Travellers' checks

One of the great winter travel experiences is being immersed in a Japanese outdoor hot-spring bath, or onsen, surrounded by steam and snow, and several of these are now available with the new "Sapporo + Hokkaido Outskirts" package offered by Cathay Pacific Holidays. This includes two nights in Sapporo at the Ramada hotel and one night at a choice of onsen resorts across Japan's northernmost island (Hokkaido), from the 19th-century foreign settlement of Hakodate in the southwest to remote Abashiri (above) on the northeast coast, by the Sea of Okhotsk. Prices range from HK$5,910 per person, twin share, including economy class flights, to HK$9,950 per person. Some resorts, such as the Tokachigawa Onsen Daiichi Hotel Toyotei (package price HK$7,140), offer private and public hot-spring baths. Rail tickets to the resorts are not included, but you can buy a Hokkaido Japan Rail Pass at the airport valid for the airport train into town and unlimited rail travel all over Hokkaido for three days (15,000 yen/HK$1,320), five days (19,500 yen) or seven days (22,000 yen). For details and reservations, go to www.cxholidays.com and select Sapporo. For Rail Pass information, visit www2.jrhokkaido.co.jp/global/english/railpass.

Tickets for a show at Ho Chi Minh City's Municipal Theatre, formerly and still sometimes known as the Saigon Opera House, are included as part of an Opera Nights package offered by the neighbouring Caravelle Hotel (above; www.caravellehotel.com). Three nights in the hotel's Opera Suite, which overlooks the opera house, dinner and a 150-minute spa treatment for two, daily breakfast, taxes and service charges are all included in the HK$17,339 price tag. The opera is a one-hour performance entitled Hon Viet, which celebrates Vietnamese culture and history. Available until May, the package is for stays covering the 14th or 23rd of each month, to coincide with the bi-monthly performances of Hon Viet. Smokers might like to be forewarned that the hotel went completely smoke-free on January 1 and will impose a fine on anyone caught smoking in their room equivalent to about HK$1,300.