FOOD | urban bakery

Outside-of-the-office work days are the best best work days! On this particular day the Spottly team (whatever's left of us in Hong Kong haha) stopped by { Urban Bakery Works } in The Landmark for a quick pow wow about the best big project. But shhh...It's a secret for now, but I assure you we're all really excited about this!



As I've mentioned before, it has been a good 6 months since my arrival in Hong Kong and since that time I've taken it upon myself to scope out the best places in the city for a good cup o' joe. I've narrowed it down to a few favourites at this point and I have to say I'm so happy to see that Hong Kong has stepped up it's coffee game in the last several years (shoutout to them Aussies!!!). Anyways, Urban Bakery might not necessarily be the best of the best but it is a heck of a lot better than your average Starbucks/Pacific Coffee. Their lunch options also look pretty tasty - hey, I'm lookin' at YOU beet and goat cheese salad - and I've heard good things about their brûlée croissant. I suppose this warrants another visit in the near near future. ;)

Great. It's closing in on 12am and I'm feelin' the midnight munchies kicking in. Time for bed!

ILLUSTRATION | misc sketchbook pages

Just some recent drawing from my moleskine. I've been trying to get back into sketching in the past couple weeks. I don't know what happened the last couple years, I used to enjoy sketching all the time when I was a kid/teenager but somehow that passion waned and I've been finding it very hard to want to pick up my moleskine to draw. I recently rediscovered that spark when I was on my trip to Europe but somehow it faded again when I got back home (buildings are just not as beautiful here :P). I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm determined to pick up that habit again - I miss it, and this summer is a good a time as any to start practicing again. Baby steps!

And if anyone's interested the rest of the pages from my sketchbook are up on my { sketch blog }

PERSONAL | behind-the scenes of chai wan mei village

Currently sifting through several weeks of backlogged photos and I realised i haven't posted my photos from last month's Spottly Chai Wan Mei Village event.  I always loved events like these - back in Los Angeles I used to attend Unique LA's holiday show every year. I love the idea of supporting local artists and bonding with people through our mutual passion for art.

I was too busy the day of the event, meeting and greeting people, to take photos so my buddy Li Hui handled the daunting task instead - and did an amazing job might I add! All of these photos were actually taken in the preproduction stages, a few days before the actual event. I took some shots of some of the vendors who had came in early to set up their products. I really really loved the neon and tribal prints from the vendor in the first photo - I would love to buy one of those patterned stools for the living room in future apartment! The rest of my time was spent finishing painting the massive Spottly signage, prepping the tote bags, and decorating the space with props with the other interns. If you're interested in seeing the official event photos of CWMVillage, please head over to our [ Facebook Page ].

HONG KONG | art basel 2014

This year Hong Kong proudly hosted it's second Art Basel show in the HK Convention and Exhibition Centre. Art Basel is arguably the biggest art related event in Asia/South East Asia, presenting artwork from over 170 galleries across the globe and featuring over 3000 artists. I don't think I've ever witnessed an event of that scale before and I was completely overwhelmed from the whole thing, to say the least. I came with some friends but with so many sectors to explore, and with everybody viewing the art at their own pace we eventually lost each other in the crowd..twice. No matter though - I had a lot of fun exploring the place on my own and I managed to take some photos of some of my favourite pieces from the show.

HONG KONG | square street +

A lovely menswear and lifestyle store, appropriately named Square Street.

Spotted a weather-worn Spottly sticker outside [ Little Square ]

These were some random photographs taken around Square Street and Tai Ping Shan Street in Sheung Wan when I was there doing research for one of my school projects. If you couldn't already tell, this is one of my favourite neighborhoods in Hong Kong. I especially love seeing what kind of new products the little boutiques stock in their shops. Unfortunately, with my current budget I can only afford to window shop - girl's gotta eat, amirite?

PERSONAL | 6 months

Today marks 6 months since I left the USA. I find that I am still adjusting to life in Asia - I mean, sometimes I still don't believe I'm actually living here! Sounds odd but it's true. I think if you told me a year ago that I would be back, studying in University in year I might've laughed in your face. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd be back in school, cramming for tests and meeting deadlines - I was very happy to leave college the first time around. But things change and opportunities rises up in unexpected places.

This week I've also reached another milestone: I'm finally going apartment hunting. For the last 6 months I've been living in my Mum's apartment while she stayed with my sister in the States (we essentially switched places for half a year). But now she's back and it's time for me to start planning on moving out. I'm still at the beginning stages though, and I've only seen a few apartments around the city. I hope to move out around September or October, which leaves me a few more months to scout around. It's all pretty exciting stuff!

p.s. Took my new sony out for a test run. :)

PERSONAL | spottly photoshoot at nosh

Back in April, Spottly was prepping for a major rebranding before its official launch in May. And as part of the rebranding process we needed whole new set of photos and graphics for our website, blog, social media outlets, and other miscellaneous purposes. I was required to nail 3 different shots, each in a different location. This happened to be my first time shooting photos for something other than for personal use so I was a bit nervous in the beginning. I've also had no experience with food/object styling so it took a little while to get things going. Good thing my co-worker had a talent for mise en place, which helped the shoot run smoother.

Our first shooting location was at { NOSH Tai Ping Shan }, one of my favourite brunch/coffee spots in Hong Kong -- I actually featured it in my publications project for one of my classes. I have to say, the waiters/tress's working at NOSH are some of the most patient people I've ever met. Nobody said a word while I darted in and out of our little table nook for a better part of an hour in attempts to take the perfect shot. It took a long time to nail the final shot because our lack of props left us with very limited composition options. But all the work was worth it in the end because best part was getting to eat everything we ordered. :)

PS. A little note. Spottly is a social travel app you can use to document all your favourite spots in any city and organize them into convenient lists for sharing with friends (hence all the photos with the iphone). You can download Spottly in the iTunes app store { here }.

PERSONAL | snaps for school

One of the projects I had to do my vectors & rasters course was to create a physical guide of Hong Kong street of our choice. The idea was to create a publication spread highlighting interesting things to do or see your particular street with the target audience being tourists, or people who are unfamiliar with the area. Therefore the final design had to be clear, concise, and (duh) pretty.

I am naturally a creature of habit and like to revisit places I like or feel really comfortable in, so when it came to researching streets to feature I was stuck between Star Street in Wan Chai and Tai Ping Shan Street in Sheung Wan. In the end I went with Tai Ping Shan since it seemed to offer a bit more variety of boutiques and cafes. I visited the area one Saturday morning with a fellow SCAD schoolmate to scout the area for some good shots. Here are some I particularly liked, with a few of them making it into the final cut. The first image was featured on the cover page.

PERSONAL | 24

Wow. Has it been another year already? It's funny how many things has changed since my 23rd - the major milestone being finally getting to work towards building a creative career. It's moving slowly, but I'm taking it one step at a time. That being said, I thought it was about time to retire my old Canon DSLR and upgrade to the newest (more travel friendly) Sony. I can't wait to take it out for some test shoots.