“BIG 5” LUNCHEON GRANDE PROVENCE HERITAGE WINE ESTATE

The annual “Big 5” luncheon held to raise awareness and funds for The Multiple Sclerosis Society of South Africa (MSSA) will take place at the five-star Grande Provence Heritage Wine Estate in Franschhoek on May 2. The “Big 5” 2010 event will feature five top South African chefs led by Executive Chef Jacques De Jager from The Restaurant at Grande Provence, who will present a five-course gourmet meal complemented by Grande Provence wines. Live entertainment will take place throughout the day and five items will be auctioned. Tickets can be purchased from the Estate.

Grande Provence Heritage Wine Estate wears her 300-year history with style. Nestled within the Franschhoek Valley in the Western Cape, surrounded by 47-acres of lush vines, this is heartland South African wine country at its finest.
The Estate is home to Grande Provence’s award-winning wines and its passionate wine making team. Following harvest every year, carefully selected wines leave the Estate to compete in some of the world’s most prestigious competitions – the number and frequency of the awards bears testament to their success.
A sophisticated destination in its own right, Grande Provence proudly presents superb cuisine at The Restaurant, fine wines at The Tasting Room, some of South Africa’s finest art at The Gallery & The Shop, receptions and boutique conferences at The Jonkershuis and 5-star accommodation at The Owner’s Cottage.

CLUB MED PHUKET LAUNCHES BABY CLUB

January 12, 2010: Club Med believes that a great holiday is fun, stress-free and filled with memorable moments for all your family. The official launch in December 2009 of the first “Baby Club” in Asia at their magnificent Resort in Phuket, will enable guests with even the youngest of families to enjoy some quality down time together.

ABOUT ASIA’S FIRST BABY CLUB AT CLUB MED PHUKET

Club Med’s dedicated services for children has always made things nice and easy for parents at our family Resorts while providing all the attention and tender care that little ones need.
The new Baby Club takes care of little ones with two groups - The PANDAS - aged between 4 months and walking age - and the NEMOS from walking age to 23 months

Days are adapted to suit the biological rhythms of each baby. Parents can leave their babies at the attractively designed and furnished Baby Club rooms and proceed to enjoy their own activities in the Resort with peace of mind.

Five good reasons to choose the Baby Club Med for your little ones
1. Parents can be rest assured that their little ones are in good hands. Club Med has many years of experience with babies and its professional staff is specially trained in childcare. These specialists have only a limited number of babies under their supervision to ensure the best attention for baby. The Baby Club is managed by a Baby Club Manager who is certified with the highest degree in early childhood care in Europe and who has also been trained in Asia to understand Asian standards.
2. Little ones are curious about their environment so the Baby Club is designed with materials and facilities that will appeal to baby’s sense of sight, smell, sound and touch.
3. Babies enjoy a program that is specially tailored and adapted to their biological rhythm. Nutrition, sleep and play are all perfectly balanced to keep babies in good spirits.
4. Parents can also enjoy activities such as baby massages, swim sessions and baby gym with their baby at the Baby Club. ‘Edutainment’ activities include puppet shows, colour and shape recognition games, sing-along sessions and making bubbles.
5. Parents can enjoy their Club Med holiday knowing that babies are well taken care of at the Baby Club.

WLDERNESS SAFARIS CAMPS RATED TOPS BY LEADING TRAVEL PUBLICATIONS

Wilderness Safaris Camps Rated Tops by Leading Travel Publications: Condé Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure Highlight Numerous Camps

January 2010 - Wilderness Safaris is thrilled to announce that a number of its camps featured prominently in Condé Nast Traveler's 16th annual Gold List and Travel + Leisure's "T+L 500 World's Best Hotels."

Jao, Mombo and Little Mombo, Vumbura Plains, Xigera and Savuti Camps all made Condé Nast's Gold List, which is considered to be "the ultimate annotated guide to the world's finest properties and cruise lines," as elected by more than 25 000 Condé Nast Traveler readers.

Jao Camp and Mombo/Little Mombo featured as two of the three places in the category 'Best by Location for Africa' (both receiving perfect scores of 100), as well as in 'Best Activities in Africa,' with scores of 98.4 and 96.4 respectively. Vumbura Plains was one of three Best by Design in Africa (with a score of 97.3).

Mombo and Little Mombo were proclaimed as "Africa at its finest," with a perfect-scoring location "so exquisite, a movie set couldn't replicate it." Jao also received outstanding reviews: "This is one of those special places that stay in your mind forever; a perfect-scoring location on an island with lagoons, grasslands, and floodplains; a mixture of fantasy and functionality; with canvas-and-thatch tents that fit the environment."

Travel + Leisure's World's Best Hotels lists the top 500 properties in the world, which are voted for by its readers. In the 2010 World's Best, Botswana camps Mombo and Little Mombo garnered a score of 90.42, while DumaTau Camp was awarded 83.93. The River Club was one of four Zambia properties that made the list, with a score of 87.22 and a recommendation to "spend an afternoon sipping Pimm's Cups and playing croquet on the inn's course!"

Wilderness Safaris is pleased to be recognised on such prestigious lists, particularly as they are based on reader votes and thus on the personal experience of discerning travellers.

UNEXPECTED VISITOR AT TUBU HIDE - BOTSWANA

Sighting: Unexpected visitor at Tubu Hide
Location: Jao Concession, Okavango Delta
Date: 01 January 2010
Observer: Kambango Sinimbo
Photograph: Grant Atkinson

The Jao Concession's Hunda Island is a wild, remote corner of the Okavango Delta. While we are used to some incredible wildlife sightings, some are certainly more unexpected than others.
Tubu Tree Camp guide Kambango Sinimbo and his guests had planned to enjoy a typically peaceful late afternoon coupled with the mandatory glorious sunset with a sundowner stop at Tubu Hide. They were all in for a pleasant surprise however.

As Kambango pulled up to the hide showing his guests the famous bush loo with a view while checking the adjoining floodplains for wildlife he casually said, "Let's stretch our legs here and climb up into the hide with our sundowners." No sooner had he said this when one of his guests responded, "Is that a stuffed toy up there on the hide?" After some reversing of the Land Rover and excited yells of "Stop!" and cameras clicking, Kambango reversed a little more to reveal the 'gate crasher' in all his glory - a resplendent male leopard stretched out on Tubu Hide.

He was totally relaxed and had made himself completely at home. Kambango was so surprised that all he could do was laugh and savour this easy leopard sighting.

CHINATOWN CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS - SINGAPORE

2010 - YEAR OF THE TIGER

Event Dates : 23rd Jan 2010 to 7th Mar 2010
Venue: Chinatown
Category:Family Entertainment, Heritage, Light-up, Cultural Celebration, Chinese event

Chinatown is a key focal point for Chinese New Year festivities in the few weeks leading up to Chinese New Year and a few weeks following that. Visitors can immerse in the entire Chinese cultural experience and experience the festive hustle and bustle simply by walking the streets of Chinatown. Chinatown is also where local Chinese congregate year after year to shop for the necessary new year items for the home and to soak in the festive atmosphere.

Key highlights at Chinatown:
Festive Street Stall, 23 Jan – 13 Feb
• Venue : Pagoda, Smith, Sago, Temple and Trengganu Streets, and People’s Park Complex
Nightly Stage Shows, 23 Jan – 13 Feb
• Venue: Kreta Ayer Square
Chinatown Chinese New Year Celebrations 2010 Countdown on 13 Feb
• Venue: Eu Tong Sen Street & New Bridge Rd
Chinatown Yuan Xiao Jie on 28 Feb
• Venue: Eu Tong Sen Street & New Bridge Road

TicketingFree

Getting There: Chinatown MRT station (NE4)

OASIS OF THE SEA

Oasis, which embarked on its maiden voyage on December 5 2009, is the biggest cruise ship ever built:
– So big that if stood on end it would be taller than either the highest skyscraper at Canary Wharf in London or the Chrysler Building in New York.
– So big that it can carry 6,296 passengers at a time.
– So big that it needs at least 312,000 passengers a year – It has to fill up every week because it only makes seven-night cruises.
– So big that British travel agents are worried they may not find enough aircraft seats between Britain and Florida to supply it. Four out of 10 British holidaymakers booking a West Indies cruise with the ship's owners, Royal Caribbean, are choosing to go on Oasis.
– And so big that $75 million has been spent on tripling the size of the Port Everglades terminal at Fort Lauderdale from where it sails, and new docks have been built around the Caribbean to berth it.

There are 21 pools on board including whirlpools, two of which stick out from the side of the ship like an epaulette high above the ocean. The AquaTheatre pool is almost 18ft deep. It's used for swimming and scuba diving lessons by day and for a water show at night – part Peterhof Palace in Russia, with fountains spurting 65ft in the air, and part Olympics, with synchronised diving and gymnasts bouncing off a trampoline.

The spa is the largest at sea, the fitness centre the biggest and the jogging track the longest. And for children, Oasis is a huge adventure playground where there's a children's theatre and science lab.
At night, as well as the jazz and the dancing, the karaoke and the guys doing stand-up in the comedy club, there is a Broadway musical in the Opal Theatre.

Size matters
Length: 360m (or just over 3.5 football pitches) - a "superjumbo" Airbus A380 is 73m long; the RMS Titanic was 269m long.
Height: 72m above the waterline - the same height as a 23-storey building
Displacement: 100,000 tonnes - equal to a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier
Speed: 22.6 knots
Cost: $1.4 billion

TRAVEL CHAOS RETURNS TO FREEZING EUROPE

The freezing weather sweeping across Europe has disrupted flights at airports in the UK, France, Ireland and the Netherlands.

According to a BBC report, flights were delayed or cancelled in Paris, Dublin and Amsterdam, as well as major UK airports.

A London-bound Eurostar train was stuck for about two hours in the Channel Tunnel on Thursday, while in Germany two trains have derailed in as many days, leading to delays and cancellations. Last month the Eurostar service was suspended for three days after several trains broke down in the tunnel. Powdery snow getting into the engines was identified as the cause.

In southern England, some 4,000 people were left without electricity after snow brought down power lines.

The cold snap is also affecting Scandinavian countries.
In Hemavan, in the far north of Sweden, a new winter low of -40.8C (-41.4F) was recorded overnight, Radio Sweden reports.
The Arctic freeze has also seen temperatures in central Sweden plummet to between -30 and -40C - the coldest weather since the mid-1980s.
In Norway, temperatures plummeted to -40C in some areas. The capital Oslo ran a reduced bus service because engine oil had frozen.