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I work at alivenotdead.com - I am just a web-monkey. :-P

Born in DC, Lived in SF for 12 years, then Japan for 2 more. Been in HK since Summer 06. Take a look around, feel free to leave a comment!

我可以懂日文和中文。私の日本語下手じゃないけど、中国語のほうが上手よ！日本語分かったらコメントをくれて下さい！

Cosplay Sandwich + Yet More bling iPhone covers from Shenzhen

Wednesday, Oct 14, 2009 8:27PM / Standard Entry / China

I went back across to Shenzhen last weekend with a friend who will remain nameless. I did a good 90 minutes of biking and then met him at the train station to go across the border.

Once into the wild world of Shenzhen, we took the subway to Dong Men. I wanted to exchange a bad iPhone cable I had bought from a shop there last time. This was the same store I snuck those pictures of the bling bling bejeweled iPhone cases.

This time I was less shy about taking pics:
Yes, that's a Hello Kitty decoden iphone cover.

some of them are a little over the top with the giant fake gem stones... the amazing thing is that these are all like US$2-3 each...

On our way out of the mall, I spotted a good candidate for the China edition of Engrish.com:

hmm... I lived in the San Francisco area for 12 years, but I don't remember any LOGEND that DOES NOI CONE APON AL THE SINCE.....

We ended up going to my favorite place to eat in Shenzhen... the 'Cosplay Cafe'.
I'm not sure if you can read the English on the name of the bottom most sandwich.

Yes, its a 'Cosplay Sandwich'... some sort of club sandwich... not what a less-than-clean mind might have come up with if you mention that name... but I digress... :-P

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Beijing BBQ

Sunday, Sep 13, 2009 1:00PM / Standard Entry / China

Last Saturday night Rebecca let me tag along with her to go to a BBQ at her friend's place. Very gracious of her.

As you can see, it was quite tasty!

As a finale, one of the guys there who is adept at making deserts gave us all some fancy thing he made:
it looked rather difficult to make, but I'm not sure exactly what it was... some sort of baked custard flan type thing? It was not bad though. :-P

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ShiChaHai stroll 什剎海衚衕行步

Saturday, Sep 12, 2009 7:00PM / Standard Entry / China

On Saturday afternoon I went to visit Wu Di for lunch. We went to the same hotpot place we ate at in July. This time Chris Lay + the family came along too.

After lunch Wu Di had to go back to his training center, but team Lay and I took the opportunity to burn off some hotpot with a stroll around the hutong(衚衕/胡同) area next to Shichahai.

As you can see the weather was actually pretty decent. less hazy than most recent days and a bit cooler.

If you're not familiar with hutongs, they are the narrow alleys that dominate this area. Read all about them on wikipedia. They wind around traditional chinese courtyard estates called Siheyuan ('四合院').

Some of the houses here are original sihueyuan homes, I think a lot of them are recently build houses built into the old spaces.

Here's the front door to one. I think this one is relatively old. Take a look at the writing above the doorway.

It says 'Long Live Chairman Mao' (literally 'Chairman Mao 10,000 years')

This was an interesting sign... in China foreign residents are required to register w/ the local police when they move in somewhere. But this is the first time I a sign like this... Smiley the Police Computer Operator is a nice touch. :-P

equally interesting:
This Hutong had a typical sight, people doing their laundry by hand in the middle of the alley. As we approached it became clear what was atypical. This was actually a white guy! I guess he really was going native... boxer shorts and all. :-P

this one had a nice set of vines growing overhead. complete with giant hanging squash type vegetables.

Eventually we were back to the lake-side. This is the actual 'Hou Hai' (後海) - not to be confused with 'Qian Hai' (前海). The whole lakeside area is one of the now gentrified areas of Beijing:
Its not gentrified because of the duck shaped paddle boats!

its gentrified because of this:
Yes, that's a kitschy Starbucks Coffee trying to fit in. (actually it looks quite nice, I don't mind them being there if they weren't so overpriced!) :-P

but the epitome is this place:
"Look Reina, its the Michael Jackson Bar and Lounge!" (little did you know that MJ opened a bar in Beijing and then named it after himself right before he died).

Actually we asked a guy inside. He said they just changed the name recently "because the owner really liked Michael Jackson"... truly a tribute!

a few more odds and ends:
You can rent bikes around here. In this case if you have not one, but two friends with you and neither of them want to ride alone!

While we were walking around Chris and I were talking about strange China fashion. It used to be much more prevalent back in the old days (high heels with sweat pants, suits on construction workers, etc), but its less now that China has modernized a bit.

But then we happened upon this interesting image:
Skater = Rebel, Red Cowboy Hat = (this he's) Very Cool...
But unfortunately A+B is not equal to C!

Skater with Red Cowboy Hat = completely not cool.

And eventually we were back at the start:

Good to walk around there. Entertaining walk and found some places I never even knew existed!

More catch up from Beijing coming! (i'm back in HK already)

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Wu Ji + Okboter in September!

Friday, Sep 11, 2009 8:00PM / Standard Entry / China

My 2nd night in Beijing we met up with Jason and some other friends and had dinner in San Li Tun.

we met up at the Adidas store where I took these pics at the end of June when they still had the Wu Ji launch displays up.

It turns out they didn't take them all away when they redid their latest decorations in the front of the store.

Here are some of the Wu Ji shoes. nice.

After dinner we walked over to a German style bar. I could instantly tell it was not opened by actual German people, since it was WAY over the top on the Oktoberfest design theme...
Bier maids.

Not pictures the gigantic fake beer barrels built into the wall, and the suit of armor (?!)

Some sort of fancy tap for beer despensing. Also equipt with Jaegermeister....

I couldn't help myself, I ambushed one of the maidens too. :-P

We came right at the end of happy hour, so their gigantic beer steins actually ended up being cheaper than my tiny can of Sprite. :-(

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Lee Hyori loves Hyundai

Wednesday, Sep 9, 2009 8:00PM / Standard Entry / China

Being a fan of Asian films and music, and also as I deal a lot with marketing, advertising and in particular celebrity related advertising, I pay a LOT more attention to display advertisements nowadays compared to before.

In the Beijing subway they have some interesting ads up. In Wang Fujing station they have the entire wall in the concourse covered with a giant Hyundai ad:
One way to get attention in a crowded ad market is through the use of celebrity endorsement. This is especially popular in China.

in this case Hyundai went for the female demographic with their choice of Korean pop-star / actress Lee Hyori (이효리 / 李孝利).

A good choice, even if she's not my personal favorite Korean media princess...that would be either Ha Ji-Won (하지원) or possibly Annie Lee (aka Mrs Sir-Eats-A-Lot).

For those not familiar with Lee Hyori, she was a member of Fin KL. She also is a bit infamous because one of her hits, 'Get Ya' was accused of being a blatant rip-off of Britney Spear's 'Do Something'.

I'm not up to speed on the legal technicalities, but after watching the video on youtube, it certainly looks like an improvement to me! :-P

Anyway, long story short - the ad worked. It got my attention, it even got me to write a blog about it! And when I die I want to be reincarnated as a Hyundai i30 (drivers seat cushion.... or possibly a seat belt). :-P

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