Our NEO exhibition is on now at the Japan Foundation until the end of June.

neo

Cairns this time of year is really good, the weather is cool, and there’s not too many tourists around. We managed to run into a few turtles, a baby shark and lots of clown fish.

We’ve been so busy lately that we had to hire two contractors to keep us sane. Their job is to keep us smiling and make us gush about how cute they are. One is white brown and this one in the picture is white gray. They are about a month old. Soooo cute!

This was my fourth trip to Vietnam, it was also my grandmother’s one year anniversary since her passing away. Haline came with me this time too. We had a lot to do in 3 weeks, Grandmother ceremonies, look for and buy wedding and bridal party dresses for Haline’s brothers wedding, and travel up to see the north of Vietnam.

A selection of the photos we took can be viewed here. We shot most of the photos using our new 18-200mm zoom lens. All the photo have been Level, Curve and Saturation adjusted in Photoshop with no cropping.

Oct 6 Sa. Sydney to Saigon Oct 7 Su. First day back in Vietnam, stayed in Saigon. Haline’s uncle took us around, we had pizza for dinner with him and my cousin. Oct 8 Mo. Back to My Tho where my family is from. Bought a new lens for the camera today, an 18-200mm Nikor zoom lens and a UV filter. Oct 9 Tu. My Tho is just as I left it, it always feels like coming home when I’m here. There is one glaring difference though, two houses down from my aunties house, someone very wealthy has built a quadruple-story high double width house. This place sticks out like hairy pea sized wart on your nose. Across the road is a cobbled together shack where another family lives. There is a sense that Vietnam is in a constant state of building. Everywhere there is renovation happening, broken wood being mended, walls being painted and new buildings going up. We took a island tour around the Mekong Delta. Oct 10 We. Still in My Tho, we are all preparing for my Grandmother’s one year passing away anniversary. Oct 11 Th. Grandmother’s anniversary buddha ceremonies today. Before that though, Haline and I secretly went to see my biological mother. I haven’t seen or spoken to her for more than 2 hours in my life (Long story short, she apparently ran out on my dad when I was 4 months old, and I thought she had died until she surprisingly re appeared at my aunties house the second time I was in Vietnam shocking everyone especially me). We gave the taxi driver the address she gave me and he eventually found it down this small out of the way street. I now have a half brother! He younger than me and is a handsome singer, he kinda looks like a younger version of Dustin Nguyen from 21 Jump Street. He also did Tae Kwon Do up until recently, which was a nice coincidence. We all took lots of photos together. I left feeling like I’ve pieced another bit of my past together. Oct 12 Fr. Back in Saigon, we met up with Haline’s friend Muy Ho from Sydney and had dinner at this burnt rice restaurant where they break the rice from clay pots and chuck it to another waiter who catches it at the other side of the room. Oct 13 Sa. Wedding dress shopping. Oct 14 Sun. Wedding dress ordered. We took a taxi to Le Van Sy street in Saigon and did a lot of window shopping - it’s a street lined with shop after shop of the latest clothes. I bought one t-shirt from a unique (for Vietnam) street/rap/skater culture shop. The owners were these hip dudes wearing baggy jeans and bopping to rap music. We discovered a really yummy and cheap restaurant in Saigon through Haline’s family, its called Quan An Ngon, 138 Nam Ky Khoi Ngia, District 1. They have cooking booths arranged around the edges of the restaurant instead of having a main kitchen. All the ingredients for a particular meal on the menu is ready to be added or cooked from these booths. This is a clever system as the food is fresh and quick. We also discovered a yummy but expensive Chinese restaurant (by accident) through my cousin who took us out for a second dinner. We ordered lobster from the menu thinking it was prawns, a nice trick of making the menu pictures look smaller than they are. Too bad we couldn’t read Chinese! Crazy expensive but the food was really good. Oct 15 Mo. We had planned on taking an overnight train up to Nha Trang, but due to lack of time, we decided to fly, prices for airfares are similar to a Jetstar or Virgin Blue ticket. Nha Trang had a weird smell about it, I thought it was a mix of the live seafood and sea breeze in the air, I soon realised this wasn’t the case, the smell was from blossoming cauliflower like flowers from the local trees along the streets. Its a sickening sweet sea smell, really weird. We found a steakhouse that had as its logo the bulls head emblem of the Chicago Bulls so we decided to have our first dinner there. Oct 16 Tu. Nha Trang wasn’t as nice as I had pictured, the beaches were brown due to recent rain so there were no clear water or white sands to be seen. We decided to take a three-island day tour around the harbour. Away from the beaches is much nicer, they took us snorkeling around some reefs, stopped on an island to relax and jet skiing. The last stop was a theme park aquarium, pretty boring I thought until I saw the biggest fish ever swimming in these tiny tanks. They looked like those fish you find in a small tank at an asian restaurant only twenty times bigger! Oct 17 We. Took Haline scuba diving for the first time today, we only did the intro dives. The coral and fish life is much better further down than it is from snorkeling. Oct 17 Th. Flew out of Nha Trang for Hanoi, we hadn’t booked any hotel room prior to departure and it got a bit frustrated trying to look for one when we landed in Hanoi. We stayed around the art district. Oct 19 Fr. We woke up early to go for a morning walk around Hoan Kiem Lake, the lake is packed with people exercising. We checked a the Water Puppet Theatre show, that was boring, walked around to all the market streets, each street was different with only one particular item, for example, shoes. We came across a Bobby Chin restaurant near the lake and decided to have lunch there. The beetroot, goats cheese and walnut salad with the spiced prawns and coconut sticky rice was amazing! Oct 20 Sa. Two-day trip to Halong Bay. We chose an overnight stay on a boat. Halong Bay is incredibly beautiful, there was a shroud of light fog covering the whole bay when we were there, but that didn’t take away anything, it just added to the mystique. We got to kayak around the bay during sunset and I was kicking myself for not taking along the camera. Oct 21 Su. Slept on the boat, it was very still and calm. The lights from all the other boats made a night time rainbow along the surrounding water. The tour guide took us all on a hiking tour of two of the main islands in the bay. One we climbed up to the peak of a look out, the other we went under ground into a lime stone cave. I regret not being able to stay longer in Halong Bay. We arrived back in Hanoi at night and headed straight to the train station to goto Sa Pa. Not having been on a night train before, I thought it would be a nice trip. We booked a normal ticket with a six share cabin. A warning for those going to Sa Pa by train - pay extra and book a comfortable four share cabin because the six share cabin was hell! It was like being in a washing machine ALL night long! Oct 22 Mo. Sa Pa’s beauty made up for the horror train ride. We did a hiking tour to one of the villages in Sa Pa. The little girls selling things are cute - one was carrying a baby on her back. They can even speak a little english. Sa Pa town is really cool at night when the streets are empty. Oct 23 Tu. After a boring garden walking tour, we rented a motorcycle for a few hours and rode a remote village that you can’t walk to. It was awesome! The road got a bit tricky, muddy and rocky towards the end, we had to cross a couple of rocky waterfalls but the scenery was breathtaking. After the horror of the washing machine, we up-graded our return trip to a four share cabin with proper sleeping bunks, and the ride was a lot better. Oct 24 We. Arrived back in Hanoi at 4.30am, spent the last day in Hanoi walking the market streets sight seeing and taking photos. Oct 25 Th. Back in Saigon, finalised all the wedding purchases. Oct 26 F. Back to My Tho for a last farewell with my family. The kids we meet on my street all came to say goodbye too. Oct 27 Sa. Spent the afternoon in Saigon then back to Sydney.

Popper Box is creative fun. Check out our videos via YouTube and vimeo and photos via Flickr.

This is one of the things I put down as a must do once in my life. Haline got me hang gliding tickets for my birthday last year and we finally got to go over the Australia day long weekend! The weather plays an important part because of safety, so after 3 attempts, the weather was perfect to go.

The feeling when you’re up there is very smooth and the view over Stanwell Tops is spectacular. It was almost like flying.

Haline and I saw Rufus Wainwright perform at the State Theatre last night. I’m not a fan of his music, but I was entertained, he was funny, theatrical and very camp! It was a great show.

If I could describe to someone the experience of hearing Joanna Newsom with her harp and accompanied by the Sydney Symphony, it would be this: It is like floating to heaven with angels singing by the side.

Haline and I along with Matt and Will went to see Bjork at the Opera House yesterday. I thought it was so-so, not really into her music. She didn’t play my only favourite song “All is Fall of Love”. The technology in use by the musicians was awesome though, one of them had a reactable in use. Turns out she canceled her Big Day out performance because of a swollen throat gland.

Incredible, Astounding, Amazing, Cirque Ici Secret

Happy New Year! All the best for 2008

Looking back at 07

Best experience: Finally going to Japan to be a tourist in Tokyo and snowboard the resorts in Hokkaido. Finally going to the north side of Vietnam. Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa was amazing, I still need to upload the photos for this trip.

Design related stuff: Haline being in Cut & Paste and her Universe group exhibiton, getting a grant for a photographic exhibition at the Japan Foundation, really like the new Sydney Opera House logo and website redesign as well as the Apple website… and the iPod touch.

Weird achievement for 2007: Finished ‘Hard Level’ on Guitar Hero 2!

Last note for 07: KEVIN 07

Looking forward to 08

I’m not superstitious about the number 8 being a lucky number in asian culture but I think 08 for me will be about working hard and saving money.

We’re planning a France/European trip for Haline’s brothers wedding. We’ve booked a few domestic flights from the Jetstar sales to Melbourne and Cairnes.

Work and the Japan Foundation exhibition will take most of my time.

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It is now 3 whole years that I’ve had this blog, looking over the archives, the number of posts from month to month have been sporatic, mostly this year because of an increased work load, being over seas and disinterest. I think I’m coming to terms with having this read or mostly not, by people who I have crossed paths with in a negative way. Its hard to edit what is personal and whats not, design related stuff vs private experiences. I guess blogging is choosing to make this information available in the public domain, and if people read it, fine, I’m not going to censor myself…too much hehe

See ya in 2008.

Well, I’ve had the iPod touch for about a week now, playing with it constantly everyday!

This little gadget is so sexy! I haven’t played with something like this and felt the glee of technology since I got my other iPod 3 years ago. Reviews have said that its lacking compared to the iPhone, but we don’t get those down here till next year so you don’t miss what you haven’t got I guess. Surfing the net on the touch is nice, its almost like the real thing without Flash and Quicktime. I’ve emailed via webmail, GMail mobile is simple and clean, went to Amazon to test order a book, Googled stuff, set up Google Reader so I can read all my RSSed blogs and found my house on Google Maps. Facbook is great on the touch too. YouTube is fun, most or all of the popular videos are searchable to watch, even our nerds video.

Typing on the on screen keyboard takes getting used to, mistakes are common. some of the controls don’t pick up your finger input and require several tries sometime.One thing that surprised me was how strong the WiFi detection is, I was driving home one night and decided to see if I could pick up any network. From a short 3km car trip I was constantly picking up people’s WiFi, about half of them were unlocked and I could join. Some of the names were just the modem name like Dlink, Netgear, others were nick names, one was the address of the house it was coming from! and one had “I smell sex and candy” I was never out of range of a single network, blocked or unblocked. If everybody unblocked their WiFi this could potentially be a nice roaming network.

This post was published on an open WiFi network via the touch a short walk from my house ( :

and its Amazing! Its been a crazy few weeks with work and things, Haline and I went to the Japan Film Festival opening to see Maiko Haaaan, then Kaki King (she’s amazing too) at the Opera House, which by the way has a very nice new website. And its my birthday ( : Thank you Haline for a great weekend and touch siah!

It feels like something has finally changed in the Australian conscience, I know it has for me, this is the first time Australia will be governed by a Labor Government since leaving high school. Time will tell how Kevin Rudd and Co will do, the ball is in your hands now mate, don’t drop it.

I’m looking forward to this new Housing Plan.