Cathay Pacific is adding 20 extra return flights a week under its winter schedule between October 29 and March 24, strengthening its links to seven regional cities: Cebu, Denpasar (Bali), Hanoi, Jakarta, Surabaya, Kuala Lumpur and Taipei. The biggest increase is in flights to Taipei, with seven extra each week.
Cathay will also launch an in-flight food promotion on October 1, featuring dishes from Central's Yung Kee Restaurant for six months in all classes on its 48 daily flights from the SAR. There will be 33 dishes specially prepared by Yung Kee, one of Hong Kong's best-known restaurants since the 1960s, including its signature roast goose. After six months, dishes from another restaurant will be featured on Cathay flights from Chek Lap Kok.
The site lists more than 30 authors who can help plan a trip suitable to your requirements. The writers have been published with guide brands such as Lonely Planet and Fodor.
Business travellers who like to shake off jet lag or sharpen their minds for that early morning meeting can turn their bedroom into a fitness centre at Ritz-Carlton hotels in Osaka, Shanghai, Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong. An in-room fitness kit is available - consisting of weights, exercise mats and VCR with video tapes - for around US$30 per day. If you really want to burn up those calories you gained in-flight, then the hotels will also deliver to your room exercise bikes, walking machines, treadmills and heart-rate monitors. Working on the principle that travellers exercise according to their body clocks, not time zones, the chain says workouts won't have to be missed even when the hotel gyms are closed.
Guam will plumb the depths in its Hallowe'en celebrations, with an underwater pumpkin-carving competition on Saturday October 28. More than 250 divers of all ages are expected to compete for US$10,000 worth of prizes, including for most original pumpkin, scariest and funniest.