Tribal Festival Season to come soon

Tribal Festival Season is starting soon in Papua New Guinea; the major ones are

Mask Festival (July), Mt Hagen show (August), Goroka Show (September), Morobe Show (October) and Kundu & Kanu Festivals (November).

Off course there are other festivals in the country which are less promoted than the above major ones. This does not mean that they are less interesting, but they may not be promoted because the show dates are unreliable, or due to communication difficulty, they are not known to the outside world, etc... The culture is still intact in Papua New Guinea but has been changing bit by bit. Some traditions are dying away and you may not see some of the traditions next year.

If you have not booked this year's festival, there are several Festival tours still open for booking.

Please check with your nearest travel agent for detail.

Here is just an example of many, many tribal performances you can watch Live in Papua New Guinea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LGY72oWKpU

Landmark ? Pinapple Building

In September 1975, Port Moresby became capital city of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea. New government buildings were constructed at Waigani area to house government departments, including a spectacular National Parliament Building, which was opened in 1984 by Prince Charles of United Kingdom. Other important national buildings such as Supreme Court, National Museum, National Library are also located in the same area. Before those government buildings were constructed - according to the early settlers to Port Moresby - Waigani area was grassland all over and many wallabies were seen hopping around.

Among the buildings, there is a strange-shaped building opposite Sir John Guise Stadium.

This was originally one of the government buildings called "Marea Haus", but now everybody calls it as the "Pineapple Building" because of its shape resembles the tropical fruit.

Pineapple building has been long abandoned but become one of the landmark in Port Moresby, just like the "Leaning Tower of Pisa". Don't you think that "Pisa" & "Pineapple" are also look alike ??

Round-the-World Journalists from Germany

We had a surprise visit by young travel journalists from Germany.

Felix & Christina were on their 5 months Round-the-World trip, getting reports from different parts of the world to post them on the Travel page of F.A.Z. - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung http://www.faz.net/s/homepage.html - one of the major Newspapers in Germany.

As part of their report, Noel took them to his "secret spot", although I believe entire PNG is "secret spot" in world standards. They have spent approx 2 weeks in Papua New Guinea and left for Thailand yesterday.

"Vielen Dank" for your visit and hope to see a nice report and have a safe trip back home !!

School Visit

During the filming work on Friday, we have dropped in at Porebada primary school outside of Port Moresby. School children were so excited about the team visit and even after the school bell rang, they kept posing for the camera. (Sorry for the disturbance...)

During the visit to the village, we have found out the shocking fact that the global warming has already affected the life of Papua New Guineans, not only at the remote Carteret Islands, but at the very shoreline of the capital Port Moresby as well !!

If this is caused by human being, we have to act now to stop this.

If the global warming is accelerated and further push the sea level up in an alarming speed, these innocent children - next generation of this planet- may not have a land to live.

French Guidebook for Papua New Guinea

We had a workshop in Port Moresby to meet with a French journalist who is making a country wide trip to write a guidebook of Papua New Guinea in French language for the first time.

For quite a long time, only Lonely Planet (in English) was available as a comprehensive tourist guide book for Papua New Guinea. We are grateful for the Lonely Planet for its publication, however, I believe a guide book in other language in which report is also done by their own country men will be much better.

I hope he will get good report & photos of Papua New Guinea and make a nice guidebook.

Phillipe, je vous souhaite un bon voyage!

Another Memorial visit

Another memorial visit to PNG after many years, this time by the former diplomat of UK.
He has driven up the Highlands Highway from Lae and visited Mt Hagen show in 1970 - most of us were never born at that time !!
This time, he has covered most parts of the country during his 20 Nights trip in Papua New Guinea, namely Alotau, Misima, Losuia, Mt Hagen, Goroka, Madang, Kavieng, Rabaul, Hoskins & Port Moresby. Thank you Tom for your visit, we enjoyed your story and will all miss you !!

Red Sensation from PNG- Will Genia

Last Saturday, I have watched Super 14 game on TV- Queensland Reds vs. ACT Brambles.

While Brambles have hammered the Reds by 52-13 , we were stunned by dynamic attack of chocolate-skin, solid body scrum half of the Reds. He has scored all the 2 tries of Reds.

He is Will Genia, Australian-educated Papua New Guinean. He has represented Australia Under 20 in 2008 for IRB Junior World Cup in Wales.

Although he was injured on this game and will be away for next 5 months, hope one day he will play for Wallabies. It is a loss for Pukpuks (Rugby Union National Team of Papua New Guinea),

but I want to see first Papua New Guinean to win Webb Ellis Cup !!, even as part of Wallabies.

Will's profile on Reds Official site as follows.

http://www.qru.com.au/library/reds_players/genia,_will,67244.html/section/40810

Memorial Visit

We have done a tour to Sogeri outside of Port Moresby with Australian guests who have brought up in PNG but left the country in 1970's before independence. We have dropped in at Sogeri Primary school where they have attended, probably 50+years ago. Teaches were surprised to hear the story of the past which they have never heard of !!
We were also delighted to see that they have made a memorial visit.
Thank you for your visit to PNG, and we are always waiting for you to come back again.