Travel Media

Nairobi, whose name means “cool river”, is the largest and fastest growin city in east Africa. Founded as a railway workers encampment, the city is now home to over 3 million people.

This city of millions has an impressive skyline incorporating several important buildings, including the striking Kenyatta Conference Centre. From the observation deck on its 28th floor, visitors look out on a marvellous panorama of city and countryside. Nairobi is the cultural, economic and communications centre of Kenya. The country’s most important institutions of higher learning are found here, and its tourist industry continues to grow.

The role of the railway. Kenya’s history is closely connected to Britain’s colonial railway projects in Africa. The site for the railway encampment that became Nairobi was carefully chosen. Nairobi lies at an altitude of 1,700 metres. This elevation keeps Nairobi’s average temperature too low for malarial mosquitoes to survive.

When workers were hired for the Uganda Railway project to connect Lake Victoria with the coastal port of Mombasa, they were housed in Nairobi, which grew in importance after the railway was completed in 1900. It is no surprise that there is a Railway Museum in Nairobi today. It includes a diverse collection of objects from the history of the railway, including wonderful old photographs.

An international city. The modern city of Nairobi is the economic linchpin of East Africa. International businesses and organizations base their operations here, among them UNO (United Nations Environment Program, UNEP) and UN HABITAT (United Nations Human Settlements Program). With so many international residents, it’s little wonder that the restaurants in Nairobi rival those in major European and American cities.

Rich and poor.

There are few places in the world where the contact and contrast between extreme wealth and extreme poverty is as glaring as in the Kenyan capital, though the severity of the situation is rivalled in South African Johannesburg. Cynical commentators call the city “Nairobbery” because of its high crime rate. Accordingly, tourists are well advised only to leave central Nairobi, where it is relatively safe to walk around, if they are going on an official safari tour or driving back to the airport.

The best of Nairobi.

The majority of tourists who visit Kenya see very little of Nairobi. They usually go straight from the airport to the countryside to set off on safari. In addition to stopping by the popular Railway Museum, those who are interested in getting acquainted with the city should definitely visit the National Museum. Everything worth knowing about Kenya is on display, from its abundant flora and fauna to the lifestyles and cultures of its native peoples, in particular the Massai. The museum also houses a delightful. exhibit of works by the artist Joy Adamson (1910-1980). Adamson is best known for her book Born Free about her rescue of the lioness Elsa. Her deep love for Africa is vividly expressed in the exhibit.

Green Nairobi.

Moi Avenue begins not far from the Railway Museum and leads directly into the centre of Nairobi. The central business district is punctuated by two large green spaces, Uhuru Park and Central Park. Both invite people to rest and relax under their shady trees, sit on a bench or stroll along a gravel path. Uhuru Park even has a small artificial lake. Environmentalist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai saved Uhuru Park from development by organizing a series of locally and internationally supported protests in 1989.

At safari’s end. Anyone who returns to the Kenyan capital after a week or two of the hard life on safari will appreciate the amenities of Nairobi’s full service, Western-style hotels. Nairobi is ideally suited as a starting point for day trips and tours to the country’s spectacular national parks. Nairobi National Park, the nation’s first, is located only 8 km from Nairobi. Founded in 1946, it has an area of approximately 120 square kilometres.

Tokyo is not a city for the hurried tourist making a quick stopover en route to other destinations in Japan. Tokyo comes as a real surprise to most travelers. Much more than a city, it is a completely different world.

When visitors to Japan first arrive at Narita International Airport, they often experience immediate culture shock. Signs point the way in Kanji (Japanese characters), but most tourists can’t read them. Without a few helpful signs in English, it would be easy to get quite lost.

At first sight, Tokyo itself is crowded, loud and not especially beautiful. The air quality is not particularly good. Men wearing white gloves shove people inside the regional transit cars in order to fit more people inside, and most Japanese respond with a blank stare when spoken to in English.

Tokyo can be hard to negotiate and travel around town can be stressful – but it is also a unique and exhilarating experience.

Kagemusha, the Shadow Warrior.

Prior to 1456-1457, there is very little salient knowledge available about the city of Edo, Tokyo’s predecessor. With the building of the Edo Fortress during these years in the mid-fifteenth century, the city on Hibiya Bay gained in importance.

The greatest advance, however, came in 1653, when the shogun Tokugawa leyasu established his centre of government here. Director Akira Kurosawa staged the life and work of this prominent, powerful shogun in his 1980 film Kagemusha – The Shadow Warrior. George Lucas did not shoot the backdrop of the film, but he spun the threads, so to speak.

In his novel Shogun, writer James Clivell also painted a portrait of the most imposing figure in Japanese history. Ieyasu is considered the founder of modern Tokyo, even though the city did not take its official name or become the “Capital of the East” until the emperor moved there in 1868.

Beginnings of Western influence.

The population of the city is said to have already exceeded a million at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Edo was not only the capital city under the Tokugawa shogunate, it was also the economic centre of Japan. The end of the shogunate is closely connected to the history of Edo, and by association, Tokyo. The balance of power changed under the Meiji emperors. Shogun Yoshinobu Tokugawa, who was rather weak with regard to the West, especially the United States, abdicated in 1867 and left Edo to the emperor.

But the actual goal of sealing Japan off from the West was never implemented by the shogun’s adversaries, headed by the emperor. In fact, just the opposite occurred: a very active period of modernization based on the Western model began.

Destruction and rebuilding.

In Tokyo, European-style houses were built right in between traditional wooden houses. Some of the most famous examples are the houses on Ginza Street, which were built from red brick in order to create more European surroundings for foreign residents of the capital. In spite of everything, such changes were mainly superficial. The city plan and homes of the native Japanese remained closely tied to the Edo tradition of the Shogun Era. But that changed in 1923, the year of the Great Earthquake, measuring more than 8.0 on the Richter scale.

The earthquake itself and the fires that resulted from the it reduced nearly all of Tokyo to ruins. However, destruction has always represented an opportunity for change in Japan. Tragically, the Second World War came quite soon after the earthquake, signaling yet another period of devastating destruction.

The new development of Tokyo began after the end of the Second World War, and literally began on top of debris and ashes. On the basis of new technologies, a modern Tokyo cityscape consisting of skyscrapers, steel and concrete emerged. Special construction methods had to be used, because Tokyo lies in one of the most active earthquake zones in the world. Earthquakes are nothing out of the ordinary here, and smaller tremors can be felt in the city almost daily.

When genius and futurist John Naisbitt put out Megatrends in 1982 calling our future the “information age” even he could not have predicted the amount and value of information we would inhabit by the turn of the century. With all forms of media, security cameras cell phones recording our every move there is more news and not-really-news than we can assimilate in a day.

News magazines have become a helpful and needed conglomeration of information to help us sort out fact from fiction and keep us up on the need to know we encounter. Although they all relate news, each of our three major news magazines offers a different slant on the events of our times.

Politics Stage Left or Right

For political coverage above and beyond media scope the distinct leader is Newsweek. From its quotes of politicians and media stars to its “Conventional Wisdom” meter, Newsweek offers all its news with a very political approach. If there’s an article about global warming, it will talk about how politician’s respond to the crisis.

If there is a movie review it will take note of any imagery or idea that is remotely political. People who love Sunday morning news talk shows are the type who enjoys Newsweek’s Capital Hill coverage and view of the world from the policy makers of power. Like most publications, Newsweek is only as bipartisan as the writers on staff, but it does work hard to objectify its coverage and does offer a range experiences to play in its politicized arena.

What About My Wallet?

While some keep up with national and global affairs because it’s interesting and fun to know what’s going on, others keep up to manage their money. Economics and the things that effect finance play a decisive role in the slant of U.S. News and World Report. This magazine doesn’t put on the same friendly front as Newsweek and instead covers hard news stories, often with a financial or economic world angle as part of the picture. For investors or people who care about the price of tea in China because it affects their trade interests, U.S. News and World Report is an obvious choice.

News For The Rest Of Us

Then there are folks who simply like to keep up to date in a more generic or general way. We want to be informed but don’t want to take a college class on government or business to understand our events. For these folks, Time is the leading magazine of choice. Time covers politics and money but includes a plethora of other topics as well. Time was a groundbreaking force in bringing spirituality articles to the cover and front of the magazine and handles movies, media, and human interest with the same warm professionalism as it does politics, money and demographics. Time’s famous “Person of the Year” is often the subject of controversy and is popularly awaited every year. The person is not always a political leader, and not always a popular choice but reflects the world’s focus on the event of our age.

There’s a lot of stuff going on every minute of every day and we are privy to most of it via media. Selecting a news magazine that fits your focus of information helps funnel that coverage into a meaningful block of knowledge.