Hong Kong is such an amazing place a lot can happen in just 2 months. For those of you who don't follow my tweets or Instagram feed, I feel obligated to blast out what happened (Colin, I'm talking to you!). Or to put it better, I want to share my colorful life with you because I know I won't have the time to go back and post tibits I wanted to describe in more details. So here you go.
Had a privilege to be invited to speak in a conference in Basel. Flown to Zurich on Swiss Air.
Before the conference, I had a few nice walk with conference attendees from different parts of the world, taking time to see and had coffee while journaling. Visited stationery and lifestyle stores like Waser, Book Binders, Seven Sisters, etc.
One afternoon was particularly pleasant with nothing to do, so I cycled to all 3 countries sharing this lovely little Basel. Between the border of France and Switzerland I had a couple of beers by the river and a nice chat with a fellow conference attendee.
After my presentation and the weather permitted, we went for the maiden flight of the newly made Cyberclean hot air balloon. I was privileged to be on that very balloon, while the rest of the conference attendees rode on the other 9 balloons. Champaign after that.
I stole half a day from the conference and met two persons I knew but never met before. My blog reader Yvette who took me to Zurich to see stationery stores and bought me a nice pen, we had lunch in a famous restaurant Zeughauskeller, she showed me her lovely Traveler's Notebook and pens in brass pen case, we shared love in stationery and photography. We talked about business and management near the end of the day as she is the head of a medium size company. Since I'm a serious Treemap user, I arranged to meet the founder of Macrofocus Treepmap, Luc, in Babu's Bakery & Coffeehouse. Interesting to see his other versions of Treemap and found that surprisingly the software's biggest clients are … I can't tell, but very interesting. Thanks Yvette and Luc, I had a great afternoon with you even though it was very brief!
Visited Museum Tinguely amazed by his work, went up to 1291 meters Weissenstein mountain top to lunch afterward.
Chased by a cow there after showing her my Traveler's Notebook, literally chased by her and being laughed at by a 10 years old kid.
Before we left Weissenstein, I had 30 minutes laying on grass breathing clean air while looking over this beautiful country.
It was quite late that day but we managed to stop by Solothurn, a beautiful little town having a lot to do with the number 11… (check out my flickr feed by clicking the photos). Fountains, churches, clock tower, cafe, etc. Too short a stay but feeling lucky.
Back to Hong Kong from Switzerland. Mid-autumn night playing with kids and lights and camera.
A cycling day with my Strida and Olympus PEN.
Worked a lot on Inkling campaign, which has a long queue of waiting list now as production speed is still slow due to their strict quality control standard.
Went with my modified Polaroid 110A (by Patrick Putze) to Ma Wan in Hong Kong, where an Instagram event in Hong Kong took place, check out Hong Kong Instayay keyword.
The Instayay group is getting bigger and bigger, lots of new faces I couldn't find time to meet. Great to socialize with a very diverse group of people.
Oh I did take my Voigtlander 35mm too, stunning colors to capture in Ma Wan.
And it was the first time I saw my son so seriously taking photos with his digital camera, love that he enjoys photography as much as I do.
September was Switzerland, October was Korea. For some reasons this trip was delayed to October and I couldn't change flight schedule but to accept a midnight flight to Seoul.
Rare in Seoul but it happened to me, bed bug bite in a decent hotel, luckily they moved me to a super nice traditional Korean style room, 5 times bigger but I was not so used to sleep on the floor with thin bedding. Managed to find a lot of great stuffs to bring to customers in our shop.
First time to try Budae Jjigae (Army hotpot). A type of hotpot originated from Korean War when meat was scarce and people picked left over food from US army base. Yummy.
Met dozens of suppliers over there and found new masking tapes which quality finally catching up with Japanese MT Tapes.
Stopped by 10x10 cafe again, a must visit cafe even though the decoration is changed significantly from my last visit.
Finally visited Jetoy's very own shop, met the founder once again and had a real nice meeting and planned ahead for the coming year's collaboration.
Visited dozens of stationery and lifestyle shops, as usual. Small world, I arranged a meeting with a Korean guy I met back in Switzerland, to learn more about his business in Korea. Chose the Toycamera shop to meet. Found in that shop selling a book with dozens of my Polaroid photos inside. I agreed to let them use my photos for the book, for free, in return I asked them to send me the book but they never did! Toycamera shop owner was nice enough to ask me to sign that book and I was happy enough. And I bought the book.
Turned out there was a firework display in one of the night I stayed in Seoul, went all the way to get close to the firework and it was awesome, so many people.
Back to Hong Kong from Seoul. Kid is having more homework, I invented some ways to help him learn English spelling, turned out successful and each round I would make a small booklet for the bunch of words he needs to memorize. Eventually, I made a leather cover for those booklets. My kid supervised me to make the leather book, and he specified a pencil holder too. I named in "Spell(ing) Book". Fun.
Cycling in Cheung Chau with kids, what a lovely day. Ice cream, cycling, chit chats and of course Instant photography, this time with Chocolate Polaroid film.
Middle of October, after weeks of thinking about it, I finally took 4 hours (or 6?) to make this leather pen holder with strap for myself. I followed a design from a Japanese company called 4GATS, I admired their design a lot but I couldn't buy it anywhere in Japan in my last visit in July. Will import their products to Hong Kong, but I just had to own one created by my hand :)
More product sourcing, repeatedly, happily. Knew Jac Zagoory's key pen for a while but finally saw it in person first time. Great quality, good looking, but probably cannot arrive for this Xmas.
Couldn't join Strida gatherings, but managed to visit a bike store opening. Met a serious biker who customized his Strida with speed drive, drop bar and Megahorn.
Got my hands on the Polaroid Z340 instant digital camera! Love the look, hate the Zink prints. Launch event with media on 23rd Nov.
Lomokino launched. Got a sample but haven't tried to use it, I have low motivation to do that afraid of spending all my money in seconds.
Phew, a whole lot more happened, I guess these are just tip of the iceberg. Better follow my tweets Colin! :) BTW, finished reading the "Steve Jobs" biography and re-read "Why We Buy". In the process of reading "Thinking, Fast and Slow".
