Shangri-La

Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, and particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. In the ancient Tibetan scriptures, existence of seven such places is mentioned as Nghe-Beyul Khembalung. Khembalung is one of several beyuls ("hidden lands" similar to Shangri-La) believed to have been created by Padmasambhava in the 9th century as idyllic, sacred places of refuge for Buddhists during times of strife (Reinhard 1978).

Some scholars believe that the Shangri-La story owes a literary debt to Shambhala, a mythical kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which was sought by Eastern and Western explorers.

Shangri-La (Titan)

Shangri-La is a large, dark region of Saturn's moon Titan at 10°S 165°W / 10°S 165°W / -10; -165. It is named after Shangri-La, the mythical paradise in Tibet. It is thought to be an immense plain of dark material. It is thought that these regions of Titan were seas, but that they are now dry.

Shangri-La is studded with bright 'islands' of higher ground. It is bounded by the larger regions of high ground: Xanadu to the east, Adiri to the west, and Dilmun to the north.

The Huygens probe landed on a westerly part of Shangri-La, close to the boundary with Adiri.

References

Rannalle

"Shangri-la aka Rannalle" is a song written by Ian Erix, TCT and Erik Nyholm.

In Scandinavia, the song was nominated for the 2014 summer hit by radio station The Voice. The song was originally ranked second but it eventually won the vote to be named Best Song Of The Summer. The track climbed to the top of the single charts for several consecutive weeks reaching #5 on national radio charts and #3 on the iTunes Download Chart. Overall, the song was the fourth most played radio song in Finland in 2014 and on 24 July 2014, it was announced to have sold enough copies to be awarded gold record status.

The TCT music video for the song was released in April 2014. the video features several Finnish celebrity cameos.

In 2015, American singer Ian Erix released the English language version of "Shangri-La". Erix' video premiered on Vevo in Spring 2015 and features Erix on a wild summer holiday in the notorious hedonistic European party resort of Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. As of 1 June 2015, a month before the single's official UK radio release date, the clip has been viewed nearly a million times and has broken into YouTube's Top 40 pop charts in Europe. On July 10, 2015, in regard to Ian's video the UK's most famous newspaper The Guardian reported that music is over because Ian Erix has spoiled it for everyone!