Jetlag

I'm back from Thailand/Taiwan. It's 4:57am, I can't fall asleep, and there's nothing on TV other than advertising for Girls Gone Wild on 4 different cable channels. I didn't get to post anything with the Treo even though I had a good data connection throughout the entire trip. The keyboard is too small for serious typing. However, I think I got about 200+ undeliverable notices when my email server tried to send my vacation notice to spoofed spam email accounts.

Here are some pics from the trip:


McDonald's on Silom Road in Bangkok (all the Burger Kings seem to be in airport terminals)


Movie posters in "downtown" Udon Thani, Thailand (if you're wondering about the road signs, they drive on the left side of the road in Thailand)


House on Koh Yaow island


The famous jade bok choi from National Palace Museum in Taipei

Thailand Hotels

I just bought the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand since we have a lot of free time on our Xealot trip and I've decided not to bring a computer. This edition was updated in September 2005 so it should have recent information. Since I can't sleep well on the plane, I've got about 18 hours to read up on Thailand.

I've also been checking out the hotels we're going to be staying at and they all look pretty nice... and cheap. I think the hotel in Udon Thani is only US$25.

Bangkok: Pathumwan Princess Hotel



Udon Thani: Charoensri Grand Royal Hotel



Phuket: Club Andaman Beach Resort



I hope the actual facilities live up to the pictures and words on the Internet.

Testing the Treo, Part 2

This is a test from my work email account to Blogger.

Hmm, how am I going to charge my mp3 player if I don't bring a computer? The
13.5-hour flight from LAX-BKK will wipe out the 10-hour battery charge. Speaking
of which, my cube mp3 player is busted again. I'll have to upload the
firmware again.

==========

Arg, the line breaks are obviously not working. Yahoo! Mail puts them in too early and Goodlink Mail puts them in too late. Did I mention it was hard to type on the Treo's little keyboard? Also, I just noticed that Yahoo! Mail ignored my apostrophes... I'm sure I typed "I'm" instead of "Im".

I think I will go with the low-tech solution of bringing a notebook (paper) and take notes each night and update the blog when I get back.

Testing the Treo

Im debating whether I should bring a laptop to
Thailand or not. I can download pictures off the
camera and update the blog but then I would have to
leave it at the hotel desk all day Saturday.

I can also update the blog with the Treo. Im trying
out the Yahoo! account to see if it works.

==========

Hmm, it did work but Yahoo! Mail adds an irritating signature at the end of the message. I can't seem to get my Adelphia email acount to work with VersaMail on the Treo. I guess I'll have to use my sync'ed work email account to update the blog. Typing on the little Treo keyboard is a pain though...

NewSong Day

Today was an all NewSong day. I was supposed to help out with sound production this morning at 6:30am. When I woke up, it was sunny and about 8am. It turned out I forgot to turn the sound back on on the Treo; I use the Treo as my alarm clock. I jumped up out of bed, brushed my teeth, and was at NewSong NOC in about 15 minutes. Good thing I wasn't the lead audio technician this morning.



After the service, Dave took a bunch of us out to an Italian buffet lunch and then we all drove to Irvine to help unload the truck. It's pretty quick with a couple of people helping but takes forever if you're by yourself, especially unloading the dual 18" subwoofer cabs. I also signed up for Connections class, needed for membership, at 5pm so a couple of people came to my house to hang out. The meeting was at a couple's new house in Buena Park; it's so new that both Yahoo! and Google maps didn't have their address yet. We had more Italian food and found out about NewSong's history and vision/direction. I signed up to be a member but now I have to answer a long list of questions about my faith and spiritual beliefs.

I got to talk to the site pastor, Brian Kim, for a bit tonight and he wants to meet me for lunch later to talk about financial budgeting and reporting. Interestingly, that's really the first time any pastor has asked me about the topic (even when I was a deacon at CCCSB), though it's what I do at work most of the time. I think churches are overly-concerned when talking about money. Of course the church is not a business out there trying to turn a profit. However, tools we learned in business school and use at work can be applied to long-term financial forecasting and spotting trends. Anyway, I'll need to brush up on budgeting and planning for non-profit organizations.

Just Like Heaven

"Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream" she said
"The one that makes me laugh" she said
And threw her arms around my neck
"Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I'll run away with you
I'll run away with you"

Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face and kissed her head
And dreamed of all the different ways I had
To make her glow
"Why are you so far away?" she said
"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you
That I'm in love with you"

You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You're just like a dream

Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me

You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Just like heaven

Brea Mall

I went to the mall after work today because I couldn't think of anywhere else to eat. First I went to the pharmacy to pick up my Cipro prescription for Thailand. My doctor wrote that for me in case I get traveller's diarrhea.

I wandered around the mall for several minutes and ended up at the food court. I always end up eating at the teryaki place; today the food wasn't too good, the rice was too wet and the sauce was too salty. It's always kind of depressing having to eat by yourself, especially at 8pm in a mall food court. I usually end up eating at my desk if I can't find someone at work to eat lunch with. Occasionally I go to China Buffet in Fullerton by myself for lunch; I usually bring a magazine to read while I eat and no one notices me.

After dinner at the mall, I went to both Macy's and Robinsons-May to look for some pots. I've been looking for some saucepan/pots to replace the ones we got for our wedding. I really want to get some All-Clad pots but they're really really expensive. At Robinsons-May, they had some Calphalon stuff on sale. I stood there for awhile debating on whether I wanted a 5 quart chili pot. I'm really picky about pots and knives. It took me about 3 months to pick out and buy (waiting for sale) my 8" Henckel chef's knife; it looks like a murder weapon but cuts real well. Finally I went home without buying anything. I had wanted to cook some porridge but I had no pot but since I ate at the mall, I postponed the purchase.

Wow, that was a pretty boring evening.

UCLA Wins!

UCLA beats Washington 21-17. They were losing the entire game until the last minute of the game. There was pretty much no offense until the last drive of the game. UCLA is now 4-0 on the season; they were ranked #20 before this game but I'm not sure this game will improve their ranking.

The game was at the Rose Bowl and it's now 10:53pm. I hate to be living near the Rose Bowl with 65,000 people trying to leave through residential streets.

Slippery Slope

I guess it was bound to happen...

First Trio "Married" in The Netherlands
From the desk of Paul Belien on Tue, 2005-09-27 00:08

The Netherlands and Belgium were the first countries to give full marriage rights to homosexuals. In the United States some politicians propose �civil unions� that give homosexual couples the full benefits and responsibilities of marriage. These civil unions differ from marriage only in name.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands polygamy has been legalised in all but name. Last Friday the first civil union of three partners was registered. Victor de Bruijn (46) from Roosendaal �married� both Bianca (31) and Mirjam (35) in a ceremony before a notary who duly registered their civil union.

�I love both Bianca and Mirjam, so I am marrying them both,� Victor said. He had previously been married to Bianca. Two and a half years ago they met Mirjam Geven through an internet chatbox. Eight weeks later Mirjam deserted her husband and came to live with Victor and Bianca. After Mirjam�s divorce the threesome decided to marry.

Victor: �A marriage between three persons is not possible in the Netherlands, but a civil union is. We went to the notary in our marriage costume and exchanged rings. We consider this to be just an ordinary marriage.�

Asked by journalists to tell the secret of their peculiar relationship, Victor explained that there is no jealousy between them. �But this is because Mirjam and Bianca are bisexual. I think that with two heterosexual women it would be more difficult.� Victor stressed, however, that he is �a one hundred per cent heterosexual� and that a fourth person will not be allowed into the �marriage.� They want to take their marriage obligations seriously: �to be honest and open with each other and not philander.�

Random Treo Pictures

Roast ducks hanging from Sam Woo in Irvine


Central Garden at the back of The Getty Center


Engineering IV building at UCLA (it says Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science)

Z Tire Pictures

Picture of the spare tire replacing the left rear tire


Old tire is totally shreded

So now all 4 tires are new after 23,000 miles. The front two tires were replaced by Nissan as part of their tire feathering "recall". All the tires are still Bridgestone RE040s but the front have a slightly different tread than the new rear tires. I think Bridgestone made the revised RE040 especially for Nissan to mask the alignment/front suspension problem which caused the tire feathering.

Priceless

This weekend:

Parking ticket at UCLA for being 2 minutes late: $38
Finding out that your vintage Mcintosh MA-6100 amp is busted: $300
Blowing a tire on the Z and having to replace both rear tires: $600

Not being able to sell stock at 12 month high because you're blacked-out: !@#$%^&*

Xealot Thailand

I booked my ticket today for a trip to Thailand (and Taiwan) next month. I'm going to check out NewSong's ministry over there. The trip is from Sunday (10/23) through Thursday (10/27); I'm going to stay over in Taiwan for two nights on the way back. This time, I'm flying EVA Air again. I wasn't too impressed with their business class when I went to Taiwan in June but this time I'm in coach and Shirley said it wasn't too bad. I'm planning to spend a day at the National Palace Museum. My parents took me there when I was really young so I don't remember much.

I'm also supposed to go to my US Citizenship ceremony later this month. However, once you go, they take your Green Card and you're supposed to apply for a US passport with your citizenship certificate. I think I'll postpone my appointment until later since normal processing for passports take 5 weeks and I may not have any travel documents for the Thailand trip. I can still go on my Canadian passport and come back with the Green Card.

So after 20 years, I'm finally going to be a US Citizen. Hello, jury duty!

iPod nano

Dang! Apple just came out with a smaller iPod with a color display for $199 (2GB).

MP3 Player

I bought a new mp3 player a couple of weeks ago by mobiBLU.



Yep, I bought the orange one. It reminded me of the 350Z LeMans Sunset color.



I saw the same mp3 player in Hong Kong but it was about US$200 for the 1GB version. The only place to buy the cube player so far is online at Wal-Mart; the 1GB model sells for $129 and the 512MB model sells for $99. They're about the same price as the iPod Shuffle but you get to see what song is playing, ability to organize songs into folders, and it has a FM tuner as well. I even uploaded some Chinese songs and it shows the Chinese characters on the display. It's definitely better than my Rio MP300 which only had 64MB (32MB internal + 32MB expansion card). I could only squeeze in about 15 songs.

BTW, the mp3 player is made in Korea. I guess not everything sold at Wal-Mart is made in China.

New Computer

Just got my new work computer. I had a Dell Latitude C610 for about three years. It is a 1.2GHz P3 that was starting to show it's age. Even after upgrading to 512MB, it took forever to boot up the computer and it was really heavy as well. My new system is a Dell Latitude D410 with a 1.6GHz Pentium-M and 1GB of RAM. So far it runs pretty fast and is very light; the only downside is the CD drive is in a separate unit. Now I have to move all my files from the old computer over and swap out both docking stations.

American Hot Rod

American Hot Rod is a show on Discovery Channel where they build hot-rods. The company featured is Boyd Coddington. I've watched the show a couple of times and wondered where they're located in case I wanted to buy/build a hot rod. It turns out that they're located about 5 minutes from my house.

Japan Expo 2005 Mascots

Super Typhoon

With all the news about Dennis and Emily here in the U.S., nothing has been reported about Super Typhoon Haitang that's about to hit Taiwan in 12 hours. A super typhoon basically a class 5 hurricane; Haitang has wind gusts of up to 170 knots.

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Picture from Pingtung (7/19/05)

No Z

I now know why I didn't see any 350Z's in Taiwan.

Checking out the auto section in Yahoo! Taiwan, I noticed that there were two categories of Nissan cars in Taiwan, domestic and import. The 350Z is listed under the import category and sells for NT$2.1M or about $66,600 US. That's about twice what we paid for our Z; I don't think I'd buy one either if I had to pay that much.

Toothpaste for Dinner

Ha ha! Too bad for my parents it's now more like 82 cents instead of 60 cents.

Taiwanese?

While I was in Singapore, a couple of people asked me if I was Taiwanese. My first reaction was, "No, we're all Chinese." However, all the Chinese people I met in Singapore called themselves Singaporean. I guess my answer should have been, "I'm Canadian" but I think they were asking me if I was "from" Taiwan, whatever that means.

So my answer back to them was, "What do you mean by Taiwanese?" Of course, this was not the answer people were expecting so I had to explain the difference between BSR (within-province people or what the "Taiwanese" call themselves) and WSR (outside-province people), and a brief primer on modern Chinese history. There are many people who consider themselves to be "Taiwanese" AND not "Chinese"; typically you find them wearing green clothing and speaking the Taiwanese dialect (basically Fukienses). I'm not 100% sure but I think they consider you "Taiwanese" if you came to Taiwan island before 1945 or one of your parents are Taiwanese if you're born in Taiwan after 1949. You are definitely not Taiwanese if you moved to Taiwan after WWII, i.e., after the Chinese civil war. I think if people want to identify their nationality as Taiwanese, that's perfectly reasonable and similar to Singaporean or Hongkongese. However, when they say they're not Chinese, I think that's stupid since "Taiwanese" people are either originally from Fukien or Hakka, unless you're the "native" Taiwanese who are more related to Filipino or Indonesian/Malay people. I think they are confusing politics with history.

This silliness is not only limited to Taiwan. During their latest pregancy, my friend and his wife needed to fill out some forms at the hospital here in California. Under ethnicity, they found separate boxes for Chinese and Taiwanese. They were curious so they asked the nurse what the difference was. The answer was that there's is no difference medically; they added the choice because some people complained that they were NOT Chinese and wanted a check box for Taiwanese. Sigh...

Mei and Baby Nekobus

Postcard Shirley brought back from Ghibli Museum in Japan

Smoking

One think I did NOT enjoy in Asia was cigarette smoke. Pretty much everyone smokes in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many time we would sit down to eat in a restaurant and someone would light up at the next table. It's like Vegas without the slot machines.

I'm not sure about Singapore though... there's probably a law about it. I think I'm spoiled from living in California where it's illegal to smoke just about everywhere.

Reflections

I really enjoyed this trip to Asia even though it was a lot different than what I had imagined. Taiwan was a lot more chaotic than I remembered and having never been to Hong Kong and Singapore, I didn't have a lot of expectations. The interesting thing is that all three places are inhabited by mainly Chinese people; Taiwan and Hong Kong is almost all Chinese and I heard that Singapore was at least 70% Chinese. However, I could see a lot of differences between each culture/society. If I had to compare, Singapore and Taiwan would be at opposite ends of a spectrum with Hong Kong in the middle.

Arriving in Taiwan, I was surprised at how run-down and dirty everything looked. Maybe I'm too used to "The O.C.", especially Irvine but the buildings in Taiwan (except for new skyscrapers in Taipei) looked really old. In addition, almost every building has a huge cylindrical metal tank on the roof. Silvia told me that it's to store water for time when the water system breaks down which happens quite often. Another thing I noticed that there are very few public trash cans, even in Taipei, so often we had to hold our garbage (food wrappers, tissue, etc.) while walking around (this is one of Shirley's pet peeves too). Finally, there seems to be a general disregard for traffic rules, especially outside of Taipei. I'm not sure why this is but I've also noticed that people are very impatient, even when walking; we got yelled at several times when we paused on the sidewalk. The night markets are really cool though... not like in the U.S. where everything shuts down early. I'll probably gain a lot of weight if I lived in Taiwan. :)

In Singapore, I really didn't see very much since it was work, eat, and sleep for the three days I was there. What I did see was that the city is very clean and people seem to follow traffic rules. The people I met were nice and quiet, especially "the girls" working at Broadcom. However, I don't know if there's pressure to conform to society norms like in Japan which creates all sorts of weird underground stuff to relieve that pressure. If I get to go to Singapore again, I'll need to get there a couple days before work so I can see the rest of the island.

I really liked Hong Kong. The buildings seem just as run-down or even dirtier than in Taiwan but things seem less chaotic. Maybe it's because of 99 years of British rule or Hong Kong is a more cosmopolitan city than Taipei. There is also a lot more English spoken in Hong Kong which is a plus for me with my crappy Mandarin. The food is a toss-up; the dim sum was really good in Hong Kong but I didn't see anything like the night markets in Taiwan. I was a little nervous walking around at night since there was a lot of people standing around our hotel. I found out later that we were next to a large building that had many Pakistani people living there. Without A/C, it's probably cooler to hang out on the sidewalk than to sweat indoors.

It felt weird driving to work yesterday after not driving for over two weeks. In Singapore, we either took the taxi or were driven everywhere. In Taipei and Hong Kong, we used the public transportation which were convienent and cheap. The downside is that it took a long time to get anywhere. Even going about 3 miles--4 stations with one line change--takes about 1/2 hour on the MTR. In the U.S., I would jump in my car and it would only take 5 minutes. Of course this is not an option in Asia with traffic, parking, and $5/gallon for gas, but the freedom of having a car is hard to give up.

Treo Pictures

I finally downloaded pictures I took in Taiwan/Singapore/Hong Kong from my Treo 600.


A Volkswagon Lupo... I've never seen one of these before except in Gran Turismo 4


Scooters lined up in the rain (Tainan)


Picture of my 2nd room at Shangri-La in Singapore, the one that smelled like cigarette smoke


View of Singapore from my 2nd room on the 21st floor


Carpet in the elevators at Shangri-La are changed daily so you know what day it was


View from the 3rd and final room at Shangri-La on the 19th floor


Hundreds of cargo ships anchored off Singapore harbor


McDonald's, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island


Walking down the street/alley in my old neighborhood in Taipei


Roadsign near where we used to live in Taipei (same street, different lane)


Some singer (Landy Wen) promoting her new album in Taipei


Dinner on Cathay Pacific flying from Taipei to Hong Kong in business class (it's fish and rice)


Picture of my passport from two weeks of travel (including six stamps from CKS Airport)

Taipei, Again

Since I'm up already (only got one hour of sleep), I may as well summarize the last leg of my trip in Taipei.

After spending four nights in Hong Kong, Shirley and I flew back to Taiwan to meet up with German and Silvia to hang out in Taipei. We stayed at the Fullerton 41 hotel near Da'an MRT station. The hotel was pretty nice and clean but the room was smaller than I thought, especially when there were four of us sharing the room. The hotel sent a car to pick us up at CKS Airport; German had arrived from Hong Kong on an earlier flight so he had to wait for us at the airport and we picked up Silvia from Linkou on the way to Taipei.

The first thing we did after we checked in was to go and find something to eat. Walking to the MRT station next to our hotel (Da'an Station), we saw a food stand in an alley between two buildings. Shirley looked at the menu on the wall and said, "Let's eat here." I think my reply was something like, "You must be joking!" or "Surely you can't be serious?" Here we are, sitting outside in the heat and humidity of summer in Taipei eating hot noodle soup... it was actually pretty good. :)

Of course, as soon as we were finished eating, we were looking for the next place to eat. We took the MRT to Jiantan Station to go to Shilin Night Market. The fare was only NT$25 or about US$0.80 and the trains were clean and quick. The only irritating part of the ride was that they announce the next station in 4 different languages: Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, and English (in that order). However, for many stations, it all sounds the same, especially the English since it's a phonetic translation and they words don't mean anything (example: Fuxinggang?). Anyway, the night market is total chaos with hundreds of food stalls packed into a warehouse-like building. We walked around and ate a whole lot of stuff (large fried chicken, coffin toast, shaved ice, stinky tofu, chicken cold noodles, pig blood soup, and lots of fruit drinks), checked out some stores, and back to the night market to eat some more.

The next day, German and I went to check out Taipei 101 (I went up to the observation deck again) while Shirley and her sister went shopping. For lunch, we went to a Japanese buffet place called Jogoya; it was like Todai on steroids. There was a huge variety of food, mostly seafood... my favorite was the shark fin soup with REAL shark fin. After a long lunch, it was more shopping and eating, this time at Ximen (West Gate).




Noodles with small intestines... NT$30

Our last full day in Taipei was spent walking around Danshui checking out historical sites. We tried to go see Fort San Domingo (literally Fortress of the Red Hair Barbarians in Chinese) built in 1623 by the Spanish Navy but it was closed for renovations. After Danshui, we split up: German and I went looking for special Pineapple Cakes and Shirley and Silvia went to a spa. That night, we met up at a KTV place in Ximen and sang/ate until 10pm.

The next morning, Shirley had to leave for Singapore so after checking out of our hotel, German and I went looking for my old apartment and elementary school by Yongchun Station. We found the school but the guard wouldn't let us in to look around, even after I explained that I've been in the U.S. for 28 years. He said something about protecting valuable equipment in the school, as if I came all this way to steal stuff from my old school. Anyhow, we walked around the outside of the school and took some pictures. Everything was smaller than I remembered. We also checked out the market across the street. This was a hardcore old-school market with meat and fish sitting out on tables without refrigeration and the smell was overpowering. My mom said she used to shop here...


Yongchun Market


Schoolyard: I don't remember any grass nor the nice track... it was just dirt before

The apartment hunt was less successful. I even called my parents back in the U.S. twice but they could not remember the exact address. I found the street (Hulin Street) but there are hundreds of lanes/alleys. We were wandering around Lane 100 but our old apartment was on Lane 202 (I found the address AFTER returning to the U.S.). Again, everything was smaller and chaotic than I remembered so it was pretty confusing. After the market experience, we decided to go back to Ximen for lunch and then back to the hotel for our ride to the airport. BTW, the driver was driving crazy, entering and exiting the highway and taking all sorts of shortcuts. I was asleep for most of the ride but remember him driving down this twisty road and arriving at the airport from some back road instead of the highway.

Originally I had a Singapore Airlines flight direct from TPE to LAX but due to our travel department screw-up, I got rebooked to Cathay Pacific which means flying to HKG first then switching planes for LAX and home. It worked out okay since Cathay Pacific's business class is pretty comfy and their Hong Kong lounge (I was in the smaller one... they have two) is very nice.

Hong Kong to Taiwan

Our last day in Hong Kong was spent mostly on Hong Kong Island. I was raining like crazy in the morning yet there were still millions (it seems) of people walking around. We had lunch at a Shanghai-style restaurant, checked out the Jade Market under a highway overpass, then took the bus to the ferry. It only cost HK$2.20 to cross Victoria Harbour in an old ferry (you can also cross by MTR or underground tunnel); I showed pictures of the ferry to my mom and she remembers riding the same boats back in the 1960's when she spent summers in Hong Kong with her sister.


Picture of Hong Kong (Central) skyline from the ferry

After getting some tea and snacks at Jardine House, we took bus #15 for the climb up to "The Peak" where you can see all of Hong Kong. Since it was still raining on and off, this was our view at the top.



On the way down the mountain, we took a 16-passenger minibus which costs slightly less than the double-decker bus. The bus driver was a maniac, speeding down the narrow twisting road and narrowly missing other cars (and minibuses) racing up the other way. Again, I don't think I could drive in Asia. Arriving back in Central Hong Kong, we took a tram/streetcar to a restuarant to have Peking duck for dinner; I think it's called Peking Garden in the Hennessy Centre. After dinner, which was really good, we decided to go back to our hotel and rest up for the journey back to Taipei tomorrow.


Huge billboard in Central Hong Kong for Adidas and Batman Begins

Oh, German took us to a cool houseware store in one of the buildings before dinner. The store is called Francfranc and it's a cross between Pottery Barn, IKEA, and Linens 'n Things. In the store was also a section called J-Period that had a lot of really nice Japanese stuff.