Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a total one off as a city. It has all the shiny new sky scrapers that mark out it's distinct skyline, but it also has all the hustle and bustle of chinese street markets down at ground level. In comparison to the West with it's half empty shopping malls, their streets are full of bustling shops and stalls, all doing business and catering to the many nationalities that inhabit and visit Hong Kong. The city has it's shopping plaza's too with names like Prada and DKNY, but to experience the real local urban Chinese lifestyle you have to go to Yau Ma Tei or Mongkok on Kowloon Island.

Here are a few photo's from the city :

The Vaccines

A UK Indie band to watch out for in 2012 will be The Vaccines. Their CD - What Did You Expect From The Vaccines - has a great, rough edged guitar sound, and they have been nominated as the Best Breakthrough Act at the 2012 Brit Awards.

Here is a track called - If You Wanna - it just zooms along !

Pylones

It was a good decision to take the escalators right to the top of the Time Square shopping plaza in Hong Kong. Right on the top level is the Pylones store. There is also one downstairs in Macy's in New York, but this is a stand alone store that's packed full of their products for the home in vibrant bright colours. Their products include toys, items for the kitchen, and fun office accessories in bright prints.

The Robot kitchen timers were great and had springs for legs !

Most of their products would make great collectibles !

The Antrim Coast

The northern Irish coast is a wild and exciting place, especially in the winter time. This year there has been storm after storm battering the rugged coastline, and these past two weeks have been no exception. It really does take your breath away walking along the cliff walks especially when the wind is gusting up to 70 miles an hour, and the white topped waves are crashing in on the rocks below. Here are a few pictures taken mainly around Port Stewart and Cushendun in the past couple of weeks :

The view from high above Cushendun, the storm clouds almost turned day into night, and then the sun found a way though :  

Port Stewart one windy Sunday morning, the boats were safer OUT of the water : 

Something New For The New Year - First Aid Kit

Klara & Johanna Soderberg are from Sweden aged 17 and 19 respectively. They are also known as First Aid Kit ! We were out driving the other day and the dj on the radio kept going on about this new band she thought were amazing. At that point I usually blank out because the bands don't live up to the build up, but as soon as you hear First Aid Kit their voices just mesmerize and make you want to hear more ! 2012 is going to be a big year for them, here is a song from their very first album The Big Black and The Blue called Hard Believer :

Patina - Better Late Than Never !

The last time I went to Patina in Minneapolis back in August, I took so many photo's. I managed to post quite a few here, and had every intention to put the rest up at a later date. Finally the later date is here, and the photo's are as relevant now as they were then :

Who knew owls could look so cute ! 

A couple of great baby T shirts :

Foster The People

Foster The People have been around for some time now, and a few friends have said we should really get a listen to them ! So having just listened to their album Torches it's easy to see why they are so popular. This track 'Call It What You Want' has been playing on the radio for a while but I never realised who the band was until today :