About The Journal
Photo by: Sebastian Mayer
Hawken King is a designer and illustrator living and working Tokyo. He has been keeping and online journal since 1999 – this is it.
cornhole
Published 13th of Apr, 2001. Stored under diary
still not recovering from my previous days non-fun I took a little trip to see some old school buddies in Lostwithiel. Ben-and-his-van was a funny experience but I cant really talk about it here from fear of being taken to court… let me say – I’ve never seen such a funny thing and the outcome of it all was a new tax disk, confused again? well, thats the Cornish way.
I’m glad everyone seems to be happy, and all of my friends seem to be doing something or seem to be looking out to the future and not looking in to stay in shitey Cornwall forever.
Drank at the Earl of Chatam for a long time, I’m sure it was past time and we were still getting pints – a round of 5 pints was about 10 pounds! Amazing!
horror
Published 12th of Apr, 2001. Stored under diary
hmm, Friday. Friday the 13th. This is being written after the proceedings.
I was down the local pub (o’calahans – or ‘old clammy hands’ to those in the know) with my good friend and old boss Gary. we had a few and talked over architecture and all the things that go with it. Then as I was walking out of the pub I spotted one of my old school friends (not a hard thing to do in Cornwall) and we went back to the Pub together… then decided that a jaunt out to the local nightclub ‘gossips’ that night would be an ace idea!
Ahem, hardly.
I didnt really enjoy myself that much in the meat market called gossips, and the person I went with disappeared so I was left to my own devices, it wasnt hard to find persons I knew – only its a bit shit meeting people that way sometimes.
A very drunk 2am later and was outside talking to different people trying to share a taxi home the 2 or so miles back to St.Austell – no success, so I walked it.
Theres only one person on this earth that will understand me when I use the word ‘cokkananola’ but I met two oddbods on the walk home and we went back to their summer house for more party. The next day was hell! (confusion? yes.)
eden
Published 9th of Apr, 2001. Stored under diary
Lazed about for a while and then some time in the late afternoon myself and my sisters boyfriend Tom went to the Eden project to collect my sister from work.
The Eden project, if you didnt already know, is a huge collection of greenhouse biomes set in an unused claypit near St.Austell and Par, the project is interesting and the website would give anyone more insight than I can provide: Eden project images
Its a big shame that only a few of the huge work force at Eden have interesting jobs though, and the wages are very low – even by Cornish standards!
morning after the night before
Published 7th of Apr, 2001. Stored under diary
weeeel, that was one of the most unwholesome parties I’ve been to in a long time.
My sisters birthday was yesterday. Myself and my flatmate Grigg decided to leave our flat in London with all of our worldly belongings, it was time for a change – we moved out of our east end London flat that morning in a big white van.
A few tedious hours later we were… just out of London. About the same amount of driving again +2 and we were in the land of Cornwall. When arriving in Lostwithiel we picked up that scamp Adam, off to St.Austell!
Partied hard, like some odd person who had just broken a 10 year tee-total regime.
Slept well in a chair from the late art deco period.
clocks go forward
Published 31st of Mar, 2001. Stored under diary
I belive, now is the true start of spring. The clocks went forward at the end of March so we here in England lost an hour. So when I get home from work its light in the sky, but I feel like crap in the mornings due to having an hour less in sleep.
Why does ‘an’ appear before all vowels and the word ‘hour’?
busy busy
Published 29th of Mar, 2001. Stored under diary
I’m like, really sorry for not updating my like, huh, diary, for like, 29 days. But like I’ve been really busy man. And the cat ate my homework.
tube fluff
Published 28th of Feb, 2001. Stored under diary
Its only a wee bit of fluff! I proclaimed to the old lady sitting next to me on the tube as we both nearly jumped out of our skins – a small spider shaped black bit of fluff descended from nowhere to land between us.
hot feet
Published 21st of Feb, 2001. Stored under diary
Its looking nicer outside my window today. I saw the years first beginnings of spring with a small patch of blossom on tree. Soon summer will be here and I hopefully wont. 
Sounds cryptic but I’m seriously considering leaving London ASAP. Gotta pay off all my rent b4 tho.
dune
Published 14th of Feb, 2001. Stored under diary
On the last few chapters of the 5th Dune book, just got to a decent bit where Teg Miles accidently gains the power to slow down time. Very interesting considering these books are the size of tree trunks and the last 8 chapters have been as boring as watching paint dry!
I’m still considering drawing all the faces from the Dune series if have time, I keep seeing people on the bus / tube that fit the bill of certain characters, mostly harkonens! hahaha
abduction club is shit
Published 12th of Feb, 2001. Stored under diary
Today myself and my flat mate were invited to go and see a preview of a new film at a screening room close to where I work, here in London.
My colleague had to meet some friends and didnt actually get in to the screening as there were too many people present. So I thought, this film must be good!
How wrong could I be
This film was utter shite, if you ever see a film on called: ‘abduction club’ … dont see it. We walked out after 15 minutes and got a pint or two. And I’ve never been tempted to walk out on a film…
no cars
Published 4th of Feb, 2001. Stored under diary
dude, wheres my car?
Well, first day on my new job. Mayhem.
The job was fine, just getting there was neigh impossible. In London the tube is an important form of daily travel for about 90% of commuters. So when the drivers decide to go on strike for a day, you can imagine how many people would take to the streets for the bus… London has a really decent bus service. It was stretched to the limits today though.
The conductors couldn’t let any more people on an empty bus after just one bus stop! And even then, hundreds of people were left standing at just one bus stop.
I saw one bus driver get very fed up, as people were barging over the capacity, over powering the conductors… to make the bus move again after a stop the conductor rings twice. After no ringing, the bus driver can turn the engine off until the required amount of [stupid] people get off the bus, to bring it back to legal capacity.
The conductor didnt ring.
The bus driver actually got out of the bus, and ran away!
Theres another strike next monday
katabatic
Published 1st of Feb, 2001. Stored under diary
I decided to pay a visit to the preloaded party at the Katabatic bar in shoreditch last night. In the heart of swanky Old Street style area, Katabatic is a really nice place and I’m surprised I’ve never been there before. I got in and thought it was a bit dead, got myself a pint and waited around for a bit. For some reason I ended up going to this place by myself, which is always hard.
As I was just about to leave I found out that the Preloaded party was infact downstairs, silly me.
Missed out on my free drink token.
Got chatting to a few people I know and a few people I dont. My whole attitude to these things is just to talk to as many people as possible and get very drunk / make a fool out of myself. I didn’t quite reach that point but did talk to a few wankers though. As with all new media parties, theres going to be your fair share of wankers.
But there is also lots of pretty and happy people!
dream
Published . Stored under diary
Dreamer dream the dream. A Dream within a Dream within a Dream.
Last night and today I’ve realised that my dreams are getting very vivid. I can remember almost all of the occurrences in any one part of the dream, although its still hard to explain certain parts as they are not always visually remembered.
The main reason behind this recent spate of dreaming lucid is that I’ve only been sleeping during the day. Like some sort of nocturnal creature.
I have my theories but I would imagine the reasons why I sleep in the day boil down to one thing: I cant go on the Internet for free during the day time, just the evening.
I would imagine that a lot of people throughout the world are experiencing this, sleeping when it costs money to use the Internet. And its all the fault of our ISP’s, and government. How is the Internet going to change our world if people cant speak to each other as it costs too much money to do so at that time?
Of course, I’m in the UK so it might be free in other places, but come on BT.
And the dream? Well, it was a ghost story. Mixed with a tower block apartment style town, the shops were on the 30th floor. Odd. I also woke and slept inside the dream.
A Dream within a Dream within a Dream.
bye bye
Published 19th of Jan, 2001. Stored under diary
A sad day, Kiyo goes back to Japan to live once again. Bye Kiyo! See You when I’m in Tokyo!
We had several months of fun in London, I feel quite dull now, I’ll recover again when I get back to japan later this year.
I lost a damn film down at heathrow. Shit!
paris trip 2 day 4
Published 17th of Jan, 2001. Stored under diary
Woke a little late and had our lovely hotel breakfast. Paid up and went our separate ways. I was off to photograph the metro, Kiyo was off to do some more shopping.
We later met up and went to the Pompidu and toured the museum of modern art. Quite good that, refreshing for the eyes. And what tired eyes I had.
We later went to do some more touristy stuff and more shopping. A nice system in the CD shop, you just scan the CD at a listening post and the you can hear it. Clever.
We prepared for leaving and suddenly Kiyo wanted to eat oysters. We had eaten so much these past few days, I swear I’ve never eaten so much food. And I’ve probably never smoked this much either. When we are together we tend to eat, drink and smoke to excess! Anyway, she was like a hyperactive child after this massive meal. We got back to England and our pal rang us, ‘hi I’ve made dinner for you, come over’. more food. I was ready to burst at this point.
We had a really nice trip to France, I hope we can do it again sometime in the future.
paris trip 2 day 3
Published 16th of Jan, 2001. Stored under diary
Started off the day by travelling to the equivalent of Paris’ Ordaiba or Canary Wharf, what is essentially a business park, with tons of cash and architecture thrown in. I wanted to see La Defence Grande Arche. Its an amazing bit of work. This whole area is quite amazing. Enough to give your cramps in your neck.
Then it was on to one of Le Corbusier’s apartments, which was just down the road, but after a minor map reading error, took us one and a half hours to get to. When we got there, just 10% was visible, but we made that the best 10% of our day.
I later saw the Statue of Liberty. Small that. This miniature version is near the France Radio 1 station building which is also quite impressive.
Took a trip to Foundation Le Corbusier, a very nice house that was donated as the central place in the Le Corbusier Foundation. He made this house for someone [I had trouble reading the french leaflet] and its very hard to find, as we were told in a Japanese magazine [Casa] that it was no 8 to 10 Square Du Docteur-Blanche. It is no 10, but its not. I mean even on the leaflet it says no 10. But the road signs eventually informed us that it was in fact no 44. A woman told us in french also, which helped. To round off the day we went to the Arche De Triumph or Monum as the tickets say, and then did some more window shopping.
For dinner we visited a special restaurant, very posh etc. But, meals in France cost a fraction of what you pay in London so everything was fine and dandy.
paris trip 2 day 2
Published 15th of Jan, 2001. Stored under diary
Second day in Paris and we are starting to get used to this place. Everyone seems to speak English in the bars and cafes, and there sure are a lot of cafes to drink in. I don’t quite know how to describe the atmosphere but its very different to London. In London we have a lot of nice clubs to visit, especially in the Hoxton Sq and Old Street Area. In Paris there are so many restaurants, cafes and bars, you really are spoilt for choice.
We mainly shopped today. Went to see the Pompidou, closed. Went to see the Louvre, Closed. Went to see a few more things, all closed. Tuesday is the closed day in France. I wish I knew this before.
Did some more window shopping, decided to not go and see Le Corbusier’s Church the next day as we had planned for a few reasons, mainly that its 5 hours journey away. Kiyo, the girl I was traveling with really did want to see this as shes a really big Corbusier fan. Maybe I changed her mind, maybe she changed her mind. I dont know. So we planned to see some other Corbusier stuff the next day.
Some odd ball guy with lots of nose hair tried to sell us some binoculars. He couldn’t speak french or English, just Chinese. He left after we stared at his nose hair for too long.
paris trip 2 day 1
Published 14th of Jan, 2001. Stored under diary
After booking the tickets a few days earlier, and booking the hotel the night before, myself and a good friend decided to travel to Paris for a few days. This was essentially a late Christmas present for both of us.
Waking up at some un-godly hour we boarded the Eurostar and headed of to gay parie. Armed with some clothing, a few cameras and my school boy french, I’m sure we prepared ourselves with the maximum of disregard.
On the Eurostar we fell asleep and were woken by a curious three or four year old girl who just stared at us from the gap in between the seats. She didn’t care to speak. After half an hour or so of being stared at we tried to break the silence with a few questions, now my friend who I was travelling with is Japanese. The little girl found this highly curious and asked her why are you wearing make up?
Then proceeded to say hes got some spots.
After dumping our stuff at the hotel, we had a spot of lunch. Tried out my French. Failed. I’m glad everyone in Paris speaks English.
Went to see the Tour Eiffel. I didn’t know it had these amazing hydraulics for powering the lifts. Its quite a staggering place if you’ve invert seen it.
Got quite drunk
Bah! Humbug!
Published 31st of Dec, 2000. Stored under diary
Happy new year and all that. After spending a few days in Cornwall for my holidays I decided to leave again, I don’t know why… I really don’t. I planned to stay in Cornwall until the 3rd of January but just had to leave on the 29th.
I was stuck in a small town called Redruth with my Grandparents. The nearest friend to me on Christmas eve was a drastic 40 quid taxi fare away, and with no trains at this point, fun it was not. I should have stayed in a hotel.
One does not realise how small and quiet Cornwall can really be until you are away from it for such a long time. Every town I went to was utterly dead. Maybe I should have stayed and gone to Newquay for new years or something but I felt the need to come back up here and drink tea in my own house, eat when I want to and… use the Tube!
Last year I was in Kyoto and Tokyo at this time, it was a lot more special then. And this year too, I’ve bought nothing for nobody. Talk about bah humbug.