Mon, 10 Dec, 2018

Kyoto: The Best City in 2015

Posted on Mon, 13 Jul, 2015Sun, 20 Aug, 2017 by Zheluo Cai

Kyoto: The Best City in 2015

Travel + Leisure just released its 20^th Annual World’s Best Awards, which surveys nearly 17,000 readers to come up with a comprehensive list of the year’s best hotels, islands, airlines, and destinations. This year, for the second time in a row, travelers voted Kyoto, Japan, to be the best city in the world. Kyoto — Japan’s imperial capital for over 1,000 years — is full of incredible temples, parks, and markets that make it a favourite with travelers. While Tokyo is best known for being a portal of modern city life — bustling energy, skyscrapers, flashing neon lights — Kyoto offers a different kind of rhythm that includes more than 1,000 ancient Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, zen gardens, traditional ryokan inns and a district dedicated to working geishas. Kyoto is considered the birthplace of geisha culture.

Riding the Shinkansen Passing Mount Fuji

Shirakawa Canal

Springtime Hanami Festivals Maruyama Park

Ninenzaka Street Restored

Kyo-ryori Kyoto Cuisine

Byodo-in Buddhist Temple, UNESCO World Heritage Site

Fall Boat Rides Arashiyama Area

Chureito Pagoda Overlooking Mount Fuji

Geishas Common Sight in Town

Gion Geisha District Old Kyoto

Arashiyama Bamboo Grove

Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavilion 14th Century

Nishiki Market 400 years old Over 100 shops & restaurants

Here are the top 10 cities as voted by readers of Travel + Leisure magazine:

Kyoto, Japan
Charleston, South Carolina
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Florence, Italy
Rome, Italy
Bangkok, Thailand
Krakow, Poland
Barcelona, Spain
Cape Town, South Africa
Jerusalem, Israel

Credit: Business Insider

The Elephant's Trunk in IC 1396.
Credit & Copyright: Rolf Geissinger. The 20 light-years long Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the constellation of Cepheus. This composite, through narrow band filters that transmit the light from ionized hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms, highlighted the bright swept-back ridges that outline pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas, with embedded, dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within the obscuring cosmic dust. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the IC 1396 spans over 5 degrees.

The Flag of Niger was inaugurated in 1959, a year prior to its formal independence from France, consisted of the colours of orange, white and green, in equal horizontal bands, with an orange roundel in the centre. The upper orange band represents the northern regions of the Sahara Desert, the white band represents purity, and the green band represents both hope and the fertile regions of southern Niger. The orange circle is said to represent the sun or independence.

Australia - Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions Thu, 6 Dec, 2018
Exercise normal precautions in Australia. Read the Safety and Security section on the country information page. If you decide to travel to Australia: Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive Alerts and make it easier to locate you in an emergency. Follow the Department of State on Facebook and Twitter. Review the Crime and Safety Reports for Australia. U.S. citizens […]

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