Falko's Spot

2007-04-15T02:45:00.000+08:00

Catch Up!

I apologise profusely for not writing in such a long time. More than half a year!
What has happened? Well, over the next few posts I'll catch you up!

First things first, the major event of the last half year was my trip to Thailand during the month of February. Here is a photo summary of the fun in the sun.

I stayed on only 2 islands, Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngan located in the Gulf of Thailand on the East side of the southern Thai Peninsula - just north of the better known island of Koh Samui.

Many gorgeous sunsets were to be seen on Koh Tao, as I stayed on Sairee beach facing due west. I must have taken 50 sunset photos, of which I'll post just one:

One of the reasons for the trip was to meet Jia Jia (though we were no longer boyfriend/girlfriend by then), and here she is standing in front of a sky so beautiful, it looks fake. But it's not! I swear!

And here are a few more Koh Tao beach photos:

Then it was off to Koh Phan Ngan where I stayed on the beautiful and relatively quiet Ton Nai Pan Noi beach.

But unfortunately, my cheap bungalow was right next to a combination rooster farm, dog breeding center and nightclub - or at least the noise that assaulted me as the night progressed made me feel like I was. So I decided to try to get a good night's sleep and splurged on my last day to stay in a beautiful, secluded and much pricier (comparatively - it still only put me back $80 for that one night) bungalow.

It had a tree growing in the bathroom!

And a commanding view from the balcony...

But why so beach obsessed? Well, because this is what I left behind in Montreal, and then had to return to:

Montreal winter in February is really at it's worst - extremely cold, snowy, windy (making it even colder), dark, pretty miserable sometimes. So Thailand was a welcome respite from this. Sadly, winter isn't even over yet here in mid-April, but the coldest is over and spring is in the air!

Well, that's it for now. Soon I'll post more catch up news - I promise :-)
Ciao!

2006-09-20T14:44:00.000+08:00

North Korean Restaurant

With the project on the last stretch, a good number of the people are leaving Shanghai to go home (like me, in 2 weeks). So, as always, there are goodbye dinners, goodbye lunches, goodbye brunches, goodbye benders. This weekend was our goodbye weekend for Derek - my roomate for the past 3 months. After a good stint here in China, he left for San Francisco on Sunday. Here are some pictures of the fun and games:

To start with, supper at a North Korean restaurant. Fun and crazy food like:

Sea Urchin - actually not too bad because the inside was mixed with some kind of egg stuff.

Dog - again, actually quite yummy (a bit fatty). I have no hang ups of eating "cute dogs" because I think lambs and rabbits are even cuter than dogs, yet I eat those... I can sense mom (a vegetarian) cringing right now. hee hee.

It's hard to see, but this "Long Life Liquor" has in it's list of ingredients "Penis of Fur Seal". Yummy!!!

The costumes at this place were also pretty funny:

Oh baby, you can really make out the beautiful curves underneath this, um, bell-like fashion statement.

Every now and then, a bunch of the waitresses would go on stage and sing songs written by Mr. Kim - the fearless dictator of North Korea. Can't say he's much of a composer, but he does have millions of faithful (if periodically "reeducated") followers.

Here are our 2 tables (front and back right). Note the heaps and heaps of food revolving on the lazy susans. Lots of yummy stuff!

David busting out his drum skillz.

And Derek gettin' down.

It's sad to see Derek go, but now I have someone to visit in San Francisco - one of my favorite cities in the USA. Have a great time in San Fran buddy!!!

2006-09-13T15:15:00.000+08:00

Big news! Well, big for me, at least...

I have successfully changed my flights for my trip home, and everything is confirmed. I will be leaving Shanghai on October 4th, flying to Vancouver first (arriving at 12:40) on the same day (I'll be travelling back in time!)

I'll stay in Vancouver for 12 days - I hope to go to my parent's cabin for a week or so to see what trees look like and hear birds sound like. :-)

On October 16th, I leave Vancouver to fly to Montreal, arriving at 21:59 on the same day. Remember guys, 21:59. Not 22:00. I'm happy the airline gave me an extra minute in Montreal. I will be sure to use it wisely.

So mark your calendars! Falko will be back soon!

2006-09-05T17:09:00.000+08:00

Huang Shan Scenery
(Yellow Mountain Scenery)

My previous posts were just a tease. "What's so great about this Yellow Mountain place?", you asked yourselves. Why are so many people there? Well, here (finally) are the shots of the mountains themselves. I have many more, especially since all my friends were taking pictures as well, but these my best ones. Enjoy!

A close up of the right side of the previous shot, showing a mountain formation that resembles a hand holding a paintbrush.

2006-08-30T20:30:00.000+08:00

Huang Shan Chinese
(Yellow Mountain Chinese)

I thought that our little trip would be a great way to get away from it all. Get away from the crowds, see a little nature, relax and listen to the birds. Unfortunately, the maddening crowds follow you. There were thousands of people on the mountain. Many of them noisy, creating queues even on the nice mountain paths.

Some were very happy to be there.

Some were not happy at all.

Actually a fairly common sight. I wonder what game they play. That weekend, groups of guys would break out the cards at every opportunity.

The biggest heros of the day. _Everything_ that is needed on the mountains is carried up by these dudes. And would you think they'd put some of the heavy stuff on a gondola, and then have these guys carry them around once it reaches the top? Nope - the porters start at the bottom of the hill, while lazy tourists are wisked up by gondolas in relative comfort. Unbelievable. To wit: he is carrying 3 propane tanks (most likely full) and a large bag of water bottles.

2006-08-30T19:48:00.000+08:00

Huang Shan Friends
(Yellow Mountain Friends)

Left to Right: me, Nadia, Ben, Derek, Nam, Nic

People like to fly when it's windy....

A cool frog we befriended on the mountain. He had alot to say about bark, twigs, pinecones and little rocks.

2006-08-29T17:54:00.000+08:00

Huang Shan Trails
(Yellow Mountain Trails)

More to come later...

2006-08-05T13:26:00.000+08:00

David, aka Slackerton, DJing at SOS Bar in HangZhou.

Me, DJing at SOS Bar in HangZhou

3 of the many ubiquitous dancers in this club. They seem relatively happy... :-)

Another angle on the crowd - the DJ booth is at the far left of this picture.

The sunrise on the way home.

2006-07-26T16:07:00.000+08:00

The Penthouse Boys go to small town China...

Well, the weekend DJ trip had it's ups and its downs:

down: flight delayed by an hour on our way out, so we arrived in Xiamen late.

up: that didn't matter, we started after midnight anyway. Clubs like to have the westerners hang out for a bit before they start DJing, to give the club a good image.

up: the club was packed full of happy people and pretty girls, and the sound system was amazing

up (down for Dave): every employee of the club had a t-shirt with a picture of David on the front. Very funny because the club had _a lot_ of employees, so whenever David turned around, he saw his face staring right back at him.

down: instead of being put up in a hotel in Xiamen, we were driven to Quanzhou right after our gig (at 6 am), arriving there at 7:30am. Not only that, but they only had one room at the hotel for the 3 of us (until 10 am, when another room would become available). Not a great thing to arrive to when you're exhausted.

down: the hotel in Quanzhou was, well, a brothel. In actual fact, it was a "business" hotel, but I'm not convinced that the business is of the "I'll buy out your company", "no, I'll buy out _your_ company" sort.

up: we (Derek, Dave and I) wandered around Quanzhou during the afternoon and had a great time - saw some pretty sights. Quanzhou is "small town" China, I guess, though it still seemed to have approximately the population of Vancouver. I guess size is all relative here.

down: the second club in Quanzhou was less cool than the one in Xiamen. The people who worked there seemed crabby and didn't add to the atmosphere of the club, and the sound system wasn't as good, so our gig didn't feel as good as it did in Xiamen.

up: we still played a great set and danced into the night.

HUGE down: arriving at the airport, we discovered that our travel agent had issued tickets that returned from Guanzhou, instead of Quanzhou. Big difference! After running around talking to various people who didn't speak english, and getting the typical blank looks you get when you try to explain your problems to Chinese official type people, we ended up with tickets to Shanghai leaving 8 hours later.

up (ish): deciding "screw this chinese #%$&@, we're eating at Pizza Hut"

up: killing time waiting for our flight by going bowling. And finding out that _I_ (when the muse strikes me) can actually bowl. I'm as surprised as you. On the last game, I got 6 strikes and 2 spares. Not bad, if I say so myself.

up: getting home and sleeping in my bed. mmmmmmm.....

All in all, it was quite an adventure. At the time, it seemed like an "ordeal", but we muddled through and tried to turn obstacles into positive events.

It was very odd being a white guy in small town china. You really attract attention there, much more than in Shanghai which has a large and visible ex-pat (read: westerners) population. But at the same time it was nice, because lots of cute girls smiled at me just because I stand out. It's nice to get free attention.

One last down, sort of: my gig next week has been cancelled (ostensibly because they're renovating the club), so I won't be doing my "solo tour" this weekend. It's a down because the Xiamen club was quite cool, and I just love DJing, so to not be able to DJ is a bit of a disappointment. But I say it's only sort of a down because I have a huge amount of work to do for Ubi at the moment, and I'm very tired because of it. Having a weekend of rushing around in planes and cars, and staying up late and "partying" (i.e. DJing, but then socialising before and afterwards) is not a good way to recover from a hard week of work. So I'm only a little disappointed about losing the gig.

I have a bunch of pictures from the weekend, but for some reason blogger won't upload them. I'll try again later...

2006-07-21T12:59:00.000+08:00

Well, my chinese name (see my previous post) has received only a lukewarm reception. I told it to my artist, and she said "but these are words, it is not a name...". True enough. She's just as guilty, though... Her name is Fan Yin Jia, and she decided that her English name would be "Van". When I told her that a van is a large car, she said "yes, I know, but Van sounds like Fan". The same problem as me. I'd be walking around calling myself "Fortune with mouth", which might have worked in the movie "Dances with Wolves", but in chinese society, and western society, calling yourself a series of words doesn't work (unless you're parents are hippies and you're name is Moonbeam).

For Fan Yin Jia, I suggested "Francesca", which is a pretty Italian name and she's taken to it. Jury is still out on what my Chinese name will be.

This weekend, I go "on tour" with my buddy, roomate and fellow DJ Dave (DJ Slackerton is what he goes by). Tonight we fly to Xiamen for a gig and tomorrow night we play at Quanzhou. Both clubs (they are sister clubs) are called "House Music Club", so I guess it couldn't be clearer that there will be no Hip Hop played there! :-) I'm looking forward to the gigs, though this time I'm just going to be helping Dave out if he wants me to. Next week I go to these same clubs to play gigs on my own - it's my solo tour next week! :-)

This is my first time in China outside of Shanghai. Our other roomate Derek is coming along too, so we'll all be having a mini 2 day vacation together while the Penthouse remains quiet and empty (much to our neighbours' delight, I'm sure).

2006-07-19T00:55:00.000+08:00

Some people have asked me to give my location in a form that, say, a geography nut can use to get a ridiculously accurate picture of where I am. So for anyone who has Google Earth, or an equivalently cool program, my coordinates are:
31 degrees, 11' 63.23" North
121 degrees, 25' 35.96" East

Putting the Google Earth hand at that location will be putting the hand on the roof of my and my roomates' penthouse. Please don't click on your mouse when you do this, the Power Of The Internet might cave it in.

Today, my Chinese class came up with my Chinese name: Fa le kuo. Sure, it's pretty much phonetic, but the meanings are what's funny.
Fa = "make a fortune overnight" (this word is the reason why the number 8 is considered lucky in Chinese because the word for Eight - Ba - sounds like Fa)
le = filler word, doesn't mean much I think
kuo = mouth

So, my name means "Make a fortune overnight with your mouth". My Chinese teacher laughed for 5 minutes after we came up with that. :-) I guess it means I'm good at talking. Anybody who happens to be thinking of a different way I could make money with my mouth needs to get their mind out of the gutter. I'm a respectable, upstanding citizen. :-)

2006-07-10T15:44:00.000+08:00

Great weekend.

Today you find Falko in a good mood. Why? Well, I had a super great weekend, that's why!

Slowly but surely I'm beginning to appreciate the things that Shanghai has to offer, and that definitely contributes to my great mood. But the best part of the weekend, by far, was my very successful DJ gig on Friday.

My roomate Dave decided a few weeks ago that every DJ gig he gets is a package deal with me - meaning we DJ together as a team (I really appreciate his generosity on this, especially since he already has many connections in the city). On Friday night, we were hired by a promoter to DJ a "Word Cup Party". We would DJ an hour, then a band would play, then we would DJ another hour. The venue would be Boom Boom Room. Dave didn't know much about the gig other than that - neither of us had heard of Boom Boom Room, there wasn't even a Word Cup game that night, so neither of us was sure what kind of World Cup Party this would be, and we also knew nothing of the band. But a gig is a gig, so off we went.

The venue turned out to be a place called "Bourbon Street", on the big ex-pat bar strip in town. The club is fairly big, dressed up as a New Orleans cabaret, with a dodgy reputation to boot. Apparently Bourbon Street was shut down a year ago for a few months because of rampant drug use and dealing. Not exactly classy sounding. But upon entering, I noted that the place was reasonably full - I would say almost a thousand people inside - and not _that_ bad. It had a theme park air to it - the decor reminded me of those two story western piano bars they shown in the movies, only there weren't any cowboys, nor was there a piano. Instead there was a dancefloor, a very big stage (2 stories high) and a loud band playing already on this stage. Unfortunately, the band had only attracted one dancer to the dancefloor, an older guy who was having a REALLY GREAT time (I capitalize because he was really really really excited, comically so). The crowd was almost entirely Chinese, with a very small scattering of rather slimy looking ex-pat men to colour things up.

Dave, unsure of how to start with a crowd like this, passed the honors of beginning the set to me. Halfway through my second track, _FOOM_ the dancefloor was full. It was incredible! 2 tracks filled the floor, which up until that point was completely devoid of people (the tracks were "Magic Number" by De La Soul and Herbert's remix of Louie Austen's "Hoping", for those who are interested). After 2 more tracks, Dave took over for a bit and the party was rocking. At that point, the promoter came up and asked us to play "more vocals" (despite the fact that we had a full dance floor) because the owner wanted that, so we did (scouring our music collection, because neither of us play tracks with lots of singing in them), but it didn't diminish the set nor the energy at all.

So after an hour, the band came back on and were clearly ecstatic to have a crowd in front of them. They played a very fun collection of cheesy pop tunes (all of them covers), getting the audience involved and singing along and all those things a good cover band does. By the end of their set, the people on the dance floor were hot, sweaty and exhausted. So, as a result, we lost a few when we came back on (they went to get drinks), but our last hour of DJing went almost as well as the first.

All in all, I was very happy with the evening. This is the first time I've DJ'd and had such positive crowd reaction. Playing together with Dave was fantastic, because alone either of us would have stressed and maybe not enjoyed ourselves as much. Together, we had fun with it and the pressure was off. We had fun and it reflected in our performance. Also, the owner, managers and promoter were extremely happy with us and asked us if we could play their next party.

So there you have it. I think I'll be doing a DJ gig about once every week or two, so hopefully this is how it will be most of the time: fun and fun and fun!

Time to go. Hope all is well with you all.

2006-06-29T12:52:00.000+08:00

In talking about the differences between Shanghai and other places I know, I have to mention the traffic. The Shanghaiese really take bad driving to whole new level.

In Vancouver the drivers are what I would describe as "sleepy".
- They stop for red lights,
- They wait patiently behind someone turning left, or pull out to pass the left turner only when right lane is free of traffic.
- They drive around 100 to 110 km/h on the freeway.
- When traffic is very thick, they will wait until they can completely cross an intersection before crossing it, so that they don't block traffic if the light turns green for the other cars.
- If two lanes merge into one, Vancouver drivers will obediently use the "zipper" technique, with every other car getting their turn to merge.
- When a pedestrian tries to cross a road, both lanes of traffic will stop to let the person cross. This last behaviour is frequently recounted in awe by visitors to the city "You can sometimes just stand on the side of the road, looking like you intend to cross, and cars will stop". Which is sometimes true.

Basically, Vancouver drivers are the epitome of traffic rule followers. Why are Vancouver drivers like this? Mainly because of the stereotypical "laid-back" attitude they have. They couldn't be bothered to be "jerks". It's too much work.

There are obviously other kinds of drivers in Vancouver - usually, but not always, leanings towards the "jerk" variety - but they are the minority.

Montreal drivers, however, are reknown for being agressive. The speeds are faster (120km/h on highways is the norm), the red lights are less respected, there is no patient waiting, there is no "zipper" technique, and pedestrians are more often than not ignored, if not run down.

One typical Montreal scene is a quebecoise girl in a small car, flying up to an intersection, (missing 3 pedestrians by mere inches and now blocking all the pedestrians from crossing the street), looking for an opening, then flooring it to get into traffic. The whole time she's chatting with her friend in the passenger seat. If you look at their eyes, you can see that neither was in the least aware of the pedestrians. To a female montreal driver, when she is in her car, all she needs to worry about are other cars. I'm not only singling out women montreal drivers - men are often the fastest, most dangerous drivers in Montreal, taking great pride in weaving their cars at high speeds like race cars through dense traffic (Patrick? :-)), but they tend to be more aware of their surroundings. what's worse? I don't know. But what I do know is that Montreal is a much more dangerous city in terms of traffic than Vancouver (unless it snows, but that's a whole different story).

To me, Vancouver represents the "North American" style of driving, and Montreal represents the "European" style of driving. This is quite a generalisation, not least of all because Montreal is actually in North America, but I'm just writing a blog, not a Master's thesis. Get over it.

Back to Shanghai.
Shanghai driving is so much more extreme that Montreal looks like sleepy Vancouver in comparison. The driving is a reflection of the "me first, or else I'll never get it" attitude people have here. I'll talk about that some other time... But for now:

- Red lights? Merely a recommendation. If you honk your horn, you can go through a red light anyway. Other people will hear your horn and (hopefully) avoid you.

- Waiting patiently? Never! As soon as someone is blocking the way in front of you, it's the car driver's duty to get around the blocker, no matter how much traffic is on the next lane. Sometimes cars will pass people trying to turn left by passing on the _left_ _side_, going into oncoming traffic, and actually blocking the left turner. Just try to imagine that...

- Right of way? Hah! _I_ am right, out of _my_ way! This is the attitude of everyone on the road. Fortunately, a pedestrian can take this attitude as well. All you have to do is brazenly cross a road, looking only at your destination (a tactic tought to me by Eve). If the oncoming car sees that you don't see him, he'll drive around you. If you make the mistake of looking at him, he'll know you've seen him and expect you to get out of his way. It takes a lot of guts to cross a street without looking left or right. I've only done it twice, and both times I was very nervous... But I didn't get killed, which is a good thing.

- Even when traffic is not thick, cars will block intersections to ensure they get to the other side no matter what. In fact, this is so bad that once the light turns red, many cars continue to try to make it across the intersection. If there are already cars blocking the intersection, some drivers will even think "well, since there are already cars there, I might as well go there as well".

- Any kind of respect for pedestrians is non-existant. If a car is trying to turn in an intersection, and a large group of pedestrians are crossing the street, the car will still try to push his way through the people. Fortunately, the cars do slow down occasionally for this maneuver, but I have often been in a taxi that has driven full speed through a gap in pedestrians crossing a cross walk. Though no one was hit, the taxi did go by a few people by mere centimeters. This kind of thing is so common that even the pedestrians don't think twice about it. Unless they're tourists, at which point they become dutifully shocked.

- In other cities, busses respect the denizens of the street. They stop more for pedestrians, they are more patient when waiting for someone to get out of their way... In Shanghai, the opposite is true. A Shanghai bus driver must think "I'm bigger, therefore more important". Buses honk more, run down pedestrians more, cross/block busy traffic more, ignore red lights more... In other words, the bus drivers are by far the most agressive around here.

There are 3 things I find interesting about all this:
1. It works. Somehow, with all the cars blocking intersections, the traffic continues to flow. The Chinese have brought "nudging your way through crowds" down to a science - whether it's a bus making it's way through a crowd of 1000 pedestrians, or a biker making his way through in intersection with a traffic gridlock.

2. No one cares, except for the foreigners. When my taxi driver flew through the small gap of pedestrians crossing the street, only I got scared and reacted. The people who nearly got hit seemed almost oblivious to how close they came to being killed. They didn't completely ignore the taxi, they noticed it, but they didn't seem all that bothered. The opposite is true for tourists. They are incredibly paranoid about the traffic - rightly so, it's insane by our standards.

3. No one gets killed. In my western mind, I've been programmed to believe that if everybody drove faster, or didn't follow the rules, the consequence would be mayhem on the streets - bodies piling up daily as cars ran over people, crashed into each other and ran down fruit stands like in a cheap action movie. Instead, in the month I've been here, I have seen only 1 accident, and a little fender bender at that. Strangely, virtually all the cars here are new(ish) and dent free. How is this possible? I don't know. I think it's because _everybody_ drives this way, so they aren't surprised when a taxi turns into oncoming traffic, drives 100m, then turns left into a side street. They just change their current trajectory to avoid the taxi and don't worry about it.

Well, this has become quite the long post. Hope it was entertaining...

2006-06-26T20:57:00.000+08:00

Here is an example of excessive lighting up of buildings.
1 and 2. Crazy lighting on the Bund. The Bund used to be the big "city center" of Shanghai, back when it was a wild and crazy wheeling and dealing place with lots of westerners. Then during the communist years in China, the Bund fell into decay, but now the buildings are being renovated and the Bund is beautiful once more.
3. Pudong buildings. Pudong is the newest area to be developed in Shanghai, with new, super high buildings springing up all the time. 10 years ago it was all farmland.
4. Jinmao Tower: also in Pudong. It used to be the highest building in Asia. It's one of my favorite high rises here. Definitely ultra futuristic looking.

2006-06-22T15:05:00.000+08:00

(this is a continuation of my previous post below, so you might want to read that first if you want to get with what I'm saying here)

Okay, so the lights on buildings are bright. No big deal, eh? Well, that's true. The point of my last post, if it wasn't clear, is that things are in fact different here in Shanghai. Their passion for lighting things up is really just the beginning.

Let's talk about exercise. Where I come from, exercise tends to be practiced by youngish people. Sure, older people can be seen trying to get back in shape, but the vast majority of people doing sports out there are kids (cheered on by their parents) and 20/30 something young people (trying to look good for the opposite sex). This is a _gross_ generalisation. But I'm all about generalising at the moment - realise that there will always be many exceptions to what I'm saying. Anyway, once people hit their late 30s or 40s, many seem to say "well, I've got a family, kids, job... I don't have time, nor the motivation, to excercise".

In Shanghai, it seems like the opposite is true. I can't speak for kids - my assumption is that they do around as much in school sports as Western kids do - but 20/30 somethings seem to have the attitude "I already have a great body" (and many of them do) "why should I exercise?". Young people, it seems, only excercise with sports that are "cool" - skateboarding, rollerblading, basketball, soccer - but those that practice these sports are few and far between. The Chinese my age that I have asked all say "nah - I used to do that when I was a kid, but I don't have time anymore". So what's the secret to their svelte figures? They don't eat much! Their lunches are consistently 1/2 to 1/3 the size of ours, and they consist mostly of rice with some fatty stuff on top.

But when I go to work in the morning, who do I see _in droves_ doing physical activities in the parks, on the sidewalks, even in front of malls? Older people. 50s, 60s, 70s. But what's most amazing about all this isn't only the difference in age, it's the actual activity itself. Whoever thought that lots of backwards walking would be a viable excercise? Not me! Well, I lie. I do know that walking backwards is great for the quads. At any rate loads of 50-60 year old women can be seen walking backwards through parks. Quite frankly, it looks silly. But I keep my mouth shut.

Tai Chi is an obvious one, but Ballroom dancing is 10 times more popular, and you also see sword fighting (actually, more like Tai Chi with swords) and some kind of group aerobics with a ball that they throw up and catch and stuff. All this happens in the middle of a park, eary in the morning. But the best of them all are the elderly people who use the childrens playgrounds as their own personal aerobics gym. It's hard to describe, because the playgrounds look quite different from ours (I'll post a picture one of these days), but imagine a bunch of elderly people pumping see saws up and down to work on their leg muscles, and pushing swings back and forth to work on the arms. Now you've got the right image.

Anyway, I think it's great. Not only are they active, but it's extremely social as well.

Back when I was travelling in Spain, I saw something that warmed my heart and made me very envious - every night, from around 7pm to 9pm, everybody would go out for a walk. This was calld "La Marcha" (I hope I spelled that right). It comes from the 70's: when Spain's dictator Franco's died in the mid-70s, all his draconian laws came into question by the Spanish people. Franco's cronies tried to hold on to power, but were ousted a few years later... One of the ways the Spanish demonstrated their rebellion against Franco's rules was to go on La Marcha as a direct defiance of the 8pm curfew that was in force all over Spain at the time. This tradition has now lasted to this day, even though Franco's rule ended 30 years ago. What I found great about La Marcha was that it was literally everybody who walks around - from the youngest children all the way to the oldest grandparents. It's more than a rebellion, it's a unanimous societal rejection. And now it's a tradition.

In North America, with our cars, TVs and Malls, people just don't go out for walks . Well, they do, but it's only to "get some air". There is very little social aspect to it. I just loved the fact that all these people would get out every night and mingle on the streets.

The same sort of thing happens here in Shanghai. While it's not as formal as in Spain, people of all ages go out walking around socialising with their neighbours, especially in the early evening. It's gratifying to see so many people simply spending time outside, whether it's for exercise, walking backwards, or just to hang out with friends. When the streets are alive with people, there is a buzz in the air. A buzz that is much too rare back home (though Montreal has this buzz to a degree, especially in the summer).

Anyway, enough rambling for now. Until next time!

2006-06-21T15:42:00.000+08:00

You know, I've lived in a couple of foreign countries in my day. Not a huge amount, mind you - Germany, England, Spain for a bit. You could even say that Montreal somewhat like living in a foreign country (the Quebecois would be ecstatic to hear me say this) due to the heavy French influence (though Montreal was still culturally closer to Vancouver than London was).

I've also visited a fair amount of foreign countries. I think 35 was my last count (if I count tiny countries like Monaco, the Vatican and Lichtenstein). But nothing has prepared me for the sheer amount of differences I would find here.

Let me start by saying that Shanghai, being a very modern city, doesn't feel totally foreign upon arriving. Since virtually everything is written in Chinese, and 99% of the people are chinese, you know you're somewhere different, but the cars are modern and mostly VWs, the buildings look like regular skyscrapers. They have traffic lights with the regular red yellow and green. The trees are green. It's all relatively familiar.

Then night falls, and you see that instead of the skyscrapers simpy being darker versions of themselves, many are garishly lit up with colourful neon lights and spotlights. "Hmmm... that's different" you say to yourself. The Chinese, at least those that are in charge of building things, love lights. The Bund - a historic/touristy riverfront area in Shanghai - is awash with huge lit banners, coloured search lights searching uselessly (but spectacularily) in the sky, buildings with the aformentioned neon decorations and lastly a good kilometer of the waterfront has a thin strip of neon lights that flash, change colours, show pictures - only visible to those on the other side.

The chinese are not particularily interested in saving money on electricity, I guess. But the results sure are colourful. It's the first step in realizing that priorities are a little different over here. Not a huge shock, by any means, it's just a taste of things to come...

Next posts - more musings on Shanghai and how it's different from the rest of the world I thought I knew. :-)

2006-06-15T20:57:00.000+08:00

The World Rejoices, Zombie Hordes Averted

The United Nations declared June 14th a World Wide Day of Celebration in honour of Super Happy Metal Rocket Propulsion Man who rid the Earth of the nightmare of the Seething Zombie Hordes.

Super Happy Metal Rocket Propulsion Man was able to do what bats, bows and arrows, crossbows, catapults, guns, tanks, artillery, missiles, conventional bombs, fusion bombs, fission bombs, really really big conventional bombs, antimatter bombs, “droppin da” bombs, laser guns, graser guns, phaser guns, taser guns, maser guns, rasor blades and a good ol’ punch in the face could not do. He turned back the relentless attack of the zombies who have been rampaging cities and rural areas alike.

How was this amazing feat accomplished? Realising that the Seething Zombie Hordes were deep down simply just looking for a little love, Super Happy Metal Rocket Propulsion Man gave each horde (dis)member its own Bund Teddy Bear. Overjoyed, gleeful even verging on (slowly oozing) tears, the Seething Zombie Hordes' (dis)members to a man agreed to return to their graves and the world was saved.

Only the Bund (tm) corporation, inc. (ltd) was displeased. Said a spokesman, on the condition of anonymity, “They’re so gross. All rotting flesh and maggots and parts falling off. The zombies I mean. Not the teddy bears. Couldn’t those zombies have decided they loved Cabbage Patch Kids (tm) or even Ugly Dolls (tm)? You’re not going to use my name in this are you? I don’t want those things coming after me! The zombies, I mean. I don’t want the zombies coming after me.”

Katy Maheney, 6, of Miss Carpage’s kindergarden class disagreed. “Teddy bears are soft and cuddly. They makes those sad stinky mans happy.”

Super Happy Metal Rocket Propulsion Man topped his already busy day by jetting off to save a 90 year old grandmother from accidently wandering into traffic. What a guy.

2006-06-14T22:51:00.000+08:00

Picture Night!
Here are some pictures of the view off my 31st floor balcony. Pretty crazy view, eh? Note the plethora of cranes in the first picture - there is always something being built in this city.

2006-06-14T22:45:00.000+08:00

Picture Day!!!

These pictures are of my old Service Apartment room. Note the clean, modern hotel-like interior. Note the sink.
Missing from these pictures is the rest of the bathroom and the little kitchen.

2006-06-12T12:30:00.000+08:00

Well well well,

All excited I was, Saturday, talking about my gig. Unfortunately it did not go very well. Afterwords I would refer to it as a collosal failure, in fact.

I think it all comes down to the fact that I was the wrong DJ for the wrong crowd. My DJ style of music is mostly house and lounge. Lounge is easy - it's very laid back and therefore does not make good "dance" music. This kind of music works well at restaurants, which is why it fits so well at Les Folies where I DJ in Montreal. I did not play Lounge Saturday night, because I knew it wasn't appropriate. House music also works well in restaurants, but it is fundamentally a dance music, so it's really good in dance clubs. These clubs are full of people looking for this kind of music, so it's what they expect.

On Saturday night I played for a group of people who were brought together by the love of a sport. What brings these people together has nothing to do with what kind of music they like. As such, a DJ who plays a specialized type of music will not be able to reach out to a big percentage of these people to get them to dance. The best example of the kind of DJ who gets a large group of disparate people to dance is a wedding DJ. They play hits that everybody recognizes and (sometimes reluctatly) can dance to. I can be a snob and say it's "the lowest common denominator" music, but wedding DJs are still talented professionals who work hard, know their music, and know exactly how to get grandma dancing (a feat I would have very little idea how to pull off).

I am no wedding DJ.
Nor am I a Hip Hop DJ.

If I had been the latter, instead of a house DJ, I might have had a better chance of getting people to dance. I got request after request for Hip Hop, and I guess I just don't have any.

Maybe some of the fine readers here familiar with Hip Hop could give me a short list of sure fire Hip Hop artists. But again, sure fire for a B-Boy would be different than sure fire for a late teen club girl, or whatever. But I guess I have to start somewhere. I'm a big fan of De La Soul, but that's a bit oldish now, so I need some more current, dancey stuff. Someone requested Usher. Is Usher good?

Okay, enough ranting about DJing. Saturday night obviously didn't meet my expectations, but I DJ in the end for fun and I'll just avoid these kinds of situations by refusing gigs where I know the audience isn't right (or try out different music styles, and grinning and bearing it if it doesn't work).

Other news:
Now I'm living in my new apartment, and I ended up being a very happy boy by yesterday evening. I DJ'd with my roomate, who is also a house DJ, and we had alot fun. Plus I just feel more like I'm at a home, rather than a hotel room.

Now it's time for me to work. Hope all is well with everyone!

2006-06-10T16:25:00.000+08:00

A gig!

After less than 3 weeks of being here, I have landed a gig as a DJ! Tonight! Yippee! I'll be DJing a party for an Ultimate Frizbee turnament that is being held here in Shanghai. For those of you who don't know, Ultimate Frizbee is roughly like playing basketball, but with a frizbee, on a field, with no baskets, and you can't run (nor dribble) when you have the frizbee in your hands. so it's actually quite different, but at least you get a rought idea of what it's about. The sport is very popular in Vancouver, for one... And probably gaining popularity in many places around the world (I know players in London England, Montreal, Vancouver, Shanghai...)

Anyway, through a friend (thanks Kelsey), I know a guy (Wil) who is really into Ultimate Frizbee over here in Shanghai, and he's tasked with organising the party tonight and his DJ fell through. Falko to the rescue! I'm a bit nervous, but I think it'll be great... Aparently the bar is on the roof of a building, and since it's a balmy 31 degrees C here today, it should be a nice evening out.

Well, that's about it for the day. Tomorrow I move to the penthouse... Have a super weekend!

2006-06-07T19:13:00.000+08:00

Pictures of the day: 2 scenes from my walk to work.
1. Alley scene
2. Bicycle parking lot. Can you spot the pair of jeans hanging to dry above the owner's bicycle? Yes, I thought it was strange too...

2006-06-07T19:08:00.000+08:00

It's official!

This weekend I'll be moving from the Service Apartment (the word here for "long stay hotel") I'm staying at to an apartment I'm going to be sharing with 2 other guys from Ubisoft. The apartment is gorgeous - 3 floor penthouse suite with big patio on top, large living room on the bottom, and bedrooms in the middle. Dave and Derek are super cool and friendly, and best of all it's a hop skip and a jump away from where I'm living right now so I'm already familiar with the neighborhood.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Work is super busy, and will get busier and busier as every day passes. Hopefully I'll last through to the end!

Later!

2006-06-05T19:01:00.000+08:00

Picture of the Day:
My work building seen from the alley I use as a shortcut on my way to work. We're on the 15th floor.

2006-06-05T18:46:00.000+08:00

Apres-Birthday

How wonderful! Just when I was thinking my distance from home, coupled with my relative newness over here in Shanghai, would result in a really sucky birthday, friends from afar and friends nearby came through to make this among my best birthdays yet. Again, thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes over email...

On Saturday night my friend Ariel Gauthier threw together a barbeque in my honour (and also to show off his new apartment/patio/barbeque to some people who hadn't seen any of those yet). In the end, 25 people showed up, some from other friend groups. Also cool was that there were 2 other people who were celebrating their birthdays! So it was a big birthday vibe that night! After finally eating at around 11 pm (coordinating barbeque activities proved challenging), we all went out to two nightclubs - VIP (big and empty, but the DJ was cool) and then later to Dragon (tiny, packed, you could barely move, and the DJ was even better)... I finally got home at 6 am. Pretty successful evening, if you ask me :-)

Another interesting development: I've hooked up with two guys (Dave and Derek) who are renting a very large penthouse near my hotel. They have invited me to join them as a roomate and (if there are no problems with Ubisoft, since they are paying for my rent in Shanghai) I'm pretty sure I'm going to move there. The place is _HUGE_: 3 floors, including a large patio on the top floor, large solarium/greenhouse (which unintentionally turns into a sauna during summer months) next to the patio, 4 bathrooms, many rooms, large open design, slightly outdated, yet reasonably comfortable, furniture... Dave and Derek are super cool/nice guys. And to top it all off, Dave is a house DJ! So musical tastes are in line as well. Can't think of a better switch from my cold, impersonal, lonely hotel room, to live with 2 coolio guys in a swank penthouse suite.

Not sure when I'll move. Hopefully this week sometime.
Well, time to leave work! Cheers...

2006-06-03T16:10:00.000+08:00

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me
(sung to the tune of "Happy Birthday")

Yes, that's right, I am now the big 3-4. The numbers keep creeping up slowly but surely, but that doesn't bother me. Life has been good so far, and there's still plenty of years for it to continue being good. (knocking on wood)

But alas, I'm sitting at work writing this blog, and I'd rather be wandering about outside feeling good about myself, so this entry will be short and sweet. More will come soon, I promise!

Oh, and thank you to all the people who sent me birthday wishes. It's really super cool to know that people are thinking of me even when I'm far away in distant lands :-) And those who didn't send me birthday wishes, no problem! I probably forgot your birthday, so don't worry about it. :-) I love you all unconditionally.

2006-05-31T16:28:00.000+08:00

This morning, on my way to work, I took a picture of the park just outside my building. In fact, this is a picture from my building as well, so you can get an idea of how high up I am (20th floor - though they skip the 4th and the 14th floor because the number is bad luck).

Have a nice day!

2006-05-30T18:08:00.000+08:00

Pictures!

2006-05-30T17:43:00.000+08:00

Xujiahui

Well, I've obviously figured out how to upload pictures onto the blog, though it's a little more difficult than it should be (I'll spare you the details). Alas, I am doing it for you, dear reader, so that you can visualize better the land I have found myself in for the next few months.

Apologies for the less than stellar quality of the pictures. The air here is very moist and frequently hazy... Hence the haziness of the pictures. That's the story I'm sticking to. It's the air.

The two pictures show what I see if I step out of my apartment. I'm living right beside an extremely busy shopping district in the south west of Shanghai called Xujiahui. The globe on the second picture is a movie theatre, and the rest of the buildings are malls, restaurants and other locations specifially designed for me to spend my money. I've decided to await exploring this area in detail until I have my bank cards back, but it certainly is a very crowded, noisy area.

Fortunately, if I turn to the right in the first picture, there's a park (picture to come soon), so I'm not quite surrounded by cement, metal, glass and lights as the pictures imply.

I'd like to take back a comment I made in an earlier post - when I said that it's surprisingly quiet here. Though the statement isn't exactly wrong, it does give the impression that Shanghai, and more specifically where I'm living, is actually quiet. This is not the case... It's
quieter than I had thought it would be. Not actually quiet at all, though. There's plenty of traffic noise, including honking, construction sounds, and a general hum to the city. But (as my previous post says), there's a bit less honking than an equivalent area in Sri Lanka or India (based on my brief experiences in those respective countries). So yes, it's noisy. But not super duper crazy noisy. Bearly bearable.

Anyway, things are coming around for me. I now have an emergency Visa card, so I can go into debt with abandon if I want to. My other cards are on the way so soon I can begin taking advantage of the rampant capitalism in this city. And boy can you buy stuff here! Everything. I mean everything (except for maybe a spaceship, or my own personal planet) can be purchased here. I should have arrived naked with an empty bag, instead of lugging all my cool stylish clothes with me. But then again, I like my cool stylish clothes, and if I had arrived here naked the wallet stealing incident would have been that much more serious...

Well, that's it for now. I have to get back to work because that's really the reason I'm here. Until next time!

2006-05-24T15:29:00.000+08:00

Fun happening of the day:

Alex, a fellow Level Designer from Montreal, wanted to show off his new Chinese last night while we were eating at a restaurant. So he ordered some green tea to finish off our meal. A complicated exchange ensued, where first the waiter brought us 3 empty tea cups, then more of an exchange, and then the waiter understood. About 5 minutes later, he (and a number of waiters) arrived with 3 plates of _french fries_. Yes, french fries, with "ketchup" that tasted as if it was Cambells tomato soup. Maybe "fries" and "tea" sound similar in chinese, but instead of sending them back, we all laughed and dug in. All the waiters in the restaurant watched us closely as we ate our North American food (with our fingers! horror of horrors!) - it seems like we may have been the first ever to order this particular dish at this eatery.

Bad happening of the day:
I've somehow already managed to get my wallet stolen. When I arrived at work this morning, I found that the zipper on my bag had been unzipped and my wallet had been kindly removed from the inside. I had been told that Shanghai is really safe, but obviously I'll be better off if I just walk around with my "hidden" waist pouch for my valuables like a proper tourist. The joys of sticking out like a sore thumb. I've already spent about an hour on the phone with my bank to cancel my cards and get them replaced, but fortunately the only other things of value in there were money and a picture of my sister. The money is gone, and I'm sure Kerrin has other wallet sized pictures that I can get from her.

Live and learn.

Incidently - I'm having problems accessing this site from my laptop at home, so until I can get that resolved I won't be able to upload pictures to this blog. Sorry!

2006-05-23T07:15:00.000+08:00

Shanghai

You know, there are very few disadvantages to being tall, in my opinion. Sure, I hit my head on things occasionally, and climbing into ancient Egyptian tombs is more difficult for me than for shorter people, but the advantages of being tall far outweigh those disadvantages.

That is, until I get into an economy seat in a plane... Were, exactly, am I supposed to put my legs? I frequently ask myself this question. Well, this flight to Shanghai was especially challenging, as I sat behind a french guy who insisted on leaning his chair back as far as it could go throughout the entire 12 hour flight. My already miniscule legroom shrunk to zero as my knees pressed against the seat in front of me. Sometimes I can pass my misfortune on to the person behind me by leaning my seat back as well, but on this particular flight the guy sitting behind me put his feet on _my_ seatback, keeping me from doing any sort of leanback whatsoever. How rude! I guess it's both of their right to sit however they please on the plane, but it made my personal space rather miniscule.

Well, hello there from Shanghai! My first impression? Lots of chinese, lots of shops and lights and food. But surprisingly quiet, compared to India and Egypt (in terms of traffic noise). Like in western countries, people here honk their horns when something dangerous is about to happen, or when someone is blocking the way. In India, Sri Lanka and to a lesser degree Egypt, people use their car horn to communicate with fellow drivers: a "hello, I'm behind you" honk, a "hello, I'm passing you" honk, a "hello, I just finished passing you" honk, a "if you want, you can cut in front of me" honk, a "hey, you bastard, you just cut in front of me" honk, a "wow, you look cute in that sari" honk, a "nice car!" honk, a "I'm doing something illegal and extremely dangerous, so get out of my way" honk, a "sorry, my hand slipped on the steering wheel" honk... All these opportunities for honking results in a cacophany of sound when you're near a road (even one that doesn't see much traffic). Here in China, I still hear honking, but that is more a reflection of the number of times people make dangerous maneuvers than the fact that they literally have conversations with their car horns.

Anyway, I'm settled in and happy, but sadly I have to head to work, so I will write more and send some pictures of my immediate surroundings in upcoming posts. Hope everyone is well!

2006-05-09T10:11:00.000+08:00

Montreal...

Today's post is my sunset post. The end of my travels (sort of), the end of the beautiful ocean crossing.

The end.

Wait! Wait! Wait! There will probably be more, there's always a night, another sunrise, and yet another day after a sunset, but this sunset post marks the end of the first circle of the globe.

I can't believe it's all over. In fact, it's all over plus a week already! I apologize for being so silent internet-wise, but somehow I felt like the pace of my trip accelerated after I got off the boat and I had a hard time to sit down and write. From last Monday, it was Athens for 1 night, London for 2 nights, then back to my home sweet home in Montreal.

Since then I've been running around, getting ready for the Shanghai trip, and also suffering a bit from what I will call Post Euphoric Voyage disorder. This is what you get when you've gone off on a big trip and then you finally get back home. For the traveller, the time away was awash with new adventures, new people, new sights, new ideas... Then you get back home and everything seems a bit, well, the _same_. It's a bit of a letdown and I often get a bit down after a holiday. "Oh poo", you say "You just spent 2 months travelling around the world and you're depressed? Pull yourself together man!". I guess you're right, but because a trip like this can be such a high, coming down off that high feels disproportionately low.

Don't worry, I'm not _that_ bummed. In fact, I'm super happy to be back in Montreal which, from all indications, is gearing up for quite a summer. Alas I will be slaving away in a sweatshop in Shanghai, instead of rollicking in the good times of Montreal Summer, but I can feel a bit of the fun already.

Over the next few days I'll be posting little "summaries" (or "high lights", as they are sometimes known) of my trip, with select pictures and such things, so stay tuned!

2006-04-27T06:14:00.000+08:00

Cairo, Egypt

First of all, for everyone who’s worried, I am not, I repeat, not hurt nor dead. Not really something to joke about, actually - some of you may have heard (and I’ve even received emails about it) that there was a terrorist attack at a resort town just outside of Sharm El Sheik. Anybody keeping track of my itinerary would have noted that I was in Sharm El Sheik just the day before the attack. So that was in some ways a close call. In other ways it wasn’t: I spent no time at all in the resort in question, and was in Sharm El Sheik only half an hour. My exposure was pretty minimal. Scary nonetheless.

But the terrorism spectre is taken extremely seriously here in Egypt. Tourism is Egypt’s 3rd most important industry (after the Suez Canal and Oil), and it employs 60% of Egypt’s workforce. As such, when terrorism hits a tourist area in Egypt and the tourists stop coming as a result, it causes huge losses to the country and it’s people. As such, the government goes out of its way in a major way to protect tourists.

For example, I took a tour to Luxor about a week ago. Luxor is the site of the ancient Egyptian capital city of Thebes, containing a huge amount of temples, palaces, not to mention the Valley of the Kings nearby in which many of the Egyptian Pharaos’ tombs are found (including King Tut’s tomb). The place is simply amazing. But I digress, I was talking about terrorism and security: when the bus went from Safaga (where my boat was docked) to Luxor - crossing a desert to reach the river Nile - we went as part of a caravan of tourist buses. This caravan was escorted by a bunch of army trucks and police, the roads were blocked off while this caravan went through... In addition, there were armed checkpoints on the highway every 25 km or so, where every car had to stop and be questioned, searched or what have you. Busses in the caravan flew through these checkpoints, however. Our caravan had about 70 busses in it - imagine 70 large, air conditioned busses, all in a line, driving 130 km/h down a highway. Sometimes the caravans can reach 250 busses even!

But it’s not just caravans - every tourist site had numerous bag searches, metal detectors and (what initially put me off the most) lots of armed guards. I have never seen so many guns in my life until I came to Egypt. Oh, and another thing - our bus had it’s own bodyguard - a guy in a dark suite carrying an automatic rifle casually “hidden” from sight.

Major security, if you ask me. I didn’t feel safer - if anything, 70 busses in one spot make for a rather meaty target if a suicide bomber can figure out how to get past all the armed guards - but I definitely felt like there was an effort being made to keep us safe. How do you defend against a maniac with a bomb strapped to his body? I’m not sure how...

Having delved a bit into negativity, I should talk a bit about the things I’m loving here on this trip.

Lovin’ it #1 - deserts are cool. Really cool. I went on a trip to St. Catherine’s monastary (a very old Christian monstary built around the legendary “burning bush” where god revealed himself to Moses, and also close to Mount Sinai where Moses got the 10 commandments). During the 3 hour busride there and back, I took about 120 pictures of desert scenery. That included sand dunes, camels, Beduin tribe people and huts, and the occasional tree, but honestly most of the pictures were just really cool rock formations. It’s so dry and desolate in the desert, but at the same time extremely beautiful. I wouldn’t want to live in the desert, though. I like my tap water.

Lovin’ it #2 - camels are cool. I don’t know of any other animal that comes across as content as a camel. If you leave them alone, they just hang out, look around and gaze calmly in a given direction as if they’re just sighing “hmmmm.... “. A bit like cows, though I can’t seem to shake the feeling that cows are suching “duhhhh....” instead of “hmmmmm....”. But that’s not all, when camels walk, they don’t walk, they “lope”. Slowly. With their feet touching the ground as if they’re wearing really comfortable slippers. I just love it.

Lovin’ it #3 - ancient Egypt is cool. This stuff is old!!! Really old! I mean, us Europeans were living in caves, banging bones together to make tools while the Pharoas were ruling an advanced civilisation with writing, pyramids, temples, gold, jewelery and probably a fashion show or two. Now that’s advanced! But what gets me is when you’re looking at a piece of pyparus parchment from the 10th century BC (say) and you can see the penmanship of the writing. 3000 years ago, some guy was sitting at a desk with a pen in hand, writing this thing, probably pausing for a moment or two to chew on the end of his quill before going on to draw a bird, then a washboard, then a feather and then a guy walking - which means “apeman” in hieroglyphics, and which is pretty much where us caucasians were in the evolutionary chain at the time. It just boggles the mind.

Lovin’ it #4 - dolphins rule! So far this entry has dwelled on Egypt, but I’m not forgetting that I’ve spent most of my time in the past month on a boat, and I have seen a total of 18 dolphins playing on the bow of said boat. Nothing compares to seeing dolphins having a bit of fun in the wild. On time, when the waves were really high, I saw dolphins playing around and actually jumping from one big swell to another! It was truly a sight to behold. Sorry no pictures, because whenever something like that happened, I didn’t want to run down to my cabin to get my camera, in case the dolphins had left once I got back.

Okay, enough for today. Hope everyone is well! I’ll be back in Montreal in just over a week, so I’m looking foward to seeing you all again soon!

PS. The photos are:
1- Temple of Luxor
2- St. Catherine's Monastry
3- A content looking camel
4- One of my many desert photos
5- Star Flyer: "My" beautiful boat

2006-04-22T20:26:00.000+08:00

Luxor, Egypt

Just a very quick hello from Egypt! I've survived the 2 week crossing of the Indian ocean, and an enjoying myself immensly! In a few days I'll have a better internet connection and will post a few photos...

Hope everyone is doing well!

2006-04-07T13:54:00.000+08:00

Goa

Hello everyone from my second and final stop in India. I am told by people in the know that Goa is the least "India" that you can find in India, but it looks, feels and sounds like India to me. Loads of Indians, cars, bikes, trucks and rickshaws weaving around the roads, honking at each other, yet never colliding despite dangerously close maneuvers. Maybe it isn't like India because I didn't have a large crowd of rickshaw drivers decend on me to demand that I take _their_ taxi to my destination.

Which segues naturally to my major gripe here in India (and also Sri Lanka, though things weren't as bad over there). In Cochin, when we exitted the port gate, we were assaulted by a group of about 30 people all yelling and screaming, grabbing us, telling us to take their taxi to whatever our destination was. Normally I'm a pretty laid back guy, but this assault made me extremely uncomfortable, nervous and tense (and I call it an assault, because many of the other passengers were extremely put out by this, and because it simply did not stop even when you made it quite clear that you weren't interested). Once you get out of choke points like port gates, the assault calms down a bit, but you never really have a moments peace...

So I ask all my friends who have told me again and again how wonderful India is: how did you deal with this? I am told that things get worse in the interior and the east, and I simply can't imagine what "worse" would feel like. It's obvious to me that you shouldn't try to form an opinion about a country based on 2 days of visit - I never thought that even from the beginning - but I was hoping my taste of the country would entice me to come back. As it stands, I would much rather explore a western country. Maybe I'm a wimp. But to prove that I am not, I have promised myself I would come back to India another day for a longer trip to test my limits properly. My little sailboat trip has made me soft and vulnerable. A real trip to India will hopefully thicken my skin enough to see past the annoyances and find the beauty and culture.

Tonight we leave India and sail due West across the Arabian sea and up the Red Sea to Safaga Egypt. What fun this will be! The winds have been relatively good and so we'll most likely be sailing the whole way (but in the north part of the Red Sea we'll most likely use the motor). Since we'll be away from land, I won't be writing an entry for about 2 weeks. Check back then for the latest news! :-)

2006-04-05T00:40:00.000+08:00

Hello From Kochi, India!

Anybody checking this blog over the past week may have noticed that I've been relatively silent. In fact, completely silent. This is not because I don't love you all, but because the boat I'm on has no internet. Sorry! But that's what happens when you're crossing oceans.

So what is my ocean crossing like? Pretty cool. The other passengers are almost entirely my parents age - a few even older, and a few younger, but I am by far the youngest passenger on the boat. Not that it matters much. I have taken it all in stride. First of all, I've started hanging out with some of the crew, who are young and quite energetic. Pretty adventurous really. We had a night out of wild drinking and dancing in Columbo (Sri Lanka) a few days ago, and I got to see the more (shall we say) extreme side of the crew members... When sailors go out drinking, they go out _drinking_. I still remember how and when I got back to the ship, but coordination was seriously compromised at the time. It seems like everybody else was pretty much in the same boat (har har).

I'm taking a positive outlook on my situation with the rest of the passengers. When, in my regular life, would I have the chance to talk to a large number of older yet adventurous people? On this trip, that's when! I'm playing chess with an 88 year old gentleman who has 7 great-grandchildren, and stories of travels in countries all over the world (including such exotic locals as Iran, Congo before it became known as Zaire, and Northern Ontario). I'm spending a lot of time with a Brit from Liverpool who's had his shoes vomited on by John Lennon and was having dinner with Ben Kinglsey when he got his phone call to work on the movie Ghandi. There are obviously many more, with many more stories... I have yet to scratch the surface.

I have so much to tell, but what do I tell now? I only have little time, and I can't fit it all in... I'll have to be random...

Crossing the Bay of Bengal (between Thailand and Sri Lanka/India) was extremely hot, and lacking wind - so the ocean looked very oily. It rolled the boat quite a bit, making me almost seasick until I got used to it. There was only one day of non-sun, and on that day we had a rainstorm of epic proportions. Fortunately, the sea was calm (actually, because of the rain for some reason), so it wasn't that much of an ordeal.

And - the difference between an ordeal and an adventure is attitude. So the rain was fun! Because it was warm - I went up on deck and got myself thoroughly drenched. Everybody thought I was out of my mind, but then they just said "he's the young guy... he's a bit strange to us".

Both Sri Lanka and India a very interesting so far. Chaotic, with everybody rushing at me (or us, if I'm in a group) wanted to take us somewhere in their Rickshaws, sell us something, be a tourguide, or just get free handouts. This is something I find very irritating, because it gets my heart racing, and that's annoying...

But there are other things here that are really cool - people are super friendly, houses and cars and walls and every paintable surface are really colourful, the forests are super green and rich with life (moreso in Sri Lanka than here in India), and it just vibrates here with energy.

It's too bad we're in these countries for such a short time, but the purpose of the trip is the beautiful sailing ship, and that we'll be on for a length of time yet (still about 4 weeks to go!)

Anyway, time to go. Hope all of you a doing well! Thanks to those who have responded to my blog - you all rule!

2006-03-24T12:44:00.001+08:00

Right now I’m actually sitting on a _beach_ writing this blog entry in my laptop. Cool huh? Did you just hear the surf crash? It went pata-PaCHUMP-shhhhhhhhhh. Or something like that. To set the scene for you all even more - it’s night time, no moon in the sky, the crickets are cricketing, the waves are crashing with the kind of uncanny regularity that only waves can acheive and the sand is extremely soft while I scrunch it between my toes.

Tonight, there’s going to be a fireworks display - some marketing company is having a “team building” event here at the beachfront hotel I’m staying at. A “team building” event means that the company ships a bunch of their management people to a super swank hotel thousands of miles away from the office, pays for their food, pays for a live band to play music while they’re eating their food, pays for a substantial fireworks display, and then makes them go on treasure hunts together. That’s team building for managerial folk. Team building for us “doing the actual work” type of people consists of the managerial folk calling us into a meeting room and saying “c’mon guys, work harder! Do some overtime!” And we’re left wondering why those managerial folk look so tanned.... I want to be a management folk! But that would mean I’d have to sell my soul, and if I’m going to sell my soul it’ll be to become a superstar DJ or something... Then I can be flown thousands of miles away from my home to go into a dark, cavernous room full of dancing people and flashy lights (that looks just like a dark, cavernous room full of dancing people and flashy lights back at home) and play music for 2 hours. Then go back to my hotel and sleep with a groupie.

Where was I? Did I digress? Can one actually digress when one is on holidays? Isn’t the whole point of vacationing to ramble, let the mind wander and think crazy thoughts while sitting on a beach?

Hey, now the team building group is having a demonstration about how to do Thai boxing! Wow, they’re lucky. What fun.

(a little later)
Well, the Thai Boxing guy with the blue shorts won, though for a long time the guy with the red shorts looked like he was going to win. The guy with the red shorts even did a spinning kick. Seeing as it was a demonstration, the whole fight was rather staged - much like a WWF fight, only in this case the guys were kicking and punching each other, there was strange Thai music playing the whole time, and whenever the guys kicked, a bunch of sand would fly into the audience’s dinner plates (I forgot to mention that the management folk are all sitting behind me on the beach eating dinner before watching the fireworks). And now comes the “team building” part - all the management types got their own boxing gloves and are beating on each other. I really wish I had taken my camera down to the beach. It’s not every day that you get to see management folk punch and kick each other. It’s very gratifying.

Actually, seeing as I don’t have proof (in the form of pictures from the aformentioned camera), you might all think I’m making this up. You might all think that I’m actually sitting in a dingy $5/night hotel room that smells like mould typing up this email. Alas, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

(even later)
Well, those were some fireworks! These weren’t the fizzle-pop kind of fireworks that you light off on Halloween, these were bombs and rockets that pack a serious punch - like the kind they have at the Symphony of Fire, or at big holidays. And I was right beside the guys who were firing them off (and therefore right underneath the fireworks as they blew up in the sky - I could feel a shockwave from each explosion). Very very cool. Definitely worth waiting for.... In my case, “waiting” meant sitting on a beach watching “team building”.

Before I post this blog entry, I have some news to impart. Ubisoft has asked me to work for them in Shanghai for the summer, so I will be returning to Montreal about a week earlier than planned (on May 4th), staying only a week, and then heading off to China until September. This news will suck for 3 sets of people: 1. Those people who enjoy my presence in Montreal (all two of them) 2. Those people to whom I’ve mentioned I’d like to go to Burning Man this year (sorry, it’ll have to wait until next year) and 3. Anybody living in Shanghai. Others will not really be affected by this news, or may even be gladdened by it. But it’s official, I’m going to be working in Shanghai this summer. Hope it’ll be fun!

2006-03-24T12:44:00.000+08:00

Asia! I am now able to add another continent to my list of places I've set foot on. In reality, I have set foot on Asian soil before (I was in Tokyo for 3 weeks in 1999), but Japan doesn't really feel like it counts because it's an island. Sorry to all the Japanese people reading this blog, I'm sure that there are many of you.

Yesterday I travelled for 18 hours on 4 different planes to finally arrive here - on Phuket, Thailand. In terms of time zones, it is exactly halfway around the world from Montreal, my starting point. So I'm halfway there! Fortunately, most of the rest of my trip will be at a much more leisurely pace, so I don't have to suffer through 18 hours in the air again to get back.

Yes, you read that right. 18 hours! But that's not really the worst of it. I also spent another 17 hours waiting for planes while transferring. The first, and longest, wait was in Honolulu, where I had to wait 12 hours between flying from Kauai to get on my plane to Taipei (transfer point #2). I thought I could do some neato stuff in Honolulu, but my plans were seriously hindered by the fact that I had to lug my bag around everywhere. Since 9/11, no American airport has lockers or luggage drop off. Very inconvenient, if you ask me, especially since they could just x-ray your luggage before they lock it up if they're that concerned about security. That's what they do in some European airports.

So I went to the largest mall in Honolulu, thinking they might have lockers or a bag storage of some kind there. And they did! Yay, I thought, only to notice that both banks of lockers were out of order because someone had tried to break into them recently. Poo! For a moment I though I could "lose" my bags, and then pick them up later at lost and found, but that plan felt a bit unrealistic. Instead I left my bags at the cashier of every store I went to.

Unfortunately, due to my continued bad luck with the weather, the one Honolulu activity that would have been a no brainer - going to the beach - was not possible. Once again it was cloudy and occasionally drizzling. So after killing 3 hours shopping (and if you know me, you know I don't like shopping (except for vinyl and cds) so 3 hours is alot) I decided to see a movie. V for Vendetta! Pretty good action flick, actually. It's pretty audacious these days to make a film where the hero is a terrorist who tries to bring the government down by blowing up buildings, but I guess you can get away with it if you hide it between gunfire, blatant 1984 references, Natalie Portman and lots of british people. The American thought police probably couldn't understand a thing anyway with all the accents, so maybe this film won't be all that controversial despite its subject matter.

Movies became the theme of the day for this long trip. As I flew to Phuket, I eventually saw 5 more movies - "Walk the Line" (Liked it), "Elisabethtown" (Liked it), "the Unfinished Life" (Liked it), "the Family Stone" (Okay) and "Good Night and Good Luck" (Okay). Don't take my movie reviews seriously, though. First of all, I was on a plane, so the sound was crappy, the screen was tiny and I was profoundly uncomfortable in my pretzle like position. Second, I was getting very tired, so my judgement could be off... Not like "Liked it" or "Okay" give you much of a review anyway. I think that's a record for me - 6 movies in a 24 hour period. Wow!

Well, enough about that. All this rambling is beside the point because now I'm in Phuket Thailand, and who really cares what movies I saw on the plane, right? What you might care to know about is that I'm _still_ having bad luck with the weather (today: cloudy with occasional rain), but I don't care because it's still very warm and I can go swim and eat real Thai food and try to decipher what people are telling me with their thick Thai accents. The fun never ceases! My stay here will be very short, however. Tomorrow I leave on my boat to sail off into the sunset. Literally. For those of you who don't know, I've included a picture of the boat and of the route I'll be taking on the top of this post (you may have already noticed...). I'm not sure I'll be able to post on this blog from the boat, so there might be one last entry tomorrow before there'll be a long silence. Or maybe this'll be the last entry. But this post is so long that it'll probably hold you over until I have internet again.

Okay, time to include my warmth sans sunshine! Hope everyone is doing well...

2006-03-21T13:18:00.000+08:00

Helicopters Rock!

I've never been on a helicopter before in all my life. Even back in my Vietnam days. But I have to say that few experiences are as visceral as being several kilometers up in the air on an aircraft with no doors on it! Wow! I even got nervous at the beginning - with visions of myself slipping off the seat and falling falling falling.... But then I realized that I was pretty well strapped in and I stopped being so nervous.

The trip was an hour long and we did a tour of the whole island, going right into canyons, past countless waterfalls (of which one is the famous Jurassic Park waterfall where they landed at the beginning of the movie), along beautiful secluded beaches... What a dream! But it was actually reality, so it was even better.

I want to become a helicopter pilot. Don't tell Ubisoft!

By the way, I finally swam in the ocean today. I know you are all thrilled for me. :-)

And lastly, I've been asked to upload a photo of the wild chickens. I will take some tomorrow and upload them in the next post.

Hope everyone is doing well in their respective parts of the world!

2006-03-20T15:44:00.000+08:00

Chickens live the good life here on Kauai.

Back in the early 90s, Kauai experienced something that most tropical islands try to avoid - a hurricane. Lots of damage was done, and people were generally upset about this, but the hurricane turned out to be a boon for the large number of chickens being held captive in farms around the island. Many of the near flightless birds were freed during the storm, and now they run around all over as if they own the place. Wild chickens my friends! Roosters are also rather numerous, because they get to live their entire lives, rather than being culled by the farmer because they don't lay eggs. today, I saw a rooster fly across the road... Very exciting to see such a less than magnificent bird in flight, mainly because I had always thought chickens and roosters were flightless. Boy am I ignorant!

Go nature, I say! I can't really see this sort of mass escape happening to any other domesticated animal - maybe goats, but cows and pigs can't run fast enough to avoid being herded up after a hurricane (especially since they've been bred to be super fat and lazy - literally meat producing machines). I, for one, am happy for the chickens, and seeing them look so free and healthy, leading their little chickies around, is a sight to behold.

The weather has finally turned into what one would expect from Hawaii - hot and sunny. Today I sat on the beach with my parents, but the water is still dangerous due to washout from the rain, so no swimming. There's some disease in there, and those sharks are scary, so I guess I'll have to wait for Thailand to dip into the ocean.

Tomorrow my father and I go on a helicopter tour of the island. Should be fun! It's my first time on a helicopter, and this one flies with its doors off (for a better view, you know?), so I'm very excited.

2006-03-18T05:23:00.000+08:00

Occasionally, you go on a holiday and it doesn't turn out the way you planned it to.

Welcome to my world! I'm in Kauai right now, and I've timed it just perfectly to hit a monsoon. The largest amount of rain they have seen in recent memory. Yay! Well, I'm no stranger to rain, but it's a shame that it's 24 degrees here yet I can't go frolicking on the beach. Well, I can, but my feet will get muddy, which in retrospect isn't that big a deal. Maybe I shall laugh in the face of conventional thinking and frolick on the beach anyway, despite the monsoon!

Tune back soon to find out what happened. Who knows, I might have been eaten by a shark!

2006-03-17T22:43:00.000+08:00

Prior to arriving here in Kauai, I spent two weeks in wonderful Vancouver with my friends and family. Though there was a bit of rain there as well (which is typical for Vancouver), the sun did come out occasionally, and best of all _it snowed_! Something that is rare for the city (and still a big thrill, despite the fact that I live in Montreal where snow is no big deal). The best part was that the day after it snowed, the sun came out and my good buddies Kelsey, Erin and I went skiing on Cypress Mountain. It was an epic day of skiing and boarding - fresh powder, nice soft bumps everywhere and wonderful views of the city and the mountains. My high performance skiis (that I rented) made me feel like a super hero. Hereafter I shall be known as Skiman! And I'll run around wearing tights and a cape and a big S on my chest. Well, maybe not an S, 'cause I think that's taken.

Obviously, many other wonderful things happened in Vancouver, but I won't put them all down here. For now I'm going to try to keep my musings in the present. Which happens to be rainy at the moment, but will hopefully turn sunny and adventurous in the near future.

Hope everyone who's reading this is doing well. I'll keep updating this page as often as possible, so check back every few days to see what Falko's up to. Cheers!