transition

i havent gotten around to wrap up hong kong just yet, but i did start a new blog for my next destination.....


dkintyo.blogspot.com


check it to pancakes

recently

this past week has been a bit debaucherous, as i'm saying farewell to the stinky city (hong kong in mandarin is xiang gong = fragrant port). that was a new bit of information for me. i still dont understand how the words and naming system works, oh well.

here are some photos from team taiwan's trip to macau of last week....



this is a view of the grand lisboa ("the lez"). the good news is that when i go to tokyo i'll have a camera phone that can take a decent picture. 2 megapixels megasucks. the lez is a bit on the older side with regards to its casino but its still pretty sweet. the lady with her little friend is just kickin it like it's tuesday. nothing to see here. like when 2 guys sit at a restaurant on the same side of the table. nothing to see.



the content of these here photos have a lot of history to them, none of which i can remember or give a shit about. the short version is that this was a huge temple from a long time ago and then these people tried to burn it down, but since the facade was built like this, only the rest of the temple burned. that side view pretty much tells the whole story. so now there's just this wall up at the top of a staircase. it's probably cooler in person.

a few days later i went for chinese shabu shabu -- "hot pot" -- with 4 other people and this was our first round of food.....



really? me + 2 chinese guys + 2 chinese girls and this is the first of three rounds of food? I ate a couple handfuls of peanuts and a piece of chicken with 2 beers and that was it for my contribution. what isn't pictured above is the gelatinized pig blood which, of course, they enjoyed very much. pig blood + jello = my nightmares for the following 3 days. who the fuck would want to eat the semi-solidified blood of a pig? i guess my tolerance for food has improved as much as I thought.

thursday was our last day of class, so akiko and i took out our teacher joyce to thank her. we went to california pizza kitchen (she'd never been and really liked it, thank you very much.) I wasn't sure if they would rally but I convinced them to go karaoke afterwards. we sang pretty hard and each got pretty drunk. there were english, spanish, and chinese songs sung. pretty awesome! afterwards, i decided i'd go to my friend's bar which i've been to dozens of times to say goodbye to those idiots. theres also karaoke there. this chinese guy was singing some classic american song and butchering it real bad. i was drunk and laughing pretty hard. no worries. a couple minutes later i got up to see someone when the singer stopped me. oh, he speaks english, great.

guy: hey man, whats up im from atlanta, where are you from?
dk: oh im from new york.
guy: im a real american man.
dk: me too!
guy: that's awesome. im like a real american you know, i was a military man.
[he takes out his georgia drivers license and some sort of military id]
dk: well this seems unneccessary.
guy: yea man im a real american you gotta believe me. what else do u want to see?
dk: nothing man i've seen enough.
guy: then heres the thing. atlanta is a much better city than new york. why would you live in new york? just think about the rappers now. atlanta rappers are so much better than new york rappers.
dk: let me get this straight. after trying to prove to me youre a real american, you want to tell me that atlanta is a better city than new york because of the rappers?
guy: yea man, have you ever heard of ludacris?
dk: yes
guy: yea his rapping is the best! oh hey you know what, i think this place has karaoke. why dont we sing a song together.
dk: dude you just destroyed some song, you know they have karaoke.
guy: yea they do! ok cool, lets sing a song together. do you know any n'sync?
dk: sorry, what?
guy: n'sync, you know who they are of course you do.
dk: ok man lets sing n'sync.

in the end, there was no n'sync. so instead i suggested we sing ray charles' version of "georgia" to insult this a-hole. mr american from atlanta the best city in the world. and he didn't know it! so i did it, looking at this shmuck the entire time.

get excited for a conclusion style post. im still accepting names for what will be my new blog in tokyo.

zhen ta ma de hao ba po!

im getting really excited to get to tokyo. i have just 5 classes left and 2 weekends in hong kong. i'm trying to go to macau tomorrow and play basketball this weekend with those guys from nike. should be cool.

yesterday i participated in the 33rd annual hong kong international film festival at the times square cinema near my apartment. i saw this movie called Il passato è una terra straniera (the past is a foreign land). its in italian with english subtitles. actually i expected the theatre to be empty since it was at 1715 and it was only italian or english but it was suprisingly full. i ate these crunchy m&ms and god damn were they good! here's a useless photo from the film......



so yea thats how we keep em happy with photos on this thing. anyway im hoping to catch a few more films of the international variety before i get out of hong kong.

i'm wearing a hoodless sweatshirt today for the first time in at least 12 years. shit is back. my dad is down with the hoodless sweatshirt. this one is purple. i got it in taipei for NT$100. so that's about US$2.96. good price. PTO. priced to own. mine has a logo that says BUYI TBACK. i think its trying to say buy it back. at 2.96 it's a miracle it still has sleeves. fuck it i'll show you a sweet photo.......





i'm trying my hardest not to check out at school although it's hard knowing im going to tokyo in 10 days and they don't speak mandarin there. here's some things i've learned recently.....

hun dan........asshole
ba po............bitch

among other things, you dont want to go and talk about peoples moms. its kind of off limits. in cantonese, the worst thing you can say is pok gai, which literally means "go fall over in the street". if i can be honest, that shit doesnt sound so bad. i always hear assholes on the bus and on the street screaming pok gai though so i guess it's some shit over here.

zhen ta ma de ba po.............fucking bitch!!!!!

what im workin with

feels like 87? what the fuck is this about? dont know J's sweat in this kind of heat? i hope my landlord is ready for a nice electricity bill.

tai-what?

i spent this past celebratory weekend in taiwan with some friends. i need to find more photos, like the ones of me with a mustache for most of the time, but here are some others to catch you up on what we got into.....



see that door next to this poster? the guy from the poster is sitting at a desk right in there, in the same position. it was as if the photo had been taken 3 minutes earlier. this was in an underground mall in taipei across from a temple that had a huge LED sign outside flashing all kinds of shit. i would say that sign took away from the history of the temple. at least a little bit.

i caught some graf along the way. this was outside a skate shop. im not sure what the story was but it wasn't open at noon on a friday.....



dope. i guess taiwan has some artists. the next two photos are food related.....



see that middle dish? needles with meat sauce. thats about half as good as jew's ear. of course we ordered it and of course it was delicious. this was at a dumpling spot in xi men ding which was really delicious and super cheap. i surprisingly ate the needles and some friend curry dumplings. quite enjoyable. oh yeah, the name of the dumpling place is radish garden. they make their noodles from some green powder out of the radish. does that even make sense? whatever. that night, we found this spot....



oh yeah. shih's bagel, bitches. sadly, i was too full to give it a try but fuck did it look good. i mean the sign alone tells the whole story. as far as i know, shih isn't a taiwanese/chinese name. i could certainly be wrong on that account. if i had to guess, this haven is named after someone from an area west of china. so what do we have here? a potentially indian-owned, taiwanese operated bagel spot in taipei. amazing. found this place after going to a bar next door that was called the staircase. it had a big staircase in the middle of the bar that led up to what we think is the owner's bedroom. actually, the girl running it had her friends in there and one went pretty hard. maybe she heard it was my birthday, but she was blacked out around 11. her friends had to drag her up that same staircase so she could take a rest. watching 3 people trying to carry a grown woman up a set of stairs without a handrail was certainly entertaining. as was the on-the-house popcorn the bartender gave us. must have been my mustache.




this is just a typical shopping block in taipei in the ximending district. lots of bootleg shit, a few legit stores. a lot of people were hanging out and there was a bunch of street meat being sold. actual meat on the street, this time.

later on we went to the eastern side to check out some shops and i found these......



i know the photo sucks, but these were my birthday gift to myself. last pair, my size, bitches! my 2nd pair of air mogans, definitely my first in this colorway. the other pair i have i got in tokyo in december 07 and they have fur on the front. now my collection has a mogan competition. sweet. here's the bag from the shop i got it at.....




after taipei, we took a train down to kaohsiung, what we believe to be the 2nd biggest city in taiwan. also the 4th largest port in asia. so much shit is manufactured in and exported from taiwan so that doesnt really surprise me. we took a high speed train which was awesome (not as awesome as the maglev in shanghai, for the record) but check this out. while i was waiting for my friend to buy the train tickets, i found this sign......



can you see that shit? the punctuality rate of taipei subway trains was 99.58% during feb/09. fucking 99.58%! thats amazing! and it wasn't a small amount of trains. oddly, if you multiply that out, it isn't a whole number. so like half a train was late one time. still, who cares. that's amazing. the nyc subway couldn't take this measurement because there isn't a schedule. lets not get started at my distaste for the nyc subway. its definitely helpful, but its terribly inefficient and can't compete technologically with other systems in asian countries. but yeah lets not get into it.

kaohsiung didn't have too much going on. we went hiking in a park and found some wild monkeys which was awesome.....



this little guy only had one arm which isn't a happy thought. he looked pretty sad. these monkeys were just hanging out though which must have been nice for them. we did catch some old people throwing rocks via a slingshot at them though, which we couldn't really figure out.

our hotel in kaohsiung was pretty sweet especially when i saw this....



the tv stand is the top shelf of a dishwasher. why wouldn't it be?


oh and scott, i read All Fifty. ridiculously good. how do we talk about it?

by foot?

im watching back-to-back episodes of the office on a slingbox so if this doesn't make sense, sucks. i'm going to taiwan tomorrow with akiko and jason (her husband) which should be fun. many would say taipei is a good place to look for and pur-chase sneakers. many nikes, for example, are manufactured in taiwan. as for things to do in taipei, im a little foggy. i do however speak their language, so that should make things easier. by speak their language, i mean ive been studying it for some months, so i really should be able to communicate. i guess we'll see how that part goes. if you read this and you've been to taiwan, find me and tell me where to go. i'm down for whatever.

in recent news, im now friends with the staff of the hong kong nike sportswear location in causeway bay. i have been making cd's for the shop to blast off for the past few months. they have a serious sound system that blows away my ihome so we go for it. i'll try to post some of those playlists on here some time.

since we're now homies, i played basketball with a bunch of the guys monday morning at 10am. pretty early. take a note: trainer dunks are not great to play basketball in. this is what im talking about......



i embarassingly wore these while all these other nike employees were wearing sick kobe's, jordan's, and lebron's. if you know anything about me, you'd understand how painfully ashamed i was of myself. if you are willing to believe me, the only reason i wore these was because i don't have basketball sneakers here in hong kong. there, i said it. i guess i have to go buy some kobe's or something because i can't continue to play this game with people who know sneakers like i do. shit. im hoping taipei is the spot to cure this problem of mine. as far as the basketball went, it was fun. we drew a small crowd like last time and broke a good sweat. afterwards, the guys went to go get a shower at this ymca type place. i elected to go home. im not totally sure what the deal with that was.

i went to the consulate to get pages added to my passport yesterday. this required making an appointment before-hand which wasn't a problem. i went at 11am, figuring it couldn't take more than 3 hours before my class would start. getting there was easy, took an above-ground train, walked it out, no problem. getting into this place was slightly more challenging. the best part was when they asked me if i had a cell phone and if i'd turn it off. no problem. then came the metal detector walk-through like an airport. the next man asked if i had a cell phone, went through the shpiegl, blah blah blah ok check my bag. he asked me if i had a cell phone in my bag and i said no. he asked if i was sure and i said i think so. he asked again if i had a cell phone in the bag. i was like fuck man im pretty sure there isnt a cell phone in the bag. he then pulled a cell phone out of my bag. oh shit! that's right. akiko gave me a cell phone to use in japan (she lived there before hk and had it around.) her nice gesture towards me almost got me arrested. or maybe it was the drinking i did the night before which caused me to forget about the phone that almost got me arrested. one of those. it reminded me of the time i was driving eddie's car in LA and a cop asked me why i had rope in the trunk. i denied vehemently having any rope in the trunk. he opened the trunk and there was the rope. for future reference, its not always good to deny having rope outside lax - or any airport - and then having rope. anyway, i did make my way to the add-pages-to-your-passport desk and did eventually get the pages. they add a page for every letter of the alphabet. my passport expires almost 2.5 years from now. should be a good challenge.

now you must be asking yourself - how did this jackass run out of pages in his passport and how did he know to get more pages? first answer - fuck you. second answer is better. during my flight back from Japan, ANA decided to give economy class unlimited booze. so i got wasted. i had exit row to myself and went to town on a combination of champagne and various other cocktails. it was enjoyable. when we were getting close to landing, the wonderful flight attendant brought me a bottle of water. i didn't ask for water. i must have been giving out some kind of drunk signal. i'm surprised i didn't say "ni gei wo ni de dianhua haoma, hao ma?" (can i have your phone number?) but anyway, i was hammered and needed to get through immigration and customs. so i went to the mens room in the airport and washed my face and tried to gargle some water. i got to the immigration area, went to the man and he asked me how i was going to enter hong kong. i answered "by foot?" he was like no idiot, you have no pages in your passport. fuck. im drunk, and not being appreciated. finally he let me go but told me i couldnt leave hong kong until i added pages to my passport. and there is the answer to question number 2. thats how i knew i needed more pages. i guess i'm good for 4 stamps this weekend. if you can't figure out where they come from, read a book.

again if you have any suggestions on things to do in taiwan, let me know. i think we may take a train to kaohsiung and spend a night there so any info on that southern city would also be appreciated. great super thanks.

white week

damn i didnt realize its been 2 weeks since my last post. i was in tokyo for many of those days so lets use that as my excuse and move forward with our lives.

if i may note, once again, my cell phone wouldnt work in tokyo. what is the fuck? i will not go back to that country without a working cell phone. theres a story here. when i landed in tokyo, i was going to call my 64 year old, drink me under the table business contact. some of you may have had the chance to meet him in new york. maybe not. i turned my phone on after landing and tried to call him. no dice. spicy! what was i going to do and how was i going to find him? we had a tentative plan to meet at this hotel near his office. so i went to buy a ticket. turned out the next bus for that hotel wasnt going to leave the airport for an hour and a half. what the fuck was i going to do at the airport for an hour and a half with no phone? instead, i bought a ticket for a bus leaving 10 minutes later going to a similar part of tokyo (shinegawa.) i was waiting for the bus and this bus employee guy was waiting with us. so i asked him in english if i could use his phone to call my associate. communication failure. then this other girl came over who worked with him and that didnt work either. just as the bus pulled up to leave, they figured out what i was trying to do so they hooked it up and i called the dude. no answer. sweet. so i got on the bus, watched Old School on my psp and figured i'd work it out when i got to this other hotel. get to the hotel, find a pay phone and somehow had some change to make a call. i had no idea how to use the payphone - i know, im brilliant - but even after hearing some dial tones and some ringing, no answer. so i figured i was doing it wrong. turned out there was this white dude working in the hotel so i started talking to him to see what was happening. after at least 10 tries on the pay phone and watching at least 4 other people successfully use the same phone, i decided to find this couch and just chill out. after about a half hour i decided to take a taxi to the originally agreed upon hotel and see how that worked out. the taxi ride is less than 10 minutes and i enter and there's the guy ive been trying to call -- passed the fuck out next to a fireplace. i woke him up and was like yo did you get any of my calls? and he was like oh let me check. yea, turned out his phone had rung, he was just knocked out on this couch, so didnt hear any of them. after all that - it wasnt even my fault!

otherwise, tokyo was really fun. i spent some time working and a lot of time hanging out. the weather was signficantly less enjoyable than in hong kong, and no, i wasn't prepared for it. i used a puffy vest to protect me from rain and snow and damn that was good. not to get off topic, but that just reminded me of shaq's song "i hate 2 brag" which I think you should be able to listen to here. 1993 shit. arguably one of the first cd's i ever owned. bought that gem in the used section of the princeton record exchange. back to tokyo. one afternoon i went to this bookstore - i cant remember why - and witnessed plenty of men reading dirty magazines in public. then i also saw other men on the subway reading dirty magazines. dirty not like they had dropped them and they got dirty. dirty like girls doing things that arent legal in many places kinda dirty. gross. at the airport, they have these magazines available but there is a clear sign that says "DO NOT READ HERE". talk about decency. thank you, narita bookstore.

there will be plenty more stories of tokyo to come. in fact, by the time i left tokyo, i arranged for me to move there and work for this associate of mine. in april i'll be packing up my shit in hk and heading for japan. i suppose i'll have to find an apartment (and a fucking cell phone that works) but it should be sweet. april is cherry blossom season in japan as well so that should be awesome. if you've never been or have any interest in visiting, you could seriously consider it. lillian, that's you.

this past week in hong kong ive seen a lot of white people. two different times ive met up with bai ren (white people) at bars of their choice - both which ended up with me paying new york prices to hang out with new yorkers. both times it was fine because i was entertained. last night i went to a bar called spicy fingers. i thought i was meeting these people at a strip club. apparently it has a sister bar called sticky fingers. im not sure which is better. i'll have to check out sticky fingers and find out what the story is. cool name though. at spicy fingers, there were more old-white-man, young-chinese-girl combos than i'd seen in a long long time. i pretty much couldnt stop laughing.

given my new geography ahead, should i change the name of my blog? here are some choices:
a. dk in tyo
b. dk in jpn
i'll keep that list short for now. suggestions are welcome.