Solange - Losing You (Cyril Hahn Remix)

After stumbling around the sometimes gorgeous, sometimes dirty, but always intriguing Southeast Asia for almost 4 months I have returned to Beautiful British Columbia, putting an end to the hiatus of EpiclyUnreal Song Of The Day. Plenty of great memories and crazy stories came from that whirlwind adventure and I plan to explore some of these over the next few weeks.

Day 1: Myself and two good friends depart YVR at midnight, taking the redeye to Taipei, Taiwan. After a 90 minute layover we are on our way to Manila, the bustling, most densely populated city in the world, and capital of the Philippines. One of my friends has arranged for us to stay with the family of one of his friends from University. The two brothers, both of whom are of similar age to us and sound like awesome dudes, are waiting at the airport to pick us up. What a great way to be introduced to a foreign country and begin this incredible trip. Now all we have to do is clear customs, grab our backpacks, and find the exit.

After watching the majority of the foreigners on our flight pass right through customs and receive their VISAs it is finally our turn. We hand over our passports and almost immediately something feels wrong. The agent asks us for information regarding our flight off the island. We tell her that we have not booked that yet as we plan to do so in the next week or so, once we learn more about the island and have consulted with our hosts in Manila. Well apparently this is a big No No. We are then directed to the other side of the building where we enter the customs holding room. 

After an excruciating wait, a different lady with short black hair enters the room and asks us for our passports. We oblige and ask what's going on as well as offer to quickly use the Internet to buy flights off the island right then and there. Both of these questions go unanswered and then we are told to go back to the customs line. We get to the counter we had been to before and the same agent has our passports and seems prepared to give them to us and allow us to enter the country. But right before this can occur the short haired lady, fresh off her walkie-talkie, waves over to the agent and we are ushered back to the area near the holding room. At this point an airport employee has found our backpacks for us, which I figure cannot be a good sign. Next the short-haired she-devil tells us that we have been denied VISAs and are being sent back to Vancouver. Collectively, our three hearts sink. In a last ditch effort I show her the documents for my flight home from Seoul, South Korea at the end of June. I want to prove that Yes we in fact are planning to leave the country at some point and that we are not refugees or some shit. In fact we simply plan to spend the allotted 3 weeks given by our VISAs and spend our money in THEIR country. This does nothing, along with another request to buy tickets on the spot to leave the country. After a short discussion with two more official looking agents in the room where they are now holding our passports the lady comes back and tells us that we will instead be sent back to Taipei and at our own expense. She takes our credit cards and books us on the next flight back that day for $500 each. FUCK. There goes about a half a month of travelling as well as a harsh lesson learned.

We are then ushered up to a lounge where we have to pay US $10 (go figure!) to sit there while a security guard holds our passports and watches us. My one friend finally gets Wi-Fi and is able to message our very confused hosts who were waiting to pick us up. So shit can't get any worse, right? WRONG. The overall shittiness of the day comes crashing down on my other friend and he tells us that he will be going straight home to Vancouver once we get back to Taipei. We plead with him to reconsider and at least sleep on it but his mind is made up for reasons that I will not share but, believe me, they're good ones. Still it sucks as the tripod is gone and we are left as a very confused, tired, and angry duo in Taipei, Taiwan, a country that we only ever planned on visiting the airport of.

After leaving Vancouver at 12:15 am on Wednesday February 6th we finally arrive at our hostel in Taipei at around 10 pm on Thursday the 7th. It ended up being an awesome hostel where we made some great friends and had incredible experiences in the city. The trip had now officially begun but holy fuck that was one hell of a speed bump!

The song "Losing You" by Solange and remixed by Cyril Hahn was chosen for the obvious implications of the title with regards to day one of the trip but also because it's a great song. I love what he does with the vocals, turning them into a deep soul voice, a staple of all his remixes by the likes of Destiny's Child, Mariah Carey, and Jeremih. This song also went on to be somewhat of an anthem for the trip for me as I couldn't stop playing it on multiple occasions. Cyril went to UBC and frequents the local club scene. I really want to catch him doing a set at Fortune Sound Club one day. Also, be sure to check out the original version of the song by Beyonce's lil' sis Solange.