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Wednesday, August 25 In the blink of an eye, my unannounced one week visit of London has come to an end, and I'm now once again sitting alone in front of a computer in Amsterdam, trying my hardest to ignore the horrible thunderstorm that's raging outside. So instead of flying straight back to HK after my tstgu engagements, I thought that since I was already in Holland I might as well take advantage of cheap flights over to London; to catch up with friends, and more importantly, to surprise my father on his birthday. Unfortunately a number of friends were away on their summer vacation, whilst a few others had, like myself, given up on London and decided to seek greener pastures abroad. So I ended up seeing less people than I wanted to, but it was really a good thing as I ended up having little time for anything. And thankfully my plans to surprise my dad did work out in the end, despite my friend Ed showing up at my house on the morning prior to my arrival. I was so sure that my cover had been blown with Ed's unexpected visit but oddly enough, his mixture of confusion and poorly delivered lies managed to patch things up. The look on dad's face when he opened the door and saw me standing there (with a brand new PC) was priceless. Apart from setting my parents up with the new PC, I didn't really get up to too much. Mika Bomb was in the middle of recording the second full-length so I swung by the studio to say hi but kept my interruption to a bare minimum to ensure that they didn't lose their concentration. The new songs are promising. Then I pulled an all-nighter at my super rich Thai pal Choltida's swanky new apartment in an attempt to get her ADSL wireless router up and running but things didn't quite go as planned. Oh well, at least I brought one of her Vaio laptops back to life. The rest of the time was spent prowling the record shops of Berwick Street and Notting Hill in search of rare vinyls by British legends such as The Kinks, Small Faces, Joy Division and The Smiths. I boarded the plane with about 10 LPs under one arm, so all in all it was a successful search. I also managed to make a trip out to Southend to walk the world's longest pier, even though the harsh windy conditions and putrid looking water (courtesy of the River Thames) made things a little less pretty. Speaking of the weather, London was blessed with isolated rain showers for the entire duration of my stay. It would be sunny clear blue sky one minute, and dark overcast downpours the next; which actually ruined my mood to go into town on a couple of occasions. Apart from the lousy British weather, I could also turn this blog into a real bitchfest by griping about London transport... After living in London for three years, I still can't quite grasp what sense or logic there is in carrying out major tube/rail maintenance work specifically on weekends, when the trains are more loaded than ever with families, shoppers, tourists, etc. As a result of this, sections of both the Central and Northern lines were affected over the weekend. Just my luck that I had to travel on both to get from A to B. So I was left with no choice but to subject myself to rail replacement buses - basically 30 year old out of commission buses with smelly sweat-stained seats that probably haven't been washed since their first journeys. The tube shuts before 1 AM and doesn't re-open until 5 or 6. That should be ample time every night for things to get sorted out. And still commuters are constantly at risk of signal failures and derailments. There also happened to be major construction work going on at King's Cross - work that has been going on for as long as I've been there - which made my journey that little bit more troublesome. I think I also forgot to mentioned that I was held up in the train for a good 10-15 minutes in the section of the Northern line that was supposed to be working. Thank goodness I no longer live there. London is a delight to visit, but living there is a different story altogether. Ok, enough of my rants. It's late and I need to get up early to try to hit the Albert Cuyp market one more time in the morning. I just think it's funny that the other night I overheard some 20th-something generation Londoner boasting to his friend about how London is the best city in the world to live in and that there's no other place he'd rather be. All I can say to that is I'm ready to go back to a "real" city where the underground trains run frequently and efficiently, and where the shops don't tease the employed population by closing up just as people are getting off work.
Monday, August 16 So to combat my disappointment (as well as to avoid the gigantic herds of tourists prowling the main sites), I spent the evening indoors, with a box of salted fish chicken fried rice on my lap and 'This is Spinal Tap' to keep me amused for a couple of hours. The rice was definitely a welcome break from my recent monotonous diet of bread and cheese, and I guess Spinal Tap was a nice way to round up my past weekend at a big outdoor music fest. In many aspects, Flevo was a scaled down replica of Cornerstone, and it probably would've been just as successful had the fest not not been marred by lousy wet weather and a rather bland line up of bands. In short, rain and festivals don't mix unless you are one of those weirdos with a fashion preference for mud. It's also somewhat unpleasant to watch a band whilst being showered upon; the only exception being This Beautiful Mess, whose morose sound and dramatic stage presence worked the rain to stunning effect. As for the bands themselves (primarily of the the CCM Nashville variety), I could bitch and whine incessantly but I recognize that there's a place and purpose for bands like Jars of Clay, Plumb and The Rock 'N' Roll Worship Circus so I'll just leave it at that. On a more personal level though, it was nice just to have the chance to catch up with the dozen or so friendly faces that I've come to know better and better through touring with the spirit, and of course it was wonderful to hang out with the band themselves. Being the only non-dutch speakers (as well as being freed of all merch-selling respsonsibilities), Jan Erik and I ended up spending much of the time together, bouncing back and forth between getting fat with the backstage's free supply of drinks and sandwiches, and getting lazy in front of the TV in our swanky hotel room. It was convenient that the Olympics had commenced on the same weekend, thereby allowing us to break free from MTV's SurfGirls and Boiling Point every now and again. All in all it was a good time. We played somewhat poorly to a crowd of 8000 but managed to redeem ourselves a couple of nights later in a smaller and more intimate setting. And I walked away with some new tstgu merch and a decent amount of euro's in my pocket. My only regret is not meeting these wonderful Irish young lads collectively known as Six Star Hotel until the very last night. Definitely a good laugh to be around. That about sums it up. Now I should probably head out into the city and enjoy my life as a hobbit one last time.
Sunday, August 15
Saturday, August 7 I was booked to fly out on the 00:05 flight to Amsterdam. It so happened that a few friends were flying over to London at 23:55. Our gates were only about 200 metres apart. As their flight was due to leave before mine, I decided there was ample time for me to hang around them before it was my own turn to board. By 23:40, 15 minutes before departure time, their gate had still not opened up for boarding, and this was where I made the fatal error of assuming that I too had plenty of time to kill. We just kicked back and took it easy, trying hard to find entertainment in Starbucks Frappucinos as well as the various local gossip mags at W H Smith. By approximately 23:45 I thought it'd probably be sensible to head over to my own gate and at least see how things were progressing, so I told my friends I just wanted to check on things and that I'd be right back. Within 50 metres I found myself face to face with rows after rows of empty seats. I looked at the signboard. FINAL CALL. One of the staff immediately ran over to me and asked for my name. Turns out that I was the last one due to board and that they were a mere moment away from announcing 'This if the final boarding announcement for Mr Nicholas Tse'; imagine what sort of a media frenzy that might've created... I hurriedly shuffled over to the gate and sheepishly apologized for the inconvenience. With that little piece of surprise over and done with, I stepped onto the plane only to be presented with yet another:- the big fat passenger that we all dread of being seated next to. Normally I'm a big fan of the window seat, but in this situation, having one only meant that I was permanently locked into my seat by a 6'3 dutchman. I've probably said it before on here but I'll say it again. There is little in this world that annoys me more than adjacent passengers (be it the train, plane, bus, whatever) who have to sit with a 1 metre gap between their knees, thereby blatantly invading into one's personal area within that tiny confined bit of space. Then you get those who just have to take things to the next level by doing the very same thing with their elbows. Mr Big Dutchman had the aisle-side arm rest all to himself, yet he just had to choose to put his entire body mass on the one that was mutual property. A brief shimmer of hope sparkled when my neighbour noticed an apparent fault with his video/audio controller and brought this to the attention to one of the flight attendants. In typical Cathay Pacific caucasian priority customer service fashion, she apologized and immediately offered him a different seat on the plane. I thought to myself, great... here's my chance of losing the guy and having both seats to myself. But then any hint of a light at the end of the tunnel quickly disappeared when he casually waved off her offer and proudly held out a book that I guess was to be his company for the next 12 or so hours. Damn. So there I was, wedged between this guy and the window, fully prepared for a sleepless long haul flight. At least there was a decent selection of in-flight movies being shown and for a change I actually had the full range of main courses to choose from. I decided to keep things somewhat cheerful by watching Shrek 2. Biggie had dozed off but he couldn't stop touching me. I tried my best to ignore the annoyance and instead focused hard on Mr and Mrs Shrek's trip to Far Far Away instead. Things took a turn for the worse when, in his unconscious state of mind, he turned his head over to my side and opened his mouth. Out came the vilest of bad breaths, and it was a horrid smell that I had to put up with for the better part of the flight. Shame on those who go to bed without brushing their teeth. Urgh. Our flight landed in Amsterdam a well ahead of schedule but this did not really put us into any kind of an advantage as we were met with a series of delays upon delays. In short, Schiphol Airport can be summed up in one word: slow. To begin with, they had the brilliant idea of assigning immigration officers to check everyone's passports right at the arrival gate and to ask the question 'where are you flying to?'. Duh. This only created a slow and long queue that stretched from the arrival gate all the way back onto the plane. Why bother with immigration counters if you already have this other thing in place?! Then there was the waiting of our luggages to show up on the carousel, a process that lasted well over 30 minutes, at least where my own bag was concerned. And just my luck that the conveyor belt of the oversized baggages was broken, thereby creating another 20 minute delay in getting my other piece of check-in item collected. Thankfully my train ride into Amsterdam Central station proved to be the smoothest aspect of the entire journey. A glitch free ride that only required a 5 minute wait on platform 3. Pulled up to Sam's Inn (the roof over my head) at about 7:30 AM, but as I felt uncomfortable about getting anyone out of bed so early on a saturday morning just to let me in, I decided to just wait around outside in the vain hope that someone would any minute pop out of the front door or open up a window or something. I ended up standing and shivering in the cold misty morning fog for about an hour and a half. Shortly before 9 AM someone finally looked out from their window and saw me standing awkwardly down below. And ten minutes after dropping off my bags, here I am. It's a little strange to be in Amsterdam this time round. I think it has mainly to do with how quickly and sudden this whole trip fell into place, and also because of the fact that I've actually been a bit reluctant about being away from Hong Kong on so regular a basis, having just moved back for good. July already saw me away for the entire month because of Whence He Came. And now this. I feel like my Hong Kong summer of 2004 is slipping before my eyes. In a way, it has all sort of made this... well I don't want to say 'undesirable', but I definitely wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my commitment to the band. Besides, it's also rather disorienting, to once again be in a european city when just a week ago I was fighting off a cold in HK, and that the week before then I was on the dirty street of Bangkok eating fried bugs. Life sure is colourful.
Sunday, August 1 HorizonT: - Slide (2) - Color Neg (7) Cosina CX2: - Slide (6) - Color Neg (2) - B+W (4) Yep... that's a heck of a lot of films to scan and upload onto this site, but I'm definitely excited about sharing them for everyone to see; these images that I captured across four asian countries in 3.5 weeks are a breath of fresh air to the american and european ones that have been heavily featured on the site since it's launch. Been blowing an unhealthy sum of money on the film development though as I no longer have access to a free lab. It's been somewhat difficult adjusting back to a slower and more mundane pace of life, even if this is Hong Kong we're talkng about. I guess, after experiencing the daily excitements and unpredictability of life on the road, and sharing your life day in day out with a small group of individuals, everything else is kinda bland and you find yourself tormented by a gnawing sense of restlessness at any given moment of the day. But like all things in life, balance and moderation is the key and I'm glad that I can just kick back at home and put on a few of the many VCDs that I've bought but still haven't had time to watch. Besides, I've been trying to fight off whatever it is that Josh and Ken were plagued with last week, so it's really a blessing in disguise that I have this small period of time to just take it easy and recuperate. Moving in to Choi Hung tomorrow. My boxes arrive (I hope) the day after. Then it's Holland on friday. Yes, a little rest can do no harm. |