Harrods Girl's Weekend in Paris

Oh my gosh, I FINALLY have internet connection!! Ahh, so happy! So during my no-internet weekend two weeks ago, I went to Paris with my family. We didn't get the hotel we wanted because everyone was there for the fashion week and we booked late, but we did manage to get a high-starred hotel near the shopping district at the end.

I must say that the area where we stayed and the main shopping area is dirty and crowded. And by this, I'm talking about where all the high-end stores are. I suppose the outer areas (ie. non-shopping areas) were less cramped but those were much less glamourous. Like I said to my mum, I don't see what's so supposedly romantic about Paris. The taxi drivers are rude and hotels, despite being multi-starred are just not as pleasant as hotels in Asia. Moulin Rouge is tiny, and Mona Lisa is even tinier.

However, it did open my eyes. I haven't seen so much Chloe merchandises in a store before -the store even had Paddingtons for sell! My mum decided that since Chloe stuff were cheaper in Paris than any other countries (believe me, we've compared the price to the UK, US and HK,) she bought a brown Paddington. The shoppers were actually buying the clothes in Chloe! I'm v impressed since I hardly see anyone actually purchase clothes from Chloe.

I didn't like the Hermes store though -too crowded and too many old people. There was even a guy walking around with his dog in the store, like why would you take your dog shopping with you? You can totally see the clientele difference between Chloe (where female shoppers pay for their own things,) and Hermes (where old males pay for boringly dressed females.)

This street is where loads of other high-end stores are located, and I have never felt so awed by the many fabulously-dressed people all in one small location. Everyone, whether they were tourists or locals were draped in leather and furs of the latest style and sporting lots of 'it' bags.

Sadly we didn't manage to get into the huge Vuitton store because they were preparing it for the aftershow party but we settled for a smaller store nearby where my mum and I both managed to buy a lovely Vuitton bag each.

My mum bought this monogram vernis houstan bag. It's perfect for a classy shopping trip.

I bought this monogram vernis pouch in perle. I'm planning to use it for nights out. The color makes it so easy to match with outfits, although Barneys Girl warned me that the bag may dirty easily.

Ooh, we found this shop that sells prints of memorable images. Inspired by watching Audry Hepburn movies during the summer, I bought a large b&w photo of Audrey in huge shades looking into the Tiffanys windows. I figured after I get it framed, it will be good decoration when I get rich and move out in the future. So ya, that was Paris.

In Her Shoes

YES! Just what we needed to brighten our day. Another chick flick! My first impression of the movie was. .what gorgeous shoes!

And indeed, Rose the older sister in the movie had quite a collection of beautiful shoes that her sister, Maggie, loves to borrow. Rose was understandably outraged when she found the heels of her Jimmy Choo's broken and stuck together with a piece of gum!

But the movie was not just all about shoes, fun and love (although this being a chick flick there was of course its share of true love and happily ever afters). It had suprising depth. They all did some soul searching, found out who they were, patched up their relationship with their long lost grandmother and came a full circle to admitting their love for each other (o dear, its so hard to tell u why its so good without spoiling it!).

The deep bond between the characters were all just really touching. Not quite the "tear jerker" the lady next to us claimed it was, but it was definitely more than what one would expect from your typical chick flick.

Weekend Plans:Tea at the Peninsula

So after another very stressing week, we decided to treat ourselves to tea at the Peninsula. And this time we chose the Peninsula because on the site it said, " variety of luxury boutiques and retailers present an informal fashion show during Fashion Friday Afternoon Tea at The Peninsula Chicago," how cool is that?
So very excitedly, we booked a table and got all dressed up arriving only 30 minutes late (we got lost, the roads of Chicago are very hard to navigate and mapquest just does not work!). So we sat down and ordered a club sandwich (seen below), scones and of course, tea. We decided against the lovely 3 layer tea set because we were not very fond of pumpkin that and something else, which for the life of me I cannot remember the name of now.The food was ok. Settling down, we wondered, where was the runway for this informal fashion show? Did the website lie?? Because we don't see any fashion show anywhere. Then these two tall ladies dressed in very colorful stripey stockings (it turns out to be from Wolfords) came by handed us a catalog and explained that what they were wearing was from Wolfords and how the shirt sleeve was reversable blah blah blah. They went back somewhere and changed into other outfits (one was a skirt that rolls up into a strapless dress and rolls down to be a pencil skirt which was really cool) came out and toured the tables again. And THAT ladies and gentlemen, is apparently what they call a "informal fashion show." Suffice to say, we were quite disappointed. They should've said, "representatives from luxury boutiques and retailers will be coming in to annoy patrons every friday afternoon tea at the Peninsula Chicago."