Kai’s First Birthday!

Friday 28 August 2009

Taking a day off to celebrate our son’s major milestone, Jamie and I showed what loving, responsible parents we are by taking Kai to get two inoculations on his birthday morning – pneumococcal and chicken pox. That gave him a reason to cry for about 5 seconds but Dr Siva’s advice summed it up – “He’s now ready to eat everything, including curry”.

I didn’t need to be told twice, so bundled up the little creature and took him straight to Café Beviamo for his first babyccino – what yuppies we are. Of course he liked it, who could say no to foamy milk laced with cocoa? He slept while we had our adult lunch, before taking the train out to Pasir Ris Park and sifting around the mangrove swamp there – no mudskippers today but plenty of crabs, kingfishers, water monitors and poor dead fish.

Stopped for a Kilkenny at Gallop Stables, where Kai got to check out some ponies, before heading to the remarkably clean beach looking out to Pulau Ubin for some walking practice (he had stumbled his first two steps that morning into Jamie’s arms) and general sand action.

Later, at home, we had a good family swim (Kai didn’t take to his Danish floaties, but no big deal) then headed to dinner at the Portugese BBQ restaurant up the road. Aunty graciously looked after Kai while Jamie and I ate, then proceeded to feed him three sticks of strawberry Pocky – Kai celebrated his newfound license to eat junkfood with reckless abandon.

Long Live the Bugg!

Christiania Part II

Sunday 23 August

Fell asleep after a full course of lovey-dovey text messages to Jamie at 5am, and got some shut-eye till around noon when Anna called me up and summoned me to Christiania – perfect execution. Knocked back some orange juice, hopped on my bike and was back in the alternate universe within minutes. Sat down near some greenery while tourists walked by and waited for Steve to find me – it didn’t take long. Sat by the lake with a couple of beers then took a relaxing ride around the area. Our second resting spot was directly opposite “Probably the Most 24 Jam Location in the World”, the single-storey brown buildings that Kevin says are ex-submarine bases and house some of his video games clients – thankfully all I could make out on this sunny afternoon were bikini-clad international youth diving into the harbour. Boom.

Rode back with Anna through the village, listening to The Arcade Fire from my handlebars, and noticed that it wasn’t as happening as Thursday afternoon – perhaps it was too early. Made it back to the hotel so Anna & Steve could get their flight back to London and prep for the wedding they were to attend the next weekend in Detroit – decided to spend my extra time kicking back in the Tiger lounge with a bucket and wishing the remaining peeps farewell.

Did a super-efficient pack at five to five, checked out and took the flight via Frankfurt back with Crystella, Antz and Kenny. Feeling very human, balanced and realized, I dozed gently for the 12 hour flight back, without any need to resort to sleeping pills. Layer upon layer upon layer...

Tiger Translate Copenhagen

Saturday 22 August

Gave myself a bit of a sleep-in before meeting Steve & Anna for a traditional Northland breakfast – the weather forecast had been iffy but another glorious day was upon us! Rented a bike and rode up to the venue for a 1:30pm run-through with Christian and Mikkel – chose the artwork and locations for the best of the CHANGE collection – before zipping back to meet our artists and enlarged crew of guests in the hotel for a ‘relaxing’ afternoon barbie!

Across the main river and right on the waterfront, Theobrands hosted us at Kulturhust for a family-style barbecue on a lovely Saturday afternoon. I gave out my brand new, limited edition Tiger Translate Viewmasters to Jesper, Mads, Jan and the crew before changing into my swimmers with the only other game person, Kerstin from Cologne. We rocked into a designated swimming area on the river and dove into the cool, refreshing and ‘inordinately clean’ harbour – delicious! Built up some guts and took a few pin-dives off the 5 metre platform while Anna and Steve watched from the pavement.

After a hearty lunch, a few of us headed straight to the venue for the final run-through, check and preparations. The band, Company, did their sound check and I was once again pleasantly surprised to hear some Hendrix riffs. Back at the hotel, I met Anna Isaac from NZ who had just arrived, briefed her over a Tiger, and had a whole two and a half minutes of down-time before getting ready for the deciding moment.

Took a taxi to the venue with Antz and Song Yang and took a while to inspect the place and make some final tweaks to get some level of satisfaction. Had a good moment with Tjetjege, the front row baby from Mongolia (very honoured that he made it all this way) outside while the crowd milled around, scoffed down some noodles and dumplings for good measure, then hit the party proper.

Two live battles (one-on-one East vs West artists) took place, the warm-up DJ did his thing and the cool crowd came in to check out the action. I showed Song Yang the backstage artist area and bumped into the band who looked straight out of school and loving it. Their following showcase set was energetic and fun, and before you know it the party was in full swing with Rom showcasing his interactive piece in the main hall, HRVRK vs Ulzi going off in the atrium, and ice cold Tiger going down everywhere.

Hit the dance floor with Liv and Anna, took some time to make a personal Jandals artwork, got Song Yang and Antz up to do some live painting, took Anna & Steve backstage and kept the beers flowing. By 2am my job was done so I kicked back, documented the whole thing and made sure the Mongolians and Singaporeans made it back safely to the hotel, but not without one final (and X-rated) visit to the little mermaid. Deleted for all of eternity, but like Antz said, we had fun.