Wow the wrong detox

Hello hello! It's that time again and poof, I can't believe time has flown so much! The last time I was here was while I was in the air on my way back to HK (which I realize I forgot to publish until now..woops).

So upon landing in HK, I had 2 days to catch up with everything, and then I went up to Shanghai for a gig. I flew on Thursday and would return on Friday and I was prepared for the no Facebook, no Google experience. I had my trusty VPN Unlimited ready to rock..sadly while in China, it didn't work and that meant I had 2 days of no emails, facebook and youtube. Oddly, it sucked.
I mean, I've done days "without any internet access" especially while I'm on those funky cruise ships... but this time, it was tougher. I think the reason is because it was not my choice. I've noticed that given the same situation, if I chose to be in the situation, I'm fine with it, but the moment it's forced upon me, suddenly it's super duper hard to accept. I guess this is psychology 101 but it's a pattern I've noticed on myself a lot, in everything I do, from work to dealing with people.

So my time in Shanghai was interesting, but I was glad to be back in ol' HK mostly because I'd be out of home for so long I just needed to be here in the evening. In fact, in the time I've come back, I've had no evenings where I was home... so I'm totally looking forward to having an evening in tonight.

On a brighter note, things are very busy, the G-1 Fight Club show is out and rocking. It's awesome cos (I'm in it heh) and I got to see the whole filming process, the live fights and now the post-editing drama. OK so I can totally see how editing has such a big influence on increasing the level of drama the 8 female competitors had. But all in all, very cool stuff, especially since it's given me a whole bunch of new material which I could use last night at our monthly Cantonese comedy show! Thank you!

So I've got another 2 weeks of mad schedules before things calm down for me. I'm looking forward to that because after the mad eating and lifestyle in Melbourne, I'm totally ready to get back to my normal routines and eating habits. Ahaha, for the first week of Melbourne, I tried to be clean and stuff, but by the 2nd weak, I was stuffing everything into my face...the food there is so %$*$&#@$@ good!! ARGH!!!

On a brighter note, I've come to realize I very much like this go-go-go-go lifestyle. I mean, I'll admit, I burn out quite a lot from it, but during the 2 weeks in Melbourne when things were much slower, I realized it's great as a vacation but after a week, I'm ready to fill up my days a bit more because I hate ending the days feeling like I did nothing. As much as my yoga practice teaches me to "be" more rather than "do"....I've been working on "being in the moment" as I "do more each moment"...I guess it's just the way I'm wired?

Also, last night after our Cantonese show, I hung out with fellow comedian Daniel till 3am talking..it'd be soo long since I'd been in Lan Kwai Fong (the main clubbing/party district of HK) that we both had to get out of it after 2 minutes there..it was wayyyyy too noisy for us (then again, we weren't looking to party, but to talk). We ended up sitting on some stairs and chatting for a couple of hours... it's been so long since I just sat down with someone and talked friend-to-friend. Then again, Daniel and I knew each other since university and worked together on the university radio programme where we were talking total shit and had our own show of absolute bullshit...ahaha

So I got 2 more weeks before I'm going to go back to my olympic lifting training (finally!)...my mom's been learning and at 60+ years old, it's so awesome seeing her do that stuff. My sister's a power lifting and well I'm just an angry gym goer. So we're all nuts :)

Anyway, here's to another great 10 days ahead. Time to get my head down and power through it!

Woops, I forgot to post this when I landed...

Wow..my last entry was while I was on the plane GOING TO Melbourne and this entry is written on the plane LEAVING Melbourne...well the whole run of comedy shows came to an end, it was an absolutely fantastic experience, watching so much comedy, but the best part was having all my Asian buddies here for the festival. The longest we've all hung out in forever.... I guess somehow we all worked things out where we were hanging out yet having our own space. It was fun working out with Jason and Tim and coming up with all these funky routines...then ending it with yoga in our apartment..ahaha 3 guys making weird poses while we followed a video with an instructor that seemed overly calm ahaha

So the great thing is, I ate my heart out. To the point I'm ready to get back to my HK diet of eating clean and healthy vs. eating till I can't eat anymore...
The comedy shows were awesome, I had a fantastic Cantonese show and hopefully this has paved the way as an Annual venture for Asian comedians to do as well as a possible Cantonese show with other comics. Fingers crossed, we got a year to sort this out.

I've grown again as a comedian as well as a person. These 2 weeks, getting away, being in a new place, living a different lifestyle and hanging out with different people, has been a well needed "vacation" from reality for me. I'm ready to go back to Hk and even though I can foresee a bunch of challenges the moment I land and get home, I feel recharged and ready to rock it out. At the same time, hopefully with my fellow Cantonese comedian Tim Chan having experienced the festival, it will give him new energy and a new sense of direction in his comedy career, not to mention motivation for all the other comedians to take it to another level.

Oh, I also got some new fitness equipment (because I lost my bag of rubber loops and stuff one day at the gym) -- power bands, new loops and a speed skipping rope. Bwahaha, super portable, super flexible and super cool. So now when I travel I have a killer gym with me, which means I'll be able to work out better, have a bigger appetite and eat more. Yes, it always revoles around food.

I guess the hardest thing is when you just started getting used to a new change (in this case, my lifestyle and company in Melbourne), you have to stop and say goodbye. It's weird in its own way, but keeps things fresh.

Oh and I've loaded up my phone with apps to test and try out, spotify with a tonne of comedy albums and new music to experience and comixology with bunch of comics to enjoy. Did I mention I got a row of 3 seats to myself? This is going to be a good flight (and my laptop is plugged in with power..bwahah).'

So it's time for me to sit back and get to these items one by one...before they serve food and I enjoy me a movie. Hong Kong, see you in 7.5 hours.

Melbourne airtime

Hello Melbourne! Well..technically almost hello Melbourne. I'm writing this on the plane on my way there but since ol' wifi hasn't invaded itself into my flight, this isn't going online for the next 6  hours.
So how are things? I can't believe we're already a quarter through 2016 and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is on already.. I can actually still remember it from last year (and given my poor memory, this is a big deal to me).
I made a stop in Kuala Lumpur for a gig and lucky me, my flight isn't full so I"m enjoying "first class leg room" at "budget airline prices!" Wahoo! And of course, a stop in Kuala Lumpur means a stop for shopping...and yes I ended up buying some clothes and a pair of well needed shorts! Not grey, not black, but blue. Yes, I don't know what I'm thinking either but somehow "color" has made its way into my fashion sense this year.

So Easter came around and for once, I got to enjoy "Zero inbox". Sure it only happened on Easter Monday after the 4-day long weekend, but I had half a day where I could literally shut off and not feel like I was lying to myself. Felt good to finally get my work done, and then just relax wholeheartedly. I remember going to the gym and taking extra long to stretch...that's a rare thing :)

So I've also started playing this game Company of Heroes which is pretty fun but quite time consuming. Oh!! Comixology (I normally link all this stuff but no internet..eheheh), what an amazing app for comic books by Amazon. I'm going insane re-reading old stuff like batman issues from wayyyy before. I am soooo tempted to buy the whole Spawn collection and read it all over again, but somehow I can't do it because I have the physical copies at home!! ARGH!!! 1st world problems I tell you.

So for the next 2.5 weeks I'm going to be in Melbourne performing alongside my good buddy Rishi Budhrani from Singapore and Jason Leong from Malaysia. And my Cantonese one-man show returns on 16 April so I'm uber excited about that! OK I'm extra uber excited about all the food in Melbourne!! I've been eating clean and exercising right all year for this trip...so I could eat my heart out!! I'm going to try my darndest to keep my workout regime going while I'm here but it's always a struggle when my schedule is pretty much unknown daily.

On another note, I think I've gone nuts with Spotify, I'm burning through comedy albums thanks to them because I can listen to them while I'm traveling like now. I have 6 hours to go, a bunch of comic books to read, a tonne of comedy albums to listen to and a few nasi lemaks to order on the flight (oddly Air Asia Nasi Lemak is pretty damn good!). How the hell do I always end up talking about food only.

If you've never used Spotify, go for it. Use the free version, it does the trick very well. I used to listen to the free version for over a year, but eventually I tried out premium for 3 months for free because they had a promotion..and with all the traveling and stuff, I figured you know what, this is really good. They deserve my money. So bravo Spotify, you got me.

Oh, my Gmail account is at 98% capacity now and I'm on their legacy plan of US$5/year for an extra 20GB....so I'm struggling to keep up because I don't want to upgrade to US$1.99/month once I do..aha... I know, you're thinking "why are you wasting your energy on these minor issues?!" It's more to do with the fact that once I upgrade, I can never go back to the legacy plan..it is forever gone.. and I like being the few people who have been using Gmail from the start and are on these super duper old-skool plans.

So anyway, let's see how things go in Melbourne, I'm looking forward to blowing my mind with comedy, fulfilling my appetite with great food and hopefully my soul with a good time (awwww..)