“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.” - Ray Bradbury
Yes, yes. I know I’m ridiculously behind on getting photos up from our Korea & Japan trip. In the meanwhile though ‘our’ official reviews of hotels from that trip have been published. So for your pleasure, explore the delights of the W Seoul Walkerhill, Four Seasons Tokyo Marunouchi and, my favourite, the Park Hyatt Tokyo. Mmm… you want to go to there.
Regular readers of this blog will know I’m a tad bit obsessed about Parisian street artist Invader. In fact this very afternoon was spent cycling round Soho updating my map of London invasions. Sad? Me? Anyways, in carrying out a bit more research I came across this video of Invader in action on the streets of London, cementing his 116th London invader to a wall. Hopefully I can get to it before some numpty takes it down.
At the end of April this year we were lucky enough to head to Korea & Japan for two weeks. This was our first trip to this part of the world, and although it was way too short we did manage to squeeze in a lot – albeit mostly food. Oh, and taking some photos. About 7,000 of the buggers. I fear that I’m not quite at the ‘one exposure, per motive‘ level that I aspire to, and the side effect of this lack of in-viewfinder editing is a large amount of in-Lightroom editing.
So, as usual, apologies for not having posted any photos yet apart from the above, they will be up as soon as possible along with a full travelog. In the meantime all I can say is: Japan & Korea – you want to go to there. And we want to go back as soon as possible.
I just wanted to say that over all my years of travel there have been many websites that helped me out – but one really stands out of late. Kayak, which now owns rival SideStep, is a flight comparison engine that works in browser to search multiple flight sites and suggest the best price. It’s not always right when it gets to the final price, but even so it will generally point you in the direction of the cheapest flight. Thanks, Kayak!
It’s taken a while… but I finally have my very own 1972 Massimo Vignelli NYC Subway Map. Huzah! It’s not only a design classic, but a representation of a city I love from the year I was born. Ah, bless.
Thanks to Jem, map lover extraordinaire, for telling me about this map originally. Thanks to Anne for selling and packing them so carefully to make their journey to the U of K, arriving at roughly the same time as Obama. And thanks to eBay for constantly bugging me as the prices went from a ‘reasonable’ $50 right up to $300 in the middle of last year (ug! due to an updated surge of interest after a magazine reprinted an updated version for 2008).
Now it’s time to retire my eBay search… and to find a suitable frame. Maybe one made entirely out of old subway tokens perhaps?
It’s now been seven years since 9/11. Seven years of more unnecessary wars and death around the world. Seven years of George W Bush and the ridiculous, damaging policies of him and his cronies (thankfully not for much longer though). Seven years of loss for families whose loved ones never returned home from work that day.
To everyone who died that day – we remember. For everyone else – here’s to a better world.
Today has an interesting cross-section of news coming up, all from BBC News as I have a bias {;).
First up, Fidel Castro is stepping down as Cuba’s leader. Obviously this will lead to some upheaval in Cuba, and everyone is hoping that a new democratic leader will come in – but life is never that simple. The US will likely secretly fund a candidate they like, because that’s what they do, and Guantanamo will go on abusing human rights ‘outside’ of US soil in the name of freedom. Fingers crossed that isn’t the case, and a new, democratically elected leader pushes for the removal of that abyss of moral corruption from their country. Either way, we can only hope that Cuba’s people benefit from increased freedom, prosperity and other good things.
Secondly, what is up with Dubai? Recently they jailed a man for cannabis they found on the sole of his shoe, they arrested a London man for having melatonin (a US legal sleep/jet lag aid) and now they’ve jailed the BBC DJ Grooverider for four years, their minimum sentence, for having a small amount of cannabis in his bag! Now in all fairness it would seem that Grooverider is the only person though who might actually be guilty, as the drugs were found in a trouser pocket in his bag that he had forgotten about – but then how easy is it for anyone travelling around, especially an international DJ, to be in Amsterdam one day then Dubai the next? A risky combination.
According to statistics Dubai’s draconian drug laws have led to 59 Brits being charged last year alone. This is nothing new, with the UAE having more apparently nonsensical drug arrests than anywhere else. Still want to go to Dubai? Well the sensible thing it would seem is to not carry any drugs, in fact don’t take anything – and make sure you brush off everything you wear carefully, otherwise you could end up like the Swiss man arrested for having poppy seeds on his clothes after eating a poppy roll at Heathrow Airport. In fact just buy new clothes at the airport – and just before you get off the plane change and throw away your old clothes – having put plastic bags down over the seat just in case. A sane solution for a sane world.
When I was diving in Australia off the Queensland coast, we all sort of lived in fear/awe of the Irukandji jellyfish – tiny, transparent jellyfish whose venom can kill purely from the extreme pain it inflicts. Worrying stuff indeed. Luckily, jellyfish stings find it hard to get through any sort of material so in our wetsuits we were relatively safe.
Now its seems more of us will be at risk from swarms of these jellyfish as they migrate around the world in search of food. In a new film, cinematographers trace the path of these surprisingly intelligent and well defended animals as they head away from their traditional areas and foray for new food sources. Beautiful but unnerving, this is one film everyone who dives (and swims) should probably watch.
Two flights later (and many free shots at bars) I’m about to have my last night in Agia Napa, Cyprus. Flew in on a very empty flight from Newark to Heathrow, hung out in London for a night, then got up WAY too early to fly on to Larnaca, Cyprus. And now I’m in Agia Napa.
Agia Napa is a mad, clubbing, pubbing place. A strange mix of Brits, Europeans and Russians as far as I can tell. The bars stay open until 1.30, the weather’s gorgeous if a little sweaty, and clubs are free if you ask Keith, the barman at Club Titanic, nicely. Me and Stephen have made club Titantic our main home for the week, with the Castle Club the late night venue. Much cheap drinking, betting on how many times ‘Starlight’ is played (never as many as you think) watching the world go by.Kiris and Keith at club Titanic have been a laff, both having been here for 7/10 years respectively. Keith does a very impressive line in flipping out of the outside bar area into the street when he’s not busy chucking straws or ice cubes at passers by. A good laff – and excellent music.
The music has been much more important to me than the cheap an plentiful booze and people watching. I’ve been catching up on a lack of Glastonbury fuelled Brit-dance out here, plus the residuals of 3.5 years out in the dance drought that is New York. Old classics, new toonz. Lots of dancing, and I’ve even been drunk enough to have a couple of goes at ‘Dance, Dance Revolution’ (apparently, I’m a great dancer…) Now I’m aching and tired after 4 days of self-exhaustion and multiple time zones. We’re about to move on to Limasol which is calmer – let’s see how that goes. May even start taking some pictures.
Oh, and big thanks to everyone in London for a great Friday night catching up. I had a wonderful time in all three venues – Chiswick, Soho and Brixton. Seeing everyone again made me remember, yet again, what I really love about England – friends and family. Oh, and the great Trance Techno that is Sands of Sansara at the Fridge in Brizxton! See you all again soon, but it won’t be soon enough.
Now the bars beckon me back… I must do my patriotic duty as a Brit out no the piss in a foreign country and drink more than is wise and dance more flailingly than most by-standers like. Nice one.
Well, pretty soon I do my first flight since the unpleasentness of last week. A transatlantic trip on United… I’m already a big ball of stress, but then that’s pretty usual with me and planes. I have to go and check in three hours ahead of time instead of two which sucks.
So anyway – hopefully you’ll get more entries from me post-flight…
