YeinJee's Asian blog

Asian Culture, Lifestyle and Entertainment

Luxury Goods

World’s most expensive Christmas tree?

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A seven-star luxury hotel in the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi is bidding for an entry in the Guinness World Records for housing the world’s most expensively decorated tree. Image by Abdul Rahman @ Gulfnews.

World most expensive Christmas tree in Abu Dhabi

The 13-metre Xmas tree was decorated by the Style Gallery with gold and jewellery worth more than 40 million DH (~$11 million USD) in total. It’s currently exhibited at the luxurious Emirates Palace Hotel, which also made headlines earlier this year for housing the world’s first gold vending machine.

Box of apples sold for $12,000 USD in Japan

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A box of 28 premium Esashi apples was recently sold for a record one million yen (~US$12,000) in Iwate, Japan. Located in the city of Oshu, Esashi is known for its high quality agricultural products, especially for its rice and apples.

It’s not uncommon for premium fruits to be sold for a few hundreds US dollars in Japan; but exceptional pricing like this happens no more than once or twice a year, normally during the product’s first auction of the season where buyers would purchase it at high price, sometimes for publicity instead of gastronomical sake.

Kuwait phone number sold for $745,000

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A mobile phone number, 555-55555, was recently sold in Kuwait for KD210,000 (~USD745,000). The international code for Kuwait is 965 btw; give the rich folk a call whenever you are bored… if you could afford the long distant charges lol.

It’s not the world record for most expensive phone number though… the number 666-6666 was sold in Qatar for a million Qatari Riyals, or about 2.75 million US Dollars in 2006 during a charity auction.

On side note… Saudi Arabia is officially going to build the new world’s tallest building (more details later). The current world’s tallest, UAE’s Burj Khalifa, is unsurprisingly located in the oil-rich region as well.

World’s first commercial spacecraft unveiled

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Virgin Galactic on Monday unveiled SpaceShipTwo, their newest vessel and the world’s first commercial spacecraft. Virgin Galatic founder Richard Branson talked to Discovery News (filmed in July) about his latest innovation…

The ticket to space would cost $200,000 USD and 300 people have already put in their deposit. It’s not cheap in any sense; but it’s far more affordable (and probably safer and more comfortable) than other previous options.

If the development goes well, in a few decades time the cost could drop to something that a commoner could really dream about. And as Branson pointed out, it could revolutionise the current flight system as well.

This guy never fails to amaze me; he tried to make everything cheaper (flight, cruise, space) which in turn makes himself really really rich, and deservingly so.