slipping spinning

Having been for the sixth time in many recent years, it really does feel like home. My auntie around a table of Hakka Choi said to me 'how do you know so many people in Hong Kong?' I shrugged knowingly and realising that there was no simple answer. A attention seeking loathelite? A bullshitter pretending to understand with a range of small talk? Maybe someone that just can't take being without someone to express their sadness and all that. I've been accused of most of those, but I know in my heart that none of them are really that true. As I said no simple answer.

But being back in the sterile arrivals area of Terminal 5 (or any airport for that matter), I don't have that tinge of direct sadness I've had a few times leaving. Its funny how I get older and my face is ageing by the day that I don't feel that pang of sadness. I feel that for no matter the distance, no matter the cost, no matter time we can't spare. My friends over a distance are always reachable and it only takes a years wait before I see them again. We all smile, a sharp handshake and a hug. Time slips by as if it was never there and we are all together again.
That was my feeling most apparent, glancing around Victoria Harbour. Although the Star Ferry port had gone along time ago and where was acrid sea was now a building site ready for some advance new greenery park for the people to enjoy. It feels like nostalgia was a little lost and all you can see is the future from that very spot.

I've said before that Hong Kong is where my heart is, but I think I need to take that back. Hong Kong is where I did a part of my growing up and most importantly a lot of soul searching. My auntie always talks about the family and what their problems and issues are at the current time I'm in the kitchen with her chatting over a cup of tea. It isn't a type of gossiping way of talking where we act overly superior, its more this is our family, they have problems, we want to help, but we aren't sure so we use each other as a sounding board. However, much like the way I'm talking about Hong Kong, this isn't the way to fix your family or friends. For the past 7 or so years I've walked this path on my own into finding myself and no one in the family or even my friends for that matter helped in the process. This isn't me trying to sound arrogant in that I don't need friends or family, quite the contrary, when you look in the mirror and you can talk to yourself and be completely honest about what your life is about. Not even learning to like to dislike what is staring back at you, it's about accepting what you are. Your friends have already done that, family have no choice, the only person left is yourself, that in itself took a long time to learn.

In a strange way Hong Kong taught me without lecturing me, that if I look on the inside no matter what is happening around you with the thousands of mad souls rushing around you. Part of my heart is there bouncing on polluted water of Victoria Harbour, but in the end the other part of my heart is content with what is here and now.

To be less pedantic in my words, it was a great holiday, one I didn't really need, but one I enjoyed nonetheless. I saw a genuinely beautiful moment of happiness for my two friends getting married, I met a few new great friends, walked around familiar surroundings, realised I had made some amazing friends in my time at University and we would always stay friends no matter the politics.

I missed you all my beautiful eggs but here's to the future.

musik

• Florence and the Machine

verschiedenes

• snake claypot rice,
• laying flowers for the Grandparents,
• drinking in LKF- Vivian you're forever 18,
• finding ju bau bau for my Su,
• seeing my good friend Charles marry his Beloved and being a part of the day,

bright light city

A year slips by and we are all a year older. Are we a bit wiser, thats for everyone to ask themselves. I feel a bit wiser but still a lot to learn.

The interesting thing is no matter how far we travel in the end we return to where we came from, I'm not saying we go back to the places we were born, it's more the feeling we spend all our time wandering about be it in waterloo station staring at the glass roof, the Midlevels in Hong Kong, waiting for the tide to come in along Southsea beach.

For all the time I spent in Germany, the start of something beautiful and the continuation of it all. I've had a time which I could never believe I would live, glanced upon a endless lake and saw nothing but mountains surrounding, seen the view of a castle in the mountains, caught winter snow and to lay in it and stare at the sky. But most of all I met the someone everyone talked about me meeting.

Tomorrow, I go back to where I came from, but this time I go back a little wiser and a lot richer in my life.

I hope you all find your place in life, laters my beautiful eggs.

kino

• Chungking Express

videospiele

• Call of Duty Classic
• Metal Gear Solid
  

verschiedenes

• forever Hong Kong bound
• My Su

silence through the night

As with each day you age a little, you notice it the most and least in your hands. Everyday you use them and take no notice, its only when you do notice you can see the veins, the wrinkles and the colour of the skin. Once was pale skin umblemished, I can feel the stiffness of my hands as I clench them.

The most enlighthening and enjoyable thing about the latest generation of consoles isn't the ability to waggle your controller at the screen, even the HD graphics burning a hole in the environment. For me it's the ability to download old games.



But with that the nostalgia my fingers are creaking and what games I enjoyed as a teenager which were 'easy' at the time are just making me tearing out what is left of my hair. Well thats melodramatic, just pray Solid Snake doesn't eat lead for the 5th time today.

Laters my beautiful eggs.

kino

• 2012
• South Park– The Movie

videospiele

• Call of Duty Classic
• Metal Gear Solid

verschiedenes

• the new bike,
• Telegrammes work,
• promotions abound,
• making sushi on a Saturday afternoon,
• falling asleep watching Horizon,
• looking after the ill and making congee,

light and the start of

Autumn drew in for a few weeks here, winter came to stay. The odd thing is it feels I’ve been writing this blog for a long time, much longer than the 16 months that seemed so long ago. But in between that time I haven’t been to Hong Kong, anyone knowing me well enough would assume I would write pages and pages about the place (which I have and not shown anyone).

I’m going back in 2 weeks time and not sure what to make of my trip; it came out of necessity rather than want, but has turned to a nice state of wanting. The grey skies of Munich can be blown away five thousand miles away and turning into the blue skies of Asia . The song that reminds me most of the place is El Capitan by Idlewild, they had just released a new album a few weeks before I went there a while back, it was constantly on my mini disc player (which is two new MP3 players since) as I rode the bus to Central.

By the harbour I harbour the strangest memories,
over land I could ever be,
stranded in nostalgia,
so tonight I’ll try harder,
but it's hard to fix this floodlight on me,
in a cast that's taken to places,
I’m unsure of where I want to be,

The truth was at the time I was stranded in nostalgia walking around Victoria Harbour , but the world spun around and it didn’t care for me and my troubles, through design or failure I can look out of my bedroom window and realise I’m in Munich . Maybe not where I want to be, but who really knows where they want to be, especially when you’re 23. But this isn’t the point of this article, I don’t want to end up talking forever about how I grew up and these are the journeys I took to get there or here.

Quite the contrary, I just wonder what Hong Kong is like this time around, I imagine I will end up on the island somewhere with all the greenery, two steps away from the traffic gassing us to death. In the sunlight I find a small white cat with ginger strips sitting in front of me licking its front paw. I ask it where it’s going and walks off in a direction; it turns its head as if a motion to follow me to wherever it is going. I follow it down an alley way which is still drenched in brilliant light, it starts to move faster as I chase it, my steps quicken until I’m running full pace. My lungs collapse under me, looking up the sky is black without stars; the neon signs keep me company for the moment.

These are the things I wonder about.

What do you wonder about my beautiful eggs?

musik

• Next Year- Foo Fighters
• Best of You- Foo Fighters
• Read Music/ Speak Spanish- Desaparacidos
• No Cars Go- The Arcade Fire
• Banquet- Bloc Party
• A Certain Romance- Arctic Monkeys
• Mardy Bum- Arctic Monkeys

buch

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

kino

• Paranormal Activity

schwarzweissfernsehen

• Apprentice- Season 1
• Futurama
• Scrubs

sport

• FC Bayern vs FC Girondins de Bordeaux

videospiele

• GTA4
• Fifa 10

verschiedenes

• seeing Bayern lose because they were crap, Allez Bordelais,
• speaking to my niece on internets, scary stuff,
• realising that films still scare me a lot.
• Not wanting to be ill again,
• The house smelling of Chinese, oh wait………..
• Winter in Munich as the last leaves fall around us,
• The white acer aspire one which seems to belong to my Susu, until I get my new laptop,
• Not being excited about Hong Kong .

they both are satisfied

Some days are easier than others, people would remind me that's all part of life. I find it easier when it's the hard days I'm not in control of, I'm sick, work being shit, I get mugged, the world ends and I'm swallowed up.

It's the other days I find hardest. Choosing the wrong words, not choosing the right words, not doing enough, finding myself staring at my own reflection and seeing my skin ageing by the moment. I wish I was more ill so I had an excuse.

I don't think there are any words I could choose that are mine which would fit. The truth is this is the happiest time in my life.

Love of mine
Someday you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of the spark

musik

• Come to Daddy- Aphex Twin
• Right Now- Korn

buch

• Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

kino

• Up
• Back to the Future
• Event Horizon

schwarzweissfernsehen

• Sopranos

videospiele

• GTA4
• Fifa 10

verschiedenes

• the little potato
• planning xmas trips
• a really nice hot pot
• teaching my Su to drive
  
• long walks into the Hirsch Garten
• random walks leading to the Chinese Buffet
• swimming in an Olympic size swimming pool
• my time with my Su

run rabbit run

The question is what did I make of the motherland? In three simple words, I loved it.

The food was amazing, Beijing was a mixture of modernity and history, it has the pomp of a Communist capital, but the rare peaceful moment. Shanghai hasn't changed since the days of concessions except the buildings are much taller and the money goes into Chinese pockets now. Hangzhou is achingly beautiful, a tourist city which is surprisingly quiet. Wuzhen a mixture of typical poor countryside with one of the most beautiful places on earth.

It met a lot of my expectations, it broke a few others.

The little amounts of freedom taken away, it isn't anything like the West would have you believe, the police aren't hustling you from the moment you wake up. After living in Germany for nearly a year, I get the feeling its actually worse in a lot of cases in the West. The great firewall is more a pain less a way of censoring free speech (I direct people to fu ce ma). Police presence is everywhere, but I don't have the oppressive feeling I get whenever I see the polizei pulling up in Munich.

The poor are as poor as I imagined, there are ghettos in China, but there are favella in Brazil, there are the slums in South Africa, there are the council estates in South London. In reality I don't see how any of these places differ, crime rates high. Walking back from east side of Wuzhen I wasn't sure if we were going to get kidnapped, robbed of our stuff and then thrown into a pit to be buried. I've seen story lines in Chinese TV shows where things like this have happened, you take that with a pinch of salt, but when the local host tells me not to speak any English you have to wonder. My girlfriend was pretty aghast at these kinds of places, she even said she hated where she grew up in a Hutong in the north of Beijing. I suppose with my western eyes and keen camera skills I found it a bit romantic, being close to the locals which is something missing in the red brick estates all over the UK. Her question to me was 'what chance do these people have? They have no chance at a good education, I was lucky'. I didn't give an answer but thought about South London for a few minutes and the Dizee Rascal song World Outside.

On the flipside there is extreme wealth which I think is justifiable, Alan always says we shouldn't look at the past and take too much into account of what our fore fathers did, but after more than 100 years of foreign occupation and the stealing of Chinese wealth, it's only fair that the Bund in Shanghai is now faced by Pudong making more money than all the colonial powers did. This is the economic miracle of China itself, the British through trial and error found if the Chinese if left to their own devices in a free market economy, would chase every dollar as if it was water to man lost in a desert. Although this leads to the pressure you get when you want to browse a store, from both ends its the same, in Xidan on the north side of the road there is a massive expensive modern shopping malls selling designer brands and south side there are massive cheap shopping malls selling fake stuff. In both places you get pressurised into spending money, in the north the assistant followed us around the store until we walked out in disgust, in the south one assistant saw us looking and bargained against himself so we would buy something, while another said it costs this but if you want it I can make it cheaper.

It's been a long article, but take away the food, the photo ops, seeing the places in person, the chance to meet my girlfriends family, the holiday has been a chaotic place for me to learn something new and try to dispel a lot of misconceptions.

In a sentence, it was amazing my beautiful eggs.

throwing my hands up in the air

I think a lot about my time in Kyoto last year with Govey, it had a lasting effect on me, it's a place that reaches down inside. I didn't have the ridiculous notion of wanting to move there like some backpackers do when they end up in south east Asia so they are away from their lives etc. Maybe it was the smell of the incense you bathe in at the temples and all the places of natural beauty that their shrines are built around. I tell everyone to visit there whenever they mention Japan.

Susu was hoping to show me something similar in China because of my endless rattles about how great Kyoto was. Wuzhen at night was beautiful, but it also suffers from the fact its not too easy to get to (some would cry out and say that's perfect for an adventure, I wouldn't) and also it suffers very badly from the 'other side of the tracks' syndrome.

Hangzhou on the other hand, for me even in a terrible mood (a combination of not being able to get cash, a runny bum and feeling generally ill) was a beautiful place, its a place where I knew I had written a poem in my past not realising it was about a place I had yet to visit. Racking my brains I couldn't remember which piece of verse I was thinking about but that wasn't the point. The West Lake is a quiet beauty, even if there are a thousand tourists all huddled around, the Chinese is whispered. The mist moves across the lake past the mountains, bringing things in and out of focus. I saw the lotus leaves although sadly not in bloom, ache gently on the skin of the water as if they were long legged birds walking.

Dotted around the lake are several notable buildings, one I entered had a beautiful garden, this was the hidden China I thought had disappeared down the spout and up a chimney of progress and the future. The stone statues of the garden over grown with the thick kind of moss that can't be removed even with the strongest solvents. My dad told me that each of the places had special names and meant something, this was lost on me at the time.

The Tiger Spring was the last place we visited before Returning for Beijing. I expected it to be one of the few things that are free in the world, but it cost 15 yuan, the main gate opens to a path leading on a gentle slope to the left of a small pond fed by a small brook. The brook runs parallel to the path filling up different ponds with different plants and even trees. Past a statue of a pair of tigers the path gets steeper up some steps and then the spring, An emperor came to the spring tastes the water and said that it was the third best spring in the world. I haven't been to many springs in my life and neither am I an emperor, but it did taste sweet and clean. Past this was a monastery and something out of all the epic Wushu films I have seen in my life this was something that unrolled in front of me.

Is Hangzhou my favourite place on earth, I can be honest and say no, but it is in my top five of places I have seen.

Please enjoy the weeping willows my beautiful eggs.

train under water

It's rare to think that you might not wake up the next morning, it's even rarer for you not to care if you do or not. I suppose it was the first moments of blue sky in Shanghai, the sun coming out and the umbrellas, while I'm carrying a few pieces of luggage, foot hurting because of this that and the other. I feel like I'm going to keel over any moment.

All that forgotten (including the death in the morning by some Chinese countryside bandits), when you look across the beautiful town of Wuzhen. My girlfriend wanted to take me there especially, she knew I loved Hong Kong for all it's city like apparel, but she wanted to show me some of old China.

I don't know the ancient history of the place, but recent history is that it was an ancient city now renovated and now open to the public. Thankfully it hasn't yet succumbed to the mob of tourism (which it will). It sits between Shanghai and Hangzhou, on stilts which raise it above the river. I imagined people catching fish in the day and eating it with the family for dinner. During the day it looks like something from a Chinese Wushu film. But it's during the night that it made a real impression.

There are a lot of beautiful places in the world, many I still have to visit, Kyoto as everyone knows has been my favourite, Wuzhen over took it in an evening.

Hope one day you will see it my beautiful eggs.

god loves his children

Onto a third city, well village, this is to soak something which is slowly disappearing here in China, well in actual fact its disappearing across the world.

As people move into the cities, we see villages become smaller and lose their quaintness. Then people realise that they can move cities out into the country. Franchises are the ones with money and they move into these proto-cities and we end up with clone towns. I know that's a generalisation and actually more prevalent in the UK. But in China, like a lot of places in the world, people are trying to live the dream in the city.

It isn't like the times of the emperor with beggars dying on the street, the people are actually very well fed. For me the eye opener wasn't the strength of the upper classes that can afford the Gucci hand bags or live the bourgeoisie life or even the mass of the lower classes, peoples faces tanned and darkened because of working long hours in the hot asian sun. the most interesting thing I have found is the upper middle class and then way they live. The closest thing I can compare to are the people working in the city in London, except without Esquire snobbery (although, you will be surprised the lengths people will walk around some of what the Japanese would call Bukuramin, even if you were of a lower class).

Susu's cousin is pretty well into her career working as a Marketing Manager for a large clothes brand (it shocked us more because we didn't know which brand until we waited for her in her office). Her English was great with an international twang to it, I'm used to the accent because of where I work, but it had flecks of slang and colloquialisms people are used to from me. A very modern girl, but the life she was living was fast paced, well paid and always looking over the Pearl Delta to other horizons. In the moment I was chatting to her over some glass noodles, two things came to me. The first was that modern China was the city, as I have said disposable income for the upper middle class is increasing, secondly the country bumpkiness of myself and my lifestyle I realised I have been in Europe a bit too long and the culture is ingrained into me. Although that isn't a sign that I will be up and leaving any time soon, I just realise that you have to see the good and bad of the world to learn that you shouldn't always stay where you are.

See you soon my beautiful eggs.

suddenly you complete me

Traveling is a stressful piece of entertainment, but I think I finally understand a bit more about stress of traveling in Asia. The interesting thing it isn't the dark and dank places you end up, Beijing railway in all honesty is a dump, with its piss smelling entrance to the wash-rooms and the dark under lit waiting rooms which lead into further underpass tunnels (which remind me of the places in Munich, without the bad smells). The Shanghai underground is a mess, so many different exits in Renmin sq, not to forget some of these exits border on other underground stations. The Hauptbahnhoff in Munich is also a mess, but with 10 times less people.

The reality here is none of these things are a problem, even if my heel is busted and it feels like I have a 2 inch nail being hammered into it every time I step in my second worse pair of trainers in my life.

The stress is from the throng of people you have to crowd surf every moment you step out of the porch. Your on a train and all you can smell is the guys armpit next to you, without realizing you're almost Chikan the girl to your left, cross the road and you meet some taxis and mopeds head on. I turned to my girlfriend and said 'the funniest thing is Westerners pay to do this,' 'do what?' 'to crowd surf at music festivals, they can do it for free here in Asia'.

Take it easy my beautiful eggs.

verschiedenes

• the trains being nicer than I thought they would be,
• olympics are still impressive a year on,
• Australian traveller prediction,
• the xiao long bao resturant, so good we came back again,
• the canal toilets,

Landlocked Blues

The Forbidden City was the first place to visit and really hit home that I was in the motherland. The two words that came to me as I walked under the second or third arch way after seeing Chairman Mao's portrait for the first time in person.

You walk forever and forever, past each building and you will find another 100 (yes that is a hundred). I spent a good 3 hours wandering around the Son of Heavens home, I could have spent another 3 there taking pictures. With the exception of being able to see it in person, the most content I get out of walking around the place is that for the 60 yuan people pay to get in. For something the Son of Heaven taxed ridiculous amounts of money from the average Chinese person over 600 years to build it, at least this money goes back to the people.

On a side note, that day I got to try a Chinese kebab for the first time, in fact its a turkish style kebab , once cooked the chef sprinkles some extra spiciness onto it. So nice I went to a supermarket to buy the same spicy sprinkles.

Hope you see it too my beautiful eggs

true faith

When my parents were having kids, they never thought that their son would be forever flying at 5,000 feet for most of his time. No parents ever imagine correctly what their kids could be doing in their lives. I sort of hope my children if I ever have any fulfill the Chinese Immigrant dream of one being a doctor and the other a lawyer.

For me though kids are a long way off, I kept saying to Susu that it was all about Russel Peters, I'm going off to meet my Chinese people, come on bring those Chinese now. But to be honest if people know me well enough I haven't been about that for a long long time. I found myself a while back, its strangely a perfect time to come here and experience the real China.

So is there any rhyme and reason about all of this. Not really, coincidence maybe? A little luck? The craziest thing is that I wrote a message to myself a year ago in a note book. I remember the details of the book, I was in a convenience store in Harajuku with Govey, for some reason I wanted to buy a notepad to document last years journey, I half succeeded in scribbling a range of unreadable notes. But back to the message, I found the note book sitting on my drawers in Munich, its nothing special save for the things inside. I started reading and knowing I always write into the back of things I opened up the second to last page.

Andrew, next year your life will be changed forever, make sure you have a good time, Love Andrew.

A year ago I was dreaming about what if, a month ago I was a year younger, three weeks ago I was staring at a piece of dim sum, on the 5th of September 2009 I'm Beijing Bound.

My life changed forever and don't worry Andrew I'm having a better time than you could have imagined that year ago. My point is, once you have found yourself and realized what your life can and should be about, your life doesn't change, its just your perception and how you might enjoy it.

Live your dreams my beautiful eggs.

At our highest point of intimacy we were 0.01 cm away from each other, 6 hours later she would fall in love with another man.

musik

• In My Place- Coldplay
• True Faith- New Order
• A.D.I.D.A.S- Korn
• Hands Down- Dashboard Confessional

kino

• Chungking Express

videospiele

• Gran Turismo Prologue
• Vector Tower Defence

verschiedenes

• Being Beijing bound,
• waiting for the plane downstairs from where I need to be,
• freaking Kasepretzel,
• my mum telling me to bring back some speck
• my auntie telling me to bring sausages to China,

never remember who I am

This is forming into a habit, I spend about 30 minutes on a plane and I'm bored of watching some TV show, which all the business men around me in their sharp suits frown on. I suppose I should downloading the right type of TV show. Ready made for my plane trips, worth a thought for the future.

The rest of the flight is taken up with me working out what to say for the article.

I got lost listening to Bright Eyes in Hong Kong, I've been waiting 4 years to write an article about him for a long time, never having the right words in my deep coat pockets, it was winter in my mind but all the banyan trees were dripping strange roots in front of me like tendrils. I thought about trying to write a poem or a short story, the latter did happen to an extent but I needed to make sure it wasn't about me or him. Just a few pages of him wandering off from a gig into the cold night. I could talk all night about him, talk about how his music changed my life, but that would sound like all the other bullshitters in the world. Spend a lifetime thinking that music is written about you. You've heard it all before, 'this song is amazing', 'this band is amazing', 'you wouldn't understand because you weren't there in the beginning', etc etc ad infinitum.

Because even Conor is smart enough to realise this, for all his pretentiousness and while I, with my ears to the headphones hoping to make sense of his incoherent ramblings. In the end that's none of the reasons why I love his music. To ad lib Dr Dre, fuck music, you can have it back.

No youtube of being easy/lucky/free this time around, I hope your all fucking sick of me talking about it.

Peace out my beautiful eggs.

There's a little bit of sickness in all of us, I'm not talking about the darkness that people deal with, which makes us lash out and do unspeakable and inhumane things. That isn't the darkness I refer, the darkness is when you start lying to yourself well and truly, if you can handle that then kudos to you. Average Joe would tear his soul apart in trying to live this.

Hold me back from the picture show, hold me back and never let me go. Making sense is something less out of the darkness.

musik

• Bonic- Placebo
• Hysteric- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Bixby Canyon- Death Cab For Cutie

kino

• Friday
• Final Fantasy VII- Advent Children- Complete
• Harry Potter- The Half Blood Prince

videospiele

• Dead Space
• little Big Planet
• Noby Noby Boy
• Final Fantasy Tactics- A2
  

verschiedenes

• Hartle stinking up my house in Munich, man stop eating all that meat
• Hartle sticking feathers on my face and a tail on my ass,
• finding the best beef in Munich and not getting my haxe on,
• watches and watches and watches
• not seeing Bayern FC win, I dont think I could handle it if I did,
• sorting out the housing, tax, the polizei,
• fighting for the right,
• seeing the heartbeat of a satellite for the first time in my life,
• Susu telling me off for always going straight for the watches,
• Dead Space being scary and making me wet myself for the shame of it
• Hessi should get a mention, for sorting out my Polizei woes,
• getting a good nights sleep and feeling at home,
• Hartle staring at the Latino girl when she was dancing, then ran away when we just wanted to say hello,
• Monday being a write off, it should happen more often,
• My Susu for being more than smart,

these wooden ideas

I thought about writing about Metal Gear but it would seem like I have a Kojima fixation (which isn't far from the truth). Maybe that's something for later in the day.

In my top ten list of all time games, Suikoden II would be up there, at least my favourite JRPG ever made. Even a friend of mine has it tattoo'd on her back, I for one wouldn't go to far, but I would certainly start remember my obsessing and end up on my back dribbling as if I was Ian Curtis after an intense gig.

The usual is that its just a JRPG, nothing special, the graphics are quaint, even bit of a throw back from the Snes days. For me, it's like when you discover a book for the first time that no one recommended to you. You peel back the pages not knowing if you will finally enjoy the book and in the end you're lying in bed staring at the ceiling.



And it's simply that peeling off the layers of the war between two countries and all the characters of interest and disinterest is what makes the game. Old heroes return from the past, new ones are made, some never return. But in the end, for me its not about them or the politics, it's about two men and their journey from being friends, suffering a betrayal, defeat and ultimately a return to the place where their lives changed forever.

The shame is, unless your an ebay fiend or someone that was there at the beginning, the only change for this is searching for the torrent or to hope Sony release the English version on PSN.

Love you all my beautiful eggs.

I'm unclean, a libertine
And every time you vent your spleen,
I seem to lose the power of speech,
You're slipping slowly from my reach.

Without you, I'm nothing.
Take the plan, spin it sideways.
Without you, I'm nothing at all.

musik

• Remember the Time- Regina Spektor
• Leave Home- The Chemical Brothers
• In Dust We Trust- The Chemical Brothers
• Big Groovy Funker- Plump Djs
• Days Before You Came- Placebo
• Special K- Placebo
• Real Niggaz- NWA
• Fuck Da Police- NWA
• Straight Outta Compton- NWA

kino

• Ice Age 3
• Transformers
• Kung Fu Panda

verschiedenes

• the German and his gadgets- one day I will visit his house and the doors will open like in Star Trek
• realises for all the jousting, I came out a winner and can never lose,
• Auntie Jennifer and Tabea coming over to visit me,
• falling asleep watching Ice Age 3 at the 'exciting bits'
• no more talk of the macbook generation from now til I join it.
• Hong Kong bound come November, thanks BA sale,
• surprising my auntie for my love of rocket and lasagne
• 'you're mother so fat, err she jump up and down' 'she get stuck' 'thank you bye'
• my Su liking my cousin so much she wants to take her home in a rucksack
• Russel Peters and the mileage I'm getting from this,
• realising that things changed at work and not really caring about it all,
• revenge is a dish best served with a Samurai Sword,
• add oil my Susu, I believe in you,

better together

I have a coarse voice sometimes, people say it sounds like I'm speaking out of desperation or maybe speaking out of lost mind. Passive aggressive is what some people call it, I understand why those words form into something like this. To tell you the truth, its neither of those, I just like to remove myself from it all, better be able to walk away from a gun fight than to be stuck there clutching at a pistol when they have a machine gun to your head.

But this is not making any sense I'm sure.

I walked in what was left of the Munich summer, the sun burning my face and giving me lite skin cancer. I looked down at my hands and clenched them into fists. No one gave a toss around me. That's all I wanted to say.

Love you all my beautiful eggs.

There's no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard
Why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together

musik

• Wipeout Pulse OST
• Super Massive Blackhole- Muse
• Starlight- Muse
• Things Are Getting Better- N.E.R.D
• Brain-N.E.R.D

schwarzweissfernsehen

• Star Trek- TOS
• Random Horizon

kino

• Bruno
• Boyz InDa Hood

verschiedenes

• German corrections from a German,
• watermelon dreams,
• Jim getting freaked out from my head bopping at work 'Andrew calm down'
• wanting to be part of the Mac Book Generation,
• getting dinged by a car and the ensuing lengthy time trying to sort it out,
• and all the various justifications I get from the aforementioned German,
• cycling around the whole of Munich and feeling it,
• cheese tasting in the OEZ,
• freaking getting done for 10 euros in H+M- man the sales are at the wrong time,
• shopping with Alan and getting a new jacket, Zara special,
• seven years later,
• Steffi the secretary- such a star,
• my wonderful girl panda,

this film isn't about you

Phew I think I lost myself for a moment there.

The truth is I couldn't help writing about the year in review. I started this blog a year ago to catch the random adventures I would have in Germany. I'm pretty happy with it, the random moments which mean the most to me all captured. I left in November with an idea of what I wanted over the next phase of my life. Then things change and I suppose that's what I never realised in life. How what we yearn for changes even in a space of a year.

I said in a previous article 'I decided to leave these childish things behind'. Over last year I left a bit more than that, but in doing so I gained more and become richer than I could imagine.

Love you all my beautiful eggs.

Trent Reznor said it best 'every day is the same', he cut it with a dose which made you want to top yourself or at least take a machete to some of your co-workers.

Perhaps that's the reason why we do. Listen to his music that is. Why what were you thinking?

musik

• Us- Regina Spektor
• Better Together- Jack Johnson
• Bonkers- Dizzee Rascal
• Funky Shit- The Prodigy
• Fuck the Pain Away- Peaches
• Rap Superstar- Cypress Hill
• It Doesn't Matter- Wyclef Jean
• Got the Life- Korn
  

schwarzweissfernsehen

• Star Trek- TOS
• Louis Theroux

vershieden

• getting ill at the same time as last year, but for this one not utterly ruin me,
• the Susu for looking after me one day, was much appreciated
• seeing the random Astrium criminals, missed some of you guys too,
• beating my all things done in a day record while returning from illness,
• dim suming my face,
• checking out the price for a future,
• Selina is still a monkey in my eyes, a geek monkey,
• waiting for the busy month of return vistors,
• couldn't predict the famous death this time around, I did get Linda McCartney right however,
• talking to Mitu about gaming, im an intellect without the books,
• playing with the new lens, new ideas but new skills need to be learnt.
• Sorting out the woman from downstairs, her tent is now sorted and packed away.
• Getting back the kudos Newman gained from telling people about TVs
• The beginnings of my Mac Book Dreams
• Getting to see my Susu as soon as I get back,

held the world in your arms

I've been meaning to write an article about the lifestyle, but every time I start it ends up like something that would appease Tyler Durden.

I woke up crack with a headache splitting the insides of my head, not even the paracetomol thats been fermenting in the back of my office drawer has the guff to make things better. Maybe I caught this off one of the guys at the office who should really have known a bit better than to eat pork while he was ill.

The headache has subsided a little and I'm staring out of a starboard window on the plane, the clouds lay across the sky as if small islands, the air lapping up against them like the sea. I look at the horizon and its far away but I can see the gentle curve, I wonder if I ever went into space I could see the dark kissing where what little air can save me.

This week has been one of minor revelations, I've reached a fixed point in my life where whatever pain or stress I'm starting to reel from could be put down in a few moments. Call this contentment, call this what you will, I found something special, not just inside me, but someone that's keeping me sane in a world which just makes you want it take more and more paracetamol's until your liver goes green.

Which makes me come to my point as I glance again out of the plane window, living a dream, this is a life which neither God blessed or my ancestors provided for me. I'm not that naïve. This life is everything I've asked for and more importantly fought for.

My beautiful eggs, fight for it, otherwise you don't deserve it.

musik

• The Fear- Lily Allen
• Ash Like Snow- the brilliant green
• The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Of Me- Brand New
• Hysteric- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Gimme Shelter- The Rolling Stones
• Blue and Black- The Rolling Stones

kino

• Terminator 4- Die Erlosung
• Election
• Borat

schwarzweissfernsehen

• Ali G show
• Evangelion
• Case Closed
• The Apprentice finale

vershieden

• seeing the Hitler was given for his brithday, amazing.
• seeing us nearly fall off a cliff at the expense of the above, dangerous.
• rude Austrian watiers, its not a surprise, it's a must,
• David enjoying my mix cd, there is more where that came from,
• German road rage on the way to the airport, sure let of some steam but don't try to broadside me in the process.
• Spending more money than sense,
• Susu finding more functions in my mp3 player than I thought possible,
• The kings sea being as beautiful as it should,
• a wonderful weekend in Austria with my Susu.
• The non-excitement about the champions league final- congrats Barca.
• Living a life of normality in a place with a lack of normality,
• the miracle of facebook,
• feeling the need for a decent nights sleep for once,
• getting my MacDonalds Ice cream on,
• My Susu's unexpected arrivals.
• Being slow in updating the blog,
• the freaking bayerisch polizei,
• enjoying my new mp3 player keeping me sane in the office,
• biking around munich- quite a freedom,
• the shout when Jasmina won the Apprentice, never has Susu jumped through my table with such speed
  
• emails from my mum scaring the girl, mum surprises me at every point in life,
• weather come back, we had it all in Mai, please don't let it be,
• pig flu invading the Portsmouth office,
• My Susu looking after me when I was feeling rough, the congee wasn't close, but I'm grateful nontheless,

live in a hiding place

When its out it's hot, my skin browns instantly like its in an oven, but this is something I can't complain about. I wrote a while back trying to catch my steaming breath in my hands, but maybe I was wrong. I was spending my whole life trying to stay in the cold, laying in the snow passing out and falling asleep. I could easily pass out in the Englischer Garten and die of sunstroke.
I remember back in November picking up a book which changed my attitude to life and most importantly gave me a bit of structure to it all. I was told to make some goals and at the time I quietly whispered them to myself and gave me a year to achieve them.
I look back 6 months and it's time to make some new ones. No suggestions, I know what I need to do.
Love you all my beautiful eggs.

What a life it would be
If you would come to mine for tea
I'll pick you up at half past three
we'll have lasagne

I'll treat you like a Queen
I'll give you strawberries and cream
then your friends will all go green
For my lasagne

musik

• Step Out- Oasis
• Underneath the Sky Tonight- Oasis
• Cum On Feel the Noize- Oasis
• Talk Tonight- Oasis
• District- Sick of It All
• Dig Your Own Hole- The Chemical Brothers
• Out of Routine- Idlewild
• Cheated Hearts- Susu Chen
• Stay the Same- Idlewild
• Witness the Fitness- Roots Manuva
• Supo Mungam- Akane

Kino

• The Wrestler
• Election 2
• Kidulthood
• Adulthood

Fernsehen

• The Apprentice
• Derren Brown- An Evening of Wonders

vershieden

• Using the MacDonalds coupons,
• My gf bringing moments of incredible insanity,
• Phoning random friends and for them to not know it was me,
• Skimming stones failure, the stones are shite in Bayern! What is a man to do?
• TU-NA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the two Turkish best friends,
• Shoes!!!!!!!!!!!! and loads of nice clothing I can't afford,
• the man selling bad roses with a log tied to his leg
• seeing boats that could never travel the world and feeling sorry for them
• finally getting my photographing back on,
• My mate Newman cos hes a bastard just like me,
• Making sushi for the girl,

culture gets too much for me

Talking out loud is something I'm not famed to do, but this last few weeks I've been out there seeking advice, getting to know and finding out the things I need to know. I suppose this is me making sure I have something else out of all of this.

But in the end I'm just happy to get the support of my friends, family, colleagues and my girl. People call me selfish, but this is really a means to an ends.

Love you all my beautiful eggs.

Building the future and keeping the past alive are one in the same thing.

musik

• Screaming Infidelities- Dashboard Confessional
• Emergency 72- Turin Brakes
• Horse for I- Bat For Lashes

Kino

• Star Trek
• High Fidelity
• 2046
• Frost/Nixon
• Fast and the Furious 3

Fernsehen

• The Apprentice

vershieden

• Being accused of knowing Wong Kar Wai and for him to make a film about me.
• Not having to buy food for a week,
• Getting MacDonalds coupons.
• Finding the three eating machines of Gary, Po Han and Judy.
• The girl coming to watch football with me.
• Always sharing my bier.
• Another new watch but from the airport woman this time around.
• My dearest Panda, she keeps me sane.

a little discourage

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Chapter 13, verse 11

I reread some of the things I put up on here, the biggest change has been the absence of malice, my hatred of people and things slipped through the cracks of life. I gave up some of those childish ways and realised there was something better.

For all my anxieties and issues, I realised I'm the luckiest man in the world.

I wasn't sure why I was feeling a bit emotional after the second beer. Maybe they had added something into it but it was getting to me. A few minutes before I was at a table of colleagues laughing and joking, knowing this was the loneliness moment in my life. I flick at the phone and send some random texts to people that care.

A few minutes into the future, I'm approaching my flat racking my brains, my mind is filled with images I wanted to show her, it was filled with words I wanted to tell her. In the dark I see someone sitting on the steps shivering, I get closer and she looks up and I sit down next to her. We wrap each others arms around each other, the words I try to say don't actually escape, they simply croak into the cold air. No one is around to notice the tears streaming down my face.

It's these moments I fight to live for.

versheiden

• Yorkshire Tea even with Germs milch is not far from the truth,
• still not getting my chicken on,
• getting my curry on,
• Foster, Baker and Newman for being such good eggs,
• My amazing girlfriend, my best friend, my lover, the girl that brings a lot of smiles to this pandas chubby face.

fly straight into my heart

Caught out with another trick I suppose, maybe it's the age I'm at, the big smoke isn't as a welcoming place like it was in the history books, people get seduced by the bright lights and all the rails and roads which lead them into the heart of the mess. I lost that shine in my eyes a long time ago, the bright lights of Hong Kong made me jaded a long time ago, London's lights are really different, it doesn't shimmer like Hong Kong in the rain. I cough because of a mild cold and I'm not entirely comfortable with it all. Maybe its all these tourists

Having been in Munich for nearly half a year now, time slips past like water through my fingers. I keep saying about the change in life and how I'm finally content. The truth is I moved to Germany at the right moment in life, spared all the blushes of being a junior, afforded all the leeway of someone still starting out on that big adventure. You wonder how many people actually get to live the dream they had when they were a child, at junior school, at college, at university. I stare around the train carriage make a judgment and keep it to myself, lest I feel the wrath of the pretty girl sitting next to me.

Its nice to unwind for a minute there, for all the talk about needing a break, I come to the UK in bright sunshine on my back, only for that to turn into a lovely singular grey, the sun petered out on the UK a long time ago. the rain dries off me in the warm train, snobbier person than me would hate on the mix of society riding with me, but I suppose I find it quite comforting, we are all in a rush like a bunch of mad cows. Hearing ourselves into a mass of bodies in a sardine tin. For all the money that isn't in my pocket and in the business mans nice saville row suit we all stuck together. I don't want to exchange words, thats not the point,

I just hope most of these people will get off at Guildford, I'm assuming the men in suits and maybe the old lady sitting in front of me will. The gray weather doesn't get any better the further south we travel.

Much love my beautiful eggs.

musik

• Pioneer to Falls- Interpol

buch

• From Hell- Alan Moore

kino

• Maverick

vershieden

• everyone getting serious on me and my situations,
• missing the girl,
• the new bag, took ages to find, but stumbling on it is always the best way for shum,
• still waiting to get my Chicken on,
• English being spoken on the TV, but without a Germs accent,
• Phil asking me to spend a lot of money on stuff I don't want or need,
• the woman in the shop trying to sell me Italian made leather holdall for £250, my budget was a bit stretched,
• my mum being curious about stuff,
• finally finding the stand I wanted for my desk,
• my netbook being shit hot at what I want it to do, 9.04 Remix is coming to sort the rest of my woes out,
• sushi-ing it up with Gobu-San, the waitress is so your wife,
• that epic Scouse Red vs Chel game, what a game I tell thee,
• the training course in general, many new ideas, many geek things running through my head,
• extra tea with love notes written to the cleaning ladies in the hotel, nice,

soul meets body

Underneath the sky was an Oasis song which I tied to one of the games of my life. It wasn't by design.

I had a grey television, I forget the make but it was a hand me down from my eldest brother, he always handed me down the worst things, or rather things he couldn't sell or give away for free. Regardless it was grey and to tune it you needed to pull down the front panel so you could reach the tuner bits, pull out a piece of plastic which was the right shape to fit in the tuner bits. Then slowly twist it until there was a wondrous but entirely analogue picture being less than sharp on the screen.

This was the television I played Zelda- Link To The Past, we talk about the age of HD and connected. But with the game, a joypad, the SNES and a grey analogue television. It needed nothing else other than for me to play one of the best games of my life.

I talked before about studying particular games of the past so we could create the future, but in reality, for me this game is ageless. You could make it now with the same graphics and it would still have the impact it did then,

If I wanted to make a particular point about something, this wasn't it, I just wanted to tell everyone about my grey television, listening to Oasis and playing Zelda.

Love you all my beautiful eggs.

Something a bit more serious.

A short weekend break with Baker we tripped it through Germany, Belgium, France and then the UK. It wasn't hard from my point of view but then I didn't have to do any driving, Baker rubs his eyes and necks some of his Red Bull. I just stare out of the window and watch the Bavarian Countryside turn into the Rhineland then into the flatness of Belgium.

The weather doesn't welcome us into Belgium, its grey and stark, no streaks of beautiful white on azure blue. I cut out the weather man in the middle and say its going to be bad weather in the UK thats coming towards us.

But it isn't a day later the sky is wonderful, I'm back on my way to London for the 20th time during the last 2 years or so.

musik

• Chasing Cars- Snow Patrol
• Your Heart Is An Empty- Death Cab For Cutie
• Soul Meets Body- Death Cab For Cutie

kino

• Finding Nemo
• Goodfellas

vershieden

• the new watch, good choice,
• a good Belgium beer,
• getting my kebab and burrito on,
• maybe exhausting all the fights you could put together in the history of life and times,
• the brightly blue brothel in Frankfurt,
• realizing I wasn't in Germany for a few moments,
• not getting caught out by the bank holiday trainage,

all they want is a free ride

Luke and Laura stayed this weekend gone and it was really good to see them. I got the feeling they were tired from all the walking, I got the feeling they enjoyed it, I also get the feeling it wasn’t what they expected. Rather they walked in with no expectations.
And I suppose that’s what I feel most about Munich, it’s a wonderful city without particular things which pull me towards it. People play the game, yet I’m craving the shittiness of a Hong Kong. Everything works, yet I’m missing the handset less, phone booths you find everywhere in the UK. I’m happy to start my new life out here, yet I miss the life I had before. I suppose the last one is me getting older and wanting to begin my new life.
I have a headache now, the sides of my mind spitting out the bad tasting liquorice all sorts.
Missed my girl panda, missing all the eggs I know across the world. Don’t worry I’m never gone too long.

Do you know the difference between drinking wine and drinking water? The more wine you drink, the warmer you'll get. Water will only make you feel cold.

musik

• Shoreline- Broken Social Scene
• No Sunlight- Death Cab For Cutie
• Grapevine Fires- Death Cab For Cutie
• Feugo- Murder By Death

Kino

• Body Of Lies
• Hot Fuzz

Fernsehen

• Flight of the Conchords- Season 2
• 24- Day 7
• The Apprentice
• Battlestar Gallatica- Season 3
• Arrested Development

vershieden

• Luke and Laura, some amazing eggs those two,
• Drinking more beer than I crave to imagine,
• peaches with the rubbish music and the good cocktails.
• Having a weird Sunday afternoon staring at all the meat on sale,
• Realising that all the best secrets are the ones I’m best at keeping,
• My panda bringing me new tops to wear,
• Walking around Munich for miles and miles,
• Jude and Hareld, which a lovely bunch of eggs,
• Burning myself in the oven,
• Arguing with Susu, I made a mistake, I'm really sorry,
• The vanilla tobacco,
• The massage chairs in the Deutsches Museum, worth the admission alone,
• Getting asked by the customer to the server room and not get a bollocking,
• Starting up the running again,
• Having a tired week without doing the extra hours,

this bar is a beautiful place

I wanted to write something a bit longer article wise this time around, but it's one of those moments which are escaping me. You spend a whole lifetime gearing yourself up for these moments and it's like a blissful white. If this was heaven i'm sure someone would tell them about this.

The truth is I didn't want to write anything too long this time around. Happiness is a hard thing for me to get down on paper.

you won't have to strain to look into my eyes.
I'll be your winter coat buttoned and zipped
straight to the throat with the collar up so
you won't catch a cold.

musik

• This Bar Is A Beautiful Place- Ryan Adams
• Call Me On The Way Back Home- Ryan Adams
• Don't Think Twice It's Alright- Bob Dylan
• Shelter From The Storm- Bob Dylan
• Get This Or Die- Slipknot
• Chop Suey- System Of A Down

kino

• Rockinrolla
• Lost In Translation
• Tales Of the Black Freighter

schwarzweisefernsehen

• 24
• Battlestar Season 3
• MOTD
• Flight of the Conchords

vershieden

• Susu Chen
• football, bad game, bad aches, shouted at, enjoyed it immensely
• going toy shopping in Munich, Muller fucking amazing,
• fussball with Jude and Hareld,
• realising the next chapter has really started
• someone choosing my new watch,
• the new mobile, well good ,
• walking in the sunshine along arms looped together,
• not having cold feed in bed,

nothing here breathes in the cold

There are a few films I'm really glad have been made, one is a German film which is a story for another day. The other one is 'This is England', throughout my life I've been asked the special question 'are you English?' my usual answer 'No' but its just a word really. My answer has never been important in this respect.

But I digress, this film resonates on a few levels, although I was never there for the height of prejudice and neither was I living in an area with a larger ethnic minority population or had a knife to my throat because of the colour of my skin. But its words that dance around you hurt the most and you learn to grow thick skin, but the truth is they will always hurt. Between friends and family we joke with the words, 'reclamining' them but I realise the older I get the more absurd it is when I say them and hear them. I was born just before the time the film was set, but the images it shows, I remember them vividly from my childhood. The grey slab pavement of the shopping precinct, boarded up shops where no one shopped, I can remember the smell of the wet concrete, even Roland Rat.



What makes the film though is Stephen Graham, he upset me with his words, for what he does, for what he believed in. But the truth behind all the violence and hate was that he was angry with the world, with Thatcher, with the way England was after the 70s. I don't blame anyone for thinking those things, even turning up to a National Front meeting, I just wish they could find another way.

When he pointed to his heart and forehead and said 'This Is England' I really agreed with him, there is nothing wrong with pride.

My arm was twisted, while my left arm was broken, the blood gushing from a cut just above my eye. The bright lights of the ambulance before the sirens, before they turned them off. The screaming in my ear, I couldn’t do anything except pick myself up and dust myself off with my only good but twisted arm.

This was winter air perfect for this very moment.

musik

• Tunnels- The Arcade Fire
• Laika- The Arcade Fire
• Melt Your Heart- Jenny Lewis

schwarzweisefernsehen

• Long Way Round
• Flight of the Conchords

vershieden

• accidently stumbling on the secret of good pastry,
• swimming twice a week with Bakersfield 90210,
• playing big D and only getting 'fried' once,
• going to Austria and nearly ending up in hell for an ice cream,
• the old lady talking to me in the Kaufhof and teaching me some Bayerisches,
• not going out to eat,
• the new phone telling me distances in Km and miles,
• baking a freaking apple pie in the middle of the night when I wanted to make a freaking cake,
• Susu leaving me yoghurt in the fridge,
• Newman gets a mention for picking something up in England, cheers dude,
• the smell of pipe tabacco,
• making kebabs with Susu, even though she picked all the 'right size' mushrooms before I could,

prophesize with your pen

Differences or similarities? Interestingly the things that we believe that keep us as humans together are usually keep us apart, things we believe keep us as humans part are usually keeping us together. Man built the Tower of Babel as an epitaph to our great achievements. God looked down and was unhappy and gave man a multitude of tongues so we couldn't communicate. The tower waned in the swirling winds and crumbled into dust.

Believe in the story or not, there are some truths in this, differences in language, culture, colour, creed, faith. All bring sadness and separation for what should be the human race. But to me, having had the chance to pick and choose, look at all the similarities and differences, I've come to embrace my differences within each space and display them like a peacock fanning its tail feathers for the show.

What started off as a disagreement as part of a conversation has turned into agreeing something over a cup of bad starbucks cappuccino. The only people that can keep a language alive is the people that care most about it, the people that speak it.

We stayed up till 4 in the morning, we listened to as many records I thought she would like. She asked me if we could hear the Bright Eyes song again. I obliged and I asked her if she preferred apples or pears.

She replied to me 'apples of course'.

musik

• Times are a changin'- Bob Dylan
• I Will Posessess Your Heart- Death Cab For Cutie
• First Day of My Life- Bright Eyes

kino

• Watchmen
• Ashes of Time

videospiele

• Street Fighter IV

vershieden

• cups of tea made by my mum,
• spending ages trying to set up computers and then for them to finally work,
• a taxi driver that doesn't like football, how refreshing,
• being able to see match of the day even with the three stooges on there,
• Baker turning to me and saying 'you've found your niche'
• my two sisters, Chan for being my lil one and YY for being my older one,
• being shocked about information about people I know,
• surround sound system, so nice and loud and surrounding me,
  
• Susu making me chicken soup and staying up til the break of dawn.

barefoot in the shallow creek

It's only nature to be more than a thousand miles away and feel that you're missing the sea, I hold my breath in the bath to imagine what it's like to drown in the sea. The saline water filters up my nose and I struggle to keep the remaining oxygen in my lungs. It all escapes and the my arms freeze as I'm trying to catch the light narrowing into the top of the waves.

Being away from home, in a foreign country, it makes me realise I had always felt I was in a foreign country growing up in the UK. It wasn't the spiteful things they said when I grew up, it isn't the fact my skin is yellow or even the fact I eat rice instead of potatoes. It's something much simpler than any of this, my heart is in Hong Kong, it just took me a few years to realise it.

Love you all my beautiful eggs.

Early morning sun,
All shades of colour burnt out,
Only dead leaves found,

Balcony watching,
Heartless souls abandoned for change,
Wallet now heavy,

Insightful ending,
As if they won the world war,
Taking the credit,

musik

• Bixby Canyon Bridge- Death Cab For Cutie
• I Will Possess Your Heart- Death Cab For Cutie
• Bionic- Placebo
• Teenage Angst- Placebo
• 36 Degrees- Placebo
• Come Home- Placebo
• Keeping Fishin- Weezer

kino

• Chungking Express- Criterion Edition
• Kung Fu Hustle
• No Country For Old Men

videospiele

• Noby Noby Boy
• Wipeout HD

vershieden

• YY with all her accusations- I am a good boy honest,
• harder faster, forever after, harder faster, none of you can make the grade,
• German TV being filled with my favourite ever TV show Galileo,
• realising how much I have changed in even a year,
• the tofu,
• knowing a little photography,
• the Germans not excepting change,
• being a tramp outside the Schloss Nyphenburg,
• brickwalling it with my German, need to get back into it,
• Linuxing to the point where terminals are my life and all I see in front of me,
• knowing how good Bladerunner,
• not realising how good full fat kokosmilch is,
• in the worlds of Colonel Ouramov- 'you can't win'
• I have to mention Susu otherwise YY will get suspicious,
• making it when an Italian complements you on how smart you look today,

guess it's real enough

One of my favourite games which in actual fact doesn't have much 'gaming' to it. Buried in all of the platformers which I was poor at, my brothers trick for finding rare games was uncanny. At the time FMV was still a big thing for CD based games and hearing the characters actually talk with real voices rather than R2D2 bleeps. But that wasn't the moment that stuck in my head, as part of the introduction to the game you are chasing after a colleague who has requested back up, you hear an off screen scream. When you find your colleague his head has been twisted off and is sitting in his lap. I owe Kojima San for scarring a kid of only 10 years of age, but I suppose that's where my sick fascination of horror comes from.

This game is Snatcher, part comic book, part film, mostly detective game, a complete steal of the Terminator and Bladerunner. However, I will save the explanation of what the actual game is about, wiki can do that.



The truth is I wanted to share it with everyone who hasn't touched it, especially my friends of the hardcore gaming fraternity, we always talk about games as art, but if we don't study the past you can't appreciate the present or invent the future. Kojima-San I await the next instalment, or even the Policenauts Aigo translation.

I fall over and laugh at myself, I dust off the snow on my coat and hair and pick up my glasses. It feels a million years since I was clutching at my copy of Norwegian Wood and beating myself up for my love of that girl. I feel like passing out and I lean backwards until my legs snap and I'm laying in the snow. The cold eats me up and spits me back out with nothing inside.

It snows some more, no one can find me underneath it all, I've never felt so content.

musik

• Powder Blue- Elbow
• Don't Mix Your Drinks- Elbow
• Rebellions (lies)- The Arcade Fire
• Take It Easy (Love Nothing)- Bright Eyes

videospiele

• GTA IV

schwarzweissfernsehen

• Germany's Next Model

vershieden

• the random Chinese girl teaching me mandarin for her to slam the table when she said success, very good,
• Niko- nobody fucks with my family,
• amazon.co.uk for making me spend money
• Heidi Klum when she walks in, not when she opens her mouth and German comes out,
• not realising I couldn't speak German when talking to the technicians in one of the operations rooms,
• seeing a square bathtub,
• spending 2 hours shutting down the server room,
• the girl walking while reading down SendlingStr, very hot but walking into everyone,

never hated a tobey

Cultural Observation No. 18
I met a French girl when I was holidaying in Japan, she explained to me in quite an amusing way how German people speak. It was a touch racist but I did find it funny because she had a wonderful laugh and wasn't like the rest of the Cobra Kai's in the youth hostel. The other thing she explained to me was crossing the roads, in Germany and Japan, even if there are no cars on the road, under any circumstances you never cross the road. Watching them wait at the lights while I jog past and wave can feel a bit Monty Python-esque.

Cultural Observation No. 232
Germany like Japan always seems to have groups of teenage boys/guys that seem to all dress the same. I don't mean similar but the same. On the train today three lads, same style leather jacket, same colour, same pair of stone washed jeans. I would have looked harder and I probably noticed the same hair cuts. Thankfully their shoes were al different.

I slid a piece of paper under the door, on it I had written how much I was in love with her. I kissed it before I slid under the table and left without saying a word. Outside it wanted to rain but it was a beautifully bright day, a bunch of kids were playing in the street trying to unhook the cover of the fire hydrant.

She called me a few hours later after she had woken, that was the last time we ever spoke to each other. That was never by design, so I couldn't regret anything.

musik

• Drone- Rise Against
• Kotov Syndrome- Rise Against
• Injection- Rise Against
• Bionic- Placebo
• Beverly Hills- Weezer
• 1979- Smashing Pumpkins

kino

• Ratatouille
• Ghost In The Shell
• Bladerunner Final Cut
• Tropic Thunder

schwarzweissfernsehen

• 24- day 7
• Battlestar Galactica- Series 4
• Band Of Brothers

vershieden

• Dumplings ala Susu, she's a good chef,
• falling down a mountain that is covered in snow (rather ice) with plastic attached to my feet,
• where you can
• not being able to make up my mind if I fancy Jennifer Garner, (survey current says uh uh)
• Su Chen with her glasses, well cool
• getting a good nights sleep for once,
• and then spending a week not sleeping and staying at work for most of it.
• good chat with the manager, maybe there is hope for us,
• learning that Janet has a secret blog which is probably filled with her sexploits
• finding the best Chinese super market in Munich,
• being able to go home for a weekend,
• talking to a German girl about her sex life, err yeah makes for good readings.
• losing another notch on my belt,
• getting that macintosh ive been after
• registering in Germs, another notch on my move here, no info, just get into it,
• not being shocked at the cost of things above 100 euro out here,
• ordering hackfleisch auf deutsch
  
• seeing Phil and Janet over some Japanese food,

if you were winter

Something like all the changing seasons rolled into a single film. Washed over with all my favourite bits of the year. I really enjoyed it, please go find the album and I'm sure you guys will too.





If you could ever get as close to picking out the images in my head for a perfect teenage romance, this is pretty close. Sounds a bit sick to say that, but as a series of moments it clings perfectly, just that warm feeling as I fell asleep.

Juno MacGuff: As far as boyfriends go, Paulie Bleeker is totally boss. He is the cheese to my macaroni. And, I know that people are supposed to fall in love before they reproduce, but... I guess normalcy isn't really our style.

It only snowed twice when I was in uni, the first time was the best, I ran out with my flat mates and played the typical snowball fight, after being downed by a rock inside a snowball I fell over and lay down in the snow, breathing heavy from my running around like a 12 year old and smoking like a 64 year old. I breathed in and the air was pure ice, filling my lungs with some crispness I hadn’t felt in a long time. I closed my eyes and wondered if this was how I wanted to die, that crisp feeling of being numb from all my limbs to the very ends. The sordid ring of my mobile broke the moment, it was Lana and she wanted to eat some food.

musik

• Like A Rolling Stone- Bob Dylan
• Juno- Soundtrack
• Losing My Religion- REM
  

kino

• Juno

schwarzweissfernsehen

• The Terminator- Sarah Conor Chronicles
• Chris Rock- Never Scared

vershieden

• Sat Nav games,
• looking for petrol in the middle of the city,
• Continuing to speak more random German, practice makes perfect,
• Watching my predictions come true,
• Spending an hour waiting in the KVR only to find that I was in the wrong office.
• Spending 5 mins in the aforementioned KVR sorting out the paper work and then leaving speaking German.
• Zoe- for reading my words- miss putting cake in ur face

sunlight that surrounds you

The 80's were a pretty vivid place for me, I remember the most random facts, but that is for another post. The 90's is where I found some of myself and then left it out to grow out of date on the side before University and work set me free. Waking up on Sonnestag in the morning, the light isn't cascading through the clouds as it was yesterday, but I'm not complaining as its bright enough for me to save some cash on the electricity bills.

A few days ago I said to my friends I had burnt a paper with her name written on it, I suppose this is true in some ways, I made another decision after a month of much realisations. Baker was right in that we don't change much beyond 25 years of age, but then he's wrong because even post 25 we can still be malleable like any good length of steel. But for what I wanted to say, a few posts ago I wrote that untying the feelings in my mind was a full time occupation, but this has changed a bit more, it's more of a case that untying what drives us and motivates us the key to understanding all this. And then to let it all go.

I'm not saying letting go of your motivations, but to let go of the neuroses and the 'experiences' which hold you back. A different friend of mine Rich, he talked about the comfort zone, this isn't what he meant, but this is my interpretation.

Love you all my Beautiful Eggs.

Emily kept stirring her coffee, it was still too hot and she didn't want to burn her tongue. Instead she lit up another and hoped the cancer was eating her up from the inside. She was skinny but didn't feel it, her ribs were showing but she ate so much every day. She closed her eyes hoping that everybody would disappear from in front of her and the world would be quiet again.

She sipped her coffee and it was still too hot and she stuffed her earphones into her ear and played some music. The world fell silent and from the aether and the world was filled instead with strings playing Bach. She stirred her coffee some more.

Emily had light brown hair in the summer which turned a dark oak in the winter, her finger nails were painted the same oak colour and she was rather regretting her choice of coffee in such a warm day. Her father had been warning her of the day when the world would collapse and it would start with a warm spring time in the middle of the city. It was already June and the sun was at its highest, the people on their lunch breaks milling around looking for somewhere to sit down and eat. Emily wasn't that hungry but still attacked her muffin made by some poor student who had come to England hoping to get their degree but not intending to be working in a franchise coffee sweatshop. Emily hoped those sweatshops would fashion a dress she would want to buy.

musik

• Execution of All Things- Rilo Kiley
• Dance With Somebody- Whitney Houston
• Business Time- Flight Of The Conchords

schwarzweissfernsehen

• The Terminator- Sarah Conor Chronicles

vershieden

• my new pet name for Jose,
• sweetcorn being the best looking fruit in the world
• walking on a frozen river towards a castle, nearly cracking the ice on the aforementioned river,
• Making a work zombie film in Munich, there's mileage in it all.
• Ordering bread in Germs, slowly getting there.
• Finally getting a teapot
• Lily cooking me luncheon, was very nice,
• talking utter trash to Baker because I know he loves it,
• getting Leslie to commit to coming here and sampling some beers,
• Kinneav hopefully bringing the wife here sometime, will enjoy their egg faces,
• Janet should realise how much we are alike,
• Daffy Duck was always fucking better,
• not rising to the bait,
• the pretzel girl with the withered arm in the Hofbrauhaus.
• Looking forward to Susu's dumplings, yes yes yes.
• Steve Smith