Baja Sessions

in light of current temperatures, it's more than adequate to recommend Chris Isaak's Baja Sessions as a soundtrack for sunny and slightly melancholic days

summer finally arrived

it's hot, the sun is burning down on the netherlands, I'm trying to work but in my head only pictures of beaches pop up

off into the weekend with some music

incredibly sweet video for jamie t's song 'emily's heart' from his second album 'kings and queens'. He's a sweet one too, and very talented.

my Shanghai

apart from all the Expo Hype and talk of modernization and westernization, which is surely happening there, Shanghai, being the most western city in mainland China (Hong Kong is something different) is for me still a quite unique place, made of diversity and the contrast between the clichés old an new, rich and poor, singing and mahjong playing elderly in the parks and shopping teenagers constantly texting on their smartphones. I lived there some years and it's funny how newspaper articles about spitting and pushing people bring back sweet memories. 

Shanghai Expo 2010 and the Dutch Happy Street

(picture)

Someone at the dutch expo team must have looked the newly created and desired chinese middleclass consumer right in the middle of his/her soul. The very ingenious  and funny and very ugly Pavillion seems to be a big hit among the visitors. But i dare say the ironic part of it won't be much recognized among the chinese visitors.

About Amsterdam

Although I don't want to write an expat-blog, or an Amsterdam-blog, this charming city I'm currently learning to call home will of course sometimes pop up here.
Living in a new country and city is always a challenge and for me, expat-blogs ar quite helpful when you are still in limbo between feeling like a tourist and not really being one anymore.Well, I really liked the blog 'Living Abroad', where the charming Canadian Heather lets us being a part of her adventures abroad. I also found a collection of blogs here and can recommend these blogs too.

let's start with a movie

... go and watch it, director Oren Moverman made a strong anti-war statement here. The movie describes the horror of war without actually showing it in quiet and frightening pictures. The extremely and very great actors Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Steve Buscemi and Samantha Morton explain the terror of having been to a very dark place and not being able to return back into some kind of light - or home.