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Sadly, you have missed the Seattle Cheese Festival for this year (it was in May), but that doesn't mean you can't get your fill of delicious curds. Your trek begins, as you might expect, at the Pike Place Market, one of the finest public markets in the country, just a few blocks from the W Seattle. There you'll find (in addition to those famous fish-throwers) Quality Cheese, in business since 1944 and offering one of the city's best selections; pick up some locally produced Grace's Olive Oil to go with some sharp Pecorino. Further down the market, visit Beecher's Handmade Cheese and sample their Flagship, a creamy cowsmilk round, or the peppercorn-studded Marco Polo, which took home a gold medal at this year's World Cheese Awards. They also carry the fine product of Estrella Family Creamery, among others.

One more stop in the Market: DeLaurenti Specialty Food & Wine, with a dizzying array of more than 100 cheeses available year-round. While you settle on a slice or two, head upstairs into DeLaurenti's cellar for a bottle of wine or two to go with your feast. I recommend selecting a Pacific Northwest red, of course.

You'll be loaded down with bags by now, but before heading back to the hotel, run down to The Cheese Cellar, where you can pick up Rogue Creamery's Smokey Blue, the world's only smoked blue cheese.

Couples...are you getting worn down by the rat race? Communicating in monosyllabic grunts over dinner? Is it getting hard to remember the heady buzz of your first few dates? Here's a great getaway: the Westin Renew for Two package helps "Let Love Rule." Says the literature: "Slip away to Westin with your special someone. With the Westin Renew for Two Package, romance is yours to embrace in style." Well, that sounds great but the added touches are what sells it: you can look forward to champagne and strawberries for two, complimentary breakfast in bed each morning and a late 4 PM checkout so you don't have to rush. If you're anything like me, you might not even be able to remember the last time you and your significant other slowed down to have breakfast in bed...crawling in with a laptop full of work and a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats doesn't count. Don't let the old magic slip away, folks.

Hong Kong is an intense city with multiple personalities--even the uninitiated Westerner can get a sense of the energy flowing through the region from Hong Kong's major pop-culture exports: Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, John Woo. But obviously there is a lot more to a real city than stylish action films.

A British colony won from mainland China in 1841, the British government ceded control of Hong Kong in 1997 to the People's Republic of China. Under some special restrictions imposed by the Communist government, Hong Kong is now a Special Administrative Region with a high degree of autonomy and a capitalist economy. These dichotomies of Eastern and Western, free-market and socialist, Chinese and British have created a dynamic modern metropolis that is quite unlike anyplace else in the world. If you are in the region for business or pleasure, take a look at this Lonely Planet travel guide for an in-depth look at the city. Also useful as a no-cost, no-nonsense rundown is this page at Wikitravel. Located nearby in Kowloon (the northern residential district which is by some accounts the most densely populated place on Earth) is the recently renovated Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Towers.

Showing their dedication to travellers in the Middle East, and the appreciation of said travellers, Sheraton was nominated for no less than 10 "Best Business Hotel" awards by Business Traveller Middle East which is of course the regional edition of the influential international publication Business Traveler magazine. Starwood's Preferred Guest program won a nomination as Best Hotel Loyalty Program. Nods also went to Sheraton as second runner-up for Best Hotel Chain in the Middle East. In local categories, Sheraton Amman and Sheraton Cairo were first runners-up and Sheraton Abu Dhabi, Sheraton Bahrain, Sheraton Jeddah, Sheraton Oman and Sheraton Riyadh were second runners-up as Best Business Hotels in their respective cities. That's too many for me to tag all of them with links; look them up at Starwood's site if you're travelling in the region.

Guido De Wilde, Vice President and Regional Director of Starwood Hotels in the Middle East was quoted as observing: “This is the fifth year in a row, business travelers vote for Starwood Preferred Guest as Best Hotel Loyalty Program; and for Sheraton Kuwait and Sheraton Doha as Best Business Hotels in Kuwait and Qatar. As the judges for these awards are the most important people of all – our guests – the accolade has even greater significance."

So, you're in Pittsburgh. At the Westin Convention Center, and when you're done with whatever it is you're doing there, you want to know what else is around. Locals will tell you Pittsburgh's downtown rolls up its' sidewalks after dark. The once happening Strip District nearby peaked in the late 80s and has gone into decline. South Side is far away, mostly the domain of students and local music scenesters who are piled into bars and greasy spoon diners. Lucky you, you're in walking distance of Tonic Bar and Grill, at 971 Liberty Ave. and 10th. Tonic is something of an evening hotspot and serves a late dinner menu of surprisingly cosmopolitan fusion dishes including Thai peanut chicken, steamed Milanaise mussels and coconut-battered sweet potatoes. The kitchen closes at midnight; hey, it's Pennsylvania. Cocktails, including signature drinks like the pomegranate martini and freshly squeezed hard lemonade (it comes with flavored vodka in it) run until 2 AM. During the day, one can get a completely different sort of local flavor with a walk down to Eide's Entertainment at 1121 Penn Ave. Opened as "Pittsburgh's First Comix and Sci-Fi Shop" back in 1972 the store grew from geeky beginnings to become one of the city's largest, best and hippest music stores as well as a resource for alternative press books and a wide selection of video. Plus they still have comic books.