kozens blog

The Hennessey Roof Top Bar in Wan Chai, Hong Kong

2011-04-11, on 23:23 | In in hong kong | 2 Comments | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

Two days ago we went to The Hennessey roof top. It has one of the most amazing views of Hong Kong. Everyone who visited us in Hong Kong knows what I am talking about. For those who consider coming to Hong Kong, here a little teaser recorded with my BlackBerry Torch camera. Lighting is far from optimal and somehow the auto-focus was drunk during the second half of the video. Anyway, enjoy:

At the top floor (#31) you get a quite decent Aussie steak house called Wooloomooloo. They operate a bar / outdoor club on the roof which can also be reserved for private parties. Unfortunately, that was the case when we wanted to bring J & Giz over there (afair).

Remember my post about Scaffoldings? I mentioned The Oakhill building in there and just saw when shooting that video; it has been uncovered. So this what the developer was hiding behind the green covers.

P.S.: I think Gizen.de is down — that’s very unfortunate.

Hong Kong Weather – The Good Days

2011-04-10, on 18:41 | In in hong kong | 3 Comments | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

Hong Kong with its skyscrapers has not the best reputation in the matter of air quality. Many people say that Hong Kong’s air is polluted and one of the worst in the world. Well, according to plain numbers that’s actually true.

Back in 2010 I read a survey by the World Bank which stated that Hong Kong ranks #7 in the world by bad air quality / air pollution. In fact, 9 out of the top 10 and 16 out of the top 20 cities are from China (including Hong Kong). Not surprising, but still terrifying. Fact is, Hong Kong does not have any heavy industry that pollutes the air anymore. In the past 30 years pretty much all manufacturing industries moved across the border to China. While they remain Hong Kong-owned, lower wages and less environmental regulation were the main factors for their relocation.

According to the Hong Kong Observatory (which monitors Hong Kong’s air and publishes the Air Pollution Index for multiple districts on an hourly basis) most air pollution in Hong Kong is caused by normal car traffic. Though, over a decade Hong Kong’s more than 200,000 taxis and several thousand buses are running on liquefied petroleum gas LPG there are still many Porsche, Mercedes and Ferrari cars driving around.

Besides car traffic Hong Kong’s air quality very much depends on the wind. Just across the border in China lies a region inhabiting 42 million people (half the size of Germany; 90% of all mobile phone accessories; most notebooks and yes, your iPhones are built there) which is soon gonna be one city. In an industrial sense, this is the most significant region in Middle Kingdom and one of the most polluted ones — only topped by the main coal mine areas (AFAIR 70% of China’s electricity is generated from coal). So if the wind adversely blows towards Hong Kong, we can have some sort of hazy air which kind of gets stuck in urban areas.

Back to the good days. Today was such a day: warm, but not too warm; no rain, reasonable humidity (right now 75%) and overall pretty cozy. (No, I didn’t invent that word ) Without our terrace roof (had to be dismantled according to the Hong Kong Buildings Department — for a reason I still don’t understand) I could look up and see the sky: no clouds and lots of sunshine were candy for my eyes. Check it out yourself:

So that’s how a sunny day can look like when you are living at the first floor in downtown surrounded by Hong Kong’s 7,600 high-rises (#1 worldwide, #2 New York counts 5,800). Time to look for a place with a terrace roof, less high-rises next door or located at a higher floor

Kozen Reloaded

2011-04-09, on 18:46 | In life | 3 Comments | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

It feels like Koz is back writing some more articles these days. Indeed, I got a little motivation back for doing so. I don’t know why, but it just happened that I felt I had to express myself again.

Let me take a second here and apologize for switching to English rather than my mother tongue German. I believe my non-German speaking audience is growing every day! For everyone who still prefers to read my useless 2 cents in German please find a German flag and link below the article title.

To be honest, I am actually extremely busy these days. A lot happened in the three months that passed this year already. I was traveling a lot which is quite unusual for me: New Year’s Eve party in BL City, BlackBerry Developer Conference in Bali, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona incl. one week Spain holiday, one week Koh Samui / Thailand holiday including severe floods – kind of an adventure holiday.

Business wise, I get asked a lot: “How is it going?” Well, I can say that these are currently very exciting days, weeks, months. Being in the mobile application business for more than six years (way before a word like “app” had been invented) has proven to be a slight advantage over our competitors. Of course, we weren’t the first ones and there is new competition popping up every day. Copy cats here — spammers there — serious competitors around the corner — let’s just say it is challenging, yet rewarding. A lot changed, a lot more is about to change, but one thing is still exactly the same it was six years ago: Even after tens of thousands of reviews and comments we received for our products it still feels good when people just love what we do. Despite all the other stuff that comes with it, that’s what it is about for me.

Well, seems the “writing-flash” hit me today. Still, I won’t promise to update kozen’s blog more regularly. The day has just 24 hours polyphasic sleep didn’t work for me so I have to make the best out of the 16 hours I have of each day. A lot more travels, parties, weddings, may be new boating adventures are coming up and I will see what else I can share. Right here, publicly on my server with my very own privacy controls. You won’t get this on Facebook

Asian Women and Their Boobs

2011-03-25, on 23:23 | In in china | 1 Comment | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

I know, this becomes more and more a site of just posting videos and pictures. Kind of reminds me of Facebook a bit… Anyway, I have to share this right here and right now:

The above video I found on Facebook because friends commented on it. They can go even further with boob vibrators:

And if you wanna see how Japanese can turn into wild monsters, check this out: “Japanese Infomercial Gets Out of Hand”

Big dudes walking around in Wan Chai

2011-03-23, on 23:23 | In in hong kong | 1 Comment | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

These not so hot days I like going home by Tram a.k.a. Ding Ding — yes, the locals really call them Ding Ding, just because they make “ding ding” all day long when people cross the street without looking out for approaching Ding Dings. Today on my way home, I noticed an uncommonly tall dude tumbling around in front of one exit of Wan Chai MTR station. I was a bit slow in pulling my camera and start shooting, but if you pay close attention you may notice him

How to enjoy natural disasters

2011-03-16, on 14:54 | In entertainment | 2 Comments | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

I am now seriously considering to check out some religious gathering nearby

This is Hong Kong – Scaffoldings and Chinese National Geography

2011-02-10, on 23:23 | In in hong kong | 5 Comments | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

For those who haven’t been to Hong Kong yet, this is a very unique way of local construction companies to build up some scaffolding made completely out of bamboo. Hong Kong is the only place I know where bamboo is almost exclusively used for this purpose. The first three pictures show a construction site in Wan Chai where The Oakhill is being built.

Please note that they scaffolded up to over 55 stories! The right photo below shows some other construction site on Bonham Road in Sai Yin Pun. Very close to where I lived before.

Besides bamboo scaffoldings Hong Kong is of course being flooded by “Cheap China Copies” of pretty much everything. That’s nothing unsual – copy iPhones, MacBooks and so on. However, just a couple of days I passed by the 7eleven in Sheung Wan and saw the “CNG” magazine which stands for “Chinese National Geography“. To be honest, I was thinking that is a “National Geographic“. Here both

NatGeo Photo courtesy Gobonobo

KI 2000 Dance Action – 6 Freaking Years Ago – But Timeless Shit

2010-09-23, on 23:23 | In life | 3 Comments | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

This one is for our thousands and thousands^* of friends all over the world; including former international class/uni-mates and current friends!

For those who don’t know: Kozen studied at HS Harz University of Applied Sciences a bit of computer science, but basically he was mainly focusing on drinking, partying and the other enjoyments in life Anyway, around summer 2004 we were about to graduate and therefore, had to have a proper party before. As there were a couple of other majors from our uni that were about to graduate, many of us prepared some sort of performance. Of course, the IT nerds with their glasses and terrific body language wanted to embarrass themselves as well. So we prepared a little dance too. The main part was roughly based on the ‘team spirit performance’ shown in Old School which succeeded right after the Gizen & Kozen intro (based on ‘Frank the Tank’s solo sports performance’ from the very same movie).

Just for the sake of having it forever and ever available on the world wide and wider web, here the video for everyone’s amusement:

OK, the principle of synchronization still needs to be practiced. I have to admit that we started that thing around 11 p.m. – as you can see. The party itself started 8 p.m. and before we had to “warm up”, of course. Well, the formula was very easy: Germans + Students + Party = Beer + Vodka + Tequila + Rum + Sangria (the perfect equation that solves just about everything). I remember that the evening ended well for me … if I remember correctly …

• Kudos to Schlappen – the brave warrior who was filming this masterpiece of stage performance with just one hand above the heads of an unbelievable crowd.
• Kudos to the performers – King Kai (a.k.a. Blutverspritzer, Nummer Eins), Ive the Thief (check the ryhme!), Taucha (guy who dived into delirium at the end), Ghent (ooo), Gizen van der Fizen and Kozen

^* … might be slightly exaggerated.

Das Boot ist weg

2010-09-20, on 20:26 | In in hong kong | 1 Comment | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

Einige wissen es ja schon: “Das Boot” ist nun weg.

Nach so ca. 3 Monate wurde “Das Boot” wohl anscheinend geklaut. An einem wunderschönen Wochenende (Samstag, dem 14. August) hat es den Boris mal wieder nach Hong Kong verschlagen, um hier ein Wochenende voller Abenteuer, Boot-Erkundung der Wildnis Hong Kongs mit Camping und Lagerfeuer zu erleben. (Fleisch vom Spieß über Feuer geröstet! Arrrrrrr!) Bei der Ankunft an der Boot-Lege-Stelle hatten wir dann so im Kopf: “Sollte da nicht das Boot liegen?!?”

Unten mal ein Photo von der besagten Stelle. An der rechten Seite so ziemlich genau auf der Sichtlinie zu der Yacht sollte unser Special Field Dinghy liegen.

Der erste Gedanke, es wäre einfach gegen die Yacht eingetauscht worden, klang verlockend; hat sich aber leider nicht bewahrheitet. Also gab es keine Spritztour, auch kein Camping oder Lagerfeuer, sondern nur langweiliges rumsitzen, warten auf die Polizei, sprechen mit Anwohnern, und weiter so tolle Sachen. Bei irgendwas um die 36 Grad im Schatten mit einer geschätzten Luftfeuchtigkeit von 95% (gefühlte 200%) war das natürlich echt toll. Wenigstens hatte unser australischer Kapitän 3 gefrorene 0.5L Flaschen Sprite/Wodka Mix (50/50) mit. Damit wurde uns dann auch lustig, nur die Hüter des Gesetzes konnten nicht drüber lachen. Naja, wenigstens durften wir dann auch eine Hong Kong’er Polizei-Station von innen sehen. Das war schon nett so ohne Handschellen rein und auch wieder rauszulaufen. Es kam bloß ein bißchen uncool, das mit unserem gesamten Camping-Gear zu absolvieren.

Die Polizei hat es dann auch geschafft vorige Woche nochmal anzurufen (ca. 1 Monat nach der Tat), um zu fragen, ob wir denn das Boot wieder gefunden hätten. Der Captain meinte nur so zurück: “Ich dachte, das ist euer Job?”

Das wars dann also endgültig, denke ich. Aus die Maus!

Singlish – Big cock also got!

2010-07-06, on 23:23 | In entertainment | No Comments | Dieser Artikel in Deutsch

Letztes Jahr waren ja Cass und Koz in Singapur. Es war ein schöner Trip, mit viel Action und jeder Menge gutem Essen. Am allercoolster ist aber das dort gesprochene Singlish (auch wenn die Singapurianer als Muttersprache English angeben … und die meinen das ernst!). Aber guckst hörst du selbst: