Category Archives: TRAVEL

This One Goes Out to Bow E3

Posted on by
52

When Love Bang/Super Ayi Cleaning team went to London last month, we stayed on our friend’s couch in an ex-council flat near Victoria Park, right on the edge between Hackney-Wick and Bow. Post codes in London are kinda like city blocks (or census tracts) in a big American city, especially in terms of gangs and their allegiance to certain neighborhoods.

Apparently the area we stayed in was pretty hood like five years ago, and walking around the Roman Road Market (chicken shops, gambling spots, bodegas) at night still felt  sketch. The sun goes down, all the shops close, and the streets empty out till the block feels like Resident Evil 2. One night a car full of dudes pulled up on us in an old Honda with no headlights and we thought for sure we were about to get robbed/stabbed but nothing happened.

E3 nothing like Shanghai, that’s for sure. You could walk for fifteen minutes in E3 after midnight and not find an open convenience store, but you might find some trouble. Still though, I like this neighborhood. It’s real, and not-yet gentrified. Two pounds bought me a much-needed winter hat that some hipster girls in Shoreditch thought was really fashion. However, by the looks of the “Artisan Waffles” for sale on the edges of the Roman Road Market on a weekend morning, this place may look quite different in five years and that hat may cost like fifteen pounds.

Reverse culture shock is the strongest. Really weird, after five+ years in Asia, to see a working-class street market with all non-Asians working and shopping there. Like, bargaining with a 70-year-old white guy over the price of a cheap hat.

To the best of my limited knowledge, this is the ultimate Bow E3 track, by Eski boi Wiley. He shouts out Candy Street, which is right next to where we stayed. Shout out to Alta for putting me onto this track.

Wiley – Bow E3

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I don’t understand the “no ball games” signs everywhere. Yeah balls make noise but what else are kids gonna do? Maybe that’s why there’s so many youth stabbings in the UK.

 

UK TRIP DAY ONE: TWO HOURS IN DUBAI

Posted on by
628

Spent two hours in the Dubai airport yesterday, and dem got my money. Ate a Spicy Chicken Big Mac and bought a New Yorker + Foreign Affairs, for a total of about $40.00. Also copped some rare, Dubai exclusive colored pencils. I’ve been waiting for some new colors to come out and Dubai came through.

This place has the ethnic diversity of Singapore, but with Middle Eastern rather than Asian flavor. We saw smoking rooms filled with Sheikhs smoking long, skinny pipes filled with fine green tobacco, full-on jewelry/gold dealers and waterfalls in the middle of the terminal, and people washing their feet in the restroom sinks before prayer (prayer rooms for sure).

From miles above in our excellently piloted Airbus 388, the city looked like seeds scattered throughout pure dessert with the occasional patch of manmade green. After some heavy turbulence, we got the smoothest landing ever. Felt like we landed on pillows.

Starkey – Command

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

LOVE BANG LONDON, PART ONE

Posted on by
1,391

I’m super excited to announce that next Tuesday morning, DJ Caution and I are embarking on a journey to the West. We’ll be in London and some other undecided cities for about two weeks, just chilling, going to nights, shopping for vinyl, and spending that China money. If you’re out there, make sure to holler at us on our Facebook page.

Here’s the poster for the first of two Love Bang parties we’re doing out there. Special thanks to my homegirl Erin for setting this one up. BOX HOUSE WUT.

Speaking of London, this finally dropped after much anticipation. Hopefully we’ll get to check out a Night Slugs event while we’re in town.

Girl Unit – Double Take Part II

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

From the Night Slugs Allstars Volume 2 comp that just dropped. Buy it here.

 

 

hitchhiking down a mountain in a walnut van, in hangzhou

Posted on by
1,477

Went to Hangzhou a few weeks ago. This small city of six million peeps an hour from Shanghai boasts West Lake, a feichang piaoliang // majestically beautiful place. True, but you can’t swim there. Growing up forty-five minutes away from Lake Michigan at South Haven, I can’t understand this. Like, if I just had to walk along the beach at Lake Michigan (basically like the ocean/差不多) but not go in the water…that’d be fucked up.

But Hangzhou does have mountains, something you won’t find in Shanghai, not counting mountains of 发票s/fapiaos or cash. On a Sunday walking around mountains and blue ponds. Don’t know why this pond is blue.

And met a lovable dog with a crooked face at a 农家乐 restaurant. 农家乐 = nong jia le, country home happiness restaurant/possibly hotel, in the owner’s house.

These restaurants are dank and affordable, like RMB100 – 200 ($14 – 28) for two – three people to eat really well on some home cooked Chinese food. Especially eggs, always try the eggs at country home happiness restaurants. So fresh. Chill owners too.

As daylight was packing up we still had an hour walk back down the mountain. Luckily an old grey sliding-door van crept down the hill by our outoor table, blasting an advertisement for 核桃 (hetao – walnuts). We negotiated a kilo of walnuts and a ride down the mountain for RMB60 (about $10). No seats in the back, just sacks of nuts and digital scales. I shouted out the window “赶快来买世界上最好的核桃,” but no one bought any. The uncle driving the van got out and patted me on the back when we reached the bottom.

Some songs for hitchhiking down a mountain in a walnut truck -

(1984) Horace Ferguson – Sensi addict

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(1996) Redman – Pick It Up

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.