Houston - Texas

I arrived in Houston a week ago to catch up and spend time with my friends that I made while in Hawaii in September 2004. Kawika who used to live in Waikiki moved to Houston six months ago, Chad and Kelly who live here and Alan who lives in Austin. Between Kawika and Chad, they have put have body through its paces. I'm sure its their influence as the excessive drinking and being out all night and all day is of course something that I'm not one to do myself. I'm actually at the point where now I think my internal organs have broken down and liquified. I was suppose to fly out to Austin today, but yesterday I cancelled my flight as I decided that there was more for me to do in this town. Truthfully since being here I have not seen much of this town outside of the four walls of the bars, so I wanted the extra time top spend with my friends. Alan is coming down from Austin, so all four of us Chad, Kelly, Alan and myself will spend Thanks Giving together, while Kawika is returning to the saftey of his mums for Thanks Giving.

This will be my first Thanks Giving and I'm under the impression there is going to be a lot of good food, good wine and great company. Another great American tradition that I'm going to experience on this journey of mine.

Chad, Kelly and myself - Guava Lamp

Kawika and myself - Guava Lamp

Houston city skyline

Halloween Castro style - San Francisco

I had been looking forward to this event, and if it was anything like the previous street fairs then I though I was in for an experience. After being in Waikiki with Adam for last years Halloween I certainly had high expectations. Yet I felt disappointed by the crowd and as a friend from Chicago stated, 'it was suburban and thugish'. The normal street carnival atmosphere was missing, and with the event being held in the Castro, I expected a lot of colour and movement. All I got was a bunch of 'bridge and tunnel' 20 something year olds with a belly full of grog that they couldn't handle. And to top it all off, at the closure of the street party, at 11.00pm, gangs rubbed each other up the wrong way and a shoot out began with a number of people being hit by bullets. I thankfully had had enough of the louts in the street earlier on, so William, myself and the rest of the gang had well and truly entrenched ourselves into a bar away from the bullshit going on outside.

As such I have no photo's of the evening so can only direct you to this outside website http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/10/31/BAG7CM2Q454.DTL&o=4

The story on the evenings shootings are at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/31/BAG7CM2Q454.DTL&hw=halloween+shootings&sn=003&sc=782