6.1.2004 do you see? do you see?
sorry to all those who were expecting an update at the end of last week... i was intending to write one, but i
just got too busy, what with breda's birthday/going-away party, an ibc
worship team practice, an smd bible study... and then of course, my short little
trip to london (again!) over the long weekend...
yessireebob, i was back in the uk again over the weekend... took the train on friday afternoon, got back last
night... it was a great trip. mike, his gf lorraine, and his uni
roommate robin, were all travelling through europe for the last 4 weeks and wrapped it up in london. i thought
it would be cool to meet them there and to see mike again, since it's been a few months already since the last
time...
i stayed at claire's place, as she graciously hosted me again... they really cleaned up their place good...
replacing the nasty carpet that was there with some nice wood laminate... claire was able to come out and chill
with us a bit, but she was pretty busy marking the national exams so she wasn't able to stay out with us the
whole time... oh wellz.
got to see fatti as well, since she was in london on the weekend... well, actually, she's living with her bf,
mark, there now, at least for the next month or so... he seems like a nice guy. me and fatti got to hang out
like the good ol' days (of... march? :P), and we planned a little bit more of our trip to prague, coming up in a
couple weekends...
anyhoo... had some yummy chinese food, some good dim sum, some awesome indian food, some good pub grub... didn't
watch any movies, but i did get to see a couple shows... the first was
oleanna, a play by
david mamet... it was intense... really
good though, since it starred julia stiles and
aaron eckhart... stiles was good, but eckhart really was great.
total respect for his performance.
the second show we saw was the reduced shakespeare company's
rendition of the complete works of william shakespeare
(abridged)... that was hilarious. i had the misfortune of having someone sit right in my line-of-sight for
the whole show, but eh, it was still funny... must go back for the other shows they have...
anyways, i'm gonna try to get some pics up from various trips over the next 2 weeks, as i'm trying a new tactic
in this war against lethargy... i'll post a couple pics across a few diff. trips, instead of trying to post all
at once from one trip... we'll see if that makes things any better.
6.4.2004 remember tiananmen square
i don't post a lot of political stuff, though my brain spews this stuff forth... i just felt like i had to say
something today...
in the current backdrop of major elections in many countries (federal elections this year in
canada and
the usa, and in europe, the
eu parliamental elections), it's
easy to forget there are places where such fundamental democratic events don't occur... where voter apathy isn't
an issue, it's a dream... where the government isn't an exercise of opinion of the people, but tyrannically
controlled by a few men...
how many times can you remember exactly where you were when some seminal world event happened? where the nice
world construct in your head broke, your little personal bubble burst? i remember exactly where i was when
ben johnson
won the 100m race in the 1988 seoul olympics... i remember exactly where i was when
the space
shuttle challenger blew up in mid-flight... i remember exactly where i was when
princess diana died in that paris tunnel... i remember
exactly where i was when planes flew into the world trade center in
nyc...
do you remember this?
i remember exactly where i was, 15 years ago this day, when anywhere between
3 and 5 million people, who had
flooded the most symbolic place in the most populous country in the world, demanding the most simplest of human
rights, asking for what we take for granted, pleading to be heard, got
tanks and troops
instead of debate and negotiations...
i remember tiananmen square.
do you?
6.9.2004 holy pictures, batman!
well, aren't you guys lucky? you sure are! i posted a whole whack of pics today, across 3 new pages, covering
the first days of last year's balkans trip (finally!),
my trip to japan, as well as the recent excursion to
mallorca...
here's a little taste from each page... the balkans trip from last september covered an amazing amount of time,
distance and pictures. plenty of film and digital pics. too many even. i think i might have to split up my
pics into different pages...
chillin' in split, croatia... richard, srdan, lyds, bianca and me (l to r)
anyways, this little pic here is something i've been promising since, oh, about day 10 of the trip... we met
this croatian guy, srdan, somehow... i can't remember how, but it was pretty random. he said he was going for
drinks with this dutch couple, richard and bianca, and invited us... well, after our initial reluctance, we went
and it was pretty good fun... btw... does richard remind you of
some famous person? he sure does to me, but
lyds doesn't think so...
a nightscape pic in shibuya, an area in tokyo
the glitz, the glamour... ok, well, maybe it's just the neon lights, but tokyo is one hardcore city. this pic
is a night shot of the shibuya district, which is basically like a shopping mecca for just about everything. it
might also be the busiest place as far as pedestrian traffic. there's one particular intersection, basically in
front of the buildings here, where 5 streets seem to converge, and the subway and train stations are also right
underneath, so the sheer volume of people crossing the street here is unbelievable.
jason and chris, in mallorca
finally, we've got pics from the boys' trip to mallorca... notice how empty the beach seems? well, first of all,
we weren't in a mega-huge party area, but in a small town called paguera instead... second, it wasn't exactly
high season when we went... and third... erm, cuz it was a thursday? hahaha... well, it was a really nice beach
anyways, and we just relaxed, lying on the beach, soaking in the sun and the sand and the sea... it was pretty
darn sweet.
anyhoo, i'm off to prague tomorrow, for 4 days... going to meet up with fatti there... can't wait!
ahh, home sweet home. it was a gruelling trip, to and from prague, but it was worth it. prague is such a
beautiful city... probably more than paris or vienna or barcelona, which generally are the standard-bearers for
such measurements... still, it's nice to be back in my own bed.
met up with fatti for the first couple days, and we explored the city... it's a great city to explore on foot.
the old city centre is so compact and walkable, and the castle is also a short hike up the hill (of course, we
always opted for the tram)... absolutely beautiful. old baroque and renaissance buildings, marvellous public
sculptures, a lot of public space...
alas, all these things are making it so touristy. i'm sure it was just absolutely fascinating even 5 years ago,
before ppl started coming in droves... there were so many ppl there this past weekend, and ppl still think of it
as an up-and-coming place... well, it's not as established as paris is, but it's already touristy enough. things
aren't nearly as cheap as they used to be (except public transport and postage), and it'll only get worse... so
go visit before it's too late!
on a complete tangent, a big hearty congrats to both my bro for his
convocation, and to mark and minh, who are now the proud parents of baby
daughter avery faith... check out mark's site for pics.
well, just a short update... i posted some more pics... added a new page for my
trip to london to chill with my
bro, plus some new pics in the japan (check out the super cute kid) and
mallorca pages...
went out to dinner with my roommates angie and thomas, as angie's about to leave for georgia (the former soviet
republic, not the american state) for a month... we went to italia uno and it was good but expensive... i don't
think i'll be going back there again anytime soon...
oh yeah, i picked up a new digital camera a couple weeks back, but i never wrote about it cuz i wasn't sure i was
gonna keep it. well, as of this past weekend, i was pretty sure i was gonna sell it off again, but as i was
going through the pics from london, they turned out pretty decent, so i may just end up hanging on to it... what
was it? the sony t11...
ahem. excuse me. where can i find a way out of this journalling ditch?
alright, i claim full responsibility for not having anything written in the last, oh, 2 weeks. but in my
defense, the european football championship tournament is raging over here,
and i can't very well ignore it, now can i? the matches have been generally good, though it's mind-blowing to
think that football superpowers like spain, france, england, italy and germany are already out of the
competition... though if germany couldn't beat latvia or a czech b-squad, they don't deserve it anyways.
anyhoo, this past weekend was basically consumed by church stuff... on saturday, i helped out with an outdoor
outreach near ibc for a little while, before heading to the church for
a practice for our worship night... after that, we had another 1t412 meeting, where christian led a bible
study...
on sunday, we had our regular sunday service, and afterwards, we held our worship night, which went fantastically
well. everyone really seemed to enjoy it, even though we messed up a couple of the songs (well, that's
subjective, cuz only the worship team knew how the song was supposed to go)... we've already had requests for the
next worship night, and we'll see how things go next time... i think we're gonna try to make it more of an
outreach thing, and play more german songs...
finally, a plug for a little thing that i've started with my buddy viet back home... we generally like to rant
and rave about things, mostly to each other, and we thought it would be great if everyone else knew our opinions
too (whether or not they wanted to)... so we've started up our own blog, the aptly-named
2 guys who know everything about everything... check it
out!
there were two things i didn't mention about last weekend in my last
post... first, there was a outdoor party at the kastanienweg dormitories, complete with a live band, beer
trucks and spotlights... it was a jolly good time, as i went with jason, christof, karo, dalia and jose. we
also saw katrin there, who i haven't seen since, oh, my birthday... so it was good times. pics to come next
time.
random canadian meeting: karen, helen, me, and julie (l to r)
secondly, i managed to meet 3 canadian girls who were travelling around europe - individually! now, before you
slag me for pointing out the obvious, lemme explain... i was walking to the hbf in köln, with my mec backpack on,
and all of a sudden, someone slaps me on the bag. i turn around, and there's this girl, asking if i was
canadian... well, the flags say it all, but i guess you never know for sure...
anyhow, turns out that the 3 girls, karen (the one in blue), helen, and julie (the one in reddish), had all
randomly met at one point or another and were just walking around the inner city. blah blah blah, next thing you
know, i'm showing them the früh kolsch brewery and we're having a few drinks and a jolly good
time.
well, after some spicy cheese and a really happy romanian waiter (the tasmanian devil incarnate), we walked
around a bit more, checking out the rhein river, heumarkt, and the dom. afterwards, we of course exchanged info
and promised to exchange pics... so to karen, helen and julie, hope you enjoy the pic! and if you have extra
time, karen, you're welcome to check out lil' ol' aachen... :P
alrighty, a very happy canada day's eve to you!