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The Ritz-Carlton Osaka is preparing to host what may well be the world's most expensive dinner. The cost? $2,000 a head - that's US dollars, around HK$15,600 per guest. The Napoleonic dinner on December 2 will be served to only 10 guests in the hotel's Presidential Suite overlooking the Osaka skyline. It will feature rare wines from the 1800s that cost more than US$2,000 a bottle, with fine cuisine favoured by leading personalities of the time, including Italian composer Rossini.
A Hungarian string quartet will play Chopin, Debussy and Ravel as guests dine, and waiters will wear elaborate French costumes from the 1800s. The dinner is to celebrate the end of the year 2000, which the Japanese believe is the true beginning of a new age. In spite of the hefty bill for this gastronomic extravaganza, the 10 seats were sold before the ink could dry on the invitations.
The skiing season is just around the corner and the Korean National Tourism Organisation will be offering free lessons - in Hong Kong. It can't provide the snow, of course, until you head for Korea, but theory classes will be held every Wednesday from tomorrow until February at Room 4203, Tower One, Lippo Centre, Queensway.
For further information, call Ms Ng at 2523 8065. Classes are limited to 20 people.
Cunard plans to build the world's biggest cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2, its first ocean liner since the Queen Elizabeth 2 was launched in 1967. The US$780 million (about HK$6 billion) vessel should be in service in 2003.
The 150,000-tonne QM2 will be 345 metres long, more than 50 metres longer than the QE2, and will carry 2,800 passengers, around 1,000 more than the QE2.
To get an idea of just how long the Queen Mary 2 will be, imagine that she will be nearly 50 metres longer than the Eiffel Tower is high, or as long as 36 double-decker London buses end to end. Her home port will be Southampton and she will fly the British flag, but the QM2 will be built in France. Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff were front-runners, but lost out on the contract.
