Taipei – akadjblaze

2014 Review

January 14, 2015 by akadjblaze, posted in Monthly Reviews

So, since the FB year in Review this time round completely sucked balls and since I have my own webpage, I feel it’s only natural that I post up my review here 🙂

It’s 2015 already, that came by quickly… In this day and age time really does seem to just fly by, with so much going on in our lives it makes sense So before getting into this year properly, time to reflect on 2014 which was another good year for me and have managed to solidify myself in the DJ scene more and towards the end of the year started working on connections to further myself in 2015. Its all about that ground work! Had plenty of little achievements in 2014 but the main highlights for me were

– 2nd Place BeFM (again)

– DJn for Redbull at UMF

– Looking after my health, dropping 10kg and getting my fitness buzz back on

– Globe Trotting (Bali, Tokyo, Taipei, Shanghai, Boracay)

– Meeting Jazzy Jeff!

– Starting a sport I have always wanted to do (Archery, new bow on its way!)

– Some crazy parties and nights out (stock standard as a DJ)

– Learning how to record and produce as well as hooking up with some new MC’s

– A pretty good year playing touch

So those are my highlights for the year, not bad but still need to keep building on them, had a couple of failed and missed opportunities last year but that’s just the way it goes. The failed ones are ones I chose to pull out of, the missed ones, well will be looking at changing those this year, so without further ado, my goals for 2015, these are the end goals, things I hope to achieve by the end of the year, there will be plenty of short term goals in-between, but these are what I ultimately want to achieve this year

– Travel to at least 2 countries this year (possibly more, depends if I can do a tour again this year)

– DJ at UMF and WDF again

– DJ on a big stage at a festival this year

– DJ a main set at one of the big clubs

– Gain a new residency

– Drop to 80-82kg

– Release a mixtape (Major Flavours style) using local artists

– Release a track of my own creation

– Perform a DJ/MC set of my own design (details will come later)

– Learn/Try a new sport (there is a couple I want to try again or pick up properly)

At the end of 2015, I will endeavor to revisit this list and see how much of it I can tick off! I might also add a few more goals to this list, but as of now, this is where my sights are set! Let’s go!

Review: June, July & August

September 18, 2014September 18, 2014 by akadjblaze, posted in Monthly Reviews

Ok so it has been a busy last few months, 3 trips overseas, various gigs as well as my usual ones so here is a quick recap of what I have been doing these last few months

June

Well June was a interesting month, I got to do some pretty cool things and also finished my 12 week challenge, 10kg lighter and back up to maybe 75% on the touch field

– Spent my birthday and long weekend running around Japan buying as much stuff as I could! Harajuku for clothes and Akihabara for my anime obsession

– Next weekend was UMF which I got to jam out in the redbull party jeep, pretty cool that I got to go to UMF, wasn’t the greatest of festivals but it is def one of the biggest in Korea and around the world… just a shame the line up was mud

– Spun at venue, nothing but old skool and a bit of a MJ tribute. Also it was a great crowd for early on so made the night even better

Well that was June, short but eventful.

July

July proved to be less busy, was back at venue again but the night ended up being a dud unfortunately. The main thing for July was taking on a new residence at King Club, however that ended up being short lived. Scroll to the bottom for that story…

– I spent most of the time working on my BeFM set.

– I did take a trip to Taipei which was a lot of fun

– Met with Blossom Day which was a kick start to working with JC

– TBT at Venue with Pinnacle and Rich Ben, pitty it was a dud of a night

And that was July

August was a good month

– 2^nd Place at BeFM with a trip down to Busan, rocking it out on Gwangali

– Went to WDJ Festival with DJ Korea, jamming in the tent again, but to less fanfare than last year

– Started to do some proper work with JC, exciting times ahead working with her, but did have a fun night out at Bar Fly

– Started on some other projects including learning to produce music

And some other random things I got up to in August…

Went to the One Piece expo in Seoul, it was cool, mostly based around the Marine Ford Arc which was of course total epicness! (Full review in another post)

Went to my first Baseball game in Korea

And that was August, simple but fun, Sept is halfway done but it is also turning out to be another great month, it’s already coming into Autumn and the end of the year is rapidly approaching… again…

So here goes with the King Club story

My hours at bar fly changed to the late shift, so it opened up a time for me to play somewhere else, I was going to look at a second residency after summer since I am usually busy during summer but King Club offered so I thought why not, they are under new ownership and have a new direction that wanted to go in so at first I was excited about working there, because honestly I never liked the place at all or the people that use to frequent it but the hope that it would change and the possibility of the place had me in… But as I began working there it was quickly apparent that any change was going to be slow if at all. The American soldiers still frequented the place, and they bring their own brand of bullshit with them (for the 4 weeks I was there, there was at least 1 fight each weekend…) as well as wanting to hear all the new shit that you can’t dance too. The music they (the boss etc) wanted me to play wasn’t the kind of music the crowd they want to attract want to hear (I even had the bouncer? stop me at the door and start going on about some shit with the music, I just gave him the yeah whatever, like I’m going to listen to you look and walked on by, I listen to the crowd and the boss, not you) and it was just becoming apparent that the direction they wanted to go in was pretty blurry. Also at Bar Fly, the boss asked me to switch back to my old time, so since they come first, had to talk to king club and see if could switch up the schedule, the problem is all of the DJs there have a second residency that is more important to them than king club so none of them can change, which was fine with me, I was the late comer to the party and also working there was really starting to become an annoyance rather than fun, not to say I didn’t have some fun there thou! The place has a lot of potential, always has, and has some good people working there but as is always the way, direction needs to be decisive, not blurry… and changing styles up between the military and Korean/expat scene… seriously there is a reason why I hate Itaewon and even more so hate those young American soldiers and all their bullshit. I avoid the place like the plague

My Holiday to Taipei

September 11, 2014September 16, 2014 by akadjblaze, posted in DJ on the Road

Taipei is a pretty nice city, very green and settled in what I believe used to be a lake bed till it drained out thousands of years ago (I think there is still some remnants of the water towards the center of the city, but if your that interested, Wikipedia and Google!) Anyways my trip got off to a stella start with being upgraded to business class on my flight, got to love that, the reason thou being over booked is a bit of a fail… but apparently airlines do this to cover themselves in case of changes or cancelations… I’m guessing last min ones but still, it can be a risk, but in my case it was a gain.

Arrive in Taipei and wholly shit is it hot there, but the first thing I notice is how clear the sky is and how green it is, kind of puts Seoul to shame really. After checking in at the hotel I decided to check out Taipei 101 since its close to my hotel and not sure what my next 2 days will entail so thought might as well bang it out early. Easy enough to get there, the place is really modern and has that feel to it, however it is def off set by all the 100’s of tourists floating around, and since it was a Sunday, screaming shit kids. The wait to get on the elevator going up was maybe 30-40mins so not too bad given the elevator ride to the top only takes all of only 40 seconds and the view at the top is def worth it.

Taipei is a funny city in that it doesn’t have a huge amount of high buildings or a big concentration of them in a single area so 101 really stands out (almost comically if you wana be a stink guy about it) The view at the top and seeing the mountains surrounding the city is really something. The tower itself is nothing overly special, well it is but as far as towers go they all have their own little something. 101 has this huge ass swinging ball as a wind dampener (cue dirty jokes) but it is an impressive structure and if it wasn’t so tourist heavy the surrounding/adjacent mall and facilities would be much more bearable. I wanted to eat there but yeah nah, waaay to busy so ended up getting a feed from a place close to my hotel that sold NZ beef, score! and dam, the price of food is really cheap

So on to my second day, was meant to meet up with my friend but didn’t hear from so decided to first go check out a popular anime spot I had read about under Taipei Main Station, well its not actually under the station, its close to it thou (ill post specific directions in another post) but it quickly became apparent that a lot of shopping in Taipei is located underground almost directly following the subway lines, the mall here wasn’t huge, but looooong! and that was only the part I checked out. As far as toys go, they (and it seems everyone else) is miles ahead of Korea… weird but my guess is Korea is still on that whole anti Japanese buzz could be the reason… But I digress, there was many small shops rocking mostly One Piece, Hatsune Miku, Gundam and various other popular anime products, but not many of the less popular ones as expected. I was surprised to see some old G1 transformers floating around. After grabbing a feed here I decided to check out Xmien, the main ‘trendy’ shopping district, similar to Harajuku in Japan, and it is very similar but I did notice that the same local brands tended to show up in most places, it did however make a nice change from seeing immigrant Nigerians (or whatever country) peddling their bullshit gears. The area consists of maybe 4 blocks by 4 blocks space worth of shops, lots of stuff tucked away in small places but the best spot to check out is the department store, well its not really a department store, its just a big ass building fill to the brim with a heap of really good shops, kicks, clothes and anime, winning! Anyways I ended up spending most of the day shopping and by the time I rocked back to the hotel, it was food and crash while deciding what the hell to do on my next day…

I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I decided to go to the zoo, i thought about doing the temples and museums etc but honestly there is too much associated history that I know nothing about so doing those sites kind of felt pointless (I wasn’t in the mood to learn either) so I decided the zoo would be great since it is a well known zoo, and I have never seen Pandas before! So after lunch I headed out to the zoo, so easy to get to, just jump on the subway (side note, the subway system there is really good, clean and efficient) It was a little tricky at first to figure out how to plan my zoo trip since there was no real guides at the entry but I figured it out pretty quickly and started making my way thru the different sections checking out the animals. Now I love animals, I think they are so amazing and beautiful, so seeing them in a zoo is both a pleasure and depressing at the same time. Feeling happy that I can see these amazing animals but depressing that I cant see them wild and free in their natural habitat because humans are basically heartless, greedy fucktards.

First stop was the Pandas, I want one! But my god, their enclosure was just depressing, I felt so sorry for them. The line was pretty big, but the cueing line for when it gets really busy was insane, I would hate to hit there during a weekend, i was there on a Tuesday arvo, it might be holidays at the moment, I’m not sure who is and who isn’t on holiday but you can be sure weekends are stay away times. Anyways after the pandas I steadily made my way from the bottom up to the top of the valley which the zoo is nestled in, they have done well with the space they have, but as always, more is better. I really enjoyed my time at the zoo, however, people, control your fucking children! I could see quite a few people getting really pissed off with how some of the kids were acting and I was beginning to get the same way too, poor animals, having to live with that shit everyday, its bad enough they are stuck in cages…

After the zoo i decided to head up the gondola after hearing/reading it was worth the trip, yup it was! the ride is maybe 30mins of nothing but spectacular views all the way to the top where you kind of just get dumped in a hillside community that’s famous for its tea houses. I looked around for one that would have a good view of the sunset and found one that was pretty much perfect, funny that the lady beckoned my to come in but I had every intention of going there. I was surprised how quiet it was but I guess it was a weekday. Anyways had some fresh tea (im not a tea person but it tasted good0 and had some wild chicken, that ended up being waaay bigger than I thought it would be, but at any rate I got to enjoy an awesome sunset. Headed back down and made my way back to the hotel to crash again after a long ass weekend! Kind of failed with my flight time, need to remember to coincide my flight time with my check out time.