Wedding Wednesday: Guangzhou's Wedding Street

Here is a post I know a lot of you have been waiting for: the wedding street in Guangzhou. Ever since I first talked about the hidden gem, I've received many comments, emails and facebook messages asking for more information. This is indeed precious info, as the majority of the most renowned wedding gown brands produce their dresses in China, so here you're bound to find real beauties with prices slashed by more than a half from what they would cost in Europe.

Even though its name is Wedding Street, the truth is this is far more than a street. It's a whole area, with several streets and shopping malls, all of them exclusively selling wedding gowns. You'll find some small shops selling bridal accessories, too, like wedding shoes, accessories, fabric flowers or clothes for the flower girls/boys. The name of the biggest street, the one that is usually referred to as wedding street, is Jiangnan Avenue North (江南大道北), so now you know what to look for in the map! One thing I can tell you, if you come here, there is NO WAY you're leaving without finding a dress you like. There are just so many shops, it's basically impossible not to find a match. There are some cheap dresses that would probably not be up to European / US standards but, believe me, there's also the high quality, stylish, gorgeous ones!
 

To get to Guangzhou from Hong Kong by public transport, you have at least 3 options:
1. Take the MTR intercity through train at Hung Hom, which takes you directly to Guangzhou East Railway Station in a bit less than 2 hours.
2. Take a bus to Guangzhou (around 3 hours). There are several stops in Hong Kong, I have never taken the bus because I think the train is more convenient but the good thing about the bus is once in Guangzhou, there's a stop right next to the wedding street: 海珠广场. From here you just need to cross the bridge and you're already in the wedding street!
3. Take the East Rail Train to Luo Hu (羅湖)  (Shenzhen), and change to the Shenzhen-Guangzhou train there (also departing from Luo Hu station, and arriving at Guangzhou East) (around 80 min.).

Once in Guangzhou take the subway to station 市二宮站 (The 2nd Workers' Cultural Palace) on the blue line, or ask the taxi driver to take you there by mentioning you're going to the wedding street, he'll know :) Once in 市二宮站, take exit D and tadaaaaaaa hundreds of wedding dress shops will appear in front of you. It's not a dream, it's real, the highest density of wedding dress retail shops in the world! Wedding dresses prices range from CNY500 to CNY4000, (50-500€), (US$80-650), or slightly higher for the best boutiques. You can bargain in most of the shops, so don't buy without trying to get a discount first!

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Wedding Wednesday: The truth about my wedding dress

This might be one of the most shocking posts I've ever written, maybe even more than the one in which I announced I quit my job. This is the truth of what happened in Guangzhou this last Sunday, when I went to do the first fitting of my wedding gown. No one knows about this, {except for J, his parents and my parents}, so even my best friends will find out by reading this... 

I was SO excited to finally have the first fitting of my dress this last weekend. The wedding gown is one of the most important things for the bride on her big day, and I was all over the moon about finally trying THE dress on.

We arrived to the store right after lunch and our sales assistant greeted us enthusiastically. Last time we had been there she kept saying how perfect I looked on that dress, and taking pictures of me in it, really crazy haha, anyways, she was really into it because she didn't do the same thing for the other clients, so it was all really from her heart. So there I was, ready to try MY dress, the one that had been tailor-made from a small size to fit my even smaller body. I changed to my nude bra, put my wedding shoes on and... finally tried the wedding gown! {As I mentioned previously, we are doing the dress search thing Chinese style, that means bride and groom go to choose the dress together, unlike Western tradition where the groom doesn't see the bride on her wedding dress until the big day.} So I went out of the changing room to take a better look in the big mirror, and to let J see. At that moment, I wanted to cry. And those were not excitement tears, touched by the magic of the moment or anything like that. I JUST DIDN'T LIKE THE DRESS ANYMORE! 

Crazzyyy, I'm totally nuts and I know it. The sales lady was still super excited and jumping all around me while snapping some more pics, but I just didn't see that dress as THE dress anymore. I thought the material didn't look that good and it was a bit too sparkly, and I just said in Chinese "I want to cry", and the whole store went aghast. The sales lady went white like a ghost and stopped moving, the store owner put his hand on his mouth in astonishment, and J looked at me in disbelief. Yes, the dress that I said was SO princess-like, SO royal, So perfect, suddendly looked TOO sexy, TOO sparkly, and just not a match for the kind of wedding I wanted. J knows me too well to even think I was kidding. He said the dress was gorgeous but nothing could change my mind. We altered some parts of the dress and it looked better, but still not like my dream wedding gown. Maybe not elegant enough... I don't know, I just felt it was not the one. J asked me not to panic, said our wedding was still 4 months away {exactly 4 months away tomorrow!} and the most important was for me to be happy and very sure about my choice, so if I wanted to buy another one it was not a problem whatsoever. I felt immediately relieved to have such an amazing husband-to-be, and I told him I wanted to go to some other store to take a look at some more dresses and see what I would end up doing. 

Little did I know back in March when I ordered my dress, that I'd still be hunting for THE one three months later. Sigh. So there we were, back to where it all started, and looking at everything all over again. We went back to the store where everything kind of began back in early 2012. In spring 2012 J and I were still not engaged but knew we would eventually be {because we are just meant to be!}, and we were visiting the Canton Fair with my parents for some China sourcing {yes, this was J and I's first business, but you might not know because I opened this blog later on and never really talked much about it, except for in my about me section}. Anyways, at the Canton Fair I suddendly spotted a wedding gown stand from Knightly, a Chinese brand from Shunde {that's the city where J's family comes from by the way! Hello fate?}, I went in and loved their dresses. They were like the ones in Europe only at Chinese price, how awesome :) We found this store online and I kept an eye on it to make sure I hit their store as soon as J proposed. After our engagement we did indeed go to one of their stores from wedding street in Guangzhou, but as you all know I didn't end up picking a dress from them. But Knightly made it to my life again during our pre-wedding pics, where I wore 5 different dresses, picking one from Knightly on purpose and... the team forgot it in the studio when we were already an hour away from the city ready for the shooting!!! They asked me to pic any other from the ones in that other location and I refused. I had to have my Knitghly dress! So they did send someone to get it for me! Ha! It's the dress I'm wearing on the picture above, and we will be using one of the pics from this dress for our wedding invites, so of course I had to have it! {By the way, I'm not sharing my pre-wedding pics with you just yet because as you can see from the one above, the haven't been photoshoped yet!} .

Back to this weekend, we went into one of the Knightly stores, and saw some dresses we had already seen previously, and some new ones. Among these new ones there was one that caught my attention, so I decided to try it on. I LOVED IT. Not only it had all the elegance I was looking for, it was extremely special because of several details that will certainly not go unnoticed, and it had a complement that matched our wedding theme perfectly. Awww I so wish I could tell you more so that you knew what I'm actually referring to, but of course I can't. I told J: "This is it." He thought I lost it, because I seemed so sure about it and we hadn't even seen much stores yet. I said: "I want it! I want this dress!" He advised me to go take a look at some more stores before making the final decision, and so we did, but my mind was set. So we did go back to the store and... I GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This time yes, my wedding dress, and it matches everything: my style and our venue! I'm SO thrilled!!! 

You must be wondering whatever happened to the other dress. Don't worry, I got it too, and I will be wearing it in my Hong Kong wedding on December 29 where I need to wear from 3 to 5 dresses, so you'll be able to see it too :) How crazy is this story? For Chinese people it may seem not so weird since they use so many dresses for their weddings. For us westerners buying a second wedding dress after you didn't like how the first one you picked came out is like unimaginable. Well and specially because wedding dresses in Europe cost a fortune! Oh well, all's well that ends well! Now let's hope for the best when I try my new dress in two months :D

Weekend Getaway: Ocean Spring Resort in Zhuhai, China

We're just back from an unforgettable weekend getaway to celebrate J's birthday. We were planning on going last weekend but by the time we wanted to book the hotel, it was fully booked! A 1000-room hotel fully booked on a regular weekend?! Yes, nothing unusual in China. 

We've been to the Ocean Spring Resort in Zhuhai, famous for its hot springs. Zhuhai is the city in mainland China bordering Macau, and to go from Hong Kong you only need to take a 70 minutes-long ferry ride. The resort had three hotels: an inn, a 4 star hotel, and a 5 star hotel {ours!}. I loved our huge business room with sea view. The resort is famous for its hot springs but it also has a very decent amusement park! 

We spent our Saturday afternoon in the hot springs and both of us LOVED it. They are really worth a visit. My first {and until this trip, only} experience with hot springs was in South Korea in January 2011, where the outside temperature was below zero, so you can imagine the adventure for a first time at the hot springs... This time in Zhuhai has been completely different. The weather here was more like a sunny autumn day than a winter one, with pleasant temperatures above 20 degrees Celcius. I never imagined the hot springs at Ocean Spring Resort would be as amazing as they actually are. I was very positively surprised by many things. First, the hot springs were not crowded as I had feared {this is China after all!}. Second, there were many many different spaces to explore: Turkish style, European, Chinese, etc. And third and my favorite: there was an area with about 20 pools in which each of them had a different herb or substance inside {chrysanthemum, mint, tangerine peel, ginseng, green tea, thousand Chinese herbs, milk, coffee, red wine, etc.}, with a description explaining what that herb or substance was good for and the benefits it had on your body. I guess the total number of pools was around a hundred, most of them outdoors but some indoors as well. I obviously couldn't bring my Canon camera inside, but here is a pic I snapped with my iPhone!

After the hot springs both J and I agreed our bodys felt great and our skin even softer than usual! That's saying a lot, because J and I are naturally soft :D After the hot springs we watched a nice 80 minute acrobatic show called "Memory of the Sea", performed by Russian and Chinese actors.

Today we took some pictures around the resort and then spent a while in the amusement park, where unfortunately most of the amusement rides were closed :(

Have you ever been to hot springs? Isn't it just awesome? :)

Hot Pot: a thousand-year-old Chinese tradition

I'm happy I finally get to write about hot pot, I've been wanting to introduce you to the hot pot culture for quite a long time now, but I always had other posts I ended up gaving preference to. But finally here it is, a post on one of China's most popular dishes: hot pot. The reason why I never found the appropriate moment to post about it is simply because I don't like hot pot. But hey, that I don't like something doesn't mean millions of Chinese haven't been raging about it for more than a thousand years! So here is a post that will give you a glimpse on what hot pot is, in case you never heard about it before!

The principle of hot pot is very simple: it consists of a pot with simmering broth placed in the middle the table, where sliced meat, vegetables, mushrooms, tofu, dumplings, noodles, seafood or fish skin are thrown in uncooked to be boiled. The most typical broths are the clear and the spicy one (in the pictures), but other flavors like satay or tomato are also available.

Hot pot is one of J's favorite meals, and last saturday for his birthday we went to China for it. There's plenty of hot pot restaurants in Hong Kong, but he always says the best of the best is Little Sheep from mainland China. Founded in 1999 in Inner Mongolia, Little Sheep currently has 300 branches worldwide, most of them in mainland China, but also in Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, South Korea, Canada and the United States (a branch in NY and a branch in California!). I didn't take the camera with me this time but I had taken pictures of another branch in Guangzhou a couple of months ago, so here they are!

It's typical for hot pot to be accompanied with soy sauce and other condiments but Little Sheep won't give any to its customers. They claim their food is so tasty, dipping it in sauce would ruin its amazing flavor. Even though beef is probably the most common meat for hot pot, the most popular one at Little Sheep is obviously... lamb {dah!}.

Have you ever had hot pot? How did you like it?

Dong Fang Hotel - Guangzhou

Last Wednesday we went to Guangzhou for a half business-half leisure trip for three days. As usual when we travel to Guangzhou, we stayed at the Dong Fang Hotel. They have huge rooms, good staff, great breakfast buffet, nice gardens and pool, shuttle bus to Canton fair, and are conveniently located. 

On Saturday morning, before taking the train back to Hong Kong, I decided to take some pics in the garden. Such a good place for a photo shoot!

Top & Skirt: Bought in China; Shoes: Bruno Premi

Fashion magazines: China edition. A must-read.

As a Hong Kong fashionista, one cannot miss the chance to buy the Chinese edition of global fashion magazines. Our Hong Kong edition is a must-read too, of course, but we often tend to forget about the puissance of the country at our doorstep. Magazines such as Vogue, Elle, L'Officiel or Bazaar, have made of the Mainland their top-one priority. It is no wonder: CLSA Asia-Pacific forecasts Chinese consumers will buy 45% of the world's luxury goods by 2020, making luxury brands more than willing to spend on advertising in the Chinese luxury publications. A recent report by Hurun Research Institute claims that 1 out of every 1,300 people in Mainland China are millionaires (have more than 1 million euros worth of assets), and the obsession of China's newly rich with high-end fashion and luxury brands is well known to all. With a population of over 1.3 billion, this makes almost 1 million Chinese millionaires!

These fashion magazines in China have no trouble in getting revenue from advertising, which makes it not hard to guess why recently Chinese editions have been producing the best fashion photoshoots, shooting with the top Chinese and international models in the European fashion capitals, hiring the most renowned photographers, and coming up with a result that is envied by their sister titles worldwide. Because these magazines' concern is not funding but market reach, all they want is for people to actually read their magazine. The logic is simple: the more people reads a magazine, the more money brands will be willing to pay to advertise in it.This has resulted in a price war frenzy with high-quality issues priced as low as RMB10.

I recommend spending a day per month in the Mainland, buying magazines, shopping and indulging yourselves in never-ending massages, all for less than you can imagine!

In the picture, Elle China September 2012 edition, priced at RMB10. Elle China is now published by-monthly.