Over the past few years, I have made some memorable trips.
I do plan to add some photos from trips like when I went to Tanegashima in Japan to visit my friend Shuichi about 4 years ago. Shu lives there part of the year for the surfing.
Hassle me, if you want to see those photos.
(I still have not added them and it is now almost October 2006. )
Weekend in Brussels
I went to Brussels for a long weekend on May 26th. My friend Sharon had organized a music festival with the unique name of "Suicide Twist"
Long weekend in Brussels
Beer
I took the Eurostar from London Waterloo to "Gare Midi". When I got to Brussels, I could not figure out which way to go on the tram to get to the hotel. The tram is like a subway in that is runs underground in central Brussels and above ground elsewhere. I kept looking at the signs to make sense of the directions. I walked up and down different platforms getting no where. When I did chose a tram, it was going the wrong way. The funny thing is the hotel is walking distance from the train station; I did not have a sense of distance in Brussels at the time.
The weather was wet and grey for most of my stay; I thought this is about the same as London. One needed to have an umbrella at the ready at all times.
After checking into the hotel, I went for a quick bite to eat and I pleased myself being able to speak enough French to order food and communicate. Being from Canada, I had years of remedial French buried deep in my brain and given a chance it would come out.
I went along the venue for the festival. I got say hi to Sharon; she was very busy running things so we did not get much chance to talk over the festival but still it was good to see her; it has been a few years since we last met up; we had meet years ago on a trip to Italy when I went to Lounge music festival. And as I expected, there was people from Italy at the festival like Alessandro Casella. Alessandro is someone I got to know through Montefiori Cocktail.
Spain and Portugal, April 2006
Over a period of two weeks, I was traveling across Portugal and Spain. For a good part of the trip, I was traveling with a mate Christian Lewcock.
Madrid
We travelled by train from Portugal to Madrid on a what should have been an 10 hour journey. It ended up being 12 hours. This was the first time and probably only time, I travelled in a sleeper car. I had the top bunk. It would have been fine if it was not for a loose screw that was rattling around whenever the train was going up and down hills. It was like Chinese water torture.
Barcelona
Barcelona photo galleries
The end of my holiday was approaching but first, I would go to one my favorite cities Barcelona to catch up with friends and hang out.
Saturday April 22nd
I got up fairly early this morning to get the train from Madrid to Barcelona. There now is a high speed rail link that gets from Madrid to Sevilla in two and half hours called the Ave. But there is not such service to Barcelona but I did not mind. The journey to Barcelona was about five hours. I was catching the train from the same place where Christian and I took the train to Toledo.
On the train trip they gave out complementary headphones to watch the DVD movie's being played. I think if I kept all the head phones from the flights, and bus tours and now train, I would have ended up with five pairs of headphones. They must be so cheap to make that are considered disposable items.
I could have flown from Madrid to Barcelona and saved about 4 hours in travel time but I though it was not necessary and nowadays if you can avoid flying, avoid it. I was not in any kind of rush.
I was now on my own; Christian stayed behind as he meeting Warren a few days later. The original plan was to travel for three weeks across Portugal and Spain but I was too restless; I had a lot on my mind; I was having a good time on holiday but I was also being a bit uptight. Once, I decided to come back a week early, I felt much better. When you go on holiday you are still traveling with yourself and the same thoughts you had elsewhere. I was reflecting quite a bit on the last year and my personal life and work. I have various conversations on the go with friends and acquaintances in London about projects and work and I wanted to get back to some of those potential bits of work. I thought about going back to London from Madrid but I don't know when would next get a chance to see my friends in Barcelona.
Sunday April 23rd
Today was a culture day. And I managed to get in two museums.
Centre d'art santa monica
This is a museum on the Ramblas near the sea front. I saw three great exhibits here. One piece was an installation; it was a new kiosk and all the "magazines" were made by the artist Francesc Ruiz. Very clever.
The other featured artists were Lars Arrhenius and Mike Nelson.
In Lars works animation featured heavily; his art style was quite using stick men of a sort. His works are presented in an art gallery and I wonder what to describe his work as; it is art yes but also it is observational about life and society.
The installation by Mike Nelson was called "After Kerouac". I thought momentarily about the title and the reference to Keroauc. I had read "On the road" a few years ago. I entered a large room and the only feature was a corridor which followed the form of a spiral. I entered it; there was all these marks along the walls - curious. Eventually, I am came to a door and I opened it; it was a room full of tires. Brilliant, I smiled broadly. I got the reference to Kerouac now and cars and I realized the marks on the walls were from rolling the tires through the corridor into the room.
Monday April 24th
Egyptian Museum - Divine Words
Barcelona has a small privately run Egyptian museum the Museu Egipci de Barcelona. There was an exhibit on about the french archelogist Jean-François Champollion who manged to translate the hieroglyphics; he established that they are phonetic. On the display, was some of his notebooks. Last year, the BBC did a docu-drama about Egypt that featured the men and women who explored Egypt and translated the writing and of course there was a program about monsieur Champollion.
I thought it would be nifty to see these books; unfortunately for me the museum display was not very English speaking friendly. I keep telling myself that I should improve my Spanish.
Nonetheless, I had a good look around the museum.
Biography of Jean-Francois Champollion
Movie - living and food
I then went to another concept restaurant that I read about in b-guided> for lunch. The idea was that this restaurant was to be like eating in your living room. All the food is served in bowls. I was hoping to see what kind of films they screened here. They did put on a DVD of some artistic film of a woman reclining on a bed or was it a chaise longe (you get the idea). The waitress was telling me how they do regular club nights on weekends. I would like to visit this place again at night. I had a really nice fruit salad for a starter; it was not just fruit but also green vegetables. I had the monkfish as a main course. I thought the monk fish was prepared in a way more suitable for the winter. It tasted very out of season to me; it was quite hot and stodgy with potatoes. It would have been much nicer with a vinaigrette dressing like a Japanese sunomono dish.
Tuesday April 25th
Caixa Forum
This complex was opened as an arts centre in 2002. It was like a one stop shop for culture and I was so glad I went.
I got to see the Persia exhibition which I missed when it was in the U.K. And with an audio guide in English, I was able to really absorb a good part of what was on display. Persia is a historical culture that is very significant but not one that I had any exposure to in school.
And I also took in the Diane Arbus photography exhibition "Revelations". I had been to NYC a few times; this exhibit showed me the past and side of NYC that I had never seen depicted before.
I then went to take in the view of Barcelona from the Palau National de Montjuïc.
Lunch with Cesar
I met up with Cesar for lunch; I had met Cesar years ago while I was at the BBC; we were both attending a training course in interactive TV in Paris. He has since left interactive TV and is now working for a company that makes snack food; the name eludes me. We went to a Tapas bar around the corner from where he works. It is always a pleasure to meet Cesar again; he is very modest about his English but we do have always have very detailed and intelligent conversations.
Links Portugal & Spain
Here are some links of places I went to while on holiday:
The recently opened restaurant Bestiari is where my friend Carlitos is one of the chefs:
A concept bar/restaurant space I checked out for lunch in Barcelona:
http://www.movie-livingandfood.com/
Magazines about Barcelona and Spain
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Aug 2005
At the end of this August, I went to Edinburgh to the Fringe festival. It is the largest event of its kind in the world. For three weeks, there are comedy acts, plays and performance taking place allover the city. I went last year for a day with a acquaintance from Glasgow. One of my goals this year was to go back to Edinburgh and spend moretime at the Fringe. It was such a fantastic atmosphere last year and I wanted to experience it again for longer.
Friday
I flew up on Friday with a friend David McAdam. David is native to Scotland; he is originally from Dunfermline which is close to Edinburgh. On the first day, we managed to see three shows and go to apparently 9 different bars and restaurants. We touched down in Edinburgh around midday. The first show we saw was "Atomicity" by Chris Addison; it was a very funny and witty show. David was familiar with his column in the Guardian newspaper; this show was one of his picks. The loose premise of the show was about the universe of and how we are all made of atoms. Ultimately, the show ended on a positive note of a philosophical nature about living one's life, funny how he snuck that into a comedic monologue. At one point during the show, an older man stood up and exited the show; to exit the small hall, he had to go down to the front of the room and interrupt the show. Then the man, was not sure of the way out of the room and Chris stopped his monologue momentarily to assist. It then took Chris a few moments to remember what he was talking about; he was holding his face and laughing as he tried to regain his composure. Everyone was greatly amused by the unscheduled interruption.
Chris Addison's home page
Before the show, we had attempted to eat lunch at the Hard Rock cafe just near the venue the Assembly rooms. We abandoned our lunch about halfway only to be waiting in a queue to enter the venue. This was a preview of things to come.
David and I walked around Edinburgh after the show. We did stop at place called "Tiles restaurant and Bar" which is a listed building. I snapped a few pictures there. See the photo of David holding a Scottish five pound note.
The next show we was "Ray Peacock and Son" The premise of the show was a father and son routine that goes wrong during the performance. We saw this show at the Pleasance courtyard. We were sitting down in front and Ray asked me who I was and what I did. I mentioned that I worked for a TV company in London. He eventually got it out of me that I work for Sky Digital; he then proceeded to ask me if I could get him free satellite TV and what my phone number was. I said, "Sure" my number is 555 ...". He cut me off; he was not going to be mislead that easily. In TV and movies when someone gives out a phone number with 555 that means it is fictional; there is no 555 prefix in North America; it was my little joke. The show had its moments; the performance we saw was uneven.
Ray Peacock and Son
Saturday
We did mange to get up and eat breakfast on Saturday somehow. We were not actually staying in a hotel but a university residence. Breakfast was in the residence cafeteria. It was full of people having their morning meal; I though these people must have been mostly sleeping when David and I got in the previous night.
We went into the centre of town and did some shopping. I took the chance to buy a straw trilby hat; I had wanted to buy one for months. Result.
We wandered around Edinburgh a bit; the weather was ok; at least it was not raining down like it can be in Scotland. When I was in Edinburgh last year, the weekend was fantastic and I had just missed the torrential rain around that time.. David and I walked to Edinburgh castle and had a look at the queue to get in and thought nah. We did hop on sightseeing bus and have a tour of the city. I think tour buses are great things to do especially when you have been out late the night before; you can just sit on the bus and do the sightseeing from the comfort of a seat; the tour was on a double decker bus which was even better for getting a view of the city. In the photo gallery, you will see a rather striking bit of modern architecture that is the Holyrood building which is the seat of the Scottish parliament. The unusual shape you see by some of the windows is a half of a curtain and not a hair dryer as the bus driver explained.
The lack of sleep did eventually catch up with me and I went back to the dorm to take a cat nap. David continued on and we would meet up later. I was making my way into to town to meet David and wearing my new hat and a gust of wind blew it off my head. It landed in the road. There was a railing and I thought about jumping over it to get my hat back but there was on coming traffic. I went up to the intersection and got on to the road there.I watched helplessly as my hat was run over by a bus and then a car without getting squashed but it was eventually run over by a car.I thought just my luck; I buy a hat and it gets run over only hours after buying it. I proceeded to keep the hat firmly in hand as I went to join David; it was still quite windy about. I showed David my hat and told him about my mishap. The hat is still wearable; it is bit dented in one side.
Sunday
This was our last day to see performances at the Fringe Festival. During the day, David and I walked down to the new town in Edinburgh. We had certainly done a lot of walking over the last three days. We went to the City Cafe for lunch if I remember correctly. I had been here the year before and David Walliams the comedian actor from Little Britain was having lunch with some people. He was chatting with some people about his TV show and I swear he was making eyes at me; my friend was in the washroom and she missed it all. If she had seen it, I don't think I would have heard the end of it.
National Hero
This was a more conventional play in that there was an actually a set this time and props. It was a drama involving a bomb removal expert played by Timothy West and the complicated personal life he had. It was topical with the recent terrorist activity in the U.K. The play posed some very interesting questions and showed the consequences of the choices people make for love and out of fear. A very solid performance and thought provoking. The only thing was the theatre was like a sauna; it was so incredibly stuffy; it was almost unbearableFat, Bald and Loud
We saw Craig Shaynak do his routine; we had met Craig a few nights earlier. Craig's routine wa divided into two half; the first half he talked about his childhood and how as young man he became fat and bald. The anecdotes about him and his brother squabbling over Evel Kenievel toys was very funny. For the second part of the show, Craig did an improv act where he would randomly chose a type of accent or speaking style and put in a setting. Before the show, everyone in the audience filled out a questionnaire from which he based material to perform. After the show, we had a few lukewarm beers with Craig in the Apex Hotel bar. During the show that day; there was some children in the audience and Craig said this threw him off a bit; he had to be careful not to say anything that was inappropriate for impressionable children. Craig works in hi-tech during the day, like me. If all goes well, he will go full-time into acting and doing his comedy routine.Fat Bald and Loud
We were now off to the Speigel tent to see comedian Jimeoin; he is apparently really popular in Australia where he lives; he is originally from Ireland.
On the way there, we stopped for a snack. There was a food stand selling Indian food; and they were selling something I had never seen before - haggis pakoras! David got an order of them and I tried a piece; it was quite nice actually. I had never had haggis before; I did have vegetarian haggis at a wedding the year before. David was quite impressed with the pakoras and noted the name of the restaurant where the people were from; I think they were only operating the food stand during the Fringe.
Jimeon
We meet up with a friend from Russell Stopford and his friend's Rachel and Barclay before the show. Russell and I met when I was at the BBC and we stayed in touch for over five years now. And David had worked with Russell when he was at channel 4. It was an unexpected surprise to see Barclay. He had recently left London to live on an island off the Scottish coast. Barclay was telling me his days where now spent dealing with the endless moisture in the properties he was renovating with his brother. Barclay used to run Remote Films; a non-profit film company based in south west London. And Rachel is a close friend of Russell's who lives in Edinburgh.
Jimeon's web-site
Jimeoin's routine was very funny. His delivery was quite relaxed; he eased from one segment into another and end his show with a song on the guitar or so it seemed. He is a regular at the Fringe festival. We laughed, chortled and guffawed.
After the show, we hopped into a cab to try to see one more show; Russell was saying this show was not one to miss if we could get tickets. Alas, it was not to be; it was sold out and there was not tickets at the door. We wondered what to do next and Russell said let's go for one drink and call it a night. Russell had been very busy over the last few days; he was doing some work filming and editing the talks at the Edinburgh TV festival. We want to a club called the Opal Lounge. And one drink turned into a few; Russell was in the mood to boogie and we all hit the dance floor for a bit. We ended up staying in the club until closing time around 3 AM. And we lost David in the process, we were able to speak to him on the phone and I decided to meet up with him in the morning. David was not making much sense and the phone connection was not very good; he tried explaining to me where he was but I could not make it out. Barclay had departed earlier on, now it was just Russell, myself and Rachel. We went to Rachel's apartment to chat and have another drink. There we were eating cereal in the middle of the night and drinking gin and tonics! Russell went to check what time his flight was on Monday. His face grimaced as he looked at his laptop. His flight was at 7:30 AM and it was now sometime approaching 4 AM! I got a taxi back to the residence. I found out later, that Russell took a later flight in the day and gave the early morning flight a miss.
Monday
It was now our last day in Edinburgh. David and I met up and checked out of the residence. We then found a cafe and had a fry up for Breakfast. David was having the traditional Scottish hangover cure - some Iron Bru. Personally, I don't like Iron Bru; I find the taste a bit weird; it has a deep and rather artificial orange colour. But hey I like root beer which most people outside North America don't like. We did talk about walking up to the top of Authur's Seat but we just did not have the energy and it was quite blustery day; it was going to be very windy up there.
Arthur's Seat at Wikipedia
So, we instead, went to the Auld Hoose (again) and read the newspaper and chatted with the bar staff. And we then went to the airport and caught our flight back to the "Big Smoke". I had a great time at the Fringe festival and I have a lot of gratitude to David for being a good tour-guide. Only, just recently did I become aware that there are actually two festival in Edinburgh at the same time . There is an Edinburgh Internation Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
Argentina, April and May 2005
Updated July 2006
I went for a trip just over 3 weeks to South America. It was something that I have been wanting to do for years. Most of my time was spent in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I have added some photos and more commentary
A trip through Italy, April 2003
In April 2003, I went on a trip across Italy. I was just about to start a new full time job and I thought this was the best time to go on a trip. In the past few years, I have met some really nifty people in travels across Italy and some of them while in London. In fact, I had lived in Italy for a spell before I touched down in London; that is a story for another time. On this trip, My plan was to travel across Italy and visit as many of them as possible. The plan was to start off near Bologna in Northern Italy then go to Rome and eventually get down to Bari in the South.
Forli
I was first going to meet two brother Francesco (Kekko) and Federico (Kikko). Together they are in a band called Montefiori Cocktail. A Dj friend in Vancouver, Clarence, first turned me on to their music; I picked up their first album on RACCOLTA N. 1 and came to really like their music. I also had the fortune to see them play in London at Club Indigo at Madam Jojo's in Soho a few years ago. What a fabulous night that was. I went up to the brothers after the gig and introduced myself and I was evening speaking some Italian. I am always looking for a chance to speak my broken Italian; attitude and a bit of melodrama are key I find when speaking Italiano. I have known these two gents for a few years now. We have stayed in touch with each other via the intraweb. It has been a few years now since they have played London - times flies can it be over four years already since I first met them?
April 7th, I fly out of London to Bologna. It was a fairly easy going flight. As the flight was coming to an end; I looked out the window and thought is that snow I see on the hills? Sure enough, Italy had been hit by the coldest April in years. There was patches of snow on the ground. My destination was Forli a town near Bologna. I disembarked the plane and bus and train made my way to Forli. I was met at the train station by Federico. We went on a little tour of Forli. One thing that struck me was all these rainbow flags with the "Pace" on them. Pace means peace. This was during the time of the conflict in Iraq.
We drove up to a hotel. And I have to say it was very comfortable charming little place. It was old enough that it had an old style elevator that goes up through the centre of the building with iron doors that you pull shut. Federico commented on the elevator as you don't see ones like these so much. He wanted to go on ride in the elevator with me. We both grinning like we were on a ride at an amusement park as we ascended in the elevator.
We went for a drink in central Forli and had some really fine local red wine. That is one thing about Italy and places like Spain. They will have all kinds of finger food lined up on the bar for you to eat. Suffice to say I nibbled on a few savory pastries and ate some olives as I sipped a glass of wine. It felt good to be in Italy just chilling out.
Kikko took me on a short tour of Forli. We drove me around town and he told about me the peculiarities of the architecture dating back to a recent period of Italian history. Buildings that viewed from above would look like a large M.
Clan Destino
Later, Federico took me out to a place that he knows very well; a restaurant space called "Clan Destino" in a town called Faenza. Clan Destino is run by a woman named Marina. Her and Federico go back; he had been quite involved in the goings on at the place; they had done a version of the Full Monty there; Federico got to take his clothes off in the show. The venue has a cinema club; a small stage and a vegetarian restaurant; opening a vegetarian restaurant in this part of Italy when they did was unheard of.
There was a patron in the bar of who had a little parrot sitting on his shoulder I got the parrot to sit on my hand and I held it up and started talking to it; so the parrot and I were getting along fine and then the little bird become obsessed with my mouth. He insisted on sticking his head almost in my mouth and having a good look around. I don't know what he found so riveting in there; was it the fine dental work? I tried to discourage him but then he squawked back saying "watch it bub, can't you see I am busy here". There is only so much standing around with your mouth open and a parrot inspecting your gum line you can do; the parrot was returned to his amused owner. There was a band performing that night called ISO 68 from Germany performing some mellow electronic music; they created a rather chilled out vibe. Federico and I sat down and had a fine three course meal; I did not know the place was Vegetarian a this time. I was thinking where is the meat course as this was Italy after all. Marina was serving us and exchanging words with Federico at times; I don't know if I ever saw her smile once that evening. She had this rather affected frown that said I am very busy so don't mess with me.
The next day Federico showed me around a bit more and we went to the studio and he played some more of the tracks on the album for me. We discussed the album. And later that day Federico took me to the train station and I then took the train to Rome. I shot some video on my visit to the studio.
Roma - part 1
It is a few hours and some by train from Bologna to Rome. I was sitting across from a well dressed man and I noticed that he an book on learning English. I struck up a conversation with him. He told me how he worked for a tie company and that he spent a good part of the last few years visiting countries in South America and he was about to spend more time in English speaking countries and he wanted to improve his English. His English was quite good I thought. He was a good looking guy with longish brown hair; kind of a Italian version of Hugh Grant dare I say. He went on to tell me how when he was traveling abroad on business he would visit the local libraries and read newspapers. His main business was selling ties but he had an interest in writing about economies in dictatorships in the developing world; he had published a few books in this area. He was going to Rome to have a meeting with his publisher and that he had an audience with the pope on the next day. He said, "No really I am meeting the pope". I did not doubt him why wouldn't he have an audience with the pope; anything is possible. The funny thing is I don't remember his name. We arrived in Rome and we said our goodbyes.
Bari
In the middle of my trip to Italy, I went down to Bari in Puglia to visit Fabio and Vivienne. I had met Fabs and Viv the previous year at the Giaguaro festival where I met Gun and Alessandro Casella; I was going to meet up with Ale when I went back to Rome. Fabs is a local boy from the Bari area and an excellent graphic designer. Viv is originally from Cornwall. Viv was enjoying the chance to speak some English with me. Not that Fabs English is bad by any means. One night we went on a tour of the old town in Bari. A few people said watch out the old town is very dangerous and has a bad reputation; it is funny what people will say about a place without having been there. I was recently talking with someone from Australia who is living in London. Someone told whatever her you do don't make eye contact with people on the London Underground because something bad could happen to you! It is not true and I can say that first hand. Why just the other day, I had a conversation on the tube with someone. He was a bit drunk but he was genuinely interested in having a conversation. Anyway I digress; I did not see anything bad but a lot of people wearing their finest designer clothing going for a walk about town on a Saturday night. In Italy people would go for casual strolls through the town centre in the evening. Everyone would be out; it is part of the social fabric. The old town also looked like it has spruced up a bit; it was quite tidy and the buildings were in good nick. We went to a trattoria for dinner and had a really good meal. This time I was with people who knew where to eat.
Roma - part 2
I returned back to Rome and stayed again with Gun and Roberta. Roberta was quite busy with her job; she worked as an art restorer and she was also studying at the same time. She was doing a class in illustration and was doing a lot of drawing when she was not working. One night, Gun and I went a live music venue called Init. We went to check out some bands and hang out. There was some American band playing that night; there was a good vibe in the space; there was a Dj Tina Valentina playing 45's of punk rock and garage music. It was a decent size and could hold a few people and then some. I would go back the next night to meet Alessandro Cassella there. There was a Italian mod band called the Victorians playing that night and Ale was involved putting the night on. The only thing was the power went out during the gig. They could not get the power restored; the evening was cut short Ale is the publisher of Giaguaro magazine and he puts on a lounge music festival usually every year.
The next day I went to meet Ale at his office/apartment and have a chat. I was curious to talk to him about the music scene in Rome. I was kind of surprised to hear that is not really much of a live music scene in Rome. People are not really into live music like they would be in London in comparison. It is hard work to be on the music scene in Rome. I would return later return to Rome for the Giaguaro festival that summer. I also met up a friend, who I knew from London, Alex Zinzi. Alex was also a DJ; he had been living outside Rome in a town Spoleto for a few years; Alex and I met up with his friend Chiara in a cocktail bar. Alex and I also talked about the music scene; he was saying things like Ale was. People are more interested in going out for a meal than live music. Later that night, Alex and I went for stroll through Rome and walked through some really picturesque streets. I think we walked through the Trastevere area in Rome. There must be so many stories in this place; it is reflected in the buildings. If you are in Rome go for a walk in this neighbourhood and enjoy. It would have been about 1 AM now and it was quite mild. Alex and I were joined by a friend of his and we walked around looking in the shop windows selling antiques.