Hi guys, sorry for the long absence but this past couple of weeks have been among the most intense of my life! Settling in here in Hong Kong has been tougher than I expected and I think 3 (long) blog posts wouldn't be enough to tell you all about it, so I'll just sum it up for you and try to get back to a more regular posting in the near future (Internet connection availability permitting). First of all, it's been great that my aunt came here with me during my first few days, it's been good to have some help and support, as things haven't been as smooth as the other times I've been abroad. Loads of things to do, documents to process and vicious circles of documents needed to do this and that, but I am slowly getting it ok. The house I had found before coming here is not the best, the living conditions are not something I can put up with for more than a temporary amount of time, so we had to look for an alternative (and more expensive) solution, which I - thanks goodness - found. We then had to go and buy the furniture for it and I will have to look for a flatmate, but first of all I still have to settle in, so for the next few days I'm still staying in the room I had previously found. Hong Kong itself hasn't been nice with us in the first few days: a lot of gray, a lot of rain, a lot of oppressive environments... then little by little we have found sweeter spots and the weather has also improved, showing us a nicer side of the city! The university seems nice: the campus is super cool, people give me the impression of being nice and helpful, even if it's not gonna be a piece of cake to get everything done, starting with the logistical point of view and going on with the academic one. Simply put, it's gonna take a lotta love (or we won't get too far)! I'll be back with more updates soon, I hope you have enjoyed your summer holidays and are ready to get back on track! I think I am!
Hello my dear readers, I am finally ready to announce to you all my next step in life! After almost 10 months of enjoying life and what I called my own "early-retirement", I am back on track (kinda). I came to Hong Kong today and this fall semester I will begin my PhD studies in a University here in the city! I am quite excited about the whole thing and very happy that I have the chance to follow this path, which I hope will open up new, interesting opportunities for my future! I am of course a little sad to realise that many people I care about will be farther away from me and I have compiled a playlist for them to remember me and, most of all, for me to feel a little bit nostalgic! This song is one of the few (or maybe the only one) on it that hasn't seen the light on this blog yet, so here it is for you all! To new beginnings!!
When I recently purchased the deluxe CD version of 'Smoke + Mirrors' on Amazon, on it I found this song that I didn't know before. I guess that the concept of unknown applies quite fittingly to my present life. I'm ready to take my next leap of faith in less than a year (finally) and I can't wait any longer now! Even if I have greatly enjoyed these past months of me-time, it's time to jump into the unknown once more!
Hey mina-san*, I am almost ready for my take-off (guess I haven't talked to you about it yet, I will soon), so I have already started saying goodbyes left and right, which has made me realise that the time to leave is really coming closer and closer. It's just one week that I have left to spend in Italy, and then I'm gonna fly far away to begin a new adventure! I am not severing the ties I have here, but distance will loose them for sure and it's not gonna be easy, even if some of the people I care about really can get on my nerves! Sometimes I get to wonder who loves, but well... for better or worse I do, and that's one big side of the story!
*This means you all in Japanese, don't ask why it came out like that here now!
My (not so) recent (anymore) journey in Japan has left its mark on me on many levels, and I have just started unfolding these effects. One of them is a musical inheritance I got by walking around some CD megastores, as this is a J-punk band whose latest album I found out on a shelf. I don't even remember what it looked like, but I remember I went on and listened to it (in the store itself probably) and liked it, so I noted the name of the band and looked for some of their music online! I must confess I don't really go crazy for J-punk, I mean I wouldn't listen to it all day every day, but I really do enjoy it every little now and then and this music by 'Secret 7 line' fits my taste quite a bit!
I guess a lot of you guys are on holiday or are about to go, so I can take this excuse for my poor posting constancy of these last weeks, claiming that I am on holiday too and that you surely have better things to do than stay here and read my blabbering. Here I am now anyway, sharing with you a song that has been stuck on my mind in the very last few days! I know I'm posting a lot of Neil Young (and Zayn) lately, but I guess it pretty much sums up what music has been the soundtrack of my summer 2016 so far! Hope you can enjoy it too!
Me beloved readers, please forgive me! I've not been able to post lately, this time around for reasons behind my immediate control (i.e. the Internet at home not working properly, just not to say not working at all...).... Tonight it seems to be somehow working a little better, so I'm taking my chances and trying to publish this post! This summer 2016, besides many other little things, has been peculiar musically because of the amount of liking I have developed for this goddamn teenagers idol! I guess this really proves that I am living my teenage now, so happy growing up to me and happy summer to y'all!! (PS: Happy 900th blog post to 'A song or two per day' too!)
Hello dear readers, sorry for being away from the blog again, I’ve taken a 20-some hours trip to Milan to celebrate a friend’s birthday and I took the chance to say goodbye to some people I might not be seeing for a good amount of time. I can’t complain about goodbyes as the life I’ve chosen for myself in this time of my life is not one of stability, so goodbyes have to be part of the game! The idea of not having close people around might be hard, but as of now I am more excited and eager to go explore, meet new people and stuff! New music is on my to-do list too of course, but today it’s Sunday so it’s time to look back, and what better looking back than one of my favourite songs by the singer whose music was on my mind when I got up this morning?!
One of the songs I expected Neil Young (and his current band) to play during his Milan concert was this great tune featured on his sophomore solo album (the first one he made in partnership with Crazy Horse to be precise). Unfortunately the tune was not on the final setlist, but I was still amazed to see them play 4 or 5 longer songs (each one between 7 and 10 minutes long) straight in the second half of the set. Unfortunately for me, most of them were from more recent albums that I hadn't got the chance to listen to yet, but I can't complain too much about the setlist, the first half has been amazing!
Hello my dears, sorry for being away once again, I am trying to enjoy my summer time at best and I've been having some trouble accessing the Internet at home too (and not only that, also Pokemon GO has been a big deal of trouble, but more on that some other time). Today I came to Padua to visit my dear wife and we took a trip to the sea (if you can call it that). Last night I've been to Neil Young (+ Promise of the Real) concert in Milan and I've enjoyed it quite a bit, it's been 3 hours straight of music and it felt like he was 26 years old and I was the one in his 70s, not the opposite! The band came back for an encore and quite surprisingly they played this song, which I've been having on my mind for quite a while for no reason (call it destiny or coincidence), so I'm sharing it with you now!
Today I found myself singing a couple of songs in my head, i.e. 'Trespassing' by Adam Lambert and 'Boulevard of broken dreams' by Green Day, but both of them have already been posted on the blog, so no chance to get inspiration from them... I'm gonna have to revert to something I've been listening to more recently, and well, I guess the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree, as Zayn's music genre isn't that much far away from the other singers I mentioned, especially Adam. I'm sure you guys are gonna be just fine with this one too, it's the first song of his debut solo album that stuck with me.
I have been following One Piece since it has been broadcasted on the Italian TV, translated and adapted (cartoons are for kids in the Western world, it's not like Japan...), but it hasn't been since a few years later, during the golden streaming era (we miss you, Megavideo) that I have started watching it in Japanese with subtitles. I have been starting over with it, and it's been a great journey! Now, given that I like to watch full sagas together so that I can understand something about the plot, I only take it on every two/three years or so. I just did now, as I need to catch up with the latest two sagas and well... maybe it's not as great as it used to be, but it's still quite enjoyable! It's the best anime around for a reason, isn't it? The soundtrack is a big part of its greatness too (this tune has just become my new cellphone ringtone, just sayin'...)!!
It's been a tough weekend, as I expected, but also a very giving one, once again following my expectations! Given that I'm soon gonna go away for quite a while, I am trying to do my best and create opportunities to spend time with the people that matter to me and cherish it. Today I have not been feeling 100% well, it's probably just the humid heat and the need to recover some energies after such few demanding days! But don't worry, I'm still here!
After one of the best days at the pool (and overall) that I can remember, I find myself here, not exhausted but quite tired, writing this entry and trying to understand how I'm gonna manage two more days of this coming weekend, two more days that look like they're gonna be as tough (and potentially rewarding) as today! I had the pleasure to have my wifey and two of her former colleagues who I had already got to know, to visit me at my grandma's pool and we spent a very nice afternoon. Then two other friends joined us after dinner and then we took a night bath, the first I did that in years and the very first time I did it with a group of people. We had a great time, I can't remember laughing so hard and so much since I don't know when! More friends are supposed to come visit tomorrow and on Sunday, so I have to brace myself: summer is coming!
Never have I ever thought I would be posting something like this on this blog. And yet here I am. Being well in my 20s when stuff like OneDirection and Justin Bieber (am I sure about that?) came around in the spotlight, I was old enough to be on the critical side of boy bands and trash-pop music for teenagers, especially as these recent acts play a little bit too heavy on synths and electronically-created sounds for my taste (we all love our own age's Backstreet Boys & Spice Girls, don't we?!). I've listened to a couple of Bieber songs and I would not care to repeat the experience. Pretty much the same goes for OneDirection: I was not disturbed by their music, but it wasn't something I was (and am) interested in exploring further. And here I found myself listening to Zayn Malik's debut solo album. Why? Well... I could say I don't why but it wouldn't be true. I know why, but I'm not gonna tell you my reason here, as it wouldn't be professional!! Let's just say I brought out the teenager that is inside of me, and he actually didn't dislike what he listened to. To the point that I am here, doing this. I hope you can forgive me for that: "I've done this BeFoUr, but not like this".
I am a weird one, and that's not news, you will know it if you have stumbled on my ranting up here in the past. I embrace my weirdness, as it's one of the traits of my personality I like the most, and I am about to do exactly this now! I am giving you this song as my own personal summer hit. I know that pretty much no one has given a damn about what KT has been doing in the last... 10 years? Maybe a little less so? Well, I am not no one, and I kept on following her. She actually recorded and released quite a few cool things in the last half decade, and she isn't stopping. Yep, KT is coming out with a brand new EP and this is her new single. Which has like a little more than 100k views on YouTube. Well, you guys out there who contributed to the 100k, you already know what I am talking about. All of you who didn't, I strongly suggest you spend 3 minutes of your time finding out what's gonna surely be your favourite song for this summer 2016!!!
Today I spent a nice day at the pool with a friend from University who came to visit from Milan, the weather forecast was quite unstable and totally untrustworthy in the past few days, but the sky turned out to be painted with a great shade of blue and no clouds! Going back and forth on my father's car and while hanging out at the pool I have been listening to my 2000s favourites playlist (part 1) and of course I couldn't not pick something out of it for today's sundayrevival! (And yet I did, as this song is featured in the part 2). I picked this 2000 hit that the radios couldn't play often enough when it rocked the charts, and I never complained about listening to it, ever!
Two years before dying at the remarkable age of 81, Koko Taylor sang "I may be getting older but I've got young fashioned ways"! I mean... wow! I already feel old at 26, actually I've been feeling old since I can remember. I have always bonded better with adults when I was a kid, I disliked a good bunch of people my age during teenage years as they were doing stupid things, now my body is mostly broken... and I'm lazy, I'm not a party animal, I live well in my own little corner of the world (except when I often take up my bag and travel around the other corners of the world). What I'm trying to say is that I've never felt like I've got young fashioned ways, even if it feels a tiny little bit like I'm living my teenage now, with a little delay...! In the end, being old or young, feeling young or old, each one of us has their own way of living life and looks for different things so as to be happy, don't we?
Everybody keeps complaining that I stay up late and wake up late, I don't know what to say about that, my body works better with this kind of sleep cycle and when I don't have any timed business to care about (like work, lectures, appointments and else), I don't see why society should condemn me for this! Don't we all have the right to feel better? Or as good as we can? And then there are some advantages for society too. For instance, when your parents have an early flight and need to leave for the airport at 4 in the morning, it's quite useful to have somebody awake who is driving you there, isn't it? Let's enjoy this and many other beautiful nights!
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