Share a bike, win a friend.  Well, that's not really how it goes by sharing is good.  When the Complete Guide to Bike Sharing in North America was released last July 2010, Chicago wasn't able to join in the program but based on the recent photo that was released just recently, it seems that Chicago has finally kicked the B-Cyle Program in full gear.

The B-Cyle Progam is an attempt in making your state a greener, safer, and friendlier place to live in.  It's a wholesome and practical way of getting around your campus or city emissions-free.  Not only is it good for your health but also for the environment.  According to its website, the B-Cycle Program is a "a next-next-generation bike-sharing program."

The program is simple, here's how it works:  Considering that your area has implemented the B-Cycle Program, go to the www.bcycle.com to register.  You can choose one of the following memberships and rates:

• 24 hours: $5.00
• 30 days: $30.00
• 7 days: $20.00
• Annual: $65.00
• Student Annual: $45
• Senior (65+) Annual: $45

Or you can also choose the 24-hours membership option at the kiosk where the B-Cycle bikes are parked.  You swipe your membership card.  They assign you a bike and off you go.  You return the bike at the next kiosk you see.  It's fast, hassle-free, and very earth-friendly.

The B-Cycle Program has also been adapted by Oahu and Denver while Chicago kicked it off a month ago.  So far, there are 100 units distributed among 6 B-Stations in Chicago.  Here's where you can find them:  Daley Plaza, John Hancock, McCormick Place, Buckingham Fountain, Museum Campus, and the Chicago Park District Administrative Offices.  The B-Cycle units are set to be available by season until October of this year and then will resume operation in spring next year.

After much, much, much time spent in waiting, we have just received the official word from the hotel's public relations agency that the The Gansevoort Park Hotel in New York has finally opened its doors to the adoring public.

This four-star stylishly chic hotel is the perfect setting for the ever famous TV series Sex and the City because its most exciting amenity is the heated pool located at the rooftop!  The beautiful 20-storey hotel is located at the corner of 29th and Park Avenue South that boasts of 249 elegant rooms and suites, exhale spa.  You can book as early as tomorrow night for the superior room at $305 per night and the deluxe room at $345.   There's also the Gansevoort Suite that is available for the lofty price of $635 per night and the luxurious Park Ave suite at $735 per night.

Each room is furnished with an iTouch, how that's for starters?  There's also the high ceilings, luxurious bathrobes and slippers, cable TV and a fabulous minibar.  How about a fabulous treat for your palette?  Your taste buds will surely enjoy Ristorante Asellina's Italian delicacies as well as the cocktails served at the Lounge and Rooftop Bar.

And if the hotel's amenities are not enough for your energy, the Empire State Building is just a few blocks away from.  The hotel's location is also very accessible to the subway station that will take you to Central Park and Times Square.

What do you consider in finding the perfect place to eat?  On top of the list is the sumptuous food that they serve. Others consider affordability.  For some, the location of the restaurants matter. The ambiance is a huge factor too. That is why restaurant owners pay interior designers to provide a well suited setting for their dining place. They choose the best materials in building up their restaurants.  Dishes together with its tableware are served in a very artistic manner.

Some imaginative restaurateurs add some twists to their set up to spice things up a bit. Aside from the awesome interiors you will be amused with how the meals are served or how you should be eating them. Weird food plus themed environment equals unique dining experience.

Opaque, Los Angeles, California

Another weird way of dining will be experienced at Opaque which has branches in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. Since it is dark inside the restaurant, you should order first your food before getting inside. You will be assisted by visually-impaired waiters. Your sense of touch and sense of taste will definitely lead you as you go through this in the dark dining arrangement.

The Lock Up in Tokyo, Japan

If you want to know how it feels like to be in prison, check out The Lock Up themed restaurant in Tokyo. You will literally be behind bars. How about skulls for lights and handcuffs for decors? Their menu will make the weak of hear think twice before ordering. Human Experimentation and Life Sentence are some of the cocktails they serve. Their green salad with grilled chicken is labeled Human Specimen Salad while their chicken wings with salad and grilled vegetables were branded as Dracula's dinner plate. If you want to celebrate your birthday here, a monster will give you its heart felt rendition of Happy Birthday.

The Clinic in Singapore

Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs fanatics will most likely appreciate the atmosphere in The Clinic which is set in the heart of Quay in Singapore. Dine in on a surgical table and wheelchairs while waiters in nurse or doctor attire treat you well. Their best-selling cocktail "Sex on the Drip" is place inside a dextrose bag to have that IV-effect. If you are not into IV's you can try other cocktails like margaritas sprays and even whisky-sour pastilles in pill form. Try their fishcake, dumplings or chicken wings because I am sure that their tastes are far from what is being serve in real hospitals.

Torch Bistro, Punta Gorda, Florida

Have you seen the movie "Sex in the City", wherein Samantha covered her body with sushi? This act is a real custom practiced in Japan called Nyotaimori. Nyotaimori is done on special occasions. A model covered with seaweed would lay down on your table, using her body as plate for the sushi, maki, and other Japanese goodies. There are rules to remember when dining in Torch. You are not allowed to talk to or touch their model. You can only use your chopsticks in getting your food. Now, you need to be careful with those chopsticks.

Ice Hotel in Quebec, Canada

Grab your snowsuits, earmuffs and mittens as you enter this magical winter-wonderland-themed Ice Hotel in Quebec, Canada. This hotel is open from January to March and yearly changes their ice carvings. Drink your cocktails in their square-sculptured glasses and eat your meal on their ice plates.

Conflict Kitchen in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Conflict Kitchen is a totally unique take-out restaurant in the heart of Pittsburgh. Menu changes every four months and they serve dishes of other countries that has conflict with the US. They started with Kubideh Kitchen serving Iranian food with kebabs, pita breads and lots of onions. Next on their list is Afghanistan, then North Korea followed by Venezuela. Don’t forget to read what their wrappers say.

Ninja in New York, New York

Eat and be entertained in this Ninja-themed restaurant in New York. The Ninja calls their design Ninja castle. A ninja castle in the olden times was set up in a labyrinth manner for the ninjas not to be intruded. You don't have to be a ninja nor an intruder to get in their ninja world. In fact, these ninjas will serve you sumptuous Japanese dishes as you enjoy re-enactments of ninja fights. Some of their notable dishes are crab and grapefruit salad, soba, tempura and a bonsai plant-like green tea ice cream.

Modern Toilet Restaurant in Taipei, Taiwan

Adding a nasty yet creative humor to their interior is what Modern Toilet known for. Eating in a bathroom is not that gross when you try Modern Toilet located in the capital of Taiwan. It may sound disgusting to some but this bathroom-inspired restaurant has already different chains in the said country. Their floors are made out tiles and seats are real toilet bowls. The food containers that they use are soap dishes, tiny plastic urinals, and bed pans. The bowls for food with sauce or soup are in miniature toilet bowls. Their chocolate ice cream in a squat toilet is a major sellout.

Izakaya Kayabuki inTochigi, Japan

Aren't monkeys one of the smartest animals on earth? You won't know what they can do unless you see them yourself serve you beers and yummy Japanese food. Here in Izakaya Kayabuki, monkeys are trained as waiters. These monkeys act like real human being. They wear human clothes and will be more than happy to serve you a round of beer. The monkeys will also keep you company while you enjoy your teppanyaki and gyoza.

B.E.D. in Miami, Florida

Amid the hot spots of Miami, Florida, our gastronomic adventure goes to B.E.D which stands for beverage, entertainment, and dining. You will get your own bed covered in classy linen and soft pillows when you opt to check out this place. You can pull the drapes if you want some privacy.  Try their spring rolls, crab cakes, and other finger foods as this will be a lot more suitable for the setup than your favorite steak. Cap your dinner with a mouthwatering tiramisu or Cloud 9 soufflé desserts. If you don't want to relax, you can party it out all night long.

Personally, I've always had a fascination for Japan and its capital, Tokyo. I find it simply amazing how one place can manage to combine the old and the new, the modern and also the ancient. I find it hard to think of another place where something hi-tech is comfortably settled in next to something that has a history that dates back hundreds of years.

For example, if you get on the metro that takes you to central Tokyo specifically Chiyoda Ward, you'll end up smack in the middle of a very modern-looking part of the city. One moment, you're surrounded by skyscrapers all made of clear glass and shiny steel and the next, you find yourself in front of the Imperial Palace. The massive stone walls seem to whisper the place's history through the cracks; around you, the glass is neatly trimmed as if to add a gentle touch to the place and entice guests to come in. You won't find a surly-looking guard barricading the entrance; instead, the gardens are open to the public and guests are free to come and go as they please.

Tokyo is a fairly big place for travelers to move around in. Sometimes, immersing yourself in this modern city may even make you feel like a member of the Jetsons. But aside from being home to a number of attractions that will make for a memorable vacation, what's great about this place is that it's also friendly to budget travelers. Tokyo may not seem like a cheap city at first glance, but the trick is to know which sites to visit and find the best places to feast on delicious but affordable sushi.

If you want to visit Tokyo on a budget, here are a couple of things we'd like to share with you.

FINDING A PLACE TO LIVE

First things first: if you don't speak, read or write the local language, there's a very small chance that you'll be able to book yourself into a budget hotel just by taking a chance and stepping inside any hotel you find off the street. Generally, small, budget priced hotels are manned by locals who are only fluent in Japanese. English is usually spoken in expensive, five star business hotels or other luxurious accommodations that are sure to burn a hole in your pocket.

If this is your first trip to Japan, a good way to start hunting for an affordable place to live is through Agoda.com. This website specializes in helping travelers going to Asia find a nice but cheap place to stay in; and best of all, it's in English. If you go to the website and try searching for hotels located in Tokyo, the result will turn up about a few hundred hits. If you look hard enough, you may even spot a couple of hotels that offer accommodations for about US 70 dollars per night; mind you, that's cheap by the local standards. Don't bother looking for US 20 dollar accommodations here; if you want to spend the night in Tokyo, you've got to have a bit of cash in your pocket.

At the Dormy Inn, one small bedroom will cost you about US 72 dollars per night if you book the room for three nights. Don't be discouraged by the rates because chances are you won't be able to find anything cheaper that's as clean and comfortable. The room may be small, but it's still a safe and comfortable place to come home to and the end of a long day. US 72 dollars is pretty much a bargain considering the hotel's standard rate of US 100 dollars per night.

If you really want to stretch your budget and consider yourself as the adventurous type, you have two other options for your accommodation aside from hotels. The first one is to book yourself in any of Japan's traditional ryokan (which is basically a small bed and breakfast); and the other one is to tuck yourself inside the small (and we do mean small) confines of a capsule hotel. To get a picture of what a capsule hotel looks like, think of the mailboxes at your local apartment, only make each mailbox big enough to fit a grown person; it's basically a bed with a door attached at the end. As expected in such tight quarters, there's a lot of chatter, most of which will be in Japanese.

GETTING AROUND TOWN

Fortunately for travelers to the city with no access to a car or friends living in the city who can drive them around, the underground train system in Tokyo is one of the best in the world. The fare is cheap, and you can bet that it's going to be a safe and speedy ride anywhere you want to go.

The only problem that first time tourists will most likely encounter upon descending into Tokyo's underground city is that the vast network of criss-crossing train lines and stations can be a bit daunting and not to mention confusing. Fortunately, each station has signs posted in Japanese and also English. Each station also has free maps of the underground system so be sure to grab one and try to study and understand it as best as you can.

If you have a full itinerary and are planning to visit a number of attractions in a single day, a good tip would be to get a metro line pass that can serve as your ticket for the entire day. To buy a metro line pass, just look for a bilingual ticket terminal that can be found in any of the train stations. A pass will cost you around 710 yen which is about US 8.31 dollars. If you're willing to shell out a bit more cash, you can also avail of passes that grant passengers access to Toei lines, or routes that go around the city, but this isn't really necessary.

If you're more comfortable paying for your fare as you go along, you'll have to guess the amount that you'll have to pay at each station. While this isn't a strictly impossible feat, it may very well be an exercise in futility for others. Not only will you be wasting time, you're likely to get a headache, as well. But if you're dead set, be reminded that passengers can enter each station just by paying the minimum fare of 160 yen, which is about US 1.87 dollars; you can just pay the difference when you arrive at your destination.

There are taxis all over the city, but you can bet that they're expensive. Fares can add up pretty quickly too, and result in a depletion of funds.

THE OLD SIDE OF THE CITY

If you're a budget traveler visiting Tokyo for the first time, it's always a good idea to check out the extensive fish market of Tsukiji. It's easy to forget about the time as you lose yourself in the market's numerous corridors, surrounded by ice troughs that are all full of fish as big as your arm, and every now and then, biting into what very well may be the freshest sushi that you will find on the entire planet. A trip to the market is best made in the early hours of the morning. At this time, the vendors still have a lot of fish in stock for those of you who are planning to buy some fresh grub.

Travelers who are interested in getting acquainted with Tokyo's history and heritage should definitely set aside some time in their schedule to visit the famous Meiji Jingu shrine. This particular shrine is actually a Shinto shrine built around 90 years back, during the reign of the Meiji Emperor. It was the Meiji Emperor who paved the way to open Japan's doors to the world. Visiting the shrine is like escaping into another world where the word "stress" seems unknown. Inside the shrine, there are beautiful gardens and also lovely lily ponds; it is a quiet place where you can walk around in silence and admire your surroundings. You don't need to pay an entrance fee when you visit the shrine; but if you want to visit the iris garden (something that we recommend), you do have to pay 500 yen (about US 5.85 dollars).

For those of you who are into shopping, visit the Asakusa temple and mingle with the pedestrians who are doing a bit of shopping on their own. Aside from being an interesting way to get a taste of the local culture, this is also your chance to splurge on a number of inexpensive goods that you don't have back home.

If you have lots of time on your hands, go ahead and spend one whole day roaming around the grounds. Here, you will come across a number of groups quietly worshipping in private, uttering their solemn prayers; while just a stone's throw away is a souvenir shop selling all kinds of wares and trinkets to passersby.

Are you curious about what the fates have in store for you? If so, go ahead and drop a couple of coins in a donation jar to get a detailed description of what the future has in store for you in the days to come.

Last but certainly not the least, visit the Imperial Palace to complete your journey into Tokyo's past. Because the gardens that surround the Imperial Palace are open to visitors, you can enjoy a nice, refreshing walk around the area and imagine what it would have been like to live during Japan's feudal era.

TOKYO'S MODERN FACE

After studying Japan's rich history, it's also important to get to know the modern side of the country. Besides, what other city can you think of that's more hi-tech than Japan? To start, make your way to the Tokyo Tower and ride the elevator all the way up to the top to get a fantastic view of this incredible city. For about 980 yen (US 11.47 dollars), you can get a ticket for the main observatory, which is a staggering 492 feet in the air. On a day when the weather is clear and the skies are blue, you can even see the snow-capped Mount Fuji off in the distance. Cough up an additional 600 yen (US 7.02 dollars), and you can go inside the special observatory which is 820 feet up in the air.

If you want to get lost in Tokyo's lights and sound, go straight to Shibuya neighborhood. This part of the city is where you will find numerous stores selling electronic products, neon lights occupying almost every square feet of the area, and an army of pedestrians making their way in different directions all over the district. Make sure you stop for a bit at the Shibuya Crossing, where you'll find the atmosphere to be quite similar to Times Square.

Now, we anticipated that you would also be interested in the modern Japan's shopping quarters, and fear not because we have just the answer for you shopaholics out there—the Ginza district. Even if you don't have enough cash to spend on the glamorous items that you'll find inside these high class department stores, the Ginza district is a good place to come and people watch. See and observe first-hand how the fashionistas in Tokyo dress themselves from head to toe; and indulge in a bit of good food that's not as expensive.

FILLING THE TUMMY

Amid the old temples, modern buildings, and Tokyo's gadgets and gizmos, one other thing this city has in abundance is food. To be clear, Tokyo has an abundance of cheap and delicious food that will sustain you as you explore the city. The usual grub that budget travelers can avail of is sticky rice; hot, steaming noodles; fresh fish; and the never to be forgotten miso soup. These are the usual foods that you can expect to encounter even at the breakfast table.

Fortunately for the hungry traveler, most of the food that you will find is pretty affordable. For around 500 up to 1000 yen (US 5.85 – 11.70 dollars), you can get a bowl of noodles set in warm, refreshing soup that will guarantee to rejuvenate even the weariest of travelers. Expect the servings to be generous, too; one bowl is enough to fill your tummy, and keep you going for the rest of the day. Don't be too quick to dismiss this simple bowl of ramen; the taste will come nowhere near the stuff you used to eat during your college days.

If you're looking forward to some fresh sushi, don't be surprised to find out that the really good stuff commands a high price here, similar to the United States. Although this is a very popular local dish, sushi is still considered to be a delicacy in Japan. As a matter of fact, most fish served in Japan is served cooked, not raw.

That being said, don't let the high prices discourage you so much. There are select places in Tokyo where you can satisfy your craving for fresh sushi without blowing your whole budget on a single meal. As we mentioned earlier, it's a good idea to visit the Tsukiji market for some fresh fish. Here, you can order one bowl of raw tuna along with some sticky rice and one side of steaming, hot miso soup for 1,100 yen (US 12.87 dollars) in any of the restaurants located in the area. Wash your meal down with some authentic Japanese tea and you're good to go. If you have a bit of an iron stomach, you can save a bit of money and eat one bowl of fish eggs for half the price.