After finally returning to the US in December, I flew to Tennessee to spend Christmas with Jackie’s family. While there we got to visit and we also went to her sister’s wedding in Georgia. I also got to visit Ashleigh Prince and Aaron Nicholson, who I worked with on America’s Phoneless.
Once Macgregor and I landed in Madrid, we quickly repacked and flew to London to shoot some footage for a teaser for the Erased Tapes’ band, Codes In The Clouds.
After being rained out for a day and shooting out at Camber Sands, Macgregor flew back to Madrid, and I got to hang with Erased Tapes Records owner, Robert Raths for a couple days. It was really awesome to see the day-to-day operations of Erased Tapes. It’s always inspiring to me when I get to see someone else in their element. Robert and I had a grand old time, and yes, the famous crepes Robert makes, are incredibly delicious.
Before leaving the UK, I got to meet several other inspirations of mine: Bill Erickson, one of the founders of the BIL Conference, Richard Moross, founder of Moo.com, Frank Da Silva of DMTlabs, and Matt Biddulph, one of the founders of Dopplr.com. I also got to hang out with Anita Ondine of Touchlight Media and Lukas Fittl co-founder of Soup.io.
In November, Macgregor, Zac, Pedro, and I traveled from Madrid to Shanghai. While there, we hung out with Ryan from RED and explored the great city of Shanghai. A highlight for me was seeing the Pearl and experiencing a city with an unbelievable amount of people.
We left Shanghai and flew to Bangkok, Thailand, switched planes, and ended up in Phuket. We then ventured out to the Phi Phi Islands. It is so beautiful there (not to mention Thaifood everyday! =)
We found ourselves back in Bangkok, shot a bunch of footage, and hung out with Martin trying to get our visa for India. We were headed to Mumbai about a week after the shootings, so it was suspicious for the visa guy to see four guys traveling to Mumbai. Long story short, after many hours of waiting, we got our visas and headed to Mumbai, India the next morning.
While in Mumbai, we met up with Binny, who is a friend of my friend Anil. The city of Mumbai is packed with people and cars 24/7. We headed out to Elephanta Island to check out the ancient sculptures in the caves.
Here’s a quick clip including a shot of India’s largest slum, Dharavi.
India Dec 09-2008 from mikehedge on Vimeo.
From India, we flew back to Madrid.
