2011-12 Travel Dates and Plans

So I can catch up with all you amazing people on the West Coast of America and Europe.

• Oct18-Dec20 San Francisco
• This is also include a trip to LA and possibly Portland - Dates TBC 

• Dec20-26 Tallahassee FL
•  Home to visit the family for a few days and my first x-mas at home in a long time

• Dec26-Jan03 Ecuador
•  Kayaking with some of my most favorite people EVER!

• Jan04-06  Paris
•   I can't fly to London direct but I can make it to Paris.  Stop and visit a few people for a few days and freeze my butt off!

• Jan06-Feb15 London

Then: San Jose, Atlanta, Washington DC, Boston, and ending 2012 in NYC.  And then?  We will see if I make it that long on tour.

Can't wait to catch up with everyone!!

xoxo
K

Spinng spinning spinning...

... out of control!  Seriously started packing today.  Instead of making me feel more settled and better about everything.  It made me feel worse!

I know this is the right move for me but then why am I so sad to leave?

This is yet to be determined...

In other news:  Had a fantastic day off in Hong Kong today which was both productive AND enjoyable.  That doesn't happen often enough in my book!

• Electronic shopping - check
• camera bag update - check
• outdoor store errands - check
• fancy pants dinner with Macau homies - check
• fancy pants drinks - check
• laughing til we cried in the middle of an outdoor shop - check
• crying til I laugh whenever I think about leaving these guys - CHECK

Pictures and posts to follow tomorrow.  Right now it's bedtime and an attempt to process some recent developments.

xoxo
K

PS I miss you too!!!
PPS I realize that all of my recent posts are about how crazy everything is.... and are a bit lacking in substance.  I'm working on it.  Suffice to say it has been a big week!
PPPS  I think this is fucking beautiful.  The music, the video, the ambient noise in the background. everything.  This is 7 years in the making.  Listen underneath, to all of the things that help support the vocals.  Stunning in my opinion.

CAKES FROM THE MOON?!?

The mid autumn lantern festival takes place every year and it's a pretty big deal, second only to Chinese New Year really in Macau.  Lotus lanterns are flown everywhere:

It's a lunar harvest festival that is about 3000 years old!  Mooncakes (not my favorite thing ever!  More to come on that later) are eaten, lanterns are flown, and matchmaking is made.

There are lots of stories and legends surrounding this festival about Houyi and Chang'e who is the Moon Goddess.  She lives on the moon but isn't actually the moon...   The one I heard yesterday:

Houyi was the hero and Chang'e was his wife.

ONCE UPON A TIME, the world had 10 Suns in the Sky. It was too hot. But a wonderful Archer (Houyi) came one day and shot the extra Suns from the sky. Then there was only the 1 Sun, and it wasn't too hot anymore. As a reward, he was given a magical potion from the Rabbit that lives in the Moon. (In case you don't know, the rabbit in the moon is awesome at making medicine and other potions. True fact.)

OH, NO! BAD GUYS HEAR ABOUT THE MAGICAL POTION!

One day, when the Archer was out hunting, the Bad Guys come to his house to steal the magical potion. Only his wife (Chang'e) was home. What to do? She can't fight the Bad Guys! She knew that the Bad Guys couldn't steal the potion under any circumstances, so she drank it!

And it made her start to float. (And immortal, btw.) All the way up to the Moon. So, that's where she lives now. With the Rabbit. And she gets to be called The Princess in the Moon.
But, she's sad because she can't come back to Earth. (Although Rabbit is totally working on it.)

BUT ON ONE DAY HER MAN CAN COME TO HER! (As it should be.)

When the moon is close. And that's why it's all full and beautiful. The lovers reunite. But, then, he's gotta find his way back to Earth - so we all light lanterns so that the Archer doesn't get lost. Awwww sweet no?


Now... back to the mooncakes.  They are these little round pastry things.  They look pretty.  And I think they are yuck!  When you cut them open they have a lotus seed paste or a white bean paste surrounding a duck egg yolk or egg yolk so that when you cut it in 1/2 it looks like a moon.  There are also contemporary ones that have basically anything that you can turn into a paste, yucca, yam, pineapple.  But I think they are all gross.  But during this festival it's customary to give them and have them be given to you.  So if course its impolite not to eat them.  Bleh!  One more thing I can't say that I will miss.  MOONCAKES!   

And the heros are...

Cambodia and Laos...   Here we come...

Let me introduce you to the travelers:

Name: Richard Craig Booth aka Mr Humphrey aka 'Humph'
Occupation: Travels with the circus as a vet.  Almost completed vet school however dropped out at the last minute due to unknown circumstances.
Weapon: Matchsticks
Special Ability: Sound effects, he can reproduce any sound known to mankind and confuse his enemy... kind of...

Name: Emily Rose aka Jezebel aka Jez, not Jess
Occupation: Circus freak, carny, fire eater, fire twirler, pyromaniac
Weapon: Flaming Lamborghinis
Special Ability: Reading minds and speaking the truth

Name: Keiko Fox LeMon aka Tallulah aka Lu
Occupation: Stripper, Fire Dancer, fire breather, hula hooper
Weapon: Laser beam eyes
Special Ability: The ability to call you out on your bullshit from a mile away


Watch out... the trip is being planned.... only trouble will follow.  Stay tuned.  Humph, Jez, and Lu will be traveling in early October to Cambodia and Laos for a final hurrah before Lu forever leaves for the traveling circus.  Should be good. 

Oh my goodness! I'm a hugeballofstressandworries!!!!!

I am worried and stressed.  Actually, no that's a lie, I am on the verge of being super stressed and worried about everything.  Can't you tell?  Look at the worry eyes, I can't hide them!!  Will I ever get to a point where I stop worrying about what is to come and just let things be?  (On a side note, will I ever NOT wear whatever I am thinking on my face?)

I know I said I wasn't going to start worrying or stressing until Friday but going back to work today was kind of crazy.  Nothing went wrong, the show was fine, but even though I know my department will be ok when I leave and they will make it work until they find a replacement... I hate the fact that my leaving makes things harder for people!  I don't want my going to mean that people can't go on holidays back home, or that they can't have as much time off as they would like, or that their days will get considerably more monotonous.  Yuck!!

But that is the reality.  At the moment we have three tracks to our show in my department, and at th moment we have 4 people who can run those three tracks.  It's a big math game, but the basic idea is that at the moment we can swing around and do different things during the day because there is more than one person who knows how to do all of the jobs required.  When I leave that changes...  so you will be stuck doing the same job every day until someone new learns the job. 

Anyway, there was some general chatter of 'soon things are going to be hard' and there is nothing I can do about it.  That sucks!  I don't like hurting people or making things hard for people and I genuinely try to make the best out of most situiations and be an optimistic person.  So while I know my coworkers are happy for me, they will be worse off for me having left... and having that in the back of my head makes me feel a bit sad.

I know they will be ok... It just sucks to be the one who is about to make things harder.

Full full full 10+ hour day tomorrow.  Maybe the atmosphere will get a bit better!

xoxo


K