Hong Kong - Hipstamatic Tour

If you are arriving here from FRESHLY PRESSED - A Huge thank you and Welcome. I would be so grateful if you would follow me as storytelling and travel are my livelihood and if we share this passion you will have a blast here.

Cheers and Thank You!

Hong Kong is easily the most dynamic city I have ever visited. Alive, moving, walking, running, and most of all eating and all of this with great vigor.

I was charged to do a Hong Kong post by another lovely blogger and so I decided it was long overdue to take my Blissful Adventurers on a tour.

I fell in love with the Hipstamatic iPhone app last year and I enjoy how this $3 investment really forced me to look at Hong Kong under the surface and explore subjects that on my Nikon D90 may have seemed plain and ordinary.

Hipstamatic forces the user to function within parameters assigned to lens and camera type (electronically simulated) and shoots only in square images which are ideal for blog posts.

I hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts.

LIFE AND FOOD

HK is obsessed with food, and that is OK because so am I. It was on every corner and at every time of day. I could easily stay here 6 months and not tire of the food but perhaps I would get a little sick of the hurried pace and the confining cityscape. Our photos of the traditional Cantonese Dim-Sum simply were not suitable for the post, but know that we ate this every other day till we could not move.

Notice the window unit air conditioners. There are so many of these in HK that the exhaust from them is said to warm the city by several degrees in the summer nights.

This amazing all-in-one meal includes rice, vegetables, and some form of protein served in this steaming hot clay pot. Adding lots of chili sauce and tall beers makes the meal that much more of a party.

I wanted to love this. I did not :-(

CHINESE MEDICINE

In all of my travels this was one of the most fascinating sites. Store after store, vendor after vendor hawking every kind of herb, sea creature, shark fins (fucking bullshit) and an array of dead stuff plucked from the planet to keep humans healthy. I want to know more.

THE MARKETS

I was simply blown away by what one could purchase on the streets. Fish, both fresh and freshly butchered. Meat, hopefully fresh, every kind of shellfish possible. Just walking around HK I felt like the oceans would be empty in less than a generation as I cannot imagine how much food we are eating as a planet.

STREET SCENES

Juliet and I walked for hours each day to simply immerse ourselves in the life of this city. My head was on a swivel as my camera was clicking non-stop

Most Influential Blogs 2012

True for me and these fine bloggers

The Most Influential Blogs of 2012 is my tribute to some of the finest work on the web done by caring curators of quality and passion. These individuals and their work gives me cause to pause on my birthday today to celebrate along with them because of what their influence means to my work. For those of you looking to find truth in advertising, look no further than these fantastic sites.

Honest Blogger of the Year  Mike Fiveson: Mike's Look at Life - If Mike does not post something I get worried. Prolific in his posts and deliberate in his commentary, Mike is one of my blogging heroes. I found Mike early this year and his no-nonsense no gimmicks or tricks approach to photography, travel, and life are constant reminders of how to live well on this planet. Mike responds to comments timely and always with wit and charm. This is a blog about being alive and what it means to see beauty in that life everyday. Most of all Mike has become my friend and someone I cherish and respect.

Poet Foodie of the Year Barbara Bamber: Just a Smidgen - Barbara is easily the kindest person I have never met in person. When my work was in its doldrums and I was not feeling up to the task, she found me and engaged me in the most supportive dialog I truly needed. Now, add to that the sheer fact that this woman can cook, write, and blog like nobody's business and you have a real recipe for success. I would imagine that 2013 will be the year that The Smidge goes big time! Jump on this very happy bandwagon and thank you Barabara for making many of my days.

Connecting Blogger of the Year Susie Lindau: Susie Lindau's Wild Ride - If there is a single person who may have rescued my blog from a death sentence it is Susie Lindau. Known for her irreverent humor, dance videos, and the wildly successful Use Me and Abuse Me days, Susie is one of the most original bloggers on the net and one of the most connecting. Susie wants her readers to succeed as much as she wants to succeed herself. She curates her work and inspires others to do the same. Susie and I met in Colorado and she has even more energy than her blog suggests. Susie's Wild Ride has a real chance to become syndicated in my opinion and I would not be surprised to see Susie hosting her own Wild Ride Live show sometime soon. If you do not know this blog, you should.

Photographer of the Year Sam Krisch: Just Tango On - Sam is a special person to me as his work with iPhone photography has inspired my developing plan for the future. Sam's writing in his blog which details his travels is excellent and his photography on his website I linked to his name is truly spectacular. I am rarely moved to simply run out and find someone but when I saw his work in the Denver photography show that Juliet entered I knew I had seen something unique and gloriously spectacular. I owe Sam for inspiring me to keep learning this craft and continue to let my voice come through in my work. Sam's work will be coming to a museum near you in 2013. I urge you all to meet him on the web before then.

Most Influential Blogger of the Year - (Here it is folks, the big one). My award of the year goes to....... George Weaver: She Kept a Parrot - Known as Granny by those of us that love her, George is easily the most influential blogger for this aspiring author. Granny pulls no punches, hides no opinions, and will not hesitate to tell me if something I am doing is bullshit. Granny and I have a familial relationship without having ever met and there is a reason for this: her work. From her stories of local heroes in her town to the edgy, gritty photographs she gleans from rusty scrap yards George constructs stories of real life that LIFE magazine only hoped to deliver its heyday. If you want to read words and experience images that will transform you and take your mundane and make it magic, follow George Weaver. She has expanded to include the stark and beautiful photo site The Fuzzy Photo so although technically retired she is one of the hardest working women in the blog biz. I have such fondness and love for George and I am not alone. I have never seen so many awards and accolades heaped on anyone and all of them utterly earned by her prodigious efforts in the field of photography, writing, and friendship. Big Love to you dear friend and congrats on influencing the hell out of me!

There you have it and Happy Birthday to Me!

Pre-Earthquake Lunch in Verona, Italy

In mid May Juliet and I visited our dear friends Nicolas and Giulia in Verona, Italy. These guys are master salad makers. Nick and I had gone down to the fruttivendolo (the fruit and vegetable shop) picked up killer lettuce, tomatoes, cukes, and a container of fresh mozzarella di bufala while the ladies relaxed in the modern apartment just a 15 minute walk from central Verona.

Of course, when we come to Verona we want Bresaola; the air dried beef roast that is one part texture of prosciutto and the other part flavor of jerked beef. When we arrived at the deli or salumeria where all the greatness was laid before us, we got our bresaola and then could not help but grab a handful of shaved mortadella with the requisite pistachios interspersed with the meat.

This is not your grandma's bologna they sell over on the boot. Mortadella here is just succulent (I hate that word, but it really is) and soft with a very lacy texture which holds the bits of nut in place and unfolds layer after layer of piggy part fatty yumminess.

When Nick and I got back, the table was being set as we showed off our goods. We told the girls how I almost stole some saffron at the deli because I had it in my hand and simply walked away. We went back in to pay and the woman behaved as if we were old friends making an honest and completely innocuous mistake. This is one of the reasons I love Italy. I can pretty much operate much like I did as a kid in a small town in Texas with "I'll pay you laters", "can I sit here for a minutes", and "oh yeah I owe you this from last weeks." There is a trust and belief that people will do the right thing in the day to day. Utopia, Italy is not and I am sure some of my readers will tell me about how the pizzeria in Florence ripped them off. I don't doubt it, I am simply saying in local culture, among residents, there is a code. I like this code and I believe in it.

After the walk, the stories, and the time to wash all the veggies, we were starving and this may be one of the reasons this was the best salad from our entire trip. It could also have been the lovely bottle of Pecorino (yes this is in fact a wine from Le Marche) from the brilliant bio-dynamic producer Aurora we enjoyed along with our lovely salad and salty meats.

Or it could have been this....

In the end, I am confident it was the quality of all the ingredients, the talents of our wonderful hosts, and a blessed day of conversation fueled by conviviality, mutual respect, and the overriding sense of curiosity and exploration that surrounded this gathering of Blissful Adventurers that made this lunch extraordinary. Somehow we took our grappa-soaked selves to a winery for a tasting later that day, then in the middle of the night, our very existences came into peril.

....to be continued

Sushi Den - An Extraordinary Experience

I must interrupt my series on Why I Travel to bring you a gastronomic interlude worthy of kings and dinosaurs.

(**NOTE** - I finally figured out how to put sharing buttons on my posts so now you can easily link to your social outlets and please do..cheers)

Last night in celebration of Juliet accepting an extension to keep us here in Denver through the summer we dined at the highly touted Sushi Den. Long regarded as one of the most excellent examples of great fish service in the USA we have anticipated this experience for nearly 9 months before finally taking the plunge.

Sushi Den is known for their daily arrivals of fresh market fish flown in from Fukuoka on Kyushu Island, Japan. The brother of the two chefs and owners of Sushi Den selects the fish and manages the fresh packing and direct shipments to Denver. The results are unique varieties of fish and exceptional examples of location which to many of us who adore sushi are the keys to excellence (along with the skills of the chefs and the handling of the product).

As soon as we rolled in the door at half past eight there was not a seat in a restaurant that was much larger than anticipated. The GM met us at the door and immediately complimented me on my Rockmount shirt (I am not kidding). He then told us we should sit at the owner, Yasu Kizaki's station which we of course accepted. The hostess said it could be an hour wait for his station so we plopped down at the bar and started on Sake' a 300ml bottle of Suijin Junmai (+10) Iwate, Japan. Crisp and brilliant I knew I was in the right place. In only 1/2 an hour we were seated.

Chef Yasu looked us over immediately and  probably assumed I was a bit of a DB in my loud and beautiful stitched shirt. When I told him I wanted him to drive the truck he seemed very skeptical. He asked me to tell him what we eat. I told him we are adventurous and he said, "No, tell me what you eat!" I said seriously we are wide open. "Where you from?' He belted! I said, totally wanting to set a picture I would not have to explain, New York City! "Where you eat there?" he said still very uncertain of our experience level. I fired back calmly 'Sushi Yasuda".

With that he said "ahhh Yah-soo-da...now I know where to start"

We began with oysters and finished with literally a bowl of unreal Uni. As the night progressed he began to love us, lighten up, and eventually invite us to meet his brother (the founder, Toshi) and enjoy a level well above his own, as he put it. I can say in all honesty this was a Top 10 sushi experience in a canon of eating that has bordered on obsessive for the past 7 years

We plowed through another 2 carafes of this amazing sake' suggested by our chef and his Sake Sommelier.

I never intended to write a review on Sushi Den so I had no notes with me but I do have these lovely photos taken by Juliet and me.

Cheers to great sushi and a brilliant evening of celebration!

My Dinner with Malcolm Gladwell (Epilogue)

Bounty hunter #1: You're wanted, Wales.
Josey Wales: Reckon I'm right popular. You a bounty hunter?
Bounty hunter #1: A man's got to do something for a living these days.
Josey Wales: Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy.

- The Outlaw Josey Wales

TUESDAY: I had to come up with a plan. It had to be fate that Malcolm “Blink”ing Gladwell rolled up next to me at the Catalina having what appeared to be a cappuccino while looking nervously at his computer screen. I could leave him alone, or I could see what he was all about. This is Texas, and we are nosy, chatty, and very much want to tell people about ourselves; therefore, if I just start a chat it will either become a legitimate chat, or possibly one of the suicide scenes from Airplane. I took a shot of Rwanda to instill some bravery and -----I quickly decided that if it was fate I would indeed see him here again and we might even have a meaningful chat.

I then quickly imagined an entire scenario where I would ask him to dinner and he would refuse, and I would insist, and he would agree. I imagined that if he came I would cook a risotto and offer him something from the cellar, but not the Piemonte wine I had promised, and he would have a girlfriend and typical nerdy insecurities. I imagined he would be polite but not overly excited and I think I would have been right. At the same time, I imagined he would actually enjoy me way more than the story I would write, but since he would not come to dinner (although I did send him an email and request the honor of his presence) I thought letting my imagination flow and engage my roots in play-writing would be fun for this story.

Much of the initial meeting with MG was fact including the rude interruption, and the exchange with the barista. However, as it was, Gladwell grabbed his things and made a point to tell me it was nice to have met me as he rolled out of Catalina on last Tuesday. The fiction ensued from there including Leora, the Krug, and the Krav Maga. I did cook the exact meal I described in the stories for my wife and I, but Malcolm, as he has yet to respond, missed out on the risotto.

I have recently become friends with a super cool writer from New York that is in the middle of a play development process where I am hopeful to direct again for the first time in quite a few years. I have never lost my passion for the stage or the written word and while all of this seems new to those who have known me for only a short time, this path and the pitfalls are not new to me. According to Gladwell, in What the Dog Saw there are some artists whose talent is immediately recognized and who from a young age are displaying their crafts for a world audience (Picasso) and there are others (Cezanne) for whom success came at a much later age (46+), yet the common drive to create and to live a life from their own guiding spirits was unwavering.

I have no idea whether I will be monetarily or even socially successful in my endeavors as a writer and storyteller, but as long as I have fingers, stories, and the feeling that I am inhabited by the characters I have met on this planet, I will create. Some stories will be inane and some hopefully insightful, but just as I told my theater professors in college, I am cut from the cloth of PT Barnum rather than Aeschylus; and I just want to keep audience attention, even if it takes train wrecks, the scatological, or occasionally the sublime.

Stay with me if you want to see what is next or roll back to your comfy pillow and count your money :-)

Michel' Sì probrê du iun!