Gang Long Studio Featured in Tattoo Mag.
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Love at first sight.
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Sketching out the design.
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Black ink and shading.
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Ouch!!!!! Really hurts at the base.
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Orange, on first.
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Then, purple.
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Tat. in action.
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The sun is finally out! The gods heard our prayers and the sun graced us with its faint presence. We somehow worked up the confidence to visit “Le Spa” downstairs at “Le Meridian” for Paul to get a haircut and me get a shampoo and blowdry. A classic “lost in translation” in the making. Paul very carefully gestured to the hairdresser what he wanted…short in the back, smooth it out with the sides, and texture it on top. He looked at him and said, “yes, yes, sir” in total confidence, as if he had understood every word. He then proceeds to grab his scissors and go straight for the front and chop chop, it was gone! Picture time standing still and in slow motion I run from the waiting room to save Paul from the scissors, but it was too late. When I got to the chair, I could see tears in Paul’s eyes, but he handled it like a champ. We somehow got it together and salvaged what was left and both realized that things could have very quickly gone terribly wrong, especially since we would be on our way to a business meeting in less than an hour.

I went up to the room, did my own hair, we got dressed and went down to the lobby to meet with the Zoom clients. Ten minutes later, they arrive and we are off to lunch at M on the Bund. The couple were in their late thirties, early forties, but both very nice and we very quickly connected. May said she did her schooling in Syria, then Canada, and she just had a five month baby girl and is just starting to get involved in her husband’s company by doing public relations and sales for the company. Serges is Armenian, has an engineering degree from Switzerland, and spent most of his early career engineering manufacturing machines for Rolex.

Had lunch, out on the patio and talked a little about their capabilities and told them a little bit about Zoom. My understanding is that their company is somewhat of a middle person. They are a liaison between the client whose objective is to save money by going to china, and the manufacturers in china. The biggest selling point they offered is that they are hands-on with quality control and that they are reliable because they have relationships established with vendors here in Shanghai and this helps with quick turn-around and with better pricing.

After lunch, they gave us a tour of their office, which is about ten minutes away from the French Concession. Nothing special here…just an office space with about eight cubicles and two glass offices. Serges brought out some samples they had done that consisted of several leather watch boxes. This gave us an idea of the quality, some pricing, and some materials they use. The general impression that I get is that they just started out and have only explored gift box manufacturing, but are willing to expand into other objects.

We stopped by their apartment, which was about five minutes away from the office. They live on the 20th floor, in a three bedroom apartment that looks out onto a small park. The exterior of these large buildings looks old and worn, but the interiors are brand new. The apartment came furnished with new hard floors and recessed lighting in the ceiling. Their rent is a shocking $1200 a month, which is how much we were paying in Houston.

Came back to the hotel to change and head out to dinner at T8 Restaurant. It was the perfect way to end the day. People were out walking and the caffees were packed with people. The weather was clear, the vibe was hot, and the city pulsated with red lights. This is what Shanghai is all about, red lights reflecting on people’s giggling faces in the night.

Woke up and had breakfast buffet, read the Shanghai Times. We got a phone call from Mohammed, the CEO of Lawrence the night before that he wasn’t able to arrange the Crane and that the whole photoshoot was called off. Although we were somewhat relieved that we wouldn’t have to go back to Zaozhuang, we had an uneasy feeling all day that it wasn’t over yet. There was nothing we could do now, except pass the time, so we decided to visit the Jade Buddha Temple. Turned out to be the perfect escape. The only quiet place we had been to in the entire city. The courtyard was swaying with incense and calling us. We got to the highest step and sat for over an hour watching people and resting.

After we filled ourselves with some quiet space, it was time to explore a new part of the city we hadn’t seen. We headed down to explore blah blah (more to come here).

Before dinner, we went up to the 44th floor were they serve hors d’oeuvres and drinks in the afternoon. Had a Martini, called Elie, looked out onto the Shanghai skyline, talked, and decided to go down to the room and rest before dinner. As soon as we walked in, we got a phone call and sure enough, it was Muhammed saying he found a crane. This meant we went from sipping martinis to catching a flight and waking up at five in the morning.

• Had lunch adventure at dim sum chinese restaurant.
• Tested our fisheye equipment on the 33rd floor of the hotel.
• Checked out Shanhai Tang, then ventured out into the shopping area in the French Concession, where we found the perfect custom tailored shanganese dress.
• Caught a cab and heaed towards old town where we explored little streets lined with all kinds of chinese antiques. Bought a fish sharm and vintage asian posters.
• Caught a cab to the Yuan Garden and market bizarre, which was packed with people. Sat down for coffee, then explored all the little shops, bought a beaded bracelet and took more cool fisheye shots.
• Went home and rested. I did my hair, then we got ready for our anniversary dinner, dressed in bright orange and sky blue.
• Sat on the terrace of M on the Bund , surrounded by the Shanghai skyline and bdirectly in front of the Pearl Tower where I had braissed pig and Paul got a steak.
• Paul presented me with a beautiful pair of ruby earrings to makr our one year anniversary at the end of dinner which was sweetly ended with turkish coffee, baklava, and tasty turkish delight.

• Had a supercharged breakfast downstairs.
• Walked from shanxi to nanjing shopping street where i got cute earrings and slowly found ourselves in shanghai’s urban grib, taxis, buses, bicycles, mopeds, chickens, rolexes, louis vuitton bags and little heads nodding…neeha…neeha.
• Paused at the People Square Park for a quick stroll.
• Somehow we ended up at the local market with streets full of everything from local tee to glazed duck head, to live turtles, and window cleaners, oh yes we were in china.
• Went to the Nikon shop where we got lenses cleaned, batteries recharged, and more memory cards.
• The highlight of the day was peejay the haggler scoring us some great black market quality goods
• After a small break at the hotel, we headed out for a hip dinner at T8 Restaurant in what ended being a very romantic couldn’t cozy dinner in a very lively part of town vibrating with people.
• Lounging in black and white kimonos talking about an amazing 24 hours.