I cannot believe I did not link this video to this blog!! This has been on youtube for quite some time now and I shot this back in 2009!!! Man I really miss Hong Kong… The light show is every night at 8 oclock and is called “A Symphony of Lights”. Its down by Causeway Bay and is at Victoria Harbor. When I made this short video, I actually thought the harbor was called Causeway Bay! But now I know that it is really called Victoria Harbor. lol Anyways when I first saw this light show, it was absolutely amazing. I am not sure if the show is different during the weekdays because when I saw it the second time I was somewhat disappointed. This video is actually from the second time that I saw it. If you want to see the show, I would recommend going on the weekend. Perhaps they save on energy costs during the week, because the first time I witnessed it, it was amazing and on a weekend.
Funny Cantonese Blogger
•February 23, 2011 • Leave a Comment
I was channel surfing on youtube and I stumbled across this girl’s youtube channel. I watched several of her videos and I found them pretty funny. The video above is really just teaching some Cantonese phrases that will more than likely not be in your textbooks. At least they are not in mine and if they are in yours, please tell me what textbook you have for learning Cantonese lol! Anyways if you enjoy her videos, I encourage you to subscribe to her channel.
North Korean Snow Crab
•February 20, 2011 • Leave a CommentWhile we were traveling the Chinese/ North Korean border, we were able to experience a lot of North Korean cuisines. At this restaurant we manage to get 10-11 giant snow crabs, rice, soda, and several other veggies for around 100 USD. This was enough to fill the 12 people that were apart of our team. A meal like this in the United States would have cost a fortune. I am not a big fan of eating crab, mostly because it is somewhat of a pain in order to eat it. But I cannot deny that this was the best tasting crab I have ever had. In North Korea since there is not a lot of pollution, the sea life is actually thriving… Unfortunately most North Koreans do not get a chance to enjoy this kind of food. As I was enjoying this meal, I felt almost ashamed eating this well. But these two people in the video are Kiki and Adam, they were the first to attempt this daring feat of eating the head/brains of the snow crabs. If any of you manage to travel to the North Korean border, you will definitely need to try a North Korean restaurant. If you speak Korean, just beware that North Koreans speak a different dialect of Korean and may be extremely different for someone speaking Korean.
Next Stop Beijing!
•February 19, 2011 • Leave a CommentPlease do not be fooled, I am unfortunately no longer in Beijing. This short clip was shot over the summer and I just recently discovered it on my camera! This was my first ever train ride, I wish I had taken more footage while I was on the train. It was an experience that I will not forget. I was traveling with my friends from Dumen to Beijing! This train ride was close to 24 hours! I have a great time though and a great time with my friends. Allow me to tell a short little story about an experience that I encountered on the train ride. My friends were able to purchase private car tickets, but unfortunately they only could purchase enough for everyone but one. The train had run out of spaces in the private cars! So since I was the only one on the team to speak a good amount of Chinese, they placed me in the back with the rest of the Chinese!! Well anyways as I walked down three cars or so from my friends car, a Chinese woman looked at me strangely. She asked me why I was back there with them and not in a private car. Obviously since I was western she thought I had some money. I just told her I wanted to experience this trip traditional Chinese style! lol!
Anyways the footage you see is probably considered the nicer spots in Beijing! Plus look at the air, this was a great day. There was not a lot of smog during our visit and Beijing was nice. *cough* I like Shanghai better though. Anyways I have some more footage, so I will do some more posts!
Ch Ch Cha Chia
•February 19, 2011 • 1 Comment
The other day I was walking through Target (a department store) and I came across this amazing shirt! For those of you who may not know, this is what we Americans call Chia Pets! 😛 A Chia Pet is a ceramic animal or object that you can plant seeds in. Once the seeds are planted, the grass will grow. Most of the time the grass is suppose to look like hair or some kind of fur. Even though Chia pets are not very popular anymore, this brought back a lot of memories for me! So needless to say I purchased this shirt! lol It is a good reference to American Pop Culture! 😛
They’re Coming For You Barbara!
•February 10, 2011 • 2 CommentsSo I actually uploaded this particular video clip about a month or so ago, but I forgot to post it on my blog. This was shot in Downtown Fayetteville, North Carolina. I am not all sure about the details but this was one of the first successful Zombie Walks in Fayetteville and I had a pretty good time. Actually it you watch towards the end of the video, a friend of mine is trying to attack me. He actually is a loyal follower of the blog and I would like to give a quick shout out to him. Thanks Jimmy, hope your doing good my friend! God bless!
But anyways I hope you guys enjoy this short video. In the near future I am planning on working on a short horror film. So I will definitely keep everyone posted, it is going to have the same concept as the Four Ways To Survive A Horror Movie. 😛 Which you can also find here on the blog! Thanks everyone!
Learning Hiragana!
•February 2, 2011 • 1 Comment
Well as some of you might know, I have been studying Chinese and Korean now for almost two years! Both of these languages have improved considerably, except I probably do not study or practice as much as I should. But this year has been different. I have been studying Chinese at least twice a week and Korean twice a week since the New Year! I had studied Japanese some time ago while I was in high school, but when your in high school, you are not really focused on your studies. Plus since I have not studied Japanese for so long, I have actually forgotten the little I knew.
My teacher at the continuing education class that I was taking at FTCC did not teach us Hiragana or Katakana. She would only write everything for us in Romaji. So I took it upon myself to buy these flashcards and learn the Japanese alphabet! Both of them! This past weekend I actually learned Hiragana, so now if I see the letter I know what it is. Now I am working on recalling all of them from memory and trying to write them from memory. This is a little more challenging, but I have good faith I can do it. I really liked these flashcards because they were high quality and they had some pretty clever mnemonics to help memorize the letter. I found them on Amazon for around $14 USD. So I would highly recommend this set of Kana Flashcards to anyone who is interested in learning how to read or write the Japanese alphabet! Both Hiragana and Katakana are included. 😛
Video from the Great Wall
•January 20, 2011 • 1 CommentToday I was searching through all of my memory cards, I was looking for some video that I need to finish working on. So as I was looking at all the video that was recorded on these cards, I found some video that I took from the part of the Great Wall located in Dandong（丹东）! I did not shoot a lot of video from the wall, but I did end up taking a good amount of photos, which can be found at my flickr page My Flickr Page. This part of the Great Wall is very special because it overlooks North Korea. This part of the wall is bordering the Yalu River which is the only thing separating North Korea from China. Just remember to keep praying for the people of North Korea and that God will break down the evil leadership in power right now. That one day North Korea can eventually re-unite with South Korea. So anyways I just wanted to post it for everyone and I hope you all enjoy! By the way, I found some video from a Zombie Walk I shot back in October. I will be posting that tomorrow hopefully! 😀
Video from the Great Wall
•January 20, 2011 • Leave a CommentToday I was searching through all of my memory cards trying to find a video I needed to work on. Well it turns out that I found some video that I had forgotten about from our last trip to China! This is just a short little video I took from the Great Wall! I hope you all enjoy it!
Lebanese Food :P
•January 13, 2011 • 1 Comment
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I am going to be updating my blog a lot more this new year. That is part of my new year’s resolution. Anyways for New Year’s Eve I got some of my friends together and we went to Raleigh, North Carolina to see the giant acorn drop at midnight.
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Well we were walking around downtown Raleigh and we stumbled across a restaurant called Mecca. Obviously we thought by the name it would have some Middle Eastern food. We thought wrong… The menu posted on the window had nothing but good ole southern breakfast food. LOL So after being disappointed, we walked a little further down that same street to finish exploring.
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Later we stumbled across an actual Middle Eastern restaurant and we had to try it out. I asked some of the waitresses what “Sitti” meant and she told us that it meant “grandmother” in Arabic. Even though the food was proportionally overpriced, we had an amazing time. The atmosphere was really nice and it was a pretty fancy little restaurant.
The two pictures I included in this blog post were the dishes that I tried, Baba Ghanou and Laban bi Khiar were the names of these dishes, if I remember correctly. Well I also uploaded more pictures from that evening in Raleigh, if any of you are interested you can click on the following link. http://flickr.com/brandonnc
If you guys would like to find out more about this restaurant, you can check them out on their website. I highly recommend these guys and hopefully you can check them out yourselves!
http://www.sitti-raleigh.com/
Address: 137 S. Wilmington Street, Raleigh, NC 27601
branhow.com 