Wipeout by Invader.

During our visit to the PMQ, we stumbled up an exhibition from the semi-well-known street artist, Invader.

Not only was it a nice find, it was also a pretty interesting exhibition experience. It's one of the few gallery spaces that I've been to that has not only allowed photography, but actively encouraged it. Such is the nature of Invader's work that you can actually see it better with a little help from a small screen than with your naked eye.

Old Police Married Quarters (PMQ)

PMQ, 35 Aberdeen St, Central, Hong Kong.
Without a doubt my new favourite place in Hong Kong. ♥

A complex rich with heritage, from its time as the first government school in Hong Kong to being occupied by the Japanese to just a place to live for junior police officers and their families, the PMQ is now establishing itself as the creative hub of Hong Kong, showcasing a range of independent shops, art exhibitions and places to eat.


From that description alone, it should be pretty easy to see why I fell in love so hard. I wish there were more places like it in the UK, which is why I mentioned being so pleased about the OXO Tower taking on a similar idea (long may it continue to develop).

I felt like I noticed more of the endless Chanel/Gucci/Other Designer Things train than ever before so to find somewhere full of unique shops that were either standalone or part of much smaller chains stocking things that I could actually think about affording made a nice change.

If you're ever in that part of the world, it's more than worth a visit, for the visual merchandising inspiration alone!



Wish I could have done the VM in Open Quote justice, it was probably the most perfect bookshop.







Everything is a candle at Glue Associates.



Naturally the white + teal facade was the PMQ's main appeal as a space.



Hong Kong is the most vertical place in the world so pockets of green space are always welcome.








It really goes to show that modernisation doesn't have to mean tearing down and actually, using the history can make somewhere mean so much more. The main thing the PMQ does that I feel is so brilliant is providing such a great opportunity to emerging artists and start-ups with a seemingly lesser city price tag.

I just want to know why everywhere isn't doing this, everyone should be doing this, right? RIGHT?

600 - Birthday day, the 'in my twenties' special.

So, I took far too many photos yesterday, and I'm struggling to put them anywhere or to edit them down, so if you know me, the best but (sadly due to the 200 photo rule) not all, are in this album on Facebook, and there is an extended set on Flickr. I'm in New Malden for a couple of days due to my 'agency sign-up' tomorrow, the internet is being so slow and rubbish so that's why I'm writing this so late.


Like I said in my post last night, I had a lovely day. Moon and I have barely seen each other in ages, and after being together for a few days, he went off to Ireland for a week this morning, so it was really good to spend some quality time together doing something nice. I get him practically to myself for a week from the 26th anyway when he joins my family and I on a short holiday to France. He joined us last time we went out there and we had a lot of fun so it will be good to do it again - I'm really hoping that the weather is good for us.

Anyway, enough mindless yammering. Yesterday, after a bit of present-opening (Moon made me wake up at 8:30am!), we drove up to New Malden to park the car and head up to London for the day. We began our day-trip with a visit to the Natural History Museum - Moon had bought me tickets to the Age of the Dinosaurs exhibition. :)

The exhibition itself was interesting, as I like dinosaurs and natural history generally. I will however put a huge downer on the price. Despite the fact that buying the tickets meant that we got 'fast-tracked' into the museum, which was good because the queues were huge, the actual exhibit was only half-an-hour long and not much better than the exhibit that the museum displays for free. The fast-tracking did make up for it though, I'll never understand why it is so busy, I mean I love it but whenever I visited it as a child, I never felt it to be crowded and now it really is. I think it must be because it's free, or just because it's the height of the summer holidays, whatever the reason, I hate all the crowds!

They really need to sort this cat out.

We spent a bit of time walking around the rest of the museum once we'd finished with Age of Dinosaurs and by that time it was definitely lunch time. I decided Brick Lane would be a nice place to go because Moon had never been before and it's his kind of thing. I like looking around, but all the hipsters are a bit much. I think the main reason I wasn't so keen on my last visit was due to the weather, I was much more relaxed this time.
After (what I knew would be) an obligatory trip to Rough Trade we kind of drifted into The Big Chill bar, which I really liked. The food was nice and the atmosphere was even better, I loved the music that they played, it was basically The Boat That Rocked soundtrack, beautiful. Moon and I thought their nachos were really good too, and for those of you that don't know, we're nachos connoisseurs(!)

We look like total gorms in the top-left photo because we didn't have a clue what was going on, we just wanted to be Trendy-Wendy's.

Always thought seeing a 'real Banksy' would be a bit more exciting than that.

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a nose around the vintage shops, if I'd had a bit more cash I would have bought some things, I'd really like to have a poke around again.


Then we went to South Bank and took in the 'Festival of Britain' that's taking place around there. We also went to the National Theatre and saw the Press Photographer of the Year exhibition, we saw some really interesting shots. I really liked Clare Kendall's collaboration with Tessa Farmer, it's so creepy. We were really lame and couldn't find the entrance to the Hayward Gallery to get in to see the Tracey Emin Retrospective, and then when we found it, it was closed, Moon was more than pleased...


















So, after what seemed like years, Moon and I left London and actually managed to get a seat on the way back to New Malden. We had some dinner at the restaurant, as well as cake that my sister kindly bought me - there were cherry tomatoes on it!


It was a bit quiet but it was perfect, it's time to start slowing down anyway isn't it? I should probably start worrying about my wrinkles or something. I am joking, but it is a bit scary that I'm 22, only a bit, but it is.

TL;DR: I went to the Natural History Museum, Brick Lane and various bits of Southbank. It was my 22nd birthday and it was nice.

In other, more recent news there's a lot of buzz around my job hunt at the moment.
How good are these cushions?!

Natural History Museum Shop

Today I went to Kingston and saw the Inbetweeners movie, it was very good and nice.