stlplaceLast Updated on May 28, 2007 by stlplace
I used to love new cars and gadgets. Some evidences: I can call out the make and model of most cars on the street; I bought the Dell 1st generation Pocket PC Axim, later returned it because it’s too bulky, bought the Palm Tungsten E instead.
These days I was looking for a LCD photo frame. I noticed this thing for a while, but it was until now I found this is a very lucrative business at this time. The reason? It’s still kind expensive. For a decent 7″ philips, it’s about $199 at sharper image. For comparison purpose, I found LCD monitor is very cheap these days, e.g., this Acer 22″ LCD display only costs $190 at Bestbuy.
Last Updated on May 27, 2007 by stlplace
I went to mall again during this weekend. There are many malls in St. Louis, the closest (to my home) also the most expensive one, is the Plaza Frontenac. When I first visited there years ago, I was amazed to see the price tags of stuff there, things such as Boss, Gucci, stores like Saks Fifth Ave., and Nieman Marcus. It made me think St. Louis is not a small town. The shopping experience is in deep contrast to other malls such as Galleria, which is meant for average people.
Anyway I only buy stuff at one store at Frontenac, that’s J. Crew., and I only buy when things are on sale and I found they fit me well. For instance, today I bought a broken-in zip fly chino for 14.99 (plus 1.14 sales tax), the listed price was 64.50.
Last Updated on May 30, 2007 by stlplace
The following picture was taken at Barbela, a popular Pizza place in Shanghai. One nice feature of Barbela is they offer the same quality food as Pizza Hut, but at half the price. No wonder people will form a long wait line at Barbela during weekends. As you may know, Pizza Hut was (and still is) a very popular place in China, it’s not the good old Pizza Hut you see in the US.
Last Updated on May 26, 2007 by stlplace
I’m sorry being a flip-flopper here, because I was bullish on its stock until last Thursday. But like many things in life, I think sometimes it’s worthwhile to have a second look, this is especially true on investment. It’s no good to hold on a stock “no matter what”, or “fall in love with a stock or a company”, because we don’t want to throw away our hard earned money. At least I don’t.
Last Updated on May 25, 2007 by stlplace
I heard about this thing first from reading Home Inns’ IPO prospectus. Don’t know how big a deal it is. But it was ineresting to see Home Inns’ (Rujia) being mentioned again in this list. I did not see the Jinjiang (2006.HK) being mentioned here, a bit surprised.
Think that as a “best hotel” award, if you will. This Golden Pillow thing is a bit of Chinese English.
Last Updated on May 25, 2007 by stlplace
A while ago Amazon launched Endless, its shoes and hand bags division. To promote its web site, Endless is giving away $5 for Overnight shipping. Maybe guys at Amazon learned that from Google Checkout promotion?
Zappos, the largest shoe store on the web, is continuing gain momentum. I used their service and was satisfied with them.
Last Updated on May 24, 2007 by stlplace
When I was in Shanghai in March, I watched a special program on China-CBN (Di Yi Cai Jing) talking about “school for migrant workers’ kids”. Not surprisringly, the schools’ condition usually are much inferior to same level schools attended by “city kids”. The Shanghai Municipal Goverment gave 60 m Yuan this year for the “migrant kids’ school”. This is nice, but not too enough to cover all the kids, because they are millions of migrants workers in Shanghai, and I believe there are at least one million kids attending those schools (so roughly 60 Yuan per kid).
Last Updated on May 24, 2007 by stlplace
I got some more Home Inns (HMIN) today. Nothing fundamental has changed at Home Inns, as I said in my previous post.
Separately, Ma Yun, the big mouth at Alibaba, speaks again. We all know he likes to brag about how great will Alibaba become, but this time he is saying “China does not have a pure Internet company”. Duh? How about Baidu?
