On occasion during my travels I make it a point to go to the local music store and see what the locals listen to. It’s a great way to find new artists and those that I would not necessarily have known otherwise.

While in Hong Kong, I did just that. Dropping into the HMV in Causeway Bay, I perused the aisle hoping to find that one artist that I would enjoy listening to. And that’s just what I did. Heading to the Classical and Jazz department of the store, I noticed this one singer on the featured artist list. Conveniently, one of her CDs was available to sample. I picked up the headphone and as soon as that voice sang its first note, I knew I just had to buy her album.

I stood there by the CD player, listening to Start from here, for what must have been a very long time as I slowly moved from one song to the next. I loved the fun arrangements of her songs, the mood it took me through, and most importantly, her voice. It was so captivating that I couldn’t stop myself from leaving the station.

There were two albums on sale: Start from here, and Joanna & ???. As I had already listened to the bulk of the former album, I decided to go for the latter. It was her sophomore album. I didn’t know it at the time. But seeing as I was so impressed with my sampling, I figured I could look forward to anything from her.

Joanna’s style of singing is rather interesting. It’s a mixture of various other artists that I can relate it with that makes her style… well, hers. Her lazy way of singing is reminiscent of Norah Jones. Yet her other songs give off a slight hint of Heather Nova, and possibly even some Sheryl Crow in another one of her songs. Joanna’s soft vocals are so soothing to listen to, somewhat similar to one of my Norwegian discoveries, Lene Marlin.

Combining all these vocal similarities into one singer, you get one unique and interesting artist to listen to. Who knew a Taiwanese artist would captivate me so much. Did I mention she sings in English too?

For more on Joanna, head to her web site: http://www.sonymusic.com.tw/pop/joannawang/
or to her YouTube channel, where she serenades us with her magical voice: http://www.youtube.com/user/jeminijem/

After a long absence from my blog, I am happy to say that I have returned. Coming back from a recent trip to Thailand, Hong Kong, and Macau, I had a blast as I travelled to far off places, ate food that my stomach didn’t agree with, attended my brother’s wedding, and did a myriad of other memorable things.

I hope to blog a little more regularly, but we all know how that turned out the last time I said that. Um.. yeah.

It’s been over three weeks now since I went scuba diving in the waters of Thailand, and still I have troubles with my ear. At first I thought it was a simple “water in my ear” issue, but realized that this was not the case as I still had issue weeks later.

I went to my doctor where he flushed out my ear by squirting water in it. I have to say it did a good job as “stuff” came out. His explanation was that the water pressure must have pushed the wax further into my ear where it settled, right next to the flap that separates the interior of the ear from the exterior. Because of this, I kept hearing crackling noises, and with the water build-up in the inside of the ear, it had nowhere to go since the flap was blocked.

This all sounded like a viable explanation so I nodded as he pointed and showed me the flap on this large diagram of an ear he had on the wall.

Days later, I noticed that the crackling had subdued somewhat. I’d say I was about 85% better after that luke-warm water flushing. I was still, however, not 100% satisfied as on occasion I would still hear crackling sounds. I then went further by having my ear picked by the trusty ear picker that my family always used in the past.

Going a little too far, the rather sensitive part of my ear was touched, giving me an instant sore spot within my ear. No matter, as I have had this done to me in the past. Nothing too exciting here as not much else came out.

It sure did feel nice to though. If you can imagine the satisfying sensation you get when someone scratches that part of your back that you couldn’t scratch yourself for the entire day, then you’ll get a rough idea of how satiated I get after my inner ears are cleaned.

I digress. So afterward, my ear was sore for a while as I kept getting a mild throbbing sensation every now and then. Argh. I lived with it for a day. No problems.

Now, I can feel my ear is recovering from the throbbing sensation, and that I may be about 98% recovered from my pressure equalization issue. This is great!

On occasion when I yawn or blow my nose, I do recall my ear popping more often than before though. But I feel much better now without having any plugged ear sensation and now that the pain is going away.

Great stuff. Now I can go scuba diving again!