Mariah Carey’s New York home is so big she doesn’t know how many bathrooms she has - but she has one that’s dedicated to Hello Kitty!

The singer admits she has no idea what credentials her 12,000 sq ft apartment, located in the city’s exclusive Tribeca district, boasts.

When asked in Glamour magazine how many bathrooms she has, Mariah replied: "I don’t know! Do you really want me to try and think about it?"

Although she has no idea about the number of restrooms the property has, she has got one room entirely dedicated to Hello Kitty, the famous Japanese cartoon cat.

The 37-year-old star said: "I’ve liked Hello Kitty since I was little."

Mariah - who shot to fame when she was just 20 with her debut album Mariah Carey - also admits she still struggles to deal with fame.

When asked what advice she would give to troubled young stars Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, she told Glamour: "I wouldn’t want to speak to those people specifically, but I would say you need to be very centered, and spiritually know where you’re at, all the time. Don’t be obsessed with what people are writing or saying. Live your life for you. My lifestyle has changed since making it as a singer. It’s not a financial struggle, but I’m still struggling in a lot of ways."

More Hello Kitty goodness, a complete Swarovski bling set, just for you!

Forget Donald Tsang, a cute white, perhaps mouth-less, cat rules Hong Kong.

Not everyone has heard of Hello Kitty. This may be particularly difficult to believe in this part of the world where one can walk into any Watsons outlet and buy a range of Hello Kitty items officially sanctioned by Sanrio, including a Hello Kitty decorated toaster that tosses out toasted bread with Hello Kitty’s face on it and a telephone complete with a Hello Kitty design as well as caller ID capabilities. However, some people still don’t know what Hello Kitty is, let alone consider it common knowledge that the (almost) ubiquitous cat was born on November 1, 1974, is the same weight as three apples, is five apples tall and believes “You can never have too many friends.”

Nor does everyone want to get acquainted with Hello Kitty. That is a sad fact fans of the friendly feline occasionally have to admit when their well-meaning efforts to spread the gospel of Hello Kitty are rebuffed or, worse, greeted with derision. Especially when they may have gifted (in the Hello Kitty-approved spirit of giving) a Hello Kitty emblazoned something to a friend or family member. Still, as much as some of these detractors might wish it to be otherwise, at work, home or just when out and about, it’s increasingly difficult to find a Hello-Kitty free zone here in the HKSAR. That familiar little visage can currently be found on over 22,000 products, including, probably most notoriously, a vibrator or – as Sanrio, Hello Kitty’s parent company, calls it – ‘personal massager’!

So we have to face it, the Fragrant Harbour may be home to a Disneyland and, over in Shatin’s New World Plaza, an older, less-heralded Snoopy World. It also may have spawned its own cute cartoon characters (notably McDull, the brighter McMug and associated inhabitants of the animated world created by Alice Mak and Brian Tse). Ocean Park’s newest pair of giant pandas Le Le and Ying Ying may have been responsible for at least a mild case of panda mania in recent months. But in terms of sheer pervasion, it’s hard to buck the idea that Hong Kong – where Sanrio established an official subsidiary back in 1994 – is the land of Hello Kitty.

Walk into a convenience store or supermarket here to get a drink or some edibles and you’ll see Hello Kitty’s recognizable visage on bottles, cans, packets and other containers. Go into a bakery and you’re liable to find at least one Hello Kitty face peering back at you from a cake. Check out floral arrangements and bouquets in even the most basic flower shop and chances are you’ll be presented with more than one Hello Kitty-patterned option to choose from. Look around you when in a crowd and, invariably, at least one person – and it could be someone young or old, male or female – will be wearing or carrying a piece of Hello Kitty-themed merchandise. And when it rains, you’ll find you’re never far away from a Hello Kitty umbrella.

Granted there are other places in the world, particularly Asia, where this critter, who Sanrio’s President, Shintaro Tsuji, had originally thought of calling Hi Kitty, also enjoys such a high degree of popularity. And it’s true enough that Japan could lay a major claim to being the land of Hello Kitty since it’s where ‘Kitty Chan’ was created, Sanrio is headquartered and the world’s one and only theme park dedicated to Hello Kitty, Sanrio Puroland, is located. But for that matter, so too could England, where the white cat is supposed to have been born and currently resides with the rest of her family: father George, mother Mary Bell and identical twin sister Mimi (who distinguishes herself by wearing her bow on the opposite side to that of her more famous sibling).

However, whereas there have been signs of Hello Kitty brand fatigue in the Land of the Rising Sun in recent years (even though Sanrio Puroland attracts around 1.5 million visitors annually and is one of the country’s top attractions), marketing initiatives featuring this cute cat and her ever-growing band of Sanrio companion creations remain many and popular in Hong Kong. Also, while Hello Kitty does have stereotypically English attributes like a love for hosting tea parties, it would be unimaginable for the London Underground to play host to an officially sanctioned, legally valid Hello Kitty wedding like that held at the MTR Hong Kong station on Valentine’s Day this year. Almost unbelievably, Hello Kitty and her tuff-haired boyfriend, Dear Daniel, served as bridesmaid and best man, for good measure!

Furthermore, it has surely only been in Hong Kong that an A-list actor has deigned to appear in public looking like Hello Kitty’s beau. And should you draw a blank as to who it was, cast your memory back to the time Simon Yam affected a tuff-haired hairstyle. Ring any bells? Oh, okay, then, here’s dropping the tease to cite a August 16, 1999 piece from the Singapore Straits Times in which the popular thespian confessed to having combed his hair to look like Dear Daniel to make his Hello Kitty fan wife, international model Qi Qi, happy! And also told how he had ordered a custom-made life-sized Hello Kitty doll for her in the hope that “when she is working overseas, she can hug the doll and think of me…”

Returning to the present: the sense that the moon-faced cat logo turned pop cultural icon has successfully invaded the HKSAR is strengthened by the slew of Hello Kitty-themed promotions currently running, with companies as diverse as the MTR (with its Hello Kitty Heroes Collection), McDonalds (with its Hello Kitty and friends plush capsules) and Chow Sang Sang (with glittery pendants and figurines in the Hello Kitty ‘Around the World’ Pure Gold Collection) hawking Hello Kitty-related products at their various branches around town. Additionally, it’s hard to escape knowing that this month, Hello Kitty’s Fantastical Adventure, the interactive musical show with the famous feline as Princess Kitty of Happiness Land, comes to town.

But wait a minute, I hear you ask, how can Hello Kitty star in a musical when she has no mouth? One possibility is that Hello Kitty and the other performers (who include Dear Daniel, and the dark Sanrio character favoured by rebellious types, Badtz Maru) would mime their way through the show. Yet Yuuko Yamaguchi, the designer of Hello Kitty for the bulk of the kawaii creature’s 33-year existence, has stated that the cat does have a mouth. It’s just that, often times, it’s hidden by Hello Kitty’s fur!

If you don’t believe that and your own personal searches for Hello Kitty’s mouth all come up empty, try videos like Hello Kitty: Santa’s Magic Hat for visions of Hello Kitty with a mouth and – even more surprisingly, considering she’s officially English – an American accent in a Christmas adventure with Mimi and a few of their friends.

Still, while we’re on the subject: strangely enough on Sanrio’s official website, there is no official denial that Hello Kitty is without a mouth. Instead, on its Frequently Asked Questions page, the official response to the query “Why doesn’t Hello Kitty have a mouth?” is “Hello Kitty speaks from her heart. She’s Sanrio’s ambassador to the world and isn’t bound to any particular language.” Which perhaps explains why the largely silent kitty cat has struck a chord with most denizens of Asia’s World City, whatever their mother tongue.

Not for everyone, but a must for girly style riders: The Hello Kitty helmet. The helmet is available from an Italian Website. It sells for Euros 199 (about $265). I could not verify shipping costs, but there is an English language checkout option, and payment is through PayPal.

Hello Kitty Magazine in Germany, it looks very nice, I wished they had something elsewhere, it looks quite mature and well done, the price looks to be around 5.60 euros which is approx. 56 HKD.

If your Hello Kitty collection already includes the $30,000 dog bed, the one-of-a-kind platinum figurine, the $50,000 diamond pendant and the Fender guitar, then maybe, just maybe, you are ready for the $66,000 Swarovski crystal-encrusted Maneki Neko Hello Kitty doll. It’s quite large and looks not at all cuddly, but how can you not want it? Those eyes, that red bow cocked just so on the enormous head - you are powerless to resist the cuteness that is HK. This sparkly version of the popular feline is posed as a maneki neko, which is a good money fortune symbol in Japan. Covered with with 62,000 Swarovski crystal beads, the sparkly kitty is currently on display at the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo. Buy her and she will bring you riches.

A cute Hello Kitty IPOD case next to a Hello Kitty rice cooker.

This is not the latest news, however it is a special and exclusive item at approx. USD 4,000 worth reposting.

Aly & AJ have a new ride

The ‘tween’ pop duo hits the road in a Hello Kitty tour bus.

It’s a perfect storm of cute.

Aly & AJ, the pop star sister act, darlings of the "tween" music set, just setting out on their biggest tour yet.

Hello Kitty, the venerable pop culture icon of all things kawaii – cute in Japanese – sponsoring that tour.

And backstage at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine on Thursday, they met onboard the Hello Kitty tour bus – the usual deluxe motor coach on which you find your touring musicians, only this one decked out with as much Hello Kitty merchandise as you’d find in the typical Sanrio store.

"It was ridiculous," says AJ – she’s the younger sister, 16, with the straighter blond hair – of what they saw when they stopped by the bus on the way to their sound check.

"We were thinking there’d be a few things, and there’s SO much stuff!" she says.

"We saw it right before sound check and we FREAKED out!" adds Aly, 18, the one with wavier tresses of hair.

• • •

We walked through the bus with the gals and this is (some of) what we saw:

• A Hello Kitty water dispenser, popcorn maker, coffee maker and toaster that toasts a Hello Kitty face on your bread. Ice cube trays that make Hello Kitty shaped ice.
• Hello Kitty blankets, sheets, pillows, towels, rugs. A toilet seat cover – that’s a rare item, we’re told by the Hello Kitty decorators. Not many people even know they exist – so don’t tell anyone!
• Strands of Hello Kitty lights attached to the top bunks where Aly and AJ slept early Friday as the bus headed north to a show in Concord. Litters of plush Hello Kitty dolls, Hello Kitty clothes for those dolls, guitar straps and guitar cases that would have to be moved before they could even think about sleeping.

• • •

"This is our mom’s room," says AJ, walking us into the master bedroom at the back of the bus. And let’s really, really hope mama loves pink as much as her daughters think she does.

"Check this out – it’s a humidifier!" AJ says, pointing to a sorta egg-shaped Hello Kitty.

"Because our mom has asthma," Aly explains.

"How cool is that?!?" AJ says – they tend to talk in a rush, finishing each others sentences like sisters, as if, oh, they’ve spent a lot of time on a bus together?

Mom also gets lots of blankets, pillows, a Hello Kitty doll made into a kind of headboard, an iPod dock with speakers.

"Half this stuff, I was like, uhhh, they make this stuff?" Aly says, pointing to the iPod device and expressing their surprise at all of the new and unexpected toys they’re getting.

• • •

As for Hello Kitty, she’s getting exposure on stage on a tour that while crisscross the continent in support of the just-released "Insomniatic" through at least mid-September – check www.alyandaj.com for details.

She gets banners on stage or at the venue. She gets Aly & AJ playing their Hello Kitty Fender Stratocasters each night when they rock out on their song "Rush" – Aly playing a forest green one, AJ on the ice blue.

"The fact that they’re great musicians, they play guitar, they’ve been successful in an area that’s typically been dominated by males – it’s girl power and we like that," says Andrea Sobel, vice president of marketing for Hello Kitty.

• • •

Aly and AJ seemed absolutely stoked to have the Hello Kitty bus to call home for the next few months – and maybe in a way, it’s a connection to home.

It helps that the Kitty made provisions for their dog. The bus is now equipped with dog carriers, collars, bowls and bedding for Willow, a "teddy bear" mix of bichon frise and shih tzu, who comes on the road with them.

The Kitty also connects them to their past, before they had all the trappings – and endless attention – of fame.

"We’ve always been fans of Hello Kitty," says AJ, remembering how they used to descend upon the Sanrio store in the Thousand Oaks Mall as pre-fame preteens.

And now, the store is more or less onboard their own bus – what teen girl isn’t gonna love that?

It’s a true baby grand piano,  this tiny music maker, which weighs in at 3.6 kg and is 18cm high by 25cm wide, features 100 jazz and classical standards built-in, and takes SD cards of music which it can automatically play on its 0.4cm ivories. The diminutive keys can also be tapped by hand, provided your fingers are disturbingly small.