I'm stuck here while he's in San Francisco

My brain is going to fry any moment now. I've been going thru line budgets, shoe budgets and reps have been showing up everyday. It's nuts and I'm at the beginning only.

Meanwhile my partner was on a trip down to San Francisco and told me about the wonderful 3 days he had there. Here's some camera phone pics of his trip:

Apparently this Westfield Mall in downtown San Francisco is very similar to our Oakridge Mall. However, it'd be Oakridge on steriods... like Eastern Bloc Olympic stuff!

I'm really confused, this Samovar Tea lounge place at the Yerba Buena Gardens across from the Moscone Center was where my partner had lunch. He seemed to love and despise it at the same time. He's weird.

Aimless thoughts at midnight before the airport

I've got a 3AM flight to Asia tonight... errr... tomorrow morning. I've got 30 minutes to kill so here I am with my new blog. I didn't expect to have so much to say or to have such a good time saying it. So I hope you're all enjoying too!

I'm off to Hong Kong to see some family and friends. One of my long time key staff has moved back to help out in the family business. So we'll do lunch. I'll also shuttle over to Japan for funky new designers and Korea for knitwear and accessories.

I was flipping channels and saw the on SNL the "Iran So Far" digital short with Andy Sandberg and Maroon 5 guy sing a gay love song about that Mahmoud guy. Funny stuff. I also caught most of an Elise Estrada video on Muchmusic. It wasn't bad but more interesting was that clearly it was filmed in Coal Harbour. So I take it she's a local. I wonder if she's ever shopped at the store. We certainly would welcome her if she wasn't!

Sudden realization just dawned on me! I haven't watched TV in ages. I watch a lot TV shows but it's been ages since I watched it on a TV. I do all my watching on either streaming media or via downloads. This is a superior way to watch shows, no commercials and where else would I be able to watch Next Top Model from Britain or Australia? The NTM show, even the US version isn't about fashion or modeling... it's about catty women living together. Gawd, I love that show. In the current ANTM I like the girl with autism. She's so different and I like an underdog.

Opps got to fly, literally!

Milan Fashion and Clubs

Down to work! With shopping aside, everyone knows Milan is the city of fashion and that's what we're here for! So we focused on getting sexy dresses and tops for the store.

The show is always cool. You'll see stuff that you won't see anywhere else. Like this Faux Boa Leather clad car.

The show itself is crazy it's like 20 Costcos! If we didn't know what we were doing it would take us 2 weeks to go through it all.

After the shows we got invited to this Club in the middle of nowhere. It's called Borgo Del Tempo. It's like an outdoor nightclub in the middle of some farm land. It's wild and crazy fun, with go-go dancers to boot. I've included the link if you want to go. When I was lining up to go to the washrooms there was lots of double action going on in the stalls. Yup crazy!

The outdoor club lounge area

The streets of Milan are paved with bags

Last week I came back from a 6 day buying trip. I went with a girlfriend, for her this would be her first trip... for me this would more times than I have fingers.

The plane trip itself was exhaustive as we had to transfer 2 times and had some unexpected layovers. Once we got there we hit the ground running. We hit Duomo, Monte Napoleaone and Spiga right away. Those areas are really the center of the world when it comes to shopping. They have like 3 Prada shops in the same block! Italian made stuff is generally cheaper than in Canada and when you factor in all the various taxes and duties, we still come out like 30% cheaper than Holts.

I really like Bottega bags despite the brand being older, I found one that wasn't all old lady like and snapped it up. I must say this trip I was the ideal of self control, I only bought a few things. My GF on the other hand went hog wild. For fear of reprisals from her husband, let's just say she did very well.

It's 2AM at the Central train station in Milan. They've got the only 24 hour supermarket around. There's lots of people around, must be the art exhibit going on.