Sorry I've not been in touch, I've been away in Hong Kong.

I got back in the early hours of this morning, I've managed to get a little bit of a sleep, I've unpacked and put some washing round, a watched washing machine never washes, so I thought I'd pop to Starbucks, my reason two-fold...firstly I need to re-Londonise, secondly think I'll be thankful for the caffeine this afternoon.

I'm sat here with my Vanilla Late, relaxed, chilled. I thought I would blog about my time in the Far East...are you sitting comfortably?...then I will begin.

I flew out last Saturday, a late 11 something or other flight from Terminal 5. 13 hours later I arrived in Hong Kong. I imagined it to be busy, full of neon lights, tall buildings and really noisy...I was right on all four accounts, one thing I didn't expect was the heat, really warm! I don't know why but I figured that the temperature would be quite close to London - my geography is pretty crap and so I'm not surprised I got it wrong. The other thing that I wasn't expecting was the huge mountains on the horizon.

The hotel we were staying is was beautiful, the Langham Place in Mongkok (oh what a funny name), I was on the 19th floor (there were 43 floors) the room had a pretty impressive view over the city...in true HK style the room was pretty technical, a video tour of my room showing me how everything works and a phone that was way too technical to use.

We had a couple of hours before dinner and so my designer David and I went to the "ladies market", no idea why it's called that. I've never seen so many people scurrying around, I've lived in London and New York but this was something else! The market was selling all sorts of "designer" clobber, that Chanel watch you wanted? Yours for $300 HKD, that Prada bag? Just $500HKD, sound expensive? Think again, $100HKD equated to around 8 quid! My favourite was definitely the "Authentic" Ralph Lauren polo shirts for $30HKD, yes ladies and gentlemen, roll up, roll up, yours for just £2.50.

Later that evening we went for an authentic Chinese meal, OK, I lie, we ended up in an Indian. I learnt very quickly that the buildings are multi-purpose in the city, with such a huge population in a relatively small space it's hardly surprising. Going up in the lift the doors open on each floor, one floor seems to be residential flats, up again, offices, up again, a restaurant , up again a shopping mall. After the meal (which was yummy) we went for a Chinese massage, well I think it was Chinese? I guess I assumed really. After that I retired to bed, I'd like to say the massage relaxed me, it didn't...the guy was brutal, that combined with an Indian meal and jet lag resulted in a sleepless night.

Down to business - the rest of the week was used meeting suppliers and briefing in AW10 product. No free time for me. On work trips you tend to either be in your hotel, in a cab, in an office or in a restaurant (in work mode). I always knew this one was going to be a busy trip, briefing in products like outerwear take some time. I'm hoping to get some more me-time when I go back in May, saying that I've already had two invites to China to see some factories.

Hong Kong was very different to London however surprisingly also very Western. The roads had very English names and pretty much everyone spoke English. The food on the other hand, very Eastern! Being a vegetarian I knew this was going to be a challenge, I've walked down China Town in London several times and found the sight of ducks, pigs and animals I didn't even know you could eat hanging in the windows slightly hard to stomach, saying that I'm also a dab hand at using chop sticks and a fan of Dim-sum so knew I wouldn't go hungry.

It's about half 12 here in London, so in theory my body thinks it's 7.30 in the evening, I'm not feeling tired yet - my trusty Vanilla Latte may well have saved the day. Oh great it's raining! Heavy, cold winter rain..hmmm could be time for another bevvy.