Sunday, December 30

Travel Entry Two: Gut Rot, The Ministry and The Cat


Yesterday, finished Harry Potter and I'm sure I mentioned this already but I loved it. Skip to the evening and it's more food at the vegeterian indian restaurant, this time something delicious with loads of dips, one of the dips is like tapioca, I eat far too much of everything and set off towards my destination, Liquid Room. I take a train to something Quay and realise that I'm lost, so I walk in the direction I think I need to go and get hot and then get sweaty, it's far more humid than I thought and even in a thin t-shirt I find myself a bit overly moist. So I pass these guys flying what I first thought were kites and then I realised they were controlled by remote, they had mad LED lights all over them and looked like UFOs in the night sky, I watched them do loops and dives and bank and swerve until I noticed another light in the night sky, that of Merchant Hotel, this was the location of Liquid Room, well it used to be.


I arrived at Merchant Hotel much much later to find that Liquid room was now Em Bar, and was rubbish. Full of wine sipping toffs and shirt wearing bores. I didn't stay and a further walk took me to a bus stop, the bus took me too a mall and then a taxi took me to Ministry of Sound. I pay my $28 and walk in, I immediately regret coming as the room I'm in is small and is playing R&B and Hippity Hoppity, I wanted some electro-clash, or I would even settle for house. I sulked for a while and then went to leave. On my way out I noticed that there were two other doors, each leading to other rooms and one room was playing electro, I was so happy, but my stomache wasn't and showed it's mood by making me extremelyt uncomfortable. I was in and out of the toilet with false calls and then close calls, and then the I was fine for about 15 blissful minutes in which I scouted around and decided I would talk to people who looked like the talking type. Before I discovered anyone like that my stomache lurched again, and I was in so much pain that I just wanted to leave and sit on my throne in my cockroach ridden hotel room in the tranny part of town and then go to sleep a bit sore but empty.


I got a taxi back and did just that, cursing the fact that I over ate and seething that I had met no one and managed nothing all night.

The next day I woke and read Edge magazine, I had been saving the Mario Sunshine review for a while, I think that I need to purchase a Wii and that game too. I then left the house for the China Town, I took photo's of some temples and some statues and marvelled at how much art and craft is dedicated to things that don't exist, but I was glad that these things made people feel happy. I went to the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore and was given a piece of bright orange sponge cake, which was given to me by a yound a quiet indian girl in a sahri who offered it to me to help wash away some of her sins. After china town I went to Raffles Sqauare and sat, looked at some of my kanji cards and practice kanji for red, busy and other ones I can't remember right now, I wrote a poem about a woman who blew smoke in my faced and secretly was cursed by me under my breath and with laser eyes on full kill.

I took a trip to the Merlion, got some pictures and then found a Heavy Metal gig in an old victorian building, it was full of teenagers, all of them indians and dressed in black skinny jeans with piercings, and there was me, not indian, no piercings, not enjoying the screaming, the repitive songs, the lack of individuality, integrity or talent. I left during the second band. After going to a few shops including a pretty lacklustre sexshop I took two trains back to the hotel and then slept and washed trash TV. At 12 I took off and got a taxi to Zuok, a club over in Orchard. Felix the House Cat was playing there, and I was eager to see him. It's now 4.23am and I wanted to get this all down before going to bed.

Felix was great, and everyone was really up for it, not much mingling done. I met a girl named Harry and we shouted at eachother over the music for a while until I got bore and went for fresh air, I didn't find her again but spent the rest of the night getting intermate with the dancefloor instead. The highlight of the evening was Felix taking a break from electro to drop Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Friday, December 28

Travel Entry One: Singapore


Arrived yesterday. The woman at reception is rude, and everytime I've been to reception since someone has been arguing with her, I pity her. My room stinks, litterally, smells like damp, not good. Has a TV, which I've spent far too much time watching, but managed to drag myself away from yesterday to visit Harbor Port and China Town. China Town was the highlight, and had some interesting sights, I ate and drank mango and was wolf whistled at by scantly dressed 'ladies' hanging from bar doors. Was in bed by 12pm.

Woke up today and finished Harry Potter, it was imense, loved it. Then I left the housr to discover SAM, Singapore Art Museum. That was also imense, I saw work from the following artists.




  • A. Ramachandran


  • Farhad Hussain


  • Mark Justiniani


  • Abdul Wahab Bin


  • Beng Ong



Amongst others. I will make a proper post with actual pictures, links and thoughts, but now is not the time. I'm just about to go to Clarke Quay to find a club called Liquid Room and hopefully have a alright to fantastic time, let's see how that goes sober and alone. HA! No way, just looked at the schedule and tonight we have Electronica and House from JAPAN... it will be a home away from home. Actually, my mistake, that's a different club.

Think Felix the Housecat is playing tomorrow.

Monday, December 3

Fuk.u.ok Sumo and Sobriety


My Fukuoka weekends have always been fun, the last two in particular were great and I was really looking forward to getting up there again and seeing some Sumo. It was months in the planning and with any event planned with JETs it was often a headache. Despite my best efforts there was still confusion over how people were getting to the venue and confusion about which day we were seeing sumo event (though it was clearly stated on the email and then again in several others), someone even asked me for a map to the hotel, as if they couldn’t just get their own map...titter, sigh.

Anyway, once we all got together, were settled in our rooms and all ready to party then things were great. Sumo before going out was a laugh, I really enjoyed the company I was in and got a few drinks in before going out. Then we went to La Boheme, which is next to the Apple store in Tenjin, and I realised after we had eaten that I had been there before with Evania and on my last visit I remember breaking something in the toilets and wanting to leave very quickly, seems that I got away with that.
Food at La Boheme was pleasant enough and then we went onto the clubs and partied on. I ducked out kind of early and left the guys to go onto Fubar from Sam & Dave’s and instead I went to a reggae bar to meet up with a friend. I ended up at Fubar much much later and then ended up in my hotel at 5am.

The next day I felt like absolute shit, I was hung-o
ver and there was nothing to bring me out of my funk, not the $30 dollar and 6 course lunch, not the bagels with Maron-Maron cream cheese, not the Willy Wonka chocolate, the Christmas lights, the chance to touch a new iPod touch or the healthy fruit smoothie. I was in bits, and wasn’t great company as a result.
That evening we went for Mexican food at a place called La Borracha, the service was slow, the bill was enormous but the food was great. I can totally appreciate why Americans love Mexican food so much and why they would prefer it to ramen which is one of the things that Fukuoka is famed for, I got my Ramen fix the next day hidden in a both behind a curtain strangely enough.

After having Mexican I went back to the hotel and slept for an hour and 
then woke Patrick up to meet him down in the lobby so that we could head to the clubs again, but instead of waiting in the lobby I waited in the pub next to the lobby and drank a £5 pint of Guinness. I was waiting until 1 am when I realised that Patrick wasn’t going to come through the doors of the pub and join us, so instead of waiting longer Johnny and I went to hit the town.
Another 5am finish and I was feeling fucking shit this time around, in fact I have never had a hang over like this before. I was all hatred and self-loathing, I felt terrible physically and mentally drained, it was shocking.

It worried me how much alcohol could change my mood, and how terrible it could make me feel; it made me feel like something other than myself and that wasn’t pleasant. I was again extremely terrible company on the way back to Miyazaki in the car and I didn’t bounce back from that come down until Tuesday.

It’s now a week on from Fukuoka and I’ve not drunk alcohol since, and although I feel no different physically or health wise, I do feel better knowing that I’m doing something positive for myself.

I don’t think that I’m an alcoholic, nor that that was where I was headed, but I don’t think that I was drinking in a healthy way, I certainly wasn’t drinking responsibly and that bothered me.

I don’t know how long this self enforced ban will last but so far it’s survived several attempts of peer-pressure and belittlement; I find it odd that my not drinking seems so abhorrent to people, so strange that they must again convert me back to my old ways...that's people I guess, what else should I expect.

Anyway, that’s where I am right now, I still love Fukuoka, and am keen to get up there again. Although the people who I met there have all left which is a shame, I enjoyed their company because they knew who they were and didn’t judge me because of who I was. Perhaps Fukuoka will never be the same for me, but such is life.

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