Mutually Awkward Podcast #6: Junk Boats & Psychics

 

 

 

I haven’t promoted the podcast too much on here lately but remembered to as Peige and I just recorded Episode #7 tonight. But that still needs to be edited. In the mean time, here’s Episode #6 from last week! We talking the things mentioned in the title, junk boat parties and visiting Hong Kong psychics, as well as a lot of other good life-stuff. It’s hard to believe that with six episodes of Mutually Awkward now existing, that means there is now six hours of us talking on the internet. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, eh? You can message the show with comments or questions on our Tumblr.

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Mutually Awkward Podcast #2 + My 200th Blog Post!!

 

This podcast is seriously starting to become a form of therapy for me – which is helpful because I’ve been in some dark places lately. It’s weird because I was in a pretty bad depression around this time a year ago too. Is it cyclical possibly?  Or is it because these extra long Hong Kong summer just get draining?

Well, anywho, we recorded episode 3 tonight but that has to be edited. In the meantime, if you’re looking for some new podcasts to listen to, give episode 2 a go. We talk about dating, OkCupid experiences and playing music. So relevant stuff! And it gets awkward…. but in a good way. You can click on the image below to stream, download or iTunes it.

 

 

Post-Blog Posting Edit: 

Upon sending this out, I was notified that this was my 200th post for the blog. Woo! If I had known beforehand, it definitely would have been longer. I guess I gotta make post #201 pretty darn special, eh? In the meantime, it’s quite a feat to have 200 postings up on here. I started on here in 2010, which was a continuation of my LiveJournal which went even farther back. While I just called my new podcast that I co-host a form of therapy, this blog has been around for me much longer and I’m glad it’s been here for me – because even writing a review of an awesome gig or a fantastic movie seriously helps me through bad days and I’m grateful that it is something positive for me to turn to. Onwards!

 

 

Mutually Awkward Podcast

 

It’s been a few weeks since my last post and quite a lot of things have happened since then. The top three of ’em are as follows:

1) I moved out of Jordan in Kowloon and to a new serviced apartment in Sheung Wan on Hong Kong Island.

2) Despite the new apartment, I will only be living there for two months as I’ve come to the hard, scary, exciting decision to leave Hong Kong after 2 1/2 years and return to the States.

3) I visited Korea for the first time – well, technically the second, but you can check the travel blog for that –and had a reunion with someone five years in the making. That post is coming soon.

4) And as the title of this post states, I’ve started a podcast with my fellow California-turned-Hong-Konger best friend Peige, also called Mutually Awkward. The podcast will be in the style of my favorites (Frank & Erik Internet Famous, Nice Man, Next Weekend Show, Hey Girl Hey, Uhh Yeah Dude), meaning it’s pretty much a show about two friends chewing the fat and having good conversation about the world around us and our experiences in it. It’s something we’re both pretty excited about. For now, we record together here in Hong Kong but in two months the show will become recorded via Skype between two continents, which will definitely lead to some interesting recording hours. You can give it a listen by clicking the image below. If you decide to iTunes it, be a pal and give us a rating or a review!

 

 

 

Smegma Riot @ The Live House

 

Smegma Riot

 

Last weekend, after living in Hong Kong for over two years now, I FINALLY participated in a legit mosh pit. The gig was at The Live House in Mong Kok and featured three bands, one standout being the awesome Hong Kong band Shepherds the Weak, whom I had seen at Hidden Agenda a few weeks prior at my second ever metal show and the night stealing Italian China-based punk band Smegma Riot. Their set was something I seriously needed and left me realizing how much I miss going to these kind of shows on a weekly basis. I will definitely keep a mental note to look out for more of their gigs in the near future.

Mental note: summer is coming. I’m wearing shorts next time.

 

Hong Kong Scout Centre

 

Shortly after my parents’ divorce when I was a kid, my father had my brother and I signed up for the boy scouts at a form of father-sons bonding now that he had become a once-a-week parent. For the most part, it was an awesome experience, in which I learned  a lot of lessons in comradery and basic outdoorsy stuff (knots!). It was great until our scout leader went into retirement and out troupe was taken over by over-protective mothers who felt all activities should all be held inside for safety reasons. But those were the dark latter days – all in all, it was a great experience. And it just so happens that I happen to live a few blocks away from the Hong Kong Scout Centre in Jordan, Kowloon. It’s connected a gigantic hotel and though I’ve always walked by with curiosity, it was this weekend that I finally decided to wander in. Though not a museum of scout history (or perhaps I didn’t look quite hard enough?), I saw a few interesting things.

 

The HK Scout founder.

The good ‘ole days.

 

Before I found out where this place was, I would wonder why I always see uniformed kids frequenting my neighborhood. Makes me wants to see if my dad has any of my old Boy Scout photos saved up.

 

Sherlocked in Shanghai

 

With my Chinese Visa expiring at the start of March and me knowing I’ll be a bit lazy in renewing it, I decided to make an impromptu visit to Shanghai last Friday to visit 221B Baker Street Cafe, a cafe completely themed after the popular BBC series Sherlock. 

With me saving for longer trips in a few months and me already having visited Shanghai several times, I made this short trip a weekend affair. After meeting up with my friend who had recently moved there from Hong Kong, we headed off towards the establishment as two Sherlock geeks. I had some doubts on whether the cafe would just have a few decorations based on the series and not a full blown tribute liked I wished. Luckily, it was the latter. Holy cow, was it the latter. The cafe has a partial recreation of Sherlock and Watson’s flat from the series, a table full of his tools, shelves of the original Sherlock Holmes novels, walls decorated with Watson’s blog entries from the TV series and much, much more. After a 30 minute wait for being seated, my friend and I lounged at the bar for almost two hours, drinking Molly Tea (tasting Molly was FANTASTIC), amazing waffles and sipping the Sherlock Coffee.

It was definitely a perfect one-mission weekend travel trip.

 

Finally finding it.

 

Despite the cafe’s name, the actual address is 50 Ruijin Road.

Notice the chibi art.

My coffee.

The menu.

A closer look. As mentioned, I wanted some hot Molly in my mouth that day.

Some cool cards.

Working tools.

A bit of the shelves.

Figurines.

RDJ’s Sherlock sadly only got one sad, shadowy corner of space.

The cool room.

Merch.

Character shipping painted on the wall?

I was happy to see a bit of Mycroft love.

Beyond the Sherlock cafe, my friend and I also failed at trying to see a DIY screening of Nebraska and went clubbing for about 30 minutes before the bouncers made everyone stop dancing for some reason. I also got to see the Shanghai Museum on Sunday which was pretty cool. Here’s some extra pics of the weekend:

A bit of the street life while on the way to 221B Baker Street.

Came across a DVD of Captain Jack Harkness holding a peeled banana at a DVD store.

Saturday night’s dinner was at a Chinese Papa Johns. Tasted exactly the same as back home which was BEST.

And of course, the obligatory Bund photo.

 

 

Shenzhen, China

 

Not really sure if visiting Shenzhen for half a day counts as traveling but I did have to use my passport and Chinese visa to get there from Hong Kong this weekend, so I’m saying IT COUNTS. I mainly decided to check it out because I didn’t have anything really to do on Saturday and also because I’ve never been there. I mainly hung around the downtown area, which was a normal busy shopping district. From what little I saw of the city, it didn’t strike me much different from other Chinese cities I’ve already visited. The vibe was a bit different, however. People here definitely seemed somewhat more chilled out than people in Hong Kong and even some more friendly (a random local dude even sparked up a conversation with me in the MTR, which was pretty cool). I would definitely like to check it out again and see if there are more cooler things that it offers. I know a lot of people like to go there for cheap shopping but I’ve never been one to want to buy things simply because they are inexpensive.

 

This photo exists because Hong Kong 7-Elevens do NOT have slurpy machines.

Lighty.

Laojie.

Veronica Falls (late post)

 

Yikes. The subject of this post is over a month old but dang it, it was a good gig and I’m up late writing so here it is now.The same collective that put up the Best Coast show prior to this, Songs For Children, brought British kind-of-but-not-totally-twee band Veronica Falls to Hong Kong on November 12th. I pretty much enjoyed their entire set and felt they gave off a bit of a Dum Dum Girls vibe. As great as they were, the most memorable thing about the gig was the venue’s gas leak, which threw the entire crowd and the band into mini coughing fits. Before the promoter told us what was happening, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me as to why my asthma was suddenly acting up. Though the promoter suggested ending the show early, the band thankfully decided to press on until the end of their set. Best humans.

 

 

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/57709288]

Final 2013 Week in HK

I head off to home for the holidays in a few hours and instead of getting myself some decent sleep, I’m already screwing up my sleep schedule my staying up late on the internet. The next time I see Hong Kong will be in 2014, but if this past week has to be my last week here for the year, what a helluvah week it was! A quick recap:

 

A Christmas choir concert!

Free outdoor movie near the harbour in Central! (It was “My Life as McDull” – a nice ★★½)

 

Harry Potter double feature with Jeane!

Dinner party #3 at my place! (Photo shamelessly stolen from my friend’s Tumblr ’cause my pics sucked)

The feast.

He lives in a stomach now.

Fish fingers and custard, a meal fit for a Doctor – and something which will be repeated come December 26th.

A second Christmas choir concert! This time for charity!

Giant churches are cool. And old looking.

 

There was also karaoke but such photos of those events do not exist. Farewell Asia until next year! (aka 2½ weeks)

 

 

The Second Christmas Post (Uhh… kinda)

 

With Christmas just barely over a week a way, 2013 is quickly coming to a close. This is the second year in a row where I cannot say it was the best year of my life. It makes me wonder if 2011 was truly my life’s peak and if the rest of my days will simply be a mix of ups and downs that come at will.

I’m not to saying that 2013 was a bad year at all – in fact it was terrific. I’m super grateful for the people currently in my life and all the new experiences that have come my way. I’ve visited three different countries this year and checked out some cool places in China. But nevertheless, I had two depression spells this year, proving things were definitely not totally best. Luckily, things seem to be getting on track after a rough autumn and it being the holidays now definitely helps.

Unlike last year’s holiday season, I made it my goal to have things as easy as possible this December and one thing that helped was wrapping up several long standing projects. One of which is Like Like zine, which my friend Jeane and I created together along with contributions with other friends. It took us a year to finish it and it was in late November that distribution began. This was a project that I was really happy to be a part of and am looking forward to creating another issue in the coming year. The title of the zine was originally a trashed screenplay title brought back to life by this project and the zine itself is a short story compilation all dealing with tales of angst. Though the plan was originally for us to drop off free copies all over Hong Kong and L.A., we ended up also selling the zine at the Kowloon City Book  Fair through our publisher. It was pretty cool! If you’re interested in reading it, you can check out the online version right over here.

 

One of Like Like’s stories, conveniently opened at the tale written by myself.

Yours truly at the Kowloon City Book Fair in a rare blog appearance.

Like Like’s cover and Jeane’s amazing design skills all in one pic!

 

Another thing that I recently finished was a new music video that I edited for Brooklyn-based band Late Cambrian. I think it’s pretty cool that despite living in Hong Kong, all the music videos I’ve edited this year were filmed back home in the states. This one was especially a pleasure to work on as not only was the song within my normal music taste, but it appealed to the optimistic movie geek in me.

 

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/80288127]

 

Tonight is my last night in Hong Kong before I head back home for the holidays. With plans already made to see some peeps I haven’t seen in almost two years, I am quite looking forward to it.