Category: Uncategorized
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Restaurant review: Omakase at Sushi Yorokobu Bangkok
My first Omakase experience was had—funnily enough—in Thailand! As you would NOT expect, there is a lot of high-quality Japanese food to be found in this tropical country, particularly in its capital, Bangkok. Izakayas with brightly coloured neon signs line the streets boasting promotional discounts on Asahi and grilled scallops, while every third restaurant in…
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Austria trip day 1: Vienna and first impressions
Servus! Finally! To be able to travel again! And not in fear of closing borders, but in anticipation of relaxing afternoons and marvellous sights! Two hours on a plane with a mask is a small price to pay. There were stresses and uncertainties leading up to the arrival–what if they don’t accept my vaccine card…
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Start of the Second Round and a Word or two
Hi everyone! As I’m writing, the Second Round of the Leeds Piano Competition will be live in around 5 hours! I am really excited about it, especially when the Second Round holds promises for less restricted repertoire that reveals more of the pianist’s personalities, and also more epic works. That being said, performances are also…
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Leeds International Piano Competition entry #5: Goya, Dante and Good Old Bach
Group 4 Andrzej Wiercinski (Poland) Wei-Ting Hsieh (Taiwan) Pavel Zemen (Czechia) Taek Gi Lee (South Korea) Andrzej Wierciński, 22 Joining the by-now well-established tradition of presenting two contrasting sonatas in the First Round, Andrzej Wierciński presented Scarlatti’s Sonata in G Minor, K. 450 and Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7 in B Flat Major, op. 83. I’m…
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Leeds International Piano Competition Entry #4: Mid-week Muse
A blog post I recently read about individualism of musicians really struck a chord within me (pun intended). Written by Hong Kong pianist Stephen Hung–who, coincidentally, shares the same former piano teacher with me–muses on the idea of being “individual” in the world of music. The Chinese word 自我 literally translates into “self-me”, so one…
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Stories From Home #2: Leeds International Piano Competition!
Graced with the powers of modern technology, classical music has fortunately not been left to bite the dust. Thanks to the second-most amazing online TV(Netflix tops the list no question!), medici.tv allows me to follow one of the world’s most prestigious piano competition without any cost at all! Sure, the removal of a price tag…
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Stories From Home #1: The Barber of Sai Kung
Since I’m back in Hong Kong for three months, I’m starting a new series of short stories entitled “Stories From Home”. I hope to try out different ways of writing while writing about other people, inspired by real events but filled by my own imagination. This story is inspired by my barber, Dacky, who works…
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Stories from My Travels #2: Monica, the Modern Mariner
Here’s a story inspired by a traveller I met on the bus to Carcassonne, a small medieval fortified town in the south of France. It also draws inspiration from Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, a poem which gave me Stockholm syndrome from the number of times I had to read it for my essay.…
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Stories from My Travels #1: Gyorgy’s Lament
Hey everyone, This will hopefully be the start of a series of prose and short stories inspired by people I’ve met and stories I’ve heard while I was travelling. Or simply inspired by new places. I shall call this series Stories from My Travels, because that’s what it seems to be. Please bear in mind…
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Two amazing concerts at the Festival de Pâques
During my seven nights in Aix-en-Provence, a bustling little town in the south of France surrounded by mountains, two were spent in the Grand Theatre of Provence, and they were two well-spent nights indeed. The Festival de Pâques is a festival of classical music held every Easter in Aix-en-Provence, the former capital of the Provence…
Literally Left-handed 