True Magazine and the Hong Kong Wedding and Gift Show

The last week has been such a busy one for me! Flitting from castings to fittings and on to shoots has made me quite glad to have a day where I can get up, throw on a face pack and hair mask and relax (before heading out to Beertopia this afternoon!).

Yesterday I received a rather lovely parcel from a photographer I shot with a while ago containing the latest issue of True Magazine, featuring yours truly modelling some amazing outfits! This is the second magazine publication I've had over here (you can see the first one here) and I certainly hope it's not the last!

I'm also going to be walking for Fiesta Weddings at the Hong Kong Wedding and Gift Show next week. This is going to be my first bridal show, so I was rather excited to be asked to do it and even more excited when I saw how stunning the gowns were. Here's a few snaps I took whilst at the fitting yesterday.

My three dresses from Rings Bridal

I love the Chinese style to this dress <3

Ras will be coming along to the show to take some pictures too, so I'll blog those as soon as I get them!

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I hear thunder, I hear thunder...

Hark! Don't you? Hark! Don't you?

I used to sing that as a child (as I'm sure many children did) and spend ages trying to remember the words the other day. It also dawned on me for the first time that the tune is the same as the french song "Frère Jacques", unless I've been singing them both wrong all this time.


It's been raining and thundering on and off here for a few days now, we had the best storm a few nights ago where there were no thunder claps, just the lightning. It evened out the next day though, with thunder claps but no lightning. I think I prefer it when it comes at the same time, because then I can sit and count the time between the thunder and the lightning and work out how far close the storm is!


I thought that since you all seemed to enjoy my Singapore pictures that you'd be interested in the photographs I took when I was in Phuket on my secret holiday. As I'm sure you read, Ras decided to take me on a holiday for my birthday this year but I had no idea where we were going, right up until we got to immigration on the other side (it was hard to miss the "Welcome to Thailand/Phuket" signs everywhere!). It was amazing surprise and a holiday I'll never forget. He'd booked us into The Banyan Tree Spa Resort, which I'll admit I'd never heard of until we arrived. 


We had our own private villa complete with pool, jacuzzi, outdoor shower, outdoor sunken bath, steam room and a bedroom surrounded by glass walls and a pond, making it look like we were floating! Every morning, two masseuses arrived to give us our morning 30 minute massage (named the 'Morning Delight', ahem) and a man arrived in a golf cart to bring us our breakfast before we set off to the spa for facials, manicures, pedicures, full body massages and general decadence!

Our floating bedroom

One of the many frogs in that were providing the audio soundtrack to our holiday!

Messing around with cocktails by the lagoon

View of our villa + pool from our private Thai "Sala" - the massage parlour 

I totally got to ride an elephant! (Ras doing his best impression of a Maharajah in the back)

We had great fun drinking the coconut milk and trying to make the coconuts float in the pool!

We did some island hopping around Phi Phi island and I snorkeled for the first time. Beautiful!

If you want a relaxing, quiet and amazing holiday, I would definitely recommend heading to Phuket. I'd love to go back some day :)

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The Singapore Sling

Last week my boyfriend was called away to work in Singapore for a week and so I decided to take advantage of the free accommodation and join him for some last minute sightseeing and shooting time!
The first day I was there it rained almost non-stop and so the only sightseeing I got to do was from the window of my apartment but the next day I was off to work with local photographer, Yew Kwang.

I've just spotted an image on his MM account and I'm sure he won't mind me hot linking it here!

There's also 4 more over at his Flickr page if you want to have a look!

As I was only in Singapore for 3 days, and it had rained the first and I was working one the second, I headed out early on the final day, armed with a camera, bottle of water and my imagination (due to the distinct lack of a map) to explore Singapore. I knew roughly in which direction to go if I wanted to hit China Town, so that's what I did.

This was the entrance to a small square with tons of Chinese restaurants and snack bars.

Lanterns were everywhere but these ones were especially pretty

Old meets new, east meets west

This was a little place called Lim Chee Guan, which is famous for its sliced pork. I had some of their signature pork, it
was gorgeous!

This is the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore, built in 1887. The detail was amazing!

After my jaunt around China town, I hopped on the MRT for a cool down (it was very hot) and headed over to the area around the harbour to have a look at all the modern (and very white) buildings they had over there.

The civilian war memorial for all those lost during the Japanese occupation of Singapore

The financial district of cities always seem to have the best skylines

This is the Merlion, Singapore's mascot and (apparently) national personification. The spray from the water was fantastic - very refreshing!

After my walk, I met up with Ras for some dinner and yet another walk, though this time we had a destination in mind! When I knew I was coming to Singapore, I got in touch with my friend Anita De Bauch who was here on her tour of S.E Asia last year for some recommendations on where to go. As well as the night safari (from which I only managed to salvage one picture; it's hard taking pictures in the dark from a moving tram when you can't use flash), Anita recommended that we head to the famous Raffles Hotel to have a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar. So, with that in mind, Ras and I set off for a walk through the city to Raffles.

A not-so-great shot of the financial district at night. Wish I'd taken a tripod!

Cute little sign which I'm pretty sure was not put there by the police, but is instead a tourist photo opportunity for people like me :)

Pretty blue bridge on our way to Raffles

This is the Marina Sands casino and hotel. 3 buildings with what looks like a boat balancing on top!

The absolutely gorgeous Raffles Hotel. Apparently it started as a 10 bedroom bungalow next to the sea. It's now really quite huge and is miles from water due to all the land reclamation that's happened in Singapore

The Singapore Sling - invented in the Long Bar itself. They had so many choices, but we went for the classic.

The bar itself was gorgeous (unfortunately I failed to take any pictures of it!). It's modelled on a 1920's Malayan plantation and has gorgeous mechanical fans on the ceiling (supposedly for cooling the room down, though I doubt they really make any difference!).

The nest time Ras gets called away on a business trip to Singapore (which is likely to happen, he's on another one in Tokyo as we speak, but I couldn't get flights t such short notice!), I'm definitely going to go with him again. Singapore has so much to offer, I feel that I barely scratched the surface!

I'll leave you with a picture of a flying squirrel. I had no idea they were so large (about the size of a domestic tom-cat). It didn't fly/glide for us though, all we got was him eating his dinner!

"Watchoolookinat?"

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Miss Magazine, my first HK publication!

So after flying back from Singapore on Saturday (blog to follow!), I was delighted to be informed that a hair shoot I'd done a few weeks back for Hell Models agency had made it into a national hair magazine. I skipped off to the closest 7-Eleven, grabbed the current issue of Miss Magazine and low-and-behold, found my mug on not one, but 5 full pages and 2 inserts in the contents! I can't read it at all, which is a shame, as it's in chinese, but I gather it has something to do with hairstyles with attitude.

I must admit, this is just a little bit exciting for me as I've only had a few small print publications in the past; the majority of my publications have been online, so to find that not only had the images been published, but that I had a 5 page spread was fantastic!

For all images, the photography is by Chung, the hair by Inca Lo at Star Hair and make up by Lauren.

If you've not got your copy, head down to 7-Eleven where you should be able to find it for just HK$20 (bargain!).

I'm also happy to sign a copy and send it to you if you want, so please do get in touch if you want a personally signed copy of the magazine!

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Latino Caribbean Carnival Rugby Night at Play!

Last week before jetting off to a secret location (which I discovered at the airport was Phuket - more about that later) I was invited to walk at a fashion show welcoming the Guyana and Uraguay rugby teams to Hong Kong, where they would be competing in the Rubgy 7's. I must admit that rugby isn't particularly my thing but I know enough to know that for the Guyana team, this was a big deal. They'd never played at the 7's and so the caribbean community of Hong Kong got together to throw them an exclusive private party at one of Hong Kong's premier nightclubs, Play.
As well as some amaxing performances from caribbean carnival dancers, there was an auction, dancing, free food and, of course, the fashion show.

Image courtesy of my boyfriend who snuck into the press box with his camera!
L-R: Me, Zoe and Yuki

As well as wearing gorgeous dresses by Fifi, bikinis by Pualani Hawaii, lingerie by The Powder Room, kaftans and stunning jewellery, we were also walking down the runway accompanied by the very handsome gentlemen from the Guyana rugby team.

Image hotlinked from the Fifi Facebook page
I'm wearing the red and gold Fifi "Love" dress, and love it I do!
L-R: Richard Staglon, Me, Elwin Chase

The organisers wanted the show to be more than just a walk up and down, so we were instructed to dance up the catwalk, which is why I appear to be dancing. The two men behind me are also players from the Guyana team, Richard Staglon and Elwin Chase.

A quick shot after the show with the designers.
L-R: Monisha, one of the organisers; Josie from FiFi, Zoe, Yuki and I, the models; Helena, out agent and Fiona, from FiFi

After the show Ras and I stayed for a few quick drinks with the girls and headed home for a reasonably early night's sleep before getting back up at 6am to head to the airport.

I'll blog about that tomorrow, but to tide you over here's a quick picture:

Ras and I in the foyer of the hotel.

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Cocktails, Comedians and Clams

Ras and I are famous! Well, maybe not famous, but....
The staff at the apartments we are staying in asked if they could take some pictures of us around our flat for some promotional material. Easiest first Hong Kong publication ever?
I guess it counts, despite them not asking me because of my super awesome modelling skills; rather because we have one of the executive suites and they probably would have asked anyone who was staying in it, but who cares!?

The pictures were all over big 6 foot tall boards at their 3rd year anniversary party on the roof of the building. It was amazing to be sipping (free) cocktails and eating (free) food whilst gazing out over Hong Kong's skyline.
The entertainment was great too, they'd booked a live Latin band, the world flair champions (you know, the cocktail waiters who throw your drink around for half an hour before giving it to you) and Vivek Mahbubani, an Indian descent, Chinese, fluent English speaking comedian. We spent a while chatting to him about metal music (turns out he's also the drummer in a heavy metal band) and then posed for a polaroid with me which he then signed.

Other than attending cocktail parties on roofs and posing for photographs, I've also been extending my culinary tastes. By which I mean Ras and I were taken to a very local restaurant the other night by some Chinese friends who proceeded to order razor clams for us. I won't lie, they didn't really do much for me, too salty and chewy for my tastes!


Right now I'm going to curl up on the sofa with Ras and watch a film. I love lazy Saturdays :)

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We're not in Kansas anymore...

Goodness me has it really been 2 months since I last updated? I am so terribly sorry but I've been so busy that I kept forgetting about this!
So, as you may have guessed from the title, I'm not in Kansas (read: London) anymore. As of 3 weeks and 1 day ago, I now live in the amazing, gorgeous, vibrant, busy city of Hong Kong! Let me tell you one thing: they don't tell you about Hong Kong winter weather. There I was, expecting lovely warm sunshiney days and what do I get? Wind and rain. I might as well have stayed in the U.K!
It's warming up slowly however, although the Hong Kong Observatory did see fit to release a "Cold Weather Warning" last week. They were warning all residents of HK to stay inside if they could or to wrap up warm if they went out - the temperatures were going to drop to an arctic TWELVE DEGREES! Not that I'm complaining, mind, I saw that those of you in the U.K had to deal with temperatures of around -10 a few weeks back.
I won't pretend I didn't point and laugh in the general direction of England when I heard that ;)

So I'm all settled in, have spoken to a local agency which is run by a lovely lady called Helena, so watch this space on that front and I've been busy making our little flat feel like home by putting up all the cards and presents you guys sent us when we left, buying houseplants and leaving my shoes in strategically untidy positions, you know, to give it that 'lived in' feel.

Our friend Josie crocheted the little red dragon for us and Donovan the Dinosaur comes with us everywhere :)

We headed over to Kowloon very shortly after arriving here and spent some time taking pictures of the gorgeous Chinese New Year display, which was almost entirely made of paper and wood!

I was born in the year of the rabbit, which this is supposed to represent.

I'm hoping to get up there again very soon and take some proper pictures with the boyfriend's camera and tripod I think.

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