Showing posts with label Lamma Island. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lamma Island. Show all posts
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Friday, October 23, 2009
Friday!
Finally home after an exhausting week, but very good. The kids went home at around 1:00 after 5 days and 4 nights and me sleeping over in a tent Monday night and Thursday night. The nights are getting more comfortable, i actually have to cover up when sleeping outside now. My fleece coat also wasn't enough so I ended up putting my legs inside my Osprey pack to keep a little warmer and it worked pretty well actually...
This week consisted of beach games Monday, with me leading "the water tube" which is a 5" pvc pipe with holes drilled in it and the kids need to fill it up by running into the sea and bringing back water while the other members of the group plug the holes. It's crazyness and it's pretty funny watching the kids that don't want to get wet or sandy get drenched when they or someone near them accidentally lets go of a hole.
Tuesday was 6 hours of kayaking, ugghh, i'm a little bit done with kayaking for a bit, 11 sessions in 7 days wore me out...
Wednesday was the Cheung Chau "Expedition" aka day trip to the island and walk back, it's hard to even call it a "hike" but the kids tend to think it's the hardest thing in the world at the time
Thursday was gorge setup and running a group through in the morning, eating lunch and running back up again in the afternoon. We encountered almost 200 screaming Chinese students and instructors participating in some sort of boot camp thing as we tried to get our groups up, they would push our kids out of the way and monopolize the entire track up. It was an unbelievable experience seeing the lack of safety they were employing. No helmets, stringing ropes of trees and roots (not the bolts in the rock that we use), using students to hold ropes while others traverse across a pool on a rope upside down, 2 helmets in the entire group, and the mass of about 25 people at the top of the waterfall and another 25 pushing people up the corner that you see Bryan climb up in my video clips a couple posts ago. It was such a recipe for disaster I couldn't even watch it, good thing our kids were really good and just hung out until the ridiculousness passed.
Today was the final tug of war, beach cleanup, and reading in the Pui O school, then they left.
Each day was at least from 7am to 9pm without any real breaks, so I'm ready for my 2 days off this weekend, then rigging the gorge next monday which i really enjoy doing so that's good.
I also learned how to run an espresso machine this week, i can make a latte, an americano, a macchiato, and a good ol' espresso, steam up some milk pour the frothy goodness on whatever you like and it's pure caffeine euphoria the rest of the day.
This weekend i think Katy and Jen and I will head out to Lamma a place we haven't been since we recorded "Lapsap Live on Lamma"
Also James (or American James) is coming back this Monday for 2 days before heading back to the motherland.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
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.
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.
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:
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.
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