Vietnam etc.
Vietnam has been great so far, everyone has been very warm and nice to us and the food has been great. We had our sound check at the venue this morning at 9:30 AM. It was pretty unorganized and they were behind schedule. The venue is HUGE and holds 3600+ people and we’re told it’s sold out. The view from the stage is pretty crazy and the audience seems so far away. The place is normally used for classical music and conferences. Take a look at the picture.
We got bac k to the hotel around 1 PM and I feel asleep instantly and woke up to our manager calling me telling me I’m late for some TV interviews. Get to the conference room half asleep and I’m forced to go through 6 more TV interviews and act as if I’m pumped up for some TV interviews. They went well and I was able to go back to my room and catch up on some lost sleep.
Later this evening Josh, Jody Daniel and I ditched our bodyguards and went shopping. It was pretty funny; when they weren’t looking we ran out the front door and split up really quickly and met up at a bank about a 1/8 of a mile away. It seems like every time I turn around my guy is there hovering around me. Its actually quite annoying and trying to loose them has been a fun challenge. This morning I walked out of my room and my guy had been standing there all night next to my door waiting. I walked out quickly as he turned away and snuck in the elevator and pressed the close button. He noticed I got in the elevator and rushed over. I looked at him with that look everyone gives you when you barely miss the elevator and you make the “sorry face” through the 6 inch opening right before it closes. When we escaped this evening from them they gave us a hard time and reprimanded us so we told them we’d be more careful.
We did some interesting shopping. Hanoi has been the most interesting city we’ve visited by far. A lot of Asia is westernized especially Hong Kong. Hanoi is not at all in fact it has been the toughest to get around and understand people. The four of us went shopping tonight and had a great time. We all bought very unique items and the US dollar despite the current economic disaster does really well here. Everyone prefers we pay in US dollar. I spent about 7.50 today and got some really nice fun stuff. I got a few little statues a little Buddha guy (Probably painted with lead paint) some weird copper mini dish with a garden sketch on it. The most interesting thing we found though were US Dog Tags from the Vietnam War. It was really sad o go through these Dog Tags of actual people who had died in the war. I thought I’d buy one because I had heard of someone giving a Vietnam Dog Tag to a vet who had lost his 35 years ago. The street vendor sold me one for one US dollar and I took it back to the hotel and looked up the individual’s name. I sent the info to a website where a lady helps find family members to return the dog tags to. From what I’ve read she is quite successful and would be a cool thing to have retuned to a family member. In some cases the people are still alive and just lost the dog tags 35 years earlier. The guy had 8-10 more dog tags and I was thinking about buying up the rest with the intent to find them owners. I hope I can find time to go and buy them tomorrow.
I’m going to bed now. But you should check out my awesome pictures below:
You can see the venue that we’re playing in tomorrow. I also took a picture when were were shopping on some fake iPods that I thought were pretty funny. Probably the funniest picture though is the one of all the tech crew guys helping Daniel out with his drums. “Helping” is probably the wrong word, maybe “getting in the way” works better. There is also a giant poster of us and I’m feeling my beard in the picture.
Completely Spoiled
Arrived in Hanoi Vietnam after a 4 hour flight from Kuala Lumpur this afternoon. Josh, Daniel and I all agree this is by far the most extravagant part of the tour yet. As soon as were arrived at the airport we were each greeted with huge bouquets of flowers, TV cameras and fans. It was pretty spectacular and we’re feeling very spoiled and lucky right now. The hotel they put us up in is pretty unbelievable; it’s called the Sofitel Metropole in Hanoi. We each get our own suite of course but what is even crazier is the treatment we’re getting. Each of us has our own butler who is on call 24 hours a day. Anything we want we call and they get for us. I know it sounds crazy and thats because it is. I swear on my life I didn’t ask for this treatment if I did I think that would be ridiculous. Not only do we have our own butler on call 24 hours a day we each have our own bodyguard. No…I wish I was lying but I’m not, I feel stupid just typing this. They told us it wasn’t safe for us to walk around by ourselves so they assigned bodyguards to walk with us. My bodyguard even follows me to the restroom and wears a black suit and acts and looks intimidating.
We had an hour-long press conference at the hotel today. I drank a bunch of tea before we went on the stage which turned our to be a bad idea. The translation thing during these events sometimes makes them twice as long as they should be. I had to use the restroom so bad I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t get up and leave there were 300+ people looking at us asking us questions so I had to hold off until then end. Soon as it was over I ran to the restroom and my bodyguard followed.
We have our sound check tomorrow at 9 AM but we don’t plat until October 1st so after our sound check we’ll be free most of the day. I think we leave Hanoi on the 3rd, I can’t believe we’ve been gone for over two weeks already. I’ll be sad when I have to get back to normal life (No massages, room service or butlers) back in Los Angeles but I’m also excited to get back so I can see Alisha.
Check out my bouquet of flowers, they look like birds of paradise. You should also look at the rose pedals in the toilets in my room (About time they did something right here).
Karma Chameleon & a back massage.
Friday in Kuala Lumpur we had a little free time so I thought I’d check out the spa and get a massage. Josh has taken full advantage of the hotel incidentals being completely covered by the tour. He’s gotten a massage and spa treatments in every city so I thought I’d take advantage of it too. We were staying at the Traders Hotel, which was a really nice hotel in K.L. I reserved a time and headed up to the “spa”. Apparently the real spa is undergoing some renovation so they just changed one of the floors and some smaller rooms in to the spa. It didn’t bother me until I walked in the room and I noticed the music they were playing was from the television and was one of the music stations on TV. I got ready and laid down on the table and thought maybe this is just the music they play while you’re getting ready. About 5 minutes in to the massage I heard Karma Chameleon followed by a George Michael tune then some commercials in Chinese. The older lady giving the massage was a little chatty and I think too old and weak to be giving massages. About 30 minutes in to the massage I heard a commercial for a contest to win tickets to the “Until June Hennessy Artistry Concert” the next day. It was free so I guess I can’t complain but it was funny. Nothing says relaxing time at the spa like “Karma Chameleon”.
Here is the Hotel:
http://www.shangri-la.com/en/property/kualalumpur/traders
Day Off
We couldn’t leave for Vietnam until the 29th because of the Visa screw up. This worked to our advantage because we were able to sit around, sleep in and do some sight seeing here in Kuala Lumpur. We visited the Batu Caves outside of Kuala Lumpur and went hiking to some water falls. At both locations there were monkey everywhere, I was pretty excited about that. The monkeys were used to humans being around so they weren’t shy and didn’t move when we took pictures of them. Here are a few pics from the adventure today. Tomorrow we leave for Hanoi Vietnam and our show is on October 1st.
We had our show last night and it was great. It wasn’t our best sounding show but we had the greatest response. There were over 2000 people inside and more outside waiting to get in. We pulled up to the venue and as soon as we stepped out there were over 150 cameras taking pictures of us and people wanting to interview us. It was pretty exciting when we were speaking to someone earlier yesterday when they told us how big our fan base was.
I have so many stories but very little time to write. Maybe tomorrow on our flight to Hanoi I’ll try to write a more detailed version of our days here in Kuala Lumpur.
Another Video
I uploaded a video of some clips of before and during our Guangzhou China show. I snuck the camera on the stage just like I did at the Athens show back in June. I put the camera on my amp which was a bad idea because it’s aimed at my butt the entire time. I’m sorry to disappoint everyone but I kept the video short so my rear end doesn’t steal the show.
New video link below:
http://gallery.me.com/danielballard/100172
I’ve also updated the look of my blog a little the header picture was taken during our tour in Athens.
Youtube Video
Here is a video of Josh singing the song in Chinese I mentioned a few days back. This was taken at the Hong Kong show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxtmbYRiDlU
I think this was only the second time he had sung the song and I think he did pretty darn well.
Here are a few iphone pictures from our shopping adventure at the night market in Taiwan the other night. My favorite hat is the one that says “Sexy New York Tokyo”. I regret that I never bought it.
I’ve also included a picture of my laundry because it was wrapped so nicely and looked so pretty.
Tie Juan
Our visit to Taiwan has been great, although we were only there for two days we saw a decent amount of Taipei. The day we got in we met up with a few people that had contacted Josh on facebook. Apparently the DJ of the bar we went visited saw an ad for the Hennessy tour in GQ magazine and contacted us because they were fans. The place was really small and dark with a DJ playing good music and old Peter Fonda movies being projected on the walls of the bar. I tried a Taiwanese beer called “Taiwan Beer”, reminded me of Japanese beers I’ve had.
Yesterday Daniel Brian and I went to the top of the Taipei 101 building. It had an amazing view of Taipei and the day was very clear so we could see all the way to the ports. Josh stayed and got a massage at the hotel, which I wish I had done. I took some pictures from the 43 floor of our hotel looking at the Taipei 101 building, it was a spectacular view. I’ll try to post them soon, my hard drive is full and I can’t get any of the photos off. Having a technology meltdown here, my hard drive is full and I left the charger to my point and shoot camera at home.
After roaming around Taipei we met at the hotel at 6pm and left for the show. Despite a few technical difficulties the show went very well. The audience response was great and a lot of people knew our songs especially sleepless. My sister Aubry has a friend named Mark that just moved to Taipei 6 months ago so he came out to the show and hung out with us. After the show Daniel and I decided to hit the late night street markets near our hotel. It was amazing how late everything is open and how busy it is so late at night. Daniel bought a pair of shoes and a few other goofy items but I decided not to spend any money. There were times at the market near the food that it smelled sooooo bad I almost lost it. It was by far the most extreme food varities I’ve seen yet. There were the usual chicken feet, chicken hearts on a stick, chicken heads, pigs blood and everything else you can imagine. We roamed around for a while then headed back to the hotel to get some rest because we had to be in the lobby around 6:30 AM for a ride to the airport. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night and I’m pretty worn out right now.
We just took off from Taipei Airport and we’re headed for Kuala Lumpur Malaysia now. This is the one city I did the least amount of research for so I’m not sure what to visit just yet. I know I want to visit the Patronas Towers, which were the tallest buildings in the world until 2002 when the Taipei 101 was completed. After visiting these towers I will have been to the top of 4 of the tallest buildings in the world (I think it’s cool anyways). Taipei 101, Patronas Towers, Sears tower, Empire State Building.
We just found out there was a slight screw up with our Vietnam Visas. Guess we’re not able to get in until September 29th but we’re scheduled to arrive on the 28th. The show isn’t until the 2nd, which is good because we’ll have several days to do sightseeing in both Kuala Lumpur and Hanoi.
Taipei 101
We just visited Taipei 101 the tallest building in the world here are a few pictures from my iPhone.
Arriving In Taiwan
I’m going to apologize now for how sloppy this may have been written. I don’t have much time to re-read everything so pardon the bad spelling punctuation and run on sentences.
Yesterday was a busy but great day. I was feeling pretty tired from the day before because we went to “Time Square” (Named After NY’s Time Square) and walked around Hong Kong for a few hours looking at all the street shops. It was nothing like New York’s time square the only similarity was the name. At 8pm we met up with the Sony BMG people for a dinner on the 21st floor of a building overlooking Hong Kong. It was an Italian restaurant and they ordered Chicken Quesadilla as appetizers (it was obviously authentic). I had something simple like pizza because my stomach was bothering me from the chicken feet soup we had earlier in the day (Not Joking). At midnight we had a scheduled rehearsal at the venue. We were there for about an hour and a half and I didn’t get to bed until almost 3am. Luckily we didn’t have too much going on and our lunch plans we cancelled because of the typhoon. I sat around for a while and relaxed then ventured out of the hotel for a bit but couldn’t go too far because we had to leave at 4:30 to go the venue to do an additional sound check. At the venue we had some meet and greets to do with fans and label/Hennessy people. One thing I’ve noticed when traveling to other countries is the people that put on the shows always buy us American food. When we were in Athens Greece they gave us a list of all the Chili’s TGI Fridays, KFC’s in our area and in Asia they bring McDonalds, Starbucks, Seven Eleven items and other typical American chains to the venues. I appreciate that they go out of their way to do it I just find it funny. Even with the horrible weather from the Typhoon that was headed our way we had a great turnout. We were told it sold out but because of the weather it wasn’t full. There were probably 800 or more people there and they were all really excited and in to it. As soon as we hit the stage the crowed got very loud and screamed our name. Someone in the front row made a sign that said “Until June”. They knew everyone and I could see them singing all the words the entire show. Earlier that day one of the head guys at Hennessy asked Josh to sing a song in Chinese and play it on the piano. Unfortunately he couldn’t rehearse the song so he sang it a capella. Our label gal Roslyn from Sony Hong Kong wrote out all the words phonetically and Josh memorized them. After our last song sleepless Josh sang the song and everyone went absolutely crazy and began singing it with him. Even after Josh finished the crowed continued and we walked off stage and they kept singing it. Josh Daniel and I all agreed it was one of our better shows if not the best period. We left the show early because the after party and events were canceled because of the weather. We got back to the hotel around 11:15 which was SUPER early compared to the rest of the evenings. Brian had made some friends in Guangzhou that lived in Hong Kong so Josh and I joined Brian and went to the SOHO district (Named after NY too). We were advised by the hotel that it probably wasn’t a good idea because a lot of the cabs were not running because of the weather but we figured it was out last night in Hong Kong so why not. We got a cab and he took us to what he thought was the correct address. Turns out it wasn’t even close and we walked a few hundred yards and got lost. It was pouring down rain and the wind was crazy. We were soaked and lost for at least 45 min. We finally asked some people for help and found the place. We was a pretty cool bar and we met some interesting people. Josh and I spoke to too brothers who were doing photography in Hong Kong. Everyone was super nice and we had a great time. The weather started getting really bad and we figured we should probably get going before the worst part of the Typhoon was going to hut at 2am. We were lucky and found one of very few cabs on the road and headed back to the hotel.
We were scheduled to leave this morning for Taipei Taiwan at 10 AM. Unfortunately weather cancelled all the flights until 2 PM. We got a new flight at 4:30 which didn’t leave until 6:30 so we hung out in the Business lounge and stuffed our selves with free beverages and drinks. I’m on the plane right now writing this, I think it’s only a 90 minute flight but we got the great business class seats with the beds like we had on the Flight from LAX. Got to close my laptop landing in Taipei now.
2 HOURS LATER.
We just arrived in Taipei Taiwan about an hour ago. We’re staying at the Shangri-La Hotel near the Taipei 101 building. They gave each of us a “Plaza Suite” which is probably 2 times larger maybe more than my apartment. It has two bathrooms incase I don’t want to walk to the bedroom one while I’m lounging in my robe in the living room.
We talked about going to the Taipei 101 building to the observation deck in the morning after we get breakfast delivered to our rooms then after that we may get massages.
I should mention how kind everyone has been to us. Everyone at Hennessy and Sony BMG have been very kind to us and have treated us a lot better than we deserve to be treated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei
Yes its me
So we got to the sound check last night and in the big venue were very large cartoon/comic like posters of us everywhere. Apparently they took photos from our website and created these posters from them. Here is the one of me Josh and Daniel, funny thing is I don’t recall there be Hennessy in the original photos. The original photos were from a tour 2 years ago when we played on the Mississippi river in Missouri.
