Lisboa 48 hours part 3: The End

 

Happiness is a very elusive feeling. One minute you are on top of the world, another minute you fill at the bottom of the pit. Where is the balance? How can one achieve peace when there is so much to do so much to see. Is it worth being in a "good job" that pleases everyone around or should one take a risk let it all burn and really search for something that makes them truly happy. What's better: a badly paid job you adore or a well paid one you cannot stand. I wish getting older meant getting wiser. I feel getting older just puts more questions in front of you. Who are you? What have you achieved, where are you going? Anyways sorry for all the blah.

Let's rewind to the last day in Lisbon. I wake up at 12pm, having gone to bed at 8am after a very filling breakfast, all my plans of going to a couple more museum are now out of question. I feel like a zombie, albeit a happy one.

Lisboa 48 hours part 2: The Wedding

 

A wedding party sometimes feels like a movie with two main protagonists and many many extras. It takes months of preparations, involves a lot of stress and then it's over in a few hours. It just flies by in a whirlwind of kisses, tears, lights and endless congratulations.

As we gather at the entrance of the hotel: the excitement starts to kick in, Viky (the bride to be) invited our friends form uni some of which I have not seen in 4 years. We all get on the bus and then heaps and heaps of guests start pouring out of the hotel. The bride is Spanish and the groom is Portuguese which results in a lot of stunning, tanned, chic and beautiful people (who are at least 30 minutes late).  Oh and what a feast for the eyes is a summer wedding: the most popular dress colour is definitely red, a few guests are being adventurous with teal/turquoise,  and one of my personal favourites is a girl with a quirky knotted bow on her head, she is one of the guests from New York.

Lisboa 48 hours part 1

 

I landed on Friday night having travelled for 20 hours Hong Kong - Paris - Lisbon. I gave up coffee a while ago after reaching a triple espresso stage and realizing that coffee was starting to give me headaches, yet with all the jetlagging it seemed coffee was my only option. Upon arrival on Friday night I changed in 15 minutes, came out for 30 minutes, saw the bride to be and went back to the hotel where I passed out :)

Saturday the wedding day I woke up at 6.45 am - Ooohhhhhh ze evil jet lag; yet what it meant is that I could explore the city without tourists from 7.30 am until lunchtime. I have only been to Lisbon once before and remember it as a city full of nostalgia for the glorious days when Portugal was an empire and Vasco da Gama has just embarked on his travels, Athens gave me a similar feeling. An old empire.

The Creamy brogues

Back from the most amazing weekend in Lisbon. The weekend involved too much flying, too much dancing, a beautiful wedding and a lack of sleep. The highlight of the weekend involved me arriving to the check in desk in Lisbon to find out that my return ticket was booked for the 19th ... of JULY! Thank god, for a lovely lady at the counter who kindly changed my tickets for no extra charge. This was followed by me forgetting my camera on the plane, which I only realised when I got back to my flat in Hong Kong. After some deliberation my husband kindly drove me back to the airport where I found my camera safely sitting in the lost and found office. What a messy return! 

An ode to Miss V, Miss M and Jam

 

My husband surprised me this morning by coming back from his Nepal expedition 5 days early: he came back smelling of yak with a gigantic smile and he brought back my camera :) Thank you for being you!

Tomorrow I should be flying to Lisbon for 48 hours for a wedding of one my best friends. Many people I met in life came and went. I call them the "passers by". Few stayed, they are the real friends you can count on your ten fingers. You might not see them for a few months or years, but when you meet is like nothing has changed, once that bond is formed it's always there, like a little piece of the puzzle that always fits.

Miss V

We met on the first day in university. She was sitting in the front row, I was late (as always) I looked around the class thinking which people would become my friends within the next few years. She had this insane long beautiful blond hair and a slightly cheeky smile. We bonded over our love of whisky sprite, miss sixty jeans (they were "in" back then) and our love for dancing. 

Scalloped 2031

Following a crappy week, last weekend was absolutely amazing. I spent the weekend taking a junk to the new territories with a bunch of friends, dancing, eating Lebanese food, swimming and dancing a little more. If there is good music and in Hong Kong we rarely get good music, I can dance the whole night even without alcohol :) 

"Dacha" the green countryside from my childhood memory box

 

What a roller-coaster week, it started amazingly good, to then turn very bad. Sometimes things happen that make us re-think our priorities and ask what really matters in life: to me it's  family and friends. Banal? Cliched? Logical? Yes for me it's that simple.

Moving on to some extra photos from my Moscow trip. Dacha or country house is very important for every Muscovite: when one wants to escape from the stone walls of the city where the air is heavy and streets are crowded, the saving coolness of the green country side is a saviour for the body and mind.

As a kid, every summer until I was 10 was spent at the country side. My great grandma built the house in 1937 just before the war, in fact during the  WWII bombings the whole family (my grandma + her three brothers) would hide in the bomb shelter.

"ART, friends, Tea and books - life's exquisite pleasures"

 

HK art Fair was established 4 years ago and has become the most exciting event on the HK Art scene (which is not  that difficult to be honest). HK does not have a modern art museum at the moment, so the art scene is focused around galleries. This makes the art scene very commercial with an emphasis on the few well-selling artists. This year the guys behind ART Basel acquired the HK Art so 2012 should be really exciting for all the HK art lovers. Plus the government is looking to build our own modern art museum in West Kowloon, and the ex director of Tate Modern Lars Nittve was hired to be the curator/director of the new museum M+.

Obsessed with Hermes Tea Party by Peoni Lim

ob·ses·sion

{uhb-sesh-uh}

–noun

1.the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.

2.the idea, image, desire, feeling, etc., itself.

3.the state of being obsessed. 

I never re-post other people's images, just because I usually have so much stuff I want to share with your from my adventures and travels. If there is an image I really love I tend to post it on the sidebar. This time is very different though as it combines three of my favourite things: Tea, Hermes and timeless elegance. Have a look at these tea party shots by Peoni Lim my new blogger discovery kindly showed to me by Sam {is home} the other day. I never obsesses about anything (ok maybe... only sometimes... about shoes, bags, food, desserts...) 

I love everything about this party and you wouldn't expect less from Hermes. Unlike the more kitch Louis Vuitton, Hermes has managed to keep it's cool even despite the sleuth of Russian and main land Chinese adopting the Birkin as their uniform bag. 

Check out the amazing attention to detail: the flower arrangements, the food, especially the H toast, the beautiful space itself. I am absolutely in loooooveee.