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Journal 54: Back from Macau

So I just returned from the Macau and Hong Kong trip and I feel like I have been walking through the desert for weeks.  I can’t believe how exhausted I am.  I don’t know if it’s because I am getting older or because the area is so small that visitors feel they can walk the entire thing and not be completely wasted afterward.

But I can assure you, I am completely wasted.

Having said that, though, I can also say that I have seen the entirety of what Macau has to offer and, as always, I enjoyed my time in Hong Kong.

I only spent one day in Hong Kong this time, but it was great to get out and do a photo-walk of my favorite places thereabouts.

I visited an old friend in the market north on Nathan Road and I got to do one of my favorite things on Hong Kong Island, which was to ride the double-decker buses and shoot the views from above.  And I even ate at one of my coveted places – Agave.

I haven’t eaten good Mexican food in a long time.  So it was a welcomed visit to the restaurant.

As always, it was very expensive.  But I think that I came away with some great experiences.  And the film that is currently in post-production will be released soon – hopefully by Sunday.

Well, this is just a short journal to highlight the upcoming media from the trip.  And I also wanted to make the point of apologizing that I have not been able to release my book as planned.

I guess I just bit off more than I could chew with everything going on and also trying to stay on top of the release.  I will hopefully be able to squeeze it in there with all my edits (photo and film) for the upcoming documentary.

And then, of course, there’s the long-awaited Taiwan Documentary that I have been filming for and working on since January this year (2012).

So there’s lots happening.  And I hop that this weekend greets you all well and that I can get this film out, get the book released, give away my free copies to all promised recipients and then get on to finishing the Taiwan documentary.

Until then, I will be steadily and dedicatedly working!

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Author Spotlight: Lian Hearn

In his Japanese warrior trilogy, The Tales of the Otori, Lian Hearn dives into a gripping account of deep love, gritty warfare, mystical powers and hardened betrayal.  And he does so with the poetic prose of master writers.

The thing that I have come to appreciate the most about his writing is that the depictions of the ancient tales are woven around a latticework of what most readily appears to the western reader as a very identifiable and believable historicity that may very well have existed in the hand-me-down legends that pass through the virtual gateways of Japanese myth.  Seeing how these myths, then, play out in a western authorship, makes his books take on that very mysticism on which he bases his themes.  And that certainly goes for his style as well.

Just as in his characters’ level of patience and poise, he writes in a way that sells his scene with obvious, painstaking precision.

To say that he wrote a “trilogy,” though, isn’t quite true.  The trilogy exists and is certainly worth the read.  But he has also gone in and written a prequel and a sequel that gives a two-fold capstone to the series.

The first in the trilogy is called Across the Nightingale Floor, and talks about the young master who, unbeknownst to him, is the last in a long line of mystical tribesmen.  He’s trained at an art which he will later use to shroud his real powers — all the while honing them to become invisible, move with phantom-like fluidity and scale impossible climbs.

My review will end with this book, but I discuss more in the video.  And I don’t want to give the rest away, but you can feel free to find out more about his other books at these links:

Across the Nightingale Floor

Grass For His Pillow

Brilliance of the Moon

The video review is below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu5oXU-VzIM]

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