Indonesia Travel 04: CNNGo.com

Friday, November 9, 2012

CNNGo.com

British Airways plane is more hipster than Movember
Four Seasons Hotel Beijing opens
The loneliness of the solo ocean racer

British Airways plane is more hipster than Movember

Posted: 08 Nov 2012 07:35 PM PST

by CNNGo staff

The world's most enormous hipster -- British Airways' Airbus A319 aircraft -- joins the Movember crew with a giant connoisseur mo.

Movember, combining "moustache" and November, is an annual campaign to raise awareness of prostate cancer by encouraging people to grow a moustache in November. Find out more about Movember. We are using British spelling here with moustache, btw.

"We're always delighted to support Movember, it's a charity that is very dear to our hearts here at British Airways, especially as our former CEO Lord Marshall suffered from the disease," said Liz Wilkinson, British Airway's head of health services.

The airline stated they debated the pencil, the handlebar, the horseshoe and the trucker before settling down on the more sophisticated and classic connoisseur style stache.

The airline also encourages its crews to put on a stache for the campaign. Last year, British Airways and its men raised GBP80,000 (US$128,000) for the Prostate Cancer Charity.

Four Seasons Hotel Beijing opens

Posted: 08 Nov 2012 06:06 PM PST

by CNNGo staff

The Four Seasons Hotel Beijing opened in the Chinese capital this week -- but the adjacent top-of-the-range apartments were already making waves before the official opening.

Chinese tycoons and property magnates have stampeded to snap up the 210 Four Seasons Private Residences -- including the largest, which is priced at RMB 72 million -- and only a few are left on the market.

"The luxurious Private Residences range from 240 to 800 square meters, costing RMB 90,000 per square meter, and will have access to all the hotel's facilities once it is open," said Jennifer Sun, director of public relations.

"We're really pleased to say that most of the 210 units have been sold already."

Anyone not quite able to afford their own private residence should find some measure of consolation in the hotel itself.

The loneliness of the solo ocean racer

Posted: 08 Nov 2012 10:50 AM PST

by Jini Reddy

It's one thing to spend a few hours at sea, quite another to spend weeks alone offshore, cut off from family and friends.

But that's what lies ahead for the 20 competitors setting off on November 10, 2012, from Les Sables d'Olonne in France to sail solo, non-stop around the world in the Vendée Globe race, the "Everest" of sailing that takes place every four years.

That's three months of stress in the form of interrupted sleep, freak storms, technical hitches, fear, loneliness, potentially fatal accidents -- and a bucket for a toilet.

It's a challenge to make even the most seasoned of yachtspeople blanch.

So why do it?