What’s on the the bottom of the North Island of New Zealand?

Wellington from the top of Mount Victoria (Source)

Many people think of Auckland first when thinking of New Zealand. True, it is the biggest city, but Wellington is the capital.

Wellington also has a lively arts scene, our amazing national museum called Te Papa, and lots of lovely cafes to while away the hours in. Check out this blog known as The Wellingtonista to find out what’s going on in the capital city.

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More New Zealand blogs featured on Blogs of the World
Traditional Maori craft in New Zealand
Summer rituals in New Zealand

Mongol Angle takes a light-hearted look at Mongolia. It’s rare to find a Mongolian blog written in English, so this is a great opportunity to see Mongolia from the inside.

And in case you’re still asking where Mongolia is, the answer is here.

Perfect if you want an introduction to Mongolia, here’s a Mongol Angle SWOT analysis with handy links to everything you should know about this remote country. Geography was never this fun (or funny) at school!

Inside a Mongolian ger. Credit

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How to make Mongolian boots
Modern day Mongolians - professional Mongolian women
Asian blogs on Blogs of the World

Expresate (Express Yourself) is written by Xady, from La Loma in Colombia (read the original Spanish language version here).

To get a closer look at life in Colombia read The other side of the Flower Fair and find out what goes on behind the famous Medellin flower show. And to be reminded that life in Colombia is not always easy, read this striking post about getting to see a doctor.

This blog is part of a group called ConVerGentes (rough translation would be something like ConVoPeople) which was supported by a Rising Voices project.

And now we have a question for you: there are many blogs the world, like this one, which are not written in English. We’d like to know what you think about using translation tools (like Google Translate) to read these blogs. Write a comment or fill in the poll on our homepage.

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Buying empanadas in Colombia
More South American blogs on Blogs of the World
Pasta Colombiana - Colombians eat pasta too!

Sibiu, also known as Hermannstadt, with its medieval look, the beautiful surroundings and its local traditions, is one of the most important, beautiful and interesting cities in Transylvania for tourists. In 2007 Sibiu was awarded the title of European Capital of Culture.

Sibiu – Liar’s Bridge

Her name is Jackie and she is “an English PhD student at Glasgow University” as she introduces herself. But between May-July 2007 she lived in Sibiu, Romania and she fell in love with this city.

During her stay in Sibiu, she took her camera with her and managed to capture its “soul” in an infinit number of photos. Nearly three years ago, she started a photoblog about it,
Sibiu Daily Photo, as part of City Daily Photo.

I recommend you Jackie’s blog - “a bit of a trip down memory lane” for her. And an opportunity for you to find out about Sibiu and, why not, to note down your future travel destination.

And don’t forget to check also Jackie’s photoblog about her hometown, Glasgow Daily Photo.

Photo: Windmill - The Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation ASTRA- Sibiu

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More European blogs featured on Blogs of the World
Tort de ciocolata - Romanian chocolate cake
Romanian traditions and the Romanian peasant museum

G-lish is written by Godwin and Gayle to bring you ‘Everything the guide books leave out about life, travel, work and volunteering in Ghana’.

Godwin grew up in Ghana; Gayle grew up on the other side of the world - a good combination when it comes to explaining Ghana to the rest of the world (you might know them in their previous incarnation at This is Ghana).

Celebrate with the Elmina Dance Ensemble (photo from G-lish.org)

Look at 17 ways to welcome 2010: Ghana style for an introduction; look further for more on life in Ghana, and the Godwin Talks series for a Ghanaian point of view.

There is also a series of in-depth posts about volunteering and volunteer work in Ghana, which are available in a downloadable pdf. The guide will be relevant for anyone considering volunteer work (in any country).

Read more:
Who is Elvis? Gayle and Godwin’s cross-cultural reflections on My partner is a foreigner
More Ghana blogs from Blogs of the World
China to invest in Congo’s infrastructure
A thousand stories: Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie on looking past stereotypes

One of the most-read Irish blogs in my feedreader is culch.ie. A gathering of some of Irelands mot prolific bloggers and writers, among them Darren Byrne and Rick O’Shea, this funny bunch supplies a constant flow of blogposts on all things pop-culture, Irish and world-wide.

So if you are interested what movies, concerts and youtube-videos are the talk of the land here, please pay them a visit.

And, by the way, a culchie is a person from rural Ireland, often used in an insulting sense. But this should not put you off.

Read more:
Irish blogs on Blogs of the World
On yer bikes! Dublin discovers bike sharing
Ireland’s top five tourist destinations without tourists…

This week we’re featuring two Yemeni bloggers who write about life in their country. Most of their posts are in Arabic, but with Google Translate and a bit of patience, we can see a bit of Yemen through the eyes of some Yemeni women.

Shells is about ‘Yemeni girls and the surrounding community’. In the post Shells and Pearl she says:

I mean in pearl every yemeni woman who try to be stronger and overcome all difficulties that she faces, shell are the environment around the pearl as family (father, mother, brothers, sisters and husband). Sometimes this shell dosn’t have a flexibility so this leads to damaging of the very fine pearl but even those pearls try to have her own identity and personility whatever happens. Sea is the society which also sometimes makes restrictions on the pearl, ocean is the whole world. So all of these things surround the little pearl. Is she lucky or poor? What can she do to deal with all of these things?

The second blog, Feeling (scroll down for English), aims to write about social issues. In a series of posts, the author Rahaf has been exploring the situation of street children in Yemen.

These bloggers were trained by the Hand in Hand Initiative, which is a project supported by Rising Voices, aiming to enable Yemenis to add their voices to the global blogosphere. This interview with project leader Ghaida’a al-Absi is also worth a watch to find out more about Yemen and the project, which has produced 67 new bloggers so far.

Read more:
More Middle East blogs from Blogs of the World
What is the future of Arabic dialects? Different dialects of Arabic and where they are spoken
Reem Kelani’s introduction to Arabic music
The dying art of Yemeni shoes and Kutnu fabrics