Oz: Aquarium, Wildlife Park and it’s super hot

I just published a post in my German blog about today with a number of images. So head on over there and look at them.

Yesterday, we went on a boat ride around the harbour, which was really nice, and the commentary that was played during the boat ride basically kept mentioning how expensive all the houses and apartments are that are near the water. I do get that – it is quite a lovely location.

Anyway, today we decided to go to the Sydney Aquarium and we decided to go pay 49.95 AUD for the Double Deal that also lets you see the Wildlife World park.

The aquarium has a platypus, which is pretty awesome. What a funny little animal. They also had all sorts of other animals and underwater tubes to see the fish from. Again, go to my German blog for images. Maybe at some point I will make an album or create a flickr account for all the images, but right now I can’t be bothered…

Wildlife World had a lot of fascinating animals as well, but the koalas and kangaroos were extremely lazy. Here’s a picture of the kangaroos, it looks like a massacre has taken place there. Minus the blood of course.

Kangaroo massacre

They also had adorable little wombats and wallabies.

After all of that, we went to open a bank account at Westpac, then had an Oreo McFlurry at McDonald’s near King Street. Yum. We sat around in Hyde Park for a bit and returned to the hostel room, in which it was a toasty 34 Celsius. It’s cooled off to 29 now. Time for a shower!

PS: See all images here!

Oz: Rain (photo)

Photographic evidence of the rain. The photo was taken out of the window of the Asylum Sydney hostel.

Rain in Sydney (February 6th, 2010)

Oz: A long way back to the place where we started from

As I already wrote in my German blog, we have meanwhile reached Sydney. It took us roughly 10 hours to get to Seoul in South Korea, and when we were there, we had a seven hour stop over. We were traveling with Asiana, though, and they gave us a free voucher for a city tour of Seoul, a so-called Transit Tour. So we went on the tour to downtown Seoul where we looked at a palace and a market and had a nice Korean tell us all sorts of interesting facts. For example, in Korea when you are born, they count you as already one year old. Also, Koreans like going to the sauna, they have their New Year’s this year on Valentine’s Day and they are protesting the fact that the government wants to send South Korean soldiers to Afghanistan.

The city tour lasted quite long, what with driving downtown for an hour, and back again. Also, we were dressed for the Australian summer, not for the Korean winter, so we were cold. But it was still a good way to fill the time and for the remaining hour or so that we had to wait for the connect flight, we sat around at the airport, writing emails via their free WiFi.

After 10 more hours on the plane, we finally made it to Sydney – and it was raining like crazy. It still is. We took our heavy backpacks and paid 14$ per person for a shuttle bus to our hostel, and I think the money was well invested. We took a nap when we arrived (we hadn’t slept in 40 hours) but then we got up again so we can sleep tonight.

Our two bed room has a nice view of the Sydney skyline, but today the rain clouds are hanging low and it seems the rain doesn’t have any plans of clearing up. I don’t mind, though. At least it’s not too hot, even though it’s pretty humid. There was a pretty but noisy bird on the roof earlier today but it decided to leave meanwhile. I haven’t heard any other birds since and I’m curious whether it will want to wake us up early tomorrow. We shall see.

For completeness’ sake, let me tell you that the movies we watched on the plane were “Fame”, which was dull, “All About Steve” which was okay but silly and I slept through some parts of it, and “Post Grad” with Alexis Bledel, which was rather stupid. And by the by, the food on the Asiana was surprisingly good. It was rice with beef and rice with noodles and beef on salad and they gave us little manuals on how to eat the food properly.

We’ll soon go to sleep and I hope it won’t be rainy tomorrow!

Here are some photos:
Palace in Seoul
Market in Seoul
View from the hostel window
Australian bird

Rambling: The couch is gone

My sofa in 2003.

Worn brown leather, two seats. This grainy photo was taken when I first got my very first couch. I got it for free, used, from a family that lived about two blocks away from where I lived. They advertised it at my university. They had a two seater couch and a three seater couch just like it, but I liked the two seater couch. I put an ad up that I was paying 25 EUR to whoever could transport it to my flat, and someone called and two people ended up carrying it all the way, up three flights of chairs. Let me just say, they deserved every cent of that money. I gave them something to drink and we small talked before they left. Then I took this grainy photo with my Pencam [source].

I studied on my couch and I watched movies lying on my couch, and I napped on my couch (often times when I was supposed to be studying) and I had people sleep over on the couch (I wonder if that was comfy) and then I moved my couch to my parents’ house, only to move it to Frankfurt later, where I neglected it.

Then, I met another couch. A friend’s big couch that could be turned into a bed, that was comfortable and had a comfortable back rest and I started thinking, hey, maybe I can better myself and get me one of THOSE couches. Because after all, when you do have people sleep over, it’s cooler to just pull on your couch than to a) pump up your air mattress for 40 minutes and get blisters (or you could, as I do, tell your guests to pump them up so they get the blisters!), or b) switch on the electric pump that makes a loud loud noise for 8 minutes (and therefore probably makes all your neighbors hate you).

The couch in its natural habitat.Click for a larger version.

So, now that I moved, I decided to say goodbye to my couch and instead get a new one in 2011, when I’m back from my travels. I had two people interested in my apartment and they said they would like the couch very much, but then both of them decided against the apartment (and therefore, against the couch) and so my sad little couch had an uncertain future. In the end, I decided to say goodbye and I discarded it (oh, the guilt!) and put it out to the curb for the bulk collection.

Now comes the uplifting part of the story. That’s the part where we left to go to Starbucks, and when we came back, past the curb, the sofa was gone. Someone had taken it to give it a new home, and I can only hope it is a good one. A good home for a good couch. Yes, I dumped it after about seven years, but I’m glad it got rescued and I hope it found a nice home where it is appreciated again.

Music Monday #33: Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart

Album cover of the new Alicia Keys album

For today’s Music Monday, we have another artist that is older than me. Yay! Alicia Augello Cook, better known as Alicia Keys [wiki], was born on January 25, 1981. At 20 years old, in 2001, she released her famous album Songs In A Minor [wiki], which featured her lovely hit song Fallin’ [YouTube]. I think it’s rather clever how she references herself in the music video to Fallin’ by having her song Girlfriend play in the radio at the beginning, then she references Fallin’ in her video to A Woman’s Worth [YouTube] by walking down the street in the video singing along to it while listening to it over her headphones.

Songs In A Minor ended up selling millions and millions of copies and was unbelievably successful, which is particularly interesting because it was different from the mainstream, kind of refreshing in its emphasis on R&B and the piano as the instrument of her choice, and according to Wikipedia, the record label didn’t see this as particularly desirable:

“Before she joined J Records, Keys had signed a recording contract with Sony’s Columbia Records. Sony felt that Keys should sing more mainstream-accessible material written by others, while she insisted upon recording her own compositions. As a result, Keys’ recording career remained in limbo for two years.” [source]

Apparently, Alicia Keys has been doing numerous things since Songs In A Minor – albums, recordings, movies [imdb] – but in December 2009 she released a new album, The Element Of Freedom, which has at least two really impressive songs: Un-Thinkable (I’m Ready) [YouTube] and Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart. There is also a collaboration with Beyoncé on the song Put It In A Love Song, but I find the song tries too hard to be Single Ladies [YouTube - admittedly catchy], and anyway, I have lost all my respect for Beyoncé since I’ve seen the video to Video Phone [you could watch it on YouTube, but please, don't].

So here is Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart. I like how it starts all dark and gloomy, and then her voice comes in very softly and sweet, singing of heartbreak and so forth. Check it out for yourself:

(Alternative Link)

Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart by Alicia Keys

Even if you were a million miles away
I could still feel you in my bed
Near me, touch me, feel me
And even at the bottom of the sea
I could still hear inside my head
Tellin’ me, touch me, feel me

And all the time you were tellin’ me lies

So tonight, I’m gonna find a way to make it without you
Tonight I’m gonna find a way to make it without you
I’m gonna hold on to the times that we had tonight
I’m gonna find a way to make it without you

Have you ever tried sleeping with a broken heart?
Well, you could try sleeping in my bed
Lonely, own me nobody ever shut it down like you
You wore the crown
You made my body feel heaven bound
Why don’t you hold me
Near me, I thought you told me
You’d never leave me

Looking in the sky I could see your face
And I know right where I fit in
Take me, make me
you know that I’ll always be in love with you
Right til the end

So tonight, I’m gonna find a way to make it without you
Tonight I’m gonna find a way to make it without you
I’m gonna hold on to the times that we had tonight
I’m gonna find a way to make it without you

Anybody could’ve told you right from the start
It’s about to fall apart
So rather than hold on to a broken dream
Or just hold on to love

And I could find a way to make it
Don’t hold on too tight
I’ll make it without you tonight

So tonight, I’m gonna find a way to make it without you
Tonight I’m gonna find a way to make it without you
I’m gonna hold on to the times that we had tonight
I’m gonna find a way to make it without you

[Lyrics from elyricsworld.com, with minor adjustments]

Lovely, isn’t it? Feel free to comment!

Rambling: Relocating

I think there's a road under all the snow.

Yesterday, I completed my relocation to my parents’ house. I gave the keys of my apartment in Frankfurt back to the landlord and so it’s bye bye big city, hello little village. Which is, of course, only a temporary hello, because I will soon leave to go to Sydney, which has 3.6 million inhabitants. Which I think makes it about six times larger than Frankfurt. My home town, just for the record, has about 2,400 inhabitants altogether, which makes it 15,000 times smaller than Sydney. But that’s just by the way.

So we drove back all the way from Frankfurt, and during the last hour of the drive we were plagued with heavy snowfall and later with snow-covered roads. Actually, it was quite pretty, but it’s not the kind of weather you wish for on your way home late at night.

It snowed constantly during the night and in the morning and so today there is snow everywhere and I’m glad I don’t have to leave the house. It should be noted that according to the radio, the Deutsche Bahn has had some major problems and many trains were late and caused the eco-friendly passengers to have to wait in the cold. I think the Bahn should talk about the weather more often.

I have meanwhile put all of my stuff away and while my room here is still a mess, I think it looks a lot better than it did half a week ago. I couldn’t help myself and I documented the mess, for your enjoyment in stereoscopic 3D. If you don’t know how to look at stereoscopic 3D images, you need to learn it. You’re missing out.

My room in stereoscopic 3D. Click for a larger version.

Music Monday #32: When I Lay Beside You

Gert and Sarah Bettens of K's Choice. Gert is seen pre-hobo-beard.

I used to be a big K’s Choice fan. Ever since I saw this Belgian band late one night on public television where they performed My Record Company [YouTube], Paradise In Me [last.fm] and Not An Addict [YouTube], I was a fan. I bought all their CDs and I loved them, and for the most part, I still do.

In 2003, K’s Choice split up. Sarah Bettens and her brother Gert Bettens, who were the songwriting talent behind K’s Choice, decided to go separate ways to explore solo careers. Sarah Bettens released three solo albums, Scream, Shine and Never Say Goodbye, and while her husky voice was part of what drew me to K’s Choice in the first place, the lyrics and music on her solo records were somewhat disappointing. The best song to come out of those seven years is (ironically…) I Can Do Better Than You [YouTube].

When I Lay Beside You. Very green. I think Gert Bettens once ran for the Green party.

If you’re a regular visitor to this blog, you have read about my thoughts on K’s Choice and I Can Do Better (twice) before, also on Gert’s project Woodface. However, I failed to mention that back when I ordered the Woodface album Good Morning Hope from Mediadis, I also ordered Comet. I forgot all about that because they never delivered it. They waited a month or so until they decided to send my other CDs ahead of time, then Comet never came. Now, about seven months later, I received emails from Mediadis saying they were bankrupt and sorry. It would be rude to say the quality of the Woodface albums has anything to do with them going bankrupt, so I won’t. It would be a good joke, though.

I did get to listen to Comet meanwhile (thanks Mel), and while Good Morning Hope has its highlights, Comet is rather boring altogether. To me, none of the songs stand out and they are average rock songs that work well as white noise.

Apart from their music, it’s also disappointing that Gert and Sarah rarely gave a status update to tell people what they were working on, and usually if you did get one of their newsletters, they only wanted you to join their street team, buy an album or such. I personally think that this is a missed opportunity, as the internet is a cheap and effective way of staying in touch with your fans. I’m not saying they need to be posting videos about their vacation activities, although it certainly wouldn’t hurt.

So, after all this whining and complaining, I can say that I do wonder what their next album, due out 2010, is going to be like. They did contribute a song to Music For Life 2009, for whatever that is. It’s called When I Lay Beside You and the video is online on YouTube. It starts off looking like a rip-off of the great Bright Eyes video to First Day Of My Life [YouTube - watch it, it's good!], but then ends with a “political” angle (for lack of a better word). It also features Gert’s terrifying facial hair.

Click to see video

(Alternative Link)

When I Lay Beside You by K’s Choice

I am everything I want to be
With your loving face in front of me
With your eyes that hum the perfect song
To go on long after I am gone

When I lay beside you
When I lay beside you

Like the absence of a roaring sound
And the walls I built came tumbling down
And it almost made me worship god
Cause you’re everything these words are not

When I lay beside you
When I lay beside you
When I lay beside you
I am perfect

In your eyes I see eternity
And a girl that looks a lot like me
Eternity, a little trip
You’re the beat my heart will skip

When I lay beside you
When I lay beside you
When I lay beside you
I am perfect

When I lay beside you
When I lay beside you
When I lay beside you

[lyrics taken from here and adjusted slightly]

So now if anyone could enlighten me why it’s “lay” and not “lie”, that would be great. I’d either say, “When I lay beside you, I was perfect” or “When I lie beside you, I am perfect.” (Adam? :)) As for how eyes hum a song, I’ll let that pass as artistic freedom.

Rambling: It’s officially winter

It's awfully cold outside, thinks the mermaid.

After a short, sunny break, Germany has returned to real winter weather. As you can see, it’s cold. The temperatures outside are at -11.9 Celsius (about 11 Fahrenheit), but I keep my room warm (at toasty 73 Fahrenheit) and my little weather station predicts sunshine in the future. Let’s hope it is right. The little smiley face is unhappy today, probably because humidity is at only 22%. In my old apartment, it never fell below 40%, but I can’t say that I actually feel a difference.

Anyway, I am drinking Pickwick tea from Hungary from my Starbucks Anniversary cup. I have moved back in with my parents last week and spent the last four days tidying. It’s quite amazing how much stuff you collect over a year and a half, and it’s tough trying to squeeze the contents of a whole apartment into a single room. Luckily, there’s always the basement. Also, tidying is fun. I’m not really getting rid of much stuff, but my Rolling Stone magazines are now in order (I have a subscription, it’s my favorite magazine) and it’s only a matter of time until they will be neatly organized in my database, along with everything else. I put all my comic books in my MediaMan database today, and when I was done I put in all three of my vinyl records:

My three vinyl records in MediaMan. My database makes me happy.

So, as you might know, in about nine days I will leave Germany and go to Australia with my sister, leaving my parents with all my freshly moved and tidied stuff. I’m actually starting to get slightly nervous about it,  as I don’t know what awaits me there, but let me tell you that the 20 degrees Celsius sound rather appealing right now. We’ll start off in Sydney and hang out there for a while and I suppose we will take a good look at all the impressive sights they have there and possibly also look for work. I’ll try to update my blog regularly with more or less exciting stories and photographs, so watch this space.  Oh, and do feel free to comment.

Music Monday #31: Feel It In My Bones

Tegan and Sara in the music video to Feel It In My Bones

On this Music Monday I want to bring you another Tegan and Sara song. I know, I know, I talk about them all the time, but bear with me.

Tegan and Sara started out making kinda folksy acoustic music, then they turned rockier, then they had a peculiar rock/pop mix album and a weird dark pop album, only to release their newest record, Sainthood, which I would describe as intelligent pop music with electronica influences. As you can see, I am clueless as to how to describe them, but it’s apparent that their music keeps evolving and changing, and so it’s not entirely out of character for them to collaborate with Tiësto on a track off of his recent album, Kaleidoscope.

The song is very dancey and electronic, and – more importantly – very catchy. It’s called Feel It In My Bones, and started out as an instrumental track that Tiësto sent them, and Tegan and Sara ended up writing the lyrics for it [source]. Later, they ended up recording a video for it – which, as I understand it, gets played in the background on big screens when Tiesto plays the song live.

The video fits the song nicely and is pretty much exactly the kind of video you’d expect for a song like that. I think it’s very well done, except maybe for a little bit too much make-up. But do judge for yourself:

(Alternative Link)

You can download the video with Keepvid. And you can look on YouTube for some acoustic live performances of the song.

Lyrics:

Feel It In My Bones by Tegan & Sara and Tiesto

Blow by blow, I didn’t see it coming
Blow by blow, sucker punch
Rushes in
Here to stay
Rushes in
You are here to stay

What rushes into my heart and my skull I can’t control
Think about it, feel it in my bones
What rushes into my heart and my skull I can’t control

I feel you in my bones
You’re knocking on my windows
You’re slow to letting me go
And I know this feeling oh-so
This feeling in my bones

Left hook, I didn’t see it coming
Left hook, you’ve got dead aim
Rushes out
Run away
Rushes out
You always run away

What rushes into my heart and my skull I can’t control
Think about it, feel it in my bones
What rushes into my heart and my skull I can’t control

I feel you in my bones
You’re knocking on my windows
You’re slow to letting me go
And I know this feel oh-so
This feeling in my bones

I feel you in my bones
You’re knocking on my windows
You’re slow to letting me go
And I know this feeling oh-so
This feeling in my bones

I feel it in my bones
At night my skull feels pressure
I feel it in my bones
I feel it in my bones
I feel you in my bones

You’re knocking at my windows
You’re slow to letting me go
And I know this feeling oh-so
This feeling in my bones

I take a breath, take a breath with me blow by blow
I take a break, take a break from you, you are here to stay
I take my heart out of my chest, I just don’t need it anymore
Take my head out of the game, I just don’t need it anymore

Take a breath, take a breath with me blow by blow
Take a break, take a break from you, you are here to stay
I take my heart out of my chest, I just don’t need it anymore
Take my head out of the game, I just don’t need it anymore

I feel you in my bones
You’re knocking at my windows
You’re slow to letting me go
And I know this feeling oh-so
This feeling in my bones

Lyrics from SongMeanings.net (with minor adjustments).

Dude, where’s my Lunna?

This is how some people found my blog.

My blog comes up on Google with the strangest searches. I know this, because I can see some of the search words used to find my site. I’m popular with the “chupacabra” crowd and the “sony vegas black video” crowd and the “tegan and sara sheets” crowd. But I found out today, that I can also be found by the “have ikea stopped lunna chair” crowd.

Ah yes, the Lunna chair. You certainly remember my How the Pello…? blog entry in which I talked about the Pello chair I bought from Ikea and at the same time betrayed said Pello by drooling over the even cooler Lunna. (Coincidentally, my Pello is in bits and pieces over this. But I shall reassemble it soon.)

So let me refresh your memory (I can tell you are too lazy to click on the link above). I bought the Pello for exactly 19,- EUR at the Ikea in Frankfurt in July 2008. Pello is sturdy, comfortable, you can take it apart and reassemble it and 19,- EUR really is a bargain.

Pello. Comfortable. 19,95 EUR now.

It is very similar to the Pöang, but the Pöang is 69,- EUR.

The Pöang. Like the Pello, but more expensive.

But then, there is Lunna. [Insert the imaginary angels choir here.] One of the possible textile designs was a black and white floral pattern, it was incredibly comfortable, beautiful and, well, expensive. At 129,- EUR it was 110,- EUR more expensive than the Pello, so the choice was not hard.

Lunna. 'Nuf said.

So yeah, while I was still thinking about going back to Ikea one day to get me a Lunna, they ended up taking it out of their stock. Why, oh, why? We may never know.

I have scoped out what alternatives there are to the Lunna (a public service, if you will), and this is what Ikea in Germany has to offer. First, we have the Smedsta. It looks very comfortable and sells at 169,00 EUR if you want the version in chrome, or 149,00 EUR if you prefer Epoxy/polyester powder coating. But black and chrome is really the way to go, I’d say. It has a long backrest and the part you sit on goes up slightly where your thighs would be, which I believe is part of what made Lunna so comfortable.

This would be the Smedsta.

Then there’s also the Tirup, which sells at a steep 299,- EUR. It doesn’t even look that comfortable to me and I really don’t know about that color. They either sell it in black/yellow (it looks green to me) or in black/white (which looks grey to me). Also, the way the fabric folds over the chair doesn’t look particularly nice and/or comfortable.

The Tirup. What color is that?

There are others – the Karlstad (349,- EUR), the Skruvsta (99,- EUR) – but they don’t look nearly as pretty or as comfortable as the Lunna. They simply can’t match up to the lovely image of the Lunna that I have created in my head. Please make up your own morale to this story.

Two more armchairs by Ikea.

Comments, anyone?