What is the price of glamour, high style and fashion? According to Karen Mok Man-wai, you pay with frostbitten feet, stomach-churning car sickness and feeling short of breath in thin air.

The actress-singer unveiled her latest photo album at a Salvatore Ferragamo fashion launch on Sunday. The album features her posing in some of the designer's clothes in an ancient castle in Florence, the wilderness of Tibet and several romantic cities in Spain. But behind the artifice is a reality far from romantic.

'My feet turned into two blocks of ice under the chill in Florence. In Tibet, we put up with long hours of travelling, plus I had to wildly run up and down mountains even though I was tired and feeling altitude sickness,' she said without complaint. Mok was more reticent about her participation in a yet-to-be-announced upcoming musical Rent. 'I can't talk about that right now,' was all she let on.