When you thought you have seen it all in Shoe Fashion, the next surprise comes

Rushing through Hong Kong airport recently, I could not miss the opportunity to snap a few images of brand new fashions in shoes… Take a look at these images:

Pretty fancy, yeah!?

A Visit to the Malian Dao Tea Street Market in Beijing

On the first day of my recent trip to Beijing, I decided to take the afternoon and visit the Malian Dao Tea Street Market in the southwest corner of Beijing. This fascinating market stocks a dizzying array of Chinese tea and tea accessories and is a cultural experience in itself. There are a large number of stores in this area, but the one that my daughter and I went to was a four story edifice that houses a multitude of small vendors. The first floor is crammed with hundreds of small tea stalls, primarily selling loose leaf tea but also stocking teapots, tea leaf storage canisters, tea cups, etc. The second and third floors replicate the more crowded first floor, although the price seems to go up as you ascend to the upper levels. (The fourth floor doesn’t appear to sell tea at all, but has unrelated stores and perhaps a restaurant—I’m not sure!) On this visit, I concentrated on the first floor and ended up buying 6 pounds of loose leaf tea—four pounds of jasmine tea and two of green tea. The tea was remarkably reasonably priced at about $8.50 per pound and it was very good quality. Of course the initial selling price was around three times as much, but that is to be expected in a Chinese market. The obligatory bargaining was good practice for my scheduled visit the next day to the Hongqiao Pearl Market to buy jewelry for my online store Chinafinds.

More troubles in Air Travel - First Cancelled Flights, then Missing Baggage Handlers

Well, if you are looking for worry and trouble free flights these days, think twice. On a recent flight from China (Shenzhen - Shanghai - Chicago) to Austin, Texas, I got to experience the challenges of air travel disconnects and issues. As you are most likely aware American Airlines had to cancel a whole bunch of flights in the US as they were serviced by the fleet’s grounded MD-80 aircraft.

As a result of those flight cancellations on my recent flight to the US, I looked into requesting a switch to a United flight from Chicago O’Hare to Austin airport. My initial reaction was “Score — I was able to get on the flight”, and be able to avoid staying the night in a hotel in Chicago. That was the 30 seconds of elation. Then the reality of the current flight conditions settled in. The United flight was initially delayed by 2 hours. Then, by the time we actually boarded the plane (after having to wait for a flight crew to arrive from another city) it was already 3, or 3+ hours delay. Well, you may say, “Whats the big deal — only 3 hours delay…” —- But that was not all. Once we boarded the plane the additional wait started. Come to find out (based on the plane captain’s update to us the passengers) — the baggage handlers had decided to go home. So after midnight the Chicago O’Hare airport was being served by a tiny crew of baggage handlers — statements were made to the effect of “Only 2 baggage handlers are servicing all the gates in this part of the airport. No, we do not know when they will get to our plane….”

The net effect was that we had to sit for a whole lot of time on the tarmac in the plane while someone had to load our bags in the plane. We (the passengers) could have done that. I am sure most of us wanted to get it done so we can get back home…..

Well, long story short, eventually the baggage handlers showed up, and eventually we were airborne. But the sour taste in my mouth remains — what a crazy setup — You have a whole bunch of aircraft / flights canceled, you have a whole lot of tired and frustrated passengers, and NO ONE from the airport management makes an effort to ensure that at least the ground crews are operational….. Go figure….!

That was a very frustrating experience. So where was that bill of passenger rights :-)

I wonder….

Happy Travels!

Buying Murano Style Glass Jewelry in the Silk Street Market in Beijing

When I was in the Silk Street Market in Beijing last month buying some stock for my online jewelry store, Chinafinds, I noticed that there were a number of stalls selling beautiful Murano / Venetian style glass jewelry. There was no attempt to pass it off as ‘genuine Murano glass’ or ‘authentic Venetian glass’ as it was very clearly made in China. It would be hard to imagine importing the genuine art glass from Italy and selling it in a Beijing market anyway!

At any rate, the quality of many of the items that I saw was quite good and the prices were much, much lower than those of the real Italian Murano glass items that I have seen. I had seen Chinese Murano style glass jewelry in the markets in previous years, but the amount was smaller and the quality was not nearly as good. Clearly, the Chinese manufacturers are perfecting their techniques.