snowman in africa

To honor the 5th anniversary of the Gucci Campaign to Benefit UNICEF, Creative Director Frida Giannini has commissioned acclaimed author and illustrator Michael Roberts to create a magical new children's book, 'Snowman in Africa'; a sequel to the 2004 'Snowman in Paradise' book.

Through December 31, 2009, Gucci will donate 100% of the retail price from 'Snowman in Africa' to UNICEF.

grabaseat

With prices for the same dates as the grabaseat fares, today was an online frenzy with THOUSANDS of people vying for bargain $1 + tax tickets to their favourite destinations.

With only 10 tickets to each destination, I was LUCKY enough to beat 15,000+ people online at the time to get 2 tickets to Los Angeles! I'm so surprised the website didn't crash with a record number of people online trying to book.

Unfortunately, the grabaseat website doesn't hold tickets so you can get to the last step of putting in your credit card details and then sitting on the edge of your seat to find that you were too late and the seats have gone. Luckily for me that didn't happen this time!

Is it pure luck that I've managed to get 4 $1 + tax tickets in the last 3 weeks??? Wonder what is in store next Friday for the last Friday of their $1 November promo!

$1 + tax flights

Watch this space.

macau

This time I spent the afternoon looking around Macau, as the last trip I basically saw the inside of The Venetian where the Fall Out Boy concert was held. I also managed to go to a few casinos to sign up to their loyalty programmes; now I have membership cards as souvenirs from big name casino/hotels!

wan chai at night

tian tan buddha

Today I visited the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island. To get there I took a trip on Ngong Ping Cable Car, a 5.7km long bi-cable gondola lift taking about 25 minutes. The cable car has amazing views of Hong Kong International Airport so was a great trip for an aviation enthusiast such as myself.

walking the streets

Did I maybe see one of the most sought after number plates around? Guess the only thing better could be LV8888!

welcome to hong kong

louis vuitton: art, fashion and architecture

Birthday present to myself, and a group shot of some of my other Louis Vuitton books.

fantastic early birthday present

Thanks to the great Grabaseat website, I was able to score a trip to Hong Kong next week for $72.10! To complete their month of 100 domestic flights for $1 each day in October, they had international deals for $1 + tax.

There were only 10 seats and with over 7,000 people online at the time trying to get them I was super lucky! Current price for the same flights is $2,070.60. Will be going for a week and fantastic timing since it's my birthday on Monday. So will be able to spend the following 7 days in Hong Kong and I'm actually really excited about having the time to look around properly as last time I really only had 1 day because of the weather!

And if that wasn't all, I was even LUCKIER to book a ticket for my brother to Los Angeles next week for $122! There were only 10 seats available too and with the normal price at $2,320.30 thats a bargain as well! His flight leaves an hour before mine and he gets back Tuesday week.

Grabaseat has been good to me in the past, where I've had cheap flights to Wellington ($1), Queenstown ($1), Melbourne ($208), Shanghai ($550), San Francisco ($898) and now I can add Hong Kong to the list!

todays mail

Got myself a copy of a japanese magazine that features 114 pages nearly entirely of the Louis Vuitton Mens collection from a number of seasons, including bags, SLGs, some RTW, and other things such as VIP gifts. There is also a great 2 page spread of all the canvas and materials they have used with pictures, including Monogram Groom, Cuir Suhali, Graffiti, Conte de Fees, Monogram Mesh and Eye Love Monogram.

I'm having a lot of fun going through the magazine and seeing things I own like the Soana Trotteur and Force Damier Graphite belt, and also seeing things I haven't really noticed before, like how in the Monogram Groom collection, the jaune and white stripe colour was the only colourway to have the colour first followed by white. All the other stripes had white/off-white and then vert, orange, bleu or rouge.

street art

I stood watching a street artist using spray cans to create artwork for over 2 hours before I finally asked him to do a special one for me. It took me that long to decide what I wanted painted, as every one he did was different and I liked different parts of each. With a large crowd around every time he did one and being sold basically straight away by people who saw what he was doing, I was lucky that I got one made exactly to how I wanted and it turned out perfect!

I asked him to do lots of planets which I thought looked amazing after seeing the techniques he used to make them, and I loved the way he did the shadows on the pyramids so wanted them on the bottom. He added in the UFO himself which I think is a very nice touch!

night lights with telecom

As with the light display at the Town Hall in May 2009, the Ferry Building in Downtown Auckland was lit up to celebrate the launch of Telecom's new logo and branding. It was done by Mike Mizrahi of Inside Out Productions, the man behind glamourous Louis Vuitton events.

beautiful day for a wedding

Louis Vuitton Jazz Night

The last picture was taken right at the end of the night after they had packed up, it was alot busier than that! There was a jazz band playing, as well as displays with turntables on them displaying the mens collection including the Macassar Soft Briefcase and the Beaubourg Sac de Sport, as well as record covers and the records that came with the invitation.

The storefront was converted to look like a jazz club with posters of records on the walls, and one of the mens wall display was also changed to the Jazz Night theme, with black backing and record covers placed between the stock.

Of course there was free flowing Moët as well as an interesting ginger cocktail. Was a fun night!

sunday brunch... on saturday

Voted one of Auckland's top 50 cafes, The Library uses organic, free-range, sustainable and locally grown products, and has a strong commitment and vision of eco-sustainability.

my favourite invitation to date

louis vuitton tour eiffel

sbf brasserie... again

a great day for flying