Tokyo really lends itself to video, so here's two more I like (both are timelapses): Nice that they use one of my favourite soundtracks in the second one.. both via pinktentacle

Thanks to Australias Channel 9, the twitter rumour that Jeff Goldblum had fallen off a cliff and died while filming a movie in New Zealand became official. He came back from the dead though on the Colbert Report.. The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum link

Continuing my perverse interest in subway ideas for Dublin (well, metros and undergrounds are pretty cool anyway), this presentation was released recently showing the most recent CGI rendering of a Dublin metro. Nicer link to the agency's full presentation video on their website here The bare minimum concrete walls of all the stations aren't exactly inspiring but at least they seem to have decided to finally build the thing, amazing despite the recession. I would have thought a valuable and permanent piece of infrastructure desperately needed by the city would be the first thing to get axed by the not so far seeing politicians.

Interesting reference to a gallery of Irish Handball alleys from architecture (and generally interesting site) Pruned.com. I remember seeing a few of these in rural towns but it never occurred to me to think of them as: "a Brutalist void-sculpture commemorating the lost generation and a nostalgic reminder of a mythic happier time before the diaspora." link

Very cool tilt-shift style video of Tokyo .. .. which is surprisingly not connected to this Uniqlo calendar website thingy: via tokyomango.com

The flights back to Sydney were a whole lot better - half empty planes meant that a few times I had a whole centre row where I could stretch out and also, thanks to some pills, catch a little shut eye. Initially leaving London though, with the Air France crash in the back of my mind, I was really unnerved to see a few passengers running down the aisle before we departed, and the pilot subsequently announcing that a few passengers had changed their mind about the flight and that there would be a delay while their baggage was unloaded and a security check was done. I tried to push thoughts of Final Destination from my mind. I would have had the long flight from Dubai back to Sydney with a row all to myself were it not for some interruptions. Not long after taking off a posh, middle aged British lady stopped a flight attendant near my row to say "I'm seated beside an EXTREMELY large man, may I sit somewhere else?". That somewhere else was in my row. I still managed to nap a little bit, scrunched up in some sort of fetal position while still managing to keep my belt fastened. When I woke up though, another passenger tried to grab my attention. This guy turned out to be a 56 year old ganja smoking, professional niteclub dancer in Ibiza, living in Holland but originally Indonesian, with muscles that could only be achieved by a hell of a lot more time in the gym than I devote - who proceeded to give me his life story, including lots of photos of him with his arms around girls young enough to be his daughters. He got off in Bangkok though, on his way to a tour of SE Asia. The rest of us flew on, thankfully uneventfully, to Sydney 10 hours later.

Back a few days now, and while I wouldn't quite say its been roasting hot, I'm embarassed to say I've come all the way from Sydney and got sunburned in a usually raining and miserable Dublin. Listening to everyone these past couple of days in shock and awe at the run of sunny days just confirms how absolutely starved of sunshine people are. I did my godfatherly duties for the Christening on Sunday and got to try and figure out the controls to my new camera - yaaay new camera! It weights a tonne and makes a loud ka-chung! sound when you take a photo, but its fun to just hold your finger down on the button and take 10 photos at once, or zoom up close and take a snap of someones nostril hair. Went into Dublin city centre to see if much had changed and whether the recession has really shown itself. True some places were filthy and boarded up, but you could put that down to the bank holiday weekend as much as anything. There's a new bridge, some fancy new buildings in the docklands, a half built new football stadium and still a few other cranes on the skyline. Smithfield and the area around my old apartment was looking a little run down though, despite the fancy new arty cinema. There was certainly no feeling of getting used to the country again, or a sense of reverse-culture shock. Actually it feels like I was here just a few weeks ago. But I'll be out of here again in less than a week.

Man alive that was a long flight... Due to fly out from Sydney at 6.45pm, I was naively confident of actually falling asleep on the plane. That idea was trashed when I saw on the airport tv screens that my flight would be making an extra - scheduled - stop, even though nothing was said on my reservation or ticket. Now I'd have to get off the plane in the middle of the night and there would be no chance of sleep. I tried to complain about this to the security people while I was being swabbed for explosives, but they said it happens quite often and people landing in Sydney always complain to them first. Great. For the next 16 hours I was squeezed in at the window next to an Indian couple who annoyingly fell asleep as soon as we took off and whom I had to wake anytime I wanted to stand up. 9 Hours into the flight we landed in Bangkok, but instead of getting out we had to stay onboard while a whole load of Thai cleaners got on through the rear door and started vacuuming around our feet and cleaning up the rubbish - there was soo much rubbish. We landed in Dubai 6 hours later; 6am outside the window and 40 degrees. Took off an hour and a half later on a fancy new A380 double-decker, but its kind of hard to notice its anything special when you can't see the stairs upstairs. Still, Emirates airlines has nice big tv screens with a bazillion movies to watch. I watched the first 10 minutes of a load of them and tried to sleep. Landed in Heathrow 7 hours later, not sure of the time or whether I should be eating breakfast or dinner. Had a panini and a crap coffee in a Nero's cafe - I think they must quarantine panini in Sydney Border Security for some reason as it was the first one I'd seen in a year and a half. A few hours later I was on a plane again, this time to Dublin, half empty because of the recession and the football on tv.. landed in Ireland only 30 hours after I took off. I am not stepping back on a plane again without pills! Now that that's off my chest, its nice to be back :)