Sunday, June 27, 2010

You Tube Scavenger Hunt: Japan

For quite some time I have been wanting to do a serious collaboration video with someone I met online several years ago, John Pham. He is a Chicago based vlogger and online goes by the handle phampants. In recent months I have also become familiar with a Melbourne, Australia based vlogger, tezziToo. The three of us decided to do a series of videos together. i would be lying if I took credit for the concept. I mentioned to John that I wanted to make a video together, but he came up with the idea.

Free time is a fleeting thing for me. I am sitting here in my Kobe, Japan apartment waiting for the arrival of my first child. he's going to be here any time. He'll probably be here later in the week if not next weekend. With his arrival, I will probably say goodbye to the thing we call free time. My friends with children tell me that until I get my parent "groove on" and get used to the routines of being a parent, free time is all but a thing of the past.

That is precisely the reason I wanted to do this collaboration video with these two other vloggers. Although I have enjoyed video blogging "vlogging" for the past 4 years, I realize that soon, time to do so will be rare. One "rockin" collab before my hiatus was my goal.

Myself (Busan Kevin), phampants and tezziToo decided to make a scavenger hun of sorts. We gave each other five things to find in our respective cities. They were completely open to interpretation.


Here are the final products and I have to admit that I think they were all awesome!

You Tube Scavenger Hunt: Japan



You Tube Scavenger Hunt: America



You Tube Scavenger Hunt: Australia

Friday, June 25, 2010

Go Samurai Blue

The end of June is upon us and summer is here. It is officially rainy season I Japan, but to be honest, it rains about the same amount as I recall from growing up on the East Coast of Canada. Rainy Season in Japan basically means that it rains once or twice a week. Nothing remarkable at all!

One thing that is remarkable however is the fact that Team Japan "Samurai Blue" beat Denmark early this morning 3-1 and secured a spot in the final 16 at the World Cup in South Africa. As of this morning, Japan is no officially the Land of the Fairweather Fan! Two weeks ago, you'd be hard pressed to find any one in Japan who cared about Team Japan or had anything good to say about them at all. Most folks here were simply dismissing them without a thought! That has now of course changes and I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to buy an official Team Japan jersey in any sports shop.


Keisuke Honda has emerged as a star player for Team Japan. This cat is going to make boat loads of endorsement cash and deservedly so.

In other news, I am going to be a father any day now. This is a stressful time of course and any first time parent will agree that that is a natural thing. I suppose that if I wasn't nervous, something would be odd! Although I realize I haven't been especially dedicated to keeping this blog current, I may take an even more dramatic lapse from online life once the little one is here. I plan to post a video later on the weekend on You Tube, but aside from that, I think my online habits will change.


In completely other news, I thought the recent allegations on CBC news from the director of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) were pretty interesting. he claims that the Chinese government (spy agencies) have direct influence over a number of Canadian politicians on a municiple and provncial level. These allegations have of course enraged the Chinese community, but it gets more spy thriller-like when several well known security and intelligence analysts say that these are not allegations, but very true things!

Read about here:
CSIS comments anger Chinese community

Monday, June 7, 2010

Car Shows and Cafe Latte

It has been a dog's age and a half since I have made a post. For that; I am sorry. Last month was a vlog fest for Kevin. I had promised my You Tube viewers that I would post a vlog everyday for the month of May and I did. I can honestly say that while it was fun to do (most of the time), I am happy May is now complete.

Many things have been going on since then. Mostly, work. I have been working six days a week, going to Japanese class and running a lot. I have basically had very little time to decompress. Also, my wife and I are expecting our first child any week/day now. He will be here by the end of the month or the beginning of July. It is a very exciting time for sure!

Yesterday (Sunday) was a great day to hang out with my wife, do some shopping and talk about the great things we plan to do with our little one once he arrives.



Enjoyed an iced latte at Excelsior Coffee in Kobe (near Chinatown) yesterday. Normally I go to Starbucks, but the shop was too crowded to get a seat. The Excelsior Coffee next door had plenty of seats. I suppose that might be a reflection on the coffee? It still tasted pretty good to me!



In the morning I went for my Sunday morning long run around Kobe. Luckily I had my iPhone packed away with me. I stumbled across the "Extreme Custom Car Show" along the waterfront her in Kobe. Although I am not really interested in cars, I have to admit, there were some pretty damn cool bikes and cars here! I also found it pretty weird that most of the Japanese guys who own the custom cars have adopted a Hispanic gangster look!

Here are a few shots of the cars I saw and a video I posted!