1.
Bangkok
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Bangkok is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep. The city occupies 1,568.7 square kilometres in the Chao Phraya River delta in Central Thailand, over 14 million people live within the surrounding Bangkok Metropolitan Region, making Bangkok an extreme primate city, significantly dwarfing Thailands other urban centres in terms of importance. Bangkok was at the heart of the modernization of Siam—later renamed Thailand—during the late 19th century, the city grew rapidly during the 1960s through the 1980s and now exerts a significant impact on Thailands politics, economy, education, media and modern society. The Asian investment boom in the 1980s and 1990s led many multinational corporations to locate their headquarters in Bangkok. The city is now a regional force in finance and business. It is a hub for transport and health care, and has emerged as a regional centre for the arts, fashion. The city is known for its vibrant street life and cultural landmarks. The historic Grand Palace and Buddhist temples including Wat Arun and Wat Pho stand in contrast with other tourist attractions such as the scenes of Khaosan Road. Bangkok is among the top tourist destinations. It is named the most visited city in MasterCards Global Destination Cities Index, Bangkoks rapid growth amidst little urban planning and regulation has resulted in a haphazard cityscape and inadequate infrastructure systems. The city has turned to public transport in an attempt to solve this major problem. Five rapid transit lines are now in operation, with more systems under construction or planned by the national government and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. The history of Bangkok dates at least back to the early 15th century, because of its strategic location near the mouth of the river, the town gradually increased in importance. Bangkok initially served as a customs outpost with forts on both sides of the river, and became the site of a siege in 1688 in which the French were expelled from Siam. After the fall of Ayutthaya to the Burmese Empire in 1767, the newly declared King Taksin established his capital at the town, in 1782, King Phutthayotfa Chulalok succeeded Taksin, moved the capital to the eastern banks Rattanakosin Island, thus founding the Rattanakosin Kingdom. The City Pillar was erected on 21 April, which is regarded as the date of foundation of the present city, Bangkoks economy gradually expanded through busy international trade, first with China, then with Western merchants returning in the early-to-mid 19th century. As the capital, Bangkok was the centre of Siams modernization as it faced pressure from Western powers in the late 19th century, Bangkok became the centre stage for power struggles between the military and political elite as the country abolished absolute monarchy in 1932
2.
The Amazing Race Asia 2
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The Amazing Race Asia is a reality television game show based on the American series, The Amazing Race. The second season of the show features ten teams of two with a relationship, in a race around the world to win US$100,000. This season premiered on 22 November 2007 at 9PM and ended on 14 February 2008 at 9PM, Singaporean gym buddies Adrian Yap & Collin Low were the winners of this race. The second season of The Amazing Race Asia covered 50,000 kilometres in 24 days and this season had teams racing across 4 continents. The show adopted newer rules in the US version, such as the penalty where the team who checked in last must make it to first place in the next leg or else incur the 30 minute penalty. Production made the Race more competitive by imposing more self-driving and reducing the chance of teams being bunched up on the airplane flight. This season had two different penalties for coming in last on a non-elimination leg, racers were not told that the original non-elimination penalty was still applicable. This twist led to an argument between Henry and host Allan Wu at the Seoul finish mat, when the former was unwilling to give up his teams money, in the following leg, the penalty reverted to the marked for elimination penalty after Terri & Henry finished last consecutively. This season featured 10 teams chosen from 2500 applicants, including racers from the original US series, final applications were accepted 13 April 2007. This season was also open to the Japanese, who were ineligible for Season 1, final interviews were held sometime in April or May 2007. Filming took place sometime in June or July 2007 and this seasons cast included reunited siblings, childhood friends, and dating couples. Notably, Adrian is the first hearing-impaired contestant in The Amazing Race franchise and it also featured a large number of local media personalities or their relatives. Monica represented Toronto, Canada and won the 1997 Miss Chinese International Pageant, vanessa and Pamela are the sisters of famous Malaysian singer Vince Chong. Kinaryosih is a famous Indonesian movie actress and model, who has won a Citra Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2006. Sophie is a filmmaker for the Discovery Channel, as well as a correspondent for the Asian Film Festival, marc is a model and host of the Philippine sports show Sports Unlimited, while Rovilson is a host for another similar show, Gameplan and an editor for Maxim Philippines. One is Henry, a former US Navy Petty Officer, who races with his Filipina wife Trinidad, the other is Aurelia, a Frenchwoman residing in Hong Kong who races with her Singaporean ex-housemate Sophie, while Brett is of Australian nationality. Henry Reed died in his sleep on May 21,2013, the second season of the show had six official sponsors, Aviva, Caltex, Nokia Nseries, Sony Electronics Asia Pacific, Bintan Lagoon Resort and Standard Chartered Bank. The sponsors played a role in the series by providing prizes
3.
Thailand
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Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, formerly known as Siam, is a country at the centre of the Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total area of approximately 513,000 km2, Thailand is the worlds 51st-largest country and it is the 20th-most-populous country in the world, with around 66 million people. The capital and largest city is Bangkok, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and has switched between parliamentary democracy and military junta for decades, the latest coup being in May 2014 by the National Council for Peace and Order. Its capital and most populous city is Bangkok and its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India on the Andaman Sea to the southwest. The Thai economy is the worlds 20th largest by GDP at PPP and it became a newly industrialised country and a major exporter in the 1990s. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy and it is considered a middle power in the region and around the world. The country has always been called Mueang Thai by its citizens, by outsiders prior to 1949, it was usually known by the exonym Siam. The word Siam has been identified with the Sanskrit Śyāma, the names Shan and A-hom seem to be variants of the same word. The word Śyâma is possibly not its origin, but a learned, another theory is the name derives from Chinese, Ayutthaya emerged as a dominant centre in the late fourteenth century. The Chinese called this region Xian, which the Portuguese converted into Siam, the signature of King Mongkut reads SPPM Mongkut King of the Siamese, giving the name Siam official status until 24 June 1939 when it was changed to Thailand. Thailand was renamed Siam from 1945 to 11 May 1949, after which it reverted to Thailand. According to George Cœdès, the word Thai means free man in the Thai language, ratcha Anachak Thai means kingdom of Thailand or kingdom of Thai. Etymologically, its components are, ratcha, -ana- -chak, the Thai National Anthem, written by Luang Saranupraphan during the extremely patriotic 1930s, refers to the Thai nation as, prathet Thai. The first line of the anthem is, prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai, Thailand is the unity of Thai flesh. There is evidence of habitation in Thailand that has been dated at 40,000 years before the present. Similar to other regions in Southeast Asia, Thailand was heavily influenced by the culture and religions of India, Thailand in its earliest days was under the rule of the Khmer Empire, which had strong Hindu roots, and the influence among Thais remains even today. Voretzsch believes that Buddhism must have been flowing into Siam from India in the time of the Indian Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire, later Thailand was influenced by the south Indian Pallava dynasty and north Indian Gupta Empire. The Menam Basin was originally populated by the Mons, and the location of Dvaravati in the 7th century, the History of the Yuan mentions an embassy from the kingdom of Sukhothai in 1282
4.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
5.
British people
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British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown dependencies, and their descendants. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era, because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists. Modern Britons are descended mainly from the ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles in and before the 11th century, Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse. The British are a diverse, multi-national and multicultural society, with regional accents, expressions. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them, the group included Ireland, which was referred to as Ierne inhabited by the different race of Hiberni, and Britain as insula Albionum, island of the Albions. The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britanni. It has been suggested that name derives from a Gaulish description translated as people of the forms. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island, during the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people. At that time, it was the held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the ancient Britons. This notion was supported by such as the Historia Regum Britanniae. Wales and Cornwall, and north, i. e. Cumbria, Strathclyde and this legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, oppenheimer continues that the majority of the people of the British Isles share genetic commonalities with the Basques, ranging from highs of 90% in Wales to lows of 66% in East Anglia. Oppenheimers opinion is that. by far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia, ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales. The English had been unified under a single state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh. However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood in the 13th century
6.
Perth
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Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth-most populous city in Australia, with a population of 2.06 million living in Greater Perth. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the central business district. Perth was founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the centre of the Swan River Colony. It gained city status in 1856, and was promoted to the status of a Lord Mayorality in 1929. The city is named after Perth, Scotland, due to the influence of Sir George Murray, Member of Parliament for Perthshire and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The citys population increased substantially as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes in the late 19th century, largely as a result of emigration from the eastern colonies of Australia. During Australias involvement in World War II, Fremantle served as a base for operating in the Pacific Theatre. An influx of immigrants after the war, predominantly from Britain, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, Aboriginal people have inhabited the Perth area for 38,000 years, as evidenced by archaeological remains at Upper Swan. The Noongar people occupied the southwest corner of Western Australia and lived as hunter-gatherers, the wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain were particularly important to them, both spiritually and as a source of food. The Noongar people know the area where Perth now stands as Boorloo, Boorloo formed part of Mooro, the tribal lands of Yellagongas group, one of several based around the Swan River and known collectively as the Whadjuk. The Whadjuk were part of a group of fourteen tribes that formed the south-west socio-linguistic block known as the Noongar. The judgment was overturned on appeal, the first documented sighting of the region was made by the Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh and his crew on 10 January 1697. The British colony would be officially designated Western Australia in 1832, Captain James Stirling, aboard Parmelia, said that Perth was as beautiful as anything of this kind I had ever witnessed. On 12 August that year, Helen Dance, wife of the captain of the ship, Sulphur. The only contemporary information on the source of the name comes from Fremantles diary entry for 12 August, Murray was born in Perth, Scotland, and was in 1829 Secretary of State for the Colonies and Member for Perthshire in the British House of Commons. The town was named after the Scottish Perth, in Murrays honour, the racial relations between the Noongar people and the Europeans were strained due to these happenings. Because of the amount of building in and around Boorloo
