Keep in communication with your prospective clients. It often requires six or seven exposures to build a successful client relationship. Set up an email system to keep them informed of the latest developments in your industry.
7. Test the water, first. Some new advisors run into difficulty because they get excited and spend too much money before they start making money. Keep your start-up expenses under $500. At the very least, you'll get a low cost financial education that you can apply to your own situation.
We are at the brink of the largest wealth transfer in history. There is a tremendous need for qualified financial advisors to lead this history making generation down the path to financial security. Those that choose this path will discover a career that offers an abundance of personal satisfaction as well as significant income potential.
David Haslett is Senior National Marketing Director of Freedom Equity Group. Want to learn more about this lucrative and rewarding career opportunity as a Financial Advisor? Want to know the inside secrets of Million Dollar Financial Advisors? Request now by clicking http://www.YourFinancialAdvisorCareer.net
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Creating Your OWN Newsletter - 10 Tips
Creating Your OWN Newsletter - 10 Tips
So now YOU are responsible for creating a newsletter. For own company or for the company you work for, it's all the same. Here are a few tips to help it run smoothly from the get-go. Start with these ten common sense rules and once you are established you can begin to tweak it a bit more with each issue.
1. Don't go CRAZY with fonts! You probably have hundreds, maybe thousands of fonts on your computer. Most people are only familiar with a few families, namely Times, Helvetica and Aerial. Use these for all body copy. Getting too creative will confuse and frustrate your readers. They want to read your material, not decipher it. For now, use only these three fonts. As you move forward you can begin using creative fonts sparingly headlines, special sections, etc.
2. Create your heading first - basically this is your newsletter logo used on the top of the front page. Once your heading is designed stay CONSISTENT with the design throughout the newsletter. Try to maintain the same color schemes, look and feel for sections, pages, etc.
3. Create sections for your newsletter and carry the size of the sections and the locations of the sections within your newsletter in each subsequent issue. Again, consistency is important for you and your readers. Readers like familiarity, and they will become familiar with sections they are interested in and where these sections are in your issues. YOU should like consistency because if you follow the rules of section space and location then your newsletter is easier to produce because it is a TEMPLATE. For each issue you simply remove the current information from each section and replace it with new information. If you follow this rule there is no need to redesign each and every issue from scratch, saving you quite a bit of time! Find a winning design and stick with it - why reinvent the wheel?
4. Be consistent not only with your newsletter design but with distribution timing. Decide in advance how often your newsletter will be issued and don't waver from your original decision unless absolutely necessary. Create a production schedule and follow it. How would you feel if your morning paper was suddenly switched to evening, or they decided on a whim to drop the Sunday paper and produce two issues on Saturday instead?
5. Balance, balance, balance. If you open a newsletter and the left side is heavy with copy and illustrations but the right has quite a bit of white space, it isn't balanced and the design becomes a distraction. Take a step back and look at it - are all sides balanced? If not, move things around until they are! And when you are moving things remember that people read left to right, top to bottom. You design should stay within this natural eye movement.
6. Use white space. White space is a GOOD thing! It helps separate sections, columns, images, paragraphs... don't try to force-fit information into your newsletter. If adding something you think is important means you need to drop the size of your text to ten points, just save the last article for the next issue.
7. Text within articles should be 11 to 12 point. You can use Helvetica or Aerial for bullet points and small paragraphs, Times for larger articles.
8. Proofread EVERYTHING. Then set it aside and proof it again. And when you are done, have someone else proofread it. There is nothing that will make your readers drop your newsletter into the garbage faster then typographical errors.
9. If you are mailing your newsletter in an outer envelope create a special envelope for the newsletter. You will put your heart and soul into this publication, you want your readers to know what's in the package.
10. Promote your newsletter. Send out a press release with a sample issue to all relevant publications and online sources.
9. If you are writing a consumer newsletter, write it as if you are communicating with a ninth grader. This is standard practice for consumer publications. If you are writing a business-to-business newsletter then you need not be concerned with this issue. Simply write your newsletter as if you are presenting it to a colleague.
And last, remember that even if you have the tools, you may not have the knowledge. If I gave you all the materials and the right tools to build a house, could you do it? If you get in a bind, call an expert or research your questions online. Arm yourself with the knowledge and learn as you go!
Neil Walsh
Daba Designs
P.O. Box 255
North Olmsted, Ohio 44070
Phone: (440)465-0744
Website: http://www.daba-designs.com
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10 Easy Marketing Tips To For Your Local Hire Company
10 Easy Marketing Tips To For Your Local Hire Company
Are you looking to get more business for your local hire company?
If so, here are 10 easy marketing ideas that can help bring in more customers.
- Give your customers 10% discount cards that they can pass on to their friends. It makes it easy for them to refer you to their friends.
- Run a door-to-door leafleting campaign.
- Give away a free hire as a prize in a local competition (ask the local paper, local festival organisers or local schools for upcoming competitions).
- Give discounts to local clubs and groups or employees of local businesses. Make sure they tell their members/employees.
- Run a local competition, offer free hire as prizes to the winners. Get it covered in the local paper.
- Advertise in the local newspaper's classifieds section.
- If it makes sense for your business, announce to local papers, etc. that you'll be offering free advice related to your business in a local cafe on a certain day.
- Start a blog about your business. Write about the work you do, the challenges you face, funny things that happen, great customers you've been able to help, and about life in your local area. Make it personal and don't worry about editing it too much. People prefer blogs to be authentic.
- Sponsor a local sports team, especially if there's one that is particularly relevant to your business.
- Write an article for a local paper. It could be about the challenges of doing business locally, how a recent change has affected your business or what you think about the local council. Ask them what they'd be interested in before you write it.
Discover these 10 easy ways to bring in more business for your local hire company.
Matt Collins runs HireGuru, the UK Hire Directory and leading resource for owners of UK hire companies.
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