In November, London-based auction house Christie's will hold their first wine auction in Asia since 2001, featuring a landmark collection of 140 years worth of Latour sourced directly from the Château cellars.

The first Château-sourced collection of the fabled Bordeaux ever to be sold in Asia will go on the block Nov. 29 in Hong Kong; the 150 Latour lots, including magnums and large format bottles from a wide range of vintages dating from 1865 - 2005, are expected to fetch over $1.5 million total.

One of the top prizes is a 1900 magnum estimated at $18,000 - $24,000. Christie's already has a strong showing in Hong Kong with art and antique auctions bringing in over $300 million in Spring 2008, the highest total ever achieved for an Asian season.

Wow, this story is hilarious. I love fruit but I'm not so sure I'm interested in trying Durian (a fruit growing ever more popular with Southeast Asians and Chinese) because not only does it cost upwards of $200 a piece but apparently it smells like gasoline. Or garbage. Or manure. Or stinky socks. Take your pick, none of the descriptors are good.

So why do people prize this fruit so much? I guess once you cut them open you can separate the stinky part from the edible part, which is reportedly very sweet, nutty, and almost custard-like, and it's quite tasty. $200 tasty.

The aptly named Remote Lands, Inc is now offering private jet journeys as a unique way to see the world. The first of these packages, called "Passionate Epicures and Insatiable Travelers," is available this year and will have room for a cozy 36 guests and is scheduled to travel to Thailand, Burma, Bhutan, India and China. Attractions include not only the locations themselves, but also best-selling authors, world-renowned chefs, and cultural experiences like attending a Thai wedding and visiting the home of a Bhutan dignitary.

Or if that sounds a little too generic for your taste, maybe a "bespoke travel package" is a better fit. Remote Lands will design an individualized Asian vacation just for you, basing it on your particular preferences and lifestyle, and offer choices including everything from bodyguards and massage therapists to audiences with Asian nobility.

It seems that we may have finally hit the price ceiling for expensive hotel suites. The highest priced hotel suite in Asia can be found at the Pingxi Royal Mansion just outside Beijing was advertised at 220,000 yuan ($28,100), which makes it even more expensive than the Bridge Suite at the Atlantis. Recently, though, the hotel dropped its price by 20% per night ($22,485) because of a lack of customers.

On second thought, we're not too worried about the possibility that this could indicate a drop in the demand for luxe suites, though. More likely than not, this is just a case of overpricing in the first place.

A new sales record for art sold in Asia was set when a woman at a Christie's Hong Kong auction paid $19.4 million (£10 million) for a small Qing dynasty bowl. Bizarrely, the woman's brother, who is known to have one of the world's best collections of Chinese art, offered the bowl at the auction. This brings up the question as to whether the woman and her brother planned for this to be the outcome of the auction, although why one would set out with the intent to set an auction bidding record remains to be seen. The woman said that she had not expected to buy the bowl; it was a "spur-of-the-moment decision" and that "[her] interest grew during the bidding process"

[Thanks, Lana!]

It seems almost like a late April's Fool's Day joke but it's true, Kazak authorities are pondering a gambling and entertainment complex near the city of Almaty. The BBC reports that President Nursultan Nazarbayev has said that he had long thought of building a version of Las Vegas on a steppe outside the city. A desert gambling oasis may help control gambling inside the major cities. Almaty alone has nearly 40 casinos. Nazarbayev wants to shift that action to the shores of Lake Kapchegai around 50 miles away (Vegas with a beach). While the article references the rise of gambling in Asian countries it doesn't mention that another aspirant to the Vegas throne, the Cotai Strip in Macau which already has attracted major hotel and retail interest and has massive Vegas-style hotels under construction.  Now if Steve Wynn shows up in Kazakhstan then we'll know it's really going somewhere.