Hey, everybody. We are now in Tokyo, comfortably ensconced in what has got to be the most unbelievable hotel in the world. If I haven't mentioned it before, the Park Hyatt Tokyo is where the movie Lost in Translation was filmed. It is without a doubt the most incredible room I have ever seen. The view of Tokyo is absolutely breathtaking, and the room itself is simple, but very elegant.
WARNING -- most of the remaining thoughts on this blog are about food. So, if you're not interested in the culinary landscape of Hong Kong, you might as well save yourself some time and stop reading now.
Okay. The past few nights in Hong Kong were memorable, to put it mildly. We had dinner on Friday night at a Chinese restaurant that seemed to be a favorite of the locals. The food was great, but the atmosphere was what really made the place special. Hong Kong residents of all kinds were around us -- even the owner himself, whom we had the pleasure of meeting. I think we were the only foreigners in the place. Some of the stuff was a little weird (ie. the thousand year old eggs) but the meal overall was definitely one to remember. Any objection I have had to duck in the past has been obliterated by the duck we had a this place. MMMMM!!!
For those of you keeping score, we had a fairly mediocre meal at an Italian place our first night in Hong Kong. We took another shot at Italian fare at a restaurant called Va Bene, and I can say without hesitation that it was the BEST Italian meal I have had in my life. Perhaps one of the best meals period. Outstanding antipasti, great salad and a pasta/ravioli dish that I cannot even begin to describe except to say that it had beef inside and shavings of black truffle on top (!!!). It was so good that we felt compelled to compliment the chef in person -- and after a few glasses of wine (Antinori Tignanello -- oh yeah!), those of you who know me well KNOW that I just HAD to give him the double-cheek kiss. I didn't hear him say it, but apparently he said to someone else in our group that I could move into his kitchen if I wanted to. How sweet. :) I found out later that this guy has three Michelin stars to his name, so he's certainly no slouch.
Va Bene is in the expat district of Hong Kong, which also is home to a slew of great bars. So, after dinner, we went clubbing and met a bunch of great people, including two pilots (father and son) from Cathay Pacific and a VP at Credit Suisse in Switzerland. Oh, and a Chinese Elvis.
The following night, our last night in Hong Kong, we had dinner at Petrus, a French place that just happened to be in our hotel. Yet another great meal prepared by another great chef. We didn't get to meet the chef at Petrus, but the food was incredible and the service was top-notch. Had the weather been better, the view of Hong Kong would have been out of this world.
So, that's the wrap-up of our Hong Kong trip. I cannot wait to go back. It is a wonderful city full of wonderful people and great things to do. Definitely on my list of favorite cities.
Now we are in Tokyo. As I mentioned, the hotel is spectacular and I can't wait to see the rest of the city. We have meetings for the next two days, and then we leave, so I'm not sure how much we'll be able to see. But it's great being here all the same.
I miss everyone like crazy, and hope you are hanging in there. I heard the weather is getting bad again, so I hope you all are safe.
Take care, and hopefully there will be more to report tomorrow!
Lori
Monday, February 28, 2005
Friday, February 25, 2005
Meeting, Eating, Meeting and Eating Meat
Greetings from foggy Hong Kong!
Our two-day meeting just ended, so the next few will hopefully provide much more interesting material to write about.
Thank you to those who have written to harrass me about the jacket I bargained for the other day. But you can't have it. It's mine. Besides, you may not want it. I wore it last night to dinner and three of the buttons popped off at various points throughout the evening. You can imagine how great I felt in my cheap alley market jacket and air freshener perfume. :)
The people we have met so far on this trip have been amazing. I now have friends in Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Singapore and here in HK. Everyone is very serious about the work we're doing, but also very willing to let loose and have fun. We had dinner last night at a restaurant on Repulse Bay. We ordered a bunch of Thai, Vietnamese and Indian food and everyone had a little bit of everything. Actually, more than a little bit. We've been eating a LOT during this trip. But, thankfully, we have also been laughing a lot and having great fun. This is a truly incredible group of people and I hope we will be able to come back and see them soon.
The view from my 50th floor hotel room is of the Peak, one of Hong Kong's most famous features. It's been pretty foggy the past few days, so I can't see the top of the Peak, but there are a bunch of buildings between our hotel and the mountain that light up beautifully at night. I hope the fog lifts before we leave so I can get the full impact of this view. I can't get a good photo of the view, but I did take one of the room and a few more from our adventures so far. As soon as I can figure out how to post them on this blog, I will.
That's all for now. Hope you all are doing well! I miss you!
Lori
Our two-day meeting just ended, so the next few will hopefully provide much more interesting material to write about.
Thank you to those who have written to harrass me about the jacket I bargained for the other day. But you can't have it. It's mine. Besides, you may not want it. I wore it last night to dinner and three of the buttons popped off at various points throughout the evening. You can imagine how great I felt in my cheap alley market jacket and air freshener perfume. :)
The people we have met so far on this trip have been amazing. I now have friends in Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Singapore and here in HK. Everyone is very serious about the work we're doing, but also very willing to let loose and have fun. We had dinner last night at a restaurant on Repulse Bay. We ordered a bunch of Thai, Vietnamese and Indian food and everyone had a little bit of everything. Actually, more than a little bit. We've been eating a LOT during this trip. But, thankfully, we have also been laughing a lot and having great fun. This is a truly incredible group of people and I hope we will be able to come back and see them soon.
The view from my 50th floor hotel room is of the Peak, one of Hong Kong's most famous features. It's been pretty foggy the past few days, so I can't see the top of the Peak, but there are a bunch of buildings between our hotel and the mountain that light up beautifully at night. I hope the fog lifts before we leave so I can get the full impact of this view. I can't get a good photo of the view, but I did take one of the room and a few more from our adventures so far. As soon as I can figure out how to post them on this blog, I will.
That's all for now. Hope you all are doing well! I miss you!
Lori
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Paying $35 for a $699 Jacket Makes Life Worth Living
Hey!
Just capped off a great day (including a successful shopping trip) with a fantastic dinner in the company of extremely interesting people. Not a bad day at all!
Today, I learned that negotiating is FUN! There is an incredible array of clothing, handbags and accessories for sale in various alleyways in Central Hong Kong, and the prices are all negotiable. I selected a beautiful embroidered jacket, original price $699 HK (about $100 US), and bargained the price down to $300 HK (appx. $35 US). How awesome is that??? I hope we get the chance to go back, because there is more to be done! Needless to say, bargaining is not welcome at Chanel, so I didn't spend any of my money there.
The only legitimate thing I purchased today, a bottle of sensational perfume from a great store called Shanghai Tang (www.shanghaitang.com), turned out to be "home fragrance," not perfume. Guess I didn't look carefully enough at the box. Or the bottle. Or the sign with the product description and price on it. But I've gotten a lot of compliments on the scent, so at least for me, it's a perfume. :)
Our serious meeting schedule starts tomorrow, but I hope to still have fun things to report. Stay tuned!
Lori
Just capped off a great day (including a successful shopping trip) with a fantastic dinner in the company of extremely interesting people. Not a bad day at all!
Today, I learned that negotiating is FUN! There is an incredible array of clothing, handbags and accessories for sale in various alleyways in Central Hong Kong, and the prices are all negotiable. I selected a beautiful embroidered jacket, original price $699 HK (about $100 US), and bargained the price down to $300 HK (appx. $35 US). How awesome is that??? I hope we get the chance to go back, because there is more to be done! Needless to say, bargaining is not welcome at Chanel, so I didn't spend any of my money there.
The only legitimate thing I purchased today, a bottle of sensational perfume from a great store called Shanghai Tang (www.shanghaitang.com), turned out to be "home fragrance," not perfume. Guess I didn't look carefully enough at the box. Or the bottle. Or the sign with the product description and price on it. But I've gotten a lot of compliments on the scent, so at least for me, it's a perfume. :)
Our serious meeting schedule starts tomorrow, but I hope to still have fun things to report. Stay tuned!
Lori
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Snowman Bowties, Bill Clinton and Italian Food in Asia
Hey, everybody. Thank you for the comments and emails about the blog. Glad to know it's being read!
Today was an interesting day. We had meetings throughout, beginning at 7:30 a.m., including one with a former Financial Times writer (now PR exec) who was incredibly intelligent and extremely likable. He invited us to a private party at the the horse track and he wore a snowman bowtie. How fun is that???
We had a wonderful dim sum lunch (dumplings for breakfast and lunch, Mark!), finished our meetings and took a much-needed nap in the late afternoon. Met the group for dinner at a little Italian place in the mall in the lower levels of our hotel. When I say mall, ladies, I'm talking Louis Vuitton, Chloe, Celine, Bulgari, and everything else you can buy only in your dreams. And, the bookstore had Bill Clinton. The real guy! I'm not a Bill Clinton fan, but I was still excited that he was here signing his book. Didn't get the chance to hop in line for my own copy, but it was neat nonetheless. Not sure if he's staying in the hotel, but I have NO desire to find out. :)
Luggage update -- still don't have it, but it's supposed to be arriving in the next few hours. Fingers crossed!
We're going to have an opportunity to do some shopping tomorrow (the bargains here are SUPER), so if the luggage doesn't show up, I have an excuse to buy some new clothes! Yippee!
That's really all for today. Hong Kong is a cool city and the people are really nice. The weather is a bit chilly and dreary, but otherwise everything is great. I'm sure well have some fun tomorrow, with lots of stories to tell.
Keep in touch, everybody!
XOXO,
Lori
Today was an interesting day. We had meetings throughout, beginning at 7:30 a.m., including one with a former Financial Times writer (now PR exec) who was incredibly intelligent and extremely likable. He invited us to a private party at the the horse track and he wore a snowman bowtie. How fun is that???
We had a wonderful dim sum lunch (dumplings for breakfast and lunch, Mark!), finished our meetings and took a much-needed nap in the late afternoon. Met the group for dinner at a little Italian place in the mall in the lower levels of our hotel. When I say mall, ladies, I'm talking Louis Vuitton, Chloe, Celine, Bulgari, and everything else you can buy only in your dreams. And, the bookstore had Bill Clinton. The real guy! I'm not a Bill Clinton fan, but I was still excited that he was here signing his book. Didn't get the chance to hop in line for my own copy, but it was neat nonetheless. Not sure if he's staying in the hotel, but I have NO desire to find out. :)
Luggage update -- still don't have it, but it's supposed to be arriving in the next few hours. Fingers crossed!
We're going to have an opportunity to do some shopping tomorrow (the bargains here are SUPER), so if the luggage doesn't show up, I have an excuse to buy some new clothes! Yippee!
That's really all for today. Hong Kong is a cool city and the people are really nice. The weather is a bit chilly and dreary, but otherwise everything is great. I'm sure well have some fun tomorrow, with lots of stories to tell.
Keep in touch, everybody!
XOXO,
Lori
Monday, February 21, 2005
It Feels So Good to Be Out of an Airplane
Hi, everybody!
It takes a really, really long time to get to Asia. At least the way we did it. Nearly 30 hours door to door. But we're here!
The first indication that the trip might prove difficult was during our check-in at BWI. The ticket agent looked at our itinerary, scowled and told us we had an "illegal connection" from LA to Japan. She could override the system and allow us to go through, but she couldn't guarantee that we would make the flight out of LA. And she certainly couldn't promise that our bags would make it to Hong Kong. We were SO happy to know there would be an adventure waiting for us in LA.
The flight was fine. We were expecting to land about an hour and fifteen minutes before our flight to Japan departed. Which would have been cutting it close, but we had prepared ourselves for the possibility after our discussing with Grouchy Ticket Agent. Well, the plane ran behind schedule and we were circling LAX 50 minutes before our connecting flight was supposed to take off. Once that sucker pulled in to the gate, we took off. If you've never done it before, you should really try sitting still on a plane for 5 hours, then immediately switch to running at top speed with 50 pounds of various carry-on baggage, two untied shoes and a boss who's yelling at you because you run like a girl. Ok, well, actually Peter didn't see me running, but he would have yelled at me if he had. It was pathetic.
We did make the connection, thanks to the kind people at Japan Airlines. We made such good time that we were the first people to board the plane. Once we were settled in our seats, some other kind people from Japan Airlines started feeding us and pouring us drinks. I love Japan Airlines. The food was outstanding (Western and Japanese), the selection of wine was impressive and the service was better than any I've ever experienced on an airplane. We had our own little TVs and a selection of movies to watch and music to listen to. And they have shopping! You can order an Hermes scarf or a Cartier ring and they will bring it to you RIGHT THERE. I didn't buy anything, but it was nice to know I had the option.
After an 11+ hour flight, we had another close call at the airport in Tokyo. But we made it, thanks to a bit of American pushiness and a special line for business class travelers. This was the most challenging part of the trip, as our body clocks were really screwed up and we were absolutely sick of being cooped up on an airplane. And the only available movie on the flight was Taxi, with Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah. Not a good movie to begin with, but even worse the second time around, immediately after we had watched it for the first time on the aforementioned 11+ hour flight.
All of the running and stressing and heavy bags and dumb movies were worth it when we arrived in Hong Kong. We were greeted by a Rolls Royce from our hotel, and whisked through the city. It was so nice to be on the ground with an end in sight that we didn't even care too much that our luggage didn't make it.
There was a team of people to welcome us when we arrived at the Island Shangri-La. Everyone was very helpful and happy to be greeting two tired and grouchy Americans at 1:00 in the morning. Everyone has been so cheerful and accomodating on this trip -- Americans could definitely learn a thing or two from our Asian friends about good customer service.
So, I'm here in Hong Kong. It's 5:30 a.m. and I'm pretty much done with sleeping for now. We have a few meetings today, and I'm really excited to get out and see the city.
I hope this entry is at least partially coherent. Thank you for reading it, and hopefully there are a lot more to come!
Lori
It takes a really, really long time to get to Asia. At least the way we did it. Nearly 30 hours door to door. But we're here!
The first indication that the trip might prove difficult was during our check-in at BWI. The ticket agent looked at our itinerary, scowled and told us we had an "illegal connection" from LA to Japan. She could override the system and allow us to go through, but she couldn't guarantee that we would make the flight out of LA. And she certainly couldn't promise that our bags would make it to Hong Kong. We were SO happy to know there would be an adventure waiting for us in LA.
The flight was fine. We were expecting to land about an hour and fifteen minutes before our flight to Japan departed. Which would have been cutting it close, but we had prepared ourselves for the possibility after our discussing with Grouchy Ticket Agent. Well, the plane ran behind schedule and we were circling LAX 50 minutes before our connecting flight was supposed to take off. Once that sucker pulled in to the gate, we took off. If you've never done it before, you should really try sitting still on a plane for 5 hours, then immediately switch to running at top speed with 50 pounds of various carry-on baggage, two untied shoes and a boss who's yelling at you because you run like a girl. Ok, well, actually Peter didn't see me running, but he would have yelled at me if he had. It was pathetic.
We did make the connection, thanks to the kind people at Japan Airlines. We made such good time that we were the first people to board the plane. Once we were settled in our seats, some other kind people from Japan Airlines started feeding us and pouring us drinks. I love Japan Airlines. The food was outstanding (Western and Japanese), the selection of wine was impressive and the service was better than any I've ever experienced on an airplane. We had our own little TVs and a selection of movies to watch and music to listen to. And they have shopping! You can order an Hermes scarf or a Cartier ring and they will bring it to you RIGHT THERE. I didn't buy anything, but it was nice to know I had the option.
After an 11+ hour flight, we had another close call at the airport in Tokyo. But we made it, thanks to a bit of American pushiness and a special line for business class travelers. This was the most challenging part of the trip, as our body clocks were really screwed up and we were absolutely sick of being cooped up on an airplane. And the only available movie on the flight was Taxi, with Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah. Not a good movie to begin with, but even worse the second time around, immediately after we had watched it for the first time on the aforementioned 11+ hour flight.
All of the running and stressing and heavy bags and dumb movies were worth it when we arrived in Hong Kong. We were greeted by a Rolls Royce from our hotel, and whisked through the city. It was so nice to be on the ground with an end in sight that we didn't even care too much that our luggage didn't make it.
There was a team of people to welcome us when we arrived at the Island Shangri-La. Everyone was very helpful and happy to be greeting two tired and grouchy Americans at 1:00 in the morning. Everyone has been so cheerful and accomodating on this trip -- Americans could definitely learn a thing or two from our Asian friends about good customer service.
So, I'm here in Hong Kong. It's 5:30 a.m. and I'm pretty much done with sleeping for now. We have a few meetings today, and I'm really excited to get out and see the city.
I hope this entry is at least partially coherent. Thank you for reading it, and hopefully there are a lot more to come!
Lori
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Well, Here I Am
My brother will say it's about time.
The rest of my family won't care, but that's okay.
At least one person is sufficiently interested in what I have to say -- so Nate, this Blog's for you.
The rest of my family won't care, but that's okay.
At least one person is sufficiently interested in what I have to say -- so Nate, this Blog's for you.
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