Fläskkvartetten!

I found something for you.
Fläskkvartetten; One of my absolute favorite bands from Gøteborg in Sweden, featuring Freddie Wadling, an absolute fabulous singer, but he is worthwhile a complete post of his own.
Here you have 3 different tracks.




Later I'll give you some stuff from Freddies other projects.

In 2006 nobody buy's CD's anymore!

Mario, a young German friend now living in my old Danish hometown of Århus, gave me this to think about a couple of years ago when I visit him there. I was still living in Dresden at that time -his old hometown- and we were out for a walk and we past a record shop.
"Wait I want to see in I can find a CD I need from one of my favorite Bands from Sweden; "the FLeshquartet", as they were not so common in Germany.
He just looked at me and said:
" In 2006 nobody buy's CD's anymore".

In 2009 either, they watch youtube and arrange their Itunes library.
Me too, and here is another one for you.


I'll see if I can find some Fleshquartet for you later.

New band in my playlist.

My friend Craig mentioned this band for me, and I'm quite happy he did.

Dear diary! Mirrors of the world

Because of some long working hours last week, I had a day of today. It is amazing how much you can appreciate a day of, when you know that you have it. Yesterday evening I was filled with ideas how to spend this day and what to do.
Now the day is nearly gone, and what have I in fact done?
Nada!
Yesterdy i went early to bed to be well rested for this day and I got up at 6 AM like usual to have breakfast with Catriona -poor her, she had to go to work- and then as she left and I could start the long lovely day on my own, I felt I needed a little rest on the coach, well I still had an ocean of time to do all the stuff I'd planned.
Oh, I could watch the news on the telly for a while, and then get going!
It turned out to be a long while, because of all the options this long free day gave me, I wasn't able to make a choice rather than flick around between old outworn movies and (bad) News Channels from four continents.
Honestly that is quite interesting, I mean the thing with the News Channels from four continents. It's like a mirror or a window you can look through and get a little view of the society and culture
On our telly here in Tai Wan Village, we can see the following News Channels: Deutsche Welle (German) Sky News (British or English rather) and their sister channel from the US which is CBS -I think- then there is Fox News(US), Al Jazeera English (UAE and all over the world), Australian Network, CCTV International (China) and then a South Korean or Japanese one, which I not quite certain of.
It is interesting to see the breaking news and major issues being told from the different perspectives or view points from around the globe, and some times you really can't tell if it is the same event they are talking about, and some of the things they focus on on Sky News for instance, often seems to be so local, regional and out of proportions, compared with events that has an effect on the whole wide world. But then again, of corse they are (regional) because News is rather of a local character to be interesting for the people living in the region (country), they are made for. And yhen again, telly is only a mirror of something that could be real, and looking at to much and to many, may just disguise the real world out side the window and make it blurred.
So I was thinking about all that -again- for a couple of hours, and then it was noon and the most of my precious time was wasted, and I started to go in panic, because how on earth should I manage also to do the dishes and go shopping and prepare dinner, which was the least I could do when I got a day of.
So and now it is late in the evening and finally I've got time to sit here and reflect over my day of and how much I enjoyed it.

Pop Art live!

Silent Sunday in Central.

This will be more a photo post than something with lot's of words. We spent our first March Sunday in Central district on Hong Kong Island. Visiting Art galleries and watching the world go by. When you look to Hong Kong Island from Tsim Sha Tsui, you'll see the Central district behind the highest of the skyscrapers; "the IFC tower". Central is one of the most inhabited and famous areas in Hong Kong, and at night it is frequented by ten-thousands of people -mostly tourists-, visiting the thousands of bars and restaurants in the area, among them the famous night life area; "Lan Kwai Fong". Central district reaches from victoria harbour and half up the mountain to the Victoria Peak. Half way up the hill, you'll find the "Midlevels" and the Hong Kong pendant to "SoHo", which means; "South of Hollywood Road". The midlevels and SoHo is probebly the most mixed and multiculturel you can find in Hong Kong, with streets and neighbourhoods -European and Chinese- just next to each other.
On a Sunday afternoon is it relatively quiet and walking around there is lot's of small stories to watch, and lot of history to witness as well, as here old and new architecture is mixed together, and leaving people stunned by the contrasts. And if you want to see this district the way it is today, you better hurry up, as there plans and major investments interests, who are closing in on the last older scruffy houses and streets, wanting to tear it all down to get space to more big and fancy glass and concrete towers.

My playlist!

They are called: "Under byen" and they are from what I call my hometown in Denmark called "Århus".No, I don't know any of them personally because when I left Århus and Denmark 10 years ago, they probably still were teenagers, and even that I worked for a time in a Youth club in the evening hours, hosting young ambitious musicians, none of the members of this band frequented that club, at least I think.

Another funny thing; first time I heard about them was in 2003, I was living in Dresden in Germany, and we organized an international film workshop in a place called Grosshennersdorf, and had participants from 8 different European countries -among them Denmark- and one of the danish participants brought a CD with this band. One year later I actually saw them "Live" in a club in Dresden.
"Under byen" means something like: "beneath the city".

Dear diary...

...it is mainly all work at the moment. But I should not complain about that, just a little over one year ago I was complaining that I didn't work.
The ReD Door......is the place called where I work now, and it is kind of a digital workshop in an international school in Hong Kong. We are three "experts" working there and we have to support -and educate- students and teachers in using soft- and hardware, in the curriculum, and as you can see is it a room filled with lots of digital stuff. We even have a meeting table to plan the work. Normally it looks a bit empty and I was wondering what the silly plant did alone in the middle, until one day where we had one of our meetings and everyone turned up with their modern life "Diary's", then I realized; the plant got it own kind of "pot", and suddenly it also looked quite nice with the plant as center for all the open laptop lids.
I'm a TV and film guy, so I do the videoing stuff, and mainly in the last couple of months I've been producing film for and about the school, and I'm just about to finish a duple DVD set, containing the theater performance the school did in corporation with an Australian theater company.
The performance was "War of the worlds" and we filmed each performance with 3 cameras, so now we're going to release the DVD with all three shows and a 20 minutes "Making of".It's nice work doing this, although doing all the editing alone can make you feel a bit lonely. Sometimes there is students who dare enter the red door and start doing their own film stuff, but in fact it has been a bit less than I'd expected. But the reason is obvious; film work takes time and a lot of work. Some students have found their way to this digital playground called the "ReD Door".

Dai Pai Dong

The most visitors in Hong Kong knows these small open air kitchens or food stalls you meet on the journey through the streets of Hong Kong. Known as the Dai Pai Dongs are they the equivalent of the German "Schnell imbiss", the Danish "Pølse vogn" or "Grill bar", the English "Borger wan" or "Fish and chips".
These kitchens offers their cheap daily food to pedestrians and the variaty in their sortiment is quite big. Some of them has even foldable tables and chairs, but the mojority is just charaterized by the untidy atmosphere and then the distinctiv smell of fish sauce, and those who knows that, will know what I'm talking about, as you can smell it from a far distance, and once smelled, never forgotten as it smells like something you don't bring in connection with something to eat, but this sauce in fact add a delicious taste to the dishes. At the dai pai dongs you get offered nearly everything the Chinese people eats, and that is quite a lot and many visitors walk away with a certain look in their face.
Some of the eating places in the street has more a similarity with a restaurants, as they have windows and the food you buy is handed out to you in small plastic bowls and styrofoam containers.
Some of the very famous Hong Kong dishes from street vendors is the honey roasted Duck and pork, or the very delicious tasting BBQ pork. And you wont believed it, but these two cantonese specialities is being eaten cold, with boiled white rice and in garlic steamed Pak Choi (green vegestables). Enjoy your lunch>

Bands in my Itunes playlist.

I still haven't got an answer to the question if the band; The white stripes" in fact got the idea for their name from drinking draught beer, and watching the white stripes appearing at the side of the glass, from every sip they took, as I mentioned in my post from the 6th of January.

I especially like their relaxed approach to music, as it seems so natural for them to create great music with very simple effect means.

Photo of the day!

This is still images from some video footage I took on Wednesday the 18th of February, and doing the editing of this footage, this shot particularly stunned me, as it look's like something fake.
It is shot at the sports day for the primary school at the "Ma On Shan Sports ground", and the kid's are doing something called "Tunnel ball".
But I can assure you it isn't fake, it is the real thing and it kind of show's how Hong Kong and it's new cities is like.
I think the colours and the brightness of the images is amazing, and that not just because I took them -or it-, no that was all because of the location and the weather and the colours.

"A boat trip, a cake, a camera and a chorizo" flashbacks from a birthday! #2

I'm not playing pool that often. In fact nearly never even it is free in "the Duke of York" pub in Sai Kung. I can't even say that I go there seldom, quit the opposite, one could take the word "a regular" in the mouth. But then again, not regular enough to be a real regular, or maybe it's because I'm not British.



Craig & Jason made me sign us up on the blackboard to play that evening, among all the regulars on the list to play. I've seen those guys play, all skilled and cynical pool killers, so as I saw the list I put Craig's name first, then myself and then Jason so maybe I could be lucky to play one of them.
Craig though, turned out to be a killer himself, so he went up there and bet Caz, the australian shark, who was to take him on, so my plan pay'd back, and I had to play him.
I did what I could, but it wasn't good enough and I had to leave the table again after ten minutes of fame and attention from the hungry pool sharks who had watched our poor performance on the green velvet, and you could tell how they wanted to come on there, to show how pool should be played.
Then it was Jason against Craig. Craig won again, and then he was left alone with all the names on the blackboard. I think Craig did finish one more of though, but not long time later he again was at the table outside, and we could continue our conversation from before our names came up at this blackboard in "the Duke of York".
What that conversation was about I don't remember.
It must have gone for some time and Graham went to the table once again and manage to stay there for some games, I didn't go up there again and I guess that it will take some time before I'll do that, and I need some secret practice somewhere, I just don't know where that could be.
To be continued in: "A boat trip, a cake, a camera and a chorizo" flashbacks from a birthday! #3

Me Traktor, you Jane's Addiction!

I think I've heard the name of this band before, I even found them in my own Itunes playlist, but now they've really hit me too.

Good stuff.

It is no joke, it's for real!

A colleague from the United States showed me this, and I just have to share this, as it is just too awsome!


And the little fellows just live like that, isn't that just the strangest?

"A boat trip, a cake, a camera and a chorizo" -flashbacks from a birthday!

Valentines day is also my birthday, so it is always difficult to get a table somewhere if you want to go out to celebrate. So I organized a trip on a typical Chinese Sampan, or a tug boat of a kind. It could as well be seen as a kind of a tractor of the sea, in fact the sound is quite the same when it tugs of from the pier, with a deep humming sound.
We were ten people goimg om this trip, and we left Sai Kung at 1.30 PM. The trip would take us around the many islands just outs side in the bay of Sai Kung, and then for lunch at a restaurant on an island called High Island.
Last year at valentines day, we were freezing here in Tai Wan village, in fact whole Hong Kong was cold and humid and everybody said that this was not normal. This year it has been quite the opposite, 26 degrees, but very hazy and foggy on the day, but the weeks before has been really nice, warn and sunny; but everybody kept saying; "this is not normal".














So what is normal then for February, but maybe we have to wait to next year to find the answer to that question, as that will be the third February here we spend here, and then we maybe can start to think about what is the average February weather.
On this day the bay of Sai Kung looked pretty much like the Highlands of Scotland, with the haze covering the top of the hill's around, but the temperature didn't remind anyone of Scotland at all, as it was the mentioned 26 degrees. Here nobody really cared, there was plenty of ice to cool the beer and bubble wine, it was Saturday and the next hours was for nothing else than sit down, relax and enjoy the scenery we passed on the Sampan and the people who had agreed to spent these hours with us.










The first stop was a little island just outside Sai Kung -and in fact visible from our rooftop- called: Yim Tin Tsai. This Island is one of the many abandoned islands and villages in the new territories, but won the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award in 2005 for the rehabilitation of the St. Joseph's Chapel, a former catholic chapel, and it's affiliated Ching Po School, on this island. The rest is abandoned and to walk through there is to visit a ghost town. In the houses is quite a lot of remedies from the former owners, just left in big piles on the floor, and some of the beds look like the people had to leave in a hurry, without time to take anything.













Stunned by the impressiones of the look into the houses of a complete abandoned village, we all found our way back to our Sampan boat, could continiue our journey around the big island of Kau Sai Chau, heading for the little floating community of Leung Shuen Wan -or High Island- and it's famours Sea food restaurants.














To be continued in: ""A boat trip, a cake, a camera and a chorizo" flashbacks from a birthday #2

Hiking Hong Kong

From the television we've heard about the cold and snowy weather in Europe. Here in Hong Kong is it nothing of that kind, here it is the opposite. It is the beginning of February and the temperature is around 21 to 23 degrees. Just behind our village we have the second highest peak; the Ma On Shan. So we went on a hike one Saturday to climb that mountain and enjoy the stunning view from up ther, which allows a view over the most of Hong Kong and the new territories, even to Shenzhen and the Chinese mainland.

The white stripes

Not that it is very important, but I just need to know if this is true? Ohh I nearly forgot; Happy new year to everybody reading this, as it is the first post in 2009. Back to the beginning: "The white stripes" yes here I mean the band called the white stripes. Why, and from where did they get that name? Over Christmas and New Year me and my wife went to Scotland on holiday, and i Edinburgh one evening we went to a pub to have a drink. I ordered a pint of Tennents lager and as we were standing there in the quite full and cosy pub -outside it was freezing cold- chatting and nipping to our glasses, I saw it for the first time. Maybe it is because of the way they serve a draught beer in Scotland, or it is because of the quality of the beer, I don't know, but I've never seen it as clear as this before. Neither in the Czech republic, Germany, who probably makes some of the best beer in the world, nor in Spain, Denmark or here in Hong Kong. I'm talking about the white stripes on the pint glass that the beer foam left on it's side every time I had a sip. I was quite stunned and I had to show it to Catriona. "yes" she said, "the white stripes, like the band you know, that's where they got there name". "No" I replied, "honest to god, is that true?" She then smiled; "Come on we have to go now, Louise will meet us in 5 minutes". We were invited to dinner at a friends house. "Wauw, the white stripes got their name from sipping beer".
I took the last sip of my own leaving a last perfect white beer foam stripe on the glass and put it down on the desk, having a last look before we left. But how did Catriona know that it came from there, the name? And that's why I need you, dear readers, to solve this matter. If anybody out there knows it, could you please leave a comment to enlighten me.