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Highballs to Skyballs with Ginza's finest
No, minister: Bookshops are as Australian as a pie at the footy
China sets amusing rules on Shanghai-Beijing bullet train attendants
Can Chinese watchmakers compete with the world's best?
Life of a Burmese landmine refugee
Michael Madrusan to bring famed bar Milk & Honey to Melbourne
How Mumbai keeps couples together

Highballs to Skyballs with Ginza's finest

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 11:55 PM PDT

The first time Daisuke Ito mixed me a drink, he shook it in a Tupperware beaker -- a clear plastic number with a pop-on, pop-off lid.

I was in Ginza 6-chome, quite possibly the world's poshest and priciest drinking district, where bartenders make drinks the way Patek Phillipe makes watches (with rare precision and whopping price tags).

Shouldn't a top-flight Tokyo bartender be shaking stainless steel, if not 24-karat gold?

Not always, says Ito. Ice melts slower and chips less in a plastic shaker.

"Crushed ice disappears in a steel shaker," he says. That's why most bartenders don't shake it. But Ito has his Tupperware.

No, minister: Bookshops are as Australian as a pie at the footy

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 08:43 PM PDT

Walking into a bookshop and browsing new and used collections is as much a part of Sydney as sipping on a café latte. It's as Australian as an afternoon at the beach, or a pie at the footy.

That's why both book buyers and omnipresent shops were dismayed this week when the federal Minister for Small Business, Nick Sherry, said most book stores had a shelf life of about five years.

"I think in five years, other than a few specialist booksellers in capital cities we will not see a bookstore, they will cease to exist," Senator Sherry told an audience in Canberra.

China sets amusing rules on Shanghai-Beijing bullet train attendants

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 07:38 PM PDT

With the Shanghai-Beijing bullet train, or Gaotie (高铁), officially beginning service in two weeks, China is ready to impress the world not only with its speed, but also its on-train services.

To ensure every passenger has the best four hours of their life, bullet train authorities have held a national draft and constructed bizarre training courses by way of selecting the best ladies to serve on the high-speed rail.

More on CNNGo: 10 great, epic train journeys

Rules for would-be bullet train attendants include:

Can Chinese watchmakers compete with the world's best?

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 04:00 PM PDT

It's no secret that China is fast becoming the most important market on the planet for makers of luxury goods.

Wealthy Chinese customers are almost single-handedly sustaining demand for high-end watches from traditional European brands, and now, a home-grown contingent of luxury timepieces has also stepped up and are hoping to cash in on their compatriots' indefatigable hunger for high-end watches.

A weakness for watches

Watches have always held a special place in Chinese consumer culture, especially for men.

Life of a Burmese landmine refugee

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 04:00 PM PDT

Having fled their home country to escape oppression, what is to become of the thousands of Burmese refugees in Thailand?

Simon Roughneen

With his crutches resting against the clinic bed, Than Tin rolls up his trouser leg, gingerly pointing to a heavily bandaged leg stump.

"All I remember is being blasted up in the air," recalls the 48-year-old father-of-five, hoisting both arms to suggest the impact of the landmine. "First was no pain, but half my leg was gone, but then it was like so bad burning."

He was logging in the forests around Myawaddy, a trading town in Myanmar close to the border with Thailand, the site of one of the world's longest-running civil wars.

Michael Madrusan to bring famed bar Milk & Honey to Melbourne

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 03:00 PM PDT

Michael Madrusan's life is contained in a glass. He is part of a growing club of maniac mixologists who are more alchemists than bartenders, obsessing over just-chiseled ice and homemade tinctures.

The guy was behind reknowned cocktail bars PDT, Milk & Honey as well as Little Branch in New York. These bars have been leading the cocktail culture renaissance around the world, their influence reaching to the industry here in Hong Kong.

How Mumbai keeps couples together

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 02:58 PM PDT

In world-weary, workaday, weather-beaten Mumbai, couples stick together for all kinds of reasons, from the sublime to the ridiculous, with more leaning towards the latter.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the city itself often acts as the glue that keeps two people from coming apart.

A city, any city, impinges on the lives of its slickers in more ways than they know, and nowhere is Mumbai's omnipresence more apparent than in the price it extracts from those who can't say goodbye because the city won't let them.

Take parking for instance.