year in review

not quite the end of the year, but:

cities visited:
edmonton, vancouver, toronto, london, new york, xi'an, hangzhou, nanjing, beijing, los angeles, seoul.
favourite albums:
fleet foxes, girl talk, vampire weekend, crystal castles.
best live show:
ladyhawk, at NXNE in toronto.

nearly the new year!

it's been a lovely past few days, three christmas dinners & the accompanying food comas that went along with them. debaucherous party at a friend's place, christmas day (night) spent at logo, dancing, twister, mechanical bulls, shenanigans, etc.

looking forward to the new year. my sister & her boyfriend have been traveling through china for the past week, they're coming back tomorrow and we'll ring in 2009 together, wong's united style. xo!

merry christmas!

merry christmas, everyone!

am sat at my desk, listening to battles, office is very quiet today. just found out that we'll be presenting tomorrow afternoon, so hurrah! isn't it true that someecards.com is the best site on the internet? xoxo.

the 2008 CBC bucky awards!

fell asleep last night listening to my favourite canadian podcast - the CBC Radio 3 Podcast w/ Grant Lawrence. yesterday's episode (which aired december 17th) was a special broadcast of the third annual 2008 Bucky Awards, which featured awards for categories like 'best road trip song', 'best collaboration', 'most canadian song' and my favourite, 'best lyric'.

listening to the podcast (which you can: subscribe to on itunes & also follow on twitter) always makes me miss the canadian music scene and all those ridiculous, awesome, beautiful years living in vancouver. now that i've been away for a few years, i tend to think back on my time on the west coast with this kind of golden, hazy glow.

i suppose the thing i miss most is how small the canrock scene used to seem. bands work together and tour like crazy and some of my favourite musicians in the world were my friends and people i would see regularly on the street, in the bar and at coffee shops. go listen to the podcast! xo

crappy photos.

very nice weekend, involving family, hot pot, a mechanical bull, bon bon, alcohol, zzzzz. more soon, xo.

tilly the dog.

is there ANYTHING better than a little dog visiting the office? no way jose.

this is tilly. she's so stupidly small, you just want to squeeze her.
soooo cute. xo.

shake shake shake.

MADNESS AT THE OFFICE! TOO MANY CUPS OF COFFEE! MINT CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE HERSHEY KISSES!

my sister & her boyfriend are in town now, which is totally awesome. they have set up shop on an air mattress in the living room, and the cat seems to enjoy their company. right now i'm dizzy after a long finance meeting and a short ppm for a product shoot that's happening tomorrow am. i chugged a double shot cafe mocha and am feeling a bit mad.

chinadirt, back online!

probably only funny if you're totally obsessed with gossip girl. which i am not. really. hm.

black hole sun.

a mad day at the office - on top of all the regular craziness that is coming back from holidays, it's the end of the year and finance is bearing down on all of us to wrap up, turn in expenses, reconcile jobs.

wanted to mention how awesome it was seeing my dear brother (from another mother) aric in korea on his brief layover. i haven't seen him in months, after being unceremoniously thrown out of china before the olympics, he's spent his time traveling pretty much everywhere. go read his blog! dude's got a book deal, and the whole thing makes me so happy i could barf. xoxo.

OPEN BAR.

SHiTDISCO! @ BON BON
2F Yunhai Tower, 1329 Huaihai Zhong Lu, near Hengshan Lu
淮海中路1329号，云海大厦2楼

korea, our hometown!

after eating pretty much consistently for the past week straight, i'm back in the PRC!

sunday blues.

relatively late on a sunday night and i completely frittered away my time doing god knows what when i should have been packing, cleaning, etc.

it's been an disgustingly gratuitous weekend over here in shanghai, after thursday's blitzkrieg, friday night birthday karaoke that went until six in the morning, and on saturday a hennessy brand party with mandopop superstar jay chou and the barely worth mentioning wyclef jean. woke up this afternoon feeling dizzy, and biked to noodle bull for hearty beef noodles that kind of made me feel like a human being.

now it's late, and i still haven't begun packing or tidying the apartment. my sister and her boyfriend arrive three days after i return from korea, and i need to make this one bedroom apartment not seem like a prison cell for three people and one cat. hm. soooooooooooo tired.

jens lekman in shanghai...

sweetest, most adorably awesome show on the face of the planet.

drinks at shelter afterwards for the continuing birthday extravaganza. dumplings in the basement of my apartment at 4 in the morning. work as usual today, bustling. tonight is another birthday blitz - damn everyone, stop getting older. just stop it.

see you tomorrow, jens.

"Viktor, my dear friend.
Let's get away from it all.
Go East. Where the skies are blue.
Go East. This is what we're gonna do."

JENS LEKMAN and VIKTOR SJÖBERG
ASIAN TOUR 2008

Nov 29 - Seoul, South Korea - Freebird
Nov 30 - Seoul, South Korea - Freebird
Dec 1 - Singapore - The White Rabbit
Dec 2 - Beijing, China - Yugong Yishan
Dec 3 - Shanghai, China- JZ
Dec 4 - Shanghai, China - JZ
Dec 6 - Bandung, Indonesia - Dirgantara I IPTN
Dec ? - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - TBA

http://www.jenslekman.com

sh-watch.

the company i work for did a collaboration with our friends at jellymon recently. more info on the site and some more photos here. i bought the first watch pictured above, it's kind of my favourite.

in shanghai, they're available at the source, at colette in paris and the kid robot shop in new york.. go!