Wed 26 Aug 2009
Indonesia plans to invest approximately IDR93.9 trillion (US$9.4 billion) on infrastructure projects in 2010 including bridges, ports and roads, Reuters reported a senior planning official saying on Friday. The funding, which is considerably higher than the IDR70 trillion seen in 2009, will pave the way for Southeast Asia’s biggest economy attract foreign investment.
Wed 26 Aug 2009
Visitors to a tourist attraction in Berlin have been making off with an unusual memento — the 30 cm long tail of a Lego giraffe.
The Lego tail belongs to a six-metre tall model that has stood outside the entrance to the Legoland Discovery Center on Potsdamer Platz since 2007.
“It’s a popular souvenir,” a spokeswoman for the center said Tuesday. “It’s been stolen four times now …”
The tail is made out of 15,000 Lego bricks. It takes model workers about one week to restore it at a cost (more…)
Wed 26 Aug 2009
Plans to build mainland China’s first Disneyland theme park in Shanghai have yet to be given the go ahead by the central government, ChannelNewsAsia reported state media as saying yesterday. Walt Disney Co and the Shanghai’s government have agreed on major issues in building the park, the official Shanghai Securities News reported, while the US firm said in January it would be submitting a joint application to Beijing. However it had still not been given final approval, the report stated.
Wed 26 Aug 2009
by Cherie O’Connor
From the ashes of Hotel Club Paraiso rises Ibiza Rocks - live music venue/hotel extraordinaire which over the past three years (more…)
Wed 26 Aug 2009
A pair of white lions has arrived at Shanghai Wild Animal Park from Guangzhou. The Shanghai Daily reported that the three year-old male called Shan Shan and the female, Si Si, are expected to breed at the park. The white lion is a rare colour mutation of the African lion, which matures about the age of three and can live for 20 to 25 years.
Wed 26 Aug 2009
ON the road through the tree-studded high desert toward the small town of Chinle, Ariz., the car radio was bringing in the local Navajo station, with a playlist heavy in Top 40 hits, peppered with Navajo-language station breaks and car commercials. The sky was a cloudless blue, and I was on my way, with my childhood friend Esther Chak, to Canyon de Chelly, a geologic maze of towering red cliffs and deep-cut gorges dotted with pictographs and ruins of ancient cliffside villages. Lying in the heart (more…)
Wed 26 Aug 2009
Indonesia can not blame Malaysia for using “its icons,” like batik and Rafflesia flower in its tourism campaign because the country feels to have a sense of belonging of the icons, a minister said on Tuesday.
”Some of them feel that they are part of Indonesian culture because we are from the same root. We also live side by side. They also inherit things that Indonesians have,” said the Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda here.
That’s why, he said, (more…)
Wed 26 Aug 2009
Vietnam Railways Corp. will use Japan’s bullet-train technology for a planned US$56 billion link connecting Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Bloomberg has reported, citing the Nikkei newspaper. The Vietnam government aims to build the line in sections and start running high-speed trains by 2020, and may secure funding from Japan’s official development assistance programme, the report said.
Wed 26 Aug 2009
In troubled financial times, Nigel Richardson navigates the etiquette and ethics of tipping.
A hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona, 7pm. A weary traveller, recently off an 11-hour flight from London Gatwick, has just eaten in the hotel restaurant and is about to get into bed.
Caller: “Hi, Mr Richardson. This is Brad here. Your waiter for this evening.”
Me (puzzled but friendly): “Oh, hi, Brad.”
Brad: “I was just calling to check you enjoyed your meal this evening.”
Me: “Well, cheers for (more…)
Wed 26 Aug 2009
Aircraft Etihad Airways Airbus A340-600.
Route Sydney to Abu Dhabi.
Class Business, seat 5C.
Seat pitch and width 224 centimetres between rows of seats; 51 centimetres between armrests. Every seat reclines flat into a 185-centimetre-long bed.
Seat configuration The one-two-one layout ensures all seats have unimpeded aisle access. There are 30 business class seats in total.
Luggage allowance 30 kilograms of checked baggage, plus two pieces of cabin baggage up to seven kilograms.
Scheduled (more…)