Testing Posting Directly From Email - Bird Stealing Bread

Come on Millard play that fiddle...

I just heard that Millard Eggleston passed away on Wednesday. My condolences go out to his family. Dannemora and the coffee houses will be a different place without him around.

I remembered someone wrote this about Vassar Clements when he passed away,

"On April 22nd, the angels in heaven stopped singing for a moment, as they heard the most beautiful music approaching from a distance - the high lonesome sound of Millard's fiddle."

It is really great that we were able to perform "Come on Millard (Play That Fiddle)" for him when he was healthy. I'm going to play some Turkey in The Straw today, I've also been working out a Mississippi John Hurt/Chet Atkins style Redwing on the guitar lately.

Come on Millard play that fiddle we want to hear you saw
Sit right down and fiddle around won't you play one for me pa?
Come on Millard play that fiddle we want to hear you saw
Let's go Professor we want to hear some Turkey in The Straw

Millard was a sawyer, a lumberman too
Now playing fiddle is his favorite thing to do
He always worked hard, a family to raise
Working long hours for him it didn't phase

Come on Millard play that fiddle we want to hear you saw
Sit right down and fiddle around won't you play one for me pa?
Come on Millard play that fiddle we want to hear you saw
Let's go Professor we want to hear some Turkey in The Straw

His fiddle reputation was known far and wide
He can look upon it with never ending pride
We are very lucky that we've had the chance
To see his old fiddle sing and maybe see him dance

Come on Millard play that fiddle we want to hear you saw
Sit right down and fiddle around won't you play one for me pa?
Come on Millard won't you make that old fiddle sing
Let's go professor we wanna hear some of that Redwing

Yo Dawg...

Yo Dawg, I heard you like browsing the internet and catching waves, so I put a surfboard in your computer so you can surf while you surf.

This week has been more of the same old stuff, playing some music, exploring more of Hong Kong. I (hopefully) finished the music organization project on Tuesday.

Wednesday we went to a Causeway Bay in the City to pass out fliers for the summer surf camp. We brought our instruments to play some music. I'm glad I'm going to be away from that banjo for a while, I'm just getting sick of the way it sounds and how awful it plays. In other words, it's like owning a high-definition big screen TV and Blue-ray player and only being able to watch a fuzzy VHS on a black and white TV.

I did come up with an idea for a new song while walking around the IFC mall, the new song is going to be called "Fire Hose Reel" haha. Now that I have the name the rest of it will be easy... I just have to figure out what makes something a "reel" i.e. St. Anne's Reel

Yesterday, we took a ferry into Discovery Bay. It was like walking into a different country, it almost felt like being back in the US. It was a little refreshing, but it did get old quick. I had a pretty nice burger at this 24-hour breakfast joint and checked out the Western (Gweilo) grocery store. Then took the bus (baah-see) to Tung Chung where I picked up an iPod case and then back to Pui O.

Bonus points for whomever can guess how much a golf cart costs in Discovery Bay (Hint: it starts with 156 and ends with 3 zeros)










Looks like I'll be doing some kayaking for a birthday party at Ooh La La on Sunday, hooray for free food! It'll probably be sandwitches, but I ain't complaining, it could be peanut butter torillas or pepperoni and cheese for the 300th+ time









I'll leave everyone with some inspirational words from The Good Ol' Boy himself. As they illustrate a lot about where I'm at right now.

--Prayer---

I love life
Every morning I wake up
Saying in the back of my mind
This could be my last day on earth
This could be the last time
I ever feel the wind raising the hair on my body
Or touch of my feet to the ground
Or the warmth of your flesh next to mine

This could be the last chance I'll have
To watch all kinds of people
Doing all kinds of things
And thinking all kinds of thoughts
And all kinds of directions around me
This might even be my last chance
To spend everything I've saved since last night
Or hear all your sounds ringing though my head

It might even be my last chance
To be sick
I'm like a child trying to do everything
And say everything, see everything,
And be everything all at once
Should I wake up some morning
GOD help me,
And find myself bored among the walking dead

-John Hartford --Housing Project--

Dim Sum

Dim Sum in the city was pretty awesome on Sunday. You can have hundreds of different varieties of mini-portions of stuff.

Sunday was the most humid/muggy day I've experienced so far in Hong Kong. It was probably in the lower 80s with around 90% humidity. Walking around the city was quite the experience, you get short little blasts of cold air every once in a while as you pass the shops.

We played music for quite a while in an area on one of the busy streets and then had some dinner.

Last night was Bryan's last night in Hong Kong (for a while?) and he wanted some Nepali momo








1 Bus Ride to Mui Wo $3.2 HKD
1 Fast Ferry Ride to Central $25.50 HKD
1 Star Ferry from Central across to Kowloon/mainland $1.8 HKD
1 MTR ride from Tsim Sha Tsui to Jordan $3.8 HKD

Walking for an hour around the streets of Jordan at 11pm looking for "that one place" that sells momo: priceless

We found "the place" but it was closed, but we did find another place that sells momo, it was a small little place, but was really nice. We overran them with orders I think, they were very nice. I don't think they get a lot of of Westerners in there or at least not ones that like to talk or are friendly like us.

We bought 4 platters of momo, a chicken curry, a boiled potato curry (alum dum), and some really spicey cilantro nacho dish that I forgot the name of.

I really enjoy Nepalese food, it's definitely one of my favorite things to eat here in Hong Kong.

Rain Rain Go Away

Didn't make it to Tai Long Won today, it was a late night in the city and it's been pouring all day. (Not that that should dissuade me, but <>)

The jamming last night was pretty fun, too bad the Lapsap Stringband will be on hiatus next week until the fall sometime.

Might go have some Dim Sum tomorrow in the city


View Larger Map

Workin' For The Weekend

I've spent the greater part of the last 2 days organizing, cataloging, and cleaning 26,000 mp3 tracks in iTunes for T.I. It's pretty mind numbing but I do it in small blocks, plus I knew of a lot of utilities to make things easier.

We (James, Meghan, and I) have applied for our Vietnam visas for our trip there on April 30-May 10 we will be flying into Hanoi and then making our way by bus and train through Laos and into Cambodia where we will fly out of Siem Reap. James and I will then go to Cebu in the Philippines to stay with Irvin for a few weeks before coming back to Hong Kong or maybe reuniting the Lapsap Stringband in Malaysia for a week or so before coming back to start surf camp training on June 15. The airfare in Southeast Asia is so inexpensive it's really great.

I'm heading to jam on Hong Kong Island tonight and then heading to Tai Long Won again this weekend. Keep an eye out for the spot tracker and I'll be back Sunday

Namaste, Happy 2066!

The Nepalese New Year was pretty awesome, we got there a little late so we only saw 3 monkeys instead of the dozens last time.

The usual bags and bags of chicken wings, pork chops, and hotdogs were brought out once we got a barbecue pit. Along with some Baji and some really great Nepalese pickle sauce.

I ate so much, everything was really great



The last two days were pretty uneventful just playing and listening to a lot of music, I really enjoy these down times as I can always find ways to keep myself occupied. Now that Austin has given me a new direction to go in banjo playing I won't be bored for a while.

Probably will be camping out at Tai Long Won again this weekend, not 100% sure though.

Word is circulating about my leet computer skills so I have a little bit of work tomorrow for some supplemental income.

Lost in the rain in Juarez And it's Eastertime too...

I put some audio clips in this post, but I'm not sure if they will work for everyone, play all at once, or do something else funky so let me know if it's messed up and i'll try to do something different with them.

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues



I've played so much music this week. "The Lapsap String Band" practiced so much to get ready for our gig at the Turkish Restaurant in Mui Wo.

We've been "on tour" to various parts of Hong Kong, we took a trip up to Tong Fuk on Lantau last week and then to Lamma Island last Monday.

We have a pretty good deal worked out, we walk around or talk to some local people to find out where a good place to play might be. We go there and or a drink or whatever and we just "happen to have our instruments with us" then within 5 minutes of being there the inevitable question comes. "You guys playing somewhere?" "Do you guys know and Beatles/Dylan/Metallica?" or something along those lines To which we reply, "Maybe...we'll pick out a couple songs if you're interested" Then by that time the owner/bar tender is usually into it since 5-10 of his customers want to hear live music. So we sit down and play, while usually acquiring food/drinks from the audience.

Going to Lamma Island was pretty awesome last Monday, although it was a little challenging at first. I had to transport all our instruments to Central alone, so that meant taking a bus with a guitar strapped to my back, hardshell mandolin case in one hand and my hardshell banjo case in the other. So the bus pulls up and just my luck it's standing room only, haha. It was quite the operation holding two hard cases, keeping the guitar from falling off, and balancing myself on a seat. As I was falling all over everyone in the first two rows during the 10 minute ride to Mui Wo an older lady motioned to me to hold the mandolin so I gave it to her for the rest of the ride, it made things much much easier.

So I caught the 4:10 fast ferry into Central and arrived around 4:40 where I met Nate, James, and Bryan. We caught the ferry Lamma and had some dinner at an Italian place there, then talked to some people about where to go to find people that might want to hear some music. We ended at "The Island" supposedly where most of the expats hangout. Sure enough the usual plan came together and we were playing through their P.A. within 10 minutes of getting there. One guy came up and asked if we wanted a bass player, we said "sure" and he came back with his full size acoustic upright. Then the other Lamma Islanders that he plays with showed up, so there was another mandolin, a classical guitar, and a fiddle player. I guess they play Jewish blues music together once a week on Lamma. I had my mp3 player so I recorded a few of the clips from that night:

Red River Valley->St. Anne's Reel->Foggy Mountain



Wagon Wheel



Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad


Unfortunately the last ferry from Lamma is at 11:30 so we had to make a mad dash back to the pier to catch it. We made it with 3 minutes to spare.

The rest of the week consisted of finished up our second set of music so we could have two solid 45 minute sets of music.

We had our sound check on Thursday, the owner wanted to do it early so he could have an idea of the setup on Friday (not a lot of music played there comes from acoustic instruments). That went really well, it wasn't the greatest sound setup I've ever played, but definitely definitely not the worst.

I also went to the monthly full moon party that some of the locals put on. There's a bonfire circled with candles and a bunch of drums an rhythm makers lying around for anyone to use. I arrived a little later and there were 3 police officers there talking with some of the Cantonese speakers and they left after a little while, supposedly someone complained about the noise, which is surprising since it's a good 800 meters (meters?!? yea, meters) up the beach from where there might be people camping in the public site. Anyway, they "recommended that they put the campfire out" and that was it. Police are so much different here than in the US, I could just picture 5 squad cars showing up and hauling people away. After 20 minutes of them leaving the drumming started again and it was fine until I left.

The show on Friday went well, we showed up around 8, finalized our sound setup, and were treated to our complimentary Turkish dinner which consisted of a hot and cold Meze platter and a large lamb skewer. Pretty good food, although nothing compared to the Nepalese food I had last week.

We started off with a set of slow songs since there were still quite a few people still eating. Then took a break and then opened it up a little more with our second set. Before we knew it 11pm arrived, we could have stopped there, but instead decided to play a few more songs and we really let it loose. It was all a blast and we were paid $1000 HKD for our work. Hopefully we'll get a chance to go back and play again sometime before Nate leaves for Malaysia for the summer.

Call Me Trendy

I broke down and bought an iPod last week and as you can see at the top of the page is my Twitter feed, so I can give small updates a little more often. Since I don't always have the time/energy/motivation to sit down a write a full post I was thinking I could write some Tweets every once in a while to show what I'm up to. I still want to try to make a new post 2-3+ times per week, we'll see how this goes. Next up on the list buying some Abercrombie polo shirts and popping the collar.

I also wanted to ask anyone reading if they had any specific questions about anything in Hong Kong or something they would like to see more written about. Just write a comment and I'll see what I can do.

I'm excited for tomorrow, it's Nepalese new year hosted by Khem in the New Territories at Monkey Hill, I've been expanding my stomach in preparation. I'm thinking I'll go for 5 pounds of grilled meat tomorrow...

Tai Long Wan

We decided to go surfing over the weekend at a place in The New Territories on the mainland of Hong Kong. The three of us set out Saturday morning hoping to avoid the predicted rainstorm (up to 1 cm) that kept being pushed back and luckily didn't hit until today and it was very minor. It was a pretty nice day (in the lower 70s) as we caught the slow ferry to Central (damn you holiday schedule) . We ate a late breakfast at Subway and made our way to the MTR station and caught a train north off Hong Kong Island and into the mainland, then transfered to an eastbound train heading toward Sai Kung. We hopped on a mini-bus that brought to another bus stop where we were able to board a double decker that brought us the rest of the way to Wong Shek Ferry Pier (Seen in the background here, these pictures are from when we were leaving because I didn't take any on the way there...)

We asked around to see how we could get out to the Chek Keng Ferry Pier where we would then have to hike another 45 minutes to Ham Tin and finally Tai Long Wan (pronounced Die Long Wan, all T's are pronounced as D's in Cantonese). As we were looking at a map on the pier a lady who ran the shuttle boad came up to us and through the usual hand signal/pointing/broken Cantonese we were able to get her to bring us to where we wanted to go for $40 HKD each. So we were off.





We learned from the other few people before we got off the boat that we paid twice as much for the ride as they did. This happens so much, I like to call it Gweilo tax. I hope they feel real good about getting an extra $3 US out of some "rich" Westerners. The vast majority of people are really great and helpful, but the almighty dollar always wins out. And it's frustrating not knowing enough Cantonese to understand in these situations.

We arrived at the pier and started our hike in. All of the hiking paths in Hong Kong are actually paved with cement, brick, or stone. This is has its pros and cons, on one hand it's really good at stopping erosion and keeping people on the paths (nothing like a 3 foot fall into the jungle to make you stay on the cement).


We hiked along the sidewalk up and over the hill and down into Ham Tin and then Tai Long Won right after. There is a surf shop/gear shop/restaurant open on the weekends there.

We arrived at the beach and I was in awe of these massive waves and the beauty of this place. If it wasn't for the dozen other people and ton of garbage it could be one of those tropical island beaches everyone dreams about.











We got in around 3pm and went on a wood run then we went and had some food at the restaurant.















Then we returned to our site and set up our tents as we readied ourselves for surfing the next day. I used my knuckle striker and quartz and sparked a fire. It was so re-energizing being out there camping, I made a new rock sling and taught Meghan and Danny how to tie a monkey's fist knot. As I watched the sunset, for the first time in Hong Kong I really felt connected to everything, it's the same feeling that occurs when I take two steps into the Adirondacks. I really need to make a point of going hiking and camping more often without kids. It's hard to put the type of camping I like to do in the same category as T.I. camping, but that's another rant altogether.

















It will probably be hard for someone reading this to believe that I had one of the best nights sleep in Hong Kong out there, haha...

I was up and ready to go at around 7 so I got the fire going and boiled some water for some good ol' cowboy coffee, black as a moonless Adirondack night, with a handful of dirt and leaves just to make it authentic :|

We made our way back to the surf shop/restaurant and had a round of bacon, egg, and cheese, then rented 3 surfboards and we were back to the beach.

I don't really have a whole lot to say about the actual surfing. Except, surf paddling is one of the most exhausting things you can do. You lay with your stomach on the board and battle 4-5 foot crashing waves in order to get out past where they break so you can hope to catch one and ride it in. We had a few things going against us: 1) Beginners (me) have much better luck on long boards (unavailable), not the short boards we were on. 2) My surf paddling skills are not the most refined at the moment. 3) For some reason I can't keep gallons of sea water from entering my nose/ears/mouth/sinuses even though I try to blow out a bit as I dive under a crashing wave.

Anyway, long story short, I caught one wave and didn't even try to stand on the board, then couldn't get a wave after the second struggle back out into the sea. So, exhausted I stumbled back to the beach and met Meghan and Danny, also resting from the pummeling.



So we rested, read, then made some Ramen and then went out swimming a little later.

We packed up around 2:30, we felt some rain drops and my watch's barometer said the pressure was dropping fast so we decided to leave before the rain might come.





We thought it would be a two hour walk out, but only ended up being about 1:15 and we were pretty lucky that we cut out like 3 steps in the transportation by catching a Sunday only bus that took us right to an MTR station even closer to home than the one we arrived on. It still took us about 4 hours total to get back, it would have been less if we didn't miss the bus in Tung Chung by 5 minutes.

Overall it was a great weekend and a great trip, I can't wait to go back there some day.

This was a really long post, I usually like to keep mine short and sweet because I'm not sure how much people like to read these long ones. Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far.


Ahh, I can't finish this post without adding some of the usual randomness:
--T.I. gives us a tiny little tracphone and for me it's hard to hear and talk at the same time because the speaker is at my ear and the mic is like 4 inches from my mouth on the side of my cheek, so I'll listen and then speak walkie-talkie style into the phone, but that trips some reflex in my brain from my days on the radio at ALE and I start ending all my statements with "over" "I'm clear" and beginning with "that's a good copy." Back in the U.S. I would sometimes do that with voicemails.
--I'm either having an epiphany in my banjo playing or an existential breakdown; it's really not worth explaining, Austin if you read this please answer my IMs, lol...
--I'm going to use chopsticks alot when I leave Hong Kong, they're a pretty great tool.
--I really need to find an insulated coffee cup, I borrowed the one I have now and it's duct-taped all around the rim so it's sticky.
--Baseball season starts today, signifying that the long horrible winter is truely and definitely over, now I actually have a reason to mindlessly surf the internet.
--It was 66 degrees this evening and I had to put a fleece coat on because I was cold, what am I becoming?!?!
-

So it goes...

Today marked the death of the spring season, but in its death begins a new journey. Two and a half months before the start of the Summer season at Treasure Island means the beginning and end of many things.

We said farewell to Irvin and Justin, Kurt will be leaving next week and the rest of us will scatter intermittently only to reunite for the long stretch of summer surf camp into the return of tribal camp in the fall. This is quite the ride so far and it is bound to become quite a bit different as we add more and more staff to the mix.

My short term (within the next week or so) places to visit are:
Macau
Ngong Ping Gondola
Discovery Bay

Long term (before June 15th):
Cebu, Phillipines
Possibly Laos, Cambodia, Thailand with a couple other T.I.ers

I've been thinking a lot about thru-hiking lately, the Long Trail didn't get that entirely out of my system, although I'm not sure anything will... I am one that likes to have a plan far into the future, so as it stands right now post-Treasure Island I would like to get settled back in the US for a while then start the Appalachian Trail.

In other news, the Lopsop Stringband was created today from members formerly know as Lopsop Gwei(los). We are a three piece band, guitar, mandolin, and banjo. We play all types of music, but I'd call it folk-reggae-jamgrass. We just got a gig a week from today at a Turkish restaurant in Mui Wo and we might play at another place in Tung Fuk sometime too. The British ex-pats seem to enjoy our music, so hopefully things will go well and we'll get our second set ready to go soon.

I think I might be equal to the best I've ever been on the banjo right now, I was plateauing and maybe dropping for a while there, but now that I play a lot with the band, challenge myself, and get ample opportunity to solo I feel really good about my playing. Too bad the banjo I play sounds like someone jammed a broomstick into a Clorox bottle and strung it up. As far as solo practice time, I seldom play the banjo, it's mostly the fiddle now; it's so much fun to play.

End of post randomness:

Since I was paid yesterday I'm thinking about breaking down and buying and iPod, I really miss being able to call up any track on my computer in a split second.

I shaved off my beard today

I might be going surfing for the first time tomorrow, if it's not pouring down rain.