Last month, Spoilt was asked by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department to hold a series of Light Painting Workshops as part of its Valentine’s Day Delights programme for the Space Museum in Hong Kong. A total of 400 people participated in this series of Light Painting Workshops. 250 gift packs were distributed during Starry Starry Night on Valentine’s Day.  Under the guidance of our team of professional photography tutors, participants learnt to create Light Painting snapshots by drawing their own words and patterns of love in the air with lighting devices. Everyone had a memorable evening filled with love!

Magic Moments – 4^th and 11^th February 2012

Participants went to the Astropark in Sai Kung where they had a stargazing tour with the Space Museum curators. Afterwards, beneath the beautiful starry sky, participants got creative in a Light Graffiti Workshop.

Starry Starry Night – 14^th February 2012

After a 3D stargazing show in the Hong Kong Space Museum filled with love poems and legendary stories of stars, participants joined us on the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade where everyone had great fun in the Light Graffiti Workshops. Participants could even take their Light painting snapshots home as souvenirs for their memorable Valentine’s Day.

For more information about our regular Light Painting Workshops, please click here.

Top 10 Christmas Gifts

	1. Flight Simulator Experience For anyone who’s ever dreamed of being a pilot or learning how to fly a plane, this flight simulator experience brings dreams to reality. As captain of a Boeing 737, you will take control of the flight simulator cockpit and even try the infamously difficult landing at the old Kai Tak Airport!
	2. Make Your Own CD Ever wonder what it feels like to record your own CD? Capture your singing talent in a professional recording studio, design your own CD cover and make your own CD!
	3. Digital Photography Essentials This is one for budding photographers! This experience will give you a photography crash course on how to get started with a digital SLR camera. In no time, you will be taking beautiful photos!
	4. Deep Sea Fishing Experience Have a day out game fishing in this Deep Sea Fishing Experience! Led by your Captain with over 20 years of experience fishing off the coast of Hong Kong, you’ll be surprised what you find. Black Marlin caught during this experience can weigh from 100 lbs to 350 lbs.
	5. Spa Massage at Home For Two Enjoy a 2.5 hour massage by a professional massage therapist in the luxurious comfort of your own home! Choose up to two massage modules out of Chinese Tui Na Massages; Aromatherapy Massage; Thai Massage; Foot Reflexology; Head, Neck, Shoulders and Back Massage; and Signature Massage.
	6. Scrapbooking Workshop for Two Commemorate your precious moments by decorating and narrating your photos in a scrapbook! More than just a photo album, scrapbooking is a way of preserving memories by arranging photos, journaling, and other embellishments in a creative layout.
	7. Chocolate Master Class for Two This is the ultimate gourmet chocolate indulgence in Hong Kong! Become an artisan chocolatier in this 3-hour chocolate making class. Served with free-flowing Prosecco and wearing a personalised chefs jacket, you will be creating your own delicious chocolate treats.
	8. Food & Mood: Aphrodisiacs 101 Learn all about modern aphrodisiacs that will entice and seduce your partner. Discover the erotic properties of certain foods in this cooking lesson and see how you can prepare them.
	9. Bottle Art Workshop for Two Enjoy an evening of art and wine in the heart of city! In this experience, you will come into the artist’s own studio to learn bottle art, while enjoying a glass of wine with your friend.
	10. Formula Racing Driving Experience Learn how to drive a Formula racing car on a track built to F1 standards under the guidance of 2 professional race instructors. This will be one full day of action and speed!

All our postal orders will come in luxurious Experience Gift package and remember the last minute call for our Christmas gift postal orders will be on this Thursday 22^nd December before 5pm. If you are still searching unique gifts for your loved ones, waste no more time and visit Spoilt.com.hk now!

To view a clip from the program, please see the video below:

For more information about the Cooking Class at Harilela Mansion experience, please see this link

For those who cannot access the video, here are some stills from highlights of the show:

TVB Jade interviews Michelle Lam, founder of Spoilt

Michelle explains how the Make Your Own CD experience works

TVB interviews Dickson, a participant in the Make Your Own CD experience

Dickson explains why he chose this type of gift for Valentine's Day

TVB showcases the Spoilt website

Michelle explains how a client receives their experience gift

Spoilt's latest gift packaging for courier deliveries

All the details of your experience and your personal messages are neatly packaged inside

The package includes instructions for how to make a booking online. On the day, you just turn up and have fun

To view the full program, please see this link (available online until 14th April 2011)

Sudden Weekly 忽然一週 features Spoilt Scrapbooking Workshop for the Valentine's Day Special

For more information about the Scrapbooking Workshop for Two, please click here.

They talked about how the experience gifts industry and business idea came about, what kinds of experience gifts there are in Hong Kong and which experience gifts the awesome hosts Eric, 天頤 and 的神 might give to their friends!

Here is the recording:

The interview went on air on Friday 21st January 2011 at 5pm. For more information about the Gimme5 show, visit this link

In preparation for Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong, the three very enthusiastic hosts Eric, 天頤 and 的神 had a great time chatting with our knowledgeable Tea Master about Chinese Tea!

Gimme5 hosts - 天頤, Eric and 的神 (left to right) interviewing our Tea Master

Here are some videos taken during the interview. In the first one, the Tea Master explains how to clean the tea leaves. (Video in Cantonese)

In the second video, the Tea Master explains the proper method and tools used to brew Chinese Gongfu Tea (功夫茶). He also demonstrates tea tasting etiquette.

To download the full Gimme5 show, visit this link

For more information about our Tea Appreciation Workshop, please click here.

To help you out with your Christmas party planning, Spoilt has put together a simple guide to the popular Christmas gifting games – Secret Santa and Yankee Swap. Hope your Christmas gifting games turn out better than this one!

Secret Santa

How does it work?
Before the party, the guest list must be confirmed and one person must host the Secret Santa game. Match each guest randomly with another guest’s name. Once each guest has received their gift recipient’s name, they should keep it a secret and get a gift that is most suitable for him/her. Some hosts may also add guidelines such as price range of the gift or a theme. When everyone arrives at the party, wrapped and labelled gifts should be placed in a designated area. Guests can unwrap gifts one by one, whilst guessing who their ’secret santa’ was!

Good for: Groups that all know each other.
Likely outcome: Everyone gets a thoughtful gift!

Spoilt Christmas Gifting Games: Secret Santa

Yankee Swap

How does it work?
Each party guest should bring a wrapped, unmarked gift and place it in a designated area. Party guests are given random numbers which determines the order which they select and unwrap gifts from the pile. The person who receives number 1 will pick a gift (that is not their own) from the pile and open it for all to see. The person who receives number 2 does the same. Then the fun begins. Number 2 can then choose either: 1) Keep their gift or 2) Swap with number 1. The person who receives number 3 also opens a gift and can decide to keep it or to swap it with an opened gift (either with number 1 or number 2). This continues in number order until all gifts have been opened.

The rules:

• If someone has stolen your gift, you can steal someone else’s gift or choose to open an unwrapped gift.
• A gift can only be “stolen” once during a turn. If a gift is taken from someone during one round she cannot take it back during that same round. She may, however, take it back in a future round.
• A gift cannot be immediately stolen back from the player who just stole it.
• Once a gift has 3 ‘owners’ the 3rd owner of a gift gets to keep it – it is retired and can’t be stolen again.

Good for: Any groups of 5 or more people.
Likely outcome: Stealing, screaming, excitement!

Spoilt Christmas Gifting Games: Yankee Swap

中文版

Corporate gifts need not come in wrapped packages. Specially designed experiences make high-impact and memorable tokens of appreciation for your top achievers and premier customers

See the full article below:

Spoilt's Experience Gifts featured in the Oct/Nov 2010 issue of Mix Magazine - Asia's Creative Meetings Magazine

Unique Premiums - Spoilt Showcase in Mix Magazine Oct/Nov 2010

1. Experiences improve with time (possessions don’t).
The reason why experiences improve with time may be because it is possible to think about experiences in a more abstract manner than possessions. For example if you think back to a fantastic summer from your youth, you might easily remember an abstract sense of warm sunshine and exuberance, but you’re less likely to remember exactly what you did day-by-day. On a moment-by-moment basis you might have been quite bored, although you’ll tend not to remember that.

Material possessions are harder to think about in an abstract sense. The car you bought is still a car, that great new jacket you picked up cheap is still just a jacket. It’s more likely the experience of that summer has taken on a symbolic meaning that can live longer in your memory than a possession.

2. Experiences are resistant to unfavourable comparisons
It’s well established that social comparisons can have a huge effect on how we view what might seem like positive events. One striking example is the finding that people prefer to earn $50,000 a year while everyone else earns $25,000, instead of earning $100,000 themselves and having other people earn $200,000 (Solnick & Hemenway, 1998).

In other words it’s not about how much we earn, it’s about how much we earn in comparison to other people. It’s the social comparison, then, not the actual amount of money, that affects how we feel about our earnings.

A similar effect is seen for possessions. When there’s so many flatscreen HD TVs to choose from, it’s easy to make unfavourable comparisons between our choice and the others available (check out Barry Schwartz on why too much choice is bad for us).

Experience, however, seems to be more resistant to these sorts of unfavourable comparisons. To explain this phenomenon, Van Boven puts forward the idea that it is because of the unique nature of experience. It’s more difficult to make an unfavourable comparison when there is nothing directly comparable. After all, each of our youthful summers is different (even if only a little).

I also think it’s hard to really compare our own experiences with those of other people. Comparing possessions, however, is generally easy.

3. Experiences have more social value
There are two reasons experiences have more social value than possessions. First, experiences tend to encourage social relationships and increased social relationships are good for our happiness. Second, it is more socially acceptable to discuss our experiences with others. People who bang on about their possessions are considered much less likeable than those who talk about their holiday adventures.

To read the full blog post, see this link http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/01/experiences-beat-possessions-why.php