Instagram ME @ Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong

No longer a 9-5 person, I live an interesting lifestyle which may or may not appeal to everyone. Do you wonder how a typical day of mine goes by? Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong recently asked me to participate in their Instagram Me feature, to document my day via Instagram. Check it out <here> or stalk me via Instagram at @jasonbonvivant.

The Danger of Generalization

Recently the "food blogging" community in Hong Kong has been under a degree of pressure or more frankly speaking direct criticism from media as well as the F&B industry in Hong Kong. Alright, criticism maybe a strong word, perhaps, for a lack of a better word, concerns for the rapid growth of the so-called "food blogging" industry in recent months. Criticism is a natural byproduct of increased popularity and unfortunately it is the case in question with regards to "food blogging." First of all, one must understand the difference between "food blogger" and "bloggers who blog about food," because there is a difference and I repeated, there is a difference between the two and it is wrong to put both under the same category as "food bloggers." Such generalization is very dangerous indeed. I am not trying to distinguish myself between the two and I really see no need to do so because it matters not ... really. Let me show you a few examples:

Travel - Singapore (April 2012) - Oasia Hotel

Situated just 2 MRT stations away from Orchard Station, Oasia Hotel @ Novena turned out to be much more convenient than I imagined. I stayed at the hotel over the Easter weekend in April and thanks for the generosity of the hotel, my accommodation was free of charge. While it was a big help to have free accommodation, the air tickets to Singapore seem to be climbing every quarter since a few years ago. There are over a dozen daily flights to Singapore operated by various airlines but never seems to be enough I suppose. Then again, Singapore, as mentioned previously, is an international financial center and is Hong Kong's closest yet most fierce competitor in terms of economic as well as policy development. I am bringing up this topic once again because the Oasia hotel is situated in the middle of the Novena district, a medical hub of Singapore serving not only the locals but as well as foreign visitors for various intentions. In other words, Singapore is investing as well as prompting the development of medical tourism. Hong Kong government once mentioned the idea of promoting medical tourism but like many other policies and initiatives, hardly anyone knows what happened to them. I will talk about this issue on a separate post, this one I will stick with the sharing of of my experience at the hotel.

Happy Birthday!! I am 3 already?!

Time flies! I just realized the blog has turned 3 sometime last week and I almost forgot about it. Yes, I have been blogging for 3 years and mostly on food obviously and lately general lifestyle. However, I think it is time to turn a new leaf once again and do something different! I am still going to blog about food of course but it will be photographically driven with just the right amount of words. Details of the the new approach will follow along with a new face lift for the blog as well. Stay tuned!

In the meanwhile, something of a preview perhaps + shameless promotion? Many of you know how I have a growing interest and passion into photography as well as smartphone photography in recent times, and I plan to further promote / share my experiences in my upcoming trip to part of Europe (TBC) on the go! Smartphone photography is more than just the ability to capture the moment using your phone almost immediately, it is the ability (or possibilities) to share images almost instantaneously through different social media channels such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Sina Weibo and of course Instagram. In other words, you are able to tell your story through your images almost real time!

If you are interested in my upcoming travel(s) on the go, please do stay in touch via one of the following channels. (Click to access)

Instagram / Twitter / Sina Weibo / Facebook / Foursquare 

An-tico Enoteca & Pizzeria (Hong Kong)

Stepping inside An-tico reminded me of NYC, the lofty atmosphere, the subway tiles, the high ceiling and the 1920’s style custom light fixtures made me feel right at home. It is rare for a Hong Kong restaurant to have such a huge space but all of WindyCity's restaurants especially the notable Dan Ryan's and Amaroni’s outlets in Hong Kong have huge space. An interesting observation is how all of Windy City's Hong Kong establishments are situated inside malls / venues that have a cinema. I wonder what was the logic or business decision behind that. Anyhow, thanks Barbra and her company for treating me to this meal and I do wish her to have a great trip to Guam in October!

The Art of Bullshit

I wrote this following post quite a while ago on my personal blog (which I no longer update because I plan to consolidate all my thoughts and express them here on this platform). What triggered to dig up this old post was the large amount of bullshit I have been hearing recently. I have no doubt that we all have our fair share of bullshit but when one is being bombarded by them in a short period of time, headaches!

So do you like to bullshit? Why do we bullshit? How do we distinguish a lie from a bullshit? I just finished reading a book titled On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt attempts to answer the above questions in a philological approach. The following introduction and excerpts I found to be rather interesting. What do you think?

One of the most salient feature of our culture is is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in it ... we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves ... 

What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs. Those are what lies misrepresent, by virtue of being false, since bullshit need not be false, it differs from lies in its nonrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to. 

On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt (Princeton University Press, 2005.)