Traveler's
Advisory
By ELIZABETH FEIZKHAH
North
America
Quebec City
Illusionist David Blaine, who recently spent 60 hours encased
in a block of ice in New York City, obviously hadn't heard
about Ice Hotel Quebec. Instead of standing bolt upright in
Times Square with barely enough room to shiver, he could have
kicked up his heels in spacious, ice-columned halls, drunk
vodka at the ice bar, taken dog-sled rides in the surrounding
snow, and bedded down on a pile of deer pelts. The 11-room
hotel (a scaled-down version of the one at Jukkasjärvi, Sweden)
opens this month in Montmorency Falls Park, just outside Quebec
City. If you plan to visit, book soon: it will start melting
away in March, not to be rebuilt until next winter. See www.icehotel-canada.com.
Australia
Sydney
Thanks to the camera, the 20th century was the most visible
in history. Using boxy Brownies or exquisite Leicas, amateur
and professional image stalkers trapped billions of moments
on film, and their finest trophies dominate our memories of
the century's key people and events. "World Without End,"
at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until Feb. 25, explores
"the imaginative hold that photographs have exercised on both
artist and audience" through works by such champion shutterbugs
as Diane Arbus, Eugène Atget, Max Dupain, Walker Evans, Frank
Hurley, Alfred Stieglitz and Weegee. See www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au.
Africa
Egypt
The pyramids on the Giza plateau, near Cairo, were built to withstand blazing sun and sandpaper winds. Tourists bring a different kind of assault-by auto exhaust, graffiti, tramping feet, and breath, which corrodes the royal tombs' limestone walls. To ensure the three pyramids survive their fifth millennium, the Egyptian government will fence them off from climbers and strictly police a 300-a-day limit on visitors to the Great Pyramid. At the same time, facilities at the site will be improved: by year's end there will be (at a safe distance from the tombs) a car park, a picnic area and a new visitors' center. Those averse to camel rides will be offered tours in electric cars.
Asia
Hong Kong
Hong Kong shot from barren island to mercantile anthill so
fast that it hardly had time to reflect on the process. The
former British colony's 1999 resorption into China provided
a chance to take stock. One result: the newly opened Heritage
Museum, in Sha Tin, New Territories, where residents are likely
to find as many surprises as visitors will. Opening exhibitions
look at banqueting customs, comic books and humor, Cantonese
opera, and the tiny territory's (literally) highest priority:
housing. See www.heritagemuseum.gov.hk.
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January 8, 2001
| No. 1
SOUTH PACIFIC
COVER:
A Town for the Times
As Australia celebrates its centenary, Time visits Townsville, in Queensland,
to see how the nation has-and hasn't-changed.
Great Barrier
Reef: Profiting from a natural wonder
Coral Philosophy:
The fight to preserve the environment
Aiming North:
Townsville's strategic importance grows
T
H E A R T S
ART:
Australia reviews its first century with a colorful Big Top of an exhibition
TRAVELER'S
ADVISORY
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