It Comes Naturally

Posted on August 8, 2011 by drdavient
It Come Naturally Poster

A Festival About Identity

This weekend I have been MC ing the first half of “It Comes Naturally…”, A Theatre Festival about Identity. It has been a wonderful experience. I know that I often perform in front of a crowd singing and chatting with the audience, improvising, or performing a role from a script. But this is different, for one specific reason: I have had to write my own material and  perform it after the fact to an unknown crowd.

Maybe this doesn’t sound very different but to me it is. When singing covers of rock songs, well thousands of people have already verified that the songs are good! When singing our own Red Pirates material we (the band) all enjoy the music we write, if someone else doesn’t, well, it doesn’t seem to matter.  After all we Continue reading →

Posted in China, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mosquitos can help you defrag…

Posted on May 2, 2011 by drdavient

I’m currently at the Mosquito event in Beijing .  Mosquito group that attempts to prevent and recover from fragmentation in the mobile internet.

This is particularly interesting to me as I am now looking to develop casual games for the mobile market.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Word Fressh

Posted on April 3, 2011 by drdavient

So I’ve finally gone and done it. I’ve migrated my blog from blogger to a self hosted install of WordPress. I had decided to do this a long time ago for several good reasons, most of which I have forgotten. However, the most important was to enable worldwide access to anyone who might want to look at my pages despite any bad Internet weather that might be occurring. Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, WordPress | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Corners of China

Posted on March 20, 2010 by drdavient

Temple of Heaven
I’ve been very busy recently editing papers for the academic journal Frontiers in Computer Science China. In a short break I’ve just put together a selection of pictures that I’ve been taking over the past 6 months in China. They summarise some of the beauty that I have experienced here by looking at things that I would not normally see or those I have viewed in an alternative way. Please visit my gallery Corners of China.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Not Blogging

Posted on February 5, 2010 by drdavient

The last months have drifted by without me putting together a single post here. I’ve wanted to write about all my experiences here in China. So many interesting, or not so interesting things that I want to write about but never seem to find the time to. I guess it’s the story of my life and that of many others with a similar mind state. I want to make everything I write “complete”, or in the original sense of the word “perfect”. Continue reading →

Posted in China, Personal rant, Sorry | Leave a comment

Arrival in China

Posted on September 24, 2009 by drdavient

So I’ve been behind in terms of posting and I’m now with Liz in Beijing China. A swift update here to get everyone up to speed :) I spent two weeks in Vietnam visiting Iain. We had a great time scuba diving in Nha Trang during the first week and even did a night dive. The second week was spent in Saigon and the a brief visit to Ha Noi where I took the train all the way to Beijing. I hope to backtrack when I have a moment and give some detail to the happenings here.

Short and sweet I know, but more to follow once we get our home internet fixed up. It’s taken 3 days to discover that we still have no explanation as to why it doesn’t work. Oh well.

Love from China!

Posted in China, travelling, Vietnam | Leave a comment

A rare day of sunshine

Posted on September 6, 2009 by drdavient

As I awoke one morning in Langkawi I was deafened by silence. The interminable rain had stopped. Hooray! Myself and a fellow traveller Emma rented a motor scooter and headed to the far North East of the island. We had calculated the tides and we should be able to walk across a sand bar to another island.

Riding the roads in Langkawi is fabulous, very few cars and bikes give us a real sense of freedom after being trapped by the rain for so long. Continue reading →

Posted in malaysia, travelling | Leave a comment

Kuala Lumpar, Penang

Posted on August 24, 2009 by drdavient

In KL I soon got a true feeling for the weather that was in store for me. Hot, humid and hotter. The temperature was around 38C and felt closer to 48C thanks to the high humidity. Zaff and I dumped my big suitcase in a Locker and we headed to the Red Dragon guest house in Chinatown. Getting there was a 10 minute walk that took 40 since we were told the wrong street name for the guest house and there was a street market completely filling the road, milling with tourists bartering with the locals. Continue reading →

Posted in Kuala lumpar, malaysia, Penang, travelling | 1 Comment

The Iron Dragon to the East

Posted on August 16, 2009 by drdavient

As we flew over the Tyne looking down upon the bridges for a final time, I finally felt that our journey had begun. Liz sitting beside me, smiling brightly we we flew onward into our new life in the East.

Liz and I spent our last hours together in Dubai Airport, between midnight and three am. The place is great, it has a waterfall about 50 meters wide and more than 3 floors high! Going into the departure lounge of Terminal 3 feels more like entering a Vegas hotel. Separating at the departure gates we exchange good luck and wave goodbye.

Arriving at Kuala Lumpur Sentral on the express train from the airport I lug my too many bags through the barriers. There I am greeted with a huge man hug and the ever infectious smile of Zaff! It’s so great to see him again after two years.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Journey Will Begin

Posted on August 6, 2009 by drdavient

On the 12th of August Liz and I begin our journey to the East. We’re flying Emirates from Newcastle airport departing at 13:35. We part ways in Dubai and Liz flies on to Beijing whilst I will be heading further south.

Liz is going to be living Dave free for one month, getting streetwise in Beijing. She will discover what has become of the city of dreams one year after it hosted the Olympic Games.

I’m going to be spending 2 weeks in Malaysia and then 2 weeks in Vietnam visiting my good friends Zafrie Zainuddin and Iain Wood respectively,  Both have been missing from life in Newcastle since they left two years ago.  It’ll be fantastic to catch up with them again.

I guess at some point during this time I will need to fix my plans for what I’ll be doing in China.  I’ll have to chase up the Nokia job and apply for others. Backup plans of teaching English, playing music or professional on line poker play are still there, so there are a few options.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment