China Family Trip - Beijing Day 3

It's ~8:30pm and I'm sitting in my hotel room while everyone else went out for a late dinner. I think I walked too much today and did something to my right ankle. I'm trying to rest up for our trip to the Great Wall tomorrow.

Today was a lot of walking... I think that's the theme for every trip to Asia. We made sure that Tiananmen Square was open today and took a cab to Qianmen like we planned yesterday. As soon as we stepped out of the cab, we were assaulted by vendors trying to sell us hats and "tour guides" asking us where we were headed. Security was heavy and they shut down access to all the "gate" buildings. They also blocked access to some areas of Tiananmen Square. There was a huge line to get into Mao's memorial hall but none of us were really interested.


Qianmen... we tried so hard to get here yesterday via the subway. It was closed to tourists until after October 1st.


There was a lot of security at Tiananmen Square. In addition to the regular army guards, there was the police, the armed police, public safety, and of course, the chengguan. This is typically translated as city manager but in reality, they're mostly there to clear away street vendors. They have a nasty reputation in many cities of just beating up people who resist being "cleared" away and there have been a lot of conflicts.


A lot of real estate was blocked off in the square. I was able to get much closer even during the Paralymics last year.


Food truck. They weren't getting harassed by the chengguan so maybe they're legit. Can I get a burrito please?

At this point, my dad wasn't feeling well we gave him some RMB bills and he went back to the hotel. It was a wise decision since we ended up walking a lot. Next was crossing the street and into the Forbidden City. This is the third time I've been here.


Another obligatory shot. It still looks the same as last year.


I took a lot of "standard" photos but also some of other people taking pictures. Here is a random girl posing. Her boyfriend also took some "wannabe cool" photos afterward.

After exiting the back of the Forbidden City, we walked to Beihai Park. Along the was, we stopped in a local restaurant for lunch.


Dumplings with leeks(?) and eggs. We also had some noodle dishes. Interestingly, their version of some dishes was more Korean than Chinese.


We rented a six passenger electric boat and cruised the lake for a bit. Here is Google Maps on my Blackberry showing us to be in the middle of Beihai lake.


The white-thingy building as seen from the middle of the lake.


It was hard to find an available taxi after Beihai Park so my friend and I ended up on the bus. It's much cheaper but it ended up dropping us off on Wangfujing so it took us another 20 minutes to walk back to our hotel.


An orthodox church. A couple was taking wedding photos in front of the church building.


Ferrari and Maserati dealer next to our hotel. I heard that there is a Ferrari dealer in Chengdu and they only sold one car in 2008. Hope there was a lot of margin dollars in the final price.

China Family Trip - Beijing Day 2 (photos)

Hmm, it looks like I can upload photos but only one at a time. Here are some pics from day 2.


Our hotel. It's hidden behind a taller building so you can't really see it from the main street.


Egg pancakes. The stack of white stuff on the right are pork rinds. Definitely not the healthy choice for breakfast.


The Temple of Heaven park was crowded because a lot of people were here practicing ballroom dancing, line dancing, singing Chinese opera, kicking some feather thing (like hacky sack), but not really sightseeing.


Temple of Heaven. I have some pics from my first trip to Beijing but it was with a film camera.


Up close


There was actually more than one "temple" at the site. All the buildings line up in a straight row, kinda like the Forbidden City.


4th Ring Road right next to the Olympic Park


Bird's Nest


Entry turnstile from last year. They put a metal fence around the entire stadium in order to make it a "tourist attraction" and to sell you tickets to get close. They were also ripping up all the turnstiles. I guess that means they've given up on using this place for a regular sports venue.


Lights/PA speakers in the middle of the Olympic Park area


Water Cube


Line 14 was built specifically for the Olympics. The station and trains were empty (nice!) compared to the insanity of the rest of the subway system.


Insects on a stick. The scorpions were still moving; maybe to show that they're fresh?


Candied fruits (or other stuff) on a stick.


Bigger insects on a stick plus starfish! I think they deep fry it when you order. Gross.

This is a free country!?

Sometimes when my parents nag each other, one of them likes to say, "I can do whatever... this is a free country." During breakfast this morning, my mom was about to say that to my dad, and she got as far as "This is a free..." before stopping. Then she said, "Oh, we're not in a free country" in Chinese.

I told her to stop saying stuff like that but I thought it was pretty funny.

China Family Trip - Beijing Day 2

Since no uploading of photos is allowed in China now, even through a VPN, I'll just keep going with text posts and upload pictures when I get to Hong Kong or back home.

==========

The plan today was to visit Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City. Since we don’t get breakfast along with our room, we went to a small street behind our hotel and had some local food. We got bowls of soybean milk, mung bean porridge, some fried dough, and some steamed buns for ~¥20. We also got some weird egg pancake thing that has fried pork rinds in it. Yum… not. Anyway, we got on the subway near our hotel and soon found out that most of the stations near Tiananmen Square were closed due to rehearsal for the 60th PRC anniversary. Since it appeared that the entire square was closed off, we decided to go with tomorrow’s itinerary and go to the Temple of Heaven first. However, we were already in the subway traffic mess and got stuck on a very busy line 1. It was really like those pictures you see of Tokyo subways; we had to push our way into the train and it was so packed that you didn't need to hold on to the handrails. Lines 1 and 2 are the old Beijing subway lines so I don’t think the train had air conditioning. When the door opened, we could feel a blast of hot stinky air blowing out of the car. Anyway, the train stopped several times along the way and we were stuck on the train of horror for about 15 minutes.

The Temple of Heaven park was very crowded. I was here 11 years ago and there weren’t a lot of people. We walked around for about 2 hours and took lots of pictures (which I can't post right now).

Next on the itinerary was the Olympic Park. By now we were tired of the subway even though it was cheap so we took two cabs. Since the city center was closed, the cab driver was asking me how to get to the Olympic Park. I ended up telling him to follow the other cab. He pulled alongside the other cab and had an argument about how to get there. It didn’t matter that much in the end since the lead cab (dad, sister, and Rebecca) drove fast and ditched us (me, my mom, and Shundi). Luckily my dad saw our cab drive by where they got off and we were able to meet up.

Last September, I was in Beijing with Newsong NOC and we went to a Paralympic event. Since then, not much has happened here in the Olympic Park but a lot of tourists still come here. My sister and Rebecca got ticket (¥50) to go inside the stadium while the rest of us waited outside. After walking around some more, we decided to call it a day and skip the Summer Palace. We split up to go back to the hotel with me, my sister, and Rebecca taking the subway, while the rest of them took a taxi back to the hotel.

After taking a short nap, we went to dinner at Bellagio, a Taiwanese cafe that I went to last year. The food was pretty good and we got the huge shaved ice dessert after dinner. The entire bill was about ¥400. Last night while walking around Wangfujing, we saw the entrance to the night market but it was closed due to "cleaning" or something. Since all the foreign journalists did a story here for the Olympics last year, we had to check it out. After dinner, we took a cab directly to the night market (or close since the area was closed to pedestrians) and walked around for awhile. Like all night markets in China, it was loud and noisy and dirty; I can't imagine what the placed looked like before they "cleaned" it. Unlike other night markets though, there were the freaky insect on a stick vendors. This was the fried scorpion stories we all saw on TV last year though I didn't see anyone eating that stuff. Somewhere in the market I caught a whiff of raw squid/cuttlefish and almost threw up. Maybe that triggered something and I started feeling sick (stomach). I think my parents weren't feeling well either so we ditched my sister and Rebecca and walked quickly back to the hotel.

During one of the taxi rides, I asked the driver about the anniversary rehearsals. Supposedly they're done this morning at 2am so Tiananmen Square should be open tomorrow. The downside is that it will probably receive twice the number of visitors today. Oh well... nothing ever happens according to plan in China anyway.

GFW 2.0?

Interesting. I've been able to get through to Blogger and Facebook when I connect through my VPN (as expected) but as soon as I try to upload a picture to my blog, my connection is interrupted. This happened twice already. It also blocks access to all other sites, even those normally available without a VPN. The only way (so far) to recover is to disconnect from the VPN and login again.

Hmm, maybe the blocking algorithm is getting smarter or the CCP is more paranoid due to the upcoming 60th anniversary of the Communist takeover of China.

==========

Update: I tried to upload pictures again before going back to sleep (it's 5am here) and it worked, though just for one picture. Maybe there's a filter on the size of the upload or something. It's a drag posting one picture at a time so I'll probably just do a few and wait until I'm on the other side of the GFW.

China Family Trip - Beijing Day 1

Aah, back behind the Great Firewall of China. Good thing I installed our company's VPN on my netbook.

Even though my Hong Kong to Beijing flight was delayed 30 minutes, we still arrived on time in Beijing. We were asked to fill out a quarantine control form but no one came on the plane to measure our temperature. It took me about 30 minutes to get through Immigration and Customs and I found my parents waiting for me. We took a taxi into town (¥84) and checked in.


China Airlines 747 parked at Beijing Capital Airport. This was my parents' flight from TPE to PEK. Direct flights from Taiwan to PRC was not possible until very recently.

I found the hotel online and booked 3 rooms for 4 nights. The rate they quoted me was about $900 excluding a 15% tax. However, they charged me ~¥13,000. It turned out they charge ¥500 for miscellaneous stuff per night per room which almost doubles the rate. I'll get it back if we don't use the minibar or use room service but it seems pretty steep. Since my sister's in coming in on a later flight, I went back to the airport to pick them up. It was cheaper to take the subway (¥2) and Airport Express train (¥25) than taking a taxi since I was by myself. Since there was traffic, I think was faster to take the train.


Airport Express train. I was to switch trains twice to get to this station. The train was pretty good, not as nice as Hong Kong's Airport Express but much cheaper.


The sign says the train was disinfected today. This is probably in response to the Swine Flu.


The Airport Express station in Terminal 3. They build everything big at the airport.

Since my other friend was arriving from Shanghai on China Eastern, it was at a different terminal. After I got my sister and Rebecca, we took a free shuttle to the other terminals. On the bus, we met a guy from Kansas going to Xi'an to teach English for a year. He's never been outside of the US... pretty cool.


A better picture than the one I posted earlier on Facebook. I took this from the Airport Expressway.

A night, we walked west towards Wangfujing and had dinner at a random restaurant. It was kind of like Third Street in Santa Monica; they blocked off the street from car traffic and there was a lot of pedestrians. I'll post pictures later... time to go.


Is it a hotel? A supermarket? Both?


A restaurant chain famous for Peking Duck. We decided against eating here since duck meat was very greasy, probably extra special greasy here in China.


Our hotel is next to the Beijing Lambo dealer. The price tag said (¥388万) which comes out to ~US$550k... much more expensive than what it costs in the US. There's also a Rolls Royce dealer around the corner with a Phantom in the display window. Cab driver told me it was about ¥6M-¥7M in China.

China Family Trip - Flight/Hong Kong

Yawn. Only six and a half hours to go until Hong Kong. I think I slept for at least three hours on this flight so far which is pretty good though now my back is a bit sore. This flight is not that full. I’m sitting on the left side of the plane and there is an empty seat next to me. The plane appears to be only about half full. Only two movies so far: Monster vs. Aliens and Star Trek XI. I think I’m going to watch Wolverine next.


My parents’ China Airlines flight boarded on time. It was pretty weird to look out the window and see their 747 parked at the gate.

==========


Three hours and 2500 km left to go. We’re somewhere just south of Japan. I think our flight path takes us over Taiwan again. If my parents’ flight left on time, then they’re about 500 km ahead of me. I have about a two hour layover which is not too bad. Depending on which gate we arrive at, I’m going to try an take a shower at the lounge and upload these posts and some pics.

I haven’t watched any more movies but instead I watched 4 episodes of FLCL, a strange Japanese cartoon series.

==========


There's always a Cathay 747 parked at gate 4061.

I arrived in Hong Kong about an hour ago. The first thing I received when I turned on my phone was a text message from my sister that their PDX to YVR flight was delayed and they will miss their YVR to PEK flight. Fortunately, they were able to get on an Air China flight that arrives about 2 hours late so no biggie. Good thing for airline alliances (Star Alliance in this case). Meanwhile, my flight docked at Gate 65 so I'm at the lounge near gate 63 (The Wing?). I took a quick shower, which was nice, and have about 30 minutes before my HKG to PEK flight leaves. Maybe I'll steal some more cans of beer or something before I go. :)

China Family Trip - LAX

I’m sitting at Gate 103 at LAX, ready for another trip to China. This time, my entire family decided to come along so I’m heading to Beijing first before going to Chengdu. I decided to sit with my parents at the gate instead of going to the lounge. As usual, there are lots of flights going to Asia at this time. I’m on the later Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong which departs at 1:50am. My parents are on the China Airlines flight departing at 1:15am to Taipei. There must be still a lot people going to Asia. I saw a Korean Airlines 747 departing for Seoul at 11:30pm and another one departing at 12:10am, also going to Seoul. Maybe they should buy an Airbus A380 and combine the two flights.

Since I’m sitting at the gate, I don’t have an Internet connection. I’ll probably upload this when I get to Hong Kong. This time, I brought my netbook instead of the Sony Vaio. I also brought the other netbook (Dell Mini 12) along with me. My mom is watching Bolt on it right now. Battery life is not that long; we’re about 1:10 into the movie and there’s only ~40 minutes of juice left. Probably doesn’t like having to spin the hard drive the entire time.


One of the two Korean Airlines 747's going to Seoul. I think this is KE012.

Crappy Sony Camera

I bought a Sony U-20 a long time ago; it is a very small 2MP digital camera. A few years back, the CCD inside broke. After searching the web, I found out that Sony had a recall for the U-20 so I sent it in and they repaired it. Well, I just tried to use it and the CCD is out again. I took some pictures with it a few months ago and it was still fine. Crap. Since it's so old, I doubt that Sony will repair it again. I like the camera because it's really small though the picture quality is not much better than the Blackberry. Oh well, no hidden camera pics in China then...

Fantasy Football 2009

Another year, another fantasy football season. Once again, I'm signed up for the same two leagues I've been in for the past several years. They're both hosted on Yahoo: one is free, organized by one of Kev's friends from UCR, and the other cost $65, organized by a co-worker. Since (some) money is involved, the money league participants are a bit more serious than the free league. There is going to be a live draft in a few days but it's at the same time as my Hong Kong to Beijing flight. Looks like I'm auto-drafting again. I did get an email today telling me that I "won" the draft lottery and have first pick. Looking at a few sports websites, I think the overwhelming first pick choice is Adrian Peterson of the Vikings. With 14 people in the league, after pick #1, my next picks are #28 and #29. By then, you are into the 2nd tier of players so the computer's pick is probably as good as mine. I think this is the 2nd time I got first pick in this league; last time (a few years ago), I chose Larry Johnson and he was just mediocre.

Microsoft Publisher

Getting a cell phone number in China is very easy. All you need is a tri/quad-band phone and a ¥50 SIM card. Within minutes, you can be making calls and receiving spam text messages. However, it's just as easy to lose the number. If you lose your SIM card or have your phone stolen (with the SIM card inside... it happens a lot), you're out of luck. In my case, Leon got me a SIM card 2+ years ago and had it printed on my PMI business card. It worked fine until this March when my number stopped working. Evidently, China Mobile just cancels your account after 4-5 months of inactivity. Unfortunately, since my (one and only) analyst quit earlier this year, there was a six month gap between trips. My China cell phone number was gone and no amount of pleading helped to get it back. Anyway, I had to get a new SIM card which means a new number. Since nobody calls me in China, this was not too bad except now I have a stack of business cards with the wrong phone number. Awesome.

During college, I worked at an advertising agency as their computer artist and I did a lot of freelance graphic design work, mainly resumes and business cards. After work today, I went to Office Depot and bought a pack of Avery 5871 White Two-Side Printable Clean Edge Business Cards. Leon has sent me the new PMI logo so I thought I would just design and print some cards with my new cell phone number. After I got home, I found that I do not have any desktop publishing software on any of my computers. I was a heavy PageMaker user but have not used it for many years. I can also use QuarkXpress or even Illustrator but ever since I started my finance career, I've rarely used any DTP software.

Why did I start this post... oh yeah, Microsoft Publisher. I was going to use Word or PowerPoint to layout the new business cards but I found Publisher 2007. I've never used Publisher before since it was more of a consumer application and no one in the industry used it. Long story short, after about 2 hours of work (mostly trying to type Chinese text), I have some new business cards. I had to print them on my HP LaserJet 1022n so the alignment is not that precise... but good enough to hand out. They're mainly for the solar trade show next week in Chengdu. I doubt I'll hand out many cards so I've only made 30 for this trip. Now if something happens to my China cell phone number I can just print new updated business cards.

==========

I was tempted to use traditional characters for my Chinese name but decided to stay away from politics. I hate the ugly simplified Chinese characters.

Etude - Lyrics

Hmm, once again I checked two different performances and the lyrics are different. I really don't get it. Maybe you can toss in random Hangul characters and it still means the same thing? They also break the lines in different places; not sure if that make any difference either.

Etude

Listen to my words
Girl please let him know

Girl 잘 들어봐 내가 하는 말
너무 기다려 왔던 이 순간을 위해
I know why 너의 sexy한 모습
아이 같은 순수함 모두 보여 줄래
Oh no 말할 땐 좀 다 크게
Yes right 때로는 소네 같게
하나하나 조심스럽게 행동하기

왜 그러니 너 실수투성이
너무 어색한 행동과 말들
매력이라고는 뭐 전혀 보이지를 않잖아
들어봐
러를 보여 줘 사랑스러운
너의 애교와 눈웃음 가득
우리 연습한 그대로 푹 빠져들어 가게
By your side
그가 젖어들면
촉촉한 눈빛을 보내고
너의 부드러운 손끝을 그에게
살짝 닿게 해

바로 그거야 (Girl you know)
녹일 수 있는 너무 완벽한 행동과 말들
사랑스러운 너의 매력 빠져 버릴 거야
Girl please let him know
너의 모든 걸 조금씩 천천히 보여 줘
우리 연습한 그대로 푹 빠져들어 가게
By your side
바로 그거야

Ugh, water! Sure it's cute to have them sing barefoot and all but it's a sound engineer's nightmare. By the lack of stage monitors or even IEM's (in-ear monitors), I'm pretty certain that they're lip-syncing. If so, then why the expensive microphone props? They should have went with the lavalier microphone prop. Good thing no one dropped a $900 wireless microphone in the water.

Hey, no splashing!

Haircut

I finally got a haircut today after about six months. It was getting pretty long... now my head feels ~5 lbs lighter. Since Beijing is probably still hot next week, I figure I'd better get my hair cut before I go.

I've been going to the same Chinese guy (Ben from Hong Kong) at Hair Art in Irvine for the past 9 years. The haircut plus shampoo costs $22 which is not too bad considering I only go three times per year on average. Each time I go though, a different Mexican lady washes my hair.


I want to find out which salon this girl works at, though I don't want to go blind in the end. :)

Phishing Emails

I got three phishing emails from the same place within minutes from "BMO" today.

Security & Privacy

We are committed to protecting you when you bank with us. Our banking services are designed with your security in mind.
As a part of our efforts to meet the requirements of the Financial Services Authority we now ask all Bank Of Montreal users to update their account information. It's a smart and simple way to add an additional layer of protection to your account.

Click On "NEXT" to update your account.

Clicking "NEXT" brings you to a login page that is actually hosted at Makuto Guesthouse, some hotel in Granada (Spain?). What awesome advertising for your business. If I ever go to Granada, there is no way I'm staying there... they'll most likely steal all your stuff while you're sleeping.

Sigh... I get some many of these phishing emails that I just delete them without even looking. When you stop and think about it though, these scumbags are trying to steal your money. It's no different than someone coming up to you and robbing you at knife/gunpoint.

Fun Jobs (in Korea)

If I ever get fired from my current job, I think it would be fun to go to Korea and work on the sound/stage crew for one of the music performance shows. Just by browsing YouTube videos, it seems Music Core on MBC has the most elaborate sets (and Tiffany and Yuri of SNSD are the current MC's). As an added bonus, you get to find out who is singing live and who is lip-syncing.

I will be like going to a K-pop concert every week. I'll need to learn some new Korean vocabulary though. Hello, goodbye, and thank you only gets you so far.


KARA! "Uh, do you need any help with your wireless IEM pack?"

NK-Pop

K-pop in North Korea? Not quite...



I found this video while clicking around in YouTube. It's a concert by BabyVOX and Shinhwa in Pyongyang, North Korea (not sure when). The most interesting thing about the whole thing is the audience. They're all dressed as if they're at an opera or classical music concert and no one is clapping or even moving very much. I wonder what they're thinking.

On second thought, it doesn't look like the audience is starving so they're probably all part of the ruling elite class so maybe they're used to all this. Still, very different audience reaction than... Hollywood Bowl?



Hey, maybe SNSD and the current group of K-pop idols should do a concert in Pyongyang instead of Los Angeles. North Korea is only a few miles from Seoul but I'll bet most of them have never been across the DMZ.

"Pretty girl, why are you cursing me?"

CRIEnglish.com

A man suspected of beating to death a 27-year-old female village official in Chengdu has been arrested thanks to some investigative work by netizens, sconline.com.cn reported on Friday.

Police officers in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan province, arrested Li Bin, the suspect, Thursday afternoon. Li confessed to the crime after the first questioning.

The Chengdu municipal government will hold a press conference Friday on the latest developments.

At about 1:40 p.m. on August 10, 2009, Li Bin quarreled with the victim, Che Yating, on the third section of the West First Ring Road in Chengdu. He then assaulted Che, who died the next day after being sent to hospital.

A graduate of Sichuan University, Che Yating worked as a village official in Youfang Village, Xinxing Township. A recent national policy encourages many college graduates to work as village officials in rural areas.

Here is more information plus photos from EastSouthWestNorth.

I really don't understand the mentality of this Li Bin guy. One of the news articles says he hit her with his electric tricycle, she said something vulgar to him, he came back, they argued, he beat her and she died the next day in the hospital.

At around 1:40pm on August 10, 27-year-old female village official Che Yating was walking near number 111, on the West Third Section of the First Ring road in the city of Chengdu. She was nicked by the electric tricycle driven by an unknown male. Che Yating screamed in pain and uttered a vulgar phrase in the local dialect. When the driver heard that, he quickly stopped and parked his tricycle near the bus stop next to the Green Field Furniture Store. Then he grabbed Che Yating and said, "Pretty girl, why are you cursing me?" The two quarreled and the man assaulted the woman, who would die as a result later at the hospital. The man fled.

A few things trouble me about this. First, I've been on 1st Ring Road in Chengdu, though not sure what section; all the intersections look similar. It's weird to read about some crazy news item from half-way around the world and know exactly where it happened.

Two, I've experienced many near misses crossing the street in China, most involved bicycles and scooters. People don't seem to stop for red lights at all, to the point of running over pedestrians at crosswalks (as it appears to be the case above). Why is there such low respect for civil laws? I'm repeating myself but Chinese people smoke in front of no smoking signs, spit everywhere even though it's illegal, and there's just a general lack of courtesy towards strangers. Chinese people in America are not like that (in general).

Third, why does this guy think it's okay to beat a girl so hard that she dies from her injuries? Not that it matters, but he was the one that hit her with his tricycle first. Didn't they learn that "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Maybe he has the Asian alpha-male syndrome (大男人 - for a lack of a better term) where they think they're superior to women and need to slap them around to keep them in line.



Finally, this bothers me the most. He beat her up in broad daylight (1:40pm) on a busy street in a major city and nobody intervened or helped out? I can see not getting involved in a domestic argument but when a 33-year old guy starts beating up a young girl, I think most of us in the West would try to do something, instead of watching him beat her to death. Though much less risky/controversial than the above incident, I've grabbed/blocked toddlers running away from their parents a few times. I'm not sure the average Chinese person in China will do even that.


Sigh... plenty of bystanders that could have saved her life.

Travel Planning

Travel planning is hard work. I think we're finished with organizing our family trip to China later this month. I've sent out a lot of emails and browsed a lot websites and we're still relying on travel agencies for some of the trip. Some of the extra work is because I'm cheap so we were dealing with travel agencies in China. I think we discovered that with agencies that mainly deal with locals, even their first class tours are pretty cheap, both quality and price. I guess that's fair... if you want First World accommodations, prices don't vary that much across the world.

Anyway, I think I still need to buy plane tickets for my parents from Beijing to Chengdu, then book another night of hotel for them as well. My friend was going to meet me in Beijing from Chengdu but she booked a later flight than all of us due to discounts so now I have to figure out arrival details for Beijing again.

The TV show Amazing Race had graphics showing different team's travel plans with moving arrows on an animated globe/map. I wonder what software they used to create it. It would be cool to do that for our trip; there are currently 24 trip segments to worry about for all six of us.

More Chinese Visas

I was sending a travel agent in China our passport/visa information and noticed that the Chinese visas were numbered sequentially. Since my dad got his a few days later than us, I have numbers from applications submitted on Monday and a number from a one-day visa issued the same week on Thursday. To be conservative, I assumed that the Monday visas were processed right away and that all visa numbers in between were issued out of the Los Angeles office. Anyway, it works out that they issue about 1500 visas (conservative estimate) per week. Once again, assuming that most to all the visas are for US citizens, that's ~$150k per week on visa fees just for the Los Angeles office; there are Chinese consulates in several US cities.

For that much money, you figure they could afford air conditioning in the middle of summer and hire more customer service (!) reps.

Vista Can't Print... Again!

Argh, my Sony Vaio stopped printing today. Once again, the Print Spooler subsystem crashed and left garbage in the spool folder. I searched the web but couldn't find the fix... then I remembered that I blogged about this last time. Good thing I documented it in the blog post. I just deleted the contents in the spool folder and rebooted. Hopefully this will fix it like last time.

I hate Vista and Microsoft's totally useless error message dialog boxes..

==========

Nope. It didn't work which means I have to spend hours researching and fixing the problem. It was printing fine yesterday too. Did I mention that I hate Vista?

Chinese Corruption

In the aftermath of the huge earthquake in Sichuan last year, I donated a couple thousand dollars to the Red Cross and World Vision, specifically for earthquake relief. Of course I knew about the rampant corruption in China but I was hoping that things would be different this time. Well... I was wrong.

Danwei.org (translation of Chinese news article)

80% of eartquake donations ended up in govt. coffers

Research conducted by a team led by professor Deng Guoshen of Tsinghua University indicates that of the 76.7 billion yuan worth of charity donations collected last year for the Sichuan earthquake victims, about 80% ended up in the government's coffers and was spent no differently than the government's regular tax income.

According to Deng, the local governments of the quake-stricken regions were the direct recipients of about 58% of the donations while about 31% were received by NGOs such as the Chinese Red Cross. Deng stated except for a small fraction of the donations which donors had specified must be used by NGOs, most of the money streamed into the government's bank accounts.

Awesome. I guess I should be happy that a few hundred dollars did make it to earthquake victims. Hopefully the other 80% went into the local Chengdu economy in the form of travel, entertainment, or whoring spending instead of some ernai's pocket in Shanghai.

Tesla Drive

I spent the afternoon hanging out at an ex-coworker's house in Laguna Beach. She invited me over for a play-date but mostly we just ended up eating lunch. After lunch, her husband (also an ex-coworker but in engineering instead of finance) took me out for a ride in their new Tesla Roadster. In case anyone has not heard of Tesla Motors, they build an all electric car. The first model is a 2-seater that does 0-60 in about 4 seconds and cost just a bit over $100k.

Since they live in Laguna Beach, we went for a drive up the coast to Newport Beach. It feels like a sports car but eerily quiet since it's all electric. Other than all that environmental stuff, the best thing about an electric motor is instant torque at all RPM's. He floored the "gas" pedal several times and the acceleration is awesome. Along the ride, I saw a few Ferrari's and an Aston-Martin but nobody wanted to race. I think the only thing that can beat the Tesla is probably a motorcycle.

I'm not sure what the top speed is but there is only one gear in the transmission (they had problems with a two-speed) and the engines revs to about 13k RPM. Obviously it's not a very practical car but if you're in the market for a sports car, the prices are comparable to a gasoline powered car with similar performance. The big downside currently is the ~250 mile range but once electric cars are more popular, you should see more recharge stations. Still, trips to Vegas are probably out of the question until battery technology improves... not sure if you want to stop every 250 miles for a 3-hour recharge.

Oh, you also probably need a house before buying an electric car. Not only would you want to park a $100k car inside the garage, an apartment complex wouldn't let you install a 70 amp 240VAC charging system on its property. :(


The car is very low and a bit difficult to get in and out. However, I've sat in a Mazda Miata and a Honda S2000 and the Tesla is not much smaller.


PCH South near El Morro Beach. I stuck my hand over the windshield to take the picture and it still looks (and is) very close to the ground.


Recharging after our ride. They had to install a 240V charging system; a 120V system will take 30 hours to recharge the car.


Front view... no license plate! :) It had very low profile Yokohama Advan tires so the ride is pretty stiff but not unexpected for a sports car.

It was a pretty fun ride. BTW, our CEO has the same car in red but he hasn't offered me a ride yet.

Obama is a Commie

Sigh... it looks like the USA is becoming more like China, in a bad way.

whitehouse.gov (!)

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Wow! That's fricking unbelievable. You would think that this came from The Onion or something and not The White House. This is wrong on so many levels. The government wants to "keep track" of "chain emails" and "casual conversation"?! Not only that, they want us to snitch on our friends and family? I thought the left was all for freedom of speech and dissension. Why isn't the ACLU all up-in-arms about this? Liars and hypocrites.

Incidentally, a friend sent me an email this week regarding issues with ObamaCare. Is that something the government considers fishy? Should I report him to the White House? Maybe Obama will give me 50 cents for my effort and I won't have to go to China later this month to experience state surveillance.



Not only will I pay more in taxes for the foreseeable future, my health insurance is going to suck more. That's on top of bailing out other people's mortgages and paying for their new cars (my 4Runner is now 10 years old). How much more money are the Democrats going to take from me to buy votes to stay in power?

Beggars Can't Be Choosers

Not sure if I should be complaining... but I've been searching for movies on 4Megaupload and for some reason, almost all the available videos are dubbed in French. Good thing I can preview (sometimes) the file before downloading 700MB.

Maybe the US studios are removing only the English audio versions and ignoring all dubbed versions... or there could be just a lot of French computer geeks uploading, trying to preserve their culture or something.

I tried searching for xXx, the 2002 movie with Vin Diesel. That returned a lot of hits, most don't have anything to do with the movie I was looking for.

Abracadabra - Lyrics

Brown Eyed Girls songs seem to have a lot of lyrics, especially when Miryo has a long rap.

Abracadabra

이러다 미쳐 내가 (GaIn)
여리여리 착하던 그런 내가
너 때문여 돌아 내가
독한 나로 변해 내가
너를 닮은 인형에다 (Narsha)
주문을 또 걸어 내가
그녀와 찢어져달라고
Every night I’ll be with you (Jea)
Do you love her, do you love her (Miryo)
매일 너의 꿈속에 (Jea)
Do you love me, do you love me (GaIn)

Bring bring (Jea)
너를 내게 가져다 줘
뭐라도 난 하겠어 (Narsha)
더한 것도 하겠어
빙빙 도는 나의 환타지에 (Jea)
모든 걸 걸겠어
널 내가 내가 갖겠어

못 참아 더는 내가 (GaIn)
이러다가 정신을 놓쳐 내가
도대체 왜 너란 애가
내 마음에 박혀 네가
찢겨진 사진에다 (Narsha)
주문을 또 걸어 내가
그녀가 떨어져달라고
Every night I’ll be with you (Jea)
Do you love her, do you love her (Miryo)
매일 너의 꿈속에 (Jea)
Do you love me, do you love me (GaIn)

Bring bring (Jea)
너를 내게 가져다 줘
뭐라도 난 하겠어 (Narsha)
더한 것도 하겠어
빙빙 도는 나의 환타지에 (Jea)
모든 걸 걸겠어
널 내가 내가 갖겠어

I’m in the Voodoo Island (Miryo)
널 되찾기 위한 plan
매일같이 이렇게 날 울린
널 향할 마지막 step
그녀의 손을 잡고
그녀와 입을 맞추고
그란 너를 상상조차 하기 싫어
이 주문에 염워을 실어

아브라카가브라 다 이뤄져라 Let’s go

내게 주문을 걸어봐 (Miryo)
I’m like a supervisor
널 통제하는 카이저
내게서 벗어 날 수 없어 내게

Bring bring (Jea)
너를 내게 가져다 줘
뭐라도 난 하겠어 (Narsha)
더한 것도 하겠어
빙빙 도는 나의 환타지에 (Jea)
모든 걸 걸겠어
널 내가 내가 갖겠어

이러다 미쳐 내가 (GaIn)
여리여리 착하던 그런 내가
너 때문여 돌아 내가
독한 나로 변해 내가
쿨한 척 하는 내가 (Narsha)
놀라워라 이런 내가
아닌 척 덜 만나러 가 또 또

Lyrics from this Inkigayo (Popular Song) performance on July 26, 2009 (182MB HD download here)

The LED glasses at 1:48 are pretty cool. The only thing I didn't like are Miryo's pants (big holes in the front of her legs). They also don't seem to have many unison parts, other than some background fills... that's too bad since they were originally popular for their awesome vocals and not their dancing/show.

Chinese Abortions

China Daily

Abortion statistics cause for concern

Inadequate knowledge about contraception is a major factor in the 13 million abortions performed in China every year, research shows.

Abortion statistics cause for concern

This is an unfortunate - and avoidable - situation, experts said, and improvements need to be made.

Li Ying, a professor at Peking University, said Wednesday that young people need more knowledge about sex.

A survey done by 411 Hospital of PLA (People's Liberation Army) in Shanghai, for example, found that less than 30 percent of callers to a hotline knew how to avoid pregnancy, and only 17 percent were aware of venereal diseases.

More than 70 percent said they did not know sexual transmission is the major contributor to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

...

Government statistics show that about 62 percent of the women who have abortions are between 20 and 29 years old, and most are single.

Wu said the real number of abortions is much higher than reported, because the figures are collected only from registered medical institutions.

Many abortions, Wu said, are performed in unregistered clinics.

Also, about 10 million abortion-inducing pills, used in hospitals for early-stage abortions, are sold every year in the country, she said.

...

Abortions cost about 600 yuan ($88). Since the 1990s, doctors have not asked for a woman's marital status when an abortion is performed.

There are about 20 million births in the country each year, Wu said.

13 million! That's the population of Los Angeles (10M) and Orange (3M) Counties combined. At $88, that's easily a $1B business in China.

The real interesting statistic is what % of the women getting abortions are ernais or mistresses of government officials.

Warning! Warning!

At 0:43 in the video. I don't get it either.


냉면 (Cold Noodles) by Park Myeong Soo and Jessica of SNSD

Hamster!

I miss my hamsters. Especially momo. :(

(Mainland) Chinese Tourists

Why am I not surprised?

Taipei Times

Hoteliers lash out at Chinese tourists

By Lee Ying and Lin Hsiu-tzu
STAFF REPORTERS
Sunday, Jul 05, 2009, Page 1

Taiwan’s travel industry is being forced to deal with many negative consequences — from damaged hotel equipment to delayed payments — coming from the influx of Chinese tourists, hotel operators and travel agencies said.

One year ago yesterday, Taiwan allowed the first Chinese tourist groups to enter the country on direct cross-strait flights. However, one year later, Taiwan’s hotel and tourism operators have more to complain about than to praise regarding their guests from across the Strait.

Although Chinese tourists did increase occupancy at hotels and boarding houses, they have also caused a lot of trouble, hotel and boarding house operators said at a meeting with Taipei County Tourism and Travel Bureau Director Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠) earlier this week.

One hotel operator in Taipei County said that after his hotel stopped providing ashtrays following the January ban on smoking indoors, Chinese tourists began smoking in their rooms and putting their cigarettes out on the carpet and wooden tables, or use its bathroom cups as ashtrays.

Another hotel operator said that although his hotel provides ironing boards in the rooms, Chinese tourists often iron their clothes directly on the floor, burning the carpets.

He said that he had even found a missing alarm clock in the electric water boiler in the room one time after guests from China left.

Other hotel operators said that while it was not news that guests often steal towels and slippers, they still found it quite shocking that Chinese tourists would take shoe brushes, shoe horns, hangers and even closet door knobs away.

Hotel and tourism operators said that some of the other complaints they often receive about Chinese tourists include littering, walking around wearing only underwear in public areas and spitting.

Chin said that hotel operators could ask Chinese tourists to leave a deposit when they check in. However, representatives from the Tourism Bureau and travel agencies were opposed to it, saying there was no legal basis for requiring deposits and that it may make Chinese tourists feel that they are targets of discrimination.

China, on the other hand, suggested that hotels should ask travel agencies to pay for damage inflicted by their customers.

Meanwhile, travel agencies complained in a separate meeting that their partner travel agencies in China often write checks payable only after three to six months, causing them tremendous financial pressure.

Ha ha, walking around in public wearing only their underwear. The tourists must think they're back home or something. I remember walking around Beijing, very close to Tiananmen, and seeing old guys walking around the street topless and only wearing pajama pants. Maybe I'll look less like a tourist if I did the same... :)

Random Driving Pictures

I'm cleaning out my micro SD card from my Blackberry so I can transfer it to my Samsung t819. I found some random pictures:


Driving home from Torrance after helping a friend paint his condo. This was near Long Beach airport. 405N was empty for some reason and everyone on my side of the freeway was slowing down and looking to see what happened. Never did see anything other than a few CHP cruisers.


Lexus IS-F... you can tell by it's funky exhaust tips.


Whole jackfruit

Central Propaganda Department

At least we're pretty certain what they do everyday. This is the latest censorship instructions to China's search engines:

胡海峰 纳米比亚、纳米比亚 行贿调查、杨帆 行贿调查、清华同方 行贿调查、南部非洲 行贿调查 - 以上关键词请各搜索引擎屏蔽为全站无结果

Hu Haifeng Namibia, Namibia bribery investigation, Yang Fan bribery investigation, Nuctech bribery investigation, southern Africa bribery investigation. Please show no search results for all the above keywords.

NucTech, the company headed by Hu Jintao's son (hmm... I wonder how he got that job) until recently, is being investigated by Namibia and the EU for corruption and illegal dumping. If you were in China, you wouldn't know about it since there is nothing on the news and the web is being scrubbed clean with search engine links and news stories removed. If anything is being mention in state media, it will probably be portrayed as "yet another anti-China falsehood perpetrated by the Western media™."

Abracadabra

Woohoo! New song and album from Brown Eyed Girls. They need to come to LA to do a concert! :)



==========

Dang it! Here's another link:

New Cell Phone

Since my parents only had a pay-as-you-go phone here in the US, and I don't use my minutes, I added a line to my plan and got a new phone. T-mobile had a lot of free phones but none really stood out. I ended up choosing a Samsung t-819 slider phone. I've been playing with it for the past hour, adding names to the address book since it looks like I'll be using it and they will take my Motorola RAZR v3. I got it several years ago and ended up unlocking it so I can swap SIM chips in Asia. It works out since they need an unlocked phone for the China/Taiwan trip next month.

I thought about getting a Samsung smartphone-like phone like the Memoir but didn't want to spend $200. I also have to carry around my work Blackberry so I ended up with a smaller phone. When I quit or get fired, then I'll upgrade my RAZR.

China Trip Planning

Well, the total solar eclipse will start is about 13 hours and I'm still here in California... :( Leon is in Chengdu now and he said the sky is pretty much overcast all the time so you can't see the sun anyway. Still, everything will go dark for about 3 1/2 minutes tomorrow morning local time. My other friend in Chengdu is visiting her parents in Zigong, which is actually a bit closer to the max totality line. I also talked to a co-worker whose parents live in Shanghai. The view should be better in Shanghai though it's always smoggy there too.

For our big family trip to China later next month, we all have our plane tickets, China visa, and hotel reservations in Beijing. Since I'm only traveling to Beijing and Chengdu, I told them I would plan out the Beijing portion (having been there twice before), but the rest is up to them. My sister just called and said her and Rebecca may try to go to Lhasa/Tibet instead of Xi'an/Jiuzhaigou and my parents are still shopping for a Yangtze River cruise.


Mutianyu (from Wikipedia)

Since most of the tourist attractions in Beijing are local, I'm not really planning too much ahead. The only out-of-town thing to see is The Great Wall (TGW). I've been to Badaling (八達嶺) and Simatai (司馬臺) so I'm trying to plan a trip to Mutianyu (慕田峪) this time. I heard Badaling is way too touristy (I was there in 1998) and I was just at Simatai last year. If I book a tour from the US, costs range from $65/person for a large tour to $120/person for a private tour. However, the city of Beijing also run tours (bus fare plus entrance fee... not sure if there's a guide) to different parts of TGW and the one to Mutianyu is only ¥95.

Here's my preliminary itinerary for Beijing:
Fri 8/28: arrival and check-in, dinner, Wangfujing
Sat 8/29: Qianmen (buy TGW tickets), Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Beihai Park
Sun 8/30: Mutianyu
Mon 8/31: Olympic Park, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace
Tue 9/1: check-out and travel to next destination

China Vi$a

So despite all my griping about the CCP and how much they suck, I still got a tourist visa for my trip next month. I usually have a travel agency drop-off/pick-up my passport and visa application for $25 but since there are 5 travelers this time, my parents went on Monday. It turned out to be a colossal waste of time but we "saved" $125. The entire process, including pick-up yesterday, took almost 10 hours, of which 4 was spent driving back/forth from South OC to midtown LA. Making things worse was the fact that my dad had a new passport. On the application, I put down that he visited China before so they wanted to see the old visa. This means they had to find their expired Canadian passport, bring it on the pick-up day, then pay an extra $30 for expedited processing. My mom basically was in the same situation (no old China visa in US passport) but they didn't ask for anything. All together, we spent $680 on one-year multiple-entry visas for 5 people. We could have saved a bundle if we all traveled through Vancouver and used our Canadian passports instead; China visas for non-US passports are only $30 or something. This is my 4th China visa... I'm rapidly running out of pages in my passport.

Next hurdle: making sure I don't sit next to anyone with H1N1 on the plane to avoid quarantine!

Next next hurdle: coordinating arrival of 6 people at Beijing airport within a 3 hour window without any Chinese cellphones!

YAC - Yet Another Computer

I bought another computer through Amazon.com but it's not really for me. It's a Dell Inspiron Mini 12 which is basically a netbook with a 12" display. For some reason, Amazon was selling the computer for ~$360 while the Dell website was still selling for $500. The model sold by Amazon even has better components than the $500 base WinXP model.

Dell Inspiron Mini 12
Intel Atom Z520 1.33GHz CPU
12" LCD display 1280x800
1GB RAM
80GB HD
802.11g/Bluetooth
1.3MP camera
Alpine White cover

I just checked Amazon again and it's now selling for $345. Strange... maybe there's something wrong with it, though the one I bought works fine. Dell is still selling the same computer for $524 (at least the white case is free instead of an additional $40) plus shipping and tax.

First impressions? The mini 12 is really slim and the display is nice. It's the same resolution as my larger 14" Sony Vaio. It actually weighs less than my 10" netbook since it only has a 24WHr battery; my Asus has a 90WHr battery and a much longer battery life. To make the computer so thin, I think Dell had to use a different HDD form factor so the largest drive offered is only 80GB instead of the 160GB found in other netbooks. It is also limited to only 1GB of RAM and has no internal fan. Maybe it's because the Z-series Atom CPU draws less power than the N-series... more memory will also add heat.

Overall, I really like the computer. It looks better than my Asus, which is a bit thick and heavy, and the 12" display is really nice compared to the 10" 1024x600 screen (the 600 pixel screen height is a pain). Much like all the other Atom CPU powered netbooks, the mini 12 is pretty slow compared to the current dual core Pentiums. I'm tempted to get one for myself but the 9 hour battery in my Asus is too good to give up. BTW, the computer is for my friend in China. The same computer in China is ~$650 even though it's made in China. This means I will have to carry two netbooks to China on my next trip, though together they're probably lighter than my 17" Dell E1705 I brought once.

Speaking of computers, it's time to upgrade my mom's laptop. She is still using a Dell Inspiron 600m with a Pentium M processor and only 512MB of RAM. You can tell it's obsolete since memory upgrades (DDR) are about 4x more expensive than the current SODIMM's (DDR2). One option is to give her my Mac mini desktop and I would replace it with a Macbook Pro. Since they're going to stay in LA now, there's no real need for a portable computer.

Home Network

I just checked the status of my main wireless router and my little home network is getting crowded. I may have too many computers... :)

Netgear WNR834v2 x2
Sony Vaio CR420
Apple Mac mini
Asus Eee 1000HE
Dell Inspiron mini 12
Dell Inspiron 600m
Dell Inspiron E1705
Dell Latitude D820
Apple Airport Express (iTunes)
Sony PS3
HP 1022n Printer
Compaq Presario 1722

To be fair, none of the 4 Dells are really mine; my parents each have one, the D820 is from work, and the mini 12 is for someone else. I really only have three regular computers and the Eee is usually attached to my LCD TV. Still...

Agenda-Driven Pseudo-Research

One group of people that I've never understood is the anti-development crowd. These people are usually white liberals from rich Western countries and their message can be reduced to consume less. I'm not sure they're driven by guilt ("I'm destroying the planet!") or greed ("Leave some for me!"), but they irritate me a lot. It's similar to the Hollywood hypocrites who drive hybrids but fly everywhere on private jets... or just look at Al Gore and his huge carbon footprint.

Anyway, part of their propaganda is "research" that confirms their agenda goals (lots of groups are guilty of this). I saw a 64 page report called The Happy Planet Index 2.0 published by a group called nef (new economics foundation... in hip all lowercase *sigh*). Once again, you can judge the validity of the research by the results. In its ranking of 143 countries, the "happiest" is Costa Rica followed by Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Riiight. The United States is ranked 114th out of 143, between Madagascar (per capita GDP = $457) and Nigeria (birthplace of the advance-fee fraud scam).

WTF? The top 10 happiest countries include 9 countries from Latin America plus Vietnam. Mexico is ranked 23rd, well above the US and Canada (89th). We should translate this report into Spanish and hand it out along our southern border... that will stop illegal immigration! Seriously, the three criteria used are life expectancy, life satisfaction, and ecological footprint. This is put into an arbitrary formula along with two "constants". The report even admits that without tweaking the results using the two constants, the happiest place on earth would be Haiti, truly a Hell on Earth, due to their small ecological footprint. That would make the report a bigger joke than it already is.

So what they mean by "happy" is not happiness for the people--who cares about them--but a "happy" planet. To these nutcases at nef, what make people happy is using less resources. What a load of crap. Do they really think people in Costa Rica are happier than people in the United States because they are poor and consume less? How arrogant! The reality is that people from Guatemala (#4), El Salvador (#8), and Honduras (#10) are risking their lives daily to cross illegally into Mexico (#23) on their way to the United States (#114). Now why would they do that if they were happy???

Their ideological bias is easy to see in the report. Each of the three categories color codes countries into green, yellow, and red. However, for ecological footprint, there is an additional color... BLOOD RED!!! How dramatic. Bloody countries include Luxembourg, United Arab Emirates, USA, and Kuwait.

BTW, China is ranked #20 though I don't feel that happy when I'm there versus when I'm back home in 114th ranked USA. Maybe it's because I'm a shameless ecological resource hog, leaving my multiple computers on all the time.

Wireless Jungle

The repeater I installed in my parents' apartment works but the signal seems to drop between the two routers quite often. There used to be a program call Network Stumbler that showed what wireless AP's are in the area. Looking around on the web, I found another application called inSSIDer that does the same thing and works with Vista.

Here is a screen capture:


There are 28 WLAN routers that my Sony Vaio can detect from my apartment (27 not counting my repeater). The strong signal on channel 1 (yellow line) is my router, sitting 3 feet from my computer. The repeater is buried amidst all the other AP's broadcasting on different channels (green line). The picture is pretty similar when viewed from computers in my parents' apartment. The trick is for each router to find each other and sent/receive data. Initially I had both routers on channel 6 but the connection was flaky so I switched to channel 1 and it's a bit better. I think the strong signal on channel 8 was causing interference and there's already a lot of people on channel 6; same thing for channel 11. I tried channel 3 since it seems to be more "clear" than other channels but the repeater status showed "poor" for signal strength.

This is only what I can detect from my apartment. If I walk around with a notebook, it will probably pick up more, each ~$50/month of revenue for Time Warner.

Tell Me Your Wish - Lyrics

I'm switching tactics on K-pop lyrics. I was typing them out on a standard Korean keyboard layout to learn some Hangul. However, I think the layout is faster for typing but has no correlation to how the vowel/consonants actually sound. For this song, I've switched to Gongjin Cheong Romaja which uses romanization to match sounds with English keycaps. It takes more keystrokes to type in each word/character but at least I kinda know what it sounds like.

소원을 말해봐 (Genie)

소원을 말해봐 네 마음 속에 있는
는작은 꿈을 말해봐
니 머리에 있는 이상형을 그려봐
그리고 나를 봐
난 너의 Genie야 꿈이야 Genie야

드림카를 타고 달려봐
난 내 옆자리에 앉아
그저 내 이끌림 속에 모두 던져
가슴 벅차 터져버려도
바람결에 날려 버려도
지금 이 순간 세상은 너의 것

그래요 난 널 사랑해 언제나 믿어
꿈도 열정도 다 주고 싶어
난 그대 소워을 이뤄 주고 싶은
행운의 여신
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your boy)
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your wish)
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your dream)
내게만 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your world)

소원을 말해봐 지두한 날들이
넌 지겹지 않니
평범한 생활에 넌 묻혀 버렸니
인제 그만 깨어나
넌 나의 Superstar Shining star Superstar

심장 소리 같은 떨림의
Bike에 네 몸을 맡겨봐
이제 이 세상은 오직 너의 무대
환호소리 같은 파도가
내 가슴엔 너의 체온이
나는 너의 길 영워한 Biggest fan

그래요 난 널 사랑해 언제나 믿어
꿈도 열정도 다 주고 싶어
난 그대 소워을 이뤄 주고 싶은
행운의 여신
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your boy)
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your wish)
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your dream)
내게만 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your world)
소원을 말해봐

DJ put it back on

그래요 난 널 사랑해 언제나 믿어
꿈도 열정도 다 주고 싶어
난 그대 소워을 이뤄 주고 싶은
행운의 여신
소원을 말해봐
난 널 사랑해 넌 나의 Music
난 널 사랑해 넌 나의 기쁨
난 널 사랑해 넌 나의 행운이
되고 싶어
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your boy)
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your wish)
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your dream)
내게만 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your world)
소원을 말해봐
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your boy)
소원을 말해봐 (I'm Genie for your wish)

I'm missing a few lines from Taeyeon's part at the beginning since the video did not subtitle it. I'll need to find it from another performance (there's at least 3 each week), or steal it from another website. Here is the performance I used from Inkigayo on June 28th.

Wireless Repeater

In order for my parents to share my Internet connection, I had to buy another wireless router and use it as a repeater. Since I already had a Netgear WRN834, I bought another one from Amazon for $60 to make sure they work together. After messing around for 2 hours, I think I have it working, though I'm a bit disappointed in the router to router connection. They're both 11n MIMO routers so I thought the signal would be better. At least it's working... I'm posting this from my parents' apartment bedroom.