End of a Chapter

I’m sitting here in our unit sipping on a super strong cup of Trung Nguyen’s Legendee coffee, that famous Buon Me Thuot blend, my last stash of Vietnamese coffee that I brought with and also the best I’ve ever drunk. There’s nothing like a distinctive aroma to bring back memories and enduce a bout of nostalgia. After less than two weeks in Brisbane, coming back to my blog feels like an alien world. It feels like someone I know well or someone I’ve been following for a while’s blog. Actually, it's not dissimilar to that strange feeling you get when something you vaguely remember dreaming actually happens. It should have a clinical name like “Abandoned Blog Psychosis” or something. I guess all things come to an end some time and this is the end for the blog of this four year chapter of my life. I couldn’t just leave it with a “cock fight” on my front page – people would just think I’m weird – so I’m tying up some loose ends, adding some links that I should have added a long time ago, and removing some dead ones.

I’ve also got a special little surprise in the form of a song my friends Henrik (aka squirenetic) Sanjay (blowdart killa) and I made as a farewell to Saigon. Together with Sanjay's girlfriend and of course mine, we all left the country within a month of each other after many years in a place we have grown to love. So we got the fattest gansta beat we could find (think porno sounds and guns cocking) and put our farewell to Saigon into a song. It’s at the end of this post. You may have noticed a proliferation of new links on the left side of my blog, thus, with no further delay, may I present:

See how this blogroll rolls:

Let's start with the South African blogs which have keep me amused for hours: There are some wicked expat blogs, like Sarah's ramblings from Sapporo, Japan, with her quirky sense of humour and killer posts, it's just a pity she's from Joburg... ;P.I love Po's well-written rants from over the ocean, Emm's travelogue, and my buddy Bernard and his wife's totally insanely wonderful year-long honeymoon through Africa. More blogs of note include Chester's Parklife, Helen's lizard obsession (I can't believe you didn't name your cactus Gulliver!), Miss Moss's beautiful art/design/cynicism site, and 6000 miles from civilization who I dig on Twitter.

In Vietnam, as it always goes, some leave, others come, leave again, return again and so the cycle goes. Look out for the imminent return of Our Man in Hanoi, the ever-travelling and aptly named Backpacking Teacher, Cara's expat experience, editor of AsiaLife Tom DiChristopher's blog, Petro's musings, Hanoi Scratchpad, amasc, and also Thomas Wanhoff's blog; his part German part English blog also has its own podcast.

Along with Aaron Joel Santos' fantastic photography, I've also added Julian Wainwright and Justin Mott's photography sites. I've also added East & West Magazine - check out the article I wrote for them about 48 hours in HCMC.

Of course, there's my buddy Henrik's Myspace, a funny football comic strip called Studs Up, some weird emo blog which is strangely intriguing with awesome photos called I wrote this for you, one of the funniest blog I know by Slyde.

Then there are a few writers and blogs I've been following on Blogger/Twitter for a while now, notably Angelina Tan's blog, be happy, Better Than Coffee, I think my tummy hurts, Gorilla Sushi and a design concept site by Uno called Between 10 and 5.

Never fear, as I’ve already got my furry little house elves in a row in my head as to what the next blog will be about, and when…to be continued. Tôi sẽ mất tích Saigon rất nhiều. Tạm biệt.

That should do it for now. Here's the song we made, crank up the volume, turn the bass down to a dirty low, don your hoody, pimp your mouse and listen to Saigon Streets by Da Poo Crew!

Until next time and my next blog. Peace.