New Titanic hall is sure to excite

New Titanic Exhibition Hall in Belfast is a grand structure.

Nothing excites me more than events and stories surrounding the Titanic. So these days I'm very excited about the opening of a new attraction in Belfast which will bring the mighty ship back to life - in our minds, at least.

In just a few days, a new visitor's attraction called "Titanic Belfast in Northern Ireland" will open in that charming city where the "unsinkable" ship was built and from where she set sail on her ill-fated maiden voyage on which she struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and dropped to the bottom of the ocean, where her skeleton remains still lie.

Our friends over at Tourism Ireland sent word yesterday that the finishing touches are being put on a new six-storey Titanic exhibition hall which officially opens March 31 and will feature lots of Titanic memorabilia. The unique structure of the Titanic hall - 3,000 shards make up the building’s impressive exterior while its plaza includes the world’s largest outdoor map of the northern hemisphere, tracing Titanic’s route across the Atlantic - and the fact the story of the Titanic still evokes interest these many years after she sunk, will make this Belfast attraction a must see this summer.


In Belfast you can visit the dockyard where Titanic was built.

 The Titanic hall features nine interpretive and interactive galleries that explore the sights, sounds, smells and stories of Titanic, as well as the city and people that made her. Visitors will learn about the construction of RMS Titanic and the wider story of Northern Ireland’s industrial and maritime heritage.

Over 50,000 advance tickets have been sold to the new hall, which just proves that lots of people like me remain fascinated about the great ship. People from as far away as Canada and New Zealand have booked passage to this new museum. While in Belfast, you can also visit the old Thompson dry dock where the Titanic was built and the city has plenty of other reminders of the great ship's brief but romantic history.

A 15-tonne ‘Titanic’ sign – the same weight as Titanic’s main anchor – dominates the building as visitors approach. Laser-cut and made from eight, 30mm-thick solid steel plates, the 4.5m-tall, 15m-long sign is the same length as the private promenades that were available on RMS Titanic’s most expensive accommodation, the First Class Parlour Suites.

In conjunction with the opening of the new Titanic Belfast visitor attraction, the Titanic Belfast Festival will take place from March 31 until May 2012 and will include plays, tours, exhibitions and talks all themed around the Titanic. Commemorations for the lives lost on the anniversary of the ship’s sinking will take place from April 14 to 15.

So make time this year to get to Belfast and see this permanent Titanic exhibition.

For more information, go to http://www.discoverireland.com/

Chinese 'wasting' new-found wealth

SHANGHAI – While travelling through China, one can be forgiven for thinking the entire country has won a lottery.

Money is being spent by everyone faster than China’s central bank can print it and luxury European goods are flying off the shelves faster than Gucci and Prada can make them.

It’s all reflective of China’s runaway economy, of course, but one wonders if the Chinese really appreciate their new-found wealth and the treasures it can buy.

Case in point: A waiter at an upscale resort in the southern town of Sanya on Hainan Island told me during my visit last week about the Chinese millionaire who ordered a bottle of $2,000 French wine, poured himself half a glass and topped it up with 7-Up.

Another time the waiter said he witnessed a wealthy Chinese businessman buy a $1,500 bottle of French red and he left after finishing just half the bottle. What a waste!

Money can buy anything in China, except sophistication.

Burma is back in tourists' sights

Burma is now the hottest travel spot on the planet.

This just in: The hottest tourist destination for 2012 is Burma.

If you don't believe me, just ask all the travel agents around the world who are being inundated with requests to go to the Asian nation formerly known as Myanmar.

Canadian travel agents I speak to say since Burma's military regime surrendered power to a new president and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit indicating the U.S. wants to normalize relations with the country, more and more people now want to travel to Burma, the last Asian country to come out from behind the bamboo curtain which veiled the atrocities that once went on in that beautiful land.

Of course, the main reason the tourism spotlight has been turned on Burma is because of the courageous efforts of Aung San Suu Kyi to restore dignity to her homeland which offers tourists some of Asia's most treasured historic relics. Suu Kyi, who once told tourists to stay away from Burma,  now is encouraging travellers to come help her country get back on its economic feet through tourism.

Canadian tour companies like Tour East Holidays of Toronto, the largest organizer of Asian holidays for Canadians, says interest in Burma has doubled in recent months.

The London Telegraph reports about 300,000 foreign tourists visited Burma last year while 19 million arrived in neighbouring Thailand.

However, because Burma has been out of the tourism limelight for so long, don't expect much when you arrive. Hotels and resorts have a long way to go to equal what tourists are treated to in Thailand but with this new interest in Burma, you can bet major chains will soon be building new properties there.

Wi-Fi is a bad link for hotel guests

One thing that really irks me when I check out of a hotel - especially 5-star properties - is to be handed a bill with Wi-Fi charges added on.

In some cases, the charges can be as much as $20 a day - hell, I only pay $40 a month for my home Wi-Fi so $20 a day is a bit much.

According to a piece I read this morning in the London Telegraph, two thirds of hotels worldwide charge guests for Wi-Fi access and the paper says London's stuffy The Dorchester charges its guests about $30 a day to go online.

Ironically, most Interstate hotels I stay at in Canada and the U.S. offer FREE Wi-Fi and roadside fast food joints long ago went FREE Wi-Fi.

Not much you can do but vent but one wonders why when you're paying $500 a night for a 5-star hotel room, the chain can't throw in FREE Wi-Fi.

S.O.S. to the cruise ship industry: Weed out your bad apples

Credible cruise lines like Seadream are being hurt by
 other companies who place an emphasis on profits
 instead of passenger safety.

As yet another Costa Cruise ship limped into port - the Costa Allegra had to be towed to the Seychelle islands after losing power in the Indian Ocean this week - and the search for bodies continued on the partially sunken Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy - I was left to wonder why anyone would sail with a cruise line that obviously has issues with both its ships and crew?

The only good news about the Costa Allegra incident is that the vessel's captain wasn't the first to abandon ship as was the case in the Costa Concordia disaster.

There are ways for cruise passengers to check on a ship's sanitation record - the very credible Atlanta-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues an annual ranking which provides an honest evaluation of almost every ship's sanitation issues and cruise lines react very quickly to the CDC's findings. You can view the latest rankings at http://wwwn.cdc.gov/InspectionQueryTool/InspectionSearch.aspx. Anything below an 86 score should be a warning to stay away from this product.

However, to my knowledge, there's no such rating system for a cruise ship's mechanical sea worthiness, or for that matter, how qualified the ship's crew is.

The Costa incidents showcase the need for a CDC-type regulatory body to check ships from stem to stern and rank their sea worthiness. There may be many ships on the high seas carrying thousands of people that have machanical issues and lives are being placed at risk. And, thanks to the Costa Concordia's captain, suspicion now hangs over every member of a ship's crew regarding how well prepared they are to handle an emergency.

Because no one government rules the high seas, maybe it's time the United Nations sets standards regarding the sea worthiness for cruise ships and their crew. The UN can work with national coast guards and give them the right to evaluate ships before they leave port.

Thanks to Costa, the cruise industry is in a free fall - business is down 40 per cent since the Concordia sinking and the Allegra power failure won't help matters.

The cruise industry must start policing itself and weed out the bad apples before any more damage is done.

London hotels gouging Games' goers

Let the gouging begin!

London newspapers are reporting that hotels in the 2012 Summer Olympic city are charging as much as 300 per cent more for rooms - that, despite the fact the London Organizing Committee returned more the 120,000 reservations to the hoteliers. (The organizing committee blocks off rooms for sponsors, media and International Olympic Committee members - but obviously fewer people are planning to attend the Games, which start July 27 and runs until August 12).

London's Telegraph newspaper cited examples of the gouging:

"Accommodation at the Premier Inn Victoria during the Games costs from £199 ($315 Cdn.), a rate that is non-refundable and must be paid in advance. For the rest of August, rooms start at £87 ($138 Cdn.). At the Premier Inn Old Street, August rates range from £75 to £132, but during the Games the cheapest rooms are also £199," the newspaper reported today.

Other examples of gouging reported by the Telegraph:
-  "At the Novotel London Paddington, room rates during the Olympics are more than double (from £299 per night) what they are during the rest of the summer (from £149). And at the Z Hotel in Soho, a two-night stay during the Olympics costs from £186 a night, compared to just £102 a night in the week after the closing ceremony. "

British politicians are reportedly "outraged" by the hotel "scandal" but what a bunch of hypocrites.

Laws to protect the public from such gouging could have been passed when London was awarded the Games but instead the members of Parliament sat on their hands until it was too late.

So, once again, the biggest losers at the 2012 London Summer Olympics won't be any athlete, but rather the public - those, at least, who are dumb enough to go to London during the Games' period.

Finding cheap eats in expensive Tokyo

The counters fill up past at the restaurants in Yakitori Alley,
a food street that's Tokyo's best value

 Every time I go to Tokyo, I always stumble upon something new and interesting.

When I was in Japan's capital last month, for instance, I went out looking for some cheap eats and was directed to Yakitori Alley, a small street on the edge of the Ginza that runs parallel to the city's main elevated rail line on which the super fast Shinkansen (bullet) train rides.

In the hollowed out crevasses under the elevated line, restaurateurs have set up shop and sell everything from sushi to horse for very reasonable prices.

The best restaurants in Yakitori Alley are the ones with the longest lineups - like

Midori Sushi, where people start lining up as early as 4 p.m. to eat some of the freshest fish I've ever tasted (bought daily at Tokyo’s legendary Tsukiji fish market). The prices at Midori are very reasonable - two can eat for as little as $30; a steal in expensive Tokyo.

When you enter Midori Sushi, the chefs behind the long counter frantically preparing dynamite and California rolls yell out a welcome - it's a tradition in a lot of Japan's neighourhood restaurants. A la Carte selections like shrimp, sea urchin (you can have medium or extra fatty - guess which one I chose?),  abalone, flatfish and something called striped jack fish (delicious!) cost between $3 and $7 each and sides of chawanmushi (an egg custard filled with fish that's topped with a crab claw and is now one of my all time favourite dishes) run about $10.

The counter is the hottest seat in Midori Sushi and the local atmosphere is truly wonderful.
Yakitoti, by the way, means "meat on a skewer, and as you can imagine, there's plenty of barbecue places in the Alley toasting morsels of meat (beef and lamb) as well as fish and chicken on small habachis.

The Izakaya restaurant around the corner from Midori Sushi - across from the International Arcade - was another of my favorite Yakitori Alley hangouts - lots of Tokyo businessmen come here after a hard day at the office to eat and sip beer and sake while the bullet trains rumble overhead.

There's a great "local" atmosphere in Izakaya but beware of what you order - the dish being consumed at the next table that looks so good could be horse. Not to worry, this eclectic eatery also dishes up chicken, pork, beef and fish - all at very reasonable prices.


The Yakitori Bar Tonton restaurant, tucked away in one of the arches off Yakitori Alley, is another of my favourite places to eat. I consumed lots of skewers of pork and beef but shied away from the smorgasbord of organ meats served in this restaurant, like heart, gizzard, liver, tongue and intestines.

There's also plenty of Western-style restaurants in the Alley.

Finding Yakitori Alley can be a bit of a challenge - the closest subway station is Hibiya (take exit A2)

Turn right at the top of the stairs and walk along the elevated rail line until you see the passage way with the glowing lights and the grill smoke rising from it.

Exit C1 from the Ginza station offers more subway line connections and isn’t too much farther away. From here you’re closer to the "uncovered" yakitori stalls rather than the original ones under the tracks.

The freshest fish is always on the menu in this Alley.