The Ithaa restaurant at the Maldives Rangali Island resort is one special place. If you don’t know about it already then let me tell you why it is special. The restaurant is underwater. Yes, it is a dome-shaped ‘reverse aquarium’, which means that the diners can sit comfortably in this dome while watching the sea creatures outside. The pictures will set you gaping at how beautiful and special this place is. To add to this, the food is scrumptious as well.
This place is owned by the Conrad Hotels, and these people are planning to convert this restaurant into a honeymoon suite on the occasion of the restaurants fifth anniversary. This room will be as god as any room on land with a double bed, and champagne treats in the morning for the newlyweds. But let me tell you that Maldives is not a cheap place.
Manchester Airport in the UK recently became the first regional airport to receive Airbus A380, which happens to be the world’s biggest commercial airliner. This super jumbo that graced the airport is operated by Emirates. Since this plane is larger than the usual planes that arrive at the Manchester Airport, the guys here spent almost £10 million to upgrade the airport in order to accommodate this huge plane.
New fire engines, a new aircraft stand and two bridges that are used to connect the plane to the terminal were added to the airport. The Airbus A380 is no ordinary aircraft. It boasts of accommodating as many as 525 passengers in its three-classes or around 853 people in an all economy-class configuration. The on-board facilities are nothing less than a luxury hotel. The upper level has a champagne bar. There are all these gizmos, fine dining and entertainment facilities that make for a wonderful flight experience.
Well, we all know the sheikhs in Dubai have lots of cash. And that would be like the understatement of the century. But it is not the guys at Dubai who have the real cash. Lets face it, the money is in oil, and the oil is in Abu Dhabi. So companies like Rolls Royce that cater to the ultra rich do not waste their breathe on the rich guys at Dubai, but the filthy rich sheikhs of Abu Dhabi.
Rolls Royce has brought out two new special edition Phantoms designed especially for the AD in UAE. Both the designs have been inspired by the country’s rich culture and landscape. The first design, the Phantom Drophead Coupe has been christened Shaheen, which is the local name for a peregrine falcon used for hunting. This car has a marquise-white exterior plus Tudor red lines and matching red and seashell leather interiors, and lovely brass falcon inlays and comfortable embroidered head-rests.
Gianfranco Quartaroli of Circuiti Gioielli personally gave the gold and diamond Championship Ring 2009 of the World Superbike finale race of the last season in Portimao to SBK World Champion, Ben Spies in 2009. The man has collaborated with some big names such as MotoGP, Giro d’Italia, the football player Antonio Cabrini and the SBK racer Noriyuki Haga.
Quartaroli, this time around has designed and created this super cool gold and diamond Championship Ring 2010 MX1 specially for the 2010 Motocross World Champion. This ring symbolises the passion, the strength and all that is associated with the Motocross World Championships. The stunning 35.70 grams ring is made of 18K white gold and is encrusted with white diamonds. The MX1 logo has also been encrusted in black diamonds to stand out. To make it extra special the name of the winner and the year will be engraved on the sides of this ring.
The famous fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg had planned to enter into the world of interior design. The designer signed the first project with another ultra luxe name, the Claridge’s. Now the designs have been transformed into uber cool reality of high fashion and have been unveiled by the famous Art Deco hotel in London’s Mayfair.
She says, “Claridge’s is the most glamorous hotel in the world. Hotels like this don’t exist anymore and the legacy must be respected! It is very important to keep the original architecture and the formality of the layout of the rooms in order to preserve the old style of grand hotel life that I love so much. It has been a true privilege to design new furniture, fabrics and rugs to keep it relevant for today’s needs and taste.” Well we completely agree to that!
Those Avatar fans out there have a chance to take a weightless ride with the man and the legend James Cameron. The event is actually a fund-raiser for the X PRIZE Foundation. The Oscar Winner is taking part in an auction of seats aboard a Zero-G Experience flight that takes off from Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles, California on October 9, 2010. Board Members of the X Prize and several other guests have already purchased seats to participate in this special event. Only three seats are available for this exiting trip and are up on eBay for an auction that ends on September 3, 2010.
G-FORCE ONE, a specially modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft will be the flight on which the guests will go for this cool weightless flight. Cameron urges bidders to go for it and says this from personal experience as he has already gone weightless before.
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If you are not aware, which I am sure you are, Carlos Slim of Mexico is one of the richest man in the world. The man has been busy investing his hard earned money in real estate ventures. His last acquisition was the Duke-Semans Mansion in New York, which he bought for an eye-popping $44 million.
But now he is again busy with a different kind of property. Carlos is an avid collector of French sculptor Auguste Rodin, and he happens to have the biggest collection of the artist’s work outside of France. So he has decided to make a museum named, Saumaya museum after his late wife to house this huge collection. It will be a six-storey museum and has been designed by son-in-law Fernando Romero. The building will have a very contemporary, shiny aluminium look and will have five stories of exhibition space adding upto 183,000 square feet.
Mount Pleasant’s most expensive residence is this gorgeous Southern-style plantation home that overlooks the Charleston Harbor from the mouth of the Shem Creek. It got the ‘most expensive’ title after being sold to a Michigan family for a whopping $7.5 million. The total area of this house is around 7,105 square feet, that makes the per square feet cost at about $1,069!
Located on Haddrell Street, this gorgeous 5-bedroom property was built in 2003. The new residents, Randolph and Donna Friedman intend to shift here permanently. Atleast that is what their real estate agent Douglas Berlinsky of Charleston-based Disher Hamrick & Myers said. The second most expensive house in Mount Pleasant area is the house on 101 New St., in the Old Village, which also happens to be the area where the current holder of the most expensive house is also located. It was sold in 2007, fetching a price of 3.25 million.
Most airlines do not encourage too much fun and frolic on their planes. A wedding would be out of question. But Scandinavian airline SAS is changing things and how! The airline said, “On a flight from Stockholm to New York, we will let love take over and wed one loving couple. The lucky couple who will spread their love worldwide will win an exclusive wedding and honeymoon package.”
But if you thought that this would be just a formality to advertise themselves, then think again. This wedding will be as luxurious as can be with a proper wedding reception in the air complete with a wedding menu, wedding cake and what not. Once the couple reaches their destination, The Big Apple, they will be whisked away to “one of Manhattan’s most luxurious” hotel to have a second reception, this time on land. After three nights in Manhattan, the couple will then be taken to the fabulous Andaz West Hotel in Hollywood for three more nights of fun before heading back home.
These days you can put anything up for sale and you are most likely to find several buyers interested in it. It is even easier to sell things in New York City. Guernsey’s auction house has put together an interesting assortment of items to be auctioned on September 24 at the Park Avenue Armory. The most unusual and interesting item in the lot is a copper chunk of nose crafted to fit the Statue of Liberty’s face during her 1980’s restoration.
The piece is unique in the sense that this two foot long section was one of four created to replace the nose of the Statue of Liberty. And this is the only one that is likely to be ever sold as out of the other three, one currently adorns the statue, one was destroyed and the third one is in a private collection.
