Arts
Monday, September 6th, 2010 | 80 views
 Hello Kitty Kawaii Paradise (TOKYO-Relaxnews) - Super-cute Japanese character Hello Kitty is to have her own theme park in the Odaiba district of Tokyo.
“Hello Kitty’s Kawaii Paradise” — “kawaii” is Japanese for “cute” — is scheduled to open on October 22 inside the vast Venus Fort shopping complex in Odaiba, which is undergoing rapid development as it looks to attract both Japanese tourists and travelers from overseas.
The indoor amusement park will have a floor space of more than 890 square meters on the first floor of Venus Fort and PleasureCast Co., the subsidiary of Namco Ltd. that will operate the facility, is expecting more than 700,000 visitors in its first year alone. There are two theme parks, Harmonyland and Sanrio Puroland, run by the company that feature Hello Kitty, but this is the first dedicated to the cute cat.
The new theme park will have a theater that shows animated Hello Kitty films projected onto its domed ceiling in four languages — including English and Chinese — as well as a number of restaurants and shops selling character goods.
The operators of the facility are banking on Hello Kitty’s global appeal and the opening later this month of an additional runway and a new terminal building at nearby Haneda Airport. The enlarged airport will be primarily used for short-haul flights from nearby Asian countries.
Foreign tourists already account for 15 percent of visitors to the Venus Fort shopping mall — as well as the waterfront park and shopping district that has been constructed alongside Tokyo Bay.
A vital element of Japanese popular culture, the first Hello Kitty character product was released in 1975 and was quickly seized upon by consumers here. A mind-boggling array of Hello Kitty goods is today on the market, with annual sales of trademark items estimated to be worth $1 billion.
An Airbus A330-200 has been painted in a Hello Kitty livery and Bank of America earlier this year began offering its customers checkbooks and debit cards bearing the cute cat’s smiling face and red bow tie.
Hello Kitty has been named as the ambassador of Japanese tourism in China and Hong Kong — where she enjoys huge popularity among children and young women.
The new theme park will undoubtedly prove popular but will face some stiff competition from Tokyo DisneyLand and DisneySea, as well as smaller facilities such as the park dedicated to Thomas the Tank Engine.
Address: Hello Kitty’s Kawaii Paradise, Venus Fort 1f., 3-15 Aomi 1-chome, Koto-ku. Tokyo.
http://www.venusfort.co.jp/multi/index_e.html
Tags: hello, Hello Kitty, hello kitty kawaii paradise, Japan, kawaii, kitty, paradise, theme park
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Thursday, August 5th, 2010 | 1,244 views
Kuala Lumpur, July 30, 2010: It’s finally down to the last four teams! Teams from Sekolah Kebangsaan Convent (1) Bukit Nanas KL, Sekolah Menengah La Salle, Sabah, Sekolah Seni Malaysia Johor Bahru and Penang Chinese Girls’ High School scored the highest for their energetic and creative dance performances, beating 300 other participating school teams at the recent auditions to enter the finale of Disney Channel’s High School Musical: My School Rocks! 2010 dance competition. These finalists are a step closer to winning an exciting all-expense paid trip to Los Angeles, USA, and now, it is up to Malaysia to decide who they think should be crowned the champion!
Public online voting starts from August 8 to 18 at www.disneychannel-asia.com, where High School Musical fans and dance lovers will be able to see footages of the finalists’ performance and cast their vote. At the same time, the same performances will be aired on Disney Channel (Astro Channel 615).
This year, the response from kids was far greater than the previous My School Rocks! competitions. Participants at the auditions inspired and supported each other to perform better and fans too had great fun rooting for their respective teams!
“It’s every team’s dream to be part of the High School Musical trend! We’ve worked so hard and sacrificed so much for this competition, training from 10am till 10pm. We are overjoyed to be the best team in KL!” said the team from SK Convent (1) Bukit Nanas.
“We love High School Musical! Through this competition, we learnt that teamwork is very important and we’ve gained the experience to be on stage and to face the audience smiling and without fear! We want to prove that our school rocks!” said the team from Penang Chinese Girls’ High School.
“We feel we deserve to win this competition because our dance choreography is different from other teams as we combined all different type of dance like shuffling, break dance, jazz, retro and modern dance. It has been a memorable experience to us. We are happy to meet Linda Jasmine in person too!” said the team from SM La Salle, Sabah.
“This is something new to us. If we win, the first thing we would like to do is to show our dance choreography, ideas and creativity to the people in LA. It’s exciting because we have never been to LA!” said the team from Sekolah Seni Malaysia Johor Bahru.
To determine the winner, the number of votes will be tabulated and added on to points already awarded by judges, Linda Jasmine, Sazzy Falak, Leslie Lee, Director of Programming for Walt Disney Television International (SEA) and Junaidah Said Khan, the Assistant Vice President, English Language Business for ASTRO during the auditions.
On August 28, Saturday, Malaysians are once again invited to tune in to Disney Channel (Astro Channel 615) from 5.00pm to 11.00pm to find out who the lucky winner is! On the same day, viewers will also get to watch cool footages documenting the competition, including some interesting behind-the-scene happenings, comments from the judges as well as snippets of the performances during the auditions.
On the same day, Disney Channel is also presenting the My School Rocks Day program line-up featuring a special High School Musical movie marathon as well as other popular school-themed shows to celebrate the conclusion of a much-loved My School Rocks! 2010 dance competition.
Disney Channel is a 24-hour kid-driven, family inclusive television network that taps into the world of kids and families through original series and movies. Disney Channel is part of the Disney-ABC Television Group.
Tags: Ashley Tisdale, competition, dance, Disney Channel, Gabriella, high school, high school musical, musical, my school rocks, Troy, Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron
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Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 | 1,580 views
 Pre-Columbian woman mummy from Peru The Egyptian funeral rite of mummification dating back to 2.400 BC in ancient Egypt has always triggered interest in the public worldwide fueling on people’s fascination for death and ancient Egypt. However, a new exhibition of more than 40 mummies, Mummies of the World, opening this summer in Los Angeles and traveling for three years in the USA, shows that this rite is not limited to Egypt nor to pharaohs.
As New Yorkers can still visit Tutankhamun’s Funeral exhibition in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art until September 6 with artifacts that trace the life, death and mummification of Tutankhamun, American Exhibition is putting together what they call “the largest exhibition of mummies ever assembled”, to open on July 1, in Los Angeles California Science Center.
In the LA exhibition premiere that will later travel for three years in North America, visitors will be able to see more than 90 funeral artifacts along with 40 partial and complete human and animal mummies from Egypt, of course, but also from Oceania, Asia, Europe and South America.
One of the unusual traits of this exhibit is the fact that most mortal remains are not wrapped, adding a scientific or even an anatomical component to the historic dimension of such presentation.
This survey presenting, for instance, one of the oldest mummified infants ever discovered, a complete mummified family or even a German nobleman, was made possible by a consortium of 15 museums from seven countries that have loaned mummies and objects for this exhibition, from Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, the Netherlands…
Looking at the photos of the exhibition, one can’t help thinking about recent exhibitions that made the headlines worldwide of plastinated bodies, a more recent technique to preserve corpses invented by German anatomist Gunther von Hagens.
Exhibitions such as Our Body or Body Worlds are currently touring the world and are crowding North America. Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds can be seen in Denver and Calgary while Bodies, the American declination of the concept is currently on view in Las Vegas, Dallas, NYC, Cleveland… maybe a sign that Mummies of the World could be a potential hit in North America.
Mummies of the World
On view in Californian Science Center (Los Angeles) from July 1 (other museums to be announced in the fall)
Tickets can be purchased from June 6 on http://www.californiasciencecenter.org
Tags: ancient, Egypt, exhibition, mummies of the world, mummy
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Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 | 639 views
As the world prepares for Africa’s first World Cup, interest is growing in the continent and its traditional crafts. The governing body FIFA ordered 2,000 Makarapas for 12 of the top teams from Wygers’ factory in downtown Johannesburg.
What’s a Makarapa? The Makarapa is, along with the vuvuzela trumpet or stadium horn, an important part of the local football matches’ festival atmosphere. Makarapas are hand-cut and hand-painted miner hard hats in the colors of a team.
The ‘Makarapas,’ which are to be settled on soccer supporters’ heads after they are decorated, are created by carving shapes into the hats and adorning them with team colors, a process that can take four days to complete.
Here are some more Makarapas!
  
Tags: art, culture, cut-outs, design, hat, makarapa, South Africa, team colours
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