bay View Steps Up with Events

Bay View Eco-Resort, tucked into a slope overlooking the Turtle Crawle/Dolphin Bay area of Portland, has since the start of 2012, developed a monthly series of events highlighting various aspects of parish and national life.

Manager Marcia Lawrence explains that the activities are designed to achieve a number of objectives, including:

Exposure for the property and its varied offerings (spa, rooms, venue, meals)

To boost the entertainment quotient in Portland

To offer to  guests and local Portlanders opportunity to participate in

February Reggae Month

March – culture; poetry, photo exhibit and “Pig Out” night all pork dishes

And ‘Nuh Badda Cook Sunday” month-end; Jamaica Corner set up

April Health and Wellness Month

Healthy Moments @ Bay view Eco resort – each Thursday

Barter and no-cash exchange; performers give their service in return for either accommodation and/or meals.

For May, focus on Youth

June- Father’s day and Jazz Festival

Looking also at Olympics tie-in

Racing to London: Jamaica Village 2012 gets out the blocks at Tracks & Records

Next year's hotly anticipated London Olympics coincide (almost literally) with Jamaica's Golden Independence celebrations.

The celebrations and hoopla began here in Kingston, appropriately at Usain Bolt's Tracks & Records in the Marketplace, Kingston with a lavish reception for media, business and government interests, that featured live music and dance as well as presentations of the Jamaica Village 2012 concept.

the large gathering heard from Danielle Cameron, Sports Minister Babsy Grange, Tourism minister Ed Bartlett (via video) and Opposition Tourism spokesman Wykeham McNeil

The formal inputs made, the audience got a welcome music break when emcee Shaggy welcomed the likes of Coco T and Barrington Levy. The latter opted to forego accompaniment by tracks, and in truth, they were hardly needed, as the "big man" thrilled a capella with hits like "Broader Than Broadway" "Teach The Youths" "Every Day I Love Her (A Little Bit More") and "My Woman"

And, as they have proven themselves since we first visited, the Tracks & records staff (bar, ushers and servers) were welcoming, efficient and tireless.

The Jamaica Village 2012, a private venture is set to take over Finsbury Park in Central London from August 3 through 12. In addition to live performances (a must), the Village will showcase cuisine, art and crafts,  and of course personalities from the sporting world (Bolt & Co.) as well as music, film.

Jamaica Village 2012 will be operated by Live Nation, the world-leading events and concert producer, famous for its mega-deals with the likes of Jay-Z and Madonna

photos: a view of Finsbury Park, London, site of Jamaica Village 2012;

inside Usain Bolt's Tracks and Records, Kingston

Looking Beyond: the new Berlin

This is the first of a new series (don't worry, Museum crawl is still on) where we look at some of the world's great cities and their cultural offerings. With Unification just about coming of age, Germany's capital is hotter than ever - and that's saying a lot.

Berlin's young generation has chosen to transform the past into something liberating. Everywhere, particularly in the fashionable Mitte district, former fortresses to fascism now shelter art galleries, museums and bars.

View Slideshow

Laurent Burst for The Wall Street Journal

Uhren Bischoff in West Berin near Kurfuerstendamm. See photos of other places around Berlin.

There are more than 500 galleries in the city—including cool new "pop-up" art spaces—and plenty of chic new boutique hotels, including the Amano, the Casa Camper and the party-friendly Soho House that has decamped in the former East German Communist headquarters. In the past month alone, a half-dozen notable fashion boutiques opened in Berlin, among them Pastpresent, an arty concept store selling vintage finds and Berlin buzz brands like Sleep is Commercial and 24/7 Suits.

Berlin's creative boom rivals even the smoky jazz club and flirty-flapper cabaret heyday of the early 1920s Weimar Republic. But while the city that embraced the rule-breaking Bauhaus movement may have found a new role as the unofficial art capital of Europe, it's nothing like Paris or New York: No one teeters around its cobblestone streets in high heels, no one asks what anyone else does for a living or how much they make doing it.

Art collector or starving artist, you spend your days navigating Berlin by bicycle and your nights gliding in and out of parties without lines and insider-y night spots (like the unmarked Tausend, hidden under an overpass). The Berlin party scene is not for the faint of heart, often wrapping up at 5 a.m.

A laid-back feeling hangs over weekends in Berlin, which consist of sleeping late and poking around the flea markets. The weekday social calendar, a shuffle of gallery openings and late-night DJ sessions, makes a visitor wonder if anyone in Berlin ever works. In fact, Berliners are on double duty: Their devotion to sustaining the city's creative life is matched by a determination to live it too.

-Wall Street Journal