We already wrote about Sandra’s and Alan’s cat staying in our office during their time in Austria. This week it was time for Miu to go home again. But she didn’t leave without having her big moment. And what a good one!

While being quite shy and careful at the beginning of her visit in our office, she got more adventurous with every day and explored every corner there is. Still our photographer Ho was quite surprised when he found Miu laying comfortably on his photo desk. He took advantage of the situation and took some cute pictures of our new super model with our stickers. Miu was quite a natural. Because she didn’t care about the camera and just relaxed. Perfect.

Now she has had her 5 minutes of fame and enjoys her home again. It’s probably for the best, as nobody would pay attention to our products anymore if an adorable real cat was in every picture.

perfect cat posing for the camera with stickers

Miu getting comfortable in front of the camera...and sleepy

our photographer Ho finding the new model in our little photo studio

Today we got a Chinese Pool Table for our office and immediateley had to have a little game during our lunch break. Chinese Pool is very popular among teenagers and young people in Hong Kong and very similar to Pool Billard – it’s all about shooting little pucks into the 4 holes on the table using a cue. There are many different ways to play it and it’s really fun, as you learn it very fast. Even Bianca and I, who have never played it before, scored some points. We had a fun time playing it and had to drag ourselves back to work after lunch. But there is much to do at the moment, as we got new deliveries, e.g. new Japanese Washi Tapes, that we want to add to our online shop as soon as possible.

Chinese Pool Challenge in the office

This is a dream come true for all kawaii-Fans…and children. San-X released a super huge Rilakkuma plush toy. It is 165cm tall and looks just incredibly soft and cozy. Everybody at the office immediately fell in love with it, so we are ordered one as an office mascott. It will definitely be taller than some of our staff members. Don’t you just want to cuddle and squeeze it? We won’t sell the huge bear in our shop because it is for sale in Japan only, but of course we have many other cute Rilakkuma items. They are just smaller.

Huge Rilakkuma Plushie released - isn

This weekend we were moving our office from Kwai Fong to Fo Tan. It took us 3 days to move because we had so much stuff, especially so many products to move. We also had to be very careful with packing the products to make sure nothing gets broken, bent or crushed. It was a really exhausting weekend but we finally made it. Thanks to all our friends who helped us moving, without them we couldn’t have done it. Now we have a much bigger office and warehouse with lots of space for new cute products for our shop Here are some pictures I took during our move:

before the move

our office was quite cramped already

my office table was befind a shelf filled up with bags

our move has officially started

slowly shelves are getting empty

Lok was busy packing products into boxes

we packed most products in big boxes from the Hong Kong Post

the office is almost empty

waiting for the elevator

Alan is disassembling the furniture

in the evening we had a nice dinner with everyone helping us

Thanks for helping guys!!!

Today we signed the new contract for our bigger office I was writing about a couple of days ago. We are really excited about this move because we ran out of space in our current office and we plan to stock a lot more products. Signing the contract was quite some torture for me because the landlord is an elderly Chinese man who doesn’t speak a single word English. Additional, he was super slow with reading all the docouments, signing etc. and he had lots of very strange requests. For example, he took a photo of the keys and started to explain to Alan every single key (of course he mixed them up and struggled to identify them). I was so dumbfounded, I had to take a photo. My butt was hurting because I was sitting on a cheap chair for a whole hour already. I was so glad when this whole procedure was over and we finally had the keys. Next week we will move our office. I will definitely take some photos for you guys again.

explanation of each single key

now, which one is which one??? hahaha

Our office lease is almost finished and we are looking for a new, bigger place to rent. We were checking out many places, most were unacceptable because too dirty/ugly/old or too overpriced. It is really hard to find a suitable, nice looking office in Hong Kong. Rent is ridiculously high in Hong Kong and the office quality often pretty poor. However, today we were lucky and found the right place. It is in Fo Tan, an industrial district of Hong Kong and conveniently located near the highway and the train station. The office is 3 times as big as our current office but we really need the bigger space. Here are some pictures we took today:

this is the new office space

we have windows along 2 sides of the office which is very nice

the entrance to the boss office

this room needs lots of work done before we can move in

unfortunately it comes with this ugly cupboard

Today, we had some fun decorating our office furniture with some of our cute and fun deco tapes. We used the tapes to decorate our shelves, tables and computer monitors. It was really fun! There are so many creative ways to use those deco tapes and we think our furniture looks so much better now

one of our computer monitors decorated with Rilakkuma tape

fabric shelf with deco tape decoration

we used a different deco tape for each shelf

close up of one shelf

froggy deco tape

San-X deco tape

decorating our office table

cute pink deco tape along the side of our packing table

Today we took some new pictures of our office and warehouse because it changed quite a bit and lots of new products have arrived since the last photos were taken. I love looking at pictures with lots of cute products in them. I also want to show where we work and how our place looks like. This way we can make our business a bit more personal for our customers and you know who is behind this cute online shop. Here are some pictures of our warehouse:

shelf with clay sets from Japan

lots and lots of Michael Miller and Cosmo fabrics

cute Japanese stationery

and clay sets again

My husband and I will be on holidays during the holidays to visit my family in Austria. Our packing staff will continue working in the office, so don’t worry about any shipping delays. All paid orders will be shipped within 1 business day as usual. We wish everyone a happy time with family, friends and workmates/classmates. Merry Christmas!

our Christmas header in our shop

Today our newest staff member is starting her work in our office. Her name is Lok and she will be taking care of packing all your goodies in cute packages and send them to the post office. We will have a nice Dim Sum lunch all together because that is custom here to welcome a new staff member. Isn’t that a nice gesture to let someone feel welcome? Welcome to the team Lok!

Lok in front of lots of empty boxes after a delivery from Japan