Appropriately placed Chinese Santa Klaus in front of Shin Kong Place in Beijing. It finally feels like Christmas time around here.

Alright, so these are not really a collaboration by the smurfs and Cause (Flauge x Cause)… I am kinda into these right now…

A local beauty parlor in an alley on the edge of East 4th Ring…

The shop name, in the 4 big characters, is called “White People Pretty Hair”.

Services offered (in the smaller white characters): 7-color extensions; 7-color highlights; ionic perm; handcrafted big curls; nutritional maintenance; aluminum foil perm; make big flowers; monthly membership discounts; brow trimming; black slow cooking (?); one time straightening; color slow cooking (?)

Interesting services… I am picturing this lady at the door…

Cognac + Martha + Snoop = Genius.

Snoop Dogg & Martha Stewart

I love it! So cute!!!

Cute cardboard comics by Phillipa Rice

黑面蔡 is the brand of starfruit juice from Taiwan. It literally translates into “black face Tsai”. Not sure if my family has anything to do with it but it has been around forever and even when I lived in Taiwan during the late 80’s.

Another not very PC brand that has been around since I was a kid… Darlie (aka Darkie) toothpaste. Also a product from Taiwan…

Taiwan is just asking for it…

And this is just WRONG…

My second beverage is tea (first being water, espresso as third, Pocari Sweat and 王老吉 as other new favorites).

For as long as I can remember, tea has always been a pretty serious thing. My father is quite the tea connoisseur so Lipton is only for tea eggs. Above: white tea from south China.

I have a little tea space by the window set up in my bedroom….

My Pop is visiting Beijing at the end of the month so I am preparing a list of things for him to bring from the states. This includes the new MacBook Pro I ordered this morning! Anyway, now I am shopping for a case/sleeve and I have been doing that all day. My conclusion is that the stuff under $40 is just ugly. There are 2 that really stood out for me after searching all day in the www…

1st Place: The one above by Hard Graft takes my breath away. Hands @!#$^%$!@# down to this awesome Austrian place. Really beautiful stuff!

2nd Place: Krink by Incase is pretty sweet…

Both of these are over $80 so I think I might just have to wrap the compu in an old t-shirt.

UPDATE: I wrote this entry before going to bed last night. I just woke up and dashed to the computer to look at the Hard Graft stuff again. Almost afraid that it had disappeared from the www overnight or something. I have been drooling over this stuff all morning…

I went to the Lucerne/Beijing-based Galerie Urs Meile last weekend for an opening. The gallery was full of people speaking different languages chomping down hors d’oeuvres catered by Comptoirs de France. Then there was this German Underberg beverage that they were serving to us… I’ve never seen or heard of Underberg back in the states…. what is this beverage that is supposed to make me “feel bright and alert”? Is it tasty?