Design Destinations

January 23, 2012

Turbans and saris provide splashes of color in India

The turbans and saris in India totally captivated me. We traveled in the Northern part of India for two weeks in November and while I loved the palaces, forts and exotic nature of this part of the world, the way the women and men dressed was absolutely mesmerizing. My back ground as a fashion writer [...]

January 15, 2012

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Walking with Elephants in Thailand

by Kate Dernocoeur, guest blogger She pads up the dirt road like someone quietly scuffing in leather slippers. If I close my eyes, it’s all I hear: scuff…scuff…scuff. Slow. Meditative. I could get lost in the peace of it. She’s an ex-addict. When she came here, it took three weeks to detox her from the amphetamines [...]

January 3, 2012

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Another New Year Celebration has Come and Gone

Another New Year Celebration in the Memory Bank. Like many people, we spent it watching a “ball” of sorts dropping on to a city street. This was our second year to hang out in Traverse City with good friends enjoying the festivities of this charming Northern Lower Michigan town. Here are some images from the [...]

December 22, 2011

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New York City Dresses up for the Holidays

I love the holiday decorations in New York City. They make me laugh. They make me smile. They make me happy. Ok, I admit it. I’m truly a sucker for holiday decor. Schmaltzy, cutesy, clever, sophisticated, red and green or odd ball mixes. I’m always amazed when I see “decor” created from found objects [...]

December 18, 2011

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Why I love New York

I love New York and I’m not the only one to feel this way. Evidently I’m not the only one to Love New York. A recent issue of New York Magazine reports that New York expects to hit 50 million tourists by the end of 2011. This influx of travelers is the major reason [...]

December 16, 2011

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New York City: Constantly Changing

Poking around New York in Soho last week I thought about something the teacher of the Zen Buddhism class I recently attended said. He explained that in Buddhism, nothing is believed to be permanent. There is no future, no past, only now. Everything is changing. Weird to think about Zen in the midst [...]

December 13, 2011

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The High Line: New York City’s Park in the Sky

Strolling along the High Line is one of my absolute favorite things to do in New York City. Don’t know what this is? Well, let me tell you. The High Line is a park created on an elevated train bed on the west side of Manhattan between 12th and 30th streets. It was slated [...]

November 28, 2011

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Forts, Palaces and Temples of Rajasthan

If you’ve been following DesignDestinations, you know we toured the Northern Plains of India on an Abercrombie and Kent trip recently. The tour was packed with “old buildings.” Seems like every day we visited a palace, a fort or a temple–sometimes a series of them. Interesting. I loved it. Seeing these historic structures is [...]

November 21, 2011

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Riding an Elephant in Rajasthan

Riding an elephant is an unbelievably “jerky” experience. I was really surprised although I don’t know why, that every ponderous step caused me to sway from side to side, some times with considerable impact. It was fun though. We were at a resort in Rajasthan, India where the elephants play polo like in [...]

November 17, 2011

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Camel Traffic Jams, Pushkar Camel Festival

I’ve been in a lot of traffic snarls in my life but never one caused by a herd of camels. This happened to me recently in Rajasthan, India. It wasn’t on a remote country road either. It was on a major roadway through the area where beautiful white marble is mined. [...]