Sept 28 - Ian Sweet / Big Thief

I'm supposed to talk about Tokyo today. But I'm in Sri Lanka at the moment and exhausted. I just spent the entire day biking around, getting very dehydrated, looking at temples. But I'll make a go of it.

There was a holiday weekend in China, and I intended (for once) to actually stay in Shanghai. But then Rich needed a short, quick trip to renew his airline status for next year. So he convinced me to go to Tokyo. Which, let's be honest, is not difficult. The idea was originally to get in on Wednesday night, go hike up a mountain overnight on Thursday and Friday, then come back to Tokyo for a night out and for Saturday before heading back. That stayed more or less the same, but thanks to a terrible weather forecast we had to cancel the hike. But we did manage to do the two things I had wanted to do for Rich's bachelor party that we didn't get to.

We still did get out of Tokyo on Thursday, though, and headed to the same area where we originally planned. The idea instead was to stay at a hot spring hotel and do a short day hike or something. We did accomplish those things, but the day hike was not very exciting. Unfortunately the majority of it ended up being along paved roads, and while we were still in rural areas and surrounded by mountains and trees, it's not quite the same when you're walking along a paved road. We did try to get off into the woods for like the second half, but apparently a bridge had collapsed and they had to close the trail. So in the end we only spent about 30 minutes in the woods, hiking to a from a really nice waterfall, and the other 3-4 hours on the road. So really it was like a long walk more than anything. But I guess still nice to be outside in the fresh, non-polluted air. And the onsen was great.

The next day we had to start early to get back to Tokyo, because we'd booked ourselves into the tour of the Hakushu whiskey distillery, which is very close by, and the first of the two things we wanted to do for Rich but didn't get to during the party. The tour fills up quickly, it seems, so we were only able to get on the first tour of the day, at 10:30 am. Which means that by noon we were already a bit tipsy, because you do the tour for about 40 minutes, looking at the fermentation rooms and distilling rooms and warehouses, and then move on to the tasting room for 40 minutes, where you get to try a few different Hakushu whiskeys. And then, because of the train schedule, we had to stay for another couple of hours, so we had lunch at their restaurant and then went to the bar and drank more whiskey. The bar only serves 15ml tasters though, so we were not wasted or anything for the ride back. Just drunk enough to pass out. We did get to try the Hakushu 25 year and the Hibiki 30 year (in addition to the Hakushu 18 year with lunch) which now means I've tried all the Hakushus and all the Hibikis. And I have to say, Hakushu is probably my favorite of the famous Japanese whiskeys. I still love Akashi the most, though.

After that it was back to Tokyo for some bar hopping. Tokyo has all kinds of themed bars, and Rich got it in his head to go to a train themed bar. So I started googling to figure it out, and found so much more. We did start with the train bar, and then we had dinner at an izakaya, followed by a Jesus themed bar (which was more like a creepy, Gothic castle than anything, but they did have a lot of Jesuses all over the place, and plenty of other Christian iconography. Plus bats and skulls.). I thought it was pretty exciting, but then I had like 2 friends tell me they'd been there so I'm not sure why I never heard about it before. This was followed by a quick trip to the batting cages, which was a lot more fun than I expected, and finally on to the best part of the night: PENGUIN BAR! Yes, a bar with penguins. Real, live penguins. They're in a chilled area with a pool behind glass, so you can't touch them or anything, sadly, but they are still there and amazing and hilarious and follow you around if you go up to the glass to say hi.

Saturday started with the other activity which we did not get to do for Rich's bachelor party: Mario Kart! In real life. There are 2 guys in Akihabara with a bunch of go karts which you can rent and drive around the city in. Dressed in a costume. Most of the costumes are Mario themed, but not all. We of course went for Mario, though. Rich was Luigi and I was Yoshi. And then we followed our guide around for an hour, while all these people looked and pointed and filmed and laughed. My favorite part was when we were stopped at a light, and a biker on a Harley with a bunch of tattoos pulled up next to us, and then saw us and laughed. We actually did get a mini tour, which was really nice. I thought we'd just drive around, but the guide (who is not mandatory) took us past the Sky Tree, Ueno Park and Kaminarimon, so we got to see a few of the major Tokyo sites. I assume if you did two hours or more you could potentially see the whole city, which would be awesome too. Anyway, highly recommend this activity.

That was originally our only plan for Saturday, but as it turned out our friend Yasmin just happened to land in Tokyo on Saturday morning for a business trip, so we met her and our other friend Sarah in the afternoon for a few beers (and iPod shopping, which I'll talk about another time) before I went off to the airport. Sadly Sunday was a workday, so I had to get back on Saturday. Boo stupid Chinese holiday policies.

While in Japan I was obsessively listening to Shapeshifter, the debut album from New York band IAN SWEET (actually they might be an LA band. I'm not 100% sure). I heard #23 a few weeks ago, and I think it might be one of my favorite tracks of the year.





I honestly can't tell you how many times I've listened to that song. Jilian Medford, the vocalist and mastermind behind IAN SWEET, has put together a great collection of introspective, melancholy (there's that word again) songs. And backed with her bandmates, they've created a fantastic grungy sound that I normally wouldn't like, but really do in this case. I also love the way her voice squeeks. 2soft2chew, the track that comes next on the album, is another tune.





I sure do love me some lady rock. Not as in rock for ladies, but rock by ladies who rock. Which IAN SWEET is a perfect example of. Other good examples would be Sharon Van Etten, or today's other band Big Thief. They also put out their debut album, Masterpiece, earlier this year, and it is more great rock music from a great lady (and friends). And since I heard it and got it around the same time as IAN SWEET, and since we're talking about lady rock, it's in today's blog, too. So enjoy Real Love.

Sept 24 - Frank Ocean

I believe I'm supposed to talk about Beth this time. She came to visit. We ate everything and drank a lot. Like way too much. By the time she left, she was literally truffled out. One of her last meals was at Din Tai Fung, and we got the truffle xiaolongbao, and she could only eat one. So, I consider her trip a success.

I had to work while she was visiting, so she mostly just explored on her own, and then we'd go eat and hang out in the evenings. It was pretty wonderful. Beth is actually the first person who's come to visit me since I lived in China (aside from family). I've had other visitors, but they're mostly people passing through, not actually coming to visit me. So it was really great to have Beth over. Plus she's amazing and hilarious and I don't see her enough because she's all the way down in New Zealand.

Also, she listens to good music. And while she was over she asked if I'd heard the new Frank Ocean album, blond. Unfortunately I had not at that point, because it wasn't on Spotify yet. But luckily it went up right after she left, and it only took one listen to realize I had to own this amazing piece of art. I remember enjoying Channel Orange when it came out, but I don't remember enjoying it this much. blond is seriously an incredible album. Probably one of the best of the year. And Ivy, the second track on the album, may be one of the best songs of the year.





So a lot of people have been saying the album is boring. I get that. A lot of it is similarly minimalistic, with lots of strange distortion in both the music and the vocals. But I can't get enough of it. This track is on repeat. I'm listening to it right now for like the 6th time today. Most of the critics also seem to love it. I did read that one critic was saying that the album comes off as a series of unconnected thoughts, and incomplete snippets of lyrics. I actually do agree with this assessment, but it's just one more thing I love about this album. A lot of the songs are nostalgic, writing his memories and experiences in that way makes it more believable and relateable. That's how memories are, and this album is nothing but memory and nostalgia and melancholy (something else I love). Seriously every track kind of makes me want to cry. Even the more "normal" songs, like Pink + White (which is also one of my favorites). The album is so emotional and raw. Do yourself a favor. Go listen to all of it.

Sept 23 - Youth Lagoon

Man it's been super crazy. But I heard a song that totally caught my interest, and as it turns out it's a remix from a defunct band I like. Youth Lagoon has officially retired the project (although Trevor Powers intends to keep making music under a new name), but some guy named Oliver Coates decided to remix Kerry, off of last year's Savage Hills Ballroom, and it popped up on a playlist recently, and I like it a lot.

Sept 21 - Aero Flynn

I believe today is Hong Kong story time. My friend Beth came to visit recently, and we ended up meeting for a weekend in Hong Kong before coming up to Shanghai. Our friends Tom and Vicky live in Vietnam and told me at their wedding (which I was at just a couple months ago in London) that they'd be in HK for the weekend. And since Beth was coming anyway and we all know each other, we all met up there first for the weekend. I was meeting them late on Friday night, but they'd all been there for the day. Sadly my flight was delayed so by the time I got in I went straight to the hotel to bed, where I found Beth pretty much already asleep.

But on Saturday, we got off to a strong start with coffee. Beth used to work in coffee and so also love it, just like me, and there are a lot of amazing coffee places in HK. In fact, some of the apparent best ones were within walking distance of our hotel. So we went to two of them. And then on to dim sum with Tom and Vicky, back at the elbow jostling place I went to last time, which was just as good as I remember. This was followed by a hop over to Kowloon for some shopping, which was mildly successfull, followed by beers and snacks, a break, and then more drinks and food. We literally planned our entire weekend around drinks and food. We had so many lists going. And many of the places on our list needed reservations, but didn't take reservations, so we ended up putting our name down at like 3 places and drinking while we waited for the first one to call us. And luckily we got into our first choice, a modern Japanese yakitori place called Yardbird. I think everyone had been recommended that place by someone, and it did not disappoint. Also, Shuk-wah came! Yay! We love Shuk-wah. She took us around to a bunch of bars after that. I feel like this is a very boring paragraph. And I promise that my description of Sunday will be similar. So to summarize: we ate a lot, we drank a lot, and we enjoyed each others' company a lot. I'll leave it at that. Then Beth came to Shanghai and we did pretty much the same. But I'll talk about it later.

For now, I'll share Aero Flynn with you. I don't know where I stumbled across this project, but this is a band that is somehow tangentially related to Bon Iver. There's a really long essay I read on the website that basically talks about how this guy Josh Scott was apparently in a band with Justin Vernon which was amazing but then he had all kinds of personal issues and broke the band up and Justin went on to make Bon Iver, but the original band would have been even better and many years later Josh Scott finally came back and wrote an album under the name Aero Flynn. And it is a killer album. So today you will hear two songs from said album, the first being Dk/Pi.




And the next is Crisp. Anyway, go buy this album. It's beautiful and you need it.

Sept 13 - Young Magic / Kan Wakan

Alright I guess it's time to write about London. I went back again for another wedding. Although the wedding wasn't in London, but I did spend time in London before and after. I had an overnight flight in, so landed in the morning and went to spend the day with my friend Flavia. She's one of the few university friends I've stayed in touch with, and she's currently in London doing PhD research for a few months. Which was perfect, because it means her schedule is pretty flexible and self-regulated, so she was able to just hang out and let me come over and shower, and then spend the day wandering with me. So we headed downtown and had a lovely lunch at Leadenhall Market, this beautiful old covered shopping arcade that is mostly restaurants and pubs now. And of course I had an inaugural vacation glass of wine. Then we had a quick walk down to the Tate Modern for a short visit. We didn't have much time, so only made it into one gallery and had a nice coffee up in the cafe, which has amazing views of the river. It was pretty overcast, but still clear enough that you could get some good views. And luckily it's a free museum, so we had no problem just stopping by for an hour. After coffee, we met up with my friend Sophie for a happy hour drink, and then the most exciting part of the day: Nando's!! And it was Flavia's first ever! So happy I could introduce her.

Friday night I actually spent outside London. My friend Sophie and her boyfriend Olivier bought a house in Sevenoaks, just outside the London city limit, and we were all going to the wedding on Saturday, so I spent the night with them on Friday. They have a beautiful old house, in what used to be like the granary of this country home complex. I think this might have actually been the first time I've been in a house that belonged to a friend. Believe it or not, most people I know don't have many permanent belongings, let alone real estate. So yeah, might have been a first. And it was definitely the nicest and most grown up house out of any of my friends.

Saturday morning we drove up to the wedding and we actually barely made it. We had a bit of traffic, and a quick stop off at the hotel to change, and we made it to the church right as the bride was arriving. Like, we had to run past her to get inside. (By the way, the bride was Emma. She was marrying Rob. Emma was in Japan with Sophie and I). But then the wind blew her veil away so she still took a few more minutes to make it in. It was held in this little old church in their hometown, which was super cute. England has so much cute old stuff, like houses and churches. And barns, but that's later. It was maybe the 3rd church wedding I've ever been to, and it was definitely the most Jesus happy. Neither of the couple are actually very religious, but Emma likes the tradition of getting married in a church, and I guess at this church that also means a lot of singing about Jesus. So everyone did, as I (and actually also Sophie and Olivier) listened awkwardly.

The wedding was followed by the party, which was not in the church. It was in a barn (another old, English thing I liked very much), so we had to drive, which meant pit stop at the hotel to drop off the car (and get a snack) before getting a cab so we wouldn't have to drive. We did make it to this one on time, which was good because there was open bar at the beginning. Emma had hand-made a lot of the decorations (including 1000 paper cranes that hung behind her and Rob. Pretty amazing. And all in my university colors!), and the barn was really beautiful. It was a bit of a tough wedding, in that Sophie and Olivier and I only knew each other, but both the bride and groom were from the town so all of their childhood friends were there. They're both teachers, though, so they sat us with some of their teacher friends, which was great. But it sadly didn't have the same openness as other weddings I've been to. I also spent quite a while chatting to Emma's family, cause I'd met a bunch of them on my first trip to the UK a few years ago. One of her cousins in now a cop, so I got to learn a lot about cops in the UK. But also I drank a lot so I don't remember much. And I danced a lot. And ate way too much, as I usually do. So all in all, a really fun wedding, even though we only ended up meeting a couple of their friends. But getting to spend time with Sophie and Olivier is good enough for me!

Before heading back down to Sevenoaks the next day, we had brunch with Emma and Rob, which was wonderful since we didn't really get to spend much time with them at the wedding. Which is always the case, so I'm happy it worked out for a bit. Then it was the drive back, and then I just headed back into London and went to stay with my friend Carol and her husband Kevin. Carol is my friend from South Africa, who's now in London. She and her husband live a bit far out, but I wanted to spend some quality time with them, so went over and just chilled at their house and passed out at like 8:30. I'd done so well up until then, staying awake until normal hours (or even later), but Sunday night did me in. I slept like 10 hours that night.

Monday was more exploring in London. My friend Becky is a teacher and was still on summer holiday, so she and I spent the day exploring record shops and bagel shops and museums and just catching up. We spent a few hours at the V&A, which I'd never been to. It's basically a massive museum with a bit of everything, but they had an awesome ceramics exhibit that I loved. Monday night was the best, though. It seemed to be the only night most of my friends were free, so we had a bit of a cross-section of my life going on at happy hour. In chronological order, we had Miguel (my oldest friend, whose husband surprised him with a trip to London which social media taught me about so I got him to come have drinks), Flavia (from university), Appolonia (from Study abroad in Shanghai), Becky (from JET), Kevin and Carol (from South Africa), and Joyce (from current China life), all in one place, more or less at the same time. I absolutely loved it. So much fun. None of them knew each other going into it, and it was wonderful. I hope that one day when I head back home I can have more fun times like that.

So that was pretty much the trip. On Tuesday morning, I had lunch with Joyce and a couple other friends before heading to the airport to come back to China. Super quick trip. I did also manage to buy (and finish) the new Harry Potter book, so that was an added bonus. And since then, I've mostly just been here in China. Which I'll tell you about later.

And a quick listen to some music. I heard Lucien by Young Magic earlier this year and totally loved it. It's off of Still Life, which is apparently Young Magic's 3rd album, but I'd never heard them (and have yet to listen to their older stuff), but hopefully you can see why I was into this.





So that song totally got me, then I listened to Still Life, and the whole thing totally got me, so I bought it. I've since learned that this duo apparently wanders around and records ambient sounds that they mix into their songs. Which is pretty awesome. Here's another awesome song by them, Homage.





I feel like when I write such a long blog, I write so much less about music. But my opinion about the music doesn't matter, it's just gotta sound good, right? And here's another song that sounds good. It's Molasses, the new single from Kan Wakan. Sounds pretty different to the last album, but I really dig it.

Sept 12 - Classixx / How To Dress Well

I'm pretty tired today, and a bit sick, I think. Beth has just gone home, and we ate a drank a ton. Which I will have to tell you about, but just not now. I still have to tell you about London, too. Jeez. Well I need to at least write about London this week, because very soon I'll have even more travels to tell you about. But maybe tomorrow.

For today, just music. Classixx, to start. They are a production team. The band of the future. Anyway they just put out an album, Faraway Reach, which I wasn't planning to buy because it's good but not great but then it was on sale for only $5.99 so how could I say no? So then I bought it. And there are some great songs, the best being Ndivile, featuring Nonku on vocals, whoever that is.




I think the first single was Just Let Go, feat How To Dress Well on vocals. I'm not his biggest fan, but this song was fun and caught my attention. Enough to give the album a listen anyway. And then Ndivile (and a few other songs) convinced me to spend $6 on it.





And as it turns out, How To Dress Well is also working on his own new album. And while I'm not his biggest fan, I actually really like the first single off the upcoming album, Lost Youth / Lost You. I probably would have given it a listen anyway, but after hearing this I definitely will.

Sept 5 - Sylvan Esso / Glass Animals

Guess who has a new song! That's right, Sylvan Esso. Their first single off of what must be their upcoming sophomore album just came out last Friday, titled Radio. And it's a great start to the new music!




Also, I've been feeling this new Glass Animals album, How To Be A Human Being. The singles leading up to the album didn't do it for me for some reason, but hearing the album (and the singles in context of the album) is great. Here's the opening track, Life Itself.