Singapore’s Raffles hotel finally reopens after a major makeover
- The revamped heritage property will feature three new restaurants, which are yet to open, and is running promotional offers
- Plus, Cathay Dragon launches flights to Niigata, Japan, from where the picturesque island of Sado is two hours away
Cathay Dragon to launch seasonal twice-weekly flights to Niigata, Japan
Cathay Dragon is due to launch twice-weekly flights to Niigata at the end of October. This will be the only non-stop service between Hong Kong and the Japanese city, and apparently also the first. It will, however, be discontinued in late March, at the end of the winter-sports season, which attracts many domestic tourists to the area.
If skiing and snowboarding don’t appeal, the island of Sado, which is a couple of hours by shuttle bus and ferry from Niigata Airport, is well worth a visit. As well as being unusually picturesque, it is also very friendly, as the civilian passengers and crew of a British military transport plane flying from Shanghai to Tokyo discovered when they crash-landed near the small coastal village of Takachi, in January 1946.
It is said that, despite their country having been at war with Britain just a few months earlier (a war from which many of their menfolk had not returned), the hospitable villagers dragged the partially submerged aircraft from the sea using ropes, and put the passengers and crew up in a local inn. They then spent the next 40 days transporting and arranging stones to build a rough, half-kilometre-long runway on the beach, before waving a tearful goodbye.
The curious series of events leading up to the crash-landing were featured in the film The Night My Number Came Up (1955), but this subsequent story was only brought to the screen in 2013, in the Japanese film Tobe! Dakota. Titled Fly, Dakota, Fly! in English, it was largely filmed on Sado with help from many islanders and a Dakota aircraft similar to the original. The plane was shipped over from Thailand, and left on the beach as a monument to the incident after filming ended.
The Sheraton Shanghai Fengxian boasts the brand’s new logo
In March, Marriott’s Sheraton Hotels & Resorts unveiled a fairly uninspiring new logo, reflecting “the brand’s holistic vision for the future, making Sheraton the central gathering place of communities around the world”. More than four months later, the first hotel to actually display the logo is the Portland Sheraton at Sable Oaks – a rebranded Marriott hotel that opened in 1988 in the city of South Portland, in Maine, in the United States. Modestly situated near an airport, between a Holiday Inn Express and an abandoned golf club, it doesn’t seem like the kind of place one might expect for the debut of a global hotel brand’s new logo.
Deal of the week – two nights in Cebu, in the Philippines
Lotus Tours’ two-night package to Cebu, in the Philippines, includes a choice of three resorts on Mactan Island. Cheapest is the Costabella Tropical Beach Hotel, which is priced from HK$3,070 per person, twin share. Alternatively, the Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort is offered from HK$3,220, or you can stay at the Plantation Bay Resort & Spa from HK$3,680. In Cebu City, the hillside Marco Polo Plaza is priced from HK$3,110 and the downtown Radisson Blu from HK$3,150.
