{spring things: april showers}

"Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain."

~author unknown

. . . happily, there have been more sunny days than rain so far this spring, but there are no illusions that the rain will not fall, {for it is april, after all}, only the eternal optimism of may flowers . . . and when the rain does come, we shall greet it with red lipstick and our best umbrellas, and dance if we must . . .


{image: editorial, perdue dans manhattan; elise crombez by mikael jansson for vogue paris september 2003; fashion editor, anastasia barbieri via pretty stuff}

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copyright © 2007-2011 {this is glamorous} all rights reserved

Florida Travel and Life Magazine

Here are some selected articles from the recent issues of the Florida Travel and Life Magazine:

11 Great Florida State Parks http://goo.gl/5qDzM

52 Great Florida Weekend Getaways http://goo.gl/nKK94

Best Florida Beaches Guide http://goo.gl/mYBZ1

Best Florida Road Trips - 4 Islands You Can Drive To http://goo.gl/VyrSw

Best Family Vacations in Florida http://goo.gl/c9eer

Posted at Hit the Road - See America and the World. Stay updated and subscribe, or follow me on Twitter.

Royal London: Lonely Planet video

Recently I had the chance to search out royal sites around London with Tom Hall, Lonely Planet's UK Travel Editor. The video takes in Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, of course, but also drops by Scott the Horse and the best, and most historically accurate, way of reaching the Tower of London. There's more tips on seeing the sites in this piece I did for Lonely Planet.

High-Low Fashion

Forever21 is a great store and it's one of my favorite stores forever. I really can find some stuff here to treasure. This yellow clutch is one of my great clutches from Forever21 which I purchased it sometime long ago.

....and this Prada blue/navy faux fur is from this spring 2011 season. I brought it home from my past trip for Paris Fashion Week.

I love the blue/yellow colors combination of these Balenciaga shoes.

Haider Ackermann top and Proenza Schouler skirt are from past seasons.

Photos were taken by my husband.

Have a wonderful day ahead, everyone!! xoxo...Hanh :)

Tnooz: HomeAway, Home and Away and the links between online travel and teen angst

HomeAway is the largest vacation rental site in the world. Home and Away is one of Australia's longest running soap operas and a launch pad for plastic surgeons, vampire hunters and psychotic clowns. What do they have in common? Check out my latest Tnooz post "HomeAway and the real life Home and Away soap opera" to find out.

Search, Social and Mobile- pre Eyefortravel thoughts via eHotelier

I am speaking this year at Eyefortravel May 18-19 in Singapore

I have put together some pre-conference predictions for 2011 (based on by full 2011 predictions). They were picked up and published in a post on eHotelier along side predictions from Robert Bailey of Abacus and (Professor) Timothy O'Neil-Dunne of LUTE technologies (and so much more). Check out the full text here.

My predictions are:

• Search changes (again); Search already changed forever in 2010. There is more to come in 2011, especially in the measure of authority. The old measure of inbound links will be enhanced with input from social networks, context and location, expert advice, preference matching and more. Search marketing will have to change to encompass content, social, information syndication and data mining. All suppliers and all OTAs will need to ensure that their SEO experts and agents are on top of this change. In addition to the changes in authority, search will change in how results are displayed;
• Social media will challenge search and retail: the parallel rises of social media, customers asking more complicated (and open) questions online and consumers willingness to discuss and share everything openly and freely will drive through 2011 a change the way the industry attracts and retains customers. The traffic numbers of Facebook, Twitter, foursquare etc are all but unprecedented. But it is not their rise that is the story. The story is the consumer behaviour behind the rise of these products. Pick your metaphor - consumers have opened the kimono, dropped their pants or invited everyone in to their lives. Nothing is sacred. Everything can and will be shared. Marketing channels will need to be adjusted. Communications techniques changed. Customer care models and response times adjusted. Even sales channels will need to be reworked. Get ready for social search, book and buy; and
• Mobile becomes a distinction without meaning: iPhone did for the smart phones what diet coke did for soda. It created a category, lifted other categories with it and made people buy more of everything around it. The consequence is that people are using their phones (and now tablets) while they are on the move and as a replacement for laptops. Mobile no longer means mobile. By that I mean people will sit in meetings, on couches as home, at the desk...anywhere...everywhere...expecting to be connected. Not caring if a device is called a phone, tablet or netbook. Just caring that it gets them the content or experience they want. The result is device platform discussions will move from "which product is this built for" to "is this compatible for all displays". Much like we now say that a site has to be web ready rather than differentiating between its readiness on FireFox, Chrome, Safari, opera and IE. The type of the device and whether or not it is mobile is now irrelevant. Mobile/PC/Tablet will be the different "browsers" of 2011. All code will need to be written in preparation for this.
  

For a reminder of my thoughts on last year's Eyefortravel check out this post.

The BOOT in Ireland April 11-15 via Etihad

I will be in Dublin Ireland next week (April 11-15). Any Irish or Ireland visiting readers interested in meeting up. Will also be my first chance to try out Etihad. Seat review to follow.

Thanks to Kman999 for the great gaelic football photo via flickr

My Work: The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar

The most powerful and challenging traditional rituals I've experienced in India are the exorcisms and trances that frequently occur in its Sufi shrines. This is by far the most emotionally draining project I've undertaken so far...photographing it, editing it and producing it.

The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar is an audio slideshow of stills, movie clips and audio made during my during my recently completed In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™ when I visited this Sufi saint's shrine near Unawa in Gujarat.

I've always been interested in, and drawn to, India's multi-layered religious-cultural identities. Sufism "walked" into the sub-continent from Iran and Afghanistan, and wherever the Sufi acetic teachers lived and died, shrines were built to commemorate their teachings, deeds and legacy. They eventually became saints, or pirs as they're called in the subcontinent. It is at one of these shrines that The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar was made.

For those who don't mind reading, a journal/blog accompanies the audio slideshow and has more photographs (in color this time). It was a difficult decision as to whether color or black & white would be more appropriate for this project, and in the end I decided to use both, but separately. I think I was right.

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