Luxury Lifestyle, Design & Architecture blog

 Marina Bay Sands is the leading business, leisure and entertainment destination in Asia. Located along Marina Bay waterfront with 3 cascading hotel towers, 2,560 rooms, extraordinary Sands Sky Park, floating crystal pavilions, lotus-inspired ArtScience Museum, The Shoppes, Celebrity Chef Restaurants, Theatres and hottest nightclubs. Location: This waterfront gaming resort anchors Marina Bay,  Singapore’s Central Business District is right across the water. There are golf courses and shopping centres nearby. Changi International Airport is about a 10-minute ride. Rooms: Located in three 55-story towers, guestrooms provide views of the city skyline or the sea, all featuring premium bedding and large flat-panel TVs with DVD players. Wireless and wired Internet access are complimentary. Rooms also offer executive desks, in-room safes, minibars, and coffee/tea makers. Wining&Dining: Resort dining options range from noodle bars and food kiosks to world-class destin...

The Monastery in the ancient city of Petra. (Tim Barker/LPI/Getty) Exactly 200 years ago this month, 27-year-old Swiss explorer Jean Louis Burckhardt became the first Western tourist of modern times to visit the ancient city of Petra – the three-millennia-old capital of the Nabataeans. Burckhardt was the Indiana Jones of his day – learning Arabic and adopting the name Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah, he spent much of his life traveling around the Middle East in disguise, visiting ancient sites and scribbling down notes as he went. Hearing stories about a ruined city hidden in the canyons at Wadi Musa, Burckhardt hired a local guide and said that he wanted to pay a visit to the tomb of the prophet Aaron, conveniently located on the far side of the city. Passing through Petra, Burckhardt pretended he had little interest in the heathen monuments around him – but his guides caught him admiring the ruins and, suspecting that he was a treasure robber, hastened their journey. As ...