Korean pop star and famous music producer Park Jin-young is set to wow the US audiences with The JYP Tour, featuring his protégés Wondergirls, J-Lim, Min and G-Soul.
The tour will kick start on Feb 9 at the Wamu Theater at New York’s Madison Square Garden, followed by Los Angeles’s Wiltern Theater on Mar 8. There are also plans for concerts at Atlanta and San Francisco, which are pending on announcement.
Besides the concerts, JYP will also hold auditions in NYC (Mar 9) and LA (Mar 15) to look for fresh talents to join his agency; more audition details from K-popped.
Hime & Company, a small women-employee-only marketing firm in Tokyo is offering its staff a ‘heartache leave’ to take paid time off after a bad break-up with a partner.
“Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick,” CEO Miki Hiradate said.
Staff aged 24 years or younger can take one day off per year, while those between 25 and 29 can take two days off and those older can take three days off…
“Women in their 20s can find their next love quickly, but it’s tougher for women in their 30s, and their break-ups tend to be more serious,” Hiradate said. [Reuters]
Besides this unusual ‘heartbreak leave’, the company also offers its employees ‘sales shopping leaves’ for two mornings off twice a year so they can race to stores to hunt for bargains.
Not too many lucky ladies are enjoying the benefit though; the company has only 6 employees at the moment… I bet they are a bunch of happy 6 fellas.
Korean actor Jang Geun-suk works with fame singer-producer JYP for this song, “Black Engine”. The MV is also a branded entertainment for Etude’s Black ‘N Jean, a men-styling-product.
Black Engine music video
China officially unveiled its National Aquatics Centre, nicknamed the Water Cube, on Jan 28.
The Water Cube is one of two iconic venues for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games; the other is the Bird Nest, which is the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the track and field events.
The Aquatics Centre has a capacity of 17,000 and will host the swimming, diving and synchronized swimming events during the Olympics.
China’s busiest holiday travel season (Chinese New Year) is running in chaos, as hundreds of thousands of travellers are stranded while dozens are killed by the worst winter weather to hit eastern/central/southern China in 50 years.
Stranded travellers in Hangzhou have to stay in temporary relief centres i.e. cinemas and army tents;
Buildings and electric transmission towers are damaged because of the heavy snow weight
(Images courtesy of Xinhuanet, Zjonline and Enorth)
About 500,000 railway passengers, mostly migrant workers, are stuck in Guangzhou because the heavy snow fall had cut off parts of the railway line connecting to the northern region. China has about 200 million migrant workers who travel between cities and their homes in the countryside to celebrate the Spring Festival (Feb 7-11).
The extreme weather, which started around Jan 10, has been blamed for nearly 50 deaths and has affected the lives of about 78 million people in 14 provinces. The death toll and damages are expected to rise as the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) has issued a red alert on Monday (Jan 28) for severe snowstorms forecast in central and eastern region.
Tomiyasu Ishikawa, a 71-year-old Japanese climber, is believed to have become the oldest person in the world to scale the Seven Summits – the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. [Mainichi]
Ishikawa on Jan 21, has conquered Antarctica’s 4,897-metre Vinson Massif, the last of the seven peaks he was climbing.
Seems like Japanese old folks are enjoying mountaineering very much. In May 2007, another 71-year-old Japanese Katsusuke Yanagisawa became the oldest person to scale Mt Everest, a record once hold by Ishikawa when he conquered the world’s highest mountain in 2002.
The Seven Summits are Everest (Asia), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Elbrus (Europe), Denali (N. America), Aconcagua (S. America), Carstensz Pyramid (Oceania) and Vinson Massif (Antarctica).
Japanese shows play the darnest games, and I am loving it…