sydney

i'm back in sydney for the 2nd time in 18 months – what a great city. the weather is perfect, the food is great, and the people are wonderful. the first day i was completely out of it as i couldn't sleep well on the flight [once you get used to flat beds on ANA or BA, nothing else makes the grade unfortunately]. day 2 [tuesday] was spent in the de de ce gallery on liverpool street to set up the space for the press presentation. john expected 30-50 people of which only 10 showed, but it was nice to actually talk to everyone who was there. hopefully we'll get some great press mentions and start moving greater numbers in australia.

i gave a good presentation, similar to the ones i did at pecha-kucha in tokyo and new york last year but in doing so, i realized the direction i need to rework it. right now the slide show and talk is more of a time line of my projects. i made a note to myself to re-do when i get back to nyc to support a "motivation", "inspiration", "influences", "nooka now" and then "nooka tomorrow" format. or...hire a proper video artist to make a presentation to press and play:)

today, wednesday, i had lunch with john of de de ce [he has been the most amazing host...had a great dinner with his wife amanda and robert tuesday night as well] and then went to visit the design shop at the sydney opera house and the shop at the sydney museum. saw the collection of the sydney museum and a free tour of the opera house [thanks guys!]. i walked back through the domain and half of hyde park all the way to darlinghurst.



photos: a snap of the crowd at my presentation, the fairy sculpture i made for the gallery [john has a collection of art/artifacts from everyone who he works with and have made the trek to oz]. parking and signage at the world heritage site sydney opera house.

Hong Kong

my last trip to Hong Kong was miserable because I had bronchitis from too many smoke filled nights in tokyo. This trip, I made a point NOT to go to superdeluxe in tokyo because of the smoke but if you are ever in tokyo, i highly recommend a visit as i heard that smoking in bars will soon be banned! anyway, i can write about superdeluxe in another post....on to hong kong!

hong kong is really a wonderful place – truly a city for the future. arriving at their airport is enough to fill a new yorker with anger at the poor job the port authority is doing with nyc's 3 airports. i am truly embarrassed knowing that a visitor landing for the first time is presented with such a nightmare [i LOVE NYC, just wish the airports were updated to match the century we live in]. even tokyo, with all it's high speed rail links to narita is pathetic compared to the ease of boarding the train to the city from hong kong's international airport – no stairs, elevators, escalators AT ALL – get your luggage, get a ticket, walk 20 yards or so, and you board a train that takes you to kowloon or hong kong central in 24 minutes or less! truly, an airport designed by real travelers who have struggled with suitcases in Tokyo and NYC. unfortunately, most elected officials go from limo to private jet to limo....really now....onto hong kong.

i checked into the lovely JIA hotel in causeway bay and caught up on emails and calls to NYC. I was then too exhausted to do anything. The next day, I took care of bank errands and walked around to do my market research. We don't do well in HK in terms of sales but do get a lot of press attention. I understand that HK is a city for BIG established brands and is difficult with Nooka being just 3 years old. No problem, I'm patient.

in the evening, Allan, my friend and distributor for HK came by the hotel and took me to see some stores. We met the owner of a toy shop that stocks nooka and then went for a french meal at a cute place he also owned called LE MARRON. If you want a secret place to impress your friends – this is the place. the tables are divided into private areas with lace curtains and they have some private rooms. they also have a terrace for smoking [HK recently banned smoking in restaurants and bars! yeah!]. check out their site here.

the next day was crazy busy: robert and imelda arrive at 9:00 am and come to my room as theirs is not ready yet. robert, eddie and i then had an 11:00 meeting to meet a silicone goods manufacturer for potential new products [went well]. we then reconvened with allan for a delicious dim sum lunch at a place near the jia as allan and i had a 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm appointments with press [went well]. in between i we met with Raffy, our agent in the philipines. i had a 5:30 pm meeting with michael young, and then off to dinner in kowloon city to a seafod restaurant eddie wanted to take us to...cocktails with friends and finally bed AFTER checking emails and interfacing digitally with my staff in NYC!

design notes: even though taxis are inexpensive in HK, make a point to take the metro [subway]. each station is designed to a different color featured in custom bisazza glass tiles on the walls with either matching, complimenting or coordinated color flooring tiles [not bisazza]. it's unfortunate that they cover most of the stations with floor to ceiling ad wraps as 1. it covers up the beauty of the stations and 2. though HK is a great place to marvel at urban planning, it is not a great place for graphic design.

it isn't over til the gaijin sings

i spent the last day this trip to tokyo in the office to catch up on emails from all the business cards i collected during the shows. I think I did a good job of identifying key people to send emails to from 300+ cards before i forget who they are! at 8:00 we went to a local izakaya which looked very non-descript at best [i would never have thought to eat there on my own] but was a delicious kyu-shu specialty restaurant! we had ba-sashi which i was hunkering for the whole trip and dishes like mentai-tsume sanma yaki [spicy cod-roe stuffed grilled mackerel] and in place of edamame, steamed sora-mame [broad beans] which were great. (i tried to buy broad beans in the US but the frozen ones are all from china and were quite bitter – any suggestions?) i got drunk on a nice bottle of imo-jochu and then off to karaoke!

it was a rainy monday night and one would expect the karaoke-kan to be more willing to negotiate price, but we managed to get a ¥2500 [+tax] per person for 2 hours all you can drink. when i think about it, it was cheaper and nicer than the karaoke box places i've been to in nyc. needless to say, it was a fun night. artist taku anekawa joined us and is fun to watch sing as was mr. yamada's japanese rap!. here is a link to his site. we were out til 3:00 am.


i didn't get to hang out with my dear friend soichi terada as he was too busy with a new game soundtrack he's working on. here is a link to his site. because of this, he offered to drive me to narita for my flight to HK and we would catch up on an early lunch and the drive. the drive was great...first time i made it to narita in an hour by car or train.

and now, i am in HK! i will write a separate blog for HK. fotos for the above in a bit.

MoMA Store Omotesando

on the evening of november 1st, i went to the opening of the MoMA store in Japan. They are in a brand new luxury shopping environment on Omotesando called GYRE which has galleries and restaurants as well. the MoMA shop has been an important supporter of my work from the beginning so it was great to see the NYC and Tokyo staff at the same event. The Tokyo store features quite a few models of my line.

the party was great, i got to meet the architect of the store space, Richard Gluckman of Gluckman Mayner Architects [of NYC] and people from other brands in the shop.

photos include Chay and her hubby Rob, a picture of me with Cathy and Mr. Suda, a buyer for the Tokyo store.

check out the store in person or online.

november 2nd

yesterday was another busy day in tokyo for me. travel + jetlag + standing for hours in cool-looking-but-painful shoes at the fair left me feeling like a pretzel – off to find a place for a massage! unfortunately, all the places on shokuan-dori in tokyo's little korea looked a bit sketchy, so i boarded the JR to shibuya where i know a few places. the tui-na place i normally go to doesn't open til 2:00 pm so i ended up in a shiatsu clinic place for a massage. it was at times both painful and relaxing but my day long headache was gone! i also had lunch at the raj mahal with gordon who does web design for amway japan and nissan [i hired gordon as a graphic designer when i was an art director for a small design studio in tokyo in 1988 and he's still here].

i then went to 100% to meet with michael young and his team and catch up on what he's showing and as usual, everything is amazing. his designer, ben walked the show with me and showed me his side projects. lots of great stuff in the main tents but the student work this year was really horrible – not one notable project that stood out [or am i burnt-out from seeing to many exhibitions this year?]. i also ran into ken o'rourke (the bicycle king of taichung) which was nice. he worked on the bikes michael young designed [see foto].

at tide i met the designers of a ridiculously expensive but wonderful line of kimonos called HIROCOLEDGE which debuts in the newly renovated Dairmaru across from Tokyo Station. Hiroko was as beautiful as her creations.

after tide we went to a party for a japanese laquerware maker called wajima where i met the chief technology office for a brand i LOVE calle amadana as well as catching up with designers from the shows. we then went to a party thrown by iDEA, a shop that does very well with nooka. i also met Chiaki Murata, an industrial designer whos work I also admire. It's really great to have the opportunity to meet so many people I admire in one city and on the same trip.

nooka booth

here are finally some better pictures of our booth and the nooka kaiten-sushi market. unfortunately, our booth is in a dark corner of the show and people do not seem to figure out that you need to walk through the doorway to see the items on exhibit. i wanted a booth design that reflected the stated theme of the show "PLAY" without straying from the nooka concept – it seems i was the only one trying to do so – which has been a painful exercise in how i over-think everything! well...it's all experience to apply to next years show and to shows in NYC.

design tide day one

last night was the press preview and then opening party for design tide. i was interviewed and photographed for mono magazine in the afternoon which was great. i will write a longer post on our booth and the nooka people, but i thought i'd give a taste of some of the other exhibitors first [and also, my installation is sooooo sad in comparison to the design studios from europe whose booths are financed by their respective embassies!]. i need to get on finding a sponsor to do an NYC pavilion type installation next year and bring some local NYC talent along with nooka...any ideas? or maybe i should bring tide to NYC? both ideas excite me...

from top: me with a nooka logo mustache.
entrance area with installation by Pearson Lloyd of London.
LED Abacus...a lot of fun!
installation by bleed of norway [who sell nooka in their concept shop] to showcase lamps by norway says.
instant libraries by BACH tokyo.