What an experience!

The long awaited day of January 26 was upon us. This was to be the second of four Smirnoff Experience Global events held in Shanghai China.
Having been blown away by the first event, which was held in Moscow, I knew this one would be as amazing. What made it even better was that it was in a country I had never ever thought I’d be in, but once again, because of the around the world Smirnoff Experience, I am once again blessed with another unbelievable stamp on my passport.
Shanghai, a land of intrigue, a land of the unexpected, and a land of new and old, January 26 would be the night that the Smirnoff would bring all this together into one unforgettable experience in nightlife.

Walking into the venue, we were welcomed to the longest cocktail menu in the world, with a record breaking 1320 possible different drinks on offer. Whether or not you are the best cocktail maker this Cocktail Bar made you feel like the very best. You’d get your glass with 35ml Smirnoff Black and ice which was step one, then moved on to select one of ten juice options, followed by one of eleven flavoured syrups and finish off with one of twelve garnishes. I had an apple juice, vanilla syrup with mint leaf mixture– The Akona - and it was delicious.

Whilst sipping on my original cocktail, my tastebuds loving the experience, my eyes and ears had their own little party. Onstage, the Shanghai Hip Hop MC duo called RedStar; a Shanghainese guy rapping in Chinese and an American guy rapping in English, with an explosive drum battle between legendary Tom Middleton and hip hop drummers from The Lab.

Later on the music front, we got to experience an awesome set by British indie group Hard-Fi, who were then joined by the Shanxi drummers to perform their hit single ‘Hard To Beat’. Being from South Africa and having never heard of Hard-Fi, I was very impressed and found myself dancing and singing along to a cover of Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. The band really got everyone fired up.

DJ Sasha who played a rock orientated set, wound up the evening perfectly by keeping the buzz going right up until the end. During the press conference he’d said how excited he was to do this event, the rock orientated mix, and I could definitely see and feel the excitement. It’s so wonderful to experience artists that put their heart and soul into their craft.

Between the music experiences, the venue had a lot of treats to keep your jaw on the floor and surprise you at every turn. Starting with the Martini lounge; where you got a four choice mini-tasters. Sipping each of the four options, you’d pick your favourite by number, whereby you were led to your martini of choice. Mine was the crushed ginger martini, from a choice of green tea marTEAni, basil martini and a lychee martini.

Next was the chill out forest, specifically the silver birchwod tree forest, where you could enjoy your beverage and make a wish. On the trees were little scrolls that detailed the filtering process that makes Smirnoff Vodka so clear, and in there you could take a break from the entertaining music by wearing the headphones hanging on the special trees with calming birdsong playing. Whilst in your state of relaxation you were invited to make a wish and hang it on a wishing tree. I couldn’t wish for anything more in my life, but I did. Since keeping the wish a secret is pivotal in it coming true, I cannot divulge...

Around the corner was the Smirnoff Ice Moscow snow area. This was a lot fun. Every so often the timer would go off and the cutest little – not cold thankfully – snowballs would fall from the indoor sky. The Smirnoff Ten spent way too much time in this little area, and we loved it. The area was also photo opportunity place, as the snow was falling, you could wear a furry Russian style hat and have a Polaroid taken of you as memorabilia. It was great for the people who weren’t able to experience the Moscow event to get a little glimpse of it.

The best was the water feature. Behind a curtain of big creamy pearls with the message of ‘Remember the experience, please drink responsibly playing across the pearls n lights, beautiful girls would come out, do a little dance and offer you ice cold refreshing H2O. It was quite a surprise seeing them pop out while your eyes were following the drink responsibly message playing on the pearls.

The night was a grand production of originality at its best and I’m definitely looking forward to the next one. Original nights such as the Moscow and Shanghai events remind me once again how life is about searching for an experience and being original in everything you do. Well done to Smirnoff for the experiences of a lifetime.

Smirnoff Experience – Food and Language

Before this world tour began for me, I went through all the possibilities and experiences that the tour might entail. The flights, the places, the weather, the parties, the production, the people, the drinks, the music and the different foods etc.

Something I didn’t really pay much mind to, didn’t especially consider, was the language. I was going to visit all these different countries, dance to music I’d probably never heard before, be exposed to cultures different from my own home country, food I’d never tasted before, and the different nightlife. Language was something I stupidly didn’t really think about. So far I’ve been exposed to Russian in Moscow, Spanish, the Argentinean version, Spanish, the Mexican version and Portuguese in Brazil. Hmmm. And there are so many more to come.

Don’t know about you, but I’ve never experienced these languages for more than an hour in my entire life. Now imagine trying to converse in any a language you’ve never spoken before, not talking about the weather, not just saying hello, asking how are you? Or asking a cab driver to drop you off somewhere, these are somewhat easy enough. The difficulty is simply ordering food, a basic human need. Why didn’t I just get a dictionary or language guide? Well this might be the solution, but do they have menus in there?

A few funny experiences while trying to feed myself:

Moscow.
One night at about 2am Kung, John and I took a walk in search for food on the main busy street in Moscow. At that time of the night/morning, not much is available except for, as we discovered, street food. In that case, street food is sold in these ice-cream van looking structures, branded with the name of the ‘establishment’ (in Russian of course) on the outside with some photoshopped pictures of the available food.
Thank goodness for pictures. Each van, usually about 50 meters or so apart had a selection of about 20 food items (in Russian) on the menu and if you’re lucky about 5 pics.
This is where I learnt the valuable point, smile and nod enthusiastically manoeuvre, which would hopefully get you something delicious. If the retouched pictures weren’t doing it for you, then you move on to the Russian menu phase, a little bit more difficult… pick the friendliest looking words off the menu, don’t try pronunciation and wait and see what the words mean after paying and walking away with your food. Sometime we were lucky, other times, well, that’s a whole other story.

In Buenos Aires I started to learn the language, not exactly actually, I found out that chicken is pollo. You can’t go wrong with chicken; pity I didn’t learn what deep-fried is in Spanish. Another great word is fritas, as in papas fritas, potato chips to go with the not deep fried chicken. The rest of the time was a guessing game of picking the prettiest words on the menu. The same sort of rules applied in Mexico City.

Portuguese is one the sexiest yet most difficult languages I have thus far come across. I hear it and my brain does goes dead. Nothing connects. I hear nothing, I understand almost nothing, yet it all sounds so good. The food in Sao Paulo was so good I didn’t mind picking any words off the menu, and something I learnt late was that sometimes restaurants have English menus.

I feel so ignorant not being able to converse in these languages, but I will learn, for my stomach’s sake.

Sydney, first week, quick update:

I’m finally awake and can actually keep my eyes open for more than three hours at a time. I had my first, and hopefully, last bout of jet lag. I was so excited to be in Australia at first, but soon I was in dreamland. Anyway, I’m back, alive and ready to see it all.

We got our schedule for the next few weeks, events to attend, tasks during our time, and our brief for the content from this country and schedule for media profiling. The first one is a cool music and party scene guide called 3d magazine.

Since I was with the group that arrived a few days later than the others, we missed a photo op to be in a local newspaper. We were mentioned and the story was nice, it would have been nice to have my face in the paper too. No worries though, there will be so much more.

As part of our task, we will be attending some events that Time Out Sydney magazine would like us to write reviews for towards the end of our stay in Australia, and I’ll definitely be telling you all about it.

I’m very keen to see what the biggest island and smallest continent has to offer.

Jet lagged, but must write:

We’ve just arrived in Sydney Australia, from what I could see from our ride from the airport is that this city has more to it than the eye can see, which is probably true for every city. Knowing that, I’m inspired to explore as much as I can and get as much out of it as possible.

I’ve gone forward about nine hours, this is my first jet lag experience. It’s interesting; I can’t really explain. My body feels a bit like it’s floating, probably the floating in the air at incredible speed. I feel sort of numb, my eyes are heavy but I’m refusing to be tired.

I won’t be winning this battle, must sleep, my bed has cordially invited me to visit.
It won’t be for too long, I have things to do out there.
I wonder if I’ll see kangaroos and koalas.

Goodbye for the second time

It’s Dec 10 2007, I’m at the airport again, reflecting.
It was so much harder to say goodbye the second time.
The first time, in Sept, exactly three months ago, I was leaving for London to attend selection week and I was so buzzing with excitement that I didn’t really think about the length of the trip.

This time though, I’m still very excited about the rest of the year ahead.
There is so much more to do and see, I’m looking forward to every minute of it
I’m a little sad though. Maybe because I had a hectic three weeks of replenishing myself with everything I missed during the first months of the Experience and now it’s over.
I’m saying goodbye again.

If you’ve ever had to say goodbye to something or someone, then I think you can understand. It is heart wrenching. But what do you do when you are sad and happy at the same time. It’s weird. I feel so blessed to be on this tour, yet the scents, sights and sounds of home are still so fresh in mind and the fact that I won’t have any of that for the next nine months hurts a bit.
I had gotten used to being away, and now I’m starting all over with the missing business.

I guess it comes with the territory.
I love this territory. This is the best thing to ever happen to any human being.

Missed my flight

I must have been praying too hard or something, but it worked and I was so happy.
Kung, Ania, Audette and I had to fly to Australia later than the rest of the team. That meant we had four extra days in my home city, Jozi, and it was perfect. They would have more time to explore and I would have more time with my family and friends. Wow.

On Thursday afternoon, the day after we had the farewell braai, the rest of the group was packed up, sad and ready to go. It was raining, but not cold and the rain mirrored the mood, as we were going to be split. Okay, I was a little sad too but much more excited and grateful for the extra time.
Once we’d said our goodbyes, I spent the rest of the day with my boyfriend, driving around the city and seeing as much as I could in that one day. Later we went to an album listening session at a studio in town. It was my first experience of such a thing and I really enjoyed it. It was a small group of invited guests and the artists in a relaxed space listening to music, sipping on cocktails and just having good time. I definitely want to do more of that, it’s a good way to make contacts and also pick peoples brains. I love engaging with creative people and exploring their passion and expression.

Friday evening, I was invited to a monthly music event in central Jozi, Newtown. I went along with Kung, picked him up from the hotel and he got to experience my driving. He was speechless. It just felt so good to be in driver’s seat again after such a long time, I thought I would have forgotten.
The event is called the Edgars Music Series, a small concert that happens every once in a while at a venue called the Bassline. Bassline is a celebrated venue in the music community. It housed some of South Africa’s Jazz greats in its time and a place known for only the best quality live music. It has a huge basement section where the stage, seating and dance area is, upstairs is a VIP lounge area where you can mingle with friends and still hear the music. On that wonderful Friday night I got to see live the music I missed so much. It was mainly Kwaito artists performing, Brickz and Zola being the highlights. Later a DJ comes through to finish off the night with some house for the party animals to continue into the early hours.
Once the performances were done, Kung and I went a club called Capitol. On Friday nights they have urban house night with DJ Vinnie da Vinci and some other guest DJ’s. The club night is called Capitol Underground. The crowd is always classy and cool. Kung isn’t that much into house music, but he enjoyed himself and so did I.

Saturday was spent with my sister, shopping and visiting some of my friends. We had a good session bonding. I really miss her a lot and it was nice to catch up on the happenings in her life. She passed her Matric year and is starting university in ‘08. I’m so proud of her; she’s growing up to be a beautiful young lady with a lot of potential.

Sunday I drove to Pretoria to have Sunday lunch at my dad’s girlfriend’s house. I’d never been there before; I don’t like driving the 60 km’s to Pretoria. That 40-minute drive gets a bit boring for me and I don’t really know many people in the city to visit it much.
Home cooked food was so fulfilling and being around family was such a blessing. My dad was asking me all these questions about the tour, filling in the gaps I’d left out of my update emails and calls, and I got to chat to him for a long while. He also took a moment to check what the matter with my car was; turns out I forgot to put oil in it. I wish it wasn’t such high maintenance. I guess it’s what you get for driving an old car.

Monday, the day we had to leave was spent rushing around the city saying final, final goodbyes and packing. I had to also get rid of a lot of stuff in my luggage, it was way too heavy. It still is. But that’s okay.

I loved being home.
So Sydney next, for Christmas and New years.

All good things come in three’s.

All good things come in three’s, or so they say. I haven’t as yet put this theory to the test, however for this particular blog post I think it works.

Obviously it was good being back in my home city, to all things familiar, eating my favourite food, like my dad’s dumplings and stew, seeing the brilliance of Jozi lights, the cities glamour, the fast pace I lived for, the traffic I hated, the people and dynamics I missed so much. It was even better being in my favourite city in the world, Cape Town, with its mountain, ocean and overall relaxed pace it is better known for. It was great being with my friends, my ex colleagues, my family, catching up on the happenings of life without me; and meeting new people who have been following the program. It was such an emotional moment when I had my first conversation in my mother tongue, Xhosa, with my dad and looking at him instead of on the phone.

All these things really filled me up with happiness and it was a lot of fun trying to cram everything I missed and everything I had been craving while away into the short two and a half weeks we were in South Africa. So this is an account of some of the highlights, or rather three of the best nights during our stay.

Cape Town – Smirnoff and MTV Division 7 Party:
The party was held at The Old Biscuit Mill in an area called Woodstock. The space is a favourite amongst exhibitors of all sorts and fashion shows. It’s an old warehouse space that’s very versatile and can be turned into anything one’s imagination declares. For this party the theme was army boot camp style, with camouflage all over the place, tastefully of course, huge bouncers dressed up as colonels or whatever, the Smirnoff hostess’s in cute but authoritative outfits in the same theme. As I walked in, the world outside disappeared and I was in an army camp; leafy camouflage on the ceiling that looked so real, some of the seats were brown military equipment boxes and everything was quite authentic, the space was wonderfully decorated and the atmosphere was awesome. Even the invitation had a badge of sorts emblazoned on it.

One of South Africa’s legendary DJ’s, Ready D, played a pumping set of house, (I really missed house music with the South African flavor). There were about four DJ’s keeping us all in the groove and everyone on the dance floor with a mix of house, hip hop and RnB and Kwaito.
I was most excited for the Smirnoff Ten to experience their first taste of how South Africans party and it turned out amazing. Everyone had a really good time, I got to introduce a portion of my friends to the team and we all had fun together.

Johannesburg – Smirnoff Ten Party, Akona welcoming the team to South Africa.
This was the official party to welcome the Smirnoff Ten into the country, and for the most part a media-profiling event. Over a month or so before the event a competition was also run for 30 lucky South Africans to win tickets to attend the event and meet The Smirnoff Ten. There were photographers and journalists from various media, Radio and TV personalities and the social butterflies of the Jozi and of course us; Ania, Audette, Luiza. Stephanie, Ben, Kareem, John, Kung, Takashi and me.

Side note: I was fashionably late, not on purpose, but it worked out so well. I had driven into an unfamiliar side of town trying to take a shortcut and gotten miserably lost. I stopped to ask some traffic cops where on earth I was and the names of the roads they were telling me did not sound like anything I’d ever heard before. I called my boyfriend to find out if he knew where I was, by the way, I was relaying all this information through a waterfall of tears, weeping and wailing. It took a good fifteen minutes to calm me down. Then, my car wouldn’t start!!!!!! As you can imagine, I freaked out for a little while longer. Miraculously it started and I was on my way. When I finally arrived about 4 minutes later, everyone was there and I felt so special, I was the only missing link to the puzzle and the party got started. So cool.

The party was held in a historically integral location in South Africa’s democracy. The township of Soweto; this is one of the many townships of South Africa where black people were relocated during the apartheid era.

It started out as a sunset cocktail party, Soweto is said to have one the most unexpectedly beautiful sunsets. Watching the deep orange sun disappear into the horizon behind the small houses of the township, Soweto; a place with so much history and an amazing story to tell is really breathtaking.
Once the daylight had gone, we moved from outside lounge area into the hall and then the party turned up a notch with some dancing and mingling. I had to make a speech and introduce the team to the guests. It was nerve wrecking, but good. I was extremely nervous; feedback was that I pulled it off pretty well though.
The party was really good, lots of people, good music, awesome soul food, cool cocktails and lots of interviews. My friends were there and it was really nice to see and how proud of me they are. A great time was had by all and the Smirnoff Ten got to once again experience the warmth and friendliness of South Africans.

Johannesburg - The Braai:
Finally, the more personal and private party; my braai took place the day before we were to leave. It was going to be a chilled out farewell party out in the open.
A braai is a traditional South African barbeque. Meat on the grill, salads, breads and chilled drinks, lounge music, out in the garden on a cool evening under the star lit sky, all in all an amazing and relaxed night.
We chilled out on beanbags, chatting away with a beautiful meal and good company. Most of my friends were there, my dad, my little sister, some radio personalities and DJ’s. It was a farewell to be remembered. I loved it.

It was great being home
It was so hard to say goodbye, for the second time, but at least I got to see my nearest and dearest.
It was very nice to show the team my home and I’m glad they all had an amazing time.