through problems with my keyboard, and then my display not working on
my laptop, and general busy-ness, i have let this blog get way out of
date...
so, last time i wrote i was staying with marcos
fernandes, an all-round great guy who, along with his lovely wife,
hosted me for my first few days in japan. he also arranged a phonography
show where the two of us performed alongside cal lyall, who organises
shows at super deluxe - more of that later, and tetsuro yasunaga. the
space we played in is an old bank building called nitehi space, which
has been renovated as a really cool bar.
while with
marcos we also went out recording, and i watched him play in an improv
group and a stones-styled rock band, so got to see all sides of his
musical talent!
on 5th august i headed back to tokyo to
stay in shinjuku area, met with will long, miko and also takahiro
yorifuji (hakobune) and koji obinata - all lovely people.
the
following day i just wandered around, trying to find one thing and
ending up finding another, helped by a lovely young lady called junko.
then visited a small jazz bar called sakaiki in the evening, joining
takahiro and koji there, and arranging a couple more concerts while in
japan through takahiro.
on the 7th i had a concert at
super deluxe, which is a huge basement bar with a great sound system. i
played first at one of cal's 'test tone' events to a larger than average
and most appreciative audience. i had to duck out early as i had to
catch a bus to kyoto the next day, but it was good to see folk there and
chat to adoring fans! ;-)
so a long trip to kyoto by
bus the next day, and then a long walk to the hostel, which was in the
north of the city close to nijo castle. i dumped my luggage, hit a 7-11
for some food - something i will come back to in a bit - and had a
shower.
i mention 7-11 because food is actually quite expensive
(for me, being from uk) in japan. however, all the convenience stores
sell rice balls for anywhere between 100 and 150 yen (£1-£1.50) and also
bento's which cost around 400 yen. much healthier than what you'd
normally find in a convenience store in most other countries...
once
the sun went down i went out wandering with my recorder, got a bit
lost, found my way, got back to the hostel and slept very well thanks.
the
next morning i had to move hostels and checked in to the 'tomato' near
the main bus and train station. wandering the city once again, visiting
various shrines and other historic places, i also went to the 'manga
museum' - for anyone who doesn't read japanese, heed this warning -
don't waste your money going here! it's just a manga library really. it
was good to see some of the old manga books, but the english section is
very small, the french one smaller, going down through korean, spanish
and a couple of other languages where the collections were miniscule!
that
evening, in the hostel, i met jenny logico-cruz, a performer from
manila in the philippines, who was in kyoto studying noh theatre and
invited me to her recital the following evening...
so
the next day i visited the kyoto art center, as i have previously
applied to participate in their residency program and been unsuccessful.
i met with the residency coordinator - whose business card i
inadvertently washed with a shirt - and chatted about the possibility of
a residency there. and also visited meditations record shop - which is
definitely worth visiting for those of you who like vinyl and
experimental music.
then i attended the recital and the noh
theatre, which was really fascinating. i enjoyed the stylised actions
and delivery, as well as the music. jenny was great in her performance -
much more intense than i'd imagined she would be!
on
11th i took a train to osaka, and then a tram to the hostel, which
turned out to be in sakai, which is actually another city!! it was nice
and quiet there actually, and small enough to walk around in one day. i
got some nice recordings in the park there and around the dockland area.
the
following day i visited the castle in osaka, which was great anyway,
but i also got to watch some kendo for around an hour - fantastic. again
the sounds and the ritual were fascinating. i also visited nu things,
the club/bar that i was performing in the next day. then back to the
hostel to chat to the guys there.
on 13th i moved from
the hostel i was in to a capsule hotel in the centre of osaka - which
proved fun as i had booked into one that was nowhere near the one i had
found on my map, so through being helped by various postal workers and
hotel managers, who spoke little english, and then visiting a strange
internet/manga bar, i managed to find the right place. i then met with
another lovely young lady, aya, who showed me around the city a little
and introduced me to okonomiyaki (a kind of omelet or pancake) and
takoyaki (octopus balls).
then a quick dash to nu things to set up
and perform, alongside yousei and tomohito matsumoto - both excellent
guitarists and nice guys! it was a small but intimate crowd, and i even
got asked to play more when i had finished my set!! thanks to the other
musicians and junya for a pleasant evening.
on the 14th
i headed back to tokyo on the bus, which because of trains not running
took 4 hours longer than it should have, so basically i spent the whole
day on the bus...
which meant the following day i was a mess, so
took it easy, wandering around the akihabara area, and then meeting with
hiroki sasajima, sawako kato and takahiro once again for a delicious
meal of sushi and radish tower, washed down with some japanese black
beer - another very pleasant evening!
i'm going to stop
there, as if anyone is reading this they may need to do the same. i'll
be back soon with the second half of the month...
Wednesday 19 September 2012
Thursday 2 August 2012
china - korea - japan
apologies those of you who actually do follow this blog, i have been really bad with updates!
i will update for the remainder of july in journal form as there is much to write...
8th july - early start, train to shanghai, negotiate shanghai subway and find mcdonalds i am directed to to find their internet service is not working. thankfully i have my friend josie's phone no. so borrow a young lad's phone and call her. we meet,drop off my stuff and head out to visit the pudong area. as i said before, shanghai is so different from beijing, all high rise and bright lights!
9th july - i visit people's square and the contemporary art museum, recording general city sounds, then later josie and i go for amazing dumplings in a place local to her apartment.
10th july - visit rockbund art gallery - very cool 1920's building with good exhibition of paola pivi work. meet top chinese sound artist/musician yan jun at the swatch art peace hotel where he is artist in residence - amazing high end hotel - i immediately decide to apply for a residency also! we meet with some more local musicians called zuzhi, go for food, then are also met by my old friend lin zhang. very good to catch up with him.
11th july - meet with josh atkin,a brit who has been based in shanghai for a couple of years, and we have a delicious noodle soup and chat about music and life. i return to josie's to tool up for the concert, then meet yan jun to perform with him in someone's living room. the concert is great, with us playing through headphones for the gathered audience. quite a challenge to play in this way, but rewarding, and fun. then we all head to a street barbecue place which is, as you will guess, really good!! thanks to yan jun for inviting me to join him. it would be a pleasure to work with him again...
12th july - an attempt to find a gallery run is thwarted by heavy rain and general uselessness on my part! so i wander around a huge shopping mall while it pours down and then once the rain stops i head west to some alleyways and quiet areas of shanghai.
13th july - i haven't mentioned how hot and humid shanghai was while i was there, so the friday was a relaxed affair, catching up with admin and making the most of joies's aircon! i have to thank josie so much for her hospitality - i really appreciate you having me stay! and i hope one day i can return the favour!!
mid-afternoon i headed to the main railway station to meet lin and his wife, and we traveled to a town called hangzhou together. although only an hour or so away, i realised how easy i had it in the bigger cities. it became very obvious that very few people in china speak english... the hotel i was in had only one member of staff that had any english at all and his was really limited!
14th july- lin comes to meet me at the hotel at 5am and we embark on an early morning trip to record the (much quieter) sounds of hangzhou. we hire bikes and explore various parts on the outskirts of the city, capturing some good stuff and generally hanging out. by early afternoon we are flagging so head back to our respective beds and sleep. i am invited to lin's in-laws for the evening for a meal so head out in the heavy rain around 7pm to try and get a taxi - we had already had problems getting one in hangzhou when we arrived and me being a foreigner (because of the language problem, not racism!!), and the weather, made it impossible to get any to stop for me, so eventually lin came to collect me. we had a lovely evening and the food was incredible! and visiting a couple of pubs afterwards where live bands playing odd choices of cover versions completed the evening nicely!
15th july (happy birthday to my bro) - i leave the hotel around 11am, and wander around hangzhou for the next 8 hours, just exploring and recording. a really nice, hot but relaxing day.and witnessing countless newlywed (or soon to be wed) couples having their photographs taken in any piece of parkland. very strange. then back to shanghai.
16th july - fly to seoul, korea. i am met by ryu hankil and my brother carl, who flew in 8 hours or so earlier. we drop bags off and then go for (delicious!) porkrib barbecue and soju! a perfect start to my visit to korea!
17th july - carl and i wander around the local area, finding our bearings, trying to find a streetmap and good places to eat where they have picture menus or menus in english. this didn't last as there are not too many in the area we were staying in. i should mention, we were housed in the mullae art center, which is a fantastic place to be and thanks hankil for arranging!
18th july - we visit the cheonggyecheon palace for a few hours and then try and find the folk flea market, which takes forever to try and then we just stumble across! i buy a replacement violin (possibly) bow for a couple of bucks so it was definitely worth finding!!
19th july - meet hankil, visit art center nabi, then head to an area of seoul that has lots of alleyways, gallery shops and coffee shops - quite a gentrified area that is good to wander around, then to a building that houses a music market, so you can buy any equipment you'd ever need - i bought some much needed rosin for the bow... we then meet with ji-heun, who is best friends with my buddy soo in bristol, and also sungah, ji-heun's sister, and we go for some more amazing food and then tea afterwards. and these lovely ladies paid for it all! thank you so much!!
20th july - carl and i head to the museum of contemporary art, which is surprisingly far out and takes ages to get to - unfortunate as i had to return to the art center to prepare for a concert that night. this only left us around 45 minutes to actually see the place. plus i had developed ahead cold through forgetting to turn off the aircon the previous night. things got a little tense, but we worked through it... the concert was hosted by jin sangtae at his space 'dotolim' - an apartment, but a great, intimate space. and we had a good sized audience who seemed to enjoy the show. sangtae, hankil and i performed two sets as a duo, the second of which worked much better than the first i feel... then out for more great food and soju! a shame my headcold stopped me enjoying a longer night out, but i was exhausted way too early...
21st july - a brief coffee with hankil and then we head to the north seoul tower to try and catch the sunset, which we miss completely! we do go up in the tower however, which has amazing views across the city, but strong lighting inside the tower does detract somewhat from that...also, because of a massive queue for the cable car to the top, we decide to climb the hill to the tower, going the wrong way at one point. hard, hot work, but kind of fun, and just as hard on the thighs coming down!
22nd july - travel to mokpo in an attempt to visit jeju island. we get to the ferry terminal to find we missed the only ferry on a sunday by about 3 hours! so we check in to a motel very close to the terminal and head out to explore a rocky outcrop close to where we stay. we see the sun set from the top, then head into mokpo for something to eat. details of what i actually did eat in korea are sketchy as for some reason i didn't write them down, and half the time didn't know what it was called anyway - apologies for this - it was all great though!!
23rd july - travel to jeju by ferry and then check in to a hostel really close to one we had booked, but way cheaper! only one bed, but fortunately there's a mattress i can roll out to sleep on on the floor. i don't have a problem with sharing a bed with my bro in principle, but when he kicks me in the night i'd rather not!! ;-)
24th july - we walk in the hottest part of the day once again to find the bus terminal and visit the seongsan ichulbong crater to the east of the island. it's so hot and the climb to the crater is strenuous, but thankfully not too long. and nicely breezy up top! on our return to jeju city wehave a problem with not being able to order one meal between the two of us, as had have done countless times before, so end up in a great little place where i try dog soup for the first time. and it's actually pretty tasty!
25th july - visit to halla mountain to try and visit the huge crater there, but as we climb, knowing it's an 8-9 hour round trip,we see signs that tell us if we don't reach a certain point of the mountain by 1pm we can go no further. we continue up, then take a steep side path to a smaller crater where i get some nice photos and hydrophone recordings and we eat lunch on the bank of the crater lake. a round trip of around 4 hours back to the bus stop, we realise to do the whole climb would have been really hard!
26th july - back to seoul by ferry and then 5hr train journey, taking in the scenery.and back to the barbecue place hankil took us to the first night!
27th - an easy day wandering around the gallery area, which is pleasant, if a bit touristy...and then one more helping of dog soup, this time much more heavy on the dog meat. the regulars seemed really impressed we were there, eating dog and drinking soju...!
28th - visit seoul musuem of art (sema) which has some nice stuff (marred by an awful audio tour!) and where i saw an amazing film: 'the cloud of unknowing' by ho tzu nyen. find it and watch it! time for the second concert in seoul, this time at lowrise, an abandoned workshop space perfect for these type of events!
the evening was a great success, with all the artists playing very different styles that complemented each other, although the high volume of the preceding acts happened to affect my performance so i played very softly (for once!). carl and i stayed up drinking soju until it got light, and then slept until mid-afternoon the 29th! we did venture out around 6pm with a new artist in residence, debbie ding from singapore, and had a chicken rice soup that has a whole chicken in it! perfect for a hangover!! it caused us to sleep further, then go out and drink a few beers outside the local gs25 convenience store!
30th - carl leaves seoul at 9am - sad to see him go,and it felt totally weird then being there without him! i headed to the art centre at changdong for a meeting with curator heejung park and also got to spend time with tao, a slovenian artist thereon a residency who had also performed at lowrise on 28th. then a meeting with hankil and soojung at art center nabi to discuss my possible return to seoul in the future. i left them after an hour to meet once again with ji-heun and sungah, and then when hankil joined us we went for dumpling soup. once again great to see them all and a perfect end to my visit.thank you all for everything!!
31st - fly to japan, chatting to a very interesting officer of the us army all the way there. amazing how you have expectations of someone like that and they totally blow you away by their liberal views and opinions of their own government.... arrive at the capsule hotel that is to be my home for a night and explore the asakusa area, firstly with camera and then with recording gear. funny things, capsules, because they are basically an enclosed bunk bed! not bad at all really!
1st august i head to yokohama where i meet with all round great guy marcos fernandes, who is currently hosting me. more soon...
i will update for the remainder of july in journal form as there is much to write...
8th july - early start, train to shanghai, negotiate shanghai subway and find mcdonalds i am directed to to find their internet service is not working. thankfully i have my friend josie's phone no. so borrow a young lad's phone and call her. we meet,drop off my stuff and head out to visit the pudong area. as i said before, shanghai is so different from beijing, all high rise and bright lights!
9th july - i visit people's square and the contemporary art museum, recording general city sounds, then later josie and i go for amazing dumplings in a place local to her apartment.
10th july - visit rockbund art gallery - very cool 1920's building with good exhibition of paola pivi work. meet top chinese sound artist/musician yan jun at the swatch art peace hotel where he is artist in residence - amazing high end hotel - i immediately decide to apply for a residency also! we meet with some more local musicians called zuzhi, go for food, then are also met by my old friend lin zhang. very good to catch up with him.
11th july - meet with josh atkin,a brit who has been based in shanghai for a couple of years, and we have a delicious noodle soup and chat about music and life. i return to josie's to tool up for the concert, then meet yan jun to perform with him in someone's living room. the concert is great, with us playing through headphones for the gathered audience. quite a challenge to play in this way, but rewarding, and fun. then we all head to a street barbecue place which is, as you will guess, really good!! thanks to yan jun for inviting me to join him. it would be a pleasure to work with him again...
12th july - an attempt to find a gallery run is thwarted by heavy rain and general uselessness on my part! so i wander around a huge shopping mall while it pours down and then once the rain stops i head west to some alleyways and quiet areas of shanghai.
13th july - i haven't mentioned how hot and humid shanghai was while i was there, so the friday was a relaxed affair, catching up with admin and making the most of joies's aircon! i have to thank josie so much for her hospitality - i really appreciate you having me stay! and i hope one day i can return the favour!!
mid-afternoon i headed to the main railway station to meet lin and his wife, and we traveled to a town called hangzhou together. although only an hour or so away, i realised how easy i had it in the bigger cities. it became very obvious that very few people in china speak english... the hotel i was in had only one member of staff that had any english at all and his was really limited!
14th july- lin comes to meet me at the hotel at 5am and we embark on an early morning trip to record the (much quieter) sounds of hangzhou. we hire bikes and explore various parts on the outskirts of the city, capturing some good stuff and generally hanging out. by early afternoon we are flagging so head back to our respective beds and sleep. i am invited to lin's in-laws for the evening for a meal so head out in the heavy rain around 7pm to try and get a taxi - we had already had problems getting one in hangzhou when we arrived and me being a foreigner (because of the language problem, not racism!!), and the weather, made it impossible to get any to stop for me, so eventually lin came to collect me. we had a lovely evening and the food was incredible! and visiting a couple of pubs afterwards where live bands playing odd choices of cover versions completed the evening nicely!
15th july (happy birthday to my bro) - i leave the hotel around 11am, and wander around hangzhou for the next 8 hours, just exploring and recording. a really nice, hot but relaxing day.and witnessing countless newlywed (or soon to be wed) couples having their photographs taken in any piece of parkland. very strange. then back to shanghai.
16th july - fly to seoul, korea. i am met by ryu hankil and my brother carl, who flew in 8 hours or so earlier. we drop bags off and then go for (delicious!) porkrib barbecue and soju! a perfect start to my visit to korea!
17th july - carl and i wander around the local area, finding our bearings, trying to find a streetmap and good places to eat where they have picture menus or menus in english. this didn't last as there are not too many in the area we were staying in. i should mention, we were housed in the mullae art center, which is a fantastic place to be and thanks hankil for arranging!
18th july - we visit the cheonggyecheon palace for a few hours and then try and find the folk flea market, which takes forever to try and then we just stumble across! i buy a replacement violin (possibly) bow for a couple of bucks so it was definitely worth finding!!
19th july - meet hankil, visit art center nabi, then head to an area of seoul that has lots of alleyways, gallery shops and coffee shops - quite a gentrified area that is good to wander around, then to a building that houses a music market, so you can buy any equipment you'd ever need - i bought some much needed rosin for the bow... we then meet with ji-heun, who is best friends with my buddy soo in bristol, and also sungah, ji-heun's sister, and we go for some more amazing food and then tea afterwards. and these lovely ladies paid for it all! thank you so much!!
20th july - carl and i head to the museum of contemporary art, which is surprisingly far out and takes ages to get to - unfortunate as i had to return to the art center to prepare for a concert that night. this only left us around 45 minutes to actually see the place. plus i had developed ahead cold through forgetting to turn off the aircon the previous night. things got a little tense, but we worked through it... the concert was hosted by jin sangtae at his space 'dotolim' - an apartment, but a great, intimate space. and we had a good sized audience who seemed to enjoy the show. sangtae, hankil and i performed two sets as a duo, the second of which worked much better than the first i feel... then out for more great food and soju! a shame my headcold stopped me enjoying a longer night out, but i was exhausted way too early...
21st july - a brief coffee with hankil and then we head to the north seoul tower to try and catch the sunset, which we miss completely! we do go up in the tower however, which has amazing views across the city, but strong lighting inside the tower does detract somewhat from that...also, because of a massive queue for the cable car to the top, we decide to climb the hill to the tower, going the wrong way at one point. hard, hot work, but kind of fun, and just as hard on the thighs coming down!
22nd july - travel to mokpo in an attempt to visit jeju island. we get to the ferry terminal to find we missed the only ferry on a sunday by about 3 hours! so we check in to a motel very close to the terminal and head out to explore a rocky outcrop close to where we stay. we see the sun set from the top, then head into mokpo for something to eat. details of what i actually did eat in korea are sketchy as for some reason i didn't write them down, and half the time didn't know what it was called anyway - apologies for this - it was all great though!!
23rd july - travel to jeju by ferry and then check in to a hostel really close to one we had booked, but way cheaper! only one bed, but fortunately there's a mattress i can roll out to sleep on on the floor. i don't have a problem with sharing a bed with my bro in principle, but when he kicks me in the night i'd rather not!! ;-)
24th july - we walk in the hottest part of the day once again to find the bus terminal and visit the seongsan ichulbong crater to the east of the island. it's so hot and the climb to the crater is strenuous, but thankfully not too long. and nicely breezy up top! on our return to jeju city wehave a problem with not being able to order one meal between the two of us, as had have done countless times before, so end up in a great little place where i try dog soup for the first time. and it's actually pretty tasty!
25th july - visit to halla mountain to try and visit the huge crater there, but as we climb, knowing it's an 8-9 hour round trip,we see signs that tell us if we don't reach a certain point of the mountain by 1pm we can go no further. we continue up, then take a steep side path to a smaller crater where i get some nice photos and hydrophone recordings and we eat lunch on the bank of the crater lake. a round trip of around 4 hours back to the bus stop, we realise to do the whole climb would have been really hard!
26th july - back to seoul by ferry and then 5hr train journey, taking in the scenery.and back to the barbecue place hankil took us to the first night!
27th - an easy day wandering around the gallery area, which is pleasant, if a bit touristy...and then one more helping of dog soup, this time much more heavy on the dog meat. the regulars seemed really impressed we were there, eating dog and drinking soju...!
28th - visit seoul musuem of art (sema) which has some nice stuff (marred by an awful audio tour!) and where i saw an amazing film: 'the cloud of unknowing' by ho tzu nyen. find it and watch it! time for the second concert in seoul, this time at lowrise, an abandoned workshop space perfect for these type of events!
the evening was a great success, with all the artists playing very different styles that complemented each other, although the high volume of the preceding acts happened to affect my performance so i played very softly (for once!). carl and i stayed up drinking soju until it got light, and then slept until mid-afternoon the 29th! we did venture out around 6pm with a new artist in residence, debbie ding from singapore, and had a chicken rice soup that has a whole chicken in it! perfect for a hangover!! it caused us to sleep further, then go out and drink a few beers outside the local gs25 convenience store!
30th - carl leaves seoul at 9am - sad to see him go,and it felt totally weird then being there without him! i headed to the art centre at changdong for a meeting with curator heejung park and also got to spend time with tao, a slovenian artist thereon a residency who had also performed at lowrise on 28th. then a meeting with hankil and soojung at art center nabi to discuss my possible return to seoul in the future. i left them after an hour to meet once again with ji-heun and sungah, and then when hankil joined us we went for dumpling soup. once again great to see them all and a perfect end to my visit.thank you all for everything!!
31st - fly to japan, chatting to a very interesting officer of the us army all the way there. amazing how you have expectations of someone like that and they totally blow you away by their liberal views and opinions of their own government.... arrive at the capsule hotel that is to be my home for a night and explore the asakusa area, firstly with camera and then with recording gear. funny things, capsules, because they are basically an enclosed bunk bed! not bad at all really!
1st august i head to yokohama where i meet with all round great guy marcos fernandes, who is currently hosting me. more soon...
Tuesday 10 July 2012
China - part one
so the show in phnom penh, cambodia was a little disappointing, especially after the great shows in vietnam. the venue was good, a german run arts house with regular events and screenings, however as i started to perform, so a bunch of chatty expats came in and just talked through the whole set. there were moments where i was going to move aroundthe space more to engage them, but somehow i knew they just werenot going to be quiet and listen... which was proven when beat poet antonio pineda joined me to read some of his works to 'musical' accompaniment. he got louder and louder to rise above the chatting, which of course then drove people away... a great shame, but then there will always be bad shows to balance out the good ones! after the show we went for drinks and i ended up staying out until daylight (no idea what the time was, as you will recall my phone was stolen in hanoi and that is my only means of timekeeping...). so for the whole of my last day in cambodia i slept off a hangover!
on the 1st july i got a taxi at 6am to the airport to fly to china. i still had no idea what was in store for me when i got there, but found my way out of the airport easy enough, changed some us dollars easy enough and although slightly ripped off by a taxi driver, got to my hostel. here i faced the prospect of sleeping in a room with 5 other smelly blokes or 3 so took the latter. i set up bed on a lower bunk, met a somalian guy wh was staying there for a year to study and a chinese guy who had no english but was super friendly.
wanting to venture out and explore, i asked at the desk if they had a map but was told they only had one in chinese. then of of the guys behind the desk asked why,so i explained i wanted to just wander around, find some food but not get too lost, and he offered to take me on a walk around the area, which was awesome. he showed me to a really cheap noodle place - a bowl of noodle soup and a bottle of coke came to 160rmb, or £1.60 roughly... then we wandered along nanluogu hutong, which is a kind of touristy alley, but has some great bars and snack places. and found me a map, which cost 80rmb, which apparently was also too expensive.
2nd july i wander around the city the same way as i went the night before, which would be west from the hostel, but then headed south from the landmark i recognised from the night before, the drum and bell tower. from there i headed to the forbidden city and walked around the west side of the perimeter until i got to tiananmen square. i should now mention the heat - it was around 35 degrees C. i was melting! and i could see most other people were too.always reassuring! from there i wandered up a street that i discovered was one i was going to try and find through the week, which has at least two massive bookshops with english language books in stock. i had finished martin amis's 'the information' - which is a great read by the way - and needed another travel book. i eventually plumped for the latest david mitchell. i took it very easy that evening as far as i can remember, having walked quite a distance and been roasted all day...
the following day josh feola who runs xp with his girlfriend lulu came to meet me and we visited the venue. a really nice space - i advise anyone who is traveling through beijing, and wants to perform, to play there! i looked over the place and found a few objects that i could possibly use in my performance, and then headed back to the hostel to meet another expat, brad seippel, who i met through his sister michele (whom i met at the mcneill street pumping station festival in louisiana last year). brad is also a musician, and we chatted music over food, heading back to xp to catch a concert in the evening. first up was a guitar and iphone duo playing trancey rock in the vein of spacemen 3, whose t-shirt the guitarist happened to be wearing. and then a guitar and bass duo with drum machine followed. all loud and pretty good, but for me too much use of loop station!
on the 4th i had to get up pretty early as i had a trip booked to the great wall. i was with a great group of people- 2 from the uk of nigerian descent, 2 from hong kong and 3 turkish guys who were hilarious. we were taken to a jade factory (and pushed to buy stuff), the ming tombs (or one of them), the great wall (one of the steepest parts - a solid 45 minute climb again in the midday heat, but good to do), lunch (which was pretty good and varied), a silk factory (where we were pushed to buy stuff), the bird's nest building (where we pulled up on the side of a road not very near to the building at all), a tea house (where we were pushed to buy stuff - and at this point the turks got really angry and stormed off to get a taxi back to their hotel!) and finally a tibetan health centre for a foot massage (and yes, once again pushed to buy stuff!!). it was a fun day out and i should have got contact details from the guys that were left on the trip as we all got on really well. i got back in time to have a wee lie down and then headed to xp once again to catch a fantastic violinist and an interesting guitarist, but again the loop pedal was very much in use...
the next day brad came to meet me, as i would be staying with him from that day, and had the afternoon off, so we dropped off my luggage at his place and then visited the temple of heaven to explore with microphone and camera... we were there a couple of hours, then headed out to the end of a subway line to see what there was out there. we found quite a poor area that suddenly turned into a demolition site, but with people still living in it... i did attract a little too much attention, recording the resonance in some holes in a concrete block, but generally people were friendly. i don't think many foreigners go to that part of town. we must have been walking for around 6 hours all together, so when we got back, and faced the prospect of going to xp once again,but having the added fun of it raining, we decided to call it a day and rest.
on the 6th i made preparations for my performance in the evening , and then headed to the forbidden city, to go inside this time. i don't think i have seen so many people in a place, except maybe in a stadium. it was incredible! because the site is just huge, but there were people everywhere! it was an ominous, gloomy day which i think helped the ambience of the place. oh, and i had my first 'tea girl' experience. a pretty girl approaches the single male foreigner and asks lots of questions, stating that she is learning english and wantsto practice. she will invite you to go and have a cup of tea with her. if you accept, you will have a nice chat over a cup of tea, and then be charged something like £200 for it! well folks, i didn't fall for it, you'll be glad to hear...
so, to the concert. li jianhong started the evening off with some fine noisy guitar gnashings, and then his wife vavabond played a subtle glitchy set using a light sensor on an iphone and laptop. i played my more recent set,with recordings from australia, argentina, cambodia and vietnam, using sound exciters on the stairway and a microwave to play sounds through them, plus grinding sea shells and getting some nice abrasive sounds from a metal dustpan. we also played a collaborative set between the three of us, which was nice, but i feel the solo sets were much better.
we met up with a friend of brad's called michael, whom i had met briefly earlier in the week over donkey burgers, and we had beers a plenty and great food until around 4am - as seems to happen after my shows!
the following day was definitely an easy one, not walking too far, catching up with emails, and then heading out to catch brad's concert that evening. we grabbed some awesome dumplings before the show, and then hung out with another american expat, also called michael as well as a scot, mary. brad's set was really nice, combining abstract electronics with pop tunes and a traditional instrument called a pipa. he was supporting a chinese 3 piece pop band who were very good at what they do and great fun, even playing covers of boney m's 'daddy cool' and calvin harris's 'i get all the girls' but changing it to 'i drink all the beers' - all the more arresting by it being sung by a very sweet looking young chinese lady.
a late night was not on the cards - although i think we still didn't get back until 3am - another meeting with michael #1 and his girlfriend, barbecue chicken and more beer... however i had to get up early to catch a 09:20 fast train to shanghai. following my friend josie's directions i arrived at the metro station closest to her place and then found none of the cafe's including mcdonalds had working wifi, so i had to ask 3 people if i could borrow their phone to call my friend! i got through, she met me, and after dropping the luggage once again we headed out to the central area of pudong to get something to eat and have a walk around.
Shanghai is a very different city from beijing, with a number of different centres and many more high-rise buildings - it seems a much more modern city, but i think i have to explore more....
on the 1st july i got a taxi at 6am to the airport to fly to china. i still had no idea what was in store for me when i got there, but found my way out of the airport easy enough, changed some us dollars easy enough and although slightly ripped off by a taxi driver, got to my hostel. here i faced the prospect of sleeping in a room with 5 other smelly blokes or 3 so took the latter. i set up bed on a lower bunk, met a somalian guy wh was staying there for a year to study and a chinese guy who had no english but was super friendly.
wanting to venture out and explore, i asked at the desk if they had a map but was told they only had one in chinese. then of of the guys behind the desk asked why,so i explained i wanted to just wander around, find some food but not get too lost, and he offered to take me on a walk around the area, which was awesome. he showed me to a really cheap noodle place - a bowl of noodle soup and a bottle of coke came to 160rmb, or £1.60 roughly... then we wandered along nanluogu hutong, which is a kind of touristy alley, but has some great bars and snack places. and found me a map, which cost 80rmb, which apparently was also too expensive.
2nd july i wander around the city the same way as i went the night before, which would be west from the hostel, but then headed south from the landmark i recognised from the night before, the drum and bell tower. from there i headed to the forbidden city and walked around the west side of the perimeter until i got to tiananmen square. i should now mention the heat - it was around 35 degrees C. i was melting! and i could see most other people were too.always reassuring! from there i wandered up a street that i discovered was one i was going to try and find through the week, which has at least two massive bookshops with english language books in stock. i had finished martin amis's 'the information' - which is a great read by the way - and needed another travel book. i eventually plumped for the latest david mitchell. i took it very easy that evening as far as i can remember, having walked quite a distance and been roasted all day...
the following day josh feola who runs xp with his girlfriend lulu came to meet me and we visited the venue. a really nice space - i advise anyone who is traveling through beijing, and wants to perform, to play there! i looked over the place and found a few objects that i could possibly use in my performance, and then headed back to the hostel to meet another expat, brad seippel, who i met through his sister michele (whom i met at the mcneill street pumping station festival in louisiana last year). brad is also a musician, and we chatted music over food, heading back to xp to catch a concert in the evening. first up was a guitar and iphone duo playing trancey rock in the vein of spacemen 3, whose t-shirt the guitarist happened to be wearing. and then a guitar and bass duo with drum machine followed. all loud and pretty good, but for me too much use of loop station!
on the 4th i had to get up pretty early as i had a trip booked to the great wall. i was with a great group of people- 2 from the uk of nigerian descent, 2 from hong kong and 3 turkish guys who were hilarious. we were taken to a jade factory (and pushed to buy stuff), the ming tombs (or one of them), the great wall (one of the steepest parts - a solid 45 minute climb again in the midday heat, but good to do), lunch (which was pretty good and varied), a silk factory (where we were pushed to buy stuff), the bird's nest building (where we pulled up on the side of a road not very near to the building at all), a tea house (where we were pushed to buy stuff - and at this point the turks got really angry and stormed off to get a taxi back to their hotel!) and finally a tibetan health centre for a foot massage (and yes, once again pushed to buy stuff!!). it was a fun day out and i should have got contact details from the guys that were left on the trip as we all got on really well. i got back in time to have a wee lie down and then headed to xp once again to catch a fantastic violinist and an interesting guitarist, but again the loop pedal was very much in use...
the next day brad came to meet me, as i would be staying with him from that day, and had the afternoon off, so we dropped off my luggage at his place and then visited the temple of heaven to explore with microphone and camera... we were there a couple of hours, then headed out to the end of a subway line to see what there was out there. we found quite a poor area that suddenly turned into a demolition site, but with people still living in it... i did attract a little too much attention, recording the resonance in some holes in a concrete block, but generally people were friendly. i don't think many foreigners go to that part of town. we must have been walking for around 6 hours all together, so when we got back, and faced the prospect of going to xp once again,but having the added fun of it raining, we decided to call it a day and rest.
on the 6th i made preparations for my performance in the evening , and then headed to the forbidden city, to go inside this time. i don't think i have seen so many people in a place, except maybe in a stadium. it was incredible! because the site is just huge, but there were people everywhere! it was an ominous, gloomy day which i think helped the ambience of the place. oh, and i had my first 'tea girl' experience. a pretty girl approaches the single male foreigner and asks lots of questions, stating that she is learning english and wantsto practice. she will invite you to go and have a cup of tea with her. if you accept, you will have a nice chat over a cup of tea, and then be charged something like £200 for it! well folks, i didn't fall for it, you'll be glad to hear...
so, to the concert. li jianhong started the evening off with some fine noisy guitar gnashings, and then his wife vavabond played a subtle glitchy set using a light sensor on an iphone and laptop. i played my more recent set,with recordings from australia, argentina, cambodia and vietnam, using sound exciters on the stairway and a microwave to play sounds through them, plus grinding sea shells and getting some nice abrasive sounds from a metal dustpan. we also played a collaborative set between the three of us, which was nice, but i feel the solo sets were much better.
we met up with a friend of brad's called michael, whom i had met briefly earlier in the week over donkey burgers, and we had beers a plenty and great food until around 4am - as seems to happen after my shows!
the following day was definitely an easy one, not walking too far, catching up with emails, and then heading out to catch brad's concert that evening. we grabbed some awesome dumplings before the show, and then hung out with another american expat, also called michael as well as a scot, mary. brad's set was really nice, combining abstract electronics with pop tunes and a traditional instrument called a pipa. he was supporting a chinese 3 piece pop band who were very good at what they do and great fun, even playing covers of boney m's 'daddy cool' and calvin harris's 'i get all the girls' but changing it to 'i drink all the beers' - all the more arresting by it being sung by a very sweet looking young chinese lady.
a late night was not on the cards - although i think we still didn't get back until 3am - another meeting with michael #1 and his girlfriend, barbecue chicken and more beer... however i had to get up early to catch a 09:20 fast train to shanghai. following my friend josie's directions i arrived at the metro station closest to her place and then found none of the cafe's including mcdonalds had working wifi, so i had to ask 3 people if i could borrow their phone to call my friend! i got through, she met me, and after dropping the luggage once again we headed out to the central area of pudong to get something to eat and have a walk around.
Shanghai is a very different city from beijing, with a number of different centres and many more high-rise buildings - it seems a much more modern city, but i think i have to explore more....
Friday 29 June 2012
Goodbye Vietnam - Hello (again) Cambodia
this will possibly be the last update for a couple of weeks as i am not sure which sites i can access when in china (1st-16th july).
following my phone theft in hanoi i pretty much stayed in the local area, working on a new piece for the performance at atk using recordings from argentina, australia, cambodia and vietnam. i did meet with luong hue trinh once more -we attended a pretty awful contemporary dance show at the youth theatre, and then went for some pho cuon (i think that's how you spelll it) and some other kind of noodle that is almost like tofu, deep fried and delicious! a lovely evening - thanks trinh.
and the next day i met with trang nguyen and her friend for lunch - more gorgeous noodles and beef -again no idea what this dish is called. maybe you guys can help me out here! trang is working with the onion cellar guys who arranged the concerts in hanoi and saigon for me.
so the concert began with me giving a short description of what is i do, and then i began to play, using sound exciters to play sounds from the back of the room as well as a little speaker device i bought in the market in hanoi.this little wonder takes micro sd cards and charges via usb -very handy for moving sounds around a room, and all for less than £10! the response to the show was great,especially as i think 99% of the audience had never been to this kind of show before...and then trinh took me to a little place run by vietnamese once again for some pork and tongue noodle soup.
the next day i caught a flight to saigon, visited the same are emma and i stayed in but found a place for $9 a night which was perfect. the lady running the place warned me of the thieves and prostitutes many times - what kind of a person does she think i am?? in the evening khuong (one of the onion cellar - the other being hung, but he's in london right now..) came to the hotel to take me to meet giang, who i was to perform alongside, at his family's restaurant. i can't even begin to discuss the food here as there was so much and it was all good!
another day of work and then an evening out with khuong once again to visit the venue, la fenetre soleil. we attended a music quiz where two french guys played the intros to songs and the crowd have to shout out the band/artist playing. as you can imagine, it got pretty rowdy, but it was good fun. i even got two right!
and then it was the day of the concert. we arrived around 7 and giang and i set up and briefly soundchecked, and all the while people were coming in, sitting down, chatting, eating... i started to wonder if they would actually stop and listenng to the show. and then it was upon me, khuong introducing me and asking people to be quiet, close the eyes and listen. and it went really well.the beginning wasn't noticed too much, but playing some loud rain sounds and moving the speaker and playing the venue's bell seemed to make people notice and concentrate more. i was definitely the calm before the storm, with giang starting with some abstracted beats and then filling the room with fuzz and feedback- a great set! and once again, we head out to a place no tourist would be likely to go and have some local delicacies like 1000 year old egg on deep fried rice - awesome!
at this point i'd like to thank hung, khuong, dougie at atk, trang, sebastien gesell for playing some great music at atk, giang, john at the word for his article that introduced me to the onion cellar guys, and especially trinh - you all made my last days in vietnam really special.
the day after the show i took the bus (at 9am) back across the border to phnom penh.arriving in the middle of the central market, i was taken by tuk tuk to the hometown hotel, where i am now. great big room with a fridge and aircon (which i have stopped using - maybe i'm used to the heat at last!). i visited the meta house, where i perform tonight, and met with nico who organised the show as well as antonio, a poet who i will be working with tonight... and today has been a lazy-ish day of wandering around, admin and preparations for the concert - wish me luck!
following my phone theft in hanoi i pretty much stayed in the local area, working on a new piece for the performance at atk using recordings from argentina, australia, cambodia and vietnam. i did meet with luong hue trinh once more -we attended a pretty awful contemporary dance show at the youth theatre, and then went for some pho cuon (i think that's how you spelll it) and some other kind of noodle that is almost like tofu, deep fried and delicious! a lovely evening - thanks trinh.
and the next day i met with trang nguyen and her friend for lunch - more gorgeous noodles and beef -again no idea what this dish is called. maybe you guys can help me out here! trang is working with the onion cellar guys who arranged the concerts in hanoi and saigon for me.
so the concert began with me giving a short description of what is i do, and then i began to play, using sound exciters to play sounds from the back of the room as well as a little speaker device i bought in the market in hanoi.this little wonder takes micro sd cards and charges via usb -very handy for moving sounds around a room, and all for less than £10! the response to the show was great,especially as i think 99% of the audience had never been to this kind of show before...and then trinh took me to a little place run by vietnamese once again for some pork and tongue noodle soup.
the next day i caught a flight to saigon, visited the same are emma and i stayed in but found a place for $9 a night which was perfect. the lady running the place warned me of the thieves and prostitutes many times - what kind of a person does she think i am?? in the evening khuong (one of the onion cellar - the other being hung, but he's in london right now..) came to the hotel to take me to meet giang, who i was to perform alongside, at his family's restaurant. i can't even begin to discuss the food here as there was so much and it was all good!
another day of work and then an evening out with khuong once again to visit the venue, la fenetre soleil. we attended a music quiz where two french guys played the intros to songs and the crowd have to shout out the band/artist playing. as you can imagine, it got pretty rowdy, but it was good fun. i even got two right!
and then it was the day of the concert. we arrived around 7 and giang and i set up and briefly soundchecked, and all the while people were coming in, sitting down, chatting, eating... i started to wonder if they would actually stop and listenng to the show. and then it was upon me, khuong introducing me and asking people to be quiet, close the eyes and listen. and it went really well.the beginning wasn't noticed too much, but playing some loud rain sounds and moving the speaker and playing the venue's bell seemed to make people notice and concentrate more. i was definitely the calm before the storm, with giang starting with some abstracted beats and then filling the room with fuzz and feedback- a great set! and once again, we head out to a place no tourist would be likely to go and have some local delicacies like 1000 year old egg on deep fried rice - awesome!
at this point i'd like to thank hung, khuong, dougie at atk, trang, sebastien gesell for playing some great music at atk, giang, john at the word for his article that introduced me to the onion cellar guys, and especially trinh - you all made my last days in vietnam really special.
the day after the show i took the bus (at 9am) back across the border to phnom penh.arriving in the middle of the central market, i was taken by tuk tuk to the hometown hotel, where i am now. great big room with a fridge and aircon (which i have stopped using - maybe i'm used to the heat at last!). i visited the meta house, where i perform tonight, and met with nico who organised the show as well as antonio, a poet who i will be working with tonight... and today has been a lazy-ish day of wandering around, admin and preparations for the concert - wish me luck!
Friday 22 June 2012
Vietnam through June
the overnight bus to ho chi min/saigon wasn't too gruelling, remembering back, but the reason for this will become clearer as you read on. we had the good fortune of meeting thien on the journey, who gave us a lit of foods to try, places to visit and his email address. and thankfully the bus dropped us really close to the place we were staying. a quick wander around made it clear we were in tourist central, but found a great pho restaurant just on the edge of the area.
during our time in saigon we visited the cu chi tunnels, which the viet cong used to hide from the americans during the war. a very funny guide and some eye opening sights (plus a very claustrophobic visit to one of the tunnels) made the experience very memorable. i also had a wander around alone to visit the modern art gallery, which really isn't very good - sorry saigon - but also watched the sun go down from the bitexco financial tower skydeck- beautiful!
that evening we met with thien, who took us to an area of town where we were the only whiteys to be seen, and had - wait for it - amazing food!! a strange but enjoyable folded omelette with beansprouts and prawns inside, and an even stranger but enjoyable rice flour and fish dish.
the next morning i headed to the mekong delta on a day trip that cost $7 - the tunnels trip was 4! - while emma met with thien again for breakfast. she then headed to da lat to find us a cheap place to stay. so i visited a coconut candy making place, where i also saw group making rice paper, a riverside village and took a smaller boat up the narrower waterways. oh, i also had my finger shoved into a honeycomb covered with bees - pretty scarey but escaped being stung, and the honey was incredible!
on arriving back to saigon i caught a bus to da lat to meet with emma. my bus was cancelled so i had to wait another hour for the next one, meaning i got to da lat at 2am.thankfully he was waiting for me at the bus station, with all the local homeless people it seemed.we caught a taxi into town, giving a lift to another traveller - eric from seattle.
the hotel we were in hired scooters soo we got one of those bad boys the next day and headed to a mountain range called liangbang, where we hiked up the first part and had lunch in a tiny little cafe/restaurant run by some locals (and i recorded a rope bridge with contact mics), and then on to datanla, one of the waterfalls to the south of da lat. in the evening we met up with larry, a guy from los angeles that emma had travelled with to da lat. we also managed to catch up with eric once again, hiring scooters then next day and visiting various temples and a gorgeous lake, before getting a bus to danang.
this was a bus journey of around 14 hours, with very little leg room and no space for rucksacks so didn't get much sleep on that one! and when we left the bus, we were supposed to have a shuttle service to our hotel, but the guy took one look at the address and told us to get a taxi! when we did get to the hotel, it was actually rather pleasant, and a stone's throw from a gorgeous - and empty - sandy beach. i'm not a beach person, but it was really nice to go and swim in the warmest sea i have ever been in and sit with a cold beer in the sun.we could only manage a short time however as it was sooo hot. after a siesta we went out around 6 to get some food and the beach was absolutely full of people and scooters everywhere!
escaping danang the next day on a scooter - where we were was practically a building site surrounding the street we were on -we saw the caves and pagodas of the marble mountains which were amazing, nd then to where everyone else seemed to go, hoi an. this is a nicer looking town than where we were staying in danang, but the beach nearby was nowhere near as nice.
catching a bus to hue in the morning meant we were there by lunchtime, so took a wander around the citadel, which was fun as the map we had didn't cover that part of hue! i think itwas in hue that i had my first western food of the trip - burger and fries - and it was gorgeous! i realise i haven't mentioned the food too much until now - but i think it's because pretty much everything i have had in vietnam has been great, and i'd have a hard time singling out the best meals! one was a fresh grilled fish in danang, in a crazy big outdoor place where all the locals were having family meals or getting drunk!
the following day, the 17th, we hired a scooter once more and visited ming mang tombs. now up until this point i also haven't mentioned how pretty much everyone who offers to help you here then expects some money in return. ladies will show you around a cave or a temple and then hold their handout or just ask for money - and will tell you if it's not enough!on the way to ming mang a lady stopped to help us and then tried to lead us to her village rather than the tomb! it was weird!
and while we were at the tombs we parked up next to a small cafe, so felt we should buy a drink when we returned to the scooter. when asking how much it was we were told a coffee and a sugar cane drink cost 90,000 vnd - $4.50 or £3. seems cheap right? well you normally pay around 20,000 vnd for a coffee so no, not really cheap for here...we then discovered our front tyre had a puncture and so at one point it looked like we would be pushing the scooter 11km back to hue!! thankfully one of the locals stopped and took emma to the nearest village where she waited for me to arrive and we had the tube repaired. phew!
we then decided to go ino the citadel once more for lunch, before catching our bus to hanoi. now remember i said our map didn't cover the citadel? well after eating we tried to head out the way we knew, but couldn't because of a one way system. cutting a long story short, we drove blindly around and around the citadel, trying to find away out even, and eventually asking at 3 gas stations, finally escaping and arriving at our hotel with 15 mutes to spare before the bus arrived!!!
this was another14 hour journey, so we'd booked on a sleeper bus but we found our seats had been taken and the people in them wouldn't move, so we were at the back, right by the engine, and the seats are inclined at an angle with your feet beneath the person in front, and this wasn't big enough to put your feet in! basically one of the most uncomfortable journeys so far - and then we had a further 4hourson an overcrowded minbus to halong bay when we arrived in hanoi.
while in halong bay, which is gorgeous, we stayed on a boat. here we hung out with other tourists and were taken - en masse- to some caves and a floating village, then headed out to drop anchor in amongst the rocks. i won't dwell on negatives regarding this part, but there was once again the feeling that you were being ripped off all the time...
back to hanoi for a couple of lazy days before emma sets off home - and when she let i headed to atk where i will be performing on sunday evening, meeting dougie who runs the place,and trinh, a local musician whose music i am listening to right now on soundcloud - very nice! a couple of beers and some sticky rice wine and i was ready for bed, so headed back to the hotel. as i neared the place three girls rode by on a scooter, then stopped and two got off to offer me a few favours for money - i think you know what i mean. now i am still polite even when telling hookers to leave me alone, but did not realise as one was talking, the other had found a front pocket in my bag and stolen my phone!!
thankfully it was an old one i was traveling withso my current one didn'tget swiped, but of course i then had to report the theft to orange and get the sim card blocked - at 1am - after beer and sticky rice wine. all done though, and even found i have stored all my contacts on my current phone's memory card so although annoying, not a great loss...
during our time in saigon we visited the cu chi tunnels, which the viet cong used to hide from the americans during the war. a very funny guide and some eye opening sights (plus a very claustrophobic visit to one of the tunnels) made the experience very memorable. i also had a wander around alone to visit the modern art gallery, which really isn't very good - sorry saigon - but also watched the sun go down from the bitexco financial tower skydeck- beautiful!
that evening we met with thien, who took us to an area of town where we were the only whiteys to be seen, and had - wait for it - amazing food!! a strange but enjoyable folded omelette with beansprouts and prawns inside, and an even stranger but enjoyable rice flour and fish dish.
the next morning i headed to the mekong delta on a day trip that cost $7 - the tunnels trip was 4! - while emma met with thien again for breakfast. she then headed to da lat to find us a cheap place to stay. so i visited a coconut candy making place, where i also saw group making rice paper, a riverside village and took a smaller boat up the narrower waterways. oh, i also had my finger shoved into a honeycomb covered with bees - pretty scarey but escaped being stung, and the honey was incredible!
on arriving back to saigon i caught a bus to da lat to meet with emma. my bus was cancelled so i had to wait another hour for the next one, meaning i got to da lat at 2am.thankfully he was waiting for me at the bus station, with all the local homeless people it seemed.we caught a taxi into town, giving a lift to another traveller - eric from seattle.
the hotel we were in hired scooters soo we got one of those bad boys the next day and headed to a mountain range called liangbang, where we hiked up the first part and had lunch in a tiny little cafe/restaurant run by some locals (and i recorded a rope bridge with contact mics), and then on to datanla, one of the waterfalls to the south of da lat. in the evening we met up with larry, a guy from los angeles that emma had travelled with to da lat. we also managed to catch up with eric once again, hiring scooters then next day and visiting various temples and a gorgeous lake, before getting a bus to danang.
this was a bus journey of around 14 hours, with very little leg room and no space for rucksacks so didn't get much sleep on that one! and when we left the bus, we were supposed to have a shuttle service to our hotel, but the guy took one look at the address and told us to get a taxi! when we did get to the hotel, it was actually rather pleasant, and a stone's throw from a gorgeous - and empty - sandy beach. i'm not a beach person, but it was really nice to go and swim in the warmest sea i have ever been in and sit with a cold beer in the sun.we could only manage a short time however as it was sooo hot. after a siesta we went out around 6 to get some food and the beach was absolutely full of people and scooters everywhere!
escaping danang the next day on a scooter - where we were was practically a building site surrounding the street we were on -we saw the caves and pagodas of the marble mountains which were amazing, nd then to where everyone else seemed to go, hoi an. this is a nicer looking town than where we were staying in danang, but the beach nearby was nowhere near as nice.
catching a bus to hue in the morning meant we were there by lunchtime, so took a wander around the citadel, which was fun as the map we had didn't cover that part of hue! i think itwas in hue that i had my first western food of the trip - burger and fries - and it was gorgeous! i realise i haven't mentioned the food too much until now - but i think it's because pretty much everything i have had in vietnam has been great, and i'd have a hard time singling out the best meals! one was a fresh grilled fish in danang, in a crazy big outdoor place where all the locals were having family meals or getting drunk!
the following day, the 17th, we hired a scooter once more and visited ming mang tombs. now up until this point i also haven't mentioned how pretty much everyone who offers to help you here then expects some money in return. ladies will show you around a cave or a temple and then hold their handout or just ask for money - and will tell you if it's not enough!on the way to ming mang a lady stopped to help us and then tried to lead us to her village rather than the tomb! it was weird!
and while we were at the tombs we parked up next to a small cafe, so felt we should buy a drink when we returned to the scooter. when asking how much it was we were told a coffee and a sugar cane drink cost 90,000 vnd - $4.50 or £3. seems cheap right? well you normally pay around 20,000 vnd for a coffee so no, not really cheap for here...we then discovered our front tyre had a puncture and so at one point it looked like we would be pushing the scooter 11km back to hue!! thankfully one of the locals stopped and took emma to the nearest village where she waited for me to arrive and we had the tube repaired. phew!
we then decided to go ino the citadel once more for lunch, before catching our bus to hanoi. now remember i said our map didn't cover the citadel? well after eating we tried to head out the way we knew, but couldn't because of a one way system. cutting a long story short, we drove blindly around and around the citadel, trying to find away out even, and eventually asking at 3 gas stations, finally escaping and arriving at our hotel with 15 mutes to spare before the bus arrived!!!
this was another14 hour journey, so we'd booked on a sleeper bus but we found our seats had been taken and the people in them wouldn't move, so we were at the back, right by the engine, and the seats are inclined at an angle with your feet beneath the person in front, and this wasn't big enough to put your feet in! basically one of the most uncomfortable journeys so far - and then we had a further 4hourson an overcrowded minbus to halong bay when we arrived in hanoi.
while in halong bay, which is gorgeous, we stayed on a boat. here we hung out with other tourists and were taken - en masse- to some caves and a floating village, then headed out to drop anchor in amongst the rocks. i won't dwell on negatives regarding this part, but there was once again the feeling that you were being ripped off all the time...
back to hanoi for a couple of lazy days before emma sets off home - and when she let i headed to atk where i will be performing on sunday evening, meeting dougie who runs the place,and trinh, a local musician whose music i am listening to right now on soundcloud - very nice! a couple of beers and some sticky rice wine and i was ready for bed, so headed back to the hotel. as i neared the place three girls rode by on a scooter, then stopped and two got off to offer me a few favours for money - i think you know what i mean. now i am still polite even when telling hookers to leave me alone, but did not realise as one was talking, the other had found a front pocket in my bag and stolen my phone!!
thankfully it was an old one i was traveling withso my current one didn'tget swiped, but of course i then had to report the theft to orange and get the sim card blocked - at 1am - after beer and sticky rice wine. all done though, and even found i have stored all my contacts on my current phone's memory card so although annoying, not a great loss...
Thursday 7 June 2012
The last two weeks in Australia - part 2
realising i have much more to tell, i have split this post in 2.
managing to get back to castlemaine in the early hours of the morning on saturday 26th may allowed me to do some much needed laundry in the morning,and then go and set up the installation ready to run from 2pm. although the show ran for 4 hours, i only received a couple of visitors that day, but the ones who made it stayed and enjoyed it. eamon also came on the saturday to have a listen and try out some ideas for the performance on the sunday. on the way back to the house i was staying in we stopped in to selvi's curries to get a take away, tried some of the food before buying, and then were invited to eat in the restaurant, which was a huge room with an open fire that was very welcome... for anyone visiting castlemaine, try it out!
the next morning we all met up at the icu at 11am to set up the sound system and sound check for the performance, which was scheduled for 5pm, then packed way as much as we could to run the installation from 2-4pm. this time i had quite a few visitors, and most then stayed for the performances. i started off, with a precomposed piece using various tones and drones captured in the space,and then used various objects, moving around and within the audience. i was then joined by lizzie pogson, who performed with a combination of sounds from the local area and japan. a very pleasant, nicely paced set. next up was tarab, creating vibrations through a plate attached to a wire mesh that makes up one side of the space,and then taking a signal from the mesh using contact mics and playing that back into the room. again nicely paced and a good use of space. tarab was then joined by jacques soddell for the short overlap crossover characteristic of 'active crossover' performances, which worked really well, with jacques playing what was arguably the most musical set of the evening and closing the event perfectly. thanks once again to eamon, lizzie and jacques, as well as the guys of punctum for their support and hosting the event.
over the next few days i was kindly hosted by eamon, emily and helki in melbourne, which gave me a chance to catch up with friends teresa lane, simon hampson and sophie trebilcock, as well as get some tattoo work done by kat scarlet (http://katscarlettattoo.blogspot.com/), reworking one old and one new piece, and then creating a new one for me in return for a food hamper when i'm back in the uk!! i also managed to finally get my second japanese encephalitis vaccine injection and my visa to visit china in july. itall cametogether nicely at the end of my trip, and it was great to see everyone and spend time.
then on the 2nd june i flew to bangkok airport, where i waited for around 11 hours for my friend emma to arrive, then we had to wait a further 6 hours to fly to phnom pen, cambodia. once there we were taken to a nice hotel on the riverside. we spent 2 nights in phnom penh, visiting the killing fields on the first day and arranging our visas to visit vietnam, and explored a little of the city. as many people will be expecting, here comes the food bit - fish amok is awesome in cambodia, as is lok lak. and as with most places, the best food is in the cafes and restaurants that the locals eat in!
from phnom penh we got a bus to siem reap, where we are now. on the first day we visited the main temples, took it easy yesterday,and then did a couple of the remaining ones today. i also recorded the dawn chorus at angkor wat today which was great - i even managed to escape the surprisingly big crowd of people, all of whom had gone to see the sunrise, which because of cloud was not so impressive... then we traveled further out to banteay srey, visiting ta prohm afterwards - this was the best for me, with the trees and the temple becoming as one in places. many tourist groups and a huge restoration centre made it difficult to get around but we managed.
so now we wait until 12am when we get a bus overnight to ho chi min city in vietnam. more later!
managing to get back to castlemaine in the early hours of the morning on saturday 26th may allowed me to do some much needed laundry in the morning,and then go and set up the installation ready to run from 2pm. although the show ran for 4 hours, i only received a couple of visitors that day, but the ones who made it stayed and enjoyed it. eamon also came on the saturday to have a listen and try out some ideas for the performance on the sunday. on the way back to the house i was staying in we stopped in to selvi's curries to get a take away, tried some of the food before buying, and then were invited to eat in the restaurant, which was a huge room with an open fire that was very welcome... for anyone visiting castlemaine, try it out!
the next morning we all met up at the icu at 11am to set up the sound system and sound check for the performance, which was scheduled for 5pm, then packed way as much as we could to run the installation from 2-4pm. this time i had quite a few visitors, and most then stayed for the performances. i started off, with a precomposed piece using various tones and drones captured in the space,and then used various objects, moving around and within the audience. i was then joined by lizzie pogson, who performed with a combination of sounds from the local area and japan. a very pleasant, nicely paced set. next up was tarab, creating vibrations through a plate attached to a wire mesh that makes up one side of the space,and then taking a signal from the mesh using contact mics and playing that back into the room. again nicely paced and a good use of space. tarab was then joined by jacques soddell for the short overlap crossover characteristic of 'active crossover' performances, which worked really well, with jacques playing what was arguably the most musical set of the evening and closing the event perfectly. thanks once again to eamon, lizzie and jacques, as well as the guys of punctum for their support and hosting the event.
over the next few days i was kindly hosted by eamon, emily and helki in melbourne, which gave me a chance to catch up with friends teresa lane, simon hampson and sophie trebilcock, as well as get some tattoo work done by kat scarlet (http://katscarlettattoo.blogspot.com/), reworking one old and one new piece, and then creating a new one for me in return for a food hamper when i'm back in the uk!! i also managed to finally get my second japanese encephalitis vaccine injection and my visa to visit china in july. itall cametogether nicely at the end of my trip, and it was great to see everyone and spend time.
then on the 2nd june i flew to bangkok airport, where i waited for around 11 hours for my friend emma to arrive, then we had to wait a further 6 hours to fly to phnom pen, cambodia. once there we were taken to a nice hotel on the riverside. we spent 2 nights in phnom penh, visiting the killing fields on the first day and arranging our visas to visit vietnam, and explored a little of the city. as many people will be expecting, here comes the food bit - fish amok is awesome in cambodia, as is lok lak. and as with most places, the best food is in the cafes and restaurants that the locals eat in!
from phnom penh we got a bus to siem reap, where we are now. on the first day we visited the main temples, took it easy yesterday,and then did a couple of the remaining ones today. i also recorded the dawn chorus at angkor wat today which was great - i even managed to escape the surprisingly big crowd of people, all of whom had gone to see the sunrise, which because of cloud was not so impressive... then we traveled further out to banteay srey, visiting ta prohm afterwards - this was the best for me, with the trees and the temple becoming as one in places. many tourist groups and a huge restoration centre made it difficult to get around but we managed.
so now we wait until 12am when we get a bus overnight to ho chi min city in vietnam. more later!
The last two weeks in Australia - part 1
so it seems from the last post that i had not played the show in sydney by the end of it, so i'll start there... i invited kate carr to join me in the performance, so we played in the same style as the active crossover events, with kate starting, playing a solo set of nice musical parts combined with field recordings. i then joined her for a short collaborative section where both of us were unsure who was playing what(!) and then i continued solo. after playing a laptop set combining recordings from the trip so far, i then proceeded too move around the room grinding two pieces of concrete together that i had obtained from some workmen outside of serial space. the grinding sound combined nicely with some metallic tones i left playing and worked well in the room. we had a nice appreciative crowd and the guys of the now now who organised the show were great. and of course it was a pleasure working and hanging out with kate.
heading back to melbourne the next day, i managed to catch up with anthea varigos, who also goes under the name 'chopin's lovechild' and who i have many mutual friends with, as she used to live in bristol. very nice to meet her after all this time as well as her fella and housemate, then had to run to the airport, fly into melbourne (to an airport waaay out of town called avalon), get a very expensive bus back to southern cross station, get a train to castlemaine that was delayed for over an hour because of an attempted suicide on the line, meet jacques soddell at castlemaine train station, take his speakers and connectors to the icu and then try and relax in preparation for setting up the installation over the next few days. thanks once again to jacques for the loan of all the equipment.
for the whole of the week i was in the icu space composing with my recordings and combining them with the compositions supplied by my 3 collaborators (lizzie pogson, jacques soddell and tarab/eamon sprod), working out speaker placement (6 active speakers), and also using my sound exciters once again to play sounds through resonant objects. it was great to have the time to get it all working without too much pressure. during that week i was also fortunate enough to have (a gorgeous african) dinner in melbourne with eamon, camilla hannan and lawrence english, who was in town for a couple of days.
also during that week i met r
heading back to melbourne the next day, i managed to catch up with anthea varigos, who also goes under the name 'chopin's lovechild' and who i have many mutual friends with, as she used to live in bristol. very nice to meet her after all this time as well as her fella and housemate, then had to run to the airport, fly into melbourne (to an airport waaay out of town called avalon), get a very expensive bus back to southern cross station, get a train to castlemaine that was delayed for over an hour because of an attempted suicide on the line, meet jacques soddell at castlemaine train station, take his speakers and connectors to the icu and then try and relax in preparation for setting up the installation over the next few days. thanks once again to jacques for the loan of all the equipment.
for the whole of the week i was in the icu space composing with my recordings and combining them with the compositions supplied by my 3 collaborators (lizzie pogson, jacques soddell and tarab/eamon sprod), working out speaker placement (6 active speakers), and also using my sound exciters once again to play sounds through resonant objects. it was great to have the time to get it all working without too much pressure. during that week i was also fortunate enough to have (a gorgeous african) dinner in melbourne with eamon, camilla hannan and lawrence english, who was in town for a couple of days.
also during that week i met r
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