michaelkim.ca - MK blog

Thailand photos after the jump

I’ve finally sifted through all my Korea photos and it’s uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

Sweet! After scouring the net, I finally found the perfect bike for the perfect price. I was able to snatch the Breezer Freedom 19.5″ from eBay for $171 US from a shop right here in Toronto. It’s super lightweight at only 32.5 lbs with a 7005 aluminum frame. It’s definitely not a heavyduty mountain bike nor is it a superfast racer, but it’s an excellent commuter with everything a city cyclist would need: comfortable upright riding, fenders to keep the splatter away, chainguard to save your pants, rear rack to hold all the crap I’m gonna be carrying, and it just oozes sexy. When I first saw it, i was reminded of the bikes of Amsterdam. The Dutch use them daily and live by their bikes which explains why every one of their bicycles looks like beaters. Guys in suits, girls in pumps and mini skirts, families riding together to go to a restaurant, club kids hitting the local afterhours, you name it, it’s the cyclist’s haven, a way of life. It’s the Amsterdam lifestyle, where staying fit and thinking green is the norm. We’ve got a lot to learn from the Dutch.

Good luck trying to find one of those urban bikes on this side of the pond. That’s why I was so happy to see the Breezer. Breezers are known to build quality commuter/specialty bikes for the North American market. Just check’em out. Now the search is on… to find a bike lock worthy of my ride with big chains, strong enough to hold down an oil tanker.

A trend I’ve noticed during my travels through Europe is, Installation Art is probably the hottest genre (or movement?) at the moment judging from waves of exhibitions at modern art museums such as Centre Pompidou, MUMOK, Stedelijk, etc.

Installation art incorporates almost any media to create a visceral and/or conceptual experience in a particular environment. Materials used in contemporary installation art range from everyday and natural materials to new media such as video, sound, performance, computers and the internet. Some installations are site-specific in that they are designed to only exist in the space for which they were created.

Completely surreal. Dim the lights, turn up the volume, take a deep breath as you take a journey into Valstar Barbie, 2003, Claude Levêque’s latest installation at Le Mouvement des Images exhibition at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Simply amazing.

When a man’s gotta eat, he eats steak. When a group of men have to eat, they eat an entire cow and throw in the occasional lobster. During our road trip to Montreal, at a classy joint called Queue de Cheval Steak House… you see me looking kinda stunned wondering how I’m gonna finish the giant ribeye on my plate, Justin looking excited to see his golfer’s special, that being more meat to eat on this trip other than the 10lbs of smoked meat he ate earlier, Joe happy to see a towering lobster dinner on his plate, but we’re thinking he would be happy regardless due to the multiple foreign substances in his system and the multiple digits from women he met the night before and Dan showing off the awesomeness of his Monster 24oz Porterhouse… notice the table tilting his way!

On a lazy afternoon during our roadtrip to Montreal, we went to chillout at the Kaffeine Shisha Lounge… you see Justin trying to get high on the peachy stuff, me trying to be cool while taking shots and Dan trying to be Mr Studly while filming this merde.

I just got back from Europe, travelling through 8 nations, and 11 cities. It was an amazing experience. So many landscapes, so many faces. So much beauty, so much history. Here are some of the memories I’ve captured along the way.

Personally, my favorites are the shots of Munich (very shaky… sorry I was drunk… 12% alcohol beer, I had 3 and I was gone) and Venice (wow, postcard material) and check out the bears in Bern (lol, so cute). Enjoy!!!

www.michaelkim.ca/imagevue