Abram in Motion

When I first arrived in Hong Kong, I compared it to my life in Shanghai. This was a mistake. The cities are as different as night and day, not only that, but my situation couldn't be more polar opposite. I certainly don't want to say any experience was "better" or "worse". Such simple black and white illustrations don't accurately describe the range of experience that were had. Comparing cities is like comparing your children. Which one is "better"? Which one do you love more? I have been here for just under 3 months and have made incredible new friends. I have tried many new things and found new passion.

A few weeks after I arrived in Hong Kong, I met Jo on the ferry from HK island to Lamma island. Jo is a Brazilian capoeira contra mastre and lives in the same small village as me. According to Wikipedia, capoeira is:

"an Afro-Brazilian art form that makes a ritual of movements from martial arts, games, and dance."

I had first heard about capoeira several years ago and remember thinking it would be incredible to try. Well, I got my chance! I have been very passionate about leaning and playing capoeira - I have been going to class with Jo at least 3, sometimes more, times a week! Out of all of the new students that I see joining, on my first day, I was worse than all of them! I'm proud of how far I've come, as I've been working quite hard at it!

This is a video of me playing capoeira at the end of class. I'm already quite tired...so get ready for a laugh or too:

Abram capoeira from inMotion on Vimeo.

Everyone in the Hong Kong group is a beginner, so we're all just struggling to get the basics down. It's still so much fun, and a lot harder than it looks!!


This was taken on Tom's last class in Hong Kong. He's a great Dutchman traveling the world with his cousin for a year working as in intern for various financial institutions before he goes to university. You can view his blog here, which also happens to contain tons of photos.



This is my teacher, Jo, playing with a student from Switzerland:

Contra Mastre Jo Capoeira from inMotion on Vimeo.

Check out more capoeira videos here. I particually like this one. This will give more of an idea of what more advanced capoeira is.

I came here at a bad time for finding work of any kind - right after the financial crisis, during Christmas, and right before Chinese new year. Sill, I have been lucky and found a little bit of animation work while in Hong Kong. You can see some of the projects I've worked on here:


Chinese TVC from inMotion on Vimeo.

This was a "last minute" project that I worked nonstop night and day on. In the end, the client canceled the commercial. :(


Miele - "Dreams and Desires" campaign promo from inMotion on Vimeo.

This is essentially a glorified power-point presentation. It was created for an internal presentation of Olaf Mueller's photo shoot for Miele, a German luxury home appliance company.

In between animation and capoeira, I've found a little work as a model:








The friends that I've made here have all been so wonderful. It's so hard to say goodbye, and I will certainly be missing them, but if it weren't for this incredible opportunity to travel and experience new things, I wouldn't have met them.


Taking a small fishing boat back home from Hong Kong, as the normal ferry doesn't make any trips from 12:30am to 6:30am.


My birthday at an Indian curry restaurant in TST. A friend from Shanghai was able to visit!


During my "birthday weekend", we took a friend's boat out around the island. It was quite cool that day, but we kept warm with hot apple cider.

Get together at a friend's house...sophisticated glasses look. yah!



New Years Party BBQ on Lamma Island.

Christmas roast pig on the beach! Imagine doing this in New York in December!

So after Hong Kong, what is next? I will be leaving Hong Kong on January 25th to meet friends from Shanghai in the Philippines for two weeks! After that, I will travel to Thailand to finally met up with my sister and her fiance! From there, we will take a flight down to Bali, and work our way by land and sea through Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and finally back to Koh Tao, Thailand. I will leave them there while they continue to learn diving, and I will meet Tim, a good friend from Shanghai, and will drive motorcycles across Laos together. We will finish this at the end of March.

As always, for more photos, check out my flickr account here.