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Nobody expect, Johannesburg attracts expats looking to accomplish a lot and integrate quickly, bursting with the energy and pace of a big city but with the friendliness town. “The thing I love most about Joburg is that it is a city of opportunity,” said Crystal Espin, originally from Cape Town and founder of local blog  Joburg’s Darling . “You get the feeling that everyone is here to make something of themselves.” Gerrard Hattfield, originally from Cape Town and founder of travel site  Flight Factory , agrees, calling the city ‘The Silicon Valley of South Africa’. He explained that “compared to Cape Town, which is more laid back, Joburg is extremely hard working.” South Africa’s largest city has significantly invested in the growth of small businesses, with the creation of the Ministry of Small Business Development in 2014. The city also recently hosted  The Global Entrepreneurship Congress , which brought together entrepreneurs, investors and researchers from 16...

By: Safwan Salleh The rising of sea levels threaten to drown the Mekong Delta, which produces the majority of Vietnam’s rice. The only thing standing between the country and the ocean is a tree. The  Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment   predicts that the ocean will swallow more than a third of the region by the year 2100, taking a swath of Ho Chi Minh City with it. Halfway up the coast from the Mekong Delta, Hoi An’s prognosis is better, but it’s not immune. The city sits where the Thu Bon River meets the South China Sea. Its inhabitants are already used to hauling furniture upstairs during seasonal floods. Mangroves are the climate superheroes of the natural world. They grow in swamps along the coasts with thin trunks and tangled, spidery roots submerged in dark, briny water. The roots filter saltwater and can expand eroded coastlines. They also create natural storm barriers and protect agricultural land from saltwater infiltration. And on top of everyth...

By: Safwan Salleh Secret Underground Hospital In Hungary A three-year-old Erzsebet Seibriger and her family headed underground to one of Budapest’s many natural caves where they were safe from tanks, bombs and gunfire in autumn 1956, as Soviet troops suppressed the Hungarian uprising against the country’s communist regime. But their location in underground hospital where Seibriger’s surgeon father treated both Hungarian revolutionaries and Soviet soldiers would haunt them for years. Due to a heart condition, Seibriger’s father was not jailed but he did lose his medical license.After Soviet troops crushed the rebellion, tens of thousands of Hungarians were imprisoned or executed for participating, including doctors who treated injured freedom fighters. Even though the government declassified the hospital’s existence in 2002, and this year it will celebrate its 10th year as the Hospital in the Rock Nuclear Bunker Museum, the space remains frozen in time, full of mysteries and untold ...

Punctual Nation in The World By: Safwan Salleh Although many countries are saddled with stereotypes, in Switzerland’s case they’re not. The alpine nation really is highly efficient. And meticulously punctual. Clean, too. For chronically tardy, resolutely inefficient, people like to visit Switzerland yields a cocktail of emotions, awe, relief and a dash of irritation. For the Swiss, punctuality is important, a bonbon in the buffet of life. It is a source of deep contentment.  The Swiss, it seems, subscribe to the German philosopher Schopenhauer’s definition of happiness as “an absence of misery”. They derive genuine joy from the fact that life unfolds on time and in a highly efficient manner.

Rarest Pasta In The World By: Safwan Salleh Away from its famed cerulean seas, Sardinia’s craggy interior is a twisting maze of deep chasms and impenetrable massifs that shelter some of Europe’s most ancient traditions. Residents here still speak Sardo, the closest living form of Latin. Grandmothers gaze warily at outsiders from under embroidered veils. And, in a modest apartment in the town of Nuoro, a slight 62 years old named Paola Abraini wakes up every day at 7 am to begin making  su filindeu,  the rarest pasta in the world.   In fact, there are only two other women on the planet who still know how to make it, Abraini’s niece and her sister-in-law, both of whom live in this far-flung town clinging to the slopes of Monte Ortobene. No one can remember how or why the women in Nuoro started preparing su filindeu but for more than 300 years, the recipe and technique have only been passed down through the women in Abraini’s family, each of whom have guarded it t...

The Cuban Build Tallest Bike In The World By: Safwan Salleh It’s not possible to keep up with 52-year-old Félix Ramón Guirola Cepero, and it’s worth. On a bright winter day, he flew down Havana’s famed Malecón on his bicycle as tourists and locals alike gawked in wonderment. Guirola Cepero started building his tall bicycles since he was 15, starting as a teenager in his native city of Ciego de Ávila in central Cuba. His fixation began when he spotted a member of the national cycling team pedalling a tandem bike through his hometown. He was attracted to the idea of creating something entirely new. “When I saw a tandem for the first time, it was horizontal,” he expl ained. “I said, ‘Well, I'm going to build upwards’.” “From on top of the bike, I can grab coconuts.” he joke. But building tall bikes wasn’t Guirola Cepero’s only dream, he had other big plans, too. For a time, he hoped to flee by boat to the United States. “I tried four times,” he said, earning himself a c...

This Eurpoean country made Christianity its official religion in 301 AD By: Safwan Salleh Pious history Armenia is a unique country in Europe with a population of only 3 million people. But it has a sizable place in spiritual history, most historians believe that in 301 AD, it became the first country in the world to adopt Christianity. Today, majority of Armenians are Christian with 95%, and the country’s pious history can be traced back through some of its ancient sites and monuments.  The spiritual leader The first head of the Armenian Apostolic Church was Gregory the Illuminator, son of the nobleman named Anag who assassinated Armenia’s King Khosrov II. Gregory’s father was executed for his crime, but Gregory managed to flee to Cappadocia, where he was raised by bishop St. Firmilian. As an adult, Gregory returned to his homeland in hopes of converting the Armenian king ‒ and, by extension, the Armenian people ‒ to Christianity. When he learned of Gre...

5 Streotypes About Traveler april 3, 2017 Travelers are a unique group of people that are both admired and sneered at. Almost everyone wants to travel extensively, but only a handful of people actually do. Some travelers choose to live and  work abroad  for years at a time. Just like we have preconceived notions and stereotypes of the places we travel to, locals (at home and abroad) have developed colorful traveler stereotypes. No, not every traveler is a tacky tourist— in fact, we generally pride ourselves on shattering travel stereotypes like that. #1.  TRAVELERS ARE ARROGANT. Some people think it’s arrogant to start every sentence with, “Well, when I was  teaching abroad in  Phuket…”. For them, it’s like you want to tell them about what you do is too ‘awesome’. So, it looks like you to show them that you have a lot of experience. What people need to know is don’t easily judge the travelers because they have their own experience and they f...