A long way from Johnstone

Waldo, not sure if you still look at this but if you do hows it goin? Ran into McKay up at the art school street party. He said you did well and you an Darge are away to the RAF? have you got dates for OASC?

Tidy, how are you mate? did you get the Holden job? an let me know how you link stuff on blogs, i cant be bothered workin it out.

Jones, how did it take you 8 days to drive from Glasgow airport to my house to drop in my keys and phone?

Eejas - I salute you
Matty - The prediction competition is mine!
Adam - Dave I just emailed you so i have nothing to say except remember this. We're only people, we're not invincible, yeah-eah we're not invincible... we're only people

Kim - I now live with you, why are you reading this? do some bloody work!
An Wendy, hopefully see you soon. if i dont get a comment from you then theres gonna be trouble

right now im absolutely cravin a pizza crunch. think its the fact i know i cant have it. I could murder anything from a chipshop right now. Just been to the gym so i think my body's sayin i deserve it seein as ive done a bit of excercise. Been using the gym here at Kim's apartment complex and I really will need to send some photos of my as I am now officially a beefcake. seriously, I cant believe how much ive bulked up. earlier i ran out of weights to put on my bar to bench press so I had to get one of the assistants to sit on it too.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong............... where East meets West.
West says to East "how do you do?". East says to West "Néi hòu ma?". They stand awkwardly for a moment tapping the ground with their shoes, but then hug and kiss and decide they will live together. The year is 1699 and the British East India company sets sail with lots of gunpowder, limes and barrels of rum. After many a pole dancing and wet t-shirt contest sailing round Kavos on what was the worlds first recorded booze cruise, they reach China and begin trading. Britain rapidly increases its merchant trading through and with China. By the late 1700's, thousands of cheap Casio sundials made in China, were being shipped to Britain each month, fetching 2 sovereigns and a bottle of Gin each. But Britain loved (and still loves) exploiting people and places William Nilly. So, like throughout history, Britain started throwing its proverbial penis around and in 1842, after the Chinese defeat in the First Opium War, Hong Kong was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Nanking. Unfortunately the Health Education Board of Scotland's "Drugs kill, choose life" campaign had not reached the far east and the Second Opium War broke out in 1856 and raged for 2 years [Plagiarism et al. (2006)]. By 1858 everyone was so high they started to talk. Britain was really munchied and thought that a wee bit of China looked good, and China was like "No way man!" but then Britain was like "Mate, just geez a wee bit, you've got loads. Then we can stop fightin" so China was like "Alright, alright, but just a wee bit. Fuck sake man." And so, Britain took formal ownership of Hong Kong in 1860 and kept it till 1997. What emerges from this history which I have abridged slightly for you, is a fascinating city. Wee streets packed with overhead signs of Chinese characters, hanging off old 10-20 storey tenemants which are sometimes worked on by men climbing up towering bamboo scaffolding. In certain areas you still see the sterotyoe street vendors selling live fish, meats, fruit and veg, people pulling carts in the street etc but then almost slap bang beside are skyscraping new apartment blocks reaching 40-50 floors high. With 20-50 floor buidings in the business district and several like Central Plaza, the Bank of China building and the IFC2 soaring above and up to almost 60, 80 and 90 floors. Hong Kong island has some really funky, stylish buildings and a colourful night skyline that has to be seen in person to really take in.
Wan Chai and Causeway Bay area of the business district on Hong Kong island.














Some pics I took last night looking across to HK island from the balcony of Kim's apartment. Unfortunately the two humungoid apartment blocks block a lot of the city out but its still an amazing view. Click on the image to enlarge. Go on, you can then zoom in more, its fun! Digital viewers press the red button.








Every night at 8, theres a 10 minute light show where all the main office towers change colour and flash to music with lasers firing off the tops of some of them. Cruise boats stop in the middle of the harbour and it is best seen and only heard from on the water so Ill need to see it properly. These pics give wont do it justice especially a lot of it is blocked. Last weekend there was fireworks too. To date only 3 planes have crashed because of pilot distraction.






































A better picture of the skyline

Glesga

Jones birthday night out in the west end....

Here we have the team after a trip to the 727. Deep fried pie, chips and cheese was superb and as far as I now neither me or craig has had a heart attack yet.
















































































































Rebecca and Eejas. Just as red and blue are at opposite ends of the spectrum, sexyness ranges between Rebecca and Eejas.











So back in glasgow. we headed up to the Art School tho missed Laura and Fiona's displays. Girls, hope your trips down to London went well. Went into the street party and had a few beers. Meenwhile Mandip, Alison and Laura, somehow guessed Id left my car unlocked, which I had somehow, so this is them drunk, in my car, with my bloody camera. Cheers girls for putting my camera back and then NOT locking the car OR tellin me ya eejits!!
































After a night on the tiles with Jones and Mack, got some good old kebabs an pakoras. 2 of my mushroom pakoras were joined together like a wee set of testicles, thankfully they didnt taste balls. WWAAA HAHAHAHHAHA!!!! HA!! see what I did there! I said they didnt taste balls! genius!

Back at UM

Over in HK now an have a wee random collection of pics with me. These are a couple from the end in Miami. The last week of UM was boozefilled and great fun. The main men: Brendan, B-Rett, Ian, Tim Wilder and Alan and American Luke in the background. The 3 blondies Tim, Karin an US Luke.

A long way from Miami

Cant remember where I left off.... but we pick things up in Johnstone, Scotland, Home of the Brave

Arrived at GLA this morning, what the christ?! sunny and warm?! this cant be Glasgow i thought to myself. no one on my flight over from Dublin was scottish an the guy beside me was from Australia so talked with him for ages. So it didn feel like home, well until I got outside and walked through the huge cloud of smoke that was the chain smoking people on the benches and the bin man, fag between lips. On the drive into Johnstone, was good to see the old Top Discount Fashion store on the corner (still deralict but still standing), and Cheryl mcCulley.

Lifted my broken luggage into the house and the rest is history as they say.... My suitcase broke when we were leavin Miami. The pull out handle snapped internally so each time i pushed it back in to store the handle, unknown to me, I was actually ramming the oil covered snapped ends into my clothes. Now those of you who know me well, or have ever seen me eat, will know i put stains on my clothes all the bloody time, hence my clothes buying policy has been to avoid whites and lights. However, when I got to washington i opened up my case and found the snapped ends inside my case had managed to seek out all 5 white items of clothing that I own, giving them an oil patterned car mechanic look to my clothes.

Did manage to get most of the stains out eventually but thanks to the Dulles airport baggage handlers who, for some reason, stole my shoulder strap off my heavy holdall, it was a bastard carrying that let alone pulling about a 30 kg suitcase with long bendy handle that is about to rip out the top was really crap fun.

Anyhow so in Washington we met our patent searcher ans ordered a patent search (surprisingly eh). Me an Brendan walked round all the sights at night which are spectacular. Hung out with Abe Lincoln for a bit.

Went to Philadelphia to meet one of or contacts Sandy Goldstein. more surreal living as we sit in his office lookin out over Philadelphia. back to reality that night as we stay in a youth hostel, sweating it out in a room of 16 guys and no air con. they did leave the fire exit open for ventilation an we didnt get robbed during the night so its all good! Drove to Williamsport with Sandy the next day. Met with some prototyping engineers. one of whom was quite a fat New Englander who spoke a lot like Peter from Family Guy. Back to Washington where we stayed with Dave's friend and his family. They are Viatnamese and we tried some great food. they were so nice to us and their house is unbelievable though i did somehow end up sleeping on a a really expensive yet broken double bed. Bad back for 3 days. YES!!

Worked on the venture a lot. Though got the patent search back and there are a lot of patents already out there on similar ideas and designs so it doesnt look good and the venture probably wont go any further. its all been a great experience tho.

So it was on to New york to get our flights home. Had a good 4 days first though. Managed to see quite a lot with Dave, Brendan and Erin, up the empire state, grand central station, statue of liberty, ground zero, times square and staten island where met some great locals in a pub that smelled of piss for some reason. but after gettin used to the strange hints of pong sat with a local guy an the bartender who laid on a lot of free beer and we ate some amazing pizza, the best in staten island and NY we'd been told an i wouldnt argue.

Jogged around central park which was bathing in sun that mornin, spectacular views of manhattan. Went to a pretty sweet bar and had some massive Long Island's, got fairly merry, got drink poured on my by a girl up on the bar with a bottle ( i attract clothes stains), got threatened by a guy who said he had an AK in his trunk. what a sack.
Was in a food place gettin some Baba Ganoush, he pushe was arguin with the guy infront of me an I told him to leave it out cause he was in the wrong so he got up in my face saying I better f***ing watch myself, that he had and AK in his car and that I should go outside and he'd show me it. I thanked him very much for his offer but declined, pointing out that 1. i didnt think he had an AK47 in his car, 2. if he did, that he'd be a f**king idiot to start shooting a machine gun in a busy and policed nightspot coz of an arguement over him skipping the queue in a takeaway shop. he was a sack and mouthed off a bit more so me and the guy in front just ignored him and he went away.

the moral of the story is that Sam Hill is hard as nails, dont mess. And Baba Ganoush is really tasty.

Met a hot blonde american girl Amanda, "oh my god, you're scottish?!!" possibly the last time that'll happen for a long.........

Anyhow, got an email about a week ago sayin I have an interview with Cathay Pacific (the hong kong based airline). Id applied for a summer placement with them ages ago. Got told I had an interview with them on the 23rd of June, so am flying out to HK on the 19th! Booked a return flight for september as thought well if the internship thing falls thru then Ill try an do this china course id been told there was a space for at HKU and see my family and learn some cantonese. Then the HKU course fell through and tonight I got an email saying that to do the Cathay placement I have to speak Cantonese! (it didnt used to say this requirement on the website and I told them on my CV i didnt) so now thats out the window too. Would cost a lot to change flights to a later date so im up shaft creek with my pants down. but these things happen, will go see the Ng clan and try an find other work.

anyways guys, hope you are all happy, healthy and doin great, Dave let me know how things are down under and if you get that job with Holden?!

Piggy hello and congrats on graduating as a SAC! What are you doin over the summer?

Klemen, my parents are gonna be in slovenia for a few days later in the summer so I told them that you would go and show them around, cook and clean for them etc.

Shannon, ill give you a call soon, hope alls well with the babe on the way

And everyone else, lookin forward to seein you all at somepoint soon.
I'll put up some pics of NY etc when i get the chance.

Some more people...

Right firstly, ive just had a wee look at this for once and I want some comments from you lazy arses! Quite a lot of you have talked to me about stuff you've seen on this but Ive only had comments from Eejas, Waldo and Tidy. Come on, at least tell me how much you miss me and ooh what wonderful pictures I take. I dont care what you write but i want some comments.

2nd I found out how to work the fonts and colours and yes they look shite.


Klemen my slovenian roomate from the Holiday Inn, 1st semester, julianne and Ute.












Alan, Ian and Stacy from team england. The 3 best English people ive met, rivaling Kim and Malcolm of the Hill fame. Havin Alan as a room mate was actually pretty good, who wouldve thought a 6'4" ginger English guy could be decent...








Brendo and Karin. Austrian girl who was just over for 2nd semester, who was a great laugh. funny accent, i made her impersonate the wee Uter guy from the simpsons who tells people not to chase him cause he's full of chocolate.......ah.......im a loser







Not the a very good picture since we're all a bit pished but hey. Jess on the left, little crazy girl from Alaska who we stayed with a bit after term finished and me an susan.









On the couch in me and George's (alan) room after playin some games of Gimp. Marina, our Brazilian friend who does Marine biology, true, who stayed down the hall and Brendan.
























Alex, one of my best mates, and Susie Ku, from Sidney. They went home after last semester but thought id stick them up here.











Theresa and Ramsey down at Montys plus some random girl in the middle













Well the end of an amazing year came and its hard to take in everythin that’s happened. I somehow found people that accepted me, some even put aside my blotchy drunk face and annoying habits and let me be their friend.

Met some great people, saw the Florida Keys, the everglades, all over Miami pubs, clubs and beaches, got scuba certified, got an american red cross lifegaurd certificate for Sam Mill, (note: write neatly when filling out forms, a lesson I shouldve learned when I ended up with 3 l's in Hill on my drivers license signature.) Managed to crack a tooth, survive 3 hurricanes, get to Jamaica......managed ti get back from Jamaica...... went to see 3 NBA games..... wish it wasnt so far away so i couldve shown more of you guys around, but at least Kirky and Dav Yan made it. Anyhow not long till its back to Glasgow....