9th vlog - neighborhood spin

Another silent video blog, this time I spin in a circle in my Hong Kong neighborhood. It's a lot to take in, while spinning quickly in a dizzy circle... it ends with an anticlimatic wobble, as if I'm unsure if I should stop the video or dash across the busy street.

nakayama nado

My friend Nakayama came to visit Hong Kong. It was so cool to see her here too (she had come to Korea while I was there too)... In this picture she's with her good friend (middle) and my new friend Eddie (far left)... The next day the three of us (me, her, her female friend) went to a club/bar downtown. We were playing a game where the looser had to get the attention of someone and make them come over and talk to us, and I lost so I got the attention of a few guys near our table and they came over and talked to us. One of the guys, leaned over and he told me "Wow, its so weird to hear you speaking English, all natural with an American accent, I thought you were one of THEM." (emphasis and weird word choice were his) I looked at him kind of weird because of his odd word choice and because I never thought of myself as looking Asian, which apparently he ment... So he said "well you were all yakiyakinakayaka" (imitating japanese I suppose) "so we thought you were asian." I'm still looking at him weird, so he adds "well like an albino asian guy or something." All I can say is: crazy drunk white people.

A few words about a few other movies you should see (from the millions of VCDs I've been seeing). I really enjoyed a contraversial Australian filmed called "Rabbit Proof Fence" A film that talks about, fairly directly, the racial problems of Austalian history. Its filmed wonderfully, acted beautifully, and paced with many slow lingering shots, which I enjoy. Another movie I saw was a super old (1993?) movie called "future cops"... This movie was horribly good. As in so horrible it was good! Lets let the back of the VCD speak for its self (direct quote) "In the year 2042, the notorious villain is about to be put on trial. His killers decide to go back 50 years by the time tunnel, and look for the judge in his youthful age. They want to program into the boy's mind and alternate his decision. However, the Future Cops follow. They infiltrate into a school and befriend with a slightly retarded boy, who is always insulted and bullied. Who knows he is in fact the judge in the future?" And it's a comedy. I think it's supposed to be one, if its an action film they failed. But its highly worth watching! If you like odd B movie things that is. Anyway, enough from me.

VCDs and shopping list

In my free time (when I'm not reading or walking around my neighborhood) I've been watching tons of VCD movies. It started because my friend loaned me an old laptop with a lot of movies, and then I noticed new ones at the local 24-hour VCD shop are very cheap, and soon I had watched a billion trillion movies. I was going to review them all here, but I forget, so I'll just mention a few I remember at the moment. (Randomly not in any order of significance or anything.) Escape From Hong Kong was an interesting movie, that ended a bit too much like an "after school morality special" or something. The review I link says it was filmed "cheaply" but I disagree, found the filming style refreshing for the most part. The script was just a bit boring after awhile, but very watchable. One of the favorite Japanese movies I saw was Nobody Knows which although not an unknown movie, I would guess its still less than major? None the less, wonderful filming, script, acting, the whole package. Nice movie, although with the fear of sounding snobby, the subtitles dont do the film justice and horribly translate some key phrases. Another Japanese movie I saw was Bounce Ko gals which although interesting view into the "paid dates" of some crazy high school girls, the movie sucks when it tries too hard to be a traditional movie, its best when it goes with the slurry camera work and the unscripted "blah blah" style conversations between costars, and the ending didn't hit me enough... although there are some good points about Japanese culture and world war 2 crimes in the script, interesting. Saw a few trippy Japanese low budget movies about escalators and strange animated plastic dolls, but regretfully forget titles at the moment. I also rewatched "2001: A Space Odyssey" Some people hate this movie, but I am a rabid fan. If you haven't seen it go out and rent it, uncut version. Any movie that starts out with a single held note with a blank black screen for about 1 minute is almost sure to be good. This movie is good because of its out dated classic 1960s future-tech, but also good for its philosophical elements, beautiful filming, awesome sound track and cool trippy psychedelic ending. So go watch it, or wait to watch it with me if you want a cheerleader for the movie! Anyway, I'll post more reviews later, this is getting too long.

In other events, I noticed yesterday I shop like an alcoholic 5 year old. My bag contained chips (crisps if you are one who enjoys British Englishi), cookies, chrysanthemum tea and rum. Yummy, the basic food groups. Anyway, time to wrap this up...

8th vlog - double decker buses

I find a kind of zen in my pointless boring vlogs. This one has no narration; it is simply a whole lot of double decker buses streaming past (also a tram is visible) ... near Fortress Hill station, in Hong Kong.

7th vlog - hong kong hills

This is more of a clip than a video blog. A few seconds of me looking out a bus window in the twilight, over the back hills of Hong Kong island.