Day (And Night) One

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Sat 19th May 2007 - Shinjuku

Arriving in Japland...

So Saturday was basically exploring day around Riga... wandering around Old Town (yeh, pretty much EVERY city in Eastern Europe has an 'Old Town' for the tourists). Unfortunately, the Russian Winter decided to move in on the one wkend that I'm visiting, what can u do eh.. weather...

Arriving in Riga

After some rather last minute packing and organising, caught the morning flight out to Riga, Latvia.
Agy picked me up from the airport in her blazing merc and after some sushi, we headed over to Aggressive for our first few classes.. met some of the teachers and we went over some newstyle choreography for a few hours.










Got checked into my room at the Hotel Victorija on Caka street in the heart of Riga...









...before heading out to the Coyote Fly Bar (yes, based on the Coyote Ugly bar with bar staff dancing on the bar top!) and then hitting the local 'Essential' venue...

New WEBSITE...!

So the website's finally up and running (kinda). I haven't even used this blog in like over a year.. a lot's happened since. Namely I graduated from medical school (finally!)...what have I been doing the past few months...trying to avoid sloth whilst taking time out from medicine to focus on my creative pursuits...mmm..! Ha.

Watch this space for some hopefully exciting upcoming developments..................

No one said it'd be easy....

Wow.. havnt updated this thing since i got back to the UK!! Well lets see.. where am i today.. still continuing this run of hospital attachments outside of london.. commuting SUCKS. Been up since 5am today.. doin LONG days on my feet running round wards.. then was teaching in Holborn in the evening.. got home at 11pm with a very knackered pair of legs! Edited some music for upcoming shows and now it's 2am and i'm writing up reports due 2mrw morning.. blah.. i have two hours before i need to be UP again at 4am 2mrw!! No one said life as a dancing doctor would be easy, but f#%k it.. screw the critics, imma pull it off.. Hopefully..?!?? haha

Home....

So after the long flight, i get out at London Heathrow.. lug all my suitcases (i did a LOT of shoppin in the US!) all the way to the central South Ken campus.. sort out all my registry problems and then get a totally unecessary earful from the UMO who try to remove me (yet again!) over something completely irrelevant! Finally sort it out and then head over to catch the final tutorials of the day at Charing Cross... Eventually get home and back to my homely bed.....and it's FREEEEZIN cos it's so bloody cold here! ha!

San Francisco's AMAZING

So catching the Greyhound from Downtown LA (not a place you want to be at 1am in the morning!) I pretty much fell asleep and woke up at 9am in SanFran. Instantly I fell in love with the city.. So much Culture, Architecture, nice people who aren't snobs... the city had such a strong 'feel' to it, something that LA really doesn't have, with its basic square buildings all spread out. Union Square is perfect for shoppin since everything is right there, and the square itself totally reminds me of Trafalgar Square. The city was bustling with tourists since it was the weekend, was interesting to hear so many British accents again! So I shopped my ass off, wandered all around downtown, saw a rather enlightenin store opening for the first H&M on the West Coast(!), experienced the SanFran hilly tram rides, checked out the beautiful Bay from Fisherman's Wharf and of course walked along the Golden Gate Bridge.


Downtown SanFrancisco from the coach


Gets me everywhere!


Instantly loved the 'feel' of this city...


Grand opening of the first H&M on the West Coast.. the queue went around like 4 blocks! No lie.. there was security all over the streets of downtown SanFran controlling the crowds as though it was a riot! haha! It's only Hennes guys!


Kiddy performers in Union Square...


Artwork Exhibition in the Square..


Union Square is surrounded by all the major shops..


Yep those are shoppin bags in my hand.. the downfall begins..! haha


Reminded me a lot of one of my favourite chillin' spots in London.. Trafalgar Square..


Need to rest after all that shoppin..


They might not be road-worthy, but u gotta risk it and ride the historic cable cars!


Out on Hyde St Pier at Fishermans Wharf


Alcatraz.. less than two miles from land, but with rip tide currents, no escaped prisoner ever managed to survive the swim!


Out by the beautiful Bay view


Peering at the bay...

Retired to a basic hostel for the night. On Sunday, after a lil more morning shopping.. I'm walking along on the street and low and behold, I see Simi and Aby from MedSchool back in London. They were in Chicago but then came up to SanFran for the weekend to check the place out! Was bizarre! We ate at the top of Macy's in The Cheesecake Factory and then I headed up to the Palace of Fine Arts to see if I could somehow work a miracle to get tickets for the completly sold out SanFrancisco HipHop Festival. Just before giving up, I manage to hook up two PERFECT front centre seats for a knockout cheap price and just as the show is starting, Anni (who just drove down from Santa Rosa) walks into the building.. so we head off to enjoy the show... BREATHTAKING. I came to finally watch two groups perform live: Gen Two and Funkanometry SanFran - neither failed to meet expectations! But it didnt stop there, we didnt realise that Eric Fenn (the mentor of my dance mentor) was performing with his company 'Loose Change' - can't EVEN begin to describe how visually stunning it was. Then 'Mop Top' from New York performed, featuring the FLAWLESS Terry Wright, albeit lookin Very Different! And there was a ridiculously creative solo artist from NY with a piece called 'RoboCop'.. i ordered the DVD.. u GOTTA come see it when i get it!! Got to hang and chat with some Choreographer's i've admired for so long afterwards, including Shaun from GenTwo and a whole bunch of peeps from Funkanometry recognised me and my famed BackPack from when I auditioned with them down in SanDiego! haha! Was SUCH a brilliant event!

Drove around downtown getting lost until me and anni eventually found a decent cheap hotel and then drove around almost another hour tryin to find parking on the crazy hills of SanFrancisco! Ate at another awesome diner - we need more of these back home!! - and then got a few hours sleep before hoppin on a Greyhound back to LA....

All in all.. i LOVE the city of SanFrancisco, could totally live there one day and my time at the SF HipHop Festival was just mesmerising!

*** MORE PICS TO COME ******

CultureShock LA

So I was going to be subbing a class at a nearbye studio in LA, but then that fell thru so after comforting myself with some more vintage shoppin in Hollywood i decided to dare my way to UCLA with public transport. Was a nightmare waiting for the bus, but once on it, it drove me straight down to the massive and illustrious UCLA campus - that place is like a CITY in itself! I walked into the Ackerman Union Building just as CSLA finished performing for their charity event. But meeting the CSLA team and their director Arnel more than made up for the trip. He even gave me his CSLA T-Shirt as a souvenir! Had a really inspiring conversation with him, he filled me in on the local politics between dance troupes, as well as enlightening me about his dreams in terms of community outreach and using HipHop in a really focal way to benefit youth. Over noodles I got to spend more time with the whole administrative team of CSLA and then we walked around the area, got scouted by an MTV casting director for a show and then was driven home by 'Boogiewalker' from CSLA, a real top guy. All in all, a brilliant evening bonding with CultureShockers from another city - reminded me how great the CultureShock forum is, where u can meet and relate to other dancers who work/study and dance as a passion in their sparetime...

Noodles with the CultureShock LA team...

My last class at Millenium.. went out on a blast, rockin David Moore (Wade Robson Project Fame) in a really trashy fun piece of choreo! He wanted a groupie-pic with his name on the Millenium Masterclass Board! Really cool guy!

Katie Orr (truly inspiring versatile hiphop dancer who's a totally down to Earth girl too, and her friend, Christina.. who's actually an office manager when she's not at the front of class rocking routines!

Beverly Hills...

So Gayle & Ate-Joyce decided to enlighten me to the marvels of Beverly Hills today. We drove down and had a wander.. being on the student-elective budget that I was, window shopping sufficed my experience of this shopping district! Tho Ate-Joyce did find herself some shoes and a jacket. For me, all I came to do was pose a lil around Rodeo Drive! haha


I've arrived! haha


My usual check in..


Via Rodeo street


Jus chillin...


My funky Tour Guides... MJ & Gayle...




I made them look like tourists too! Mu-ha-haa!


Can't leave the US without trying one...!


Its LA.. u wear shades even when u dont need to!


I love Palm trees...


All my elec/mech eng friends from IC woulda LOVED this store!


Psssht... i could make the same outfit at home with a few clothes from H&M.. hahaha!


Oooh... pretty building...


...more palm trees... and Ate-Joyce & Gayle on the right


its ok i suppose.. =:-p


I looked like a Proper tourist taking all these pics! ha

After a tonne of walking, we rode on down to one of my favourite parts of LA.. Santa Monica and ate at PF Chang's (yes, these girls LIKE their Rice!) just off the 3rd Street Promenade..


PF Chang's in Santa Monica.. it's all about the 3rd Street...

More classes, Chinese Food & Cable TV...

So after classes at Millenium Gayle picked me up and we headed down to the Kabuki Restaurant...Gayle loves her rice! Unfortunately I couldn't make it back to North Hollywood in time for Marty =:-( But it was made up for by spending the evening with Gayle and her sister (now going by the name Ate-Joyce..which means older sister Joyce in Philipino) at Ate-Joyce's lovely townhouse in Sherman Oaks.. after dropping an eight count on Gayle and teaching her the fundamentals of waving(!) we ended the night with the extensive glory of cable TV.. and by chance the movie of epic depth - GARDEN STATE - was on.. perfect!!


Ate-Joyce always makes the most of the ReFill policy... 


Chronic, uncontrollable laughter runs in the Redor family! 


Waiter FINALLY managed to figure out how to work the camera(!)