The Hill Station + Meet The Blogger

Here is a project or concept that I like but I can’t quite figure out whether it launched or not.

It’s called The Hill Station and it is a restaurant/cafe/delicatessen in Sapa (Vietnam). The Hill Station has a website which says it opened 2011 but beyond that, all I found was the identity/graphic design work for the concept and a couple reviews.  Design was done by Studio Egregious.

Finish your website “Hill Station”!!  It looks like you have a really neat business that more people should know about.

Photo Source: An Vu

There is more identity work to be seen on the Dieline and Lovely Package if you are interested.

It’s a mystery.  Has anyone been to Sapa and visited The Hill Station?  I would love to hear about it!

In other news, I am headed to Stockholm tomorrow night (Friday) to attend MEET THE BLOGGER Stockholm this weekend.  I missed last year’s event in Amsterdam and thankfully I was reminded from reading a post on Emmas Design Blog about the conference.  So off I go.  I’ve never attended a blogger conference and have no idea what to expect.  I hope I walk away with some new insights and can’t wait to check out Stockholm (grab a cinnamon bun or something!).  Some days I feel like I have so much to learn about blogging and wonder, am I doing “it” right?

I am certainly looking forward to meeting the bloggers behind Bright Bazaar, Bloesem, By Fryd, Heart Home Magazine, Lotta Agaton, Vosges Paris , La Maison de Anna G, and Joelix.  I’ve been blogging for over four years now and believe it or not, have been following some of these blogs the entire time.

I will report back next week on the conference.

If you’re attending meet the blogger, don’t be shy! Introduce yourself.

Ituri Salon: Hair Salon Love

If you read a lot of design blogs you may have noticed that hair salons don’t often get mentioned on design blogs.  You see restaurants, you see houses, you see hotels, you see retail stores, but hair salons… get left out.

Here is my effort to give hair salons some love and appreciation.

This is the interior of Ituri Copenhagen.

I was there tonight and shot some pictures while I waited.

This salon does hair, makeup and nails for theatre and non-theatre folk.  

ANNNDDDD…….. you gotta love late night Wednesday hair appointments-I think they are the only salon in the city open until 9pm on a Wednesday. 

I like the diamond interior theme running throughout Ituri and also noticed they decked out their chairs with pillows and throws from Ferm Living,- which I later found out also blogged about them.

ITURI
Esplanaden 6-8
DK- 1263 Kobenhavn K

Very Fitting: Gummy Bear Chandelier

How was your weekend? Mine was relaxing.  I went to an excellent neighbourhood organic Italian Trattoria that I will post about later this week (Date Night #5), called Che Fe.  I also watched not one, but two (actually one and a half) movies: Beautician and the Beast (huge Fran Drescher fan here!!) and I started watching an really interesting documentary about the indie video game industry called Indie Game.

I was so intrigued by the documentary (not Beautician and the Beast) that I am trying to figure out how to parlay the indie game movie into a new assignment next semester for a distance learning class I am teaching called Marketing Planning.  The thoughts are still marinating in my head.  (So if you are my student and reading this- don’t jump to conclusions 🙂

Back to gummy bears- Why is a gummy bear chandelier fitting you ask?

A) I love gummy bears.

B) I ate a lot of these over the weekend while watching Beautician and the Beast.

C) I have found a superior gummy, which I will post about later.  Did you know that North American gummy bears and European gummy bears do not taste the same? Surprise surprise!  The gummies here seem to contain more fruit and less sugar and they are tasty.  I have a stash from Bears and Friends (a little bit of fruit gummy heaven) in Dresden that is housed in various jars around my flat.  I also tasted a few gummies last week from a Copenhagen candy store that were excellent and keeping with the Euro-gummy experience.

When I saw this gummy bear chandelier, I just had to share it with you.  Artist Kevin Champeny made the “candelier” from over 3000 hand cast acrylic Gummi Bears for Jellio.

Photo Source: 1-4

A Look at Sabio By The Sea

Here is an interesting restaurant interior.

Sabio By the Sea was designed by The Stripe Collective in Singapore.

I like busy ceiling.  The mix of antler lights, pendant lighting, rope and horse heads (instead of stag heads?!) seem to work together.  Plus the view that opens onto the marina isn’t too shabby as a background for tapas.

Photo Source: 1-4

I (heart) Cool Convenience Store Design

I love e-Types’ concept and visual identify for C, a Copenhagen based convenience store.  e-Types, is a Copenhagen design firm.

The combination of the black and white with the heart is so eye catching for something as generic and boring as a convenience store.

I was just in Frederiksberg on the weekend and I missed checking this place out!

Oh well, next time.

Photo Sources: 1-3, 4

My Home (apt) Decor

Isn’t moving fun?  I think so.   I’ve become somewhat of a moving pro. Since 2010, I’ve set up and moved into three different apartments in three different countries.

Moving is the best time to purge unwanted, or underused objects.  If you’re a pack-rat like me, or as I like to call it, a sentimental person who likes to cherish objects, moving represents a time to reorganize, consider new uses for existing objects and do a bit of updating with new objects.  This is, in fact, the exact same message I gave my brother who moved into a new apartment in Chicago this past weekend.

I am almost done setting up my new flat in Copenhagen.  I still have the dining room to take care of, which is currently in shambles.  We are dinning by candle light until we get the last component for our pendant light.

Here is a look at some of our fun purchases this past month:

01 We bought two red Nud classic collection pendant lights for our front hall. We decided to use a cylindrical edison bulb instead of the round ones.

02 Two Mr. P lamps to go on our bedside tables.  Yes, I know a bit crude but these lamps make us laugh every night before we go to bed.

03 One Raskog Ikea kitchen cart which we turned into a bar cart.

04 A Normann Copenhagen hang lamp which is currently sitting on the floor until we buy a hook to put it in the ceiling.

05 A Lucky Boy Sunday pillow at my husband’s request.  I have this great Anthropologie pillow that I bought a couple years ago in Toronto.  It has lots of texture and wool which my husband says it’s too itchy and flat out detests.  He wanted to replace the itchy pillow with something softer, so he chose this baby alpaca pillow. My anthro pillow has been re-purposed to another room.

06 A Normann Copenhagen tablo table in warm grey.  We did not have a side table and have currently been using poor Balloona.

All will be tidy and in its place by the end of the week, as we are preparing to receive our first Copenhagen visitors: my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.