dolma jewelry

The color of these pearls is cool, but the luster is terrible-and the bracelet was... just OK. Nix it!

Well, our last day in China was pretty hectic. Shannon and I woke up around 6:30 to have breakfast and pack before our tailor would arrive to our room at 10, so we could try on our clothes, check out, run to the markets one last time, and then catch a plane to the US.

It would be tight, but nothing opens until 10, so we were up, dressed and ready at 8:30… and just sat in the hotel room watching the English channel that is broadcasting  a segment on the worst plane crashes in history. I think the hotel plays that segment on every traveler’s last day so they will be too scared to fly and stay an extra night.

Our Rhett Earrings in black, for sale in China... I'm flattered!

Well, now it’s 9am, and the next program is a documentary on pigeon racing. Fascinating sport. I really wanted #13 pigeon to win, but he did not. It was a sad tale. On the segment, we saw the whole process: from #13’s brith, to its training, to even its brief kidnapping by the mafia for ransom. But when it was time for the final, big race, #13 just wasn’t as fast as all the other pigeons. The trainer was dissapointed, but brushed it off with a little Kaoraoke and was ready for the next season. Here, check out the YouTube teaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adELd8RqTyk

Finally, around 9:55, we rememnber that we have no money to pay our tailor. We run down to the ATM, and all 3 are out of order until someone comes to put money in at 10am. Again, that 10am timeframe is constraining! We finally get some kuai, and call the concierge to be sure we haven’t missed our tailor. Doesn’t seem like it.

Hmmm... another No-Go!

Around 10:20 the tailor shows up, and 2 of my dresses are just perfect! The shirt I had made, however, looks like a flower child’s remdition of something worn in Urban Cowboy. Shannon ordered a long, white lace skirt that hits the floor with beige lining, a green dress that reminds us of the nightgown worn by the father in, ”Twas the Night Before Christmas, and a fabulous shirt that I am going to borrow on a weekly basis.

So, we send our tailor back out to fix my confused shirt and her dress-gone-nightie

When we tell him we’re leaving in 3 hours for the airport, he does a hand-to-the-head, fall-into-the-chair, kind of move and says there is no way. I then explain that we are going to the US with or without these pieces, and suddenly, he says it’s possible.

So he heads out, and around 11am we go make our last few stops at the markets. I am in search of a suitcase, as the pull-up handle on my carry-on… just keeps pulling up. I REALLY want the lime green Samsonite hard case, but have a feeling that might get flagged in customs… so I choose a conservative, brown suitcase and get charged way too much as they can tell I’m in a hurry.

Go, pigeons, go!

We head back to the hotel to meet the tailor one last time, and to switch the entire contents of one suitcase to another. We had already checked out, so all of this happened in the middle of the main lobby.

Clothes are perfect. Suitcase is awesome, and we hail a cab that is immediately run into by a new driver in an SUV. They argue for  a while, in the rain, and Shannon and I are worried we’re going to miss our flight. We hop out of the cab and ask him to pop his trunk so we can find another cab. He’s yelling at us to stay inside, and yelling at the other driver… and then at us again… and finally when he is pretty sure we are going to pop the trunk ourselves and take our luggage out he puts on a smile and gets in the car ready to drive. Very odd.

At the ariport, it was a breeze checking in and getting through security. My trick is to avoid the economy class line is to simply get in the 3 person line for First Class. It works everytime.

We had some lunch and a bottle of wine in a cafe while we waited for all the other passengers who were waiting in the long lines to file in. We were sure to purchase large waters for 45 kuai each (almost 10 American dollars) to ensure we would not dehydrate on the plane.

As we go through the First Class boarding line, (we are sitting in coach), they tell us that we cannot have liquids on the plane-even if we bought them in the airport, and even if they were 100 RMB. So, Shannon and I move to the side and proceed to drink a half liter of Evian in about 6 minutes-as the economy class line is filing into the plane.

I’ve scored us aisle seats for the flight back, and we rest the whole flight. The plane from Newark to Atlanta is tiny, cramped and has no blankets… so that was rough.

Shannon and I arrive in Atlanta at 11pm. I get dropped off at my apartment and take a long bath and put in DVDs of the Office to fall asleep. That never happens, and at 7am this morning I am finally feeling tired. I rest all day, and am determined to be in bed by midnight tonight. Wish me luck!

Ashley

It’s our last full day in China and that means it’s time to skim the fat-cut the pieces that are just OK… and at the same time I’m falling head over heals for the pieces I know I’ll be getting lots of one-on-one time with in the near future.

I’ve attached a few snap shots of some of those that “made it”. This of course is just the begining… we have over 50 sets of brand-new, gotta have it, how’d you DO that? styles… but enjoy these sneak peaks!

Braided pearl bracelet! LOVE it.

Perhaps the most fabulous piece of our entire collection... tooth pearls, potato pearls... a labor of love for my vendors!

These huge egg pearls will be getting lots of wear! Order quantity? "Plus one", for ME!

The perfect formal piece for any dress-up occassion... though I'll probably wear it to the post office.

This massive choker will be perfect for dolma brides tying the knot this fall!

Day 4 in China was almost completely ours. Our vendors needed time to make samples for me to see, so Shannon and I spent the morning going over our orders and deciding what pieces we needed to add to fill in a few gaps. This season I really wanted to bump up our Baby line and our Oola line for the tweens-so we focused on making sure we had plenty of new options.

Look at the cute uniforms at Pizza Hut in Shanghai!

Next on the agenda: get some clothes made! We both had a few ideas of some pieces we wanted to create-and after ooh-ing and ahh-ing over hundreds of fabric options were able to narrow our choices down to a few, must-have swatches. We then began the creation portion, with measuring, tweaking, and changing our minds. Then, the bargaining-which is so annoying when you really have no idea what you should be paying … but I think I did OK, though I did have to walk away twice.

Then, we stopped in to check on some pieces with one of my vendors… and suddenly realized it was 9:00pm, and we were starving and tired. We gave our cab driver the address to a restaurant, but he dropped us off at the wrong spot-after walking 8 blocks in the wind and rain we gave up and dashed into a Pizza Hut.

Me, in all my hotel-gifted gear... out of the rain and into the Pizza Hut!

Me, sporting one of my favorite new earrings!

Day 3 started around 6:30 am. I woke up, anxious to read the Shanghai Daily. This may sound odd, but starting my day with copious amounts of green tea and reading the entire English newspaper is a part of my day here that I just can’t skip. It is written by Chinese people in British English, with titles like: “Granny DJ Spins Hits”; “Teacher Pricked Pupils”; ”Freak Wave kills 2″; ”She saved a burn victim, but at a cost”; and, the title that is so fabulous it trumps any title I could ever create for this blog, so I’ve given in and copy-pasted: “Help will arrive within 5 minutes if anyone falls into the HuangPu River”. In other News, the Daily reported on Mao’s grandson’s self promotion due to “the people’s love of his grandfather”. Also, in attempts to clean the HuangPu River for the World Expo, “[the government] has asked 82 of the 280 businesses producing dangerous chemical products to relocate [their pollutants] to an industrial park across the city”.

I can’t get enough. The Daily is like a good movie-funny, informative, and controversial enough to make you blush.

I have to try everything on!

Shannon enjoying some green tea before our foot massage!

After 8 hours, Shannon is ready to go! But she's hanging in there.

Li Ming Ming, pricing our designs!

After lunch, and an eight-hour design and creation session with one of my vendors, we head to a Mexican place we found in the City Weekend Magazine-a publication for foreigners with tons of recommendations for food, nightlife, entertainment, etc. It’s packed, and we have no reservation, so Shannon and I order Passion Fruit Margaritas and sit at the bar until they can squeeze us in. The Margaritas were recommended to us by 2 women we met from Chicago and Paris, who are here in Shanghai looking for teaching jobs. We were seated next to a Scottish woman and Italian man on a 2nd date, who were quite friendly and recommended the Macho Nachos. We had great fun with the woman, who was obviously elated to not be alone on this date-she even commented that she thought he was only dating her to learn English, and told him she charged 600 RMB an hour for her services.

One of many earrings that we ARE NOT using! This one is just terrible! My mission: to design a custom earring for a bride... mission not accomplished, yet!

She gave us her card to keep in touch, and we grabbed a cab and headed to the hotel. 

Ashley

Shanghai: At Night, in the Rain!

When I booked tickets for my sister and myself about 2 weeks ago, I was quite constrained by price and availability, as I’m sure you can imagine. The only flight I could find under $1700  (a coach ticket is typically $800-$1200) was at a slightly inconvenient time, with slightly inconvenient seating.

It all seems fine when you order the ticket, until you actually have to DO what you’ve signed up for. And keep in mind, when you’re bargain-hunting for international plane flights at the last minute, you’ve looked at about 10,000 different lay-overs, connections, fees, seating assignments… and at the moment you click “confirm”, you’re so confused and exhausted you could have a 1o hour, overnight layover in Buenos Aires and not even notice.

So, yesterday morning, our flight from Atlanta to Newark left at 6:45am, which meant we had to leave the house at 4:45. My sister, Shannon, and I elected to stay up the entire night-not because we wanted to sleep on the plane but because we didn’t start packing until 11pm the night before.

So, we make it to Newark just fine. I slept the entire way, which is great.

We have a 2 hour layover in Newark, and I’m on the phone handling last-minute business items, and making sure my phone is set for international use, that my Credit Card companies know I’ll be out of town… the normal, layover procedure.

Our Meal at my Favorite Restaurant: Mei Long Zhen!

Then it happens. My phone starts beeping. Which means it is low on batteries.

I scan the entire gate area, and find a plug next to an unused desk. The next thing I know I’m on the plane, helping fellow passengers put up their luggage, settling into my middle seat, and I hear “The doors to the plane have now been closed, please discontinue use of your cell phones…”

OH NO. My cell phone is still plugged into the wall.

I hop out of my seat, run to a flight attendant and tell her what I’ve done. I may have over-exaggerated the necessity of the phone for my survival in China… but desperate times call for desperate measures; and before I know it, there are 2 other flight attendants and one very attractive pilot ready to open the door, radio Control, and let me run in to grab my phone.

But Control makes a call to the gate, and my phone is no longer there. So I have to go back to my middle seat, in the middle row. Shannon and I had tried unsuccessfully to guilt all our surrounding, aisle and window seat passengers into switching with one of us, but when it comes to 15 hours in a small space-chivalry is dead. Understandably.

One poor guy got roped into switching his emergency exit, aisle seat for a middle seat behind me because he had the seat next to 2 parents who strategically placed their child in the middle seat ticket 10 rows back. The man had no choice. He had to let the baby have his seat. Talk about devastation.

I've never seen this before! The Chinese LOCK UP their umbrellas!

The flight is for some reason incredibly comfortable and I’m able to sleep a good 8 of the 15 hours. Shannon mentioned (because she did not sleep a wink the entire flight) that I was dead asleep, probably snoring, and my head was flopping from the shoulder of the girl on my right to the arm of the older man on the left. All I can say is: maybe they’ll think twice next time about not switching seats. I should mention that for the 7 hours I was awake Shannon and I were talking over the people in between us and passing food back and forth. 

At some point in the flight I wake up, and meet a man in line for the bathroom and tell him my phone predicament. He proceeds to convince me that my entire identity is somehow on that phone-bank accounts, credit card information, social security number… he says I can consider my identity stolen; my accounts at best will be frozen, and that means I’ll have no money to get out of the airport, much less buy pearls.

Upon arrival in China, Shannon and I have no information to offer as to our return flight, the address of our hotel, or any of the questions they ask on the arrival card.

We hop into a cab that has newspapers suspiciously covering the back seat, and about 5 minutes into the 45 minute ride realize that it’s sopping wet underneath the newspaper. I ask the cab driver why it’s so wet, and he says he left his windows down during a recent downpour.

So… wet, cold and pretty disoriented, Shannon and I fall out of the cab at the hotel.

But my familiar bellhop greets us with a smile, the check-in counter remembers my reservation, and we are lead to our fabulous room with bottled water and chocolates on the pillow. I check Shannon’s voicemail and my phone is safe and sound in security at Newark. 

We unpack, rest a few minutes, and head to my very favorite restaurant in all of China, MeiLong Zhen, for a feast of braised eggplant, fried noodles, tofu, bean curd pancakes, and Tsing Tao.

Shannon at MeiLong Zhen Restaurant

Delicious Beancued Pancakes

We head back to the hotel, showered… and I am now waking up at 5am in my robe, with my hair in a towel- I must have fallen asleep walking from the shower to my bed.

I can’t wait to receive our edition of Shanghai Daily, sit at breakfast and drink green tea, and then head out to start designing dolma’s new collection!

Zai jian, for now!

Ashley

Well, I’m ready for new jewelry, and in a few weeks I’ll be back in China designing new pieces. At one point I was thinking of taking a group of clients with me for a tour-but never could pull myself away from the day-to-day needs of my growing company to get it all together.

However, I did prepare an itinerary that weeds out the cliched tourist stuff that I wish I’d skipped; and I included some of my favorite restaurants and hotels-the key to picking a hotel in China is two-fold: 1: cleanliness is important:  you don’t want anything 3 star or below; and 2. you really want to get a place with a fabulous buffet breakfast-unless you want to eat dumplings and cucumbers every morning… and instant coffee. 

I thought: Why not post my recommended itinerary for any of our interested readers? If you are thinking about going to China, here’s exactly what I’d recommend.

Remember: It is recommended that you purchase travel insurance for your trip, as most plans do not cover you while traveling abroad!

Day 1 - Depart USA

Board our overnight flight to Shanghai.

 Day 2 - Arrive Shanghai

Upon arrival we are transferred to the New World Radisson Hotel by private coach. After checking in, we’ll walk Nanjing Road and the Bund. Dinner is at a traditional Chinese Restaurant serving family-style cuisine. Meals (D)

 Day 3 - Shanghai

This morning, we’ll tour the Yuyuan gardens and shop in the Yuyuan markets. Private coach services will pick us up at 1:00pm and escort us to lunch, the Shanghai History Museum and then to dinner at South Beauty-a fabulous Chinese restaurant with excellent Catoneese and Sichuan delights and specialty teas! Meals (B, D)

 Day 4 - Shanghai

We’ll start with a half day guided tour to the water town Zhujiajiao-with a boat ride! We’ll have the afternoon free to rest, or walk around the city. We’ll have an evening coach ride to Xin Tian Di- a modern hub for great restaurants and bars! Meals (B)

 Day 5 - Shanghai / Xi’an

This morning we’ll enjoy a half day guided tour to Jade Buddha Temple and then transfer to the airport for our flight to Xi’an. Upon arrival, we’ll have a coach transfer us to Gloria Plaza Hotel. That evening, we’ll enjoy a typical Dumpling dinner. Meals (B,D)

 Day 6 - Xi’an

Full day guided tour to Terra Cotta Warriors, Bell Tower, and Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Boxed lunch is served on the tour. Evening night market at Muslim Quarter  Meals (B,L,D)

 Day 7 - Xi’an / Beijing

This morning, we’ll transfer to the airport for our flight to Beijing. Upon arrival, we’ll have a coach transfer us to the Courtyard by Marriott. After checking in, we’ll walk around WanFuJing shopping street (with the infamous Chinese snack-scorpions on a stick!). That evening, we’ll enjoy a Peking Duck dinner and a reflexology foot massage.  Meals (B,L,D)

 Day 8 - Beijing

Today, we’ll have a guide take us to Tian’ amen Square and the Forbidden City, followed by an afternoon Hutong tour including lunch with a local family. Then, we’ll enjoy an acrobatics show and dinner. Meals (B,L,D)

 Day 9 - Beijing

7am: Full day coach and driver service to Simatai Great Wall. Boxed lunch included. Meals (B, L)

 Day 10 - Beijing

We’ll have a coach and driver service to the Olympic Park, and then head to the The Summer Palace. Meals (B)

 Day 11 - Depart Beijing

At the appointed time, we’ll transfer to the airport to board our departing flight home. Meals (B)