The Anime Festival Asia 2009 returns to Singapore for the second year. Following a largely successful 2008 event, it promises to return with much more thump this year. Visitors can look forward to to witness and feel more than what they enjoyed last year. It will be the occasion for all anime, cosplay, and animation lovers to be there.
More than 50,000 visitors are expected to turn up for Anime Festival Asia 2009, which promises to deliver a much bigger musical programme than last year, with various more stars attending the event compared to the event the previous year.
In addition to the “I Love Anisong” music event, anime supporters will be elated at the launch of “Moe Moe Kyun Maid Café” at the event. Moe Moe is a Japanese slang expression for attraction to sexy and pretty person, commonly a imagined perfect young girl. Even if you are not an anime fan, the girls clothed up to flawlessness will fascinate you. Organizers of the occasion has indicated they may spin off the maids as a performing group or even put together “Moe Moe Kyun Mad Café” as a permanent café. So it will be a great time for you to spot these girls first hand!
Many performers from Japan will be performing at the fair, and it will also feature Singaporean girls who will be wearing clothes as maids to serve customers at the festival’s on-site “Moe Moe Kyun Maid Café”.
A particular feature of the event would be the 30th anniversary of the hit anime franchise Gundam. Models of mobile suits from the numerous Gundam series will be on parade, together with Gundam model kits for trade, which are exclusive to the occasion. Gundam fans will be in for a serious treat!
Top regional cosplayers are projected to turn up for the inaugural Regional Cosplay Championship also being held at the event. If you are a cosplay fan, you will need to be there the event!
There is also a Kids Land area for children not more than the age of eight. Children can be trained to make sushi and have their pictures taken with their favourite superheroes. Amongst the superheroes who will be at the extravaganza will be Power Rangers and Masked Rider.
For business people and industry players, the fair includes the first Animation Asia Conference 2009 on November 20 2009. You can do your networking with trade associates in the same industry; there will not be a better event to attend if you are involved in the anime trade.
Anime Festival Asia 2009 promises to be a events packed episode. It will be hosted at Singapore’s Suntec Convention Centre from November 20 2009 to November 22 2009. It will be at Halls 403 and 404 and will open from 10am to 9pm. It will pay to be here early as the number of guests estimated for the event will be sizeable.
For guests to Singapore, you may wish to know the Singapore accommodations nearest to the place would be those close to the Marina Bay or Beach Road vicinity. If you make your reservations in this two areas, the event position is all but a fifteen minutes walk away.
You should make the reservation for your accommodation stay quickly as November is deemed a peak season month in Singapore, and hotel rooms are projected to be taken up pretty early.
Get your Singapore hotels booking for your stay in Singapore. You can choose the hotels for the event along Marina Bay area for hotels which are closed to the event location.
Visitors to Singapore will recognize the national past times of Singaporeans - shopping and eating. For shopping enthusiasts, Singapore boast a world well-known shopping belt, Orchard Road. There are numerous shopping complexes at the stretch of road, with Takashimaya, Wisma Atria, The Heeren, Centrepoint, Plaza Singapura plus a whole lot more!
The latest entrant to the list is ION Orchard, which is designed by foremost architecture firm Benoy. Located at 2 Orchard Turn, it is besides Wisma Atria, opposite Wheelock Place in addition to being opposite Tangs Plaza (different facing).
ION Orchard promises to bring together the world’s top brands for their stores, all inside one shopping complex. It has a total of eight levels of shopping space, four above ground level, and four below, bringing a sum of 66,000 square metres of shopping space. There are over 300 shopping, food and beverage and entertainment outlets can be found there. These include global’s top luxury brands, a number of which are making their debut in Singapore.
Amongst the stores you can discover at ION Orchard, you can find brands like Korloff, a high-end jewellery collection from Paris. Korloff is making its boutique introduction in Singapore, and offer innovative combinations of materials and colours for its collection.
Local favourite brands like Lim Chee Guan, which is well known for its barbecued meat, start its first shop in Orchard, at ION Orchard. This popular brand has been well loved by Singaporeans and visitors alike have been here for many years. Most visitors to Singapore are asked by their friends to bring back the famous barbequed beef, this is one brand name which will not disappoint any friends!
Another prominent brand at the retail complex is Shu Uemura. Although the brand is not unusual in Singapore, it lets clientele experience its skincare and makeup services in a single spot, at their new beauty table in its flagship boutique.
Even Cold Storage Singapore, famous for their garden-fresh provisions, is at the compound with its ThreeSixty Market Place, which is targeted at higher end markets, who are looking for finer products.
For Apple product lovers, you will be pleased to learn EpiCentre, a premium reseller of Apple products, has a shop which offers Bang & Olufsen products, Acme bags in addition to Sennheiser headphones.
There are other host of other brands like the French chocolate Valrhona, gourmet food items Dean & Deluca and Oriental glass art dealer, Tittot.
ION Orchard operates daily from 10am to 10pm. The nearest MRT station is Orchard MRT station.
There are various Singapore hotels sited around the surrounding area of ION Orchard, you can choose amongst the list of hotels in Orchard Road. Make sure you choose something which suits your budget and travel plans. Have pleasure exploring Orchard Road and ION Orchard!
For the past few years, prices of hotel rooms in Singapore has been sky rocketing. Whatever it was reported in the news extra isn’t exactly the truth. Official figures are often misleading and visitors who visit Singapore regularly on business or for leisure will know this.
For example, a room at Hotel Rendezvous was around $150 per room per night back in 2003. It rose to almost $250 in beginning 2008, hitting as high as $300 in last quarter of 2008.
What hotels in Singapore didnt realized was there is a pending downturn, in fact a huge downturn coming up. Due to the economic crisis which start hitting Singapore in the mid of third quarter and last quarter of 2008, hotels faced a sharp drop in their occupancy rates, and didn’t really smarten up till now.
Hotels are still trying to put up a strong false front, but it just could not last long. There is just not enough visitors going to Singapore. Comments like “We are still experiencing high occupancy” was seen at news late 2008. But the real fact is many hotels are experiencing extremely low occupancy rates. The exorbitant hotel rates has to come down!
True enough it did! Singapore hotels are dropping prices in order to attract more visitors. It is now much more attractive to visit Singapore! Business travellers can now save on the costs to visit their Singapore offices and counterparts. Visitors should also consider booking hotels nearby to the Central Business District or Central Shopping District instead, it would mean further savings.
Visitors to Singapore should really take advantage of the new price drops now, to avoid the hotel operators trying to jerk up the prices as the economy slowly recovers.
Source: Prices obtained from Hotels.Online Singapore. Prices quoted are in Singapore dollars.
