Aside from one quick post just to remind myself of something in the future, it's been 4 months since I've been here. I kept meaning to come write something, but things were busy and there was so much going on and it would have taken me forever to write it all, so I just didn't. It also didn't help that I moved to China, where just about every website you could possibly want to use is blocked, including my blog. I have a VPN to access it all, it just makes it much more annoying to write. I also got into the habit of writing at work to kill time when I was in Germany, and I have had no time to kill since I moved to China. Things have been crazy. Actually, I'm still quite busy, but it's calmed down a lot and I'm exhausted today so am purposely trying to procrastinate for the first time in 4 months. Thus, here we are.
Like I said, it would take a very, very long time to write everything that happened in the last 4 months, because the last 4 months have been very eventful. So as I've done before, here's the quick rundown, in chronological order:
Like I said, it would take a very, very long time to write everything that happened in the last 4 months, because the last 4 months have been very eventful. So as I've done before, here's the quick rundown, in chronological order:
- Leave Germany and spend a week in Singapore getting packed up
- Move to Shanghai
- Find an apartment
- Find many problems with said apartment and initiate arguments with the landlord to get them fixed, which he still refuses to do and which still continue. Hopefully lawyers will not be involved soon.
- Spend a week at home while I process my new China visa.
- Go to South America with my sister for a month. Visit Lima, Cuzco, Machu Picchu, Puno/Lake Titicaca, La Paz, Salar de Uyuni/Bolivian Altiplano, San Pedro de Atacama, Santiago, Puerto Montt, Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales, El Chalten, Glaciar Perito Moreno, Torres del Paine, Ushuaia and Buenos Aires. Good food, pretty places, lots of spanish, lots of dogs, good trip.
- Come back to China and run a massive trade show
And here we are. Pretty much each of these could be a blog post (or multiple blog posts) in and of themselves, but I'll spare you that.
Let's suffice it to say that I am very happy to be living in Shanghai, I'm still working on making friends and building a community but it's going well, I'm very glad the trade show is over, I'm no longer bored at work all the time, and South America was a wonderful experience which in a way rekindled my passion for travel and served to melt away a lot of stress and frustration that had been building over the last couple of years. So generally speaking, life is quite good.
I did drop the ball a bit on keeping up with new music, though. I've still done an alright job, except while I was traveling, but what bit I have done has been somewhat disappointing. The first 2/3 of this year were great for music, but recently I've been in a kind of rut with finding new music I love. It's going to last a bit longer, too, because I'm busy deciding my Top 10 albums this year, which will hopefully be my next blog post next week or something. However, the lack of amazing new music did change recently with Kacy Hill, and now also with Nick Hakim.
Nick Hakim is a DC native who makes wonderful soul music. He's got 2 EPs out, and I'm gonna go ahead and put him on my 2015 watch list in the hopes that he might be putting out a full album. My favorite song by him is probably Cold, off of his Where Will We Go, Pt. 1 EP.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I could listen to it over and over. And I have. It's been very helpful in filling a small part of the void left by D'angelo 13 years ago after he released Voodoo and disappeared.
I actually heard is second EP first, which coincidentally has the same name as his first EP, except with a 2 instead of a 1 at the end. I really liked it, but I wasn't sold on it until I listened a few times. And once I started listening to it on my iPod with headphones I realized how good it actually was, and slowly fell in love with Lift Me Up, the closing track.
He actually does a lot of this lo-fi soul stuff, which took getting used to but now I love. And I love how this song builds. So simple, but so good.
Anyway, that's it for me for now. The goal is to post twice more this month, once with my Top 10 which is nearly finished, and once with some artists to watch for 2015. I'll for sure at least do that first one. We'll see from there.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I could listen to it over and over. And I have. It's been very helpful in filling a small part of the void left by D'angelo 13 years ago after he released Voodoo and disappeared.
I actually heard is second EP first, which coincidentally has the same name as his first EP, except with a 2 instead of a 1 at the end. I really liked it, but I wasn't sold on it until I listened a few times. And once I started listening to it on my iPod with headphones I realized how good it actually was, and slowly fell in love with Lift Me Up, the closing track.
He actually does a lot of this lo-fi soul stuff, which took getting used to but now I love. And I love how this song builds. So simple, but so good.
Anyway, that's it for me for now. The goal is to post twice more this month, once with my Top 10 which is nearly finished, and once with some artists to watch for 2015. I'll for sure at least do that first one. We'll see from there.
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