Shanghai BarbieWorld!

Ok, this was a somewhat random stop on our part - especially since my two girls never ever really liked Barbies and we don't have one anywhere in our house at this point in time.

But it's the world's first and only Barbie World!  How could we miss that?!  To be honest, I was curious about the experience - wondering if it was as immersive as the American Girl stores.  And being a connoisseur of retail experiences, I dragged my girls along with me.

First of all, it's totally unprepossessing from the street.  You actually enter something that looks like an office building, and there is a single escalator from the lobby.

Here's where the pink started.

Funnily enough, the girls were ahead of me in the escalator and when they got to the top, the both turned and their jaws just dropped.

It was a giant spiral staircase with hundreds of pink Barbies and in general, just an explosion of pink everywhere!

The Barbie Design Studio where you could supposedly design your own Barbie turned out to be a bit of a dud.  You really just picked the accessories that you could have with one of 5 standard Barbies.  Not the customized experience I thought it would be.  Although the Design Studio was pretty cool looking.

There was also a number of limited edition Barbie displays.  I especially liked these two - the Kate Spade and Lilly Pulitzer Barbies!

And finally, the Barbie Cafe (alas we did not partake).

By the way, the store was not terribly crowded but the number of Asian adult females greatly outnumbered the children in attendance.  I may have had their target demographic wrongly pegged!

Espadrilles everywhere

The nice Scot who checked us into our apartment made it a point to tell me that women's shoes were an excellent buy in Barcelona. I wonder how he knew...

We went to a famous espadrille shop today, making espadrilles by hand since 1902. La Manual Alpargatera is a crowded little place with rather unprepossessing window displays. Inside is a nice selection of espadrilles in different heel heights and designs. Apparently they also make custom orders. It was cute to see the old ladies hopping on the ladder to get different sizes from the big wall of espadrilles. My lady kept speaking Spanish to me, I think I understood most of what she was talking about - ah, the international language of shoes.

Three pairs - a very successful outing. No, clearly they weren't all for me :)

My Favorite Store in Ireland

OK, I know I've only been in Ireland for 2 days. And that I've only been to Dublin. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I've found my very favorite store in Ireland - Avoca.

The large one in Dublin (they have other locations) has multiple floors - and it's been around as a brand since the 18th century. Their specialty is hand-woven items and clothing that they've designed and manufactured in Ireland. However, the entire store is a well-edited and eclectic collection of merchandise that complements their home-grown items.








There's a small men's section - just enough to pick out the occasional present. And there's a huge children's floor with some clothing and lots of other toys, kid-related items and generally cute stuff. There is a section of women's clothing that's very similar to the style at Anthropologie (but it's really an indie, as opposed to Anthropologie, which tries to seem indie but is quite a large chain!) And a wide range of extremely well-arranged housewares - including items from Pylones, one of our favorite brands from France. The basement holds a food hall and there's a lovely cafe on the top floor. I couldn't plan a store better than this one!





But lest you think my enthusiasm seems exaggerated, please believe me when I say that I spent an inordinate amount of time in this store. I started by heading up to the cafe for lunch. I was hoping to get a nice bowl of soup but alas, the daily special was carrot and orange. Ugh - it sounded dangerously sweet (I like my savories savory, thank you). So I ordered an interesting dish of "organic baby meatballs in tomato sauce with manchego and rocket, served with couscous and Tuscan bread". This may sound weird, but it was actually quite good. The desserts also looked excellent but I managed to control myself. I had a cuppa tea to round off my meal.





After a nice lunch, I wandered down through the store. There was much I liked, especially in housewares, but all the items were too bulky to easily transport home. So after trying on countless cardigans and sweaters, I settled on this long-sleeved t pictured here. Trust me, it's cute.

I may have to go back tomorrow just to revel in the store of my dreams again.

P.S. As my friend noted this evening, even their shopping bag is cute!

Chatuchak Weekend Market

We made a quick late afternoon run on Sunday to the massive weekend market with 15,000 stalls on 26 acres. It was stiflingly hot and the kids were fascinated with the pet section, much of which I found unbearable due to the conditions and the heat.

They were obsessed with the small bunnies, which I have to admit were really rather cute. 100 baht each (~ 3USD). Needless to say, we left bunny-less...

My Fabulous New iPhone

The iPhone 3G was released a few days before we left the States. Being gainfully unemployed, I went down to the Apple Store at Stanford to pick one up. I arrived around 9:30 am and the line had perhaps 100 people in it. The staff estimated it would take 2 hours. Well, after a little dithering, I decided to stay and wait.

The wait was mostly pleasant, a shady line area with the occasional bench - and Teuscher employees swinging by with coffee and cold chocolate. My casual observation was that about half the people in line already had the original iPhone. However, the staff estimate proved to be wildly optimistic, due to server and activation problems that have been widely reported. When I was near the end of my wait, a man walked down the line offering $100 to take someone's place - he had no takers!

After about 3 hours, I was finally in the Apple Store. Then I learned that due to various circumstances (switching my cell number from an Oracle corporate plan to a personal plan for example), I would not be eligible for the service discount if I kept my old number. Much irritated and after an annoying conversation with AT&T, I ended up getting a new phone number. It was going to cost me $200 extra to keep my old number and I refused to give idiot AT&T any additional revenue.

Aside from that one mar on the surface of my iphone experience, the unit is truly fabulous. It surfs the net like a dream (although at my house in Menlo Park, there's only Edge and not 3G). The interface is intuitive and App Store has done for apps what iTunes did for music. I've downloaded 19 apps so far, 3 of them paid for.

I'm in Thailand now and the iPhone is not released here. So whenever I pull it out, it's an object of great fascination. I gave my father an extended tour the other day - he was quite impressed. While travelling, data roaming charges can rack up, so I have that turned off and the iPhone picks up wifi for data whenever available.You can see the above screenshot of the GPS location of where I am right now - Emporium Suites on Sukumvit Soi 24 in Bangkok.

I couldn't be happier with my new toy!

"I make very good price for you"

One of the elements of having a guide is the requisite stop at various shopping venues where, after a short display to see how the craft is made, you’re given a sales pitch for whatever the handicraft is. The sales pitch is usually low key and since we’re with A&K, we definitely see the classier shops (also the more expensive ones!). In Jordan, we visited a mosaic factory and saw how they assembled the 28 natural colors of local stone into decorative and functional mosaics. We also watched a gentleman whose been making sand art for 29 years create some very detailed masterpieces, and kindly personalized a couple of items for the girls.

Here in Egypt, we stopped at a carpet factory and saw various ways carpets could be made. The girls tried their hands at knotting some carpet. And the silk carpets were quite beautiful that I succumbed to a small piece representing the Tree of Love that we will hang in the house.

We also stopped at the jewelry store to get personalized cartouches made for the girls. Amara decided it was not for her, but Mei was thrilled. We placed the order and the cartouche will be delivered in a few days to our hotel. And of course, I couldn’t resist a rather costly bracelet for myself. A belated birthday present! Or perhaps a Mother's Day present, since that holiday is celebrated on March 21 in Egypt.

All of these purchases required a bit of negotiation – I like negotiating for the most part. It’s a way of life here, as in Thailand. However, I’ve definitely become much softer – I know that I could have done better if I had tried a little harder.

This Started Out As A Good Trip But Then...

I spent the past few days in Paris, a trip that started out quite well. It wasn't a perfect trip by any means - I had been hoping to stay in the center of Paris, preferably at my favorite hotel next to the Tuileries, which used to be an Intercontinental but now has turned into a Westin. Alas, the quoted rate was 700 euros - a little too rich for my blood and not likely to be approved through the corporate travel dept.

So instead, I stayed at the lovely Hilton La Defense, which was incredibly convenient for the office and conference I was attending, but which had the charm of a gnat. La Defense was built 40 years ago as the "Manhattan" of Paris - a ghetto of high-rise office blocks and a large, sterile convention center. The hallmark of La Defense is La Grande Arche, built on the same grand axis as L'Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées.

However, it is a convenient RER A ride to the center of Paris. So on the day I arrived, I decided to power through my jetlag by shopping in town (of course!). I took the train to Les Halles, and proceeded to have a big wander of many miles back over to the Arc de Triomphe. I stopped at E. Dehillerin along the way - a cookware store whose reputation is legendary, but which is a far cry of the stylings of a Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table. This was more like a hardware store for cooks, with opinionated sales people who have an elaborate routine for paying and wrapping your goods. I bought a lovely copper saute pan from the south of France, made by Mauviel - copper lined with stainless steel, which apparently is amazing to cook with. Those of you who know me may well ask why on earth I would need such a spectacular saute pan - well, it's very pretty too. And I've since checked the prices - even though it seemed rather expensive in Paris, it's probably twice as pricey here in the US.

I strolled for a while, stopping for a quick sandwich at Paul, at Michel Cluizel to pick up some chocolates and of course the obligatory stop at Mariage Frere for more tea that I can't quite drink up in time.

I ended up having a rather big lunch at Dalloyau - I intended on having a little Croque Monsieur, but saw a wonderful Filet de Beouf avec des Pommes Pont Neufs go by to another table, and picked that instead. It was an excellent steak and the potatoes (glorified poufy french fries) were nice. To feel virtuous, I ate the little side salad first. I finished with a nice pot of Earl Grey and a little Tarte Citron.

I had to rush back to the hotel for a conference call but after that, visited the large mall in La Defense known as Les Quatre Temps (Four Seasons). Very efficient mall, but like the rest of La Defense, with the charm of a gnat.

So you may ask, after all that shopping and eating, why would this not be classified as a great trip? Because I'm currently sitting in the lounge at Frankfurt Airport, having missed various direct flights and currently booked on a multi-stop itinerary that, if all goes well, will get me home 12 hours after originally planned. Let's just say that both United and Lufthansa will be receiving some scathing survey feedback shortly.

Update - I arrived home at 3:30 am, approximately 11 hours after my scheduled arrival...such is the glamour of international business travel :-)

Shibuya, Hands and Loft

I had a spare 90 mins before I needed to take the Airport Limousine bus to Narita for my flight, and never one to miss an opportunity to wander around, I buzzed over to Shibuya for a quick tour.

Why Shibuya? Because it's the site of the huge, often photographed intersection teeming with masses of people (the Tokyo equivalent of Times Square if you will), and because 2 of my favorite stores are located there - Tokyu Hands and Seibu Loft. I emerged from the Metro station to a cacophony of Japanese rap, huge flashing billboards everywhere and the biggest Harry Potter movie poster I have ever seen. Other than the usual set of people waiting to meet their friends at the Hachiko statue, it was all relatively calm because it was still early in the day.

I took a quick photo of the ideally located 2 story Starbucks, with upstairs seating with a fabulous view of the whole intersection. But no time to stop, I was on a mission.

I walked over to Tokyu Hands, arriving just as the store was opening. It was quite the experience to walk into the store and walk through a gauntlet of store employees, all of whom are bowing and wishing you a good morning.

Tokyu Hands is billed as a "Creative Life Store" - it has hobby and craft items, home improvement stuff and just a whole lot of other random but very fun things. I spent an inordinate time on the various floors devoted to stationery alone - presentation is such an important part of the culture here, and stationery (as well as housewares) is a perfect representation.

I didn't really have time to do justice to Loft (although the displays looked a lot more appealing there than at Hands) before I had to head back to catch my airport bus. When it left the hotel, 8 hotel employees stood in a line and waved us away :)

All in all, a very short, but satisfying sojourn in Tokyo.

Final note - for the first time in 15+ years, they searched my bag at Customs coming back into the US. I attribute it to the grumpy DHS immigration agent who actually asked me what my SSN was. A definite first!

Unagi and Sicilian SeaSalt Gelato

Well I'm in Tokyo right now, for a brief 48 hours. My flight landed earlier today and after a looong 110 min airport bus ride, I finally reached the New Otani Hotel. The hotel is as lovely as I remembered, and much to my surprise, there was a mobile phone waiting for me when I checked in (since Japan does not use the GSM network). I have very considerate colleagues! Of course, all the instructions for the phone were in Japanese and I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me a good 5 mins before I could figure out how to turn the phone on!

It was fast approaching the dinner hour, so I decided to head out to a large department store. The concierge suggested that going to Shinjuku would be the fastest bet. He gave me a very brief set of instructions - either because I projected an air of familiarity and confidence with the Tokyo subway system (unintentional, of course!) or because any nervous person would have asked him 10 more questions. Either way, I was armed with a Metro map and headed out to take the Marunouchi line to Shinjuku-sanchome (a 160 yen ride). I do like taking public transport in foreign cities so enjoyed myself immensely, even the part where I had to jam myself onto a packed train as the doors practically closed on me.

I picked Isetan as my Depāto of choice and entered on the basement level. I forgot to bring my camera on this trip so I couldn't take photos of all the wonderful food in the basement food halls - that's my favorite activity in Japan, wandering through the basement food halls of the big department stores. There was a huge cakes and pastries section - where all the names of the Japanese bakeries were French, yet they far outdid the French in terms of presentation and appeal. The cooked food section was also huge. I restrained myself to buying candy and pretty packages of rice crackers.

I headed upstairs and picked up some Hello Kitty items for the kids, plus an array of Japanese Harry Potter memorabilia. Let's hope it's not all freely available in the US, since I would have lugged everything back for nothing!

I finally realized I was hungry and headed up to the 7th floor - known as "Eats Paradise". I picked the unagi restaurant and had a lovely unagi setto, with some unadon, maguro sashimi and a few other exquisite little side dishes. It was a great meal and I sat by myself at the bar. I noticed that there were quite a few unagi price points - I picked the middle set of course!

After eating everything on my tray, I headed back down to the basement and stopped at Mario Gelateria - the Japanese take on gelato. I had the Mediterranean Orange (essentially a blood orange flavor) and the Sicilian Seasalt (a creamy white gelato that was slightly salty and had little bits of almonds). I actually liked the Sicilian Seasalt better than the blood orange flavor! There was also a Blue Seasalt gelato in a lovely pale blue shade, but I just wasn't feeling that adventurous.

Finally my body started communicating to me that 24 sleepless hours was just a bit much, so I headed back to the hotel to do a little email before calling it a night.

Soldissimes!

On our last full day in Paris, Sean took the girls to the Palais de la Découverte, the science museum while I went shopping. You'll find this is a common occurence for our family in various parts of the world - Sean and the girls have been to a lot of different science museums, and of course, I happily power shop for a few hours. If you want to get a detailed report on the museum, you'll have to talk to my family because I'm going to talk about shopping ;)

I started out at the local tea shop around the corner from our apartment, otherwise known as Mariage Freres, the world famous tea shop. There was an impressive selection of teas there. I bought a couple of beautiful containers and asked them to fill them with 100g of any special tea that was only available here in France. The gentleman recommended a Himalayan black which smelled lovely. Much to my surprise, when he handed me the ticket, it was 120 euros for 100g. That's 1,200 euros per kilo of this tea - approx $1,600! Now, I have pretty refined tastes when it comes to tea, but this I couldn't quite stomach. I had no shame - told him it was too expensive (bear in mind, the containers were already measured and filled!), and asked for a nice Earl Grey instead. The new total for my bill was MUCH better :)

I strolled over to Du Pareil au Meme, my favorite children's clothing store in Europe. I like the Rue St. Denis location since it's a really big branch. DPAM is probably the local equivalent of GAP Kids - normal prices (not your Jacardi or fancy kids' clothing store prices) but amazing style. I had already visited their stores in Avignon and Aix last week! There was a huge sale going on the Paris store - now the store is never terribly well-organized even at the best of times, but when there's a sale going on, it's complete mayhem. I spent an inordinate amount of time picking out things, and emerged much later with a huge bag of stuff. But think of the money I SAVED!! ;)

After DPAM, I had a decision to make: stroll over to Les Halles for the French equivalent of mall shopping? Or take the Metro over to Blvd Haussmann to Galeries Lafayette for the equivalent of shopping at Bloomingdale's? It was a tough choice but GL won out - the main store has a beautiful stained glass dome that I like to admire. I decided to grab a sandwich on the go so I wouldn't waste any valuable shopping time...

GL was also complete mayhem, which was surprising. Big sales going on - huge signs said Soldissimes everywhere. I had to buy a new duffle to hold all my DPAM purchases, and also once again, picked up another handbag for myself. This was a bit of a pricey proposition in the end. (I didn't feel too guilty about it until Sean reminded me that when we bought the new house last year, I had vowed not to buy any more designer purses for at least another year. Oops!)

Market Day in Aix

There is a daily local market in Aix-en-Provence, but an especially big market on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. So on Tuesday morning, off we went to the market.

It took us a little while to find the right square and a bit of an adventure to park, but we finally made it to the market by about 10:30 am. The market was divided into two sides - one for fresh fruits and vegetables and the other for local items such as soaps, fabric and linens, antiques and housewares.

We loved the spice vendor - he had pure spices of all kinds and special blends for seasoning grilled items, fish, potatoes and of course the requisite herbs de Provence blend. We bought strawberries, apricots (which are wonderful - at peak season right now) and more melons. It was a prettier market than Pelissane, but surprisingly, it was actually a little smaller. But it did have a few more touristy items like a huge selection of scented soaps - it was a lot of fun to pick out our favorites.

We also bought olives and some great paella from the vendor who was cooking an enormous pan - when we walked by the first time, the pan was completely full, but when we returned about 45 mins later, he only had about a quarter of the pan left.

Heavily laden with baskets, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at a lovely cafe on Cours Mirabeau (a beautiful tree-lined avenue) before heading back to the house.

Our First Market

We awoke bright and early Sunday morning (or at least 4 of us did) and headed to the local market at Pellissane, about 15 mins away. It turned out to be a much large market that we expected - lots of produce, bread, cheese, meats, rotisserie stands plus lots of clothing and other local items.

We had a great time - the local melons from Cavaillon were incredibly sweet. And there were cherries, apricots, plums, peaches and other beautiful local fruit.


After the local market, we had to stop by the supermarket again, especially since they close at 12:30 on Sundays. Apparently buying 48 beers yesterday was not adequate ;)

In the afternoon, we headed to Isle sur la Sorgue, a pretty town in the Luberon known for its antique market and watermills. A lovely outing topped by ice cream on the banks of the Sorgue river.

A side note on laundry: the washer takes 2 hours to run a cycle and the most effective drying solution is the old fashioned laundry line. Oh well, can't have everything...