Breathtaking Hotel Pools

When we went on vacation as kids, my parents used to joke that our destination didn't matter… all we cared about was gift shops and swimming in the hotel pool. I'm older now, and gift shops have lost some of their appeal, but I still love a good pool.

These days, though, it takes a little bit more than the pool at the Holiday Inn to impress me. Here are ten breaktaking hotel pools guaranteed to knock the socks off adults and kids alike.

 

 

TOP ROW:
1. The Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore has a rooftop infinity pool right at the edge of the city's skyline. (You can also buy tickets to visit the pool, even if you're not staying at the hotel.)
2. The Hotel Joule in Dallas features this pool that cantilevers out over the city's streets. 
3. The heated swimming pool at the Hotel Portillo in Portillo, Chile is perfect for relaxing after a long day of skiing. 
4. At the Katkies Hotel, Santorini. 
5. The spectacular pool at the Raleigh hotel, built in 1940, has played host to celebrities and figured in countless postcards. It's still one of the hottest pool scenes in Miami.

BOTTOM ROW:
6. The hotel pool at San Alfonso del Mar, in Chile, is the world's largest swimming pool, sprawling for nearly 3/5 of a mile along the shore of the Pacific Ocean. It's also the world's deepest, bottoming out at 115 feet. 
7. The Endemico Resguardo Silvestre hotel, in Baja California's wine country, has a pool with breathtaking views of the desert landscape. 
8. The infinity pool at the Ubud Hanging Gardens, in Bali, is two stories tall and overlooks the surrounding rain forest. As if that weren't enough, each room also has its own plunge pool. Image from Freshome. 
9. The Casa Colombo Hotel in Sri Lanka boasts this pink pool. 
10. And no roundup of hotel pools would be complete without a mention of the massive pool complex at Caesar's Palace, in Las Vegas. Remniscent of the Neptune Pool at William Randolph Hearst's Hearst Castle, the Garden of the Gods pool oasis comprises eight different pools, all surrounded by temples and statuary. Non hotel guests can get in for a fee of $20 on the weekend.

Detox or simply relax at the chic Shanti-Som spa near Marbella

In the weeks leading up to my holiday at Shanti-Som – a new spa retreat between Málaga and Marbella – I had smugly enjoyed trying to make my friends jealous. It was cold and raining in England, and I was about to go to a spa in sunny Spain for a week to detox. No kids, no stress. Just a restful, healthy break from day‑to‑day life.

Largely, it worked. On everyone, that is, except my friend Lucy the Public Health Official, whose face took on an expression of something resembling horror. "That's against just about everything I stand for," she told me, before railing against detox types who just lay off the drink in January. "Anyway," she said finally, "you don't need to detox – you have a liver. Last time I checked, that was the thing that took toxins out of your body.".

I decided Lucy was being a bit of a killjoy and carried on being smug – right up to the moment I arrived at Shanti-Som and saw the programme. I was about to have five days of ingesting nothing but four "cleansing drinks" a day and a vegetable "broth" (not even soup!) in the evening. As someone who loves her food – and always found eating central to every holiday experience – I was appalled.

There was one more thing on the programme that put the fear of God into me. Three little words had been giving me minor palpitations from the moment I read them: "self-administered colonics". I was expected to do this twice a day, every day. Panicked texts to my partner ensued.

I had arrived early in the day – before the programme officially started that evening – so I hatched a plan to enjoy some proper food before the detoxing kicked off. I was just surveying Shanti-Som's delicious lunch menu – Indian thalis, Thai noodle soups, steaks – when the waiter warned me not to get too excited and gently "suggested" I stick with one of two or three less fun options (beetroot and goat's cheese salad without the goat's cheese, for example). I had a delicious vegetable tagine and, against his "suggestion", ordered some cornbread, which I ate with gusto, as if it was the last supper – which to some extent I suppose it was.

Reassurance arrived in the form of Ana Canelas, the health coach who would be guiding us through the programme. She'd read the health questionnaire I'd filled in before coming, which had highlighted habits and issues that I'd begun to accept as a fact of life: that afternoon sweet craving; tiredness after lunch; tiredness most of the time, come to think of it.

"You are really going to benefit from this experience," she said.

She talked me through the various torturous-looking implements that had been left in my room: a body brush for increasing circulation, a tongue scraper (to be used first thing every morning) and finally the implement that looked worryingly like something they use in waterboarding: a long, wide plank with a big hole and a red tube at the bottom. Those colonics again.

The next day the programme started in earnest. After the tongue scraping, body brushing and a cup of hot water and lemon, it was time for the daily yoga class, which was all "oms" and "shanti shanti shantis" and stretches. This type of yoga is very in keeping with Shanti-Som, a spiritual place full of Buddhas, healing corners, open terraces for outdoor yoga and waterfalls celebrating femininity and goddesses.

Then it was a "breakfast" of our first cleansing drink followed, at mid-morning, by our supplements (a series of brown vitamins and minerals) before the thing I'd been dreading: enema time.

I'll spare you the details as you might be reading this over breakfast and this is one of those instances where there is such a thing as Too Much Information. In brief: the practicalities were easier than I'd feared. But I'm not going to lie. It was weird. Very weird. Made weirder by the fact that the enema was made up of coffee water. Two litres of it to be precise, had to go through a hole where, in my experience, coffee doesn't usually go. ("Coffee is a great way to stimulate the liver and help clear out the colon," said Ana. Then, spying my scepticism, added, "Don't worry. You're going to love it.")

That first day I was very hungry and a bit miserable. It was difficult walking past that restaurant and watching regular spa-goers tucking into a proper meal. The broth at dinner time was tasty, but I was gagging for some bread. Or something – anything – to chew.

The detox programme lasts five full days and is strictly regimented. Yoga at 8.30am, cleansing drink at 9, first lot of colonics at 11, and so on. All that really changes is what you're putting into your body each day, with the drinks ranging from wheatgrass green, to beetroot pink to carrot orange. The colonic water that at first had coffee in it was on the next day mixed with clay (good for grabbing mucus apparently) then garlic ("Great for fighting parasites," said Ana). The garlic was the worst.

The weather when I visited, in March, was beautiful, and in between our various detoxing commitments we lounged by the pool, read books or indulged in treatments in the spa. At the beginning of the week I barely had the energy for much else.

"The first two or three days of fasting are the worst" said Ana. "After that, it is much easier."

I went through a bit of a masochistic phase during those early days, eyeing up delicious recipes on my iPad that I promised myself I was going to cook when I got home. But Ana's health class soon put me right about what I should be eating when I got back. It was too much acid in our diet, she taught us, that led to lack of energy and a whole variety of health problems. We should be striving for a more alkaline-based diet including more avocados, nuts and seeds and much, much less meat and dairy.

About halfway through the third day, I turned a corner. It might have had something to do with the fact that I'd noticeably lost weight while I was there, weight I'd been half-heartedly trying, and failing, to lose since having my first child four years ago. Suddenly, looking in the mirror wasn't quite such a depressing sight. Just as Ana had predicted, my energy came back. The daily yoga class was making me feel amazing. On the final night, when we were allowed to eat again, we had a carrot salad to start with, followed by a small plate of quinoa and roasted veg. I don't know whether my taste buds were overexcited at the thought of real food, but it seemed like the most delicious meal I'd had in a long time.

A detox holiday like this is not for everyone. But Shanti-Som is a lovely, relaxing place, so it's fortunate that they have a lot less extreme healthy offerings, including yoga retreats and weight loss programmes that do involve eating some food.

I couldn't say whether I'd do something as drastic as a detox week again. But for me, it worked. Three months later, I've managed to put some of the healthy eating lessons into practice and look and feel better for it. The challenge now is to try to keep it up in the long term.

Dark side of paradise... the death of Eva Rausing puts the spotlight on Barbados

The death of Eva Rausing casts a spotlight on Barbados, the island of choice for the Kemenys, Kidds and Rausings, where drugs are plentiful and the days are long

 “Cocaine dealers are everywhere, they swarm around you like flies.” 

For whatever reason, this dark underbelly to the Caribbean paradise was an aspect of life the Rausings were acutely aware of. A 27-minute drive inland from the couple’s home stands Verdun House, a white-shuttered, pale green colonial style building, fringed with palm trees. From the outside it could be just another opulent second home, but Verdun House is an addiction rehab centre run by the Barbadian Substance Abuse Foundation. It was funded by Eva and Hans.

Poignantly, the website states: “The clients at Verdun House are from any and everywhere. Addiction is no respecter of colour, class, creed or nationality; anyone can become an addict.”

Following a renovation in 2007, a newsletter on Verdun House’s website said: “Our thanks go out to all who have helped in this effort, especially Hans & Eva Rausing without whom none of this would have been possible.” The fee for a 90-day treatment is £4,850.

The pair met, as has been reported widely this week, at a rehab centre in the United States, more than 20 years ago, battling their own demons, and they have given many millions to addiction charities.

But even without the drugs it was perhaps inevitable their worlds would collide. Their social circle, a Venn diagram of moneyed, philanthropic but fast-living friends, has long congregated on the west coast of Barbados — where wealthy Americans and well-bred Brits meet, mingle and party. As one frequent British visitor to the island told the Evening Standard this week: “If you’re merely a millionaire, you wouldn’t feel that wealthy on Barbados. This is truly a billionaire’s playground.”

Hans, 49, heir to the £5.4 billion Tetra Pak fortune, and Eva, 48, were members of this glamorous Bajan set, which also includes the well-known and wealthy Kidd family, into which Be Kemeny, Eva’s sister, married. The Kemeny girls who, like the Kidds, are considered “old money”, are the daughters of Thomas Kemeny, a former PepsiCo executive and his wife Nancy, wealthy Americans who split their time between Barbados, New York and another beachfront house in South Carolina.  

The Kemenys, Kidds and Rausings all own houses on the west coast of the island, dubbed the “platinum coast” because it boasts the most expensive real estate in the Caribbean. The last time Be Kemeny saw her sister alive was on this exclusive stretch of silver sand at Christmas.  

On the appropriately named Polo Ridge — part of the oldest community — stands the family home of the aristocratic Kidd family, Holders House. Polo is a unifying factor among the rich in Barbados and the colonial-style mansion, set in 300 acres with its own polo field, is where Johnny Kidd, son of the publishing tycoon Lord Beaverbrook, and his wife, Wendy, the daughter of the baronet, spent every holiday bringing up their three children. Jack, 36, a former professional polo player, now lives on the island looking after his father’s estate while Jemma, 36, is a make-up artist married to Arthur Wellesley, Earl of Mornington. Jodie, the youngest at 33, a former supermodel and polo player, is the partner of Argentinian polo player Andrea Vianini.

She was discovered in Barbados at 15 by the photographer Terry O’Neill, and was dropped by M&S over allegations of using and selling cocaine five years ago, although she was never charged. It was at an estate near the Kidds’, the 20-acre beachfront home of the Bamford family, of JCB digger fame, that Jack met his future wife Be, at a party to celebrate the Millennium.

Be has said of the meeting with Jack: “It was inevitable Jack and I would meet and, sure enough, that night I saw him dancing wildly. I went across to talk to his father, Johnny, whom I knew well and, at that point, Jack fell over backwards into a hedge. He was clearly drunk and very merry but his father laughed and said, ‘You will love him when he’s sober’.”

Seven months after Jack and Be met at that new year party, the pair married at London’s Hurlingham Club — which hosts London’s annual Polo in the Park event — but after four children in rapid succession, they divorced in 2006 amid accusations of Jack’s infidelity.

Be sent an admirably frank email to 200 friends and business associates from her husband’s database informing them the marriage was over before smashing Jack’s computer and throwing the pieces into the lake at their home in Windsor. Jack quickly moved on, and had another child, Jesse, now 21 months old, with model Callie Moore. The couple split up in January this year, with Barbados itself cited as a reason. “Jack wanted me to live in Barbados with him and I did go there four months ago,” Moore has said. “But it didn’t work out. I really don’t like the lifestyle in Barbados or the people. Jack and I lead completely different lifestyles — he likes going out every night and that is just not for me.”

While Barbados is, many visitors say, the most sanitised island in the Caribbean, with genteel afternoon tea on hotels lawns and the practice of “fogging” to rid the grounds of mosquitoes, “there is also definitely a dark underbelly to the island,” says a New York writer who spent last Christmas and New Year’s Eve — or Old Year’s Night, as the celebration is known there — in Barbados. “The drug-taking was quite obvious, even in some very expensive and glamorous restaurants, with people disappearing off for long periods during dinner — and it seemed to be completely accepted as the norm,” says the writer.

Unlike, say, the Hamptons — the summer playground of the super-rich of New York where the wealthy stay sequestered behind manicured hedges and electric gates — in Barbados there are no boundaries, either physical or metaphorical, and everyone partakes in the lively nightlife scene, frequenting the many restaurants, bars and nightclubs, which range from the glossy to the deliberately divey. “People don’t feel the need to hide away; everyone goes out in Barbados, and no one bothers anyone,” according to one homeowner on the island. “Because everyone here has so much money, no one cares who anyone is.”

“People do throw quite incredible and wild private parties, on their boats as well as in their homes,” he reports. “But everyone goes out too. You can be at any bar and expect to see billionaires enjoying a beer along with everyone else.”

And, crucially, no matter what their bank balance, the residents of Barbados apparently have complete confidence in their privacy. “There is an inner-circle atmosphere,” says the part-time resident. “I never worry about anyone taking a picture of me or my friends. It’s not like St Bart’s — there is an absence of paparazzi here, and everyone has known each other for so long, it feels very safe and secure.”

Nothing celebrates luxury like Champagne.

All effervescence is not the same in the land of Champagne. While the knock-offs flow freely, the authentic sparklers remain a luxury you would have to pay a high price for. Photo / Thinkstock

Champagne remains the ultimate luxury libation: favoured by the rich and famous and deemed an essential toast at important celebrations. But what makes it so special and what's behind the big bucks that people are prepared to pay for the real deal?

To be true Champagne, it has to come from the eponymous French region. In the past, fashioners of fizz from across the world have cashed in on its famed name - from calling their foreign examples champagne, to name-checking its process of production, the Methode Champenoise, on their labels. However now, the region's name is safeguarded under law as a protected designation of origin as well as a lucrative trademark.

It's the bubbles that are behind much of Champagne's allure, but all effervescence is not equal. It may have been Englishman Christopher Merret who was the first to document the deliberate addition of sugar to a still wine to engender its sparkle, but the Methode Champenoise - also know as the Methode Traditionelle - was a process honed in the cellars of Champagne.

This most meticulous of methods, which results in the most complex wines with a finer more persistent mousse (bubbles), is when the second fermentation that provides the fizz occurs in-bottle.

Tattoos are permanent reminders of temporary feelings

'It's wisest to pick someone whom you cannot break up with or divorce.' Photograph: Gary Powell/Getty Images

Tattoos are permanent reminders of temporary feelings – at least if you believe the report in Thursday's Daily Mail, which looked at "embarrassing" matching couple tattoos – designs that complement or complete each other across two, romantically involved bodies.

Yet there are millions of people who feel no embarrassment about the tattoos they share with their friends, lovers and even exes. Moreover, as with most perceived "new trends" in tattooing, this practice is one with a history far older than the current generation; it's a phenomenon that provides both an insight into human beings' fundamental relationships with their own bodies and the bodies and lives of those close to them.

 

Tattoos have been used as markers of association for probably as long as human beings have walked the earth, to mark tribal affiliations, regimental membership in the military, membership of fraternal orders such as the masons or US college Greek letter groups, and to signify gang membership.

The most common of these types of affiliative tattoos, though, is marking an attachment to a loved one. There's an old adage in tattooed circles that suggests getting your lover's name tattooed on you is a sure kiss of death for that relationship, and it's an old gag too: Norman Rockwell's famous 1944 Saturday Evening Post cover painting, The Tattooist, shows a salty sailor in the tattooist's chair, having yet another name added to an arm already full of the crossed-out names of past paramours. Even earlier, a cartoon in Punch from 1916 shows a "fickle young thing" – a well-turned-out young woman, as it happens – revisiting her tattooist to seek an amendment to the ornamental crest tattoo on her arm as she has, euphemistically, "exchanged into another regiment".

 

None of this seems to have affected the long-standing popularity of having names or symbols tattooed to commemorate couples' love and bond. Magazines in the 1920s reported the latest fad for newlyweds was getting matching tattooed wedding rings; preserved tattooed skins in the Wellcome Collection from the late 19th century feature names and portraits of lovers; studies of tattoos in the American navy in the 18th century reveal a large percentage of seamen of the period bore tattoos of the names of women; even Christian pilgrims in the 16th century were recorded to have borne the names of their wives on their skins, as tokens or identificatory marks; and records attest to romantic tattooing even in ancient Rome – St Basil the Great (329-380) is said to have condemned the tattooing of a lover's name that he observed on someone's hand. While I'd certainly never advocate getting a permanent mark of your relationship too hastily, it does seem that the instinct to inscribe a permanent token transcends the ages. Caveat amator.

 

Single tattoos that span multiple bodies appear to be a more recent phenomenon, however. In 1977, New York-based tattoo artist Spider Webb undertook what was probably the first conceptual art project to use tattooing, in a piece called X-1000, in which he tattooed single, small Xs on to 999 individuals, and, as a culmination, one large X on the final, 1,000th skin, conceived as one contiguous work. This tattoo, potentially spanning thousands of miles at any one time, was, Webb said, "the largest tattoo ever done at any point in history". In 2000, as the culmination to a performance art project begun in 1998 designed to highlight the horrific lives and plights of the homeless and hungry in Mexico City, Santiago Sierra produced his piece 160cm Line Tattooed on Four People, a single black line tattooed across the backs of prostitutes in exchange for wraps of heroin, as a symbol of their desperation, interdependence, and utter powerlessness. Sierra would later remark: "You could make this tattooed line a kilometre long, using thousands and thousands of willing people." In 2003, author Shelley Jackson famously published her short story Skin on the bodies of 2095, one tattooed word per person. These tattoos bring together strangers in common cause.

 

My favourite set of matching tattoos, though, are probably the ongoing collection of work worn by twins Caleb and Jordan Kilby, tattooed with matching work by influential and extraordinarily talented New York-based artist Thomas Hooper. If you must get matching tattoos with someone, it's wisest to pick someone whom you cannot break up with or divorce, and to get the work carried out by a tattoo artist who will produce a piece of work that will stand the test of time on its own terms.

Turkish Delight

Turkish DelightGulets, traditional Turkish wooden boats, anchored off Gemiler Island. Andrew Eil

• The Lydian, an ancient Greek amphitheater in Knidos, on the Datca Peninsula. Andrew Eil
• A gulet on Gokova Bay, near the city of Bodrum. Andrew Eil
• The writer on the Zephyria II, with Butterfly Valley in the background. Andrew Eil
• An inlet on the Gulf of Fethiye, near Gocek. Andrew Eil

12345

 

Confined spaces do not often make for harmonious family vacations — unless, apparently, they are the close quarters of a gulet, a traditional Turkish wooden yacht, and you are sailing along the Turquoise Coast. I recently spent a week doing just this, with my aunt, uncle, cousins and husband, on the Zephyria II. We sailed from Gocek to Bodrum, a trip commonly referred to as “the Blue Voyage.” Some people come to Turkey because it’s the land of Homer, others for the Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins. I came for the water — the pellucid Mediterranean, alternating between shades of blue and green. I’m not sure why it isn’t declared a wonder of the world.

Being on the gulet, to quote the writer John Flinn, is like the life of a dog: “You swim, you eat, you get taken for walks.” With every need taken care of by the capable crew, I dare you to try being anxious or stressed. The only big decisions of the day are when to take a swim and how many salted almonds to snack on between meals.

Topographically, this part of the Mediterranean is a close cousin of the Amalfi Coast, but there is more of an undiscovered, rustic feel in Turkey, as very few of its coastal towns are anywhere near as built up as Positano. For vast stretches there are no signs of civilization at all, save the odd Turkish flag planted on a hillock, a family of goats skipping along the rock ledges, or clusters of stone ruins. 

On the gulet, meals are the big event. In between sumptuous feasts of Turkish meze, the days are filled with activities like swimming in a semi-submerged ancient Roman bath where Cleopatra is rumored to have taken a dip. One evening, Ismael, our sturdy captain, sailed us to a tranquil anchorage behind Gemiler Island. We hiked to the top, stopping along the way to see the ruins of Byzantine-era churches. The sun set in shades of lavender.

The next morning we arrived at Butterfly Valley. There weren’t any butterflies, which evidently avoid the tourist season, but there were towering cliffs on either side of a secluded slice of beach. We dove in from the ladder of the boat and frog-kicked to shore. By the third day, I had only started to get slightly inured to my physical surroundings. “Oh, another beautiful cove,” I thought, looking up from my Kindle. Another morning, we landed at Ekincik Bay, which is known as “hidden paradise” — words that could have described just about any place we’d been over the previous few days.

About mid-week, we arrived in Dalyan, a town known for its blue crabs and arresting stone tombs carved into the side of a cliff. All nine of us loaded onto a riverboat that took us through the Dalyan Delta. On our temporary floating home, we motored through the wetlands, later ordering a freshly baked crab from another boat. Some visitors come to Dalyan for 10 to 15 days of mud baths. Asked about the mud’s benefits, our tour guide replied, “Your skin will look like a baby’s bottom.” Though I was advised that a single bath would not accomplish this goal, I nonetheless slathered myself in the mud, withstanding the unpleasant smell of sulfur in pursuit of soft, perfect skin. (I’m not sure it did much.) Afterward, we swam in a vast, emerald-colored freshwater lake called Koycegiz, and I forgot about everything.

In Datca, a town situated on a serpentine peninsula south of Bodrum, the call to prayer was drowned out by booming techno music emanating from a nearby beach populated with scantily clad Turkish vacationers. We saw our final batch of ruins in Knidos — the remnants of an ancient Doric port — then set off for Mersincik Bay, another breathtaking cove with crystal clear water. On our last day, we went to Black Island, directly across from Bodrum, and swam in hot springs. Cleopatra is purported to have spent three years there, hiding from the Romans and taking mineral baths every day.

That night, we dropped anchor about four miles from Bodrum. As we fell asleep on the rear deck, under the moon and stars, the bass of discotheques thumped gently in the distance. Unlike the water of the Turquoise Coast, Bodrum, we learned the following day, is better viewed from afar. Though you can get all your Gucci knockoffs there, we were quickly reminded of what had become our maxim: life is at its best on the gulet.

Latvian company creates leather bound Ferrari

We're familiar with seeing tight leather on smoking hot women, and weird old men, but it's a first for us seeing a leather bound Ferrari F430.

There seems to be a lot of fuss over this leather bound Ferrari F430 in the UK with both The Sun and The Daily Mail reporting about it recently.

However, this isn’t a new car by any means as US motoring blog Jalopnikreported on the F430 way back in August last year. It’s a pretty cool, albeit manky, car so we thought we’d show you anyway.

It’s the work of a Latvian custom car company called Dartz who hit the headlines in 2009 when they created a $1.5 million ruby red SUV with whale foreskin-covered seats. Yes, foreskin…

Anyway, some high roller with more cash then sense decided it would be a great idea to cover his €170,000 Ferrari in dark leather.

The owner of Dartz, Leonard Yankelovich, said: "One of our very rich customers from the Cote d'Azur wanted a leather exterior and knew we could deliver.

"It took three of my staff 16 working days to apply the leather and finish. He was more than happy when he picked it up."

He won’t be too happy when he scratches it though.

Is this the most expensive way to ruin a Ferrari?

The Hilton Worldwide Waldorf Astoria and Mandarin Oriental have announced plans to open properties in Chengdu.

Chengdu is the place to be for major international luxury hotel chains as the booming city continues to attract top names.

The Hilton Worldwide Waldorf Astoria and Mandarin Oriental have announced plans to open properties in Chengdu.

The first Waldorf Astoria hotel in the capital of Sichuan Province is scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2016, which will make it the fifth Waldorf Astoria in China. Situated in the Chengdu Tianfu New Area, the hotel will occupy the top 15 floors of a mixed-used development. Service apartments will fill the lower part of the building.

“The introduction of the Waldorf Astoria brand into Chengdu marks another major milestone in Hilton Worldwide’s expansion across central and western China. We look forward to allowing more guests in China to experience the classic elegance and modern grandeur embodied in this iconic brand and also to helping embellish Chengdu’s status as a leading meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) and tourist destination,” said John Vanderslice, global head of luxury & lifestyle brands, Hilton Worldwide.

The Mandarin Oriental Chengdu is scheduled to open in 2015 on a prime riverfront site in the Jin-jiang district, across from the ancient Wang-jiang Park. Being touted as the most sophisticated luxury hotel in China, the Mandarin Oriental Chengdu will feature 320 rooms, including 41 suites with plenty of spa and fitness amenities.

Luxury home prices likely to fall in Greater Taipei in 1st half

Prices of luxury apartments in New Taipei City may go down by 10 percent in the second half while those in the outskirts of Taipei by 5 percent, said Yen Pin-li, general manager of real estate advisor DTZ, yesterday. He made the remarks during a news conference yesterday reviewing the housing industry in the second quarter. He based his prediction on the possible effects of the newest credit control measure launched by the central bank against buyers of posh, upscale apartments. Under the measure, banks are not to provide loans of over 60 percent of prices to buyers of luxury homes, which are defined as those exceeding NT$80 million in total price in Greater Taipei and NT$50 million in other parts of the island. Banks are also not to provide home equity loans, home improvement loans or other types of loans to offer additional money to these people, the central bank stipulated. The measure is an extension of an earlier rule restricting loans to buyers of properties in certain portions of Taipei and New Taipei City. The new measure has been effective in suppressing buying in the luxury home market, Yen said. “In the past, one luxury apartment for sale would bring three groups of potential buyers. Now there is only one,” he said. “Consumer sentiment has waned noticeably.” With no incentives or growth dynamics in the market, prices are expected to go through a correction in the second half, he said.

Chinese Millionaires and Super Rich Live

According to Hurun Research Institute, there are a total of 2.7 million dollar millionaires in China and those in Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai combined represent almost half of total dollar millionaires (47.6%). 

There are 63,500 super rich (CNY 100 million or USD 15.8 million) in China, most of whom are business individuals.

These numbers are known rich people in China and the real number is probably twice or even three times as much.

Diabetes drug makes brain cells grow

The widely used diabetes drug metformin comes with a rather unexpected and alluring side effect: it encourages the growth of new neurons in the brain. The study reported in the July 6th issue of Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press publication, also finds that those neural effects of the drug also make mice smarter. See Also: Health & Medicine Brain Tumor Stem Cells Nervous System Mind & Brain Brain Injury Intelligence Neuroscience Strange Science Reference Neural development Stem cell treatments Diabetes mellitus type 2 Embryonic stem cell The discovery is an important step toward therapies that aim to repair the brain not by introducing new stem cells but rather by spurring those that are already present into action, says the study's lead author Freda Miller of the University of Toronto-affiliated Hospital for Sick Children. The fact that it's a drug that is so widely used and so safe makes the news all that much better. Earlier work by Miller's team highlighted a pathway known as aPKC-CBP for its essential role in telling neural stem cells where and when to differentiate into mature neurons. As it happened, others had found before them that the same pathway is important for the metabolic effects of the drug metformin, but in liver cells. "We put two and two together," Miller says. If metformin activates the CBP pathway in the liver, they thought, maybe it could also do that in neural stem cells of the brain to encourage brain repair. The new evidence lends support to that promising idea in both mouse brains and human cells. Mice taking metformin not only showed an increase in the birth of new neurons, but they were also better able to learn the location of a hidden platform in a standard maze test of spatial learning. While it remains to be seen whether the very popular diabetes drug might already be serving as a brain booster for those who are now taking it, there are already some early hints that it may have cognitive benefits for people with Alzheimer's disease. It had been thought those improvements were the result of better diabetes control, Miller says, but it now appears that metformin may improve Alzheimer's symptoms by enhancing brain repair. Miller says they now hope to test whether metformin might help repair the brains of those who have suffered brain injury due to trauma or radiation therapies for cancer.

Freeze Fresh Herbs in Oil to Preserve Them

Have a few fresh herbs sitting around that you won't get to using before they turn? Sure, you can freeze them in water or dry them out, but if you know you'll use them relatively quickly, you can add a few weeks to their life without damaging their potency by freezing them in oil instead. We've shown you how to make simply syrups with them, and how to use sea salt to dry them, but if you have some lovely herbs you want to use, but won't get to before they turn brown, consider dropping them in an ice cube tray, filling up the cubes with olive oil (or any other oil of your choice, as long as it freezes nicely), and popping them in the freezer. When you're ready to fry some potatoes, for example, pop out a couple of rosemary oil cubes—you'll need the oil for the pan anyway, and the rosemary will be right at home. Need some oil in a baking dish or crock pot for a few chicken breasts? Grab a frozen sage oil cube. The sky's the limit. The only thing to note is that with some herbs have a shorter shelf life when frozen in oil than in water (like garlic, for example), so this won't beat drying if you're looking to keep your herbs fresh for months and months. It will, however, work for weeks on end, and if you freeze them, pop them out of the ice cube trays and put them into zippered baggies, they'll keep even longer. Then, the next time you need oil for a recipe, you can add a little fresh flavor at the same time. Hit the link below for even more oil-freezing tips, and some tips on which herbs take well to freezing and which don't.

mclaren 12C spider convertible

'MP4-12C spider' by mclaren

mclaren automotive has produced its second 'MP4-12C' model, the '12C spider'. bred through the essence of a race car, the '12C spider' incorporates a 

convertible roof explicitly designed to let users experience the sounds of the vehicle's V8 twin turbo engine. unlike many other convertible models, 
the hard top roof can be operated whilst moving at speeds of up to 30 kph (20mph) taking less than 17 seconds to raise or lower. with the '12C' originally
designed as a convertible, its 75kg carbon fibre monocle frame required no additional strengthening for it to feature in the 'spider'. 

closing the hard-top

the raising of the roof frees 52 liters of space for storage. in 2013, vehicle lift will be available as an option, allowing for the '12C spider' to be raised 
in the front and rear for improved ground clearance, up to 40mm (1.5") at the front and 25mm (1") at the rear.

the MP4-12C will be launched in 'volcano red', one of 17 exterior paint finishes currently available for the '12C' and '12C spider'. 
first deliveries to customers are planned for november 2012. 

closed top

3/4 top view

 

3/4 rear view

 

top view

interior view

specifications: 

0-62 mph (0-100 kph) : 3.1 sec 
0-100 mph (0-161 kph) : 6.1 sec
0-124 mph (0-200 kph) : 9.0 sec
¼ mile (400m) : 10.8 sec at 134 mph (216 kph) 

engine configuration: V8 twin turbo, 7 speed automatic

Barclays boss Bob Diamond resigns

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned with immediate effect. The move comes less than a week after the bank was fined a record amount for trying to manipulate inter-bank lending rates. Mr Diamond said he was stepping down because the external pressure on the bank risked "damaging the franchise". Chairman Marcus Agius, who said on Monday he was stepping down, will take over the running of Barclays until a replacement is found. "I am deeply disappointed that the impression created by the events announced last week about what Barclays and its people stand for could not be further from the truth," Mr Diamond said in a statement. He will still appear before MPs on the Treasury Committee to answer questions about the Libor affair on Wednesday. "I look forward to fulfilling my obligation to contribute to the Treasury Committee's enquiries related to the settlements that Barclays announced last week without my leadership in question," Mr Diamond said. Last week, regulators in the US and UK fined Barclays £290m ($450m) for attempting to rig Libor and Euribor, the interest rates at which banks lend to each other, which underpin trillions of pounds worth of financial transactions. Staff did this over a number of years, trying to raise them for profit and then, during the financial crisis, lowering them to hide the level to which Barclays was under financial stress. Prime Minister David Cameron has described the rigging of Libor rates as "a scandal". The Serious Fraud Office is also considering whether to bring criminal charges.

shopping sprees are more blingtastic than ever Ramadan gold rush

Outside London’s five-star Dorchester Hotel sits a Bugatti Veyron. These 253 mph supercars are rare enough at the best of times, but this one is unique: known as L’Or Blanc, or White Gold, its exterior is inlaid with porcelain, giving it the appearance of a highly polished humbug.

In terms of conspicuous consumption that takes some beating — £1.6 million for a car that is as delicate as a tea-set.

But for the Saudi owner who has had it flown over to London for the duration of his visit, that is what life is all about. Like the first swallows of summer, the arrival of the world’s rarest supercars in the capital heralds the start of another, lesser known, season — the Ramadan Rush.

Designed to stand out and be unique, the £1.6m Bugatti Veron known as L'Or Blanc or White Gold does just that

This year the weeks leading up to the Muslim month of fasting, which begins on July 20, have seen millionaires and billionaires flock to London from across the Middle East.

They come to escape the oppressive heat back home, to relax, to party and, above all, to show off their wealth.

For upmarket shops, restaurants, nightclubs and hotels, it is bonanza time. Forget the summer sales, these visitors want the best and are prepared to pay for it. 

 

 And so it is that Bond Street jewellers, West End designer outlets, casinos such as Les Ambassedeurs, restaurants such as Le Caprice, and hotels such as The Sheraton Park Tower have been instructing their (Arabic-speaking) staff to roll out the red carpet. 

The figures speak for themselves: some five-star hotels are reporting 80 per cent Middle Eastern occupancy. 

The pre-Ramadan spending spree is boosting the profits of high-end stores such as Selfridges and Harrods

As for the stores, the average British shopper will spend £120 during a trip to the West End and an American £550. Compare that with the average Saudi spend of £1,900. What’s more, in the month before Ramadan, the amount spent by Middle Eastern visitors will be double that in other months.

Of course, it is not the first time the high-rollers have abandoned the fierce heat of a Middle Eastern summer for London. But this year the numbers are well up on before. 

Saudi visitors are up 22 per cent year-on-year, while visitors from the UAE have risen to almost 120,000 — up nearly ten per cent.

With the burka banned in France, many who traditionally holidayed in Paris can do so no more. Furthermore, the shockwaves from the Arab Spring have encouraged many of the ruling elites to look beyond their own shores for a potential long-term safe haven. 

As a result, while house prices in other parts of Britain stagnate in the recession, Middle Eastern buyers have piled in to London properties, particularly those worth upwards of £5million, driving prices up.

‘The Ramadan Rush is a total phenomenon,’ says Jace Tyrrell of the New West End Company, the management company for retailers in Oxford Street, Bond Street and Regent Street. 

‘It is worth millions to us — last year there was about £120 million spent in the pre-Ramadan rush by Middle Eastern visitors, but it grows every single year. We expect it to be up ten per cent this year.’

In central London the signs of this flood of Arab money, and of businesses’ efforts to catch it, are everywhere to see.

‘This stunning international fashion label is looking for an experienced Arabic-speaking sales advisor to join their upmarket concession within Harrods,’ reads one vacancy advert. 

‘Arabic-speaking, experienced, talented makeup artists and skincare specialists needed for exciting positions in West End premier department store,’ reads another, one of dozens posted online. And it’s not just the staff who are hand-picked.

The visitors from the Middle East are not interested in buying run-of-the-mill designer goods and have no interest in discounted items. Consider the fact that the value of a single Saudi shopping transaction in London averages out at £600.

As a result the traditional summer sales in many upmarket London stores were brought forward to May and have ended early. They have now been replaced with tailored and often specially designed collections that will chime with the tastes of their incoming customers.

if you live in the right part of town, the sight of a Lamborghini Aventador is not that uncommon

‘They absolutely don’t want summer sales bargains, they want new season stock,’ explains a Selfridge’s spokesperson. ‘They’re very keen on fine jewellery and shoes, and on recognised brands like Chanel. They’re very savvy shoppers and they want the latest, most fashionable, limited-edition products.’

One example of targeting by the brands is to be found in the use of Oud, a distinctive fragrance, in scents and beauty products. 

‘Oud is a particularly popular scent for Middle Eastern shoppers, so a limited edition of, say, an Oud-scented fragrance, whether it’s by Armani, Jo Malone or Tom Ford, is very popular,’ says the spokesperson.

An Abu Dhabi-registered Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead seen driving around the streets of the expensive Mayfair area of London

Unsurprisingly, one of the biggest draws for the visitors is Harrods. Indeed, so popular is the department store with Middle Eastern travellers that the Ramadan Rush has also been nicknamed the Harrods Hajj — a light-hearted reference to the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

Again, limited-edition items are popular: Louis Vuitton handbags; diamond jewellery; watches from Cartier; leather goods; silk scarves, and perfumes from Hermès. 

Many of the purchases will be paid for in cash. Atif Nawaz works a stone’s throw from Harrods, at the Knightsbridge Foreign Currency Exchange.

Arab women are no strangers to Harrods, and like to spend money on Louis Vuitton handbags and Hermes perfume

He says it is not uncommon for Middle Eastern families to exchange £3,000 a day during a three-day shopping trip.

‘The family will go to Harrods or Harvey Nichols, spend the money they have and then send their chauffeur back to me the next day to exchange more money,’ said Mr Nawaz. 

‘It is spare change for these people. But even though they are rich, they always haggle. They’ll spend thousands in the casino or at Harrods but come back and argue about the exchange rate.’

It’s not just shops that benefit from this deluge of dollars and dirhams, the currency of the UAE.

Companies providing chauffeurs, private chefs and close-protection bodyguards are all reporting a surge in business, as are concierge companies who cater for the rich and famous.

One such outfit, Quintessentially, is currently looking after a Saudi woman who is visiting London. She has requested that every week she is here she be hand-delivered a new handbag. So far she has had ones by Celine and Isabel Marant. 

For another client they arranged for a guitar signed by Damien Hirst to be delivered to a member’s son because he loved the artist’s exhibition at the Tate so much. The cost? £10,000.

Quintessentially also laid on a very special tour of London for a group of male clients from the Middle East. The brief was that it was to involve cars and that money was to be no object. And so they arranged for a fleet of ten deluxe supercars to pick them up from their Mayfair apartment. 

They included a Bugatti Veyron, a Ferrari Enzo, a Lamborghini Gallardo and an Aston Martin DB9. 

The men then drove around the capital, stopping at ten of London’s most iconic locations and swapping cars at each. The drivers were equipped with wireless headsets through which a live commentary was given by a historian following in a car of his own. Better than an open-top bus tour. 

Karen Jones, editor of Citywealth, a publication aimed at ‘individuals of ultra-high net worth’ (the sort of people with £100 million-plus to invest), says that for her clients London is all about having a good time before returning home to observe Ramadan.

A Qatar-registered modified McLaren MP4-12C on the streets of London, it is worth around £200,000

‘Arabs love London because of the shopping and the fun,’ she says. ‘They don’t come to do business, they come and use London as a playground as we would Cannes or Monaco.’ One of her clients from Saudi Arabia told her that during a month in London he would expect to spend £100,000. 

His daytimes will be spent shopping at Hermès and dining at Scott’s, La Petite Maison, Le Caprice and Nobu, and in the evenings he will frequent the capital’s casinos.

‘He told me that one of his Saudi friends bought a £9 million flat opposite Harrods and then spent £1 million furnishing it,’ said Ms Jones. ‘The trouble was that he couldn’t get any staff to work in it or anyone to come and make him a cup of coffee, so he ended up going to stay in a hotel. He tried bringing maids to London but the minute they get here they disappear.’ Presumably into the black market.

The exterior of the Saudi-registered Bugatti Veyron L'or Blanc resembles an Everton mint. The car is seen here next to a Koenigsegg Agera

Even the weather isn’t off-putting. Ms Jones says: ‘They don’t get rain in places like Saudi, so running for a taxi in a shower is seen as a fun and exciting thing to do.’

Of course, the real high-flyers would not be seen dead in a taxi.
Instead they have their cars freighted over to London, generally by aeroplane, so that they can use them during their stay.

Take a trip around central London at the moment and supercars with Arabic-script plates can be seen — and heard — touring the streets.

Their drivers want to be noticed, and where better to be seen than outside Harrods? So it was that in the space of ten minutes on Wednesday afternoon I spotted a Saudi-registered Ferrari 438 worth £170,000 performing three laps of Harrods, its driver revving the engine each time he passed the famous green doors. He was followed shortly afterwards by a Dubai-registered, £270,000 Lamborghini SV.

L-R: Bugatti Veyron, Koenigsegg Agera, Bugatti Veyron and Lamborghini Aventador in London, all Middle Eastern owned cars

Given the wealth of the owners, it is perhaps unsurprising that little notice is paid to the British rules of the road. Each summer Westminster Council is left with tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of unpaid fines as these visitors abandon their cars on yellow lines. 

A list of last year’s most prolific offenders included the Arab owner of a £300,000 Rolls Royce who owed £2,000 for 18 tickets, and a Dubai-registered, £200,000 Lamborghini Murcielago which had racked up 24.

Meanwhile, the owner of a Bugatti Veyron L’Edition Centenaire — registration 444 — failed to pay £120 after he parked on a yellow line outside Selfridges (despite having managed to find £1.2 million to buy the car).

Town car: A Saudi-registered Rolls-Royce Ghost

A mile or two from Harrods, legally parked on the forecourt of the Sheraton Park Hotel are two Maybachs with foreign plates and a Qatar-registered McLaren MP4. 

‘The MP4 is worth about £200,000,’ one hotel worker explained. ‘It’s been brought in on a private jet and then driven straight off the plane to here. The amount of money these people can spend is ferocious. 

‘We had one chap here, the son of a Saudi prince, and he and his brother each had a Bugatti Veyron, which they had had shipped over while they stayed here. He told me he had just bought a fully crewed yacht and anchored it in Monaco. The thing cost him about £30 million and he had never even seen it.’ 

Even the super rich can't evade London's parking wardens - a clamped Saudi-registered Ferrari F430

Back at The Dorchester in Mayfair, the Veyron L’Or Blanc is attracting a crowd, even with its high-powered engine switched off.

The onlookers are discussing its vital statistics — kiln-fired porcelain inlay, eight-litre engine and acceleration of zero to 60mph in a touch over two-and-a-half seconds. As for fuel economy? That’s seven miles per gallon in town. With petrol prices what they are, that’s enough to send a shudder through the wallet of even a very well-off Briton.

But for the car’s owner, an unknown Saudi said to be in his 30s, the cost of a tank of petrol wouldn’t even count as small change.

A Kuwait-registered Ferrari 458 makes its way through the back streets of central London

With a top speed of 268mph, it won't take long for this Arab-owned Bugatti Veyron to catch up with the 36 bus

An Iraqi-registered Mercedes G55 jeep can be seen driving past a Bulgari store

 

BUGATTI VEYRON - GRAND SPORT - 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BUGATTI VEYRON - GRAND SPORT - 2009

Model Year - 2009

Mileage - 20.795 km

LHD

Exterior colour - White Silver

Upper leather colour - Cognac

Specification - Sport Comfort Seats & Individualisation

7.3 litre naturally aspirated, V12 - Max Power - 750 bhp (760 PS).

Interest Privately Canvassed

GUIDE  - 1.400.000 EURO (Net)

performance@holmesandco-london.com