Nike+ Human Race

El Colibri, Cordoba, Argentina -- I woke up this morning around 8:30am, puttered about a bit, ate a Dulce de Leche Luna bar before heading out to run 10K for the Nike+ Human Race. Unfortunately, I had to run it alone, because EO, who was supposed to be running it with me, had to cut his trip short and head by to Hong Kong after injuring his knee coming off a chairlift on Cerro Catedral. It was a very windy morning. I had to run circles around the estate's two polo fields just so I could be assured that I could run one side of the polo field in the direction of the wind rather than constantly running into the wind, which was really hard work with dust flying in my face. At times, the wind was raging so loudly that I could barely hear the music piping through my earphones. In the end, I ran the 10K in 1h01.

It was my first 10K "race" and it was amazing to be running it in a beautiful country so far from home, which I am visiting for the first time.

Little Cream Book @ Facebook: Let the Weekly Games Begin!

We've just created a Little Cream Book group on Facebook. Join the group and play in our weekly competition for a prize!

Every Tuesday, we will post a question in our Facebook group's Discussion Board. The answer can be found within this website, most likely within this blog. Reply with the correct answer plus your own corresponding travel address before the deadline for a chance to win. The officers of the group will then select 5 winners each week based on the accuracy of the answer and the merit of your tip (yes, it's a bit subjective. basically, we're looking for coolness, interesting finds, quality...you get the idea). Winners will be posted in the discussion thread on the same day the next question is posted.

And what are we giving away? A Little Cream Book of your choice. Now isn't that just cream!

Here's this week's question:

INAUGURAL GAME: RUNNING AROUND THE BIG APPLE

No, I'm not referring to the big Apple that produces our beloved iPhones, I'm talking about New York City where I'll be for a week as of next Wednesday.

QUESTION: Is New York City an official race city for the Nike+ Human Race?

TRAVEL ADDRESS: Give us your favourite sports-related address in NYC (can be a gym, a personal trainer, a boutique selling cool sports gear, etc.). Addresses must include name of establishment or person and the corresponding website OR a valid telephone number (yes, we will check!).

DEADLINE: Post answers to the facebook discussion thread by 5pm on 11 August 2008 (Monday).

Nike+ Human Race: Running for UN Refugee Agency

I was inspired to join the human race today. That is, the Nike+ 10K Human Race. I saw a poster for it the other day in Vancouver (one of the official race cities) as I walked past the Nike Shop on Robson, on my way to the Lululemon shop. After a gorgeous, leisurely 10K run along Falls Creek into Stanley Park today, I decided to sign up. While there are official races in 25 cities around the world, any runner (with the Nike+ running gear, of course) can join the race and run the 10K from anywhere around the world. As fate would have it, I will be running somewhere I'm visiting for the first time: Cordoba, Argentina (incidentally, Buenos Aires, New York City, Seoul, Mount Fuji, Shanghai, Singpore and Taipei are a few of the 25 official race cities). No doubt, it'll be a memorable run. The idea was just too cool, and too good, to resist.

Based on runners' charity choice, their training miles run on Nike+ gear and on race day, Nike will determine how much it donates to each of these three charities: The UN Refugee Agency, Lance Armstrong Foundation and WWF. Runners can also ask family and friends to sponsor their training miles, raising more money for their selected charity.

I've pledged to run 100 miles between now and race day on 31 August 2008 in aid of The UN Refugee Agency. Click here to sponsor me and help support their work to ensure that refugee children around the world get access to education, sport and technology!

Miele Guide: Cast Your Vote for Asia's Best Restaurants!

Last week, an email invite to vote as a member of the special jury for The Miele Guide landed in my inbox, so I thought I'd have a Skype chat with uber-cool foodies Aun Koh & Sulyn Tan -- who are the embodiment of the Little Cream Life -- about their ambitious project to produce the definitive guide to Asia's best restaurants. While waiting for Sulyn's computer to start up ("Vista!" explained AK for the lag), we chatted about his recent meal at el Bulli and reminisced about the days of Commodore and Atari. When Sulyn finally joined us, Aun explained how the whole project started:


Aun: Both Su-Lyn and I have spent almost a decade each working in publishing. Many of those years have been dedicated to (1) food and restaurants; and (2) covering thr growth of Asia's lifestyle markets. The Miele Guide is something that we've wanted to do professionally for a long time. In 2002-2004, Su-Lyn was the editor in charge of Wine & Dine, and also thus ran its restaurant guide.

LCL: it's quite ambitious to do a pan-asian guide. was it hard putting together the shortlist?

Sulyn: The challenge was in first tracking down the best people to help us put it together. We really wanted to work with journalists who are currently keeping tabs on the restaurant scenes in their home cities/countries; people whose primary focus is to check out restaurants.

LCL: how many restaurants did each journalist recommend?

Sulyn: We ended up working with 84 of Asia's top restaurant critics. Each one was invited to nominate the 20 restaurants they felt were the best in their city/country.
In addition, when voters go online, they still have the option of adding in restaurants they feel are missing.

LCL: did you contribute to the shortlist?

Aun: Nope. We only invited full-time restaurant critics, plus a few others who are considered "local authorities". We actually don't fall into these categories. For Singapore, the panelists were Wong Ah Yoke, Geoffrey Eu, Jaime Ee, and Daven Wu, all of whom cover restaurants professionally.

LCL: any chefs?

Aun: Nope. Full-time restaurant critics! We did have a case in which a Contributing Editor (in Japan) suggested a panelist who is both a respected food writer and a respected chef. We said no but have invited this person to vote as part of the Special Jury. It was very important to have only critics creating the shortlist. Our Special Jury, on the other hand, is made up of regional freelancers, other media, foodies, chefs, hoteliers, restaurateurs and others from related industries that have some authority and know the region's restaurant scene.

LCL: y did you choose to follow the zagat model as opposed to the michelin model?

Sulyn: Actually, we're not following the Zagat model. While the public is invited to vote, we won't be consolidating their comments into our reviews. Each restaurant guide book company has its strengths. Zagat is strongest in the United States. Michelin is strongest in Europe. And while Zagat has had a presence in Asia for many years, its ratings and reviews are not considered significant benchmarks by Asian foodies and critics. Michelin’s own foray into Tokyo, while a success from a sales point of view, has garnered a lot of criticism from some of Japan’s most respected food critics and writers, and even Tokyo’s own mayor. Each guide book company also has its own process of evaluations. Zagat, being American, is entirely democratic. Its results are based on a popular survey. Michelin, on the other hand, likes to employ secrecy, depending on a small army of appointed tasters. Each of those systems work well in their own backyards, so to speak, but in Asia, we have decided it is important to look to other systems in order to best determine what our region’s best restaurants are. I think it will be the readers that at the end of the day decide if we have done our jobs properly, i.e. whether we have put together a guide that most accurately reflects what is happening in Asia’s restaurant scene. Most importantly, we want this guide to reflect the tastes of Asians, and not become an imposition of our own taste judgements on the region’s restaurants.

LCL: i think in Asia, there's the added complication where most international cities have a multi-cuisine focus when it comes to the best restaurants and a lot of great restaurants happen to be western imports. so i think it will be interesting to see how many robuchons or nobus make it onto this asian list
and how many local-grown restaurants make it. for example, a gau gee noodle shop or even a tsui wah hongkie fast food joint

Sulyn: you make a very good point. essentially, we want to create a system that allows for more than just the imports to be lauded in Asia. That said, it is a restaurant guide. So, a hawker stand would not be considered a restaurant.

Aun: we are setting specific guidelines as to what is a restaurant. None of the restaurants that we have allowed into the shortlist are "stalls", so to speak. That said, each panelist was allowed to push the definition of "restaurant" a little, if within their local context what they consider a restaurant is a little outside the box. For example, Naughty Nuri's in Bali is a restaurant to any critic in (and probably voter) in Indonesia. But a hawker stall in Newton Circus clearly is not. When the final results come in, we will look carefully to see if non-traditional restaurants were nominated and then make a decision on a case by case basis.

LCL: were the critics asked to recommend restaurants on food quality alone or also dining experience?

Sulyn: critics were asked to propose restaurants they consider to deliver a complete experience of excellence. In some contexts, whether there are table cloths and a stool for your handbag is irrelevant. For others, the ambience is part of the whole experience. We asked them to judge the restaurants as their fellow citizens are likely to judge them.

LCL: do you think that local "Asian" restaurants might suffer a little in the rankings since sometimes those serving good food have a habit of neglecting the "experience"?

Aun: It is up to the panelists, public voters and Jury members to make those decisions.

LCL: thanks guys, as a final question, i'd still like to get one of your fave restaurants...can be outside of asia if you don't want to compromise the objectivity of Miele Guide

Aun: Su-Lyn would like to qualify our answer: Le Cinq for a chi-chi affair and L'Atelier de Robuchon for everyday eating. Both in Paris. :)

Sulyn: I meant I'd be happy to eat at pretty much any L'Atelier in the world. It is impressive that they are pretty consistent wherever they are.

LCL: wow, so no el bulli

Aun: El Bulli is amazing and a really incredible experience, but I don't think I would call it a favourite. A "favourite" is the kind of place you could go to regularly -- and crave regularly. Don't forget, though, our guide is a determination of Asia's best restaurant not the public's favourite restaurants, which are two different things.

LCL: ciao! thanks for the chat! have a great weekend! i am going for sham tseng roast goose tmr night. can't wait to break this fast from good food!!!

Aun: We'll be dining at The White Rabbit 3 times over the next 3 days.

Everyone is eligible to cast their vote for the 10 best restaurants in Asia until 31 July 2008.

MOCA China

MOCA China, Hong Kong's very own Museum of Contemporary Art, is slated to open this fall on the top floor of Causeway Bay's DNM. Last night, they held an art auction dinner at JW Marriott. RT snapped up Paul Rusconi's pink Kate Moss for HK$18,000. He was ecstatic when he found out that another work by Rusconi featuring Tom Cruise and Kate Moss had sold at an auction in New York this past May for US$19,000.

All in all, last night's auction of artworks by the likes of Anothermountainman, MALEONN, Eddie Hara and Hou Yanyan raised nearly HK$2 million for the burgeoning museum, which hopefully will contribute to making Hong Kong's art scene a bit more vibrant. Word has it that a retrospective of Brenda and Kai-bong Chau's fun and flamboyant outfits is in the pipeline.

Espresso Thinking Series: Travel & Hospitality

Early this year, I received an email from DH at The Disruption Consultancy (a brand consultancy that's part of the TBWA network) asking for 45-minute to chat about travel industry trends over coffee. They were working on the positioning and branding an integrated resort in Singapore and needed some industry context/background info. Because I was still in Vancouver, DH, her colleague BF and I didn't actually meet up until more than a month later.

We met one February afternoon at Caffe Vergnano. We had a very interesting chat about what luxury travellers want and what they might want next, where they get their information and how they make their travel choices. It wasn't immediately relevant to their project, which was more mid-market, but our discussion focused on the shifting landscape within the travel industry. Where traditionally travel agents held much more sway on travellers' choice of destination, today that influence is shifting to hotels & resorts themselves (which are doing a much better job communicating directly and building relationships with guests), new media (blogs, travel community sites, even photo-sharing sites, hotel marketing and booking sites) and new services (concierge services and travel planners such as ourselves). Today's travellers are more sophisticated, demanding, fickle and with very different needs from previous generations' travellers (wifi, phone chargers, iPod docks are just a few of the new things we expect hotels to have in addition to 24-hour room service, pool, spa, gym and remembering the type of pillow we like to sleep on).

Fast forward four months later, TDC has launched a cute concept to share ideas, build networks and of course aid in their business development: Espresso Thinking Series. Over espresso and breakfast at Caffe Habitu, they present tidbits from their research as well as case studies demonstrating how they apply their findings to create innovative branding solutions and initiatives for their clients. I was surprised and grateful to DH for mentioning Little Cream Book as an example of new influencers of travellers in their presentation.

I found the presentation interesting. Here were just a few notes I jotted down:
1. ZMET -- one of the research techniques mentioned. ZMET stands for Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique and delves into how consumers' subconscious reacts to brands and how it affects their purchasing decisions.
2. Bin-sights -- another one of their research techniques. It's very hands-on and involves going through people's rubbish. One very interesting and relevant insight gleaned from going through a guestroom rubbish from a particular hotel client was the prevalance of medications, prescription or over-the-counter. We live the espresso lifestyle, and the fast-paced life of living out of hotel rooms, running for the next plane and eating processed airline food takes a toll on our systems. It's hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle on-the-road (I would know. I've just manged to get through an 11-day detox that would be utterly unmanageable if I were travelling.). So 24-hour room service menus should include options for people on alkaline or low-sodium/sugar/carb diets or perhaps the minibar could include energising or detoxing tonics. In addition to free transfers or room upgrades, hotel might offer loyal guests health/wellness-boosting services or products. This, of course, has implications beyond hotels as seen rise in popularity of spas, yoga retreats, detox holidays and medical tourism. Even airlines have to contend with the health issue of deep-vein thrombosis.
3. What a brand needs to be -- There was a slide with a bunch of words describing what a strong brand needs to be, such as "innovative". As I was looking at this slide, I realised one very important word was missing -- inspiring. All the great brands, and by great, I mean brands that we decide to buy not out of a rational decision-making process (i.e. good value for money, best-in-class etc.), but out of love. And love for a brand (think Apple or Amex or Obama) is created when the brand inspires. It inspires people to see more, do more, be more, risk more, hope more, believe more, love more, which of course, leads people to talk about, buy and consume more.

Which is why I love travel and helping others embark on their own personal journeys; because each journey holds the promise of rebirth and rejuvenation. It's a chance to see, experience or get to know something or someone for the very first time...perhaps all over again. In so doing, we rediscover who we really are and discover who we can become.

The next Espresso Thinking Series will focus on financial services.

Myanmar Cyclone: Appeal for Help

I had the pleasure of meeting Win Zaw a few years back while organizing a Tomb Raider-esque trip to Cambodia. Win Zaw is Burmese, and at the time, he was working for another Cambodia-based local operator. More recently, he started Asia Expeditions and we've continued to work together.

Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar last Friday. Since then, news of the situation has been increasingly alarming, not just the scale and scope of the disaster but also the government's handling of relief efforts. Sitting safely in my Causeway Bay office, it's hard to know exactly what to do to help aside from making a donation to a relief organization. But then, I always wonder how much actually gets to the ground. So when I caught Win Zaw on gmail chat yesterday (fortunately, he and his family as well as colleagues are all fine), I asked what we could do to help. He told me he was waiting to hear back from his contacts in Burma and would send me an email with an update and list of needed supplies. Below is his email. If you would like to help, feel free to send supplies directly to Win Zaw at the mailing address below (NOTE: Please mark all packages "Charity for Myanmar Disaster". Otherwise, he will have to pay heavy customs duties.). I will also be collecting things and making a shipment Wednesday (14 May 2008) morning, so feel free to send items to WANLILU Play Ltd., Room 1501, One Hysan Avenue, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

----------------------
Hi Winnie,

First of all, many thanks for your concerned and appreciate your hard work.

Here I got the line with Esther and the place is less damage than the main area, however, there are thousands of refugees flows into town.

There are no GOV assistant at all and most of them are at the school, foodball field, church, etc..

People got sick, diarrhea, and the people from the town send daily foods to those refugees and some donors sent rice and other dry goods, that can be use by the time they do not get any support from the town. Nightmare!!!!!

Here she ask me to send if we can:

1) Drinking water: they can mange through localmade pump and we need more purifiers.

2) warm clothes / blankets /mosquito nets.

3) anti-diarrhea tablets and other medicines such as insect- repellant, etc..

4) food, (Esther try to have more rice from Yangon to delta)

5) Candles as no electricity at all.

6) mosquito nets if available

7) Firstaid boxes

There are very less medical assistance.

So far, she does what she can and of course, we will update with more details later.

Do let me know any progress and again, I thank you so much for your helps.

My regards,
Win Zaw

Asia Expeditions
No. 18, Street 370,, PO. Box 957
Boeng Keng Kang I, Chamcar Mon,
Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia
H/P: 855 (12) 732 236
Tel: 855 (23) 726 644
Fax:855 (23) 996 893
Email: winzaw@asia-expeditions.com
website: http://www.asia-expeditions.com

Wyclef Jean @ MO bar

I had been chatting one day with DA and she was telling me about the TOHK launch party preparations. She was telling me that she had spoken to Wyclef Jean's promoter and they had offered to have Wyclef appear at the launch party and play a few songs as a surprise. But Wyclef would only be able to perform on 21 April, so she would have to pass since TOHK's launch was slated for 23 April. "What?" I shouted down the phone. "Move your launch date! Do you have any idea how cool it would be for Wyclef to show up and surprise the crowd with a few songs???" Anyway, to cut a long story short, DA tried to re-jig the gig, but in the end it was not meant to be.

Fortunately for me though, as a result, the TOHK got invites to the invite-only performance at Landmark Mandarin's MO bar last night (MO did a promotion earlier: for every HK$1,000 spent on Veuve Clicquot, they gave away a lucky draw ticket for a chance to win tickets for the night's show). I had only expected Wyclef to play an hour max. That was what he was supposed to do. In the end, he gave an awesome 2-hour performance! I was dancing in the wrong shoes and my feet were killing me, but it was worth it.

Wyclef is a great performer; he had the crowd all worked up and was constantly bringing people to the stage. At one point, he shouted, "I've found my Hong Kong Wyclef!" and dragged a guy up to the stage who then held his own in the rap-along. For all I know, it may have been a Canto-pop star, but I am hopeless at recognising them. The concert started pretty chill, with Wyclef on stage strumming his guitar. But then as he got into Sweetest Girl, he really amped it up and the crowd went crazy. He went from the stage to the top of the bar and, at one point, he was moving through the crowd sitting high on top of the shoulders of one of his crew members. The crowd loved it. He went through a bunch of songs from his latest album, Carnival Volume II: Memoirs of an Immigrant, some Bob Marley, old Fugees tunes, a very crowd-pleasing medley of 80s hits running from A-Ha (Take On Me) to Cyndi Lauper (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun), as well as songs he's done with other artists such as Shakira's Hips Don't Lie and Santana's Maria Maria.

Unfortunately, I only had my iPhone camera, which has no zoom and takes horrible photos in low lighting:

Chat with Desiree Au, TOHK Publisher

Hong Kong finally gets its own Time Out next Wednesday (23 April). Desiree and I go way back. All the way back to her days as a tai-tai journalist covering the arts beat of Hongkong Standard to her evolution into a hard-nosed, whip-cracking editor (typed with a ;-) of course), though never one to compromise on her sense of humour, style or fashions.

I have to blog about TOHK not because I know Desiree, but because, as fate would have it, Little Cream Life has a bit role in the story behind TOHK. Towards the end of 2006, I got an email from AF who had come across Little Cream Life while doing a search for Ingredients (the restaurant). I ended up planning her family's holiday and in the process she mentioned that her husband wanted to bring Time Out to Hong Kong. He was willing to invest, but did I know anyone suitable to get it off the ground, up and running. Basically, he needed a publisher and a team. I sat on it for a little while. At the time, I couldn't think of anyone and I wasn't sure how serious DE really was about the whole thing.

A few months later, AF mentioned it again. By that time, I knew Desiree had left her post as editor of SCMP's Sunday magazine and was finding life as a lady of leisure a bit dull. So I floated the idea to Desiree. While sceptical at first (those who have been in the biz have a healthy scepticism about the profitablity of starting an English-language magazine in a predominantly Chinese-reading city), Desiree agreed to meet DE at a group dinner I had actually organized for an out-of-town guest from Tokyo at China Club last May. DE & DA hit it off and the rest is history. Along the way, I've heard a lot of the birthing stories and am constantly amazed at what ingenuity, tenacity and just plain hard work she and her team have put into this whole endeavour. From the investors to the writers to the ad sales team, there has been no lack of passion driving them to deliver a Time Out magazine for Hong Kong that readers of TO London or New York City would expect. Just a week before TOHK launches with a party at The Pawn, I checked in with Desiree to see whether the office was a circus or war zone:

3:05 PM desiree: actually it's been amazingly calm. we've been pulling 14 hour days but everyone is still joking around'

3:06 PM think of it as gallows' humour, except i don't think anyone is getting executed

3:07 PM me: i think we're all pretty excited about TO finally landing in HK...how long did it take to get here?

desiree: the whole idea started back around May last year, at a small dinner

one thing led to another and we worked with the TO team in London for quite a while.

but the whole basic framework was started around december.

Then the team flew to London to work with the Time Out staff

3:09 PM me: actually, that's pretty lightening speed

desiree: We rented a huge flat and I felt like we were participating in some MTV reality show

well, you know what they say in HK, get this done by "yesterday"

so I guess we've already got the luxury of time

3:10 PM me: what was the funniest reality tv show moment

i.e. trailer moment

desiree: probably me in rollers in the morning

me: no way!!

desiree: i just refused to let any amount of shame get in the way of my hair

me: did the whole team see you in rollers??!!

desiree: hahahahahaahha

3:11 PM probably. but i had no choice

i get up pretty late in the morning and my routine usually encompass putting on my rollers and eating breakfast

let's just say my secret to bouncy hair is out

3:12 PM i have no idea how a conversation with a publisher about to launch a magazine led to hair. this is not good PR

me: who's "the team"?

desiree: well. the "team", and we are also an official football team as of today.......

the guys signed up to play league

me: of course it's good PR...you'll get ads for shampoo, hair salons, etc.

3:13 PM desiree: that wouldn't be half bad!

anyways, going back to the team - Paul Kay is the editor

me: you should post your football team's results in TOHK and open up for betting

hk's fave past time!

desiree: Angie Wong is at the helm of food/lifestyle

Clare Morin is the arts writer (we go way back at the scmp)

3:14 PM Dennis Lai , whom you also know, is art directing

me: yeah, me and Dennis go way back

desiree: and some new faces I've had the pleasure of working with!

me: way back to an obsolete mag

desiree: yeah. remember YA!

me: anyway, have to mention this whole fate/destiny thing

desiree: Actually i wrote two of my best stories for YA

one on Lee Lai Shan

3:15 PM and one on the founder of APC, Jean Touitou

remember?

me: wow, can't believe you remember...i hardly do...but this chat's not about YA

back to fate and destiny

since it's played such an interesting part in the birth of TOHK

desiree: totally amazing

me: what do you think is TOHK's destiny?

3:16 PM desiree: that's a loaded question

can u clarify?

do magazines have a destiny?

most of the time i get asked about "position" or "niche"

so this is a rather interesting question

me: of course! but they may not be immediately apparent...or perhaps your destiny in all this

i bring this up

because there are rumours that Asia City is selling

3:17 PM desiree: well. i don't know what TOHK's destiny is, but I do hope I make some $$ so I can eventually open an animal shelter

whatever I do in publishing, and i usually work pretty hard at stuff, is a means to an end

3:18 PM in the meantime, i hope the magazine will do some interesting features and champion some causes that may not be the most fashionable thing

although i stress that i still aim to do that while remaining fashionable.

i hope that doesn't make me sound too shallow

3:19 PM the fashion reference, i mean!

me: no, not at all...and since we are on fashion

desiree: hahahahaahhah

me: what will you be wearing on launch day?

desiree: oh, funny you ask. i've been thinking

i will attempt to dress in TO colours

red/black/white

i hope i won't look like an extra in High School Musical

3:20 PM me: i don't think you could even if you tried...haha

desiree: thanks for your compliment! it made my day!

me: oops...sorry...just realized that can be taken another way...but i meant it as a compliment on your style

rather than...

3:21 PM desiree: a girl can accomplish anything really, when sh'es got the right wardrobe.

oops typo

me: and hair!

desiree: YEAH, HAIR!

boy, i hope no one reads this.

me: just don't show up in rollers...otherwise, it'll be a bit like hairspray

desiree: i was hoping to engage in some deep conversation about arts and culture

me: this is culture, my dear

desiree: since it's so close to my heart, when i started as an arts reporter in 1994

3:22 PM thanks to YOU!

me: ok, enough...time's ip

up

desiree: ok

see you at the party!

me: it's gonna be a blast!!

desiree: look for the mascot in Red/white/Black

that would be me........

3:23 PM it will be a blast with all our friends and everyone who's been so supportive of TOHK

me: too bad wyclef's not gonna make his special appearance :-(

desiree: i can't thank them enough

yeah, he leaves the day before

but New Pants is cool!

u should watch them on You Tube

punk disco electronic

absolutely a blast to watch

For a special friends & family pre-launch annual subscription rate of HK$128, fill out the subscription form below:

Central's Alluring UFO

The UFO appeared in the distance, a vision of alluring beauty. Its pristine, white skin glistened amidst the pulsating coloured lights that are the life of this city. I walked towards the structure, perplexed and intrigued. What could this sleek, sensuous structure parked atop the old Star Ferry car park be? What lied within?

As I approached, I saw the name on the signboard that inspires in me the kind of delight akin to a teenage groupie finding out that her favourite band is about to roll into town: Zaha Hadid. The UFO in question is the Chanel Contemporary Art Container, containing works by the likes of Daniel Buren, David Levinthal, Michael Lin, Sophie Calle among others. The artists are all interesting, but what I really wanted to see and experience was the space.

The approach to the container, on this particular overcast day, made me think of Chris Marker's La Jetée, the image of the woman standing at the end of the jetty. The memory of the woman that comforts the protagonist through a post-apocalyptic present, we later find out, is actually the moment of himself, as a child, witnessing his own adult death.


Once inside Hadid's container, though, it was a warm and welcoming cocoon, with echoes of Eero Saarinen's TWA terminal. The deep, sultry, accented voice of a woman on the audio guide begins: "I was waiting for you...so impatiently...torn between pleasure and pain...I have such an overwhelming need to open up...to display my fantasies...open up my pack as the French would say...".

And so the show begins, 20 artists and their vision of what desires, insecurities and longings lie within a Chanel quilted bag.

Hong Kong is the first landing site for Mobile Art. From Hong Kong, it heads to Tokyo, New York, London, Moscow and finally Paris. The show runs here until 5 April 2008 and tickets (HK$10) can be booked via HK Ticketing.

London: 35 Under 35

Arrived in London yesterday morning to beautiful, sunny, cool weather. I love getting into Heathrow at 5:30am, no long immigration queues. I was already checking into the Courthouse Kempinski before 7am (love the location of the hotel -- Le Pain Quotidien with free wifi is just next door, Liberty and Starbucks is right across the street, Apple Shop is just around the corner on Regent Street as are the shops of Conduit Street). Of course, no rooms were available, so I dropped off my bags and headed across the street to the Starbucks, which was already open and has T-Mobile wifi (I had already bought a pass on the ride into town on Heathrow Express). I just wish cities would hurry up and set up citywide wifi. It is such a pain to have to sign-on and off different wifi networks at different locations, paying for multiple passes.

On this trip, I was the guest of World Business, organizers of a global 35 Under 35 list, and Shell, the event sponsor. World Business and a panel of international judges had chosen to highlight the accomplishments of 35 women, under the age of 35, from a pool of nominations. The resulting list, which includes myself, is very diverse, both in terms geography and fields. Over cocktails and dinner, I met a Russian banker who focuses on making small loans to SMEs, a Colombian promoter of "green" gold and platinum mining practices and products, an American social entrepreneur working with women in Darfur and Rwanda among many other fascinating women doing meaningful work, each trying to bring about positive change in some way.

Rising Stars Piano Series

I just got an email from AF about the new concert series she is launching in September. Can't believe she's had the time to organize all this, while having just had her second daughter and doing legal consultancy work! She and KY are a rare breed of super-moms. KY, who I saw in NYC, was juggling 5-hour conference calls with skittish investors to ensure that they wouldn't back out of funding her start-up after having just given birth to her second daughter earlier this month. Hats off to all these amazing women!

Anyway, wanted to plug AF's inaugural Premiere Performances concert series. She's put together a very impressive roster of young, talented pianists. Here's the line-up:

Ingrid Fliter Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Originally from Argentina, Ingrid Fliter (b. 1973, Buenos Aires) was awarded the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award in 2006. Ingrid has been making a sensation around the world with her spontaneous emotional style and phenomenal technique. This year's highlights include recital debuts at New York's Carnegie Hall and London's Wigmore Hall. Tickets are on sale now through Urbtix.

Javier Perianes Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Already a huge celebrity in his native country, Spanish pianist Javier Perianes (b. 1978, Nerva, Spain) is breaking out internationally and wowing international audiences. He was awarded the Gold Medal for Artistic and Cultural Merit by the Government of Andalucia, Spain in 2005

Alexander Kobrin Monday, November 26, 2007

The Gold Medal Winner of the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Russian pianist Alexander Kobrin (b. 1980, Moscow) has been lauded for his flawless technique and artistic sensibility. This year's highlights include a 50 date US tour, a UK tour with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, and recital tours in Italy and Asia.

Jie Chen Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Chinese pianist Jie Chen (b. 1985, Guangdong, China) is quickly establishing herself on the international music scene. Jie was accepted into the Shanghai Academy of Music at the age of eight, and moved to the United States when she was 13 to study at the Curtis Institute of Music on a full scholarship, where in 2006 she won the prize for best pianist of the year.

All concerts will take place at 20:00 at the Sheung Wan Civic Centre Theatre, 5/F Sheung Wan Municipal Services Centre, 345 Queen's Road Central.

Tickets will go on sale through Urbtix one month before the date of the event. Ticket prices are $360, $240 and $180, with discount tickets for seniors, students and disabled.

First T8 of the season!

Was going to write this post on my iPhone at IFC Starbucks yesterday, but for some reason, the keyboard doesn't pop up for the blogger content box in Safari. I could have emailed in the blog entry, but of course, I've forgotten the email address. So here it is, not quite live:

I love it when typhoon signals 8 or 10 are hoisted; it's like some higher power has mandated that we should all get a time-out. Other cities may get snow days, but if the snow is that bad, there's really not much to do aside from sit around at home and watch TV or surf the internet (that's assuming there are no power outages). Whereas typhoons are generally milder than a bad rain storm (we have rain storm days too), so it's pretty safe to wander around. Some people even take the opportunity to go surfing. The only down side is trying to get a cab. If you're lucky enough to get a cab, some cab drivers demand extra fare (supposedly to cover the lack of typhoon-damage insurance coverage).

I missed out on typhoon season last summer, so it feels like it's been a while since a big storm has hit Hong Kong. At around 2:30pm yesterday (just after lunch!), tropical storm Pabuk (where did they get this name?) gave the Hong Kong Observatory cause to raise the typhoon signal to no. 8 (10 being the next and highest). At 8, businesses shut and everyone gets to go home, supposedly for shelter. In reality, the mobile phone system gets jammed while everyone tries to call or sms their family and friends to set up typhoon entertainment. Once that's done, there's a mad rush to get from the office to the agreed upon venue. I took the opportunity to spend a guilt-free afternoon at the Four Seasons spa. I suspected that traffic would be bad and hailing a taxi nearly impossible, so opted to take the MTR to Central instead. I have never seen the MTR so packed!

Causeway Bay MTR station. Photo taken with iPhone camera.

By 6pm, totally relaxed and refreshed, I headed over to Zuma (yes, it's the same as the one in London) to join the yoga gang, who had all been drinking since 3:30pm. Which, fortunately for me, meant that I had arrived just in time to help them consume the bottles of Dom Perignon Rosé they were popping open without a care in the world.

Clearly, typhoon breaks are just one of the reasons making Hong Kong a much better place to call home than Monocle's recent list of 20 cities "that offer the best quality of life [for the Social Security set, I would have added]" (come on, Munich no. 1??!! Geneva?).

Lies 1 @ Six Keyz Gallery

Was having drinks at Zuma on Thursday (or as SF likes to call it, "boring bourgeoise drinks") when I got a call from ZL to drag me off all the way to the other side of Hong Kong island in Chai Wan to check out a party/exhibition opening. We ended up on the 6th floor of an industrial warehouse at Six Keyz Gallery, which houses a mini-half pipe for skateboarders. The exhibition was a series of mixed media paintings and a site-specific work by Lies 1, a French graffiti artist. The show is called C1V1L1SAT1ON and the paintings are beautiful, in particular the first in the series. There's a certain explosive, optimistic energy to them. It was definitely worth the trek to see them. In the next room, DJs Doze, Sam1r and Swamy were spinning a funky vibe. The crowd was much funkier than I've seen in Hong Kong in a long, long while and a bit eclectic. Ran into BK, whom I haven't seen in years as well as CMY, one of the trainers from Pure.

Moleskine Travel Notebook Competition Judging

Moleskine Asia held a competition (Invitation Au Voyage!) to create a travel notebook using any one of their notebooks. The deadline for submissions was 30 June 2007. AC invited me to be on the panel of judges to select the grand-prize winner of a round-trip ticket to Paris as well as other prize-winners. The competition sounded like it would yield a lot of creative work (when we first started WANLILU Play, we awarded travel grants to students based on their own travel proposals), and going through them sounded like fun.

The three judges, which were AC, MJ (a teacher at St Martin's in London) and myself, met up at agnès b (PN couldn't join us, but he judged the entries separately). cafe yesterday afternoon to go through nearly 100 entries. It took us nearly 3 hours to select the winning entry. At first, the task of going through all the entries seemed daunting, but we very quickly figured out that the three of us had very similar views and managed to come up with a very good system for identifying the good from the mundane. We all leaned towards notebooks that were aesthetically daring and visually interesting. In terms of content, we were not impressed with what AC called "stick, stick" jobs, where photos or receipts or ticket stubs would be randomly stuck on pages. Nor did we find straightforward travel diaries particularly inspiring. Not that these entries did not have their merits. We could tell that all the entrants put in a lot of time and effort into their travel notebooks and it seemed a bit harsh that we would have to whittle so many of them out. But our task was to pick just one winner, two runner-ups and 40-50 for the exhibition, so we had to be efficient. In the end, we came to a unanimous decision to award the grand prize to PW, who submitted a beautifully-executed travel notebook with wonderfully-rendered, intricate drawings and collages with witty writing about his trip to Taipei.

There will be several exhibitions of the submissions next month at Festival Walk, Times Square and other locations. See photographs of the winning entries here.

One of the runner-up entries.

Goodwood Festival of Speed

Been waiting for DY to get back from Goodwood so that he could file this guest post (unfortunately, no stories of run-ins with or even close-up shots of the prodigious Lewis Hamilton):


The highlight of the whole weekend was the demonstration run of this grand prix season's rookie sensation, the British driver Lewis Hamilton. The moment he returned to the pits, he was mobbed by adoring fans. Goodwood offers spectators a rare chance to be close to their favourite wheels and personalities.


The ultimate road car today is the 1 million euro, 1,000bhp, 241mph Bugatti Veyron. It was given a spectacular demonstration on the Goodwood hill climb course.

This one off Ferrari P3/4 was recently built for a New Yorker, it is
based on an Enzo, itself an ultra rare limited edition beast. It stunned
onlookers with its grace and pace at Goodwood.

Many exhibits were from Mercedes' own museum in Stuttgart, such as this
priceless 1954 Mercedes W196 grand prix car. Another amazing Mercedes
from the collection that was given hard exercise was the 1955 300SLR, it
was reunited with its original driver Sir Stirling Moss.

Goodwood was not just about cars, there were also a celebration of two wheelers too. This particular one, driven by an ace stunt man, became at times a one-wheeler!

We stayed at bed and breakfast 14 miles away. There is a Goodwood Park Hotel within the estate, its a health spa cum resort, but that is always booked out for this event. I think Lord March reserves it for his VIP guests. There is also Amberley Castle, a Relais & Châteaux hotel 8 miles away. It is essential to book accommodation at least a year in advance, and buy tickets 3 months in advance. The nearby town of Chichesterhas some good restaurants: Crouchers or the The Dining Room at Purchases.

Evolution: The Handstand Challenge

"But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever
So I think I'll be Six now for ever and ever."
- Now We Are Six, A.A. Milne

I was green with envy when DT said he had managed an unassisted headstand the other day: "First time since I was 6 or so...Felt like a kid". I've been wanting to do an unassisted inversion (headstand, tripod headstand, handstand, whatever...) since I started yoga, but just not there yet. After one class with Patrick where we were practising the different stages of a headstand, I actually had a dream where I kept trying, and repeatedly failing, to do a handstand. I woke up feeling like Sisyphus, except Sisyphus would actually get to roll his rock all the way up the hill before having it roll back down; I never managed a handstand, even in my dream (I don't even want to think about what Freud would have to say about all this!). It was such an annoying feeling, especially knowing that, even in my dream, the one thing that kept me from doing the handstand was fear -- visions of myself landing on my head and breaking my neck would race through my mind just as I'm about to kick my legs up. I'd love to have that fearlessness of a 6-year-old again.

So yesterday, to help me overcome my fear, I dragged LP, MP & PW to the Evolution: Asia Yoga Conference (none of us actually ever imagined ourselves attending a yoga conference!) to take the "Inversions Demystified" class taught by Jason Nemer and Jenny Sauer-Klein, founders of Acroyoga. When we arrived, we were all just a tad bit intimidated. Most of the people in the class seemed like such serious yogis, many having attended classes since the start of the conference on Friday. Even MP & PW, who could do handstands, were looking a bit weary.

In the end, I didn't quite manage to do a completely unassisted handstand. I used the wall to get my legs up, but there was a split-second when I managed to hold the handstand on my own and that already got me on a thrilling high. I never imagined myself attending a yoga conference full of serious yogis, but there we all were, having such fun. There was one particularly entertaining moment watching MP & PW execute an exercise with one of them in downward dog and the other attempting a handstand off the back of the one in downward dog (I leave it to the reader's imagination to work out the technicalities). LP, who was least enthusiastic to begin with, actually walked out of the 2-hour class saying we should attend next year's conference and sign up for more classes! I walked out of the class with the inspiring realisation that I wasn't going to break my neck doing a handstand. So I'll just keep trying. And one of these days, it will just happen and I might just be able to be 6 for ever and ever.

Goodwill Download

So Madonna's "Hey You" put me to sleep, but at least I slept well with visions of good that would come from msn.com donating a maximum of US$250,000 (US$0.25 per download) to the Alliance for Climate Protection. You can download the song now for FREE in the next 6 days (you don't have to listen to it unless you are suffering from insomnia). Also, check out the line-up for the upcoming Live Earth concerts in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro and Hamburg on 7 July 2007.