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Bahamas JunkanooFestivals in Nassau, Bahamas Junkanoo is a Bahamian celebration that occurs the 26 December and the 1st of January in the form of amazing parades. Though the exact origins of this festival are hotly contested, it has always been a showcase of dance, music and art, rooted in the days of slavery with the sounds and movements which are is distinctly African in nature.
Throughout the centuries the parades have evolved, with groups of dancer and musicians today competing for the grand prize. The event requires an early rise, running from two until nine in the morning, with the sound of drummers, horns, whistles, cowbells and more creating a cacophony of noise and colour that would be impossible to sleep through.
The largest and busiest Junkanoo is held in Nassau, where spectators line Bay Street and the surrounding area, although most of the other major islands will hold their own celebration.
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Santa Claus VillageVisitor Attractions in Lapland, Finland Of course we all know that Santa's coming anyway – but there's no harm in giving him a little reminder by going to visit him at home which, it turns out, really is in Lapland. In fact, he lives there with his wife, elves, reindeer and goodness knows how many extra staff. He and his subordinate clauses run all kinds of grottoes and Christmas villages in Finnish and old Swedish Lapland to ensure that almost everyone's idea of his magical toy factory and snug house is effectively realised, so as you can imagine, no-one quite knows which is the real one. Rovaniemi, on the Arctic Circle, is the region's capital and is dubbed the 'Christmas City'. It's here that you'll find Santa Claus Village - one of Santa's biggest and most picturesque homes - located just outside the city in a cluster of quaint, pointy-roofed wooden buildings surrounded by a snow-covered forest of Christmas trees. Here you can visit his post office, pet his reindeer, enjoy live music and folk dance performances, eat in his restaurant and generally feel the power of his PR. He will be more than happy to meet your kids (and can speak fifteen languages) – and if they can't wait until Christmas morning for their gifts, you can buy toys and trinkets, from traditional to designer, in his gift shop. If you still need to be convinced, why not go on his website and have him send you a DVD?
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Review by Photo by flickr user daxtoor |
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Spitalfields MarketMarkets in London, United Kingdom When ever I come to Spitalfields I can't help remembering that this is where Jack the Ripper stomped around – or I imagine it was more of a skulk in his case. The church with it's clean, straight spire stands over the infamous Ten Bells, the pub where some of his unfortunate victims watered themselves, and sheds it's narrow shadow over the markets. These days the Ten Bells is a student hangout and the markets an eclectic mix of too cool for skool vintage, real vintage, imitation vintage, vintage style, and funky fashion and jewellery, art odds and ends and food – but the emphasis is on the fashion, but the church is the same and for some reason I can't help but be reminded that this market wasn't always squeaky clean city adjacent. I didn't even realise how fashion-centric this market is until I began to describe the wares and didn't get much past vintage fashion, but I'm sure you caught that drift. I've made some classic purchases here – one of them, a near perfect handmade hat – is one of my all time favourite buys. Like a flat pill box it perches merrily on my head making me feel instantly cooler when wearing – which I think is a good metaphor for a lot of the market's wares – it's maybe not for everyday wear – maybe a little too fun or a little too vintage or a little too cool – unless you have the whole image going on – but a mood enhancing addition to your wardrobe. Most importantly this stuff is wearable and most of it decent quality. There's no use trying to describe what you can find here, it's refreshingly changeable, but while you're probably not going to find a killer bargain you may find a few choice and signature items to help you stand out from the high street crowds, at least where fashion is concerned. Spitalfields is well organised, they've got a good set up and it's the same stallholders most weekends. The market crowd's stomachs are well catered for by market stalls but also by café, restaurants and pubs. Good value coffee can be found at Leon – which usually has the smallest queues for food as well, Canteen is good for ye olde English grub in a modern setting but across the road the Bangers and Mash store with it's boutique bangers is just as satisfying and has it's own brand of plastic table cloth chic. Funky stores hug the fringes, proving the market's brand, but it's not much fun during the week. The main concern at the weekend it coming with cash – there are always massive queues for the ATMs.
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Review by Photo by flickr user stevecadman |
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The Haunted Queen MaryParanormal in Los Angeles, United States Cunard White Star Line launched the RMS Queen Mary in 1936, with the intention of making her part of the first weekly express Southampton to New York service.
Construction began in 1930 by John Brown and Company in Scotland, but was abandoned during the Great Depression in 1931 and not recommenced until 1934, when Cunard and White Star merged as a condition of the loan given to them to complete the ship.
At 80,774 gross tonnes she was the second largest ocean liner of her time and despite a traditional design both in terms of engineering and interior design, she proved to be the fastest and most popular.
The ship was employed in transporting troops during World War II alongside her sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, and the two were dubbed 'the Grey Ghosts' because of their new grey camouflage paint, their intrepid avoidance of German U-boats and their speedy unescorted passages to and from Australia and New Zealand with up to 15,000 men aboard.
After an adventurous role in the war, the Queen Mary served as a passenger liner for another twenty years and then retired to her final berth in Long Beach, California. She functioned as a museum for some time, and plans are in place for a hotel, restaurants, a marina and shops.
The ghost stories only began after the Queen Mary retired and have been used to commercial advantage ever since, making it difficult to differentiate between exaggerations, inventions and apparently genuine paranormal occurrences. They include the ghost of an 18-year-old fireman who was crushed by an engine room door during a fire drill, the spirits of small children crying in what used to be the third-class nursery, and a phantom dog howling for its dead owner.
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Review by Photo by flickr user Jef Poskanzer |
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MeccaSacred Spaces in Mecca, Saudi Arabia The center of the Islamic world and the birthplace of Prophet Muhammad, Mecca is located in the mountains of central Saudi Arabia. According to legend, when Adam and Eve fell to earth from Paradise, they wandered separately for two hundred years, until God united them on Mt. Arafat, near present day Mecca. Adam then built a shrine similar to the one he had used in Paradise. Many generations later Abraham and his son Ishmael were directed to rebuild this shrine. God gave Abraham instructions concerning the dimensions, the Archangel Gabriel revealed the perfect location, and the Ka’ba was built from stones of five sacred mountains. Upon completion of the shrine, Gabriel brought a magic stone for the sanctuary. With the passage of time however, various pagan rituals were added to those of Abraham. The pilgrims of pre-Islamic times visited the house of Abraham and the sacred stone of Gabriel, but also a collection of 360 stone idols, including statues of Jesus and Mary, housed around the Ka’ba. The most important of all these deities was Allah (meaning God in Arabic) who would later become the sole god of the Muslims.
The city of Mecca achieved its major religious significance during the time of the Prophet Muhammad (570-632AD). In 630 Muhammad took control of Mecca and destroyed the pagan idols, with the notable exception of the statues of Jesus and Mary. He then joined different Mecca rituals with the Hajj pilgrimage to Mt. Arafat and declared the Ka’ba the centerpiece of the Muslim religion. The Ka’ba, along with the sacred Zamzam well and the hills of Safa and Marwa, are enclosed in a vast structure called the Haram al-Sharif, ‘The Noble Sanctuary’. Ringed by seven towering minarets and sixty-four gates, this monumental building is capable of holding more than 1.2 million pilgrims at the same time and is the largest mosque in the Islamic world. The cubical (the word Ka’ba means ‘cube’), flat-roofed building rises fifty feet and its corners are oriented toward the compass points. The east and west walls are aligned to the sunrise at the summer solstice and sunset at the winter solstice. From the 7th century to the present the structures surrounding the Ka’ba have undergone extensive rebuilding yet the Ka’ba remains as it was in the time of Muhammad.
The Hajj pilgrimage, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is required of all male and female Muslims. The pilgrimage takes place each year between the 8th and 13th days of Dhu al-Hijjah, the 12th month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Nowadays about 2,000,000 persons perform the Hajj each year and the pilgrimage serves as a unifying force in Islam by bringing together followers from diverse countries. Entering the mosque, pilgrims walk seven times around the Ka’ba in a counterclockwise direction and then kiss the sacred stone, located in the southeast corner of the Ka’ba. During the next few days the pilgrims walk a ritualized route to other sacred places in the Mecca vicinity, including Mina, Muzdalifah and Mt. Arafat, and then return to the Ka’ba.
In a certain sense Mecca is said to be visited by all Muslims every day; this because five times each day (three times in the Shi’a sect) hundreds of millions of believers kneel to pray. Wherever the place of prayer, an established mosque, a remote place in the wilderness or the interior of a home, Muslims face towards Mecca and are connected to the Ka’ba by an invisible line of direction called the qibla. On the walls of houses in Egypt and other Islamic countries colorful paintings of the Ka’ba are often found. These paintings show the various modes of travel to the holy shrine, including planes, trains, ships and camels, and often depict the pilgrim on a prayer carpet. Forbidden to persons not of the Muslim faith, Mecca came to symbolize for Europeans the mysteries of the orient and became a magnet for explorers. A few daring travelers, such as Johann Burckhardt and Richard Burton, were able to impersonate Muslim pilgrims, gain entrance to Mecca, and write wonderfully of the holy city.
Photo: Painting of the Ka’ba, Islam's most sacred shrine, Mecca
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Review by Photo by Photography: Martin Gray |
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