Londontown

Back from Barcelona, one day to catch up on reading and print out boarding passes and then off to Londontown. I was there a whole week and was busy the whole time! The main reason for the trip was to meet with a company called Spring Studios and the London College of Fashion. Two great meetings. Spring Studios is a company that started as solely a photography studio and has grown into 45 studios that provides stylists and photographers, world class retouching, social media strategy, and is working to become a one-stop shop for the industry. 90% of the world’s luxury fashion brands use Spring’s facilities. We sat in on a photo shoot and a brand strategy meeting! The lady we met with, Lucy, was phenomenal and such a creative and inspiring spirit. It was also really great to see this side of the industry on our journey, as most of Hong Kong was more on the supply chain and production side. Our day at London College of Fashion was also great. We sat in on a lecture, had lunch on the terrace with some professors and students, gave a presentation and attended another lecture. The funny part of this was that our two British friends from HK were in the class that we happened to sit in on!

Buckingham

Parliament

Besides our meetings we had plenty of time to explore and sightsee. I think we hit most of the big stuff: Tower of London, River Thames, Big Ben/Parliament, Buckingham and Harrod’s. One of the coolest things we did was go to Brick Lane in east London. Our friends had said it was a great market that we just HAD to go to. As we walked down Brick Lane there were tons of Indian restaurants, 7 Elevens, more oriental stores and we started to question if either we were in the wrong spot or if we had misunderstood our friends about what was here. Then, we saw it. People were everywhere! There was a basement vintage market set up, booths and booths of vintage clothing and knick knacks, food stands, a huge American Apparel overstock sale, local jewelers, everything. Jackpot!! We walked around for way too long, but found a few gifts and things for ourselves. Definitely worth the trip!

Inside the Tower of London

Tower Bridge

During the trip we also got to meet up with some friends! My friend Chris is studying at an Architecture school in London so we met up with him for some coffee, a first-year exhibit and a tour of his campus. Although he’s not even sure how to explain his degree, it was great seeing the area and getting to catch up! We also met up with “the British girls” for dinner and drinks. Drinks were at this neat bar called Sketch that was very alternative, but a neat place to check out. The toilets were literally eggs that you entered. The last British friend we saw was Sam (from HK) that surprised us for a night! Just enough time for dinner, jazz bar, and brunch and then we had to head back to Denmark.

With Chris Johnson

Sketch with the British girls

Samuel and I

My Boys Visit!

Although slightly out of order, I’m backtracking to when my lovely “boys” came to visit Copenhagen. As you know, I have some European friends from the time I spent in Hong Kong. Many of them actually live in Copenhagen and go to the same school that I’m studying at, but the others are scattered around this somewhat small continent. Sam (English), Felix and Christian (German) came to visit all of the Danes and Americans for a week before the Barcelona trip.

The trio went to the airport to greet the boys, in large part because the only Starbucks in Denmark is in the airport, and pretty much headed straight to the student bar to meet up with everyone. What’s interesting about Copenhagen is that all of the faculties (or colleges) have bars in the school buildings and have a party one night a week. The whole idea of the school bars is genius, granted it fits more in the European culture, but it encourages students to stay on campus, grab a beer or coffee and have a project meeting, or play board games over a cider before heading home for the day. The night was great with everyone just catching up and dancing. You would never guess that we hadn’t seen each other in 8 months, it literally seemed like no time had passed.

Felix, Me, Maria, Christian, Daniel

Chatting away

None of the boys had really seen much, if anything, in Copenhagen so the next day I practiced my tour guide skills and we all went for a walk through Christianshavn and Christiania. Stops for coffee and photos were encouraged and it ended up being one of the warmest and sunniest days since I’ve been in Copenhagen! That night we had all of the HK people over for a big dinner (tacos!) before going to a Norwegian party. Somehow Benedicte was able to get about 15 non-Norwegians in AS Norwegians. She didn’t let us say anything while in line and were only allowed to say ja (yes) if they asked us anything and it magically worked! Another great night with the old crew!

Walking through Christianshavn

Christianshavn

Jacob and Deb in Christiania

Ludicrous. They actually went out like this.

At the Norwegian party

A delicious brunch the next day on Nyhavn was followed by an entire afternoon of Risk playing and pizza! Since Debbie, Andrew and I were heading to Spain the next day, we all went through a slightly frantic period of checking plane tickets to see if the boys could join us for the week. The plan fell through, but the trio went off for a great trip to Barcelona and the boys spent the rest of the week roadtripping to Berlin and Prague!

Brunch at Nyhavn

When we all got back from our trips, we had one more night before everyone went back home and so we went to Christiania’s 40^th anniversary celebration! If I haven’t explained Christiania before, it’s the “freetown” that was created after hippies took over old military land and started building their own buildings and society. For the event there were stages throughout the entire area with lots of great bands, “trippy” lights, decorations and fun! Finishing the night off with fireworks over the lake was a great end to our reunited week together!

Before one of the shows