Laura of Curious Doodles was visiting Hong Kong and as part of her journey, did a bit of Yoga at Shek O. Here it is.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, life is too short to take it seriously – especially on this blog. That is why I took the liberty of posting this video of the International Pillowfight Day to youtube, rather than having it stay dormant on facebook. Too much time on my hands you say? Well, too much time well spent. Thank you, oh, and check out the Brazilian Girls video below, it also has a nice pillowfight.

Laura of Curious Doodles leaves tomorrow for Japan and we finally got crackin’ on our stop motion project. Here’s yet another (even more fun!) test we did today. The other parts will come with time

These are stills of Laura preparing the little bubble tea dude and the bobas:

Tomorrow Today is the Stanley Warmup Races. It’s Buddha’s birthday, so in Cantonese tradition we scare away the ghosts in the water so we can swim in peace (We need to invent another holiday to scare away the pollution!). Check out Sunday’s race featuring Fair Dinkum, the spectators (my sister, Curious Doodles and Diskgrunt) as well as a special image from the leader of the Fireman’s team: Sunny. I have a higher respect for the Sunny and the firemen, not just because they can pull of crazy pink speedos but because there was recently a fire in my building and they had a quick response time of about 3 minutes to get there. Amazing! Props to the Hong Kong Fire Department. Click here if you’d like to be firesafe in Hong Kong.

Today, we did a bit of preproduction and lunch was amazing! Guacamole and Nachos and Hummus and Broccoli. We furthered our ideas about the stop motion video and realized we bit off more than we can chew, at least in the next few days. So, now that we’ve done a bit of motion testing and bought supplies to make cute titles we’ll try to churn something out piece by piece in the next few weeks. For now, check out our test and this fun, old school video of Hong Kong tourism.

On this second video, watch for the part where the Western woman hugs the Chinese man by accident.

Bring your umbrella, it’s going to rain tonight. Unfortunately, that means our little stop motion project will have to wait. We wanted to have The Peak and Victoria Harbor in it, but visibility is very low. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Umbrella by Zoo Republic

Just came back from a show by Syd Matters and Chapelier Fou, thanks to Noughts & Exes. This show at Grappa’s Cellar was one of the performances of Le French May in Hong Kong. Here is what the night looked like through my lens:

Chapelier Fou makes his music with violin, guitar and beats.
*These last three images are all of Syd Matters. They are a band with cool shoes. I like shoes

The Bauhinian City’s graffiti artists have a refreshingly boastful disregard for authority, especially that of Beijing. A brilliant young artist who goes by the name Cpak Ming projected the words “Who’s afraid of Ai Weiwei” onto China’s army barracks located on Hong Kong’s harbor front. Ming could be in a lot of trouble soon, but we’re all in a lot more trouble without freedom of speech, movement and other freedoms that China’s most prominent artist Ai Weiwei is currently being deprived of.
A recent article by the Scientific American inspired me to utilize the internet and write this post. The article said “The Web is now more critical to free speech than any other medium. It brings principles established in the U.S. Constitution, the British Magna Carta and other important documents into the network age: freedom from being snooped on, filtered, censored and disconnected.” Ai Weiwei’s detainment is – in the flesh – what is happening to the internet. Voices are being crushed, opinions stifled. Finland recently made internet a right of citizens. Their value on openness will move their communities forward in education, innovation and social advancement more quickly than the rest of the world. I wish China could have the foresight to trust its own people to make good decisions. Maybe they will. Either way, let’s hope Ai Weiwei gets free soon and let’s celebrate Hong Kong graffiti artists!

These images shot on my Nokia 6700 Classic mobile phone

30 seconds of Q’s 30th is a stop action style tram ride through Causeway Bay, Hong Kong featuring the infamous Queenie.
Photography and Music by yours truly.

Plus, two fun shots of the evening:

Backstage Live a few weeks ago saw a unique collaboration for Hong Kong: Jun Kung played a gig to a packed house with (former Honkie) Teriver Cheung, a guitarist now based in New York. Supporting the night were Japanese Yuka Tadano on bass and Dominican Chris Polanco on congas and piano. You should have seen Chris play both instruments at the same time! The night was very well-received and Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen spirit” was played early on and again used as an encore. At one point, Jun Kung spoke of the improvisational nature of Jazz and for the first time in HK I saw a group of musicians improvise a completely new tune. I recorded it on my phone, I was so excited. Hopefully this sets a new precedent for creative collaboration here in Hong Kong. Thank you Jun Kung.

If someone can identify the rapper, add his name in the comments! Thanks.