Steven Schwankert: Global Book Launch of “Poseidon”

A proud moment for my long-time Beijing friend, Steven Schwankert (aka Scuba Steve) is about to launch his first published book “Poseidon: China’s Secret Salvage of Britain’s Lost Submarine” this Thursday, November 7 at The Bookworm. It’s the true story about a British submarine that mysteriously sank off China’s coast in 1931 and how he stumbled across the HMS Poseidon on a list of unexplored dive sites as he was seeking out different wrecks to dive in northern China.

“His private obsession with bringing wreck diving to China became a public and personally high-risk mission to uncover a secret history of political intrigue that took him half way across the world in search of evidence. His search for the submarine revealed a story that was far more complicated than he had first expected, challenging official accounts of the escape, and uncovering the truth behind the forgotten wreck.”

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Hooked on Hatsune: 11 Year Anniversary Party

I <Heart> Hatsune 11 Year Anniversary Party

To compensate for the delay in posting these photos, I will bombard you with a plethora of photos taken from Hatsune’s 11 Year Anniversary Party last month.

With free-flowing cocktails, sake and beer and sushi rolls pouring out of the sushi bar, we had a full house in spite of the torrential downpour of rain and thunder.

In addition to the usual suspects, we also had a handful of our celebrity Hatsune spokespeople make an appearance.  If you haven’t already seen our 11 very proud Hatsune fanatics proclaim their undying devotion to our exceptional sushi rolls, their ads were on full display around the restaurant for all to see.  It was brilliant to see our loyal following of sushi addicts, hunters, groupies and lovers who all love Hatsune loud and proud enough to put their face and name to the legendary Hatsune restaurant brand.

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Hatsune Campaign Contest: Win RMB 1,000 Voucher

Why “I <Heart> Hatsune” Campaign Contest

As Hatsune is quickly approaching it’s 11 Year Anniversary with a confirmed date for a celebration party on Thursday, September 6, 2012 (mark your calendars and save this date!), Hatsune is launching a contest called Why “I <Heart> Hatsune” Ad Campaign Contest.

We’ve been around longer than a decade and have been fortunate enough to develop a solid community, a loyal following of sushi addicts, hunters, groupies and lovers who all love Hatsune loud and proud enough to put their face and name to the legendary Hatsune restaurant brand.

If you haven’t already seen our 8 very proud Hatsune fanatics proclaim their undying devotion to our exceptional sushi rolls, here’s a rundown in chronological order:

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SinoScuba’s Third Annual Shark Weekend 2012

SinoScuba Gets You Swimming with Sharks

This weekend marks the third annual SinoScuba Shark Weekend 2012, which is taking place in Beijing’s Blue Zoo Aquarium where Beijing’s first professional dive operator SinoScuba puts divers and non-divers face-to-face with six species of shark in a safe, fun, and educational environment.

“Shark Weekend is my favorite event of the summer. Giving people the chance to interact with sharks and learn to care about them as much as I do, there’s no better feeling.” – Steven Schwankert, Founder of SinoScuba

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A Very Merry Kagen Christmas Charity Party for BICCO

Charity Christmas Dinner at Kagen (photography courtesy of Nora Tejada)

On Saturday, December 10, Kagen Japanese Restaurant hosted a Christmas Charity Dinner to benefit the Disabled Chinese Orphans of BICCO (Beijing International Committee of Chinese Orphans) and with about 130 generous patrons in attendance, we somehow managed to reach our goal of raising over RMB 200,000!  That is an insanely high number because that means each person donated on average RMB 1,500!

Originally, the deal was set that for each ticket sold, RMB 500 would be donated directly to BICCO (which was already really generous of Kagen Restaurant), but in the end, owner Alan Wong generously donated ALL ticket sales to BICCO, meaning that the entire ticket sales (RMB 600 each) went to the children of BICCO.

In addition to ticket sales, we also managed to sell a butt-load of raffle tickets (raising RMB 9,400) and many silent auction prizes went for higher than it’s actual value (raising RMB 31,757).

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Scuba Steve Gets You Certified Under The Sea

Getting my Open Water Padi Certification has been on my list of things to do for ages and I’d been stalling all this time waiting for my chance to go back to Koh Tao, Thailand or Sipidan, Borneo to do the required testing and training and then I met Steven Schwankert aka Scuba Steve.

What I realized finally is that I should not waste precious vacation time studying for a test, but I should get all that over and done with in Beijing so that I can actually start diving straight away once I finally did make that trip.

Scuba Steve is founder of SinoScuba, Beijing’s first professional dive operator, and they’ve been around more than 8 years and while he’s officially certified over 300 divers, he’s prepped over 800 to complete their over water dives abroad (divers like me).  Divers can start as young at 10 years old and courses can be taught in both English and Mandarin.

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