in pictures and words

About a week ago I got back from a two week long trip to Hong Kong and Beijing with my brother. Why Hong Kong and Beijing? My brother Matt served as a missionary in Hong Kong for two years. He's been meaning go back and visit for years now and I've always wanted to go with him. That and it was a good way of sticking it to all those people who travel to trendy places like Europe. JK but really.

The unique thing about Matt's mission was that he spoke Mandarin, instead of Cantonese which is the main language of Hong Kong. But this gives him an advantage outside of Hong Kong because more Chinese speakers speak Mandarin than Cantonese.

Anyway, rather than bore you with the details of what I thought was an incredible trip, I've posted photos (with captions in case you wanted to be bored by the details).

The process of flying to Hong Kong wasn't as bad as I anticipated. We flew from Phoenix to LAX, to Seoul, Korea, to Hong Kong. Korean Air is pretty nice; the seats weren't too small and there were plenty of movies to watch (so what if the movie I enjoyed most on the way over was Letters to Juliet). Anyway, on to the photos:

Left: I wish I could remember the name of this park. It had a few structures like this one and was across from a Buddhist (I think) temple.

Center: This water wheel was at the same park. I just decided that sometime in my life I'm gonna own property with a body of water that will power a functioning water wheel. And that water wheel will do something cool, like grind flour for a bakery that I will have someday.

Right: A Mong Kok market. This is what would come to mind when someone would say Hong Kong. This market is the place to go if you wanna buy a cheap rip-off. I'm kicking myself now for not getting that Ed Hardy t-shirt (JKBR).

We went to these places on our first full day in Hong Kong.

Left: This looks like it could be a modern art exhibit, right? Believe it or not, it's the wall of a restaurant where had lunch called Modern Toilet. As you may have deduced, it's a toilet themed restaurant: the seats are padded toilets, the food is served in small toilet shaped bowls, and the ice cream resembles poop (which isn't as bad as it sounds). The food was OK.

Right: The following day, Saturday, we took a ferry to Lamma Island with members of the Mandarin Branch where Matt served a big part of his mission. I loved this place. As we got off the boat, we walked through a row of outdoor seafood restaurants. This was a two-in-one experience because most of the seafood restaurants had small tanks filled with various sea creatures. Which was awesome because I love sea creatures, like the cuttlefish in this picture (click on the picture to enlarge); these guys were hanging out in front of the seafood restaurant we all ate at. Overall, I loved it -- the island, the food, the company -- I loved it.

Sunday for church we attended the Mandarin Branch (the same folks we spent Saturday with). Before coming to Hong Kong, the branch president learned that Matt was coming to visit so he asked him to talk at church on Sunday.

That day we visited the Hong Kong Temple. It would've been cool to do a session there; maybe next time.

 On Monday we flew up to Beijing. Rather than fly from Hong Kong, we crossed the border north of Hong Kong to Shenzhen and flew to Beijing from there -- it was $100 cheaper and it allowed us to see a part of China we wouldn't have otherwise experienced.

We landed in Beijing in the early afternoon and took a train, then the subway to our hotel. Subway fares in Beijing were ridiculously cheap (as is just about everything else if you went to the right place), only 2.00 Renmibi (RMB) per trip, which converts to about 30 cents.

It took us over an hour to find our hotel. In other words, we got lost. But we enjoyed it because it allowed us to explore a non-touristy part of Beijing. Eventually, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and wandered south toward a dumpling restaurant recommended in Matt's travel guide. On our way we made a pit stop at a drum tower; we arrived just in time for this performance (left).

They next day before visiting the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, we stopped at a park to the southwest of the Forbidden City. Matt called it He-Man park because he thought it would've been the perfect place to play He-Man as a kid (I agree with him). The park had some pretty awesome architectural structures; I especially liked these beams (right).

This is just inside the Tiananmen Gate. The small arch in the bottom center leads to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was impressive, it was just a bit repetitive. It's something that would be more fun with a big group, I think. And it was pretty crowded the day we went.

Left: Forbidden City lion. Lions in China? Is there/was there such thing?

Center: Private eyes are watching you, they see your every move. These light/camera poles were all over Tiananmen Square. It's stuff like this (and Facebook being blocked) that made me feel the tension of being in a communist country.

Right: These bikes were parked just outside the subway station by our hotel. It reminded me of Rexburg. Sigh.

The Great Wall of China. NBD. This was my favorite part of Beijing/mainland China. Climbing around was one of the best workouts I've had in a while. So steep.

Left: A Chinese Snickers (it has Chinese writing on the side, that's the biggest difference). American candy was my totem (Inception, anyone?) while I was over there. I had very few problems with the food we ate (other than, holy crap, I ate so much of it), but it's stuff like candy and Coke that gave me a sense of familiarity and anchored me to home.

Right: These guys were awesome, like a mix between empanadas and dumplings. The price was right too, four for 5 RMB (or about 75 cents US).

The next day, Thursday, we flew to Shenzhen and took a bus back to Hong Kong. Friday we went to Lantau Island (which I like to call Lando Island), a less populated part of Hong Kong. Lantau Island is home to Big Buddha (left), which used to be the largest outdoor Buddha in the world. We took a cable car to get there, which provided some great scenic views of Lando Island.

I'm not sure about the significance of the statue on the right but I thought it made a cool picture.

A view the from the platform where Big Buddha resides. I love gnarly trees.

We spent the following day in Macau. I didn't bring my DSLR camera because I was sick of hauling it around (I know, it's not that bad, but you get a little sick of it hanging around your neck for 10 days straight). I took my Holga (cheap plastic film camera) but I have yet to get the film developed so no pictures from Macau to post at this time.

I loved it there though. Macau is similar to Hong Kong in that it's a former Portuguese colony (Hong Kong was a British colony). And since gambling is legal there it's known as the Las Vegas of Asia. Thankfully, though, it wasn't as smutty as Vegas, but maybe I just didn't notice because we didn't get too close to the casinos.

We took a ferry to Macau with three of Matt's friends from his mission and met up with even more people when we got there. It was one of my favorite days because: a.) it was fun to do something in a large group and b.) Macau is awesome. Signage and such there is in Chinese and Portuguese; the Portuguese influences gives it a quaint European feel.

Going with Matt was great because he knew so many people over there. When we were in Hong Kong we always had a place to sleep and more than we were able to eat (I swear, Monday before we left we had two dinners -- with the same family). China's got a lot going for it but its people are by far its biggest asset.

Lunch me yet?

I'm in Asia right now. (Asia sounds cooler than Hong Kong even though Hong Kong is awesome all by itself.) So far, so great.



This picture has nothing to do with Hong Kong, per se... it's just that I had a few copies of it that I put in my journal a few months back and I've been leaving the copies in public places for people to stumble upon and (hopefully) enjoy. (Vain much?) I wrote the web address of my blog on the back so if you've come to my blog as a result of finding this photo, welcome.

Be back in AZ in a few days. Word.

Hugo Reyes

So, Weezer has been streaming their new album Hurley on Myspace.com, A Place for Friends, for the past day or so. I checked it this morning. I have to say, I quite enjoyed the second track, "Ruling Me" (I'm listening to it right now). It's poppy and fun and has some 'oooohs' reminiscent of "Susanne". Anyway, in the midst of the song, I thought to myself, what if this album is awesome; what if I can hang with every track. Then I got to the unsavory fifth song, "Where's My Sex." If you thought "We Are All On Drugs" was bad, well, Weezer have really outdone themselves with this jam, but not in a good way.

It's funny how every Weezer album can manage to get my hopes up then dash them against the rocks. Every time. It's funny how I keep thinking that Weezer will come out with something that I'll love as much as the Blue Album or Pinkerton. Sigh.

I need to give this album a few more spins before I can say really if it's good or not (though I can tell you right now it's better than Raditude; and, by good I mean, will I love 9 out of 10 songs on this album (I've already identified one that I hate)).

I can say this, though: I feel like Weezer didn't take too much time on this album. It's not that they rushed through it, they just left it slightly unpolished. The guitars are a bit more rough and Rivers' voice seems a little flat at times -- it gives the album a raw edge, something Weezer fans haven't really heard since Pinkerton. I like it.

Hurley is out next Tuesday, 14 September. Incidentally, I'll be in Beijing next Tuesday. So who knows if I'll be able to actually buy it until I'm back in the U.S. and A. Perhaps I'll have an update for this album review then...

(Sorry if you thought this post was about LOST.)

spoiler alert!

I finished reading Mockingjay last night.

[I'd like to preface the this post with this rant.]

I think I was looking for something other than what these books turned out to be. I was looking for an adventure story and, while there was plenty of adventure along the way, in the end it was more about who Katniss ended up with than what happened to the people she was fighting for. It was almost like reading Twilight dressed up and sold as Harry Potter. If it weren't for all the dying going on I'd feel cheated.

Or maybe I just hoped too hard and tricked myself into thinking that the Hunger Games wouldn't be another girl-loves-guy-but-then-this-other-guy-comes-along-and-it-takes-three-books-for-her-to-really-decide series. I was hoping the love story would end up as an incidental aspect of the plot, not the ending point of the final book.

[End rant.]

Despite this particular setback, it's obvious that I had to enjoy this series to have made it to the last book and read it in a matter of days (as much as I love reading, I'm really slow at it).

I feel like most 'real' sci-fi authors use a dystopian setting as social commentary -- which can be annoying. However, Suzanne Collins manages to create a post-apocalyptic world whose commentary is more subtle than overbearing.

I was always surprised by the deaths of certain characters -- characters you'd think the author would keep alive for the sake of continuity. Like Cinna for example. Or Finnick, you feel like he should've made it out alive to share in the triumph over the Capitol. These unexpected deaths add a sense of reality to the series.

If it's not too morbid of me to say so, the constant death is what makes these books meaningful and sets them apart from other young adult fiction (that I've read anyway).

But I feel like the author should've played up the death aspect even more. I always love it when books explore the nature of death (HP7 did a great job of that). I would've loved for the author to develop some kind of philosophy around death instead of leaving it an incidental although integral part of the story.

I think there are few books that I read and like that I would recommend to just anyone -- but The Hunger Games series just might have something for everyone.

Update 5/19/2011: Looking back, I think there are fewer people I would recommend this to due to how the series ended.

Weezer 2010: too little, too late?

Whenever I blog about Weezer it always ends up being a long rant that I feel like no one would care about reading but me and I end up deleting it before I finish. This may turn into that. But so be it, because maybe I just need to get it out of my system.

- - - - -

Nostalgia is so in right now. And Weezer seems to be capitalizing on it. A few weeks ago Weezer released a single called "Memories" from their new album Hurley (this might be their best album cover yet), due out September 14. The song details the band's exploits during their early days and reaches levels of fuzz and rock rarely, if ever, seen in Weezer's past decade (could this be due to the band recently signing to Epitaph?).

If that's not enough, the band is set to release not one, but two throwback albums during the month of November. The first is called Death To False Metal... A Collection Of Unheard Songs From The Weezer Vault (previously titled Odds and Ends -- though I'm curious to know how much of this collection is actually 'unheard' -- old demo Weezer tracks weren't hard to find online in the early '00s).

The second album is a two-disc deluxe version of the fan favorite Pinkerton. Though I'm pretty positive I've heard every song that will be on the 'deluxe' portion of this album I'm nevertheless excited for it because a.) my Pinkerton CD skips like nobody's business and I feel cheap rocking a burned copy; after all, it is one of my top three favorite albums; and, b.) they might release it on vinyl (although I already have an import version of Pinkerton on vinyl). In addition to all this Pinkerton goodness, hardcore fans can purchase a three-disc 'superdeluxe' version of Pinkerton that includes the third installment of Rivers' Alone series (Alone is a collection of Rivers' home-recorded demos; two Alone albums have been released so far).

In sum, we're being bombarded with five albums worth of Weezer in the span of less than two months.

- - - - -

When Weezer's Pinkerton was released in 1996 I had just turned 14. I bought the album a couple weeks after it was released; I found it in the used section at Sam Goody for $9.00. I remember listening to the album the next day while working on my bike in the garage. I didn't hate it, but I didn't get it -- the rough guitars, the raw, intimate vocals, the raucous, bombastic drumbeats -- it was certainly a change from their debut Blue album. I wasn't surprised that it had ended up in the used section where I found it only a couple weeks after the album was released.

Pinkerton did have one pop gem, however, that kept me coming back to the album during the first year of owning that album: the album's first (and only semi-commercial) single, "El Scorcho." I listened to this song almost every day before school in eight grade. I know this song like I know few things in my life.

When I found out that Weezer would be stopping in Tempe during their Pinkerton tour on December 17, 1996 (I'm pretty sure of this date) I knew I had to go. But, my mom didn't agree with me. She said I was too young to attend such a concert. I was devastated. I remember walking around the block and crying (gimme a break, I was 14) when I found out I couldn't go.

I didn't see Weezer live till 2000 at the Warped Tour in 'lovely' Chula Vista, CA, with Danny, Joby, and Jeff, as evidenced in this charming photograph -- a story for a different blog post, perhaps.

Like I said, I didn't quite 'get' Pinkerton when it was first released. In time, though, I came to regard it as work of masterful genius and my love for it even surpassed that of the Blue album.

- - - - -

A week or so ago MTV News caught wind from Rivers himself of some news bound to excite even the most cynical Weezer fan: Weezer's plans for a Blue/Pinkerton tour to coincide with the release of the Pinkerton deluxe edition.

Attending a Weezer concert where they play nothing but songs from Blue and Pinkerton is something I've dreamed of since 1996. So why am I not jumping up and down and peeing my pants with joy?

I just revisited a blog post from almost two years ago wherein I describe my excitement and elation at the announcement of Jimmy Eat World's Clarity tour.

So why doesn't the announcement of a Blue/Pinkerton tour illicit a similar emotional response? Here I am, I'm not even a cynical Weezer fan and I refuse to let myself get excited. What did me in? Was the Raditude straw that broke the camel's back? (I do love a few songs on that album -- I just have an impossible time hanging with tracks like "Love is the Answer" and "In the Mall.")

Where was Weezer two years ago when Jimmy Eat World was announcing their Clarity tour and paying back the devotion of their longtime fans with the gift of a lifetime? Is Weezer's potential Blue/Pinkerton tour too little, too late?

Don't get me wrong. I still love Weezer. You know I'll be in the front row of whatever Blue/Pinkerton show I can get to (which will probably be in California because I doubt a tour like this will come to Phoenix). Maybe the Blue/Pinkerton tour is just what I need to rekindle my love for Weezer... a love that has been ever more fleeting in the recent years.

...maybe.

Perseid power

Late Wednesday evening I embarked on a nocturnal photogging journey with my buddy Seanathon Tedwerd and a new friend, Caleb. The following photo resulted:



The purpose of the journey was to take star trail photos and view the Perseids meteor shower. We were successful on both accounts.

We ended up finding the perfect spot to take photos -- a small dirt road connecting Power Road and the Beeline Highway that passed at the foot of Red Mountain (is that even the real name of the mountain?). The headlights in Sean's van threatened to cut out several times but that only contributed to the spirit of adventure and camaraderie.

With work in the morning, I didn't get home to 3:30 a.m. -- it was worth it.

something for everyone

This album has been in and out of my CD player (yeah, I still listen to CDs) during the past couple weeks:

These Four Walls by We Were Promised Jetpacks
There are quite a few things I like about this band:

-- Their name. I'd like to know who has the ability to make (and keep) such a promise. And how one gets promised a jetpack.

-- I don't know what it is, there's just something raw, something a bit more manly, a bit more tough about this guy's voice. Maybe it's the slight rasp, maybe it's his Scottish accent, but it's probably both.

-- Electric guitars. Nothing searing, soaring or face-melting, just dirty and sometimes dynamic. More often than not that's all I ever need.

-- They're touring with Jimmy Eat World (more on them later) this fall. Not sure if they'll be playing at JEW's TBD Arizona show but a guy can hope, right?

*****

I kinda like it when Brandon Flowers makes religious allusions in his songs. He's LDS too so I feel like I can relate -- or at least I can understand where he's coming from. That said, I really enjoy the single "Crossfire" from his forthcoming solo album, Flamingo.



There's just something about the way Charlize puts her arm around him at the end there. It's cute. Flamingo is out September 14.

*****

Speaking of September, it's shaping up to be a good month as far as music releases go. My hometown homeboys Jimmy Eat World release Invented on September 28. This could be their best album in a long while for at least two reasons:

1. Producer Mark Trombino is back -- his resume includes prior JEW releases Static Prevails, Clarity, and Bleed American, not to mention a slew of albums by other 90s emo/indie/post-punk greats like No Knife and Knapsack.

2. Tom Linton -- JEW guitarist and former full-time JEW vocalist -- takes over lead vocal duties for one song on this album -- something he hasn't done since Clarity in 1999.

JEW has yet to announce a date in Arizona for their upcoming tour this fall but they have assured fans via Twitter/Facebook that they are indeed planning a show in their home state. To that I say, thank you Jimmy Eat World for not sweeping your AZ fans under the rug like so many other bands have because of SB1070 (for the record, JEW opposes SB1070).

*****

For me, blogging about movies would be sort of like someone who listens to the radio and occasionally downloads a song from iTunes blogging about music (OK, not exactly -- I like movies more than that, but I definitely wouldn't call myself a movie guy). Nevertheless, I encourage those who have yet to see this movie to go see it:

Here's why:

1. It's a good movie.

2. Cohesive cast.

3. Why is it that anything successful in Hollywood is either based on a book or a remake of another movie? Inception is great because it's an original story -- not based on a book, not based on another movie, but based on a screenplay -- and it's been successful at the box office. Hopefully, filmmakers will realize they don't have to regurgitate someone else's premise in order to make a few bucks (or a good movie). (Ironically, none of Christopher Nolan's other box office successes, Batman Begins, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight, are not his original works -- but they're nevertheless very well done.)

4. Finally, financially, I hope it does better than the latest Twilight installment. (Which, by the way, was awful. This is coming from the guy who kinda liked the second movie, so I'm not just being biased or close-minded.)