This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

It's Friday!

And in Hong Kong, it's a sunny Friday, with a promise that we'll get a sunny weekend... the very best kind of Friday!
 

And after a week and a half of getting some serious sunshine, last weekend the London Mice landed back home with dazzling tans that they're now flaunting as much as humanly possible (not particularly easy when its drizzling and you're chained to your desk clearing emails though...poor little Mice).

Over in Hong Kong it's been another whirlwind week which makes for one pretty melty Mouse when it's also a week that the Very Hot Weather Warning is in force... (I love the HK Observatory and their crazed weather warnings).

So when we haven't been fighting the heat or the holiday blues, this week the Mice have mostly been...

Overhauling Our Workout Wear with a mammoth shopping spree on our current online obsession, StyleRunner. This week's return to Bikini Fit has made me take a good long look at my workout wardrobe and I wasn't thrilled with the greying, washed-out kit I found... So I've decided to up my game and am currently trying to edit my shopping basket down to something that won't drain my bank account. Tough when everything's so awesome!

Adidas by Stella McCartney Ultra Bright Shorts
£29

 

Running Bare Ikat Shorts
£20.30

 

Wildfox Dance With Somebody Sweater Top

£69.90

Beyond Yoga Long Racerback Cami
£43.50

Lucas High City Tank
£121.80 

Blissing out at the L'Occitane Spa on Hong Kong's Star Street. Earlier this week I popped over to this little bubble of bliss for a sparty with the Sassy girls! The full run down of our evening will be on Sassy very soon but let's just say there were cupcakes, almond macarons, Champagne and incredible massages all round...
 

 

 

At the end of the night we each left with a goody bag stuffed to the brim with goodies from the L'occitane slimming and toning line - the perfect kit to get me a bit more bikini ready for my holiday next month!

 

 

We're already huge L'Occitane fans. Each of us Mice are obsessed with the Shea Butter Handcream which smells incredible and leaves your hands super smooth. I've also lately fallen in love with the rest of the almond range of bath and body products. They smell good enough to eat and make my morning shower feel like a spa treatment. 

 

Almond Shower Oil

HK$195/ £17.50



 

 

Almond Shower Scrub

HK$165/ £14



 

 

 

Almond Milk Veil

HK$320/ £28

 

Striking a Pose for a little What the Frock?! photoshoot for a very exciting project I've been working with them on to celebrate the launch of their brand new website! All will be revealed soon, but here's a sneaky peek of a couple of the gorgeous pieces I wore for the shoot.

And now it's very, very nearly the weekend - yay! So we'll leave you with a little Friday inspiration...

Have a great weekend!

x

The Mice

This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been

And we've very nearly made it to the weekend! Another work week bites the dust! 

Over at Mouse Towers HK, it's been a pretty standard week of desk-bound days with a little bit of fun squeezed in, but those pesky little London Mice are still tanning poolside in Portugal, drinking Champagne for breakfast and having far too much fun in the sun. As the smallest Mouse also celebrated her Birthday this week, there's been even more cause to drain the Pimms bottle...

 

 

 

When we haven't been toasting Mini Mouse's Birthday or dodging the torrential rain in Hong Kong, this week the Mice have mostly been...

Pretending to work while secretly whiling away hours on brand new online beauty oracle, Byrdie.

 

From the geniuses behind fashion oracle, Who What Wear and home oracle, Domaine, comes this latest e-baby which launched just this week. Covering anything and everything make-up, nails and hair, while also letting us into the beauty secrets of the A-List, click over at your peril - hours seem to vanish in the blink of (a perfectly mascara'd) eye. This week I've been poring over instructions to get Blake Lively's glowy eye make-up look, nosing through Heidi Klum's make-up bag and discovering the superman of beauty products... 

I am COMPLETELY obsessed!

Searching for a Bikini Fit fix while I wait for the next round of Bikini Fit bootcamps to kick off (two days and counting...!). I've blogged and written extensively about how much I love Bikini Fit, but at the end of each ten week program, there's a two week break which means... dun, dun, dun... I have to look elsewhere for my fitness fix. I like to work out first thing and I've realised that my self-motivation is a little lacking when it comes to working out. So the search was on for places in Hong Kong offering early morning classes. They're actually surprisingly hard to find if you aren't a member of a gym, but I managed to track down a couple which I've been trying out this week... 

Torq Cycle is Hong Kong's first independent indoor spin studio. It's slap bang in the heart of central (tucked down Li Yuen Street East) and is an absolute cyclist's dream!

 
I tried out a Torq de HK class on Monday morning - a cycling focussed class perfect for anyone with a bit of a competitive streak... As you spin, your performance stats are flashed up on the big screen so that you can see where you rank compared to the rest of the class. 

As a complete spinning novice (before this I'd only ever done one spin class years ago), Loretta, our instructor couldn't have been more helpful, getting my bike set up for me and showing me how everything worked. Once the class got underway, I was smugly thrilled that the stats on the screen showed that I wasn't performing too badly compared to the rest of the pro spinners in my class. But suddenly, about a quarter of the way through, my legs started to turn to shaky, useless lumps of jelly and I realised that I'd definitely come out of the blocks too hard... As I slunk lower and lower down the leader board before finally floundering into last place, I decided that this spinning lark is definitely harder than it looks.



All in all, Torq is an awesome cardio workout, but in furture I'll probably stick to the TorqBody classes (which blend cycling, Muay Thai, Pilates and Boxing for an all over body workout) where you get to keep your (poor) performance between you and your bike...

Torq Cycle
26/F Li Dong Building,
9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong.
+852 2677 8623

I've also hit up the H-Kore studios this week for a couple of Lagree Fitness classes... Not sure what Lagree is? I wasn't either. Basically we're talking using Reformer Pilates carriages to add resistance to a series of slow, controlled exercises. Think amped up planks, bicep curls and donkey kicks...
 

 
Don't be misled by the fact that this looks like you'll spend the class lying down, you'll be clambering all over your pilates bed and by the end of the 45 minutes you'll be sweating like you've just done an hour on the treadmill. I also guarantee that the next day you'll be limping and wincing at achey muscles you had no idea that you even had.

Jenny, the instuctor who took all three of this week's early morning sessions, not only knows how to make you work, but ensures you're working to your own level of fitness. She also has an awesome soundtrack to distract you from all the agonising stomach crunching and bum tightening. I love H-Kore (although it is pretty pricey) and wil definitely be mixing a few sessions up with my usual Bikini training.

H-Kore
3/F Wincome Centre,
39 Des Voeux Road,
Central, Hong Kong.
+852 2441 9000

Next week it'll be back to HK Park for daily Bikini Bootcamp sessions - hooray! If you want in on the Bikini Fit action, unfortunately the 7am program is already completely sold out, but registrations are still open for the 6am and 8am programs starting in August - get in there fast before they sell out too!

The 10 week 6am program starts from 12th August and the 10 week 8am program starts from 19th August.

To sign up email Bikini Fit: info@bikinifit.com.hk

Chowing down at the latest addition to the Castelo Concepts family, K Town Grill. It's so new it doesn't even get a mention on the website yet, but the K Town Grill is every bit as good at Wagyu, Oolaa and all its other Castelo brothers and sisters. A group of us headed across to Kennedy Town last night to give it a whirl, and I can confirm that lots of your Wagyu/Oolaa/Jaspas favs feature on the menu as well as a few newbie dishes. I went for the oysters to start followed by the black cod. Both were delicious and gobbled up double quick.

 

 

 

 

Kennedy Town is definitely establishing itself as a great villagey neighbourhood to head to for a lazy weekend brunch or a relaxed weekday dinner. Now you have one extra reason to head out West and check it out...

K Town Bar & Grill
44 Forbes Street,
Kennedy Town,
Hong Kong.
+852 2855 1368

And that's your lot!

All that remains to be said is...

 

See you next week!

 

xxx

The Mice

This Week the Mice have Mostly Been

Ummm....Yes! Yes it is actually!

Hello too many cocktails, lazy lie-ins and (fingers super, super crossed) at least a little bit of sunshine...!

So what's been occurring in Miceland this week? Let's take a little jog through anything and everything that's been occupying our little Mice minds over the past seven days... This week the Mice have mostly been...

Getting juicy with it on a three day juice detox courtesy of the lovely ladies at Punch Detox.

I'll be writing up my full review for Sassy Hong Kong very soon, but in the meantime I'll just say I'm definitely feeling, lighter, brighter and more refreshed. Swapping my usual meals for six juices sounded pretty terrifying on paper, but other than a couple of minor wobbles, it was actually fairly easy (not least because the juices are all really yummy).

And any mild anger/ gnawing hunger was one hundred percent worth it just for the ability to elicit horrified expressions all day yesterday, when I told everyone I saw that I hadn't eaten for three days... If you can't wait for all the juice on detoxing, our super lovely friend, Sarah, has also just finished a juice cleanse, check out her juice fast post on her sparkly brand new blog, The Gym Ninja.

Brushing up on skincare, having finally got round to buying a Clarisonic. So actually, at least a little bit of my new brightness may also be down to my latest bit of beauty high techery! The Clarisonic has been on my 'to invest' list for forever, but I was finally spurred into bagging my very own giant electric toothbrush for your face, after reading India Knight's fab beauty column in the Sunday Times gushing about it a couple of weeks ago.

Image via: www.clarisonic.com

So last weekend I popped into Lane Crawford where I snapped up a Clarisonic Mia 2 and I've been diligently brushing my face twice a day ever since. My skin definitely feels much softer and smoother than it usually it does; in fact it feels pretty much like it usually would right after a facial. So far so impressed, I'll report back after further use...

Getting Gatsby Fever along with the rest of the world... There are now just seven little days until the much anticipated Baz Luhrmann adaptation of The Great Gatsby is finally released! We don't think that we've EVER been this excited about a film EVER (as evidenced by the fact that we first posted about it almost a year ago...)! We downloaded the soundtrack on Monday and we've had it on a loop ever since - it really is spine tinglingly amazing! In case the even more brilliant trailer has somehow passed you by, brace yourself for three minutes of sheer GG overexcitement...

Gearing up for round number four of Bikini Fit. After two weeks off, the new Bikini Fit programme kicks off on Monday. My attendance was a little patchy over the past couple of programmes because of being sick and doing lots of travel (a little work, a lot of play), but I'm determined to step up my game this programme. Junk season is within spitting distance and the prospect of wearing a bikini in public is currently giving me nightmares...

I'm told that the 7am programme (which I'm signed up for) sold out in a matter of hours, but for any other girls in Hong Kong looking to kickstart their fitness regime there are apparently still a couple of places left on the 8am programme also starting on Monday. Head over to the website to sign up - get in there quick!

That's it for another week!

Lots of Friday love
x
The Mice

This Week the Mice have Mostly Been...

Friday at last!

This is where I'd usually start my count down to Friday night cocktails or at the very least a gin & tonic or two, not this week though, this week I'm on the Perrier. As I was last week and as I will be for the foreseeable future... No, I haven't joined AA and I'm definitely not pregnant... I'm two weeks into Bikini Fit, a brand HK new girls only health & fitness program. 

Eleven bootcamp sessions down, a lot of chicken and leafy greens consumed and not a single drop of alcohol drunk (plenty of protein shakes though...). I'm definitely already a little flatter of tummy and generally feeling more sparky and energentic - very odd given that I start each morning by doing squats with kettle bells (heavier than my handbag on a really bad day) or hill sprints or burpees or all three and a few dozen press-ups for good measure. We're almost a quarter of the way in now, so still a few weeks to go, but I'll keep you posted on my progress...

When I haven't been dodging carbs or doing circuits, it's been a pretty busy week, so fitness aside, this week the Mice have mostly been...

Willing the HK cold snap to come sooner after eyeing up a delicious array of cashmere and winter boots at the opening party of Australian brand, Sambag's, first Hong Kong boutique. A favourite of Elle McPherson and Nicole Kidman, Sambag is known and loved for its luxe basics. At the launch yesterday evening I was majorly lusting after a butter soft pair of leather leggings and the perfect pair of black knee boots - the sort of boots you put on at the first chill of autumn and don't take off again until spring is tipping into summer... The launch party itself was pretty rocking with free-flowing champagne served by an army of very pretty boys, delicious canapes (tuna sashimi and mini fritatas - totally bikini fit appropriate), cupcakes (less bikini fit appropriate), an awesome DJ and goody boxes of macaroons in the brand's signature duck egg blue. Seeing as I resisted the champagne, the cupcakes and the macaroons (ok I may have had a nibble of a corner of a macaroon but it was the teeniest of nibbles), I definitely deserve to head back next week and snap up those leather leggings, the boots and while I'm there I may as well bag myself one of the heavenly cashmere tracksuits...

Channelling my inner witch and scaring the girls with a spooky Halloween supper. Halloween's a pretty big deal in Hong Kong. Lan Kwai Fong (HK's equivalent of Soho) is descended upon by the majority of the city in various states of fancy dress and drunkenness. I'd almost go as far to say it's as big as the HK Sevens and anyone who's ever been to the Sevens will know, that's one hell of a party... However, due to my current alcohol abstinence, I've been giving LKF a pretty wide berth recently so decided to have the girls round for a little Halloween dinner instead. Sticking to the high protein, low sugar, low carb Bikini Fit eating plan, I rustled up a creepy menu including delicacies like slime soup (aka pea soup), roasted skewered bat and mashed brain (chicken kebabs and quinoa with pomegranate seeds) and witches teeth (flaked almonds). Water all round and tucked up in bed by 10:30 - rock and roll...    

Snapping up tickets for me and a crew of pals for an evening of drinking in a good cause at the Hong Kong Room to Read Fundraiser. If you head down to Play on Wednesday 14 November, you can sip cocktails while polishing your halo knowing that you're helping to raise cash to educate children across Asia and Africa. Tickets are HK$350, which includes three drinks, canapes, a goodie envelope and a donation to Room to Read's Girl's Education Programme. On the night there'll be a raffle and an auction including stellar prizes like a weekend break at the Grand Soluxes Angkor Palace in Cambodia, Marc Jacobs handbags and Tory Burch amazingness. Make sure you RSVP by next Friday 9th November to nab yourself a spot. 

Stocking up on scraps of lace and pretty knicks at my favourite lingerie shop in Hong Kong, Sheer. Girls of HK, if you're sick of lingerie shops with an uninspiring array of miniature sized bras and boring knickers, get yourself down to Sheer immediately. Staffed by girls who understand underwear, know every line that the boutique carries inside out and want to make sure that you walk away with a bagful of super flattering, beautiful underwear, shopping at Sheer is a genuinely pleasurable experience. I always leave the shop with twice as much as I intended to buy... Shopping-phobic boyfriend in tow? Comfy sofas, bowls of chocolates and an array of lingerie coffee table books will be sure to keep him amused while you shop leaving you free to spend up a storm. Prices are reasonable but choice is vast, be warned you will leave considerably poorer than when you arrived...

And that's it for another week! Happy Friday, have a wonderful weekend!
x 
The Mice

This Week the Mice Have Mostly Been...

The first week back at work after a holiday is always the hardest. You're faced with piles of things that you put off until after your holiday not to mention all the stuff that you tried to ignore on your Blackberry while you were away, your tan's rapidly fading and the lunchtime cocktail habit you've developed isn't really acceptable when you're eating lunch al desko...

Believe me though, it's even harder when you've just spent the last week in Burma where you've had zero internet connection and zero blackberry signal which all adds up to complete uncontactable, blissed-out relaxation. Back to earth with a bump and 895 unread emails this week though...

So aside from 'accidentally' block deleting emails (if its that important they'll email again, right?!), this week the Mice have mostly been....

Witnessing an Epic Franco-Italian Culinary Clash at Hullett House. Nothing quells the holiday blues more effectively than several courses of delicious food and a few glasses of wine. So rather than unpacking, on Tuesday evening I headed off to St George, an elegant, fine dining restaurant nestled in the heart of one of Hong Kong's most beautiful colonial buildings to try out a menu intriguingly titled 'Two Peas in a Pod'. 

Image via: www.forbes.com

Prior to heading to London to open up the newest Aqua Group outpost in the Shard, Chef Anthony Garlando decided to pitch up in Hong Kong, draw his chopping knife and challenge St George's resident chef, Chef Phillipe Orrico, to a battle. It's Garlando versus Orrico; the Italians versus the French and it's guaranteed to be an extremely tasty fight. Each chef has devised a menu using the same set of central ingredients and all you have to do is sit back and make the tricky decision between French Haute Cuisine and Italian Alta Cucina...

I was lucky enough to try a couple of dishes from each menu the highlights of which for me were the French foie gras terrine with sesame seed fatty tuna and the Italian roasted veal fillet with spinach and Gorgonzola cream.

The Two Peas in a Pod Menu is only available until Saturday night, so we suggest you give St George a call to reserve you table right now and get fasting immediately in preparation for the feast of all feasts.

Diners can choose either the French or Italian menu; both are priced at HK$988 per person (with an additional HK$888 if you opt for the wine pairing) plus a 10% service charge. Reservations are required.

St. George, Hullett House, 
G/F, Main Building, 
2A Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, 
Hong Kong.
+852 3988 0220 
stgeorge@hulletthouse.com  

Making post-holiday resolutions. January aside, I find there's no better time than just after a couple of weeks away from normal life to reassess a few things and try to get your life in order. As with all good resolutions, post-holiday changes have to be manageable tweaks rather than insurmountable life alterations otherwise they're just too hard to stick to. So my two post-holiday tweaks are...

1. A wardrobe detox. You know you have issues when you can never find anything to wear, yet have so many clothes stuffed into your wardrobe that the doors don't shut. I'm going to finally set aside a Sunday to follow the simple six step wardrobe rehab plan created by the uber-stylish Geneva of A Pair and A Spare. Fingers crossed I'll emerge with a capsule wardrobe and mornings will be much less stressful. Plus streamlining your wardrobe gives you the perfect excuse for a little top-up shopping... 
2. At least 45 minutes of exercise at least five days a week. When there are 168 hours in a week, I really should be able to fit in what works out as less than four hours of exercise. Figuring that much of the issue is being bored of the same routine and exercising alone (and therefore having too easy a get-out if I don't feel like hitting the gym), I've decided to sign-up for a brand new girls only daily Bootcamp, Bikini Fit. Founder and Head Trainer, Alex de Fina, guarantees to get you in the best shape of your life with his eight week fitness and nutrition programme. The first round of Bootcamp starts on 22 October - so Hong Kong girls, you've got ten days to get involved too! Help me stick to it by signing up with me! 

Image via: www.bikinifit.com.hk

Bookworming it up and devouring some seriously great reads. A week without Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter or BBM - you may well be wondering what on earth I did while I was away. Well luckily I'd planned ahead and loaded up my Kindle with plenty of books. This summer I've been so busy that I've barely had a moment to do anything more than crack the spine of Fifty Shades of Grey... As much as I enjoy reading about Christian Grey's long fingers and Ana Steele's Inner Goddess, I was craving something with a little more substance to keep me entertained when I wasn't temple hopping in Burma. Step up three very different but equally brilliant page turners that I've been raving about this week to anyone who'll listen.


The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce
A book about a recently retired man who gets a letter one day, sets out to post his reply, but ends up deciding to hand deliver it instead... It doesn't exactly sound like a thrilling read but trust me, it's great. A little bit like the literary equivalent of Up!, it will make you cry but its ultimately very sweet and uplifting. 

Image via: www.themanbookerprize.com

Tigers in Red Weather - Liza Klaussman
Set in post-war America across three decades and told from the perspective of five different characters, this book had me gripped from the start. A sort of Great Gatsby meets Desperate Housewives with a bit of murder mystery chucked in for good measure - read it before its made into a film which will inevitably be nowhere near as good as the book.

Image via: www.picador.com

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

I'm still reading this one, but will definitely have raced through it by the end of the weekend. One day Amy disappears leaving her husband, Nick, looking very much like he's murdered her, but everything's not quite as it seems... Another one with Hollywood blockbuster written all over it, apparently Reese Witherspoon has already snapped the rights up. A definite stay-up-all-night-to-finish-it pageturner...

Image via: www.barnesandnoble.com

And that's it for this week! Have a great weekend!
x
The Mice