Hotel heiress and TV reality show star Paris Hilton poses at a media conference in Shanghai on Thursday, November 22, 2007.

We nearly wet ourselves with excitement when we heard the news. The Dirty Diva, the Bratty Princess, the bona fide Home Video Star Paris Hilton herself is gracing these very streets for the MTV Style Awards.

After all these months of glamorous mentions in these pages, we're dying to meet her in the flesh. We've not been taking any phone calls all day just in case she tries giving us a buzz to arrange a tete-a-tete (meaning her PA of course; its so easy to chip a nail on those things, darling) later on this evening. Can you imagine how positively thrilled we are? The possibilities abound - she might pout for the cameras, she might flash photographers as she exits her vehicle, she might even pull a bloke from the nightclubs, and in return, he might blab about it on the Internet forums. It could even be us, if we weren't so out of shape and geeky. But hey, it worked for Seth on "The O.C." Oooh, we can't wait.

We really do hope we can meet her. We hear she's got great hygiene and loves baths. Maybe we could impress her with our rubber duckie? That silly Internet site said she's not staying at the Hilton because it wasn't good enough for her but we all know that's only because she wouldn't want to thrash her great grand-daddy's hotel (again); it also wrongly claimed she was staying at the Grand Hyatt but that's so 1999 sweetie. Paris is definitely a Bund Baby, we can tell.

Our little birdie Ling from Attica whispered in our ear that the champion of Indian elephants will be showing up for Vanity tonight. If that's true we are so going; sorry Ling but if we had to choose between Hilton and you, we'd rather make it one night in Paris.

Look at us, going all ga-ga over a babe just because she's blond. The little vixen Ling was so nice to us over the weekend, getting a table ready for us to rest our weary bon-bons during the one-year anniversary party. We can't believe the place has been open for a year already; it seems like we've been going there forever. Maybe our sense of time is warped because we never remember leaving.

That was not all we did last week, mind you. We were just as impressed to meet Jean-Georges Vongerichten himself last Friday as he presented a cooking demo and again the next day for that interview. The Frenchman is a rare example of kitchen maestro and business guru, and his success thus far is well-deserved. He told us he was invited to a super-exclusive party on Monday night - a gathering of the top chefs from around the world for the launch of the Michelin guide in Japan. There were 191 stars in total, phwoar. He also mentioned that the local edition (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong) is shooting for a November 2008 release, so his trusty sidekicks Eric and Jason will certainly be on their toes over the coming months.

With the awards taking place tomorrow night, there's no telling who we might run into over the weekend. Rest assured, however, if we come across an extremely drunk Paris slumped in a VIP booth somewhere in Shanghai, we'll be sure to take a snap. After all, digital pictures are the autograph of the 21st century.

Paris in Shanghai

(Shanghai Daily November 22, 2007)