scottandcecileinshanghai: January 2007

Red Wasabi

I was in Beijing this week and next time I'll take my camera so I can show you some pics.

Back to Shanghai on Friday and was invited round to Miles' house for a party to celebrate the 1st birthday of Red Wasabi which is an agency we set up to serve Japanese clients in China. The Red Wasabi management became Sushi chefs for the night, making some awesome fresh sushi:

Miles' house is lovely, an old French mansion not far from where we live in the heart of the French Concession. It's full of great art and scupltures:

Its also available as a Bed & Breakfast if anyone fancies it?

Staying in

Been a quiet weekend, mainly as I'm STILL recovering from jetlag (and Tokyo). But we also decided to watch some of our fake DVD's on our Xmas present to ourselves:

Might be staying in more often!

Tokyo

This week I spent a couple of days in Tokyo for meetings. The first time I went to Tokyo a couple of years ago I didn't like it much. It felt further away from home than anywhere I've ever been, phones don't work, ATM's don't work, nobody seems to speak English...

This was my 4th trip and every time I like it more and more. Underneath their formality (and boy can they bow in a business situation), the Japanese people I met are warm and friendly and get a couple of beers down them and give them a microphone they are fantastic fun!

This trip I booked into the wrong Hyatt (who knew there were 3!) so ended up in the hotel where they filmed Lost in Translation. On Friday night at 5am when we rolled out of the Karaoke booth it felt very appropriate!

View over the harbour of the main bridge into Tokyo

View from Ogilvy's office - not bad! The red and white tower you can just see in the middle is the Tokyo Tower which acts as a landmark in the Centre Point sense (ie when you roll out of a karaoke bar pissed at 5am it helps you work out where you are!)

Ogilvy hels their 2007 kick-off party in Hanayashiki Amusement Park which is a very old, tiny little funpark in the middle of Tokyo.

The funfair, complete with a 50 year old rollercoaster!

Typical Tokyo "Love Hotel" as seen from the rollercoaster.

The nearby Senso-ji temple

Early Mornings

This week I suffered from terrible jetlag so was wide awake at 4am. Since I currently have 2 fulltime jobs I decided I might aswell head to work and get started. The one benefit of this was I got to see some lovely Shanghai sunrises.

Unfortunately the main reason they look so stunning is the cloud of pollution sitting over the city which creates a deep red sunrise and sunset.

Flower Market

We decided to brighten up our appartment with some plants so headed off to the flower market in Gubei.

The Orchid room.

Cecile negotiating (she's getting good at this!)

We ended up buying 3 plants which were delivered the next day, so our living room now looks a bit like a jungle!

A leafy one.

A red one.

Another red one!

Back home for Christmas

After a trip to Yorkshire for Christmas (no thanks to BA who were bloody useless, will be flying Virgin in future!) we then spent a few days in London over New Year (Thanks Sophie!), was great to see those of you we managed to catch up with!