Hey guys, it's me, Tang!

I'm currently in Melbourne sitting in the airport, having spent a week here visiting my sister who has just graduated from uni. Way to go sis. It's been a pretty awesome week where my days have consisted of eating lots of delicious food mixed in with minimal amounts of shopping and the occasional poker session. I've been fortunate enough to make some money on this trip so that's been pretty cool.

The restaurants I've gone to have been amazing and I'm pretty sure that if I were to ever live here I would finally be able to get my scrawny body over the 60kg barrier... Fuck yeah. On the second night I was here we went to a restaurant called Vue du Monde, which was a pretty unique experience where there is no physical menu to view but instead the chef chooses 5-9 courses (we chose 5 but there were so many in between meals that we had 9 different things anyway) for you to try after you first explain any dietary conditions you have. At times it was a little over the top with there being a drinks waiter, a food waiter and a general waiter constantly attending to you. Nothing was cooked to the norm and everything was smoked, seared or something along those lines. Admittedly though, everything was presented amazingly well and I did have the best ocean trout that I have ever had in my life.

I also finally got to try Korean bbq for the first time, and after constantly reading about it in bonds blog it certainly lived up to the hype. It was a really fun and chilled out experience which was a really nice contrast to the somewhat pretentious meal I had the night before. You get these platters of raw meat that is marinated in different sauces and you cook it on this grill in the middle of the table. NOM NOM NOM. the Japanese also have a similar thing to this, I think it's called sukiyaki, but in my limited experience it isn't quite as good.

During this meal I discovered that all my life I've been holding chopsticks in the wrong way. I'm pretty crushed at the moment. I used to criticize one of my best friends about her inability to use chopsticks and after being dealt this devastating news I feel like a bit of a twat. No doubt every time I've been to a Chinese restaurant the waiter has been having a good chuckle on the inside at the sight of my ridiculously awful technique. Thank Christ I managed to hook up with an Asian girl earlier this yr, otherwise my rep would be totally fucked.

Ok I've gotta go board my plane, apologies for turning this into a food blog

Tangs for Reading!

Hey guys, its me, tang!

I was reading in the papers earlier today that right here in Australia in the northern territory; they are bringing in a law that will see beggars being fined up to $6500. WTF?

'ahhh sorry sir but you can't be begging here, that'll cost ya 6500 bucks'

'right, well I'm a little bit short at the moment but you can have the $2.25 that I've made today ...no worries, I just won't eat for the rest of the week'

Honestly, have people become so intolerant that they can't put up with a few awkward moments where they have to communicate with the poor, that there is now the need to fine them ludicrous amounts of money in order to stop this? Sure, let's just kick these people into poverty some more.

I think it's pretty horrible when people complain about tax payer's hard earned money going to the impoverished and unemployed. It's as if they are the ones that are being hard done by and that those who have to rely on those fortnightly welfare payments have something to be envious of. I understand that they haven't had to work to earn the money they are given but surely they deserve something for the unfortunate life that they've had handed to them. I know some people out there are saying things like 'why don't those people just go get a freaking job?' but it's just not that easy.

This reminds me of a conversation I was having with some of my friend's on the topic of whether or not anybody can get a job as long as they work and look hard enough. My friend's and I generally come from pretty well off families and more than likely take a lot of what we have for granted. I think because of this, a lot of them are incredibly impractical when it comes to this topic, as many of them said that anybody could find a job. I'm sure there are quite a lot of people who would disagree with me but I find it very hard to believe that a homeless middle aged man who hasn't had a job for the last twenty years, begging on the side of the street can decide to all of a sudden get a job and be successful in his pursuit of one. Not even a fast food joint is going to hire a guy like that when they can get someone who is cheaper and younger.

Society in general seems to be so selfish that we struggle to rationally and objectively put ourselves in other people's shoes and therefore have unrealistic expectations of the poor. People should just be thankful that they're not in that position rather than finding reasons to criticize people who are so much less fortunate than they are.

Ok, tangs for reading !

Hey guys,

So a few weeks ago i went to Hong Kong for a week and a half. It was a really nice and relaxing trip where I just ate a ton of good food and did quite a bit of shopping. I must've had yum cha once every two days and on quite a lot of occasions I found myself eating something that i had and still have no idea what it was. In all honesty I probably don't ever want to know. I've realised I'm the absolute worst traveller, I've been to about 12 different countries so you'd assume id be a pretty worldly person but it appears that i would rather sit in a hotel room than go and explore different places. I managed to watch a whole season of Friday Night Lights while I was there. I was only there for 10 days.

My friend, Carla is in Hong Kong right now and I was looking at the pics shes posted on facebook and i dont recognise a single background or any piece of scenery in the pictures. It's kind've embarrassing and probably a massive waste. Hopefully at some stage of my life i'll get a little more adventurous in that aspect. The only touristy thing I did was going on the cable carts where at the top there was a massive Buddha, that was a pretty cool site.

Speaking of Buddha, I was asking my family all kinds of stupid hypothetical questions like how many people would you kill yourself to save? And would you steal if there were no consequences and no guilt? I laughed and made fun of my mum when she said she'd have to be saving like a million people before she killed herself because I said something around 30 but then it occurred to me that every time I spend my money on something materialistic or unnecessary instead of giving it to a person who doesn't have the essentials to live, I'm indirectly killing them. Like this is obviously an unrealistic thing to do but so is my question so I've realised I was being pretty hypocritical.

Anyway so my dad had had enough of my stupid questions and decided to tell us a story that his grandma had told him and it went something like this...

There was a monk who was crying in a forest next to a lake when a hunter came along and asked him why he was crying and the monk said 'I have just killed an insect which is against the Buddhist way so now I will never reach enlightenment.' He then continued to say he would kill himself but instead he just sat there rocking back and forth crying. The hunter replied 'No, don't kill yourself; you've lived a good life. I'm a hunter and have killed so many animals, I will kill myself' and he jumped in the lake and drowned himself. And he was enlightened.

I have a feeling this story wouldn't have been told by a Buddhist because killing yourself is against their religion but I just found this an interesting story because me and the rest of my family all found different meanings from it. Admittedly, at first we were all just like 'WTF, Does that story even make sense?'

So stop here and think about it before you read on so you can get your own view on things.

My dad told the story as a way to say that it's no good sitting around and doing nothing, it's better to take action. My sister thought the hunter was enlightened because he sacrificed himself because Buddhism believes that when one disconnects itself from desire then you reach a liberated state of enlightenment, so to give up worldly pleasures of all kinds like sex, good food and t.v then you become liberated. So maybe in a way him killing himself was giving that all up? I just figured he was sacrificing himself so that he would never kill another animal and I also thought it showed that the monk was selfish because instead of being concerned about the insect that he killed he was more worried for himself and that was why he wouldn't become enlightened.

Anyway I just thought I'd throw that story out there and see what any of you guys think. I find this kind of useless shit really intriguing and would be really interested to see what others think of it.

Ok, Tangs for reading!

Hey guys sorry i haven't blogged for so long but don't worry, it's still me, tang!

So ive had to change over to this account as a result of what i discussed in an earlier blog from my old name 'reignedsouls' AKA the writer of the critically acclaimed series 'Search for an Asian girl'. No biggie, just going to have to build up my fan base again. If you want to look back at my old blogs go to http://blogs.cardrunners.com/reignedsouls.

Even without this disturbance, i haven't blogged for a while and so I'd like to apologise to you all for having to live with a little less tang for the past month. My run good in life (successful Asian search and my main event ticket) came to a sudden end when along came exams not only hurting my intellectual ego but my blogging regularity as well.

To forget about my academic ineptitude, after my last exam, I waited outside my uni bar for an hour until it opened. Four hours later I walked out happily drunk only to fall down a flight of stairs ripping off a fair chunk of my skin and my favourite pair of jeans. I still have the puss filled scar on my knee. It's kinda hot.

For the past week I've been at a mates place on the beach. It's an amazing apartment right on the water and every morning we were treated to a deliciously greasy breakfast and a gourmet dinner by night, thanks josh. Kudos to you, my favourite Jew.

As a celebration of my tourney victory I bought a bottle of Blue Label and drunk that with my mates at the beach. It definitely tasted a lot better than your average scotch, hell it even smelt better but I don't think it was so amazing that it warranted such a mark up in price.

I just got home from seeing a movie with Josh where beforehand he made me a mushroom gnocci for dinner. Nom nom nom! Anyway we saw the new John Malkovich movie, Disgrace and i still have no idea what to make of it. It's set in post-apartheid South Africa and takes a pretty bleak view of the country. I won't go into detail of the movie in case some of you wish to watch it but i liked how they contrasted a typical person's reaction to South African life with how one has to approach it in order to survive. I never really enjoying the movie but I definitely found myself intrigued.

Of the other movies I've seen recently, Transformers 2...not great but my God, what i would do to Megan Fox. I would definitely not throw her out of my bed. The Hangover was pretty fucking hilarious and makes me want to go to Las Vegas ASAP.

Anyway that's all i've got to say, sorry this is such an average blog, I'll try harder next time.

Tangs for Reading