This is the last post of photos from our trip.

On the last day of our trip we were able to go to the street market late in the afternoon. This market is so much fun, good shopping and lots to see. The market is just up the street and around the corner. This is where the taxi left us.

Looking into the market. There are hundreds of booths.

This booth specialized in jeans. We chatted with this gal for a while. Her name is Lang Lang.

This market is sensory overload. There is so much to see and the vendors all try to catch your attention. So much fun!

There is food everywhere too - and it’s not boring!

Anyone for a pig snout?

This looks a little better.

But I’m not so sure about this. What in the world?
And yes, that yellow stuff was really that bright. I’m not sure what it was, but I think those roundish brown things are eggs?

Then it started to get dark out.
And the food took a turn for the worst.
See for yourself.

Yes, those huge shrimps were alive - and moving around.

(Breathe deep) Just be glad you weren’t there in person to see them in full live action.

Look away.
Look back at the vendors in the non-food booths.
Take a rest from those pictures above.

You can pick your own and they’ll cook it for you right there.

See all that steam on the glass? Hong Kong is very steamy and hot.
And full of smells and sounds unlike anywhere I’ve seen!

There are places for you to sit down and enjoy your delicious food.

And one final parting view of the city at night…until we meet again Hong Kong!

On our trip to the Orient, we went into China for only one day. We took a bus across the border. We haven’t done this yet by bus. In the past it’s always been by plane, train or ferry. Notice all of the dark heads on the bus - except for one bald guy and Guinevere’s red highlighted hair!

And then there was this guy.

Sun, our factory owner friend who was sitting beside me on the bus, suggested I take a picture of him. I said “Why not?” I forgot to get his email address to send him a copy (the sleeping guy’s, not Sun).

Once across the border and through customs, we waited here for our driver…and took some photos.

We were going to Sun & Kay’s factory in Guangzhou where they make our Soft Tags and Soft Charm products.

These two are a lot of fun to work with! We enjoy their company very much.

It was a little over a two hour car ride to the factory. We took a tour and met with Sun and Kay for a bit, then headed back.

Sun & Kay used to work at another factory, then branched off on their own. We plan to work with them on many new ATB products.

When back in Hong Kong, Sun and Kay treated us to a delicious Chinese dinner. (Thanks you guys!!) What a fun day!

The customs line. We spent a lot of time waiting in customs lines. You can see and understand everything from this photo. This is entry into HK at the airport.

Once past all this, we rode on buses, taxis and the subway. Here are scenes from around the city.

Hey, did you notice? They have construction everywhere there too!

Because they’re always building giant buildings like this.

And when you’re inside giant buildings like this you can see scenes like this.

Sort of framed in the middle of that window is the Star Ferry on Victoria Harbour. We didn’t ride on the Ferry this trip, but we have before. It transports folks from one side of HK to another.

Here is one of the many container shipping yards. Maybe some of our ATB products are sitting in a container out there now waiting to be shipped.

Would it surprise you to know that Guinevere and I know how to move around in HK better than New York City? Here are some images from the subway. It’s called the MTR in Hong Kong. Mind the gap!

There is Guinevere, notice she is pulling a gorgeous ATB Square Rolling Bag!

Don’t forget to keep checking back. I have many more photos of the trip to share in days to come!

Whenever we travel to the Orient, I get so many questions about the food. It is much different from what we’re used to in the U.S. and Taipei’s food choices did not disappoint.

Here are some photos from our breakfast buffet.

What is the cook thinking? Corn and fish jello!!! Eeeks! And is that meat jello? I think I’m going to faint. No, we didn’t partake - in case you were wondering.

The bread looks beautiful and scrumptious, right? Oh boy, looks can be deceiving. The one on the upper right gave me a gurgly stomach for 2 days just on whiff alone. I’m so glad I smelled it first…

This fruit I learned the name of and immediately forgot. I do remember the name had 3 syllables. We tried it, it tastes kind of like leaves, sweet leaves. And the seeds kind of pop when you bite down on them with your teeth.

We went in this store in the airport. Wow, the food offerings were diverse. The packaging design was very cool. It had a vintage-retro 80’s design flair. Here’s a sampling.

What would you like to buy? Perhaps a yummy box of dried Shark Fin Soup? It shouldn’t be too difficult to reconstitute, no? Mmmmmm….

These must be some kind of sweets.

Delicious. I’m guessing. Is it just me, or does everything seem to be orange and yellow?

Maybe these wouldn’t be so bad?

Look, a whole meal in a box. Just like an MRE. Yum! It must be good, it looks like it won some kind of award.

They just don’t make stuff like this around here.

Here are the first of a series of the photos I took while traveling in the Orient with Guinevere. Watch for more posts with photos to come over the next week.

We have never visited Taiwan before, but we have a few factories there, so it was time for a trip. Also, there was a good fair there that we wanted to go to.

This is the airport. Not too much different from U.S. airports. The security is not as strict and they let you use those little luggage carts for free! As soon as we got our bags, we headed out to catch a taxi to the fair.

Below are 3 of the 6 men that surrounded me. They were trying to get the address for where we wanted to go. They couldn’t understand or speak any English. So they all groaned a little when they saw our itinerary and couldn’t read it. They finally ended up calling someone who spoke English and could translate. They really were helpful, you’d never find this kind of service in the U.S.! About 30 minutes later, we arrived at the fair.

This is a view from above of the show floor. Also, some vendors we met.

These are some vending machines at the fair. I bought a lemon soda - it was $30 dollars - Taiwan dollars. The exchange rate is 30:1 USD. I love the graphics!

Taiwan is very tropical - and hot. The temps were in the 80’s and very humid. This is a view from our hotel window.

And this…

And some street views… (They were taken from a moving cab, sorry they’re a tad blurry and crooked too!)

The building in the background is called One Hundred & One. One of our factory contacts told us that there are not actually 101 floors in it, but they call it that anyway.

A view of the Taipei airport terminal. Not one blonde in the whole joint!

Here is a photo of our airplane. It was huge! 2 Storys high!

And even though it was only a 1.25 hour flight to Hong Kong, they fed us a full meal. We didn’t go for it much. Mystery meat and not so tasty veggies - oh they were interesting alright! Yup, you guessed right, that’s a brine-soaked egg in the lower right. I know what you’re thinking.

Guinevere and I are in Hong Kong this week! We are visiting our factories and meeting with our contacts in China. This is a view from our Hotel - Guinevere took it with her phone. We stayed in a new area called Tuen Mun - Gorgeous! We’ll have some more photos from the trip when we return home.

Steve and I took a trip to Canada to meet our scrapbooking friends and introduce our new CHA Winter release products. While there, we taught classes, demonstrated our new products and had some fun too! Here are some pics from the event.

On the first day we set up our booth.

The blurry figure in the above photo is one of our new BFF’s, Nicole from Imaginese. The event was a great venue for meeting our customers and for developing friendships with other vendors too. Here’s a shout out to Nicole and Denise from Imaginese, Margie from Making Memories and our new friends from Provo Craft, Bazzill, My Minds Eye and Cards Magazine!

After the booth was looking especially gorgeous, Steve and I had some free time so we pointed the rental car in the direction of one of Canada’s National Parks - Elk Island. The park is somewhat of an animal preserve. We saw bison, muskrats, chipmunks, birds and an elk. Steve enjoyed driving close to the bison - it made me a little nervous. I kept having visions of tourists being gored, so I was a bit of a nagger - “STEVE, STOP!! Don’t get so CLOSE!, SHEESH!” He didn’t seem to mind so much, evidently this was not the first time he has been nagged.

This guy was keeping his eye on us. Or was it a gal? It was hard to tell the difference. We did notice that many females were “with calf”.

This one kept licking his lips. I could hear his inner voice saying “Hey Steve, drive a little closer…you guys might be a tasty winter snack!”

Ahhh…nature.

The next day we dove into the teaching and selling scene.

There were over 200 ladies in attendance at the show - and we counted…the ladies who took our class made a total of 987 cards! The cards featured our patterned paper theme “Living Life“, Edgy Strips (used as borders - how cool!), Antiquing Tool, Paper Tagger and Big Metal Brads - Hearts & Arrows.

This is one of the class kits. Hey, a big thanks to Glue Arts for donating the Glue Rings adhesives. What a hit they were - the ladies loved them!

Steve is sharing his favorite card making techniques.

A close up of one of the cards and the Antiquing Tool.

Let’s pause here for a nod to the Antiquing Tool.

Wow - this thing is amazing! (And I’m just not bragging randomly about an ATB product!) This tool has serioulsy earned a medal or gold star, or whatever ranks higher. We had 5 tools at the show with us and those tools were used and abused! Each tool inked the edges of hundreds of papers and they still had ink at the end of the show. Talk about value - that ink lasts forever!

Oh, and did we mention it has an easy-to-hold handle? No ink on your hands! I think it could possible be one of the 7 wonders of the scrapbook world. Seriously.

Here are some of the most talented scrapbookers at the show, Barb and Doreen. They were so much fun. We always appreciate the ladies with the humor at the shows. Barb said she loved our cards the most - and she couldn’t even believe it - she didn’t even get anything crooked!

Thanks so much Annette and Trudy for the opportunity to come and meet and teach all of your fun retailers. We’ll be looking forward to next year!