It's sometimes better to do without thinking than to never do anything at all

Alright, where the hell have I been?

I'm a bit behind on some projects I'm working on and that means I've been putting this off. But I have still been snapping photos from what random events seem to land in my lap.

Also, that Google+ camera strap went out to one of my readers. Hope they're enjoying it. For those interested, there's another walk happening at the end on March which will end up being televised. Come along and say hi! The last one was awesome.

Every Chinese New Year, I do my Chinese-y thing and go to a Buddhist temple. Only I'm not Buddhist. In fact, I'm not of any religion. But Chinese culture and all that ends up being related to Buddhism so I end up going either way and paying my respects, saying my prayers and all that jazz. I suppose you could say I don't subscribe to any particular one of God's fan clubs, but I think there's probably a God out there.

Anyway, these lions are meant to be good luck. You follow them around and try to touch or stroke them. I realised afterwards that the people inside them were friends I'd met through an old school mate that do Kung Fu. I feel slightly weirded out now.

This is Puddles, not in mid-step, but just chilling out on the stairs. With one paw down for some reason. Lately he's been getting more and more affectionate. He's come a long way from being a rescued little street cat.

Over on Bay Street, just off Broadway, I used to go to this Oporto after uni and get fat. I haven't done it in a while, but I regularly pass by. I never noticed until the other day that "tomorrow" is typo'd. I think I was more horrified at the thought of having Oporto for breakfast.

I think we've reached a small, quiet period where these sort of decorations are down. It's pretty amazing how fast these shops can change their decorations from Christmas to Chinese New Year. And Easter is coming up, right? Giant bunnies anyone?

I don't like Korean food that much. I find that eating a lot of small portions tends to confuse me and leads me to believe I haven't eaten much. Horribly deceptive, but I think that's more on the side of my brain being full of derp.

Anyway, while we were standing outside this place, I realised that the funky upward lighting wasn't intentional. In fact, it was a light that had fallen off the roofing and was dangling by a single cable and balanced on the shop sign. And I'd been standing under it for the past 10 minutes!

When council closes off roads in the city, pedestrians go nuts. But only if someone else does first. We watched the police close off this road for the Chinese New Year parade and no one made a move. So I did. And when people saw me and realised I wasn't getting killed, they all ran out on the road. Seems like an awfully easy way to kill a lot of people.

This guy was full of awesome. He's got a mixing deck in there along with all his audio gear and it's powered off solar cells. Unfortunately the cops asked him to leave and for a while we were without any music.

I have no idea where they placed the projectors for this, but it seems to be an on-going tactic since Vivid Sydney many months ago. I gotta say, as cool as this sort of thing is, I'm beginning to tire of it a little.

The parade itself? It was full of WTF. Not necessarily in a good way. I have no idea what these chefs had to do with Chinese New Year, but there they were. 

I could understand the little schools' participation, but in many cases there seemed to be groups that had just turned up because it happened to be some parade down George. Marching bands with brass instruments? I know the stereotype is that Asian people are meant to be good at playing instruments, but really? 

There were some pretty cool items in the parade though. Dragons, when they got them right-ish, and random pandas wrapped in fairy lights on uni-cycles. Unfortunately, it didn't really cut it for me and I left about three quarters of the way in. To be honest, it's made me wonder how the typical Sydney-sider sees Asians now.

This is what happens when you don't check to see if there's milk in the fridge first. Some mornings I eat at my desk. It's mostly to do with not getting up as early as I should to eat at home and also because it's convenient. This probably isn't the healthiest breakfast though, since that tablespoon is full of honey.

I'd been told I need to eat more meals and up my protein content, but to be honest, I'm finding it hard to remember to eat at times. This coming from a guy who feels like he's always eating at his desk.

Pie Face. Maybe it's just my sick mind, but the top two faces look like they're enjoying themselves too much.

What's with the number of these shops anyway? There seems to be one on every block.


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Okay, maybe not (just the big pins), but it certainly feels like it. Surprisingly, their coffee isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was expecting drip-filtered watery brown tasteless stuff, but it's actually not too bad.

On George near Goulburn, there's a kebab/pizza shop that states it's open 25 hours. I've eaten there exactly once after attempting to sober up from something I don't really remember. Big slice of oily pizza. I wouldn't eat there for lunch, but it seems appropriate for 4am munchies. There's another kebab store around the corner also of dubious quality. I haven't died from it yet.

I spent a few days in Mexico the other week and flew United business between SYD, LAX, HOU, CUN. I've been told business with United is nothing compared to Singapore Air, but when I sat down I found I had more buttons than I knew what to do with. I don't fly very often, and rarely in business class. I had to sheepishly wait for someone else to pull their tray table out before I knew where mine was.

This boggles my mind. When I went to Japan last year, I didn't see many vending machines selling anything more wild than hot and cold coffee. But this is in LAX, a freakishly boring airport. You can buy Nintendo DS games, headphones, and those sort of random electronic items.

Oh, and before I had ever set foot in LAX I'd been told it's the most boring airport in the world. I didn't think it could be too bad, but it is. People were sleeping on the floor. There were probably about four or five shops. Getting stuck there for more than a few hours could be extremely boring.

When is the Wall Street Journal not a publication? When it's a shop. A shop for a publication about a street. I also didn't have much time in HOU, but for the brief time that I was, I kept forgetting that they drive their carts on the right-hand side of the road. I don't know what it is about Houston, but they have carts whizzing across their airports all the time.

And this, after about 26 hours of travelling, is what I was rewarded with. I woke up extremely early in order to be able to go have a run along the beach on the first day I was there. I really regret not going in for a dip, but I guess I never would have found the time anyway.

I was in one of those apartments somewhere on the lower levels. It's an east-facing wall, so the sun creeps in across the Caribbean Sea and makes everything glow in the morning. The first morning I woke up freaking out a little to be honest. I don't know what it is, but I tend to be a bit startled when I wake up in a different bed.

That's possibly a good survival thing though.

The first day was also the only one that I had some free time because there had been nothing scheduled until the afternoon. I wandered to La Isla and had a look around, but early on a Monday morning, nothing was really open. It's a really pretty place, a tourist shopping trap also, but I don't know if I'd ever go back.

I've got a huge gap where I'm frantically at work, but dinner is much more relaxed. At one point the CEO of the company who is hosting us wanders over and tells me I should go and have a cigar. It turns out he's hired someone to roll them there.

I quit smoking a long time ago — it was a bit of a derp thing I did in uni when I thought no one was looking. It once came up in a casual conversation we were having between friends and a girl that I had a crush on mentioned that I smoked to the others. On one hand it was flattering to have had her notice something I hid, but on the other, I was a little ashamed as I got the impression she didn't have much respect for those that smoked.

Occasionally, I still feel the urge to have a smoke after having a beer. The two go so well together. I would have thought cigars and scotch would have been my thing (and scotch typically is my thing), but I found myself chatting to new-found work colleagues over a glass of red and puffing on a death-stick.

I remember waking up the next morning, not with a hangover as I tend not to get them, but with the taste still lingering in my mouth. Not something I'd want to do regularly, but I'll try most things once.

This is me for most of the next day. I can't tell you how painful it is to be working when you know you could be out there floating in a pool or in the sea. So close, but yet, so far.

But it was certainly a different place to be working.

Yo dawg, I heard you liked clouds so I put some cloud in your clouds. On the way from CUN to SFO.

Cancun airport has a Bubba Gump. You know, from Forrest Gump? Why in Cancun? I have no idea. I also have no idea why at this stage in the trip I developed a heavy American accent while I was at the airport.

I have a pretty horrible habit of subconsciously picking up on the accents of others and adapting them into my own. To be honest, I don't even know what sort of accent I have. I was born in the UK and occasionally, when I'm nervous or stressed, involuntarily speak with a British accent, so I'm wondering whether I just speak with a semi-Australian accent because that's what I hear most of the time.

Can you hear Bubba's voice? I can. Or could. I wonder how they got the rights to this?

After travelling for about 28 hours on the way back, I jumped off the plane and went on a 5.13km obstacle course called the Warrior's Dash. There was mud. Apparently while I was away it had been raining. I brought my camera along, but had nothing to wipe the lens clean with since everything was caked in mud.

How caked in mud? Billy here looks relatively clean. I think the worst part about the mud isn't that occasionally you can smell manure washed into it, or that you don't know what else is in there with you, but the feeling when you get it in your eye. You can't wipe your eyes because your hands, clothes and arms are caked sometimes literally in crap. And you don't want to stop and lose your pace either. So you try and shrug it off.

One of the river crossings in which my friend lost his camera. He tried for a while to find it, but came up with bits of grass and bark. I doubt anyone is ever going to find it.

Naive little me thought I'd be able to use my shoes again. I wish I'd donated them to this here group. While my clothes came out alright in the wash, my shoes are dead. They were well on their way out before the run, which is why I decided to use them, but I was hoping that the mud would come out and I'd be able to use them for some other run. Fat chance of that.

Mud gets everywhere. I mean everywhere. I get pretty badly congested sinuses and for about a day after the run, I was still blowing muddy snot out of my nose. Yum.

Anyway, we placed around 3400 out of 8600 entrants, finishing in just over an hour, including the time spent waiting in line for obstacles to be free and searching the river for that lost camera. Not bad for a jet-lagged scrawny kid, I think.

Over on Broadway there's a little Japanese place called Maki Maki. When I went there several months ago, it was pretty average. I'd decided that the place down the road, Masaka, was probably better. Only when I went there on a Sunday, they were shut, so Maki Maki it was.

The place has changed quite a bit since I last went. The menu, decor, seating are all a crapload better. It feels like it's changed from a take-away place to more of a sit-down sort of establishment. Get the Wagyu steak thinggit if you ever go.

Speaking of places that have changed, the old Paddy McGuires in Captial Square has been replaced with this place — Yardhouse. I don't know what it is, but the back of it — the part that is inside Capital Square itself — was full of senior citizens. It was mid-week, sure, but wow. I opted for a quieter seat inside. Me? Calling a bunch of senior citizens too loud?

Anyway, while I didn't eat there, it looks like it might have some decent food. Must go back some day.

I think this is how the guys at my gym attempt to display lost property. Either that or someone has been dressing the fruit again. I think those bananas would make a good hairpiece.

The Australian Youth Hotel. Last time I was here it was for a staff function in the very same room. They call it the Nude Room because of all the art on the walls of nude women. I like the chairs for some reason. And the lights. I think it gives it a sort of class, which is strange because downstairs is very much a pub.

Anyhow, there's a whole bunch of weeks in there that I hope makes up for me going missing. I might try and post in smaller increments if possible, so it's more fitting with the name of this site and so I find time for my other projects.

Excuses, excuses

I'm not very good at this regularity thing, am I?

I'm overseas at the moment for work and finding an internet connection has been more difficult than I first imagined. It looks like I'm going to have to give you guys another mega-update next week as I'm running flat off my feet here at the moment as well.

In the meantime, here's a random pic of me from last week trying to be a dragon, but appearing to just be a hippo...

Every second is another chance to be someone better than you were

Alright, here I am after a long hiatus.

I hope none of you thought I had been run over or accosted for shooting someone in the street. There's several weeks worth of photos due, I know, and while I didn't quite make the Seven every week, I did try and keep up.

So here's a mega-huge post that I hope makes up for it. 

This is one of our IT guys at work. I often think it must be a strange thing to work in IT for a company where most people are tech-savvy. But I guess it means that the bugs and issues just become weirder.

Take this, for example. He's connecting a TV up to our network using arcade-style controls. I think I'm slowly getting used to all sorts of random.

Just prior to Christmas I wandered over to the Fish Markets with some friends. I have no idea how or why. One of my friends needed to pick up some fish and so we tagged along. At 1am or so in the morning.

I really dislike the Fish Markets. Not because I don't eat shell fish, but because every time I go there I seem to get shat on by seagulls. Thankfully there weren't many at 1am, but previously I've been shat on the leg, on the head and even in my ear. I swear those bastards are aiming for me.

One day I'll get my revenge. Come here seagull, I'm going to shit in your ear.

While we were wandering around, we suddenly had the idea of making Bloody Marys. I've never had or seen one before, but I'm not sure it's meant to look like this. It reminds me of this scene from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels:

"I asked you to give me a refreshing drink! Wasn't expecting a fucking rainforest. You could fall in love with an orangutan in there!"

I seem to have a thing for benches. I never sit on them myself, but I like taking photos of them in peaceful places I've encountered. They never seem to be occupied, but I bet many others have sat and contemplated deep, serious thoughts. Me? No, I just giggle and fart and move on.

This is my dog giving her best impression of being an oversized rat. I don't know why, but she's hopeless at being the ferocious German Shepherd Dog that everyone thinks she is. I think I may have mentioned this before.

She's got seriously long legs. I call them supermodel legs. But she's constantly got this look of worry on her face. What's that? You're scratching my head. Oh no! I like it, but... Oh no! We love her anyway.

Christmas means getting fat. I'm not huge to begin with, but I've stopped growing upwards and begun to grow sideways. I'm always at a loss at what to tell people when they ask what I'm doing for Christmas. Lots of people have plans to go away, but me? I always spend it with my family.

Going away sounds like fun, and I'm sure it is, no doubt, but I've always thought it's time spent with those closest.

There used to be a giant sculpture in the Galeries Victoria where an LCD signboard at the top of it could be programmed to read whatever you wanted. I think after being abused, it was quickly disabled and thereafter became something really boring.

I hadn't been in a while but now there's a giant staircase and a series of floating books, presumably from Books Kinokunia. I'm sure it changed a while ago and I'd simply not noticed.

Down near the Regency building, past Chef's Gallery (and no, it's not like Men's Gallery but with chefs), there's a coffee place called Tom'N'Toms. It looks like an Asian ripoff of Starbucks, but I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. The Engrish is amusing, to say the least, but the other weird thing is that they sell pretzels.

The only advice I can give is not to drink the coffee.

I can't remember where this is exactly, but I think it's somewhere nearby Oxford Street and down an alleyway. I don't think it ever really gets noticed, which is a shame, but I wonder what was going through the minds of the designers. I didn't notice any theme among any of the buildings, just one alley-facing wall with flowers.

What I love about Summer is that after work there's still light. I walk past Railway Square all the time and more recently there's been this lovely glowing light as the sun settles down. Although you can't see it for the sun, Central Park is also beginning to emerge on the horizon. It's not yet built to its full height, but there's this giant gap in the sky between the buildings that you can see it will eventually take up.

I'm still not sure whether I approve of the development or not. I guess it's just one of those things I'll only be able to decide on once it's finished and the full effects are known.

Supermarket Mondays. We've changed over to Woolworths for a bit so instead of making fun of the characters and their quotes on Coles Select products, I get to see cats that are either enjoying themselves in the middle of a long one, or are smugly approving of their owner's choice of litter.

Why do they call it litter anyway, isn't cat crap meant to be litter? Putting litter in your litter? Litterception?

Don't think I've ever seen one of these before, nor one that's been spray painted. To be honest, I don't really know how to interpret this one. Golden child? I'm also curious to know who is removing these. I don't think it's council because a lot of others don't go missing, but they don't really last long either.

This is a Black House spider that had been living in our laundry for the past few years. Venomous, but not agressive and generally not a biter. I'd known it had been sitting in the same place for a while and we'd lived relatively harmoniously, but only under the condition that it never venture further into the house.

Unfortunately after several bouts of rain it decided to creep right into the house and we had to get rid of it. It's probably the most tolerant I've been with a spider since they tend to scare me the crap out of me unless I've grown accustomed to them (like hiking in the bush for several days).

I went to an Asian grocer the other day and bought a cleaver. I don't know why, but it felt rather weird carrying one in a shopping basket. When I was a little kid, there was a white elephant sale at my primary school. One of the things for sale, I think for a dollar, was a cleaver.

I have no idea what possessed me to buy it, but I did. And without questioning what I would do with it, it was sold to me. I ended up giving it to my mum, who also never questioned how I got it. I doubt that would ever happen today.

I couldn't decide if I really wanted these biscuits or not. I mean, I could eat stoned cars or sexy stoned monkeys.

What do people think when they design these things? Or do they?

I actually went to Sydney Festival first night by accident. I felt like stretching the legs so I wandered out into town and discovered this in Martin Place. There were people dancing in the street.

I've got to say that Sydney puts on a pretty good show. If I were a tourist visiting over the New Year I'd certainly think that it is one of the best cities in the world. I mean, you come around for what are arguably some of the best fireworks, then they throw this party for several weeks and now it's Chinese New Year and they have all sorts of other stuff on.

This guy climbed a light pole to see the guys that were doing acrobatics on poles. I like that no one around him really cared.

Social experiment? People kept moving these lights and I was curious as to why people at times would avoid walking between them or stroll through either not noticing or not caring.

There's only really one reason I took this pic.

That is all.

I've noticed this is a thing Sydney does quite a bit. When in doubt, make your trees technicolour. I'm not quite sure if this had any significance, but I'm with the majority with throwing reasoning out the window. It just looks frickin' cool!

This is one of those times where a fast photo results in this, a slow photo results in a mess and neither really show what is going on. You know when you look at those optical illusions of banded together lines and it makes your head spin. That's a good approximation of what this moving pattern achieved, but on the scale of being building-sized.

Let's gather around the TV, children. There's not enough room in the Domain to house everyone, so there's an obvious solution. Close the road, bring in a huge-ass screen on a crane, wire up the street with giant speakers, and turn off all the street lights.

Looking down towards Kings Cross. I still haven't got my technique to walk across the street, snap, and run before the lights change, quite perfected yet. I rarely venture into the Cross. The last time I went drinking there I don't remember how I got home. I do remember convincing a girl to make out with one of my work colleagues and something to do with an aerosol can.

And meanwhile, here's a pineapple wearing a disguise. Could have fooled me. It's at the cafe attached to my gym. I somehow know the first names of most of the baristas at cafes I frequent, but I'm more impressed when it's the other way around and I haven't struck up a conversation.

When I was working in The Rocks a while back, I used to regularly order lunch from a little shop attached to the Shangri-La Hotel. The lady there knew my name and what I usually ordered. It was actually a little more expensive than other places nearby, but customer service like that kept me coming back. Everyone wants to feel special.

So anyway, I'm sorry for not posting in such a long time. I was on such a roll too! I know some of you are keen photographers, so I have something that might interest some of you. After attending the Google+ photowalk, I've found myself with a Google+ camera strap that I've realised I'm never going to use.

Rather than see it collect dust, I'd be interested to know if anyone would be interested in having it, even if it is re-gifted? Leave me a comment below or send a Tweet to @mukimu, preferably with the tag #7inSyd to catch my attention.

Genuine apologies make certain they never have to occur again

I pretty much wrote this week off after several evenings out kept me from my work. That and I've still been playing too many video games. I have a feeling it's going to be like this until next year as Christmas rolls in.

Speaking of which, I'd better find some presents for people. 

Guns on our streets. Lol. Does it fire lulz? How would you reload a lulz gun?

I actually considered joining a shooting club as something that would be out of the ordinary, but I have enough expensive hobbies as it is. A gun that could fill people with laughter would be infinitely more useful.

What about all this rain? It seems I wasn't the only one caught out without an umbrella this week. I'd like to some day take my DSLR out in the rain and shoot street. You see, most people aren't going to stop you when it's pouring and they're trying to get out of the rain. And there's some quite odd things to see.

Take this fellow for example. I have no idea how this works, but he'd been doing it for a while, wandering around, not in any sort of rush, with his hand on his head. I haven't been minding the rain too much for this reason. There's always a lot of interesting things to see.

I ended up in Lidcombe this week and one of the places I stopped in at was a Korean grocery store. Why? Ice cream. I don't understand any of it except the English written "please", but I assume it's asking me not to leave the freezer open. Or eat all of their ice cream. Or take photos or something.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I love Korean ice cream. I'm not a huge fan of Melona, the green ones in this pic, but I like the "e-Chocolate Bars" in the blue packaging. Apparently it stands for enriched chocolate ice cream bar. I'd tell you where this shop was, only I have no idea where I was at the time.

A close near-second are Asian drinks. Who else would sell "Alcohol Doctor" hangover tea? Or a Power of Energy drink? I have no idea what else is in this fridge. I ended up getting something that looked like a half-can of orange-flavoured something-or-other.

I figured it'd be like Fanta, but when I opened it it wasn't carbonated and instead contained orange pulp and sweet orange juice. I bet one day I'll buy a coffee based on the picture of coffee beans on it, but instead find it is actually just full of coffee beans.

Remember my infatuation with bananas? I'd been waiting for them to come down in price and refusing to buy them any sooner than what I thought was fair. The only problem is, I've gone so long without them and feel so spiteful towards Coles and Woolies/Safeway for jacking up the prices (and I believe they went up way before and after stock would have been affected/been restored) that I haven't been buying many.

I have been a lot less festive this year. Normally we have our lights up around November and the tree shortly after. In fact, our lights have been up for the past two years, just never switched on. Well, they don't seem to be working correctly this year and we're still debating where we'd put the tree. We currently have a giant cat tree in our living room for our cat, where our Christmas tree usually goes.

But in a way, I don't feel so bad when we have this Christmas carousel at work. This thing actually moves. I spent a little while trying to figure out if it was at all possible to get inside and dance amongst the reindeer, but it doesn't seem possible. I've taken to prancing around outside of it when I think no one is looking.

I haven't had a Zooper Dooper in years. When I was in the first grade or so, my primary school used to have tokens that kids were given for good behaviour. These could then be exchanged at the school canteen for a Zooper Dooper. The first time I ever got one I was super excited (excited is something I generally don't appear to be these days, at least outwardly) and ran to the canteen during recess.

I was clutching it in my hand as I ran across the playground as fast as I could with the other kids who had one, but when it came my turn to give up my token, it suddenly wasn't in my hand anymore.

I never did find out what happened to it, or forget the moment of panic I felt when I realised I'd lost something important to me. After seeing me lost for words and on the verge of bursting into tears, the canteen lady spoke for me. "Did you lose your token, dear?" The only thing I could do was nod while still looking around, wondering how it could have impossibly disappeared.

She handed me a Zooper Dooper after snipping the top off with a pair of scissors and reassured me it was okay before sending me on my way. I still don't recall the taste of it, but I've always remembered the mix of emotions at the time. It was probably my first lesson in life of significant (to me at the time) material loss, but more importantly, that sometimes people will give you the benefit of the doubt, even when they're within their full right not to.