Transcribing my life: New Zealand - Hong Kong

The girlfriend and I decided to move countries for a bit so as to experience life in a place that isn't a small island. As such, we decided to move to Taiwan. 

On the connecting trip (Air NZ) from Wellington to Auckland every single flight attendant with the notable exception of "Steven" was a woman named Jo, Joe, Joanna or Jody. The man sitting next to me called one of them Judy, and she just accepted it. I should have tried "Jo Jo" or "Julian" just to see what would happen.

It's very easy to like  Hong Kong as it is much like a happy Blade Runner complete with Indians determined to get a replicant Rolex on my arm. Sadly, I think wrist watches are to close to shackles for my liking.  Poor Blade Runner Indians, I am far too neurotic for your games.

The Chunking  Mansions are a multicultural experience like no other,  as the mansion (a giant decaying building) is located in the heart of Kowloon, where rent is "cheap" the place is filled with Indians, Africans, Asians, Polynesians, Europeans and I think I might have encountered a Smurf there too. It's the perfect place to drop your bags and leave to explore, especially as the rooms are the size of a double bed, so there is no incentive to stay in your hutch longer than you have to.

If you are a scenester or fancy yourself a bohemian, do go, you'll get a novel's worth of material from a three day stay.  

Honestly though, it's a back packers lifestyle for a hoteliers budget: the $84NZD a night room in Chiunking Mansions was a closet with a bathroom. Awesomely this tinyness meant that our air conditioner could make the room drop from Hong Kong's 36 degree heat to Wellingtons 16 degrees in a matter of minutes. And by that, I mean Tara was wearing a jersey for an hour before she realised she could turn the airconditioning up. 

Tara caught a flu on the plane ride over, so spent a lot of time feeling sorry for herself.  I'd like to say that she is got better in time to explore the city,  but that would be a lie and liars go to prison, assuming that they are lying under oath, which would be committing perjury. I had to go off to find some sort of cough syrup for her, but as I I couldn't read some of the labels or speak the language I just pray that she didn't injest too much horse uterus, or what ever these funny asian people use for syrup there.  (It turned out to be robitussen, but with Chinese characters also. Who knew?!)

Handle the Jandle

Ned Wenlock got Bevin Linkhorn and I to voice act this title sequence for the Handle the Jandle NZ DIY Music Video Awards last year. You should check out Ned's comix, as they are very cool looking. Here's a fine example that he did for Werewolf.

So, it's not the best way to toast bread

I've moved to Taipei, that's a big city in Taiwan. It's so big that the entire population of New Zealand could live there. Not that they'd want to, what with everything that New Zealand can offer you, like flightless birds, an apathetic government,  and sheep.

I currently love it here, but my apartment doesn't have a kitchen, so I've had to create a work around or six. Here's one that I'm fairly proud of:

Toasting bread with an electric hot plate

To do this at home all you need is an electric hot plate, chop sticks and bread rolls.  The trick is to use an electric hot plate that may be using plutonium, thorium or pink kryptonite to power itself. That glow is not healthy looking, you dig?

Jam the chop stick into the bread roll and slowly rotate them over the heat.  You may smell burning, but that's just your arm hair being reduced to a sticky black tar like substance.

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this, it took forever and I kept almost resting my hand on the near molten glass top of the thing. I'm a winner!

Sad Daniel 3: The Saddest of Daniels

 I think this is the end of that series.





I believe Tamsin took the photograph in Paekakariki with some sort of Canon DSLR. It appears to have also been taken in what I'd term "greyscale" or "black and white.

Sad Daniel 2: a sadder Daniel

I made quite a few, good for me right?!