On The Move…

I’m home!  Actually, truly, physically home!!  It’s a wonderful feeling, and so far the rest of the group really likes the city too, which makes me all warm and fuzzy inside 😀

I know have a Singapore hp number: 8132 8422, so call me 🙂

Come see me sing with the Dins at the Esplanade Recital Studio on 8 Aug at either 7pm or 9pm – tickets are available through Sistic at: http://www.sistic.com.sg/cms/events/index.html?content=392

More updates when I’m not rushing around leading the group etc. etc.

I still *love* tour.

Ok, we’re leaving Kyoto today, in about 90 minutes.  It’s past 5.30am right now, and I’ve recently gotten back from a lovely night out in Kyoto (my only night out in this city, in fact).  Some other Dins met some lovely American/Japanese-American girls at the hot springs they visited today, and these girls in turn took us out on the town and we had a marvellous time clubbing the night away.

As usual, there is really too much to say, and I also need to go pack, shower and potentially take a half hour nap before we leave our very nice hotel here (the Takaragaike Prince Hotel), which somehow has surprisingly few facilities – in particular, no pool, gym or fitness facilities of any kind.  So I will instead leave a bunch of impressions I’ve been meaning to share:

– I love how the Japanese taxicab drivers all have neat, livery-style uniforms, and also that they can open the cab door with the touch of a botton (that even controls how far the door swings open).

– I’ve noticed that the Japanese all use full-sized (ie not compact/collapsible) umbrellas, which are often very fancy, and that every store will have an umbrella rack outside the door.

– I love how the Japanese can often be spotted wearing hats.  Yay headgear!

– I *love*love*love* Japanese supermarkets, which are filled with nothing but cool Japanese products and foodstuffs.  Kawaii!! 🙂

– I’m amused by how much aural stimulation occurs here – almost everything talks to you (bus stops, toilets, vending machines) and prattles on constantly.  This also includes any kind of service/hospitality-related transaction; for instance a cashier ringing you up will give an uninterrupted running commentary which I can only guess (since I don’t speak Japanese) goes something like: “Good morning, I see you are buying a bag of chips.  Let me scan that and tell you the price, which is 200 yen.  As you hand me two hundred yen in cash let me put the chips in a carrier for you, together with your receipt. Thank you very much for your purchase, have a nice day and please shop again with us soon.  Goodbye!”

– I’m very impressed with the French restaurant in the hotel, which has served us our (free!) dinners at place settings of Noritake bone china, Christofle silverware and Schott Zweisel stemware.  Very classy.

Sorry for the hiatus in blog posts…  For the past couple of weeks practically every free moment I have has been spent trying to arrange details for the Dins’ stop in Singapore from Aug 5-8.  It’s going to be an exciting, performance-packed stop, I think.

The Dins will perform two concerts at the Esplanade Recital Studio on 8 Aug 2006 (Tuesday) at 7pm and 9pm.  Tickets will go on sale via Sistic on 26 July, and are quite limited, so be sure to book early!  One night only!!  🙂

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Anyway, greetings from Kyoto, Japan, the 13th stop on the Dins World Tour 2006.  I’ve only been here about 12 hours, but already I absolutely *love* Japan.  The culture of such exacting manners and neatness, technology-fuelled efficiency and convenience, as well as a passion for high-quality fashion all appeal strongly to my sensibilities.

Incidentally, in Prague I managed to get my lugagge replaced with very little hassle, curtesy of Lufthansa.  I brought in my ruined suitcase to an authorised repair shop, the woman there looked at it and then gave me a brand new Samsonite bag that was approximately the same as my original (though a touch smaller).  Problem solved.  Praise God!

I liked Prague a lot.  Such a charming, romantic city.  And such beautiful people and postcards too.

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We just arrived today in Kyoto from Shanghai, China.  I’d never been to Shanghai before, and boy was that an eye-opener.  The city was truly a marvel of frenzied construction and booming prosperity.  Yet everything seemed so incredibly cheap to our Zurich-jaded wallets (where a small bottle of water was 4 CHF, about 3 USD).  A fair number in the group caught the men’s fashion bug (I’m so proud! :)) and were ecstatic over the pretty fine tailoring that was available for so little…  I had two shirts made just to try it out, and they both turned out really well.  Especially considering that they cost less than US$9 each.  I also went to the tailor Uncle Soon Lee recommended (also named “Jason”, which was confusing), and ordered a piped jacket (in the style of a boating-jacket).  I have to say that I was quite impressed overall at the quality of the work (although I had to push a little, which is normal, to get exactly what I wanted, finicky details and all).  And the price was unbeatable, truly.  In all, the other Dins who went to the same tailor on my recommendation bought something like 2 overcoats, 4 sportscoats and 6 suits made.  It was fun to watch other Dins be excited about shopping, for once 🙂

A big special thank you to Uncle Soon Lee who fed me (and other Dins) well and pointed the way to good, cheap shopping and tailoring.  Thank you!

It was also a hugely happy revelation to myself that I can actually speak Mandarin quite decently, at least enough to communicate fairly efficiently, and to even write stuff down.  Looks like those years and years of slogging over Chinese (which was really the only subject I recall always studying for) have actually resulted in a useful skill.  Yay!!

Have I mentioned that the Europe-leg of the tour has piqued (for the first time, ever) my interest in learning German?  I’m actually quite excited at the prospect.

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Again, I’m currently blogging both here and also on the Dins’ World Tour 2006 blog which can be accessed online at http://dins06.blogspot.com  Go check out the handful of pictures I’ve posted there, which are also on my regular Flickr photostream.

Alright, time to venture out into Kyoto in search of contact lens solution…  at 12.30am.  In the rain.  (Life is so hard!)

PS:  I’ll explain the “Life is so hard” Din-game some other time

Today is the one month mark on the Dins’ World Tour.

While we were chatting late one Monday night at the really wonderful Taj Mahal club in Athens, I pointed out to Evan that our conversations with people we meet must sound so horribly obnoxious, since they all go along the lines of: “And then when we were chauffered to the castle in Belgium we were taken to the all-night party in Luxembourg by the Swiss It girls who drove us to a fabulous free, five-star meal at the museum where there was a private party hosted by the ambassador in the nightclub by the pool at the summer villa with the huge Warhol canvasses…”  and we can keep going like this for several hours.

It’s been pretty amazing, truly.  I should load pictures!  🙂

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But for those people who would prefer to hear about how the trip isn’t perfect, you may like to know that when I got off the plane in Prague this afternoon I was quickly alerted by other Dins to the fact that my almost-new Samsonite luggage had been violently smashed in transit, probably somewhere between our layover in Munich and our arrival.  And this after I was somehow mistakenly left behind at our residence in Rome and had to make my own way to the airport.  On the upside, it seems possible that Lufthansa will make good on the damage with either free repairs or a replacement bag, although I wish my luggage (which I bought at Selfridges in London last summer!) could have made it through Tour unscathed.  Right now it’s entirely missing a wheel structure (making the other wheel fairly useless), and has serious looking rips up the side.  I’m not terribly hopeful that it can be repaired economically.

Ok, time to go do other things now, like try and make some progress on the first and shamefully still first book I’m reading for the summer, as well as maybe watch the DVD Ming gave me just before tour started.

Ciao!

 PS:  Seriously, anyone who wants postcards should email me their mailing address.  My email is on this blog under “contact details” on the sidebar.  I’ve already posted possibly two to three dozen postacards so don’t feel like it would be any kind of bother for me – I love sending them!  🙂

I just realised that sometimes World Tour feels a lot like a pure vacation.  Like when I wandered about Dublin in the middle of the night or when I spent a leisurely day in London.  Yet at other times it feels a lot like travelling for work, or business.  Like when I’m dealing with the Singapore-related emails or when we have to rush from airport to concert venues.

Belgium has been wonderful.  I’m quite impressed with the 25 year old Prince Simon de Merode whose castle at Westerlo was the venue for the Havard Club of Belgium’s casino night.  The Prince also showed up at the concert we had tonight at the official residence of the Deputy Head of Mission of the American Embassy in Brussels.

The food has been fantastic here in Belgium.  I would love to live here (or really in most places in Western Europe) and work for a while, I think.  The scampi, ribs and beer at Wieren in Leuven was memorably good.  Leuven in general is very pleasant and interestingly quaint, yet bustling with the energy of a University town.

I’ve enjoyed my homestay here a lot.  While Patti White’s stunning townhouse flat in the tony part of London (Holland Park) was arguably more luxe–wait till you see the pictures of the colossal guest bathroom covered in trompe l’oeil murals on the walls and ceiling–I think Professor Paul Verlin’s recently renovated (and not quite finished) house here in a leafy neighborhood in Leuven has been exceptionally comfortable.  The house boasts custom hand-carved artisanal staircases, an AGA stove in the kitchen and a raindance shower rose in the guest bathroom (really a guest apartment on the top floor).  Staying here has been like staying in a really fabulous spa in Sweden.  Very restful, calming and rejeuvenating.  I’ve also really enjoyed spending time with the Verlins and chatting with Paul, Ann-Marie, Charlotte and Emily on all sorts of things.

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It’s sad that Dublin will get narry a mention here on the blog, nor will London, though I will say that it was fantastic to have Laurel and Kenneth in the audience at the Christchurch concert, and I trully loved the time I spent in Oxford with wonderful company (really makes me wish I’d gone to uni there, and certainly tempts me to consider graduate work there).  There’s just too much to say, particularly because I’m constantly busy either doing things that really should be journalled about eventually to preserve them for posterity, or sleeping to recover from the exertion of said activity.  On the upside I’ve been pretty meticulous about keeping a photo-record of the trip thus far (save for the last 36 hours when all my camera batteries aggravatingly died on me).  The pictures will just have to do in place of actual written records.

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Je suis ravie d’avoir l’opportunité de parler français à la Belgique 🙂

Tomorrow, Luxembourg.  Off to pack again!

Here I am in Dublin, and I’m going to try and make this quick so I can minimise the amount of time I spend sitting in this Internet cafe and go hit the streets to look around.

Aside from the ginormously painful, expensive affair that move-out was (I even had to miss the first 7am call/gig entirely), things have been going fairly smoothly.  I was completely knocked-out on the flight to Frankfurt, where we had a four hour layover; I’m a little annoyed at having slept through dinner on the flight, but I made up for it with many bags of Haribo candy 🙂

Earlier today we sang our first gig of the tour, at a very strange interfaith peace conference of some description, and between the jet lag, sore limbs (too much hand-carry luggage!!) and complete lack of warming-up, I think we sounded a little weak.  On the way back to the Dublin university residences that we’re staying at, I noted that so far the trip still feels like just another Din roadtrip to Connecticut or Maine…  I was looking out the window at the Dublin suburb we were going through and thinking, “I can’t wait to get back to Quincy; Is this Allston, MA?”

The Irish accent is both really pretty, and also often indecipherable 🙂

IMPORTANT:  There is a great little group blog that’s been set up for the Dins and they’re loved ones.  Bookmark the page: Dins v. The World

I’m not ready to leave.  Not close.  But I have to pack up my desktop now.  Call is in about an hour.

Last night was amazing, with the gig at BC with Ming.  Remind me to talk about the dietary cycle I fell into these past few days.

 Anyhow, anyone who wants postcards, please do email me (the address can be found in “contact details” link on the left bar) with your postal address.  Also, if you have the addresses of other people I know, also feel free to send that along as I don’t have my address book with me…  😉

See you on the other side of the Atlantic.

Very unexpectedly, I am rushing to see the completion of multiple essays….  and not for myself.  I can’t go into details, but this whole situation comes as quite a shock, in more ways than one.  How did it come to this?  I don’t know.  I pray it gets done, at least the bare minimum.  And not for my sake at all.

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In the meantime, it’s been a really lovely weekend spent away from campus in New York.  A couple of days were spent on the Dins’ whirlwind Albany Tour.  Five engagements in one day, starting with an 8am call and going to 10.30pm.  Five gigs in one day.  That’s a new record.  It was loads of fun though, and pretty cool, from the half-hour NPR radion program to the Legal Aid benefit (where they had planned an entire Dins-themed event with lime-green balloons and G&T hampers) to the Confirmation service where the group gave its best rendition of My Lord in memory.

Then I hurried off to Manhattan to join Ming at the W hotel (lovely location and lobby, even if the rooms don’t quite live up to the hype).  We saw The Pajama Game starring Harry Connick Jr., who was simply marvellous, and matched by an impressive cast of talented singers and dancers.  A great production indeed.  Catch it before its current run ends in two weeks.

I also made it to B&J Trim, where I spent the better part of the afternoon picking out an outrageously difficult, fiddly and costly selection of trim, lace, ribbon, fringe and buttons in various complementary shades of antique gold for the brown cashmere military-inspired dress-jacket I’m planning for the Fall.  It all took so long that I didn’t even manage to make it to M&J Fabric for the actual double-faced cashmere.  I suppose I’ll just have to pick it up in London along with the Prince-of-Wales check wool I need for the fur-trimmed long coat that’s also amongst my plans.

Overall I had a fabulous time, rain and cold notwithstanding.  Thank you, Ming 🙂

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I have an absurdly full Monday ahead of me.  Drycleaners, T-mobile store and post office; Prof Hardin’s office, sleep-study clinic, Dins rehearsal and admissions office info session; and then the Lodge Communication this evening followed by the Miss Pitch bachelorette party…

I know I’ve missed things out, but one can only do so much, right?

I don’t want to face the fact that New Quincy 304 is no longer really my room.  So I’ve been squatting here, refusing to move out.  Even though everyone else in the suite moved out three days ago.  Even though the whole college moved out three days ago.  And I plan to continue squatting here until they physically force me out.  Which will probably be in about a week.

I’ve been busy catching up with all the little things that get neglected during the semester.  Like doing laundry, and keeping up with the two dozen magazine subscriptions I have 😉  I’ve taken a bunch of guilty-pleasure light fiction books out of the libraries (anyone want to guess at the titles?  They’re all pretty prominent ones).  And I’ve been slowly packing up my room.  Echoing what I told Ryan yesterday, I’ve thrown out about 8% of the trash that was left in the suite…  which means about 92% of the junk is still strewn across the 7 rooms.  Eeek.

I’ve also been working hard for my professor in an attempt to buffer my battered bank account from the impending onslaught of travelling for 11 weeks to 18 countries across four continents.

For people who want to know, here’s the rough itinerary for the Dins’ World Tour 2006, which begins in just over a week:

Dublin (6/10-6/13)
London (6/13-6/17)
Brussels (6/17-6/20)
Luxembourg (6/20-6/23)
Strasbourg (6/23-6/26)
Munich (6/26-6/29)
Zurich (6/29-7/1)
Athens (7/1-7/4)
Thessaloniki (7/4-7/5)
Rome (7/5-7/9)
Prague (7/9-7/12)
Shanghai (7/13–7/16)
Kyoto (7/17-7/22)
Tokyo (7/23–7/25)
Choshi City (7/26-7/27)
Thailand (7/28–7/30)
HK (7/31-8/4)
Singapore (8/5-8/8)
Jakarta (8/9-8/11)
Bali (8/12-8/15)
Australia (8/16-8/21)
San Francisco (8/21-24)

There will be concerts etc. at every stop, some (but not all) of them will be listed on the Dins website (www.dins.com), but email me if you want the most updated details.

I promise to try and keep this blog updated during the summer, but it’s probably going to be spotty, and pictures will probably have to wait till September.  We’ll see.

Ok, back to work.

Ganong Chocolate Museum (27 May 2006)

Originally uploaded by J Y.

Good news: The Museum was not only open on a Saturday (unusual), it was having an “Open House”, which meant seemingly unlimited free trayfuls of virtually every product made by the Ganong chocolate and candy company for our sampling pleasure. There were also complimentary beverages, a chocolate fountain with fresh fruit for dipping, chocolate cake etc. Even though we had walked across the border into St Stephen, New Brunswick for the sole purpose of buying Ganong products at the boutique, Ryan and I ended up eating much more free chocolate than we bought in the store.

Bad news: Unknown to me, about 15 minutes before this picture was taken my cellphone had slipped out of my jacket onto the street outside. It would be days before I got it back eventually; I’m just thankful to get it back.