NOVEMBER 27, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 21

Short Cuts

TRAVEL WATCH Finding Peace in a Himalayan Hideaway It isn't often that the manager of your hotel is the uncle of a queen. Hot Spot Off Sri Lanka's palm-fringed south coast one can espy perhaps the island's strangest sight—stilt fishermen. Hot Deals With the summer long gone and the leaner months approaching, you might find you haven't squirreled away enough for a winter escape. Short Cuts In December, the Ritz-Carlton in Osaka will celebrate what sticklers insist is the true start of the next millennium. Travel Watch Archive Browse hundreds of Asian travel tips

ONE MORE TIME In December, the Ritz-Carlton in Osaka will celebrate what sticklers insist is the true start of the next millennium. The hotel plans to welcome the new era via an old one—with an 18th-century saturnalia that could go down in the all-time annals of excess. Gluttons have already forked out $1,850 a head for the sold-out dinner, which includes 100-year-old wines, servers in Napoleonic costume and a Hungarian string quartet.

GETTING CONNECTED Need to e-mail mom about your delayed flight? The Hong Kong International Airport is opening a lounge with free broadband Internet access. Wireless hubs are also being set up so that passengers with LAN cards in their PCs will be able to write home from anywhere in the airport.

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