The word ‘swastika’ apparently comes from the Sanskrit “svastika” which translates roughly as “good fortune”. It’s been a symbol of luck and prosperity in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism for centuries – in fact, its first use predates all those religions by millenia – going back 11-thousand tears or more. But it’s also been used in Europe for…
There’s a sad story behind the creation of the San Diego Zoo .. but I guess it proves that every cloud has a silver lining. Back in 1915, San Diego played host to the Panama California Exposition – to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, and San Diego’s location as the first major (American) port-of-call…
If you do an internet search for Little Italy, you’ll probably find the first reference is to an area of your home town where that nickname’s been assigned. In my case, it’s New Farm in Brisbane – but if you were in Melbourne, it would be Lygon Street. In New York, of course, there’s a…
At first glance, San Diego may not seem like a natural home for a Air and Space museum – Complete with an actual Apollo command module (Apollo IX – “Gumdrop”).. but the city does have a tradition of aviation: after all, its airport was originally known as Lindbergh Field, and the aviation pioneer tested his famous…
Defence (or Defense, as it is spelled there) has played an important role in San Diego .. it is host to the largest naval fleet in the world, and the only major Sub- and Ship-building facilities on the West Coast of the US. In fact, there are more than 35,000 defence personnel and contractors in…
San Diego, a city in Southern California near the border with Mexico, is a city of 1.4 million people – and is a world center for military and defence industries, biotech and more recently, healthcare. But in a lot of ways, it is its co-location with Tijuana across the border that has fuelled San Diego’s…
In my other life – when I’m not travelling and blogging about travel – I am a journalist. I teach journalism-related subjects, and read breakfast news at a regional radio station on weekends. As I drove in to work this morning, I heard my station playing the J Geils Band and “My Angel Is A…
I remember as a kid reading about the Code of Hammurabi from 1800 B.C. – one of the oldest examples of writing ever deciphered – and was fascinated by it. The thing that intrigued me most was that it was a codified set of laws that imposed obligations not just on the ruled, but also on…
The very word Graffiti comes from the Italian word for ‘scratchings’, and there have been examples of graffito in Rome since the city’s earliest days. Which makes the discovery of Space Invaders graffiti on the Viale Vaticano somehow both heart-warming and hilarious. ‘Tags’ are everywhere in modern Rome – in fact, the Metro trains…
Anyone who has travelled has had the experience – you go to a tourist attraction and find that it has, in fact, attracted tourists. So many tourists that you are lucky to get a glimpse of the attraction itself. And that’s when your fellow tourists become the most interesting thing. We had this experience…
Cairns Communications 