My journalist friend Giovana wanted to cover a story about cricket fights in Beijing, which is very popular among the locals, for fun, with small bets of money.

Giovana searched online and found ‘GuanYuan Flower Birds Fish and Insects Market’ which may have information she wanted and hopefully to view a real fight there. I then searched on Chinese search engine Baidu.com.cn, and found ‘Hong Yan Market’ which a blogger says it was the place for cricket fight championship in 2007 and has everything you need for crickets.

So we took a taxi there, but found out, there wasn’t much going on. Cricket fights will not start till about 15th September, which according to the people in the market, are shown every day. Currently, the crickets are too young, most trainers will buy now and train them for a month before registering them for the fights. We had an interesting chat with two elderly cricket fight fans in the market, and I learnt that China has about 300 years of history in engaging in cricket fights, said to be fun, exciting and a great hobby which is good for your health. Usually they only play for about 50Yuan (less than US$10), the government however is cracking down on all types of gambling.

For the cricket championship, it’s estimated to have 3000 registrants, and the prize could be 100k Yuan (approx US$15,000), we have no idea however how accurate the information is.

In order to film how the crickets fight, we paid them 50Yuan to put on a fight between two crickets for us. They said it’s not the right season, the crickets are too young, and they didn’t seem very aggressive and strong. It happens in less than a second, once the two stuck their teeth into each other the one which quits looses. Usually owners simply let the looser go back to nature, because they believe, it will lose the fighting spirit and usually never makes a good fighter.

We also learnt from people in this market that, Shi Li Qiao Market which is in the vicinity has more crickets stuff for sale. When we got to Shi Li Qiao, we knew we had found the right place! The market was much better organised, with more variety of fish, birds and dogs, in fact just about any pet you can think of, and naturally more crickets with an amazing range of products for the cricket fanatics! There’s also this decent cricket shop, supplies all your cricket needs like a home, water/food trays, mating room, balance for measuring the weight before going on a fight, and a picture of an champion in 2002, which won 9 matches and retired afterwards and treated as a hero, and later buried in a proper coffin. They even have a dedicated website.

They said cricket is the most treasured insect among the famous four because of it’s beautiful sound, with the most varieties of tools and accessories.

Crickets are mostly reproduced in Shan Dong Province, a region in which each household breeds crickets.

Shanghai never stops amazing me!

I stayed a weekend before going to Beijing for Olympics. Zappati was really live on Friday night both the indoor dance floor and outdoor beer garden, we stayed until 1.30am and moved onto LAN - another fancy new restaurant/bar near the Bond (on the corner of Guangdong Rd and Sichuan Rd), features beautiful decor with a traditional and modern style mix, unfortunately, being new, there’s not much of a crowd as yet.

Saturday buffet lunch at the Shangri-la hotel Pudong was the best I ever had! If you think Cafe mix in Shangri-la Sydney was great, this is 5 times better! The variety is unbelievable, different cuisine has its own designated area, and the desert bar alone expands 3 tables! It’s expensive for local Chinese (approximately USD$40.00), but if you can afford it, it’s truly worth it! I heard from my friend, that the Westin Hotel also has excellent buffet, probably even better! I can’t imagine how you could possibly taste more than what is already there!

After the mouth watering lunch, we hit the pool party at the Purple Mountain Hotel. There were approximately two hundred people there, beautiful local and international girls, great music and a really fun party! I wouldn’t mind going back every Saturday:-)

Its always fun to visit Shanghai, an ever changing city, with new places to go and new things to do every time I go, every year, and this is the second time I’m here this year, and I’m pretty sure by Oct when I return for China Grand Prix, I’ll discover something new!

The luxury hotel and casino, the Crown Macau, has won the “Best Casino Interior Design Award” in the 1st “International Gaming Awards 2008” recently held in London, UK.

The award recognizes outstanding design in the casino sector. The winner was judged on originality, innovative style, quality of materials and customer friendly environment.
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Tina and Nico Rosberg at China Grand Prix After Party

Another great event we hosted in Shanghai! Approx 50 guests joined us for the best Shanghai experience!

Its always been an exciting time visiting Shanghai. This fastest growing city never stop to amaze me. Food, shopping, nightlife, and unlimited business opportunites are the top reasons people love Shanghai, and of course, the Grand Prix After Party is definitely a must, celebrating with the formula 1 drivers with the Shanghai elite - the indisputable social event of the year!

Its the best party time in Hong Kong! Watching rugby is really an excuse for party, people in the stadium care more about having a good time than the game:-) Plenty costumes, music and exciting happy crowd!

In the evening huge crowd gathers at Lang Kui Fang bars and restaurant area, for food, drinks, music and dance..and poeple watching…and some guys heading to Wan Chai later into the night.

90% of the local crowd are expats though, Hong Kong people don’t seem to be involved much, except those working with the expats.