Thoughts through the looking glass

Animal vs. Oh mighty lord.

2011-10-21T20:43:00.014-04:00

It has been a month since mom's passing away and aside from adapting to the situation, I've also started to wonder what is the purpose of life and came to two theories. First one suggests that we are nothing but stupid animals pretending to be smart trying to decipher diseases, creating science, making up beliefs, and polluting the Earth. Second one suggests that there's some higher power playing a sick'n cruel joke on humans and breaking families and faith through diseases, accidents, and disasters.
What happened to old sayings that being alcoholic, smoking, or living with bad lifestyle will lead to untimely deaths? It doesn't work like that. Just as what happened to mom, we see that cancer amongst other diseases is just a random lottery that has a ridiculously high rate of hitting it. Just talking w/ close group of friends (aka. not any Joe Blow), I can already count at least 10+ immediate family members having someone pass due to cancer.
So that makes me conclude that either we are at the mercy of either some higher power that can destroy our lives with an itchy middle finger, or we're just animals trying to pretend we know what's going on. So when someone says 'lord has a better bigger picture' or 'you are better than this' - all I can say is 'that's a pretty lousy picture'; or 'nope, I'm really no better than this because I'm just an ape and I don't give a damn of trying to be better or nice'.
That said, I'm not saying we should be bad and immoral. We should be who we are, say what's in our mind, and just do what we want granted that it doesn't hurt anyone else (or any other animals) in the process. There were many phoney people over the course of recent events and what they are doing is just plain superficial which can be very evidently seen, and it really gets it to me when someone says 'everything is so orderly in the world so there must be a great maker'... yeah, my ass.

-Post from a dressed-up and over analyzing animal-
.

9.22 A new chapter into my life

2011-09-23T09:03:00.003-04:00

9.22 4:30am mom passed away.
She had been fighting cancer for 3 years and had been through a ton of trials. I am not sure if I would've been brave enough to weather the same trials if it was myself. CHOP/DHAP/SCT were not simple treatments and unfortunately the Lymphoma relapsed after SCT was performed. Mom's the bravest and prettiest girl I know, and her passing during a comfortable and peaceful sleep is a blessing itself. There's so much more things I want to talk with her about, but now I'll have to find her in my heart and feel the presence instead. Rest in Peace mom.

Testing Waters - Jam upload #1

2011-08-17T23:11:00.000-04:00

Music is a great way of relieving stress, here's the first upload of our band with a simple tune from Pearl Jam - Lass Kiss:

Enjoying the weather

2011-07-29T23:09:00.006-04:00

<- Pic courtesy of Ka.
I haven't been updating the blog much due to family errands, endless work, and studying - they had been occupying most of my time. Thank goodness for a long weekend for a breather to rest and chill. It had been 35-40 deg C during last month; one would hear the sound of AC's humming throughout the day and into the night. Thank goodness there were thunder showers last week which soothed the temperature a bit, and lessened the burden on our water depleted reservoirs. To take advantage of the nice weather, of course there's endless BBQs and gatherings! I'm very blessed to have a group of close friends who support me and all of them has their head on straight... hahaha. Afterall, it's our family and friends who makes us who we are!

Start to a series of weddings in 2k11!

2011-06-29T23:05:00.005-04:00

Life's interesting. Some things you try hard but will never get, while some things will pop up when you least expect it to. As one of my close friends told me never second guess and doubt what could've been; this aligns with my genuine belief that all things happen for a reason, and it's usually for the better (for the good ppl out there lol). Striving too hard to try and achieve what's not meant to be is not good either and this reminds me of a recent popstar divorce in HK. Nick had been trying hard to stand by his skanky wife for two years throughout scandals, x-pictures, and attempted to forget the past in order to raise a happy family. However, human nature doesn't change easily and the couple is going across divorce procedures as infidelity rumors spread for the wife again. That being said, I attended my coworker's wedding last weekend. He's a tad older than all of us and very much a workaholic, we're all very happy to see him find his other half when he least expected it. It was a simple ceremony/banquet with some traditional rituals intentionally left out but in fact I found out that the meaning of marriage was conveyed more stronger than some ceremonies that had endless entertainment and games. Grats to the newly wed!

Let the music continue

2011-06-17T23:39:00.004-04:00

And so.... the passion for music continues to flow. We've checked out a couple studios and most of them are pretty ghetto in dark rundown buildings, smoke/weed-smelling rooms, and water-dripping ceilings. However, fun continues as we jam into the night. We're still amateurs but it's a good motivation to keep all of us practicing and tryin to perfect that tune. Feels just like school again with everyone aiming towards a common goal lol.

Sunny skies across town

2011-06-07T21:37:00.010-04:00

Weather was awesome last few days as temperature shot up to 30deg Celcius. What else to do aside from enjoying the sunshine with a group of buddies? As coconut will be delivering and myself heading to Austin later parts of the summer for work, we decided to move up our annual Center island outing. Part of the crew headed DT for lunch gathering before roaming across Lake Ontario. There were huge lineups of people waiting for ferry but luckily Ka got a bunch of tix for us without us having to wait crazy hrs.
Biking, chilling, playing frisbee/baseball, beating up busman, and fooling around with cute dogs were highlights of the trip.
Thx Jesse for bringing Buddy and showing us so many tricks, the huge dog in the pic belonged to a friendly lady there and I just had to run up to grab a pic w/ the giant Husky - reminds me of dogsledding! Stay tuned for more activities across summer!

New addition to the family!

2011-06-06T22:03:00.004-04:00

As my guitar passion is regaining, along with motivation from friends in renting studio and jamming songs regularly; I've picked up a smexy sister for my elegant yet subtle Takamine... Please to introduce my red hot semi hollow electric... Oh yea... she's a beauty ;) I got them matching cases too! Weeeeeeee

2011 Doors Open

2011-06-06T00:10:00.011-04:00

Doors Open occurs once a year and allows visitors to visit the site for free, and there are also rooms that are generally not opened to public which is open on that day. This year, we went to 3 stops - Redpath sugar refinery which has 80+ tonnes of sugar in its silos, King Meridian's hotel which dates back to 1902, and St.James Anglican church that allowed us to roam to the ceiling bell towers.
It was an interesting outing and very enjoyable with the current weather. I haven't been updating my blog for a while due to various situations I was in earlier. However, I'm glad I expressed my mind allowing me to move forward now; which also led myself in carrying some momentum into short term goals I would like to achieve.

An under appreciated occupation in Canada: Nursing

2011-04-23T23:18:00.005-04:00

I'm impressed. And for those who knows me, I don't get impressed easily. Due to circumstances, mom has checked into Princess Margaret for her treatments. The doctors are very professional and the place does not resemble a hospital at all. Being family of patient or friends who needs to be admitted to a hospital, sometimes one ponders if there may be alternatives and would it be better to hire homecare to stay at home. However, PMH completely changed that thought. It specializes in specific fields of research and to be honest, I really cannot think of a better alternative given the situation. However, I am impressed not because of top-notch doctors or the hospital being one of the top 5 in the world; I am impressed because of the level of detailed planning gone into hospitality/food, and the nurses. Despite working long hours and over the holidays - the nurses continue to genuinely care for each patient and tries try their best to make everyone feel better, keep the environment clean of germs, give strict warning to visitors not to bring germs in, and listen to the patient attentively. I'm not going into too much details as there are much examples and I do not want to create some sort of unnecessary guideline for reference. All I can say is that the nurses doesn't get much credit for the type of work they do, and I am truly grateful at their professionalism and care they provide.

Earth Hour 2011

2011-03-27T22:15:00.008-04:00

And so, it was Earth Hour 2011 on Saturday where buildings and businesses were encouraged to turn off lights for an hour to ease electricity consumption - the outcome was an 8.9% decrease of electricity on the powergrid. It was pretty cool to see the Toronto downtown core dimming down for this event despite there were still some offices here and there that was still being lighted. One of the events that was opened for the public during this hour included the U of T telescopes since the light pollution is lower during this period of time.
After my friend and I finished a superb grilled sea-bream for dinner, we headed towards 60 St.George Street of where the telescopes were housed, and found ourselves stumbling inside pitch black rooms filled with huge crowds of people lining up for the event. We saw the Beehive cluster, and Saturn which was pretty cool with its' rings and an orbiting moon clearly visibly in the dark crisp skies. One of the ladies suggested that we were quite lucky to see this since she was here past 3 yrs but was unable to make out the Beehive cluster - guess the goddess of Saturns likes us ;) lol

Human Nature

2011-03-20T01:22:00.003-04:00

Al Jazeera has great coverage of breaking news, documentaries, to even small reports like this. This short clip depicts that Japan is working hard in surviving the disaster of the 2011 earthquake, hopefully the nuclear crisis will be controlled soon. The education levels in Japan is also very impressive and people helps each other. At difficult times, survivors line up for food instead of being like Haiti/India/China where people breaks into stores and steps on each other for food. The survivors in the hard hit cities also only buys what they need from the supermarket shelves, and an elderly says 'we only take what we need to survive and leave the rest for others who needs them more'. This is a stark contrast against the ridiculously ugly human nature as listed in recent newspaper where where people in China/HongKong hog iodine salt (they hear Iodine safeguards against radiation) and merchants driving up the prices because of their greediness to earn a few more bucks during this crisis. Quite a huge difference in mentality for cities that are so close to each other eh?

Japan Earthquake/Tsunami Relief Fund

2011-03-14T21:32:00.005-04:00

Corporation that I work in will match any fulltime engineer's donation up to 3000$ for the Japanese earthquake/tsunami relief fund from this website here. Please let me know before this Friday if you would like to join in for this as I will be making spreadsheet tracking all donations towards this cause and will scan all participants a receipt once avail. Thank you.

Condolences to Japan Quake Victims

2011-03-13T14:14:00.006-04:00

There's nothing more terrible than to see a country with leading edge technology, strict building laws, and proud country values lie in shambles. My heartfelt condolences goes to Japans' quake victims, and their families. I don't think any other country will be able to handle the situation as well as Japan. And certainly that douche from China stating 'our nuclear reactors in Shenzhen will not leak and we have the utmost preparations for earthquakes' was an insensitive/inappropriate comment for someone who cannot back their talk - it always better to stay quiet than talk nonsense. Here is an aerial view of before and after, and hopefully Japan will be able to recuperate soon from this incident.

Powerful Media Age

2011-02-05T19:03:00.006-05:00

So I was following on the Egyptian revolution across multiple media hubs (BBC, CBC, AlJazeera) and stumbled across this very powerful yet graphic depiction of what goes around in the background of a highly prosperous and booming society. Suggesting that internet and information sharing changed our lives is an understatement of how much effect it has. I truly believe that we are now living in Media age allowing us ease of access to information and documentaries that may span halfway across the planet. Enjoy :)

Typing without really thinking

2011-01-28T23:45:00.010-05:00

Haven't really been the most active of blogging lately. Too much happened past several months. One of the things was that my new vehicle finally arrived after 2.5 months of waiting. It's a quite powerful 1.5 tonnes of spaceframe technology (that's what they call it or whatever that means) and has latest gadgetry (more electronics = more potential to fail lol) and would possibly make myself drool over it if I was back in High school or University 10+ yrs ago. However, before we know it - our perspectives change alot from the environment around us and and I didn't find my level of excitement/enthusiasm as I would've expected. I guess as we grow up, there's more things we need to plan, think, and worry about. Since many of my friends asked me; the reason why I spent such a hefty amount on my car is because I can see crap happening just in the blink of an eye; bombs, heart attacks, cancers, car-crashes, accidents etc. Maybe it was there all along but I was too young or hopeful to notice it before. We only live life once and should go for what we want within reason and be whoever we want to be. Over the course of working, traveling, and studying - I do notice that there are many people trying to be someone that isn't really themselves, maybe I was also one of them when I was growing up too. Not sure why I decided to post this but just wanted to type out what I felt without thinking too much today.

End of Silk Road: A tale of two cities

2010-11-26T22:00:00.004-05:00

Just finished procrastinating and decide to finish the final entry for my Silk Road trip. The last stop of the eventful trip ends in Beijing, the capital of China and a sister city to Shanghai. It was my first time in Beijing despite I had always wanted to visit this city when I was working in SH. It was mentioned that Beijing is a cultural, educational, and politics hub; whereas Shanghai focuses on finance, expansion, and trade. As we exited the airport, one can definately feel that the atmosphere was drastically different between the cities. There were huge amount of police all around Beijing yet it gave me uneasy feeling. It felt like I was in minority report where there's surveillance cameras everywhere; ranging from subways, shopping malls, street entrances, and washroom exits. Prices were more expensive in this city and I couldn't find any bootlegged DVDs at all.
With the differences stated, which one do I like more? Well.... granted, there's going to be pickpockets in Shanghai and one has to be careful of their belongings, but I feel more alive and comfortable there, and not scared to haggle or buy endless DVDs :p. Beijing is safer, has much huger buildings (lots of government), and cleaner; however, it gave me an uneasy feeling like I was watched everywhere and the possibility of private police rushing out from nowhere and beat you with baton sticks is no joke. I guess the Chinese government needs to stay that way to control the crowd and political retributions in its capital after what happened in June 4th, 1989.

Next Stop in Silk Road

2010-11-03T23:02:00.005-04:00

It's been a busy few weeks with much things needing attention to. However, decided to take a breather and continue my blog. The last stop Lanzhou didn't leave me with much expectations but I was shocked when arriving at TianShui. It features mountains deep in layers of forestry and trees, and it's Maijishan Grottoes was definately my highlight of the trip. It was literally a sculpted mountain from 1500-2000 yrs back. what's amazing was that there were little to no human intervention to it so what you see is what you see years ago. The only things that was built was the 27 story flight of stairs that took 60 yrs to complete. Spanning deep into the clouds, one would imagine how difficult the workers would use to work sculpting the artwork while being suspended from the air.
After Tianshui, we headed towards Xian for the Terracotta warriors tomb, which I find it so so, maybe I've seen too much TV shows about it and expected more? It was nonetheless very grand and an integral part of Chinese history. At this point, many people from the group were sick due to sanitary and diarrhea, but luckily I still had that little immune system built up from my expat so was still eating much of the foods around and about. Despite this, it was around 15 days into the tour and I was beginning to feel tired; however, I also longed to see more since I understand the trip will be ending soon after we go on to the next stop in Beijing.

The Orient Express along the Silk Road

2010-10-04T20:08:00.015-04:00

Yup, I've been so bogged down at work (and feeling tired) that I've been lazy to continue updating over the past week. I'm also only on day 10 of sorting through my pictures so far. I do blame my inactivities due to the already cold weather here =\ Anyways, the next leg of my Silk Road trip includes a visit to LanZhou. At this portion of the trip, we were hopping between cities on train. The train was very well kept and was only reserved for us N.American 'foreign' Chinese as the local tourists were unable to ride these. The train has a total of 12 carts; with 8 cabins, double decker beds on each, two waitresses who split 7hr shift schedules, and 2 washrooms on each cart.
There were also two carts for kitchen, eateries; a cart for karaoke/majong, and a shower cart which was exceptionally clean. Being on Russian trains and sleeping in its cabins before, I find the Chinese train (called the Orient express) was much better in terms of safety and cleanliness. The trains and cabins were kept the same for us throughout our Silk Road journey; you can imagine this as a cruise ship on land where we can leave our luggages yet do daily tours on land before returning back to it at night. Because of this, I got to know the waitresses to the cabin easily (normally people just ask them to do work), but I enjoyed talking to them, treating them as friends and find out more about their jobs, their inspiration, and routes they have taken on the train.
Ms.Wong, who was only 20 and been to many parts of China onboard the train already - would later tell me that these trains were 40 yrs old, directly imported from Germany, once only hosted China's mayors as they journeyed from city to city, and the cooks preparing the meals now were the same ones who cooked for Chinese mayors. She also showed me how the stations refilled water onto the carts during each major stop which was quite interesting. When finally arriving at LanZhou, we find a huge industrial city, and it was also famous for its beef noodles. In the beef noodles, the soup is the most important factor here as they use cow thighs and special recipes to cook it for 8+hrs to get the full flavor out. However, despite having 3 bowls of beef noodles in one lunch - I liked the texture on Turpan's noodles, tenderness of Canada's beef, and Shanghai's soup base more. Nonetheless, it was still interesting to experience the taste of where all beef noodles originated though. Aside from eating, Lanzhou isn't really meant for tourism. There is a huge Apple factory that makes those iPads/iPhones, a temple overlooking the Yellow river sitting atop a mountain, and many old military dormitories hidden in the mountains evacuated because of erosion (although there were still people living in it until they get kicked out). With this in mind and not having much anticipation, we headed back onto the train and headed off to the next city - only to find myself very much surprised at what I saw..... (To be continued)

Uncontaminated beauty

2010-09-25T18:44:00.011-04:00

Historic buildings, sites, human interaction such as stories passed on between generations that is not contaminated by travel industry is what I call culture. Having been to various places and seeing heavily human-maintained infrastructures like the Eiffel tower, La Familia Sagrada, Ephesus, St.Petersburg, or the Forbidden city yields a very different feeling of history and what culture is. All we know is that the above structures are maintained annually to make sure its colors and structures remain intact so it can attract more tourists to spur economy. One of the things that's amazing on the Silk Road trip is that many sites have little or no human intervention throughout the years. A huge part of this has to do with the very dry climate due to its close proximity to the desert. Our next stop was DunHuang, a trade outpost that was once the jewel of the Chinese empire back in 350AD. The Magao grottoes was a Buddhist stronghold, and 月牙泉 was a Tao stronghold; each having its own distinctive architecture.
There's a severe penalty in place for travelers taking pictures of the one Buddhas or pictures inside the Magao caves since flash photography will damage them. Hundreds, thousands, millions of distinctive colored paintings each telling a story circled us as we entered each cave (I was able purchase a book outside that tells stories and had pictures of these paintings outside at the souveneir shop), and it is very interesting that early Buddhism/火教 was actually a derivation of interaction with India's culture during the Silk road exchange.
月牙泉, was a moon crescent oasis in the middle of the desert surrounding by sand; water in the oasis was possible due to its unique geographic location where air gets trapped in the crescent and creates and upward breeze that pushes the sand back up the hill. One of the kids from another group was trying to walk up the mountain and it was funny to see him make huge steps forward only to see him slide back down. As the locals say, it's better to take 5 puny steps than 1 big step on slipping sand as it'll only make you slide backwards.
To end the eventful excursion on the desert, we were given camels to ride on to a small outpost. Camels were considered as the Bentleys of the desert since they can survive without food and water up to 4 weeks and can act as a barrier against sandstorms in the vast outdoors. They were pretty shy though, and I think my camel was scared at something while I was fixing my camera gear when it suddenly sprung to its feet. The trainer was yelling 抓紧抓紧!!! (hold tight) since it'll be his responsibility if I did fell; and no kidding - the camel actually rose to a story high on its feet and it certainly freaked the hell out of me.

Continuing through the Silk Road

2010-09-24T16:14:00.018-04:00

And so, the next stops included cities along and around the Gobi. 天池, was a lake in the middle of the mountains and was highly celebrated in chinese literature, the scenery can be comparable to Lake Louise in Canada. 交河古城 was an ancient city ruins that dated back 2000 yrs ago, and it was amazing that it didn't require artificial maintenance all through these yrs due to the very dry weather. It gave a very solitary and sad feeling as we toured the ruins, and I must say it's even better than the pile of stones from Greece's Ephesus and Patheon (toured in 2k2).
Next were the famous 阳关, 玉门关, 嘉舆关 that formed the great 'impregnable' gates of where the great wall was first built to fend off foreign invaders back in the ancient Chun/Ming dynasty. It was a very majestic sight as we all know that it eventually led to the construction of one of the greatest wonders of the world. On this side, we were also able to climb and take pictures to our heart's content, unlike other parts of the wall where there's a sea of people trying to climb over you. However, the 2000 or so steps we climbed were quite steep and it did tire my kneecaps and hamstring for the remainder of the trip despite the fact I do gym regularly. Although the weather was nice and there were no rain; it was still a very rough climbing experience and only 6 out of the 27 ppl in our group was able to climb to to the top. Some of the other groups were grounded and didn't even attempt the climb.
To end this stop and before we headed onto the Orient express train to the next stop in the desert for DunHuang, we visited the natural grape fields and a local Turpan's home. One of the locals spoke mandarin and urged us to perform traditional XinJiang dances with him; and before I knew it, he isolated me out and asked me to follow his dance steps - it turned out that I was doing a proposal dance for his sister singing the following lyrics in Uyghur dialect: 'I have a grape field, a house, a motorcycle; all XinJiang ladies come to me, but will you take my hand?'

XinJiang: Urumqi and Turpan

2010-09-23T08:21:00.016-04:00

The purpose of this trip was the Silk road, and the northern path that we took was a reversed path from the destination back to the origin. And so, we left Shanghai on a local flight to Urumqi and Turpan; both these cities are listed as 关外 (outside the gate) in ancient times since they are cities not belonging to 汉朝 (mainstream Chinese) and are listed as barbaric tribes. This has changed throughout the years but you can still distinguish the huge difference of architectures and facial features of the settlers here, making this city one of the ones I really want to visit before my trip.
Urumqi had massive riots last year and resulted in many deaths and arrests, and that was the reason I choose to travel in a tourgroup instead of backpacking here. We were told to stay indoors after 8, do not travel alone, and not showing our camera gear which will inform locals that we are outsiders; however, this did not keep my curious eyes and camera from taking snapshots here and there around the city. In the picture to the left, you see that there are fully armed armies almost everywhere in the city which was somewhat uncomfortable. The settlers here live a very humble and hard life with selling cotton, raisins, and fruits as their main income. They live in shacks without doors and open roofs (there is little rain since it's very dry and close to the desert). It makes me feel ashamed when some of the fellow North American tourists complain that the AC was not strong enough and dust was going into the coach bus, while 5-6 locals here commute around sitting on haystacks pulled by a motorcycle.
The hotel that we stayed in is worth to mention about - it was kept the same after 20yrs, and is listed as the best hotel of the city already. It did smell of urine throughout the room with stains on bed covers and sofas. Regardless of this, you cannot really blame about the bad conditions since you know that it really is one of the better places to live in when you see how rough life is throughout the city. It was a very memorable eye opening experience that kickstarted the trip and reminded us how lucky we are already.

Reliving Shanghai after 3 years

2010-09-21T22:19:00.014-04:00

As I had been backlogged in updates, I'll be updating my blog starting from SH and working through the memorable points of my trip. I've taken close to 2500 pictures and will have the daunting task in sorting and post-processing through them in wks to come :S
Well, to start it off; Shanghai was my first stop of my Silk Road adventure and is my launching city and I have choosen to extend my stay for 2 more days there. As I touched down, the air, the culture, and fond memories reignited the excitement i had here when I worked as an expat here some 3 yrs ago. I was highly looking forward to to see what may have changed within these few years:

- lots of good looking ppl: I see 10x more pretty girls here in 3 days than 3 yrs in Toronto LOL.
- housing prices have shot up 30% since my previous stay and my ex-teammates were all complaining about the unaffordable price.
- massive infrastructure upgrade as they extended the 4 line subway to a total of 11 now, it mocks the Toronto transit that is going nowhere within the past 10 yrs.
- social structure is getting worst as the gap widens between the rich and poor, locals say it is like an hourglass where the middle classes are getting depleted.
- mannerism is still the same with ppl spitting, rough and sweat jobs, and much streetbums on the streets.
And so, I think i exhausted myself in SH before my real Silk Road trek even started :p Despite this, I feel very much alive in SH; maybe it's because I know the way around here, and coupled with the fact that I'm only a visitor and different from routine worklife?

New Jorney Awaits: Silk Road

2010-09-04T12:38:00.008-04:00

And so, it's been more than a year since I took any personal vacation. I'll be heading to the vast lands of China tomorrow; starting off in Shanghai meeting old friends when I expat there, commute to northern borders of Urumqi, along the cities of DuHuang/DuLuFan along the outskirts, then loop back down to where the Great wall started, along the Gobi desert visiting oasis and ruins that had a direct impact to history of China and how the Silk Road was formed. After various commute on bus, small flights, camels, and trains; I'll be back to Xian and Beijing where I'll return back to Toronto. It'll be a while since I'll update again since China has blocked Blogger, but I'm highly excited for the trip and will definately take many pictures with me to show when I'm back. Cheerios and take care all!

Hooked on Kdrama lolol

2010-08-27T22:16:00.012-04:00

And so, I've been addicted to Korean drama lately. Catchy songs, strong storyline, cute casts, and unexpected developments as the plot unfolds is just entertaining. Here's a running list of recent series that I have gone through provided with a short synopsis for each of them. Since their OSTs are great in the series, feel free to let me know if you would like any of their songs and I can help send/find it for you.
i) That fool (9/10): A romantic comedy that has a nice plot about a (really) pretty korean popstar getting into a fake marriage with a local postman (lucky dude) to avoid the media on her real relationship. However, as time goes by; real feelings developed between superstar and the postman (we refer him to as that fool in the series). How will the story unfold and will they get blamed for fooling all the citizens of Korea about their fake marriage?
2) Coffee House (5/10 - dropped): Supposed to be a romantic comedy but I totally lost interest in the middle of this series. About a girl who originally works in a family owned coffee house and finding herself getting entangled in the life of a novel writer and his witty/pretty business partner. I didn't like the series because it features humor that is not funny at all and pranks made at others' expense over and over again.
3) He who can't marry (8/10): A romantic comedy about a mid 40's architect who is obsessed with his work and ignores almost everyone's feelings. He starts to open up after meeting two females - one being his neighbor who is 20yrs younger, and his new family doctor who had to examine his ()() after getting diarreha.
4) 9 End 2 Outs (3/10 - dropped): A drama that's not good at all, not worth mentioning :p
5) Personal Taste (8/10): If it was not for the songs, I would probably give it a rating of 6.5. The story is a romantic comedy that started out pretty well with interesting twists, but I dislike the fact that there are too much lying and deceit in the plot for the main character, he keeps on making one lie after another. It eventually works out but I thought that the story could have been developed better.
6) Cinderella man (9/10): Just finished this series which was pretty satisfying and cost me lots of late night w.o good sleep. The series is about an orphan who grew up in Korea's clothing flea markets (known as East gate). His life changes drastically as he meets Youjin (Yoouna from SNSD) who is going through some tough time. The story gets interesting as he had to take on the role of someone looking identical to him, but just a gazillion times more wealthier. Unlike Personal taste, our main character here has to make lies for the benefit for others, and not himself.
7) My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (9+ so far): A very light and cute series, still airing in Korea up to ep 6 so far. If things keep up, this might be one of the best series of the list - synopsis will be coming after I complete it! :)

Tragedy in Philippines

2010-08-23T22:20:00.011-04:00

This was a fail attempt by the Philippines government/police force to save the hostages of a tourist group. I have heard many sides to the story:
1) Killer Mendoza hijacked tourbus in an exchange for his old job back, and he started killing hostages as he mentally broke down when the police tried to storm in and secure the tourbus.
2) Killer Mendoza was wrongfully convicted as he just wanted to connect to the media in exchange for the hostage. The gov't intervened as they were worried he will spill the corruption details from the internal structure within, there were rumors that the hostages killed were from bullets outside the bus.

Regardless of which scenario is right or wrong; I think that the scenario can be handled much better to prevent this tragedy. Looking at the clips, it is ridiculous to see a small truck trying to pull doors open, light armored policeman trying to storm bus by slapping the front lights, failed attempts to break the window, laughter in the background of the rescue force, and fail negotiators. Where is the sniper when they had a clean shot at the killer, or where are the ladders required to storm the bus with smoke/stun grenades? It is sad that the event had to cost 8 lives that were with their families having a vacation.

Very fun weekend!

2010-08-22T22:16:00.005-04:00

This weekend was a blast. To start it off, one of my HS buddies was getting married on Saturday! Congratulations Janny, and I'm sure Howard and you will have a happy and smooth transition to the next stage in life. The banquet was fun and I'm looking fwd to more pictures being uploaded onto FB or other sites of the wedding. As time moves on, it becomes harder and harder to round up everyone from their busy scheduling, so it's great to met up with most of the active crew from HS.
On Sunday, my buddy at work just moved into his new digs and invited us over for a BBQ. Luckily YY woke me up at 11 else I'll be very late! Despite it was raining, we still had lots of fun with the 'core' peeps there poking fun at each other and having crazy jokes. These are exactly the type of events we all like - speaking openly, being rowdy lol, picking on each other, and just foolin around and having fun :)

Korean Rhythm

2010-08-09T22:20:00.008-04:00

Doing cardio running 2-5 miles 2-3 times a week for nearly two years ought to make someone slow down and get tired of the routine. However, I have a new found energy source to continue powering myself to stick to this schedule. That's right! It's Korean pop. Gosh, the tunes are so catchy and full of energy that it is quite addictive and entertaining. Don't get me wrong, there are occasionally good western, cantonese, japanese songs that have great tunes, but somehow they lack the energy or the urge for one to listen to it over and over again. I've also been sucked into watching K-drama after work to de-stress as well xD lol. That's it, my destination for next year is set - Hokkaido in Japan and Seoul in S.Korea which is of close proximity to each other; now I need to find some classes to pick up a few lines of Korean. Unfortunately, it's not as mainstream as Japanese so I can't find places that teaches it yet. If anyone has information or contact about Korean classes locally, please do lemme know! Komapsumnida :) Also posting one of my many fav songs.

Oh... hay!

2010-07-20T23:27:00.004-04:00

Last year I drove by a farm and took some snapshots of huge hay rolls that farmers were gathering. Unfortunately, not knowing my DSLR system well enough at that time - I carelessly deleted the picture :( Since then I always had been on the lookout for huge hay rolls and fields where I can safely trespass and walk up close to take a picture. After a year of keeping my eyes peeled, I finally found some last weekend when I was cruising by the outskirts of Toronto!! Had to do an abrupt U-turn to take a pic of this, it's amazing such simple composition/landscape can make myself intrigued for a whole year lol.

Rabbits... everywhere!

2010-07-15T22:24:00.006-04:00

LOL, one day I returned home and saw my parents left something for me... a note o_O". Ah dang, I forgot that they had earlier dinner plans already else I would've rang up my friends for dinner. Oh well, after much procrastination and unsuccessful attempts to try and find last minute peeps on MSN that nite; I went to jog outside and returned to cook my own meal.
At that time, my cousin had left her wrabbit for us to take care as she went on a trip w/ the uncles. Anyways, seems weird that I'm getting quite acquainted with so many wrabbits lately - wild and domesticated ones alike LOL. Oh well, aside from washing her face - she also seem to enjoy the nice aroma of my healthy homemade noodles^^ lol

Wasaga here we go!

2010-07-08T20:39:00.005-04:00

What are we going to do when we have sunny skies, hot weather, a very hard-to-get free time from friends? To the bbbbbeeeeacccchhhh we go! Despite the traffic jam and leading our driver friend *ahem* down an unpaved sideroad as a shortcut; everything turned out great. Lots of people were in Wasaga during this time of year, and there were also a large crowd gathering around the big screen looking at the Worldcup games. Volleyball, sunbathing, chilling with beer'n pizza, and some uncoordinated jumps made our annual beach trip a very memorable outing!

Veggie wonderland

2010-06-16T23:46:00.005-04:00

1-2-3-4... 5... wait... 6! A total of 6 residents had been found in my parent's backyard! A huge mama wrabbit and 5 little baby rabbits was making themselves feel just like at home in the vegetable garden. It was a cute sight, and extremely difficult to capture all of them in the same picture since they would jump in all directions when they detect the slightest sound or see something big closing in on them.
With the baby rabbits size smaller than a fist; it was certainly a very delightful sight although they had been going through (aka. chomping it down) the vegetable it sees! Ah oh well, that's the beauty of wildlife; afterall, we're the ones taking over their homeland :)

Toronto Doors Open

2010-06-05T23:23:00.014-04:00

We woke up early last weekend and headed downtown Toronto (about 1hrs drive from where we live) to attend Doors Open. It's an annual festivity where buildings/factories which are normally not accessible to public is available for us to tour. As we arrived, we were greeted by scores of people trying to get glimpse of the places. Factoring in lineups, tour, brunch, and commute; we made it to two locations only. One was the Omni radio station which didn't have much to see inside although participants were plentiful since it just opened up this year. The other was Elgin & Winter Theatre which featured two very distinct theatres stacked on top of each other for performing theatrics, it was quite interesting as the decor and architecture was unique.

Shown here is the artwork that is etched on the ceilings of the Elgin theatre, it can be seen that restoration work is done very nicely throughout the years after it was built in 1913. It was also mentioned that the bulk of the workers there are loyal volunteers that had stood by this historic theatre through good times and bad.
After visitng the theatre and unfortuntely due to time contraints - we were unable to make it to Redpath, a huge sugar factory; well, there's always next year. :) Here's a group pic taken in the Winter gardens of the theatre upstairs where the layout is drastically different and features a combination of real/fake leaves on the ceilings.

Last haven for mankind

2010-05-22T14:37:00.011-04:00

Shangri-La, an ancient place that holds mankinds' last knowledge. This was also the title of an anime we had been watching recently, and it was trying to convey a powerful message through strange depictions of human nature. The setting occurs in the near future where most of the world is submerged under water after the massive glacial surfaces melted as a result of multiple variations of excessive carbon pollution caused by over-consumption and industries. Regular baseball sized hailstorms referred as 'bomb shower' rain down on the surface due to the depleted ozone layer, killing crops that humans need while creating mutant wildlife threatening the few remaining metropolis that the surviving mankinds built. The countries that were left all depended on this 'carbon' economy where they are regulated by how much carbon they can emit, and humans begin to fall back on superstition rituals to try and survive. I can't believe that an anime featuring illogical depictions can be so logical afterall. Ironic, yet realistic. Doesn't this sound familiar though? Manmade disasters, genetic engineering, mutant creatures, crazy hailstorms are just like the norm of what we live through in our current world. How much longer will it take before humans recognizes these trends as a wakeup call?

June 5th comment: Check this out, Jap is doing exactly what we see in sci-fi movies/anime.

Endless work

2010-05-04T20:44:00.011-04:00

Life's weird.
When we are children; we strive hard in school to get good grades to pass grade X. When we are youths; we study hard to get into a good university so that we can get a better job. When we are adults; we work hard so we can save up for a house or enough to start a family. When we are mid-age; we save hard so there's enough for kids education' or retirement funds.
Before we know it, time just flew by and we're retired - but we'll be too old to enjoy activities we missed out before, or people that are not there anymore.
Dangit, why so serious or work so hard?

Grrrr...

2010-04-14T22:34:00.005-04:00

Grrr. And that's how I feel about work recently - somehow things had been really busy and it's hard to even catch a breather at work. I find myself reverting back to long hours (something I had been avoiding since the first 3 yrs w/ the company), logging on after work hours, and typing long-azz email threads throughout the weekend. From circumstances and events that happened (highlighted in my previous posts throughout the years), I always think that humans shouldn't have to work so much because there's much more to life than career or a job - yeah, this was a huge change from my aggressive mindset when I first entered the industry. Right now, I think that a career is only a job to pay the bills so that we can get what we want to live a healthy happy life. Eventually, after 50 years; I prefer to remember my accomplishment such as: "Hey, I learned this beautiful melody on my Taka (my guitar) during 2009 summer after watching this series - let me play this now", rather than something like "Hey, I was designing this X@Z circuit for this X&Z chip for this now-obsolete hardware". Oh well, godda enjoy 2 more hrs before I go to bed, and another day for project X@Z starts again.

Japan

2010-03-30T21:08:00.002-04:00

Being someone who loves to travel, I've been reading alot about different countries and of places I want to visit next (China's Silk Road). Of one of the websites I stumbled upon, it's about Japan as depicted by a foreigner - despite it's a bit biased; it nonethelss is based on facts and statistics and I found it quite entertaining and want to share it with you all:

Japan-The Strange Country (English ver.) from Kenichi on Vimeo.

Toyota recalls - overblown

2010-03-16T21:14:00.010-04:00

In recent days whenever you turn on the TV or the radio, you'll find the huge Toyota recall story floating everywhere. The problem was due to mixture of stuck carpet and braking system and Toyota had been recalling cars to workaround these problems. So this sounds like a responsible brand eh? I would think so - afterall, Toyota cars are known for their reliability and lack of maintenance involved. However, much of the public doesn't seem to think so; and most think that they should blow up the incident to make the foreign car company look bad, and hopefully claim benefits since they overtook the top car sales spot the year before. And so they brought in the media, the congress, and whatever scheme to make the Japanese maker look bad. What next? Apparently this James Sikes dude thought that be can get away with settlements by creating a "braking failure" on his Prius, and failed miserably (Forbes Link). The outcome? Aside from his original 700k debt, he's going to be facing a lawsuit from Toyota soon. Bummer. He should've thought before he acted.

Olympics coming to an end.

2010-02-28T22:47:00.009-05:00

The excitement, the anguish, the friendship, the joy, and the thought of endless hrs the athletes put in; are just one of the many emotions that can be felt when watching the Olympics. As the event draws to an end today, it will be another four years when the next Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi. It was fun, and it was great to see Canada play a part by hosting an event with so many history behind it in 2k10.

Olympics!!!!

2010-02-24T22:36:00.006-05:00

And so, it's been busy after work lately. What for? For watching Olympics of course!!!! Despite a subpar opening ceremony due to mechanical failures; the games are full of excitement, anticipation, and I love to read the stories behind each of the athletes.

Today was a good day for Canada as they were able to beat Russia in hockey to struggle their way back into the semis after US defeated them earlier. Gold and Silver for Bobsleigh was also great, along with getting Silver in speedskating (after KOR was DQed). Need I say more about the excitement? Oh, and yeah; the cute Yu-Na definately sparkles on ice!

Year of the Tiger

2010-02-15T17:17:00.004-05:00

And so, it was Chinese New Years and the year of the Tiger is official in! Despite I'm grown up over here in Toronto, parents still maintained much Chinese tradition ranging from meals to events. I'm glad that today is family day to recuperate the huge amount of dinner/luncheons w/ relatives/family/uncle-aunts. Here's the dishes my mom prepared, with each dish having it's own meaning of good luck/health/career. This is due to the pronounciation of each dish having double meanings. Happy new year everyone!

Mosquito Bay

2010-01-24T14:00:00.005-05:00

Plants staying inside the house over Winter is like a haven for mosquitos! But dun fret! Modern tech at its best is available! Yep, I'm talkin about stickers coated in special scent to attract those little nimblers... Dangit, can't wait till spring comes so that we can stick those plants back outdoors again >:)

Dogsled Excursion

2010-01-11T21:28:00.007-05:00

And so... it was a freezing Winter, but to fully enjoy this season in Canada; we decided to go do something outdoors. Something new, something exciting; and one of my friends, Jessi decided to pull something together for a dogsled excursion. It's roughly 3hrs drive North and despite the chilly weather, it was a great experience! Each sled comprises of 2 folks and 6 dogs. The official term is referred to as "dog mushing", and is an older Inuit/Native way of commuting around the northern tundra. It was interesting to learn the different tones used to command the dogs as they respond to different pitches. In the middle of the run, I did feel guilty of having the dogs pull us; so my sled buddy and I occasionally jumped off and helped push the sled to relieve the dogs some stress.
Dog sledding aside, the scenery was exceptional as there were clean snow on treebarks, crisp unpolluted air, and limited humans in this frozen winter wonderland. More detailed pictures of the handsome huskies can be found on my Flickr site in a bit :)

Into 2010 - new choices and decisions

2010-01-02T20:22:00.015-05:00

It's officially marked as the 2nd day into 2k10 today. As we step into the new year, it's difficult not to look back - old hobbies dropped and new ones picked up, obsolete goals scratched out and revised plans being followed, old relationships faded and new ones started. Ah, all too well do I know that there's a limit to how much water we can pour into a cup - everyday we struggle to keep up with opportunity costs while hoping the decision that we choose is the better one.
Reflecting over the past year, I'm sure that there's going to be plenty of decisions to be made in the new year and just hope everything will be smooth. Afterall; I'm not like our little friend here who's climbed 2 stories high, and trying to look for foods while defying gravity.

A Nutty Christmas

2009-12-25T18:18:00.009-05:00

Despite the cold weather on Christmas day, there was a visitor waiting in the backyard. Knowing how cold it must have been, my mom grabbed a chestnut and gave it to the little visitor. Now, the only problem is for him find a way to crack open his meal.

Blog getting revived

2009-12-25T18:11:00.004-05:00

Over the past year, I took a break from blogging because I was lost for words. During my absence, I've actually found out what I am looking for and what I really want. I've also been shifting my hobbies towards DSLR and playing more guitar; traveling is still on my list of favorite things to do but just that I haven't been to much new places recently. Due to this, you'll probably notice some differences in my posts moving forward. Enough of my blabbering - I hope everyone will have a Merry Christmas!!!

Tis' a cold autumns' night....

2008-10-20T23:04:00.004-04:00

Leaves fall and rides on a cool autumn's breeze as another eventful year wraps up around the corner. Was out raking some leaves and really enjoy the surroundings... Time flies and it is always good for one to slow down, take a step backwards to reflect and savor the things and people around us.
It's a bit ironic since during our younger ages - we try to earn that degree, save up for that big house, buy that fancy car, or strive for that senior work position; and when we reach an age where we appreciate life, we only find all of these things are materialistic objects without substance. Granted, these are some areas in life that one requires to live comfortably, but when we slow down for a bit; the question of what one really wants to achieve in life pops up in my mind. Aside from all these material aspects, what do we really want to accomplish in life so that it will carry on towards the end of time...? Mmmm... Just a thought...

It's froid desu...

2008-10-07T21:02:00.006-04:00

And so, weather's been getting cold in Toronto lately and it seems that it's moving towards the end of Autumn despite it's only in Oct... Leaves are turning red although I haven't had a chance to take some nice pictures yet. It's a huge change in scenery and temperature from Austin where it's still quite hot during this time. That reminds me that I was venturing into the heart of a famous park reserve called Mount Bonnell right before I returned back to Toronto. It features many rocky steps up the hill to the top where it overlooks a small river that channels itself through the west side of Austin. Climbing so many stairs reminded myself that I once enjoyed climbing up high places - especially on an aircraft where one would get to peak down at a sea of clouds in awe.
That may also be the reason why I was recently heavily sucked into this game called "Perfect World" causing myself from updating my blog until now. In this free MMORPH that is set in the middle ages, one assumes the role of a warrior, magician, or vecromancer. And well, I'm an elven cleric who flies through out the vast skies of the game. The most interesting part of the game was due to it's flexible storyline and allows everyone to meet up with their friends online. You can join up with friends forming a party to explore the Haunted Caverns, or commute to the Dreaming Stronghold to determine why there are a sudden influx of weird herbs popping up through out the land. I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is not afraid of getting addicted to it :) Check it out!

Work in Austin......

2008-09-20T01:01:00.006-04:00

And so, with a blink of an eye; my 2 week business trip is coming to an end and I will return back to Toronto on Sunday. Despite having much trouble crossing the border; it was pretty good to visit the new company campus, meet with the team, and to associate a 'face' with names of people that I had been always exchanging emails with. Folks that I had met with in Austin are friendly, and I liked their sincere and genuine attitude... Despite I was brought up in Toronto, I somewhat preferred the work atmosphere here down in Austin.
Chairing and attending calls between Austin / Toronto / Sunnyvale is a very normal thing in everyday activity here, and by comparison; I see that the Toronto folks are more crafty and political. At one point, the team here and myself were fed up with the antics of some 'individuals' up in Toronto; and all of us had a common thought: "Dang, just let us get back to our work; you political clowns..." Oh well, I guess there's ought to be these things in a company this large, and I've seen much worst when managing a team in SH, so luckily it's nothing new to myself. Anyways, tomorrow is a day off to scenic locations of town to snap more nice pics and to stroll around some malls before heading back towards the end of the week... Here's some pics of Austin using new techniques my co-workers were showing off to me earlier :)

Finally in Austin....

2008-09-13T22:51:00.006-04:00

And so, third time's the charm - I was finally able to head to Austin and arrived 8 days late after having to rebooked my biz trip for two times (thanks to the admin who aided myself in this long process)... The new AMD HQ Campus in Austin was huge and was very impressive. Reuniting with my Austin counterparts went smooth as everyone was friendly; although some of the folks I met last year were not working there anymore. The week went by quickly as there were no downtime and I was swamped right from the beginning. Due to repeated bombardments of the hurricane brothers Gustav and Ike on the eastern coasts, I had to scratch plans of visiting the windy city (Dallas) this weekend, pity that it was the only remaining close-by city that I hadn't visited yet :( And so, my coworker and I drove out west to Frederickburg; the sleepy German influenced town did not change much compared to my visit from last year and there were much activities along the main city block as musicians were out playing their instruments. The most interesting was a cool laidback Texan enjoying the nice weather and just playing his music without even noticing passerbys... It's also interesting that along the city, most of the folk were holding onto a bottle of beer in broad daylight (it's illegal to carry beer outside the house in Canada), so it was quite new to myself.
Anyways, it was quite relaxing day today having a short roadtrip, and taking lots of pictures using some new techniques my colleague showed me last Friday.... Well, it's all good so far and hopefully my trip to Austin will continue to be a good one next week as well :)

Business trip to the States.... is a joke

2008-09-01T15:57:00.003-04:00

And so, I was originally scheduled to head to Austin with my new hire to help bring up a new project. But guess what? I was stranded in the airport customs and immigration area for 3 hrs, missing my flight, and they also denied my entry to the States? The reason....? Well, they thought that I was staying too long to just attend meetings and consulting so they assumed I must be doing active work.... Now here's the problem, US doesn't like people to actually do worthwhile work on their soil (I guess it takes away job opportunities from them) so I had to file for a work authorization letter from my company first; and hence, I'm rejected to board the plane... My new hire was a bit lucky as I told him to proceed w/o me, so when those idiot customs/immigration people was looking for him - he was long gone... ha ha ha...
Not to brag, but I think I've traveled to many places throughout the world and this is the first time it's happened to myself. For frickin goodness, it's not like I want to go to desert city in the middle of hurricane season myself either.... Geez. Oh well, more venting another time; as I now need to cancel my arrangements and to update everyone with the stupid news - hopefully i can get this done soon so I don't waste any more of my time on the crappy system. No wonder the future economic powerhouse will next be in Asia (China/India)....

China.... politics vs. olympics.....

2008-08-25T20:58:00.006-04:00

And so... China has successfully ended its 16day goal of maintaining high standards of their Olympic events that was held in Beijing. I was glued to most of the events over the course of this 4-year event, and most importantly - I was highly attracted to the different venues and backdrop that CBD/NBC was showing, even for a glimpse. It reminded me of the times I had been working in China, a very energetic city that seems to shout that it is capable of accomplishing anything. Yes, anything. Despite there were lots of criticism ranging from Tibetian protests, to jeering of rendered fireworks; I felt that China did a great job of delivering its promise of hosting this great event. It may also have set the standards higher than expected since the economic powerhouse was reported to have spent 47billion to prepare and carry out this task. It is sad that over the course of Olympics, I was only able to access CBC and NBC locally; and can only listen to biased opinions from commentators not talking about the sports, but rather on human rights, yadda yadda.... C'mon - Olympics is a time for sports, and not for politics. I'm surprised to even hear that Mr. Harper has decided to skip the opening ceremony because of the Tibetian incident and his excuse is that "he has work to do"... Maybe that's why we have such a weak athelete support structure here in Canada, where future Olympian prospects are required to run around town trying to scrape up sponsors so that they can showcase their talent on world's stage. Maybe we are focusing on things that are less important and should focus our energy elsewhere. Maybe Mr. Harper can build better relationship with China, create more jobs to break us out of this 17yr record high of unemployment rate, ink more deals that will benefit our country and provide more support for our atheletes.
Anyways, that's my 2 cents; and I'm planning to once again visit China next year. This time I'm planning to visit my old team in Shanghai, Beijing's rich cultural architecture, and to Mount Tai. Not sure why, but recently i'm really into Mount Tai which is situated in ShangDong province. It boosts a rich history of being one of the 5 most famous mountains in China and it overlooks a sea of clouds as how one would describe it in JinYung's martial arts literature that I've always been very fond of. Hopefully I will get to see it with my own eyes, and this time; I'm glad I invested myself in a DSLR :)

Spoiled myself again and got a new hobby

2008-07-27T21:28:00.007-04:00

And so... I spoiled myself once again, getting a new toy and possibly a new hobby yesterday. I picked up a new Camera - a DSLR...! I kept seeing lots of friends carrying around huge cameras and communicating in alien technical camera jargon before, and now I'm getting infected too... Granted, it's an expensive hobby to have - but I find that as time moves on and never return; a nice camera is a good investment as we can look back and savor the moments with loved ones, friends, and life as time progresses. Of all my recent toys (listed earlier), I think my Takamine (guitar) and camera were the wisest choice of them all.... Hopefully I will get to post some nice pictures on my blog soon with my new camera altho here's one of the pics I snapped earlier today.
Aside from my camera, I just finished a recent TV documentary called "China rises" on CBC which was just shot maybe a couple months ago. It does bring back nolgistic feelings of the times I was back in China. The show was fairly complete, as it shows the life of people from different backgrounds - the successful hip hop youths who has the education/talent and am enjoying the prosperity of the modern life. And on the other side, the forgotten factory workers who were once proud population of Shanghai when it was still a factory stronghold, and now only finding themselves evicted from their properties to make way for new construction sites, and are struggling just to make a living. It's a sad reality, but it does convey a powerful message by showing at the perspective from both sides. I highly encourage others to watch this touching and unbiased show.

Having a breather....

2008-07-01T21:31:00.004-04:00

Sometimes it just feels so great to take several days off, not doing anything, and just relax... And that was exactly what I did last week when I took Wed-Friday off, while declining all activities to stay home and relax. Despite there's always that urge to go out, meet people, and to try and accomplish as much as possible in as little time - sometimes it feels good to recharge just to chill at home. Is this part of human nature that we all have this 'comfort zone' and just want to rest, or is it just that i'm lazy...? ha ha... Eitherway, played PS3 and my guitar during this free time off. PS3 is create by Sony and being a HW engineer myself; I find that game consoles are just making its way into everyones' - be it the Wii, PS3, Xbox, etc. Will it evolve into not just a game console; but maybe an entertainment and multimedia console? A compact powerful little machine that can play BR, HD, DVD, CD, VCD, surf the net, online shopping, and pay the bills anywhere in the house. We normally have isolated PCs lying around in specific rooms, but will future consoles set a new trend for humanity moving forward?

On a spending spree...

2008-06-11T22:17:00.008-04:00

There are things that one must do, and things that one wants to do. They are drastically different, and I feel that as one grows up - there are more and more things that we are forced to do. Things like fixing up the car that has Christmas lights on the dashboard, that leaky roof, or that old computer by the hallway that gives off tap-tap-tap-tap noise. Having no other option, one starts to go crazy and starts to spend on things that they really want... ha ha ha, at least that's what happened to myself.
And so, I find myself pampering myself for things that I had really had been looking forward to. Here's some new big toys that I found myself purchasing within the past year:
Homegym, Threadmill, a new 1080p 37" TV for my room, a very nice guitar, and the PS3 will come soon... very very soon :') Ok... time to save up and tell myself to buckle down for the next 3 months...

The calling of the heart....

2008-06-11T22:05:00.003-04:00

And I am back, don't know even what I should update after around 8 months of blogging inactivity.
I'm glad that I found myself motivated again and decided to start blogging and listing out what's in my mind recently.

In a nutshell, much has happened in these 8 months and I can say that I sometimes can have very ironic feelings, not sure if many other people are like this as well...? For instance, as you all remember - I was on expat a year ago and working in a foreign country (China). The huge difference between China and Canada has been eating into my way of life after I returned; I was deeply attracted to the colourful livestyle and the endless things that I would experience when I was working as an expat.... Yet a small part of myself feels kind of tired and want to settle down for a more stable life. Isn't it ironic.....? Sometimes I still feel these opposing emotions in myself not knowing what I should do, but I guess right now I have decided to stay put in Toronto where my family and the bulk of my friends are and to continue on for my more subtle lifestyle.

Do everyone knows what that really want? Well, there's the obvious answers of that new dig, a car, a career, some savings, a family, etc etc... but what about the things that one really really want to do?

Things are returning back to normal... slowy...

2007-10-13T21:00:00.001-04:00

And so, things are returning back to normal... but slowly. All's good as long as it keeps up. Well, nuthing much happening lately - yeah, i still haven't gotten around to the main highlight of my Spain/Portugal trip... But it'll be coming up after i get a chance to sort through all my photos and find time to rejog my memory and thoughts. So, lately due to recent happenings - it's just between work and home for me.
I finally find time to catch back on PS2 (Persona3/ACE3) and finally have the chance to get back to my basement project. Here's some pictures of my progress so far - and yeah; that's a Home Depot rental car to transport all those drywalls back! Next in line? Flooring!

Fragile and insignificant humans

2007-09-16T14:42:00.000-04:00

Hell yeah, I was freaked out.
Hearing stories, seeing from TV of things going wrong; and seeing them in reality is two very different things. Never had I feel so powerless and insignificant in my life before. All those things like trying to succeed in class (being so-called rocket man because of getting A grade), being aggressive, trying to stay under control most of the time, and striving to climb to the top regardless of in the office place or elsewhere - all faded away in a second's time. Seeing someone close get sick really hurts, and as mentioned earlier... made me feel very powerless as well. Spending nearly 17hrs in the hospital was like time spent in eternity.
I had once again questioned myself why did I pursued engineering and not medicine before. Maybe I can help, maybe I can do more, maybe I can avoid this from happening were questions that rang in my head. Well, I do understand that there's no 100% curing medicine, nor are doctors godlike figures who can cure all sicknesses; but I do believe that they make a big difference, and I am truly grateful. I am also not a religious person neither, but believed that there's some higher power who guides insignificant little beings like us to a 'better path' ; and today I truly prayed with all my heart. And in turn, I am happy that I did. Thank you.
(Picture taken from Spanish trip).

First leg to the trip - Portugal

2007-09-15T10:35:00.001-04:00

After transitting through the messy Paris Charles de Gaulle airport where one would definately see the Laisser-Faire style of the slowly French causing missing luggages, communication problems coupled with angry passengers after flights were delayed due to slow customs work (Frenchies had only opened up 2 lines for 2 planes to go through their gate) - the beginning of the trip started in Lisbon Portugal. Portugal was nice, but somehow it wasn't what I had expected - I had thought that the fishing predominant country would feature small fishing boats dotting the shores and there will be lots of sardines, mackerels fresh from the seaside being sold in wooden houses along the golden coast. Well, maybe we didn't go far enough into the rural area. Nevertheless, the people there were nice and helpful (girls had smiles that can melt you away - esp the hotel stewardess when i asked her for map and directions). The architecture was interesting but not awesome but I still had a great time there; catching a glimpse of where Figo mastered his soccer skills to become best player 2 yrs in a row, lots of interesting countryside stories, roosters (depicting a lucky rooster story) on top of many buildings, and definately feeling the Portugese atmosphere where the traditional old man taking his dog out for a walk portraits we see all the time seem to be reality . We spent 3 days in Portugal and headed out over to Spain which as a long bus ride....... but here's some pics from Portugal first :)

I'm in Spain and Portugal...

2007-09-09T16:13:00.000-04:00

Haven't updated my blog for quite a while already now... but latests developments have myself travelling to Portugal and Spain for a highly anticipated vacation. I just got to Barcelona today after touring Madrid, Lisbon and some other smaller attractions along the way. Spain is a very cultural city, and unlike all those fancy lights, glamour, excessive vanity, commercial aspects that one would see if other famous cities like Paris, New York, Tokyo, Toronto, Shanghai, etc... (not saying they're bad, just another style).
Spain boosts a country true to its roots, featuring buildings that one wouldn't find in other parts of Europe; interesting attitude (don't-care style), laid back lifestyle, and very historical architectures that can only be built by geniuses of middle age. The Moorish influence is also very evident and it would take a long time to really understand the historical changes that shaped this city starting with Islamic, Christianity clashes and the start of Crusaders. I couldn't believe how rich in background and relics that this place is... to an extent to more than other parts of Europe that I had toured earlier (England, Germany, Italy, Greece...)
It really got myself thinking once again, sometimes we choose our current paths since we have to; we balanced everything out and compare all the opportunity costs to arrive at our current stage in life. However, is this really what we want? What if I quit my job as a Sr.Design Engineer position; stay in Madrid for 6 months hopping between cities in Spain washing dishes yet learning about all of mankind's history of where a lot of cultures and civilizations originated? Just a thought....

Long weekend

2007-08-06T21:37:00.000-04:00

And so, it was a long weekend... a long weekend of work! It started off with myself working until 10:30pm on Friday, but that didn't matter as it was my buddies' wedding was on Saturday which turned out great. Billy and Elizabeth had finally decided to "pull the skylights" (or so they say in chinese) and got married. It was specifically happy since it was someone close, one of those buddies that I had known for a long time. Dating back, I've known this guy since kindergarden in HK, then we went to the same elementary school and high school in Toronto. After graduation in different universities, our companies were also aligned next door until Billy decided to head down to California with Eli. - talk about fate eh? They had dated since high school and it was one of those great moments to see them get together after a long time and with some hiccups (like all relationships do). And so, Sat was a great day; meeting up with all of my closest friends and having fun till very late.
Then comes Sunday, I had to go to work from 10-8pm, and to make things worst? I felt like I didn't accomplish much at all. My brain was spinning fast and thinking what went wrong that nite so I didn't get a decent nites' sleep at all. I headed back to the office on Monday (holiday) at 9am and worked until 1pm, just shortly after i arrived home and had lunch; i got some calls and emails dragging me back to the office until the end of the day. I guess it's alright, considering we finally got a break and got to the bottom of an issue. Oh well, the "long" weekend is still good I suppose; as it was great meeting up with close friends during the wedding, having awesome meals with family on both sat and sun; and the gathering at Ka & Coconut's place. It was a funny get-together as we shared pictures and laughter... thanks Corrie for organizing and letting us the noisy bunch into their home :)

Wasaga Beach Outing...

2007-07-30T23:10:00.001-04:00

And so the gang finally had some time to get together from their busy lives and headed out to a day without work or emails. It was fun to gather everyone once in a while as there were friends who worked in other cities (including myself a while ago), busy at school, or occupied with work. We met up early in the morning for breakfast and headed out to Wasaga beach this time. It was around 2hrs of drive away from Toronto and the great thing was that the weather was great during our outing weekend :) We set up Ka & Coconut's propane stove and aligned three benches to form a huge train of picnic tables. I haven't been back to Wasaga for a whole year already and was glad to be back to enjoy the fun @ the beach, not to mention the bikini scenery, and the crazy water-sports that we had that day... Stupid B-gor tackled me several times making me swallow several mouthful of water, but i got my revenge as we were doing marathon run in the beach when I tackled him from behind... ha ha. This guy was my friend since kindergarden in Hong King, then we went to elementary and high school together in Toronto, and now he's getting married! Wow, time flies... Well, after a relaxing and fun day at the beach where we originally planned to leave around 5, time past so fast and before we knew it; it was 7 already when started packing up, and I still didn't get a chance to bring out my blades yet... Nevertheless, it was a good time away from work once in a while and just to share time between good friends :)

Hooked on Bleach

2007-07-16T23:47:00.000-04:00

Wow, bleach is really a good series. Started watching Bleach and got hooked on it. My friend Phatty had been saying it's good for a whole year already although I have only started watching it. The series is based on a hit Japanese manga and is still being released right now. I've watched quite a few anime before in university and from the 20eps that I have seen so far, Bleach is also one of best ones I've seen. Hopefully it doesn't turn bad towards the end. It does provide me with some relaxation despite there's some nasty scenes here and there... Watching it did gave me some nolgistic feeling of Rurouni Kenshien as well, both being able to define its' own genre with its' attractive storyline. Anyways, back to the series to ease my mind! Waha :)

Costs of living shooting up

2007-07-16T22:30:00.000-04:00

House prices are just crazily shooting up toomuch lately. Was looking at some new townhouses ranging 2500 square ft around the neighbourhood and it's selling for 670k!!! It does look pretty nice though since the new construction area wanted to mimic something that of a European style so there are small shops along the street, and a nice terrace on top of all townhouses. It's amazing how much the costs of houses has rocketed lately, the average salary of someone making a midclass salary really can't keep up with the appreciation of the costs. Maybe it's due to too much immigrants and people who are investing and making $$$ off the turnaround of selling houses. I wonder what kind of security that the government will do to protect its' citizens with the costs of living raising much more sharply than average salaries.

Reckless Fire?

2007-07-07T01:07:00.000-04:00

Now the fun begins.... I dunno what has happened or altered my chain of thoughts lately... but aside from regaining that drive and passion at work for myself; I've began looking at side things after work. Possibly after finding out that many friends have moved on after my trip back from Shanghai and Austin... I mean those expat and biz trips are helpful for my career; but I sometimes feel I am not doing enough as compared to close friends who are getting married, buying a house, making that big decision of relocating for work, etc... So, instead of procrastinating and looking back like not accomplishing anything, i'm moving forward and doing what I think i want to... regardless of small things ranging from jogging, to taking on a new project of renovating my parents' house basement, or starting to give that scam-off attitude to clueless people at work... Is this reckless fire? I don't know... but it sure energizes myself... and I hope i'm on the right path to make that successful next big step in life >:)

Long weekend in Vancouver

2007-07-07T00:38:00.002-04:00

And so I headed out to Vancouver during the long weekend. The main thing was to meet up with relatives and visit grandma more than sightseeing and exploring the city this time. It was the first time for myself to try park'n fly but we had to use the service since the whole family was visiting. I was a bit weary that my car might get broken into or scratched, although I told myself that my VW was like 6 yrs old already - which sort of made myself feel a bit better. I had to transit through Calgary but was lucky enough to upgrade one leg of the flight to biz class from points earned from Aeroplan. After meeting up with the family in Vancity (we headed there on different flights since it was hard to book tix at the last min), we proceeded to pick up our rental car - a PT Cruiser. The pros to the car was that it looked pretty nice from afar due to its unique design, along with the fact that the car only got 2700 clicks on it. The cons however; was that the car lacked power (esp torque), requires a big radius for doing a U-turn, and various viewing angles were awkward.
Now, to the city Vancouver; lots of people told me that Vancouver is a nice city - one that is even better than Toronto, and also ranked atop one of the best cities to live in the world. The scenery was nice alright with the marina looking fairly nicely, lots of pretty girls possibly it's close to Asia, and of mountains overlooking the ocean view. However, the transportation infrastructure is just TERRIBLE! I can't beleive that their roads are mingled like spagetti, there are only limited alternate roads for detour, and there's no highway to most parts of the city. Motorists find themselves stuck in traffic for hrs if there's an accident or detour on one street. Other cons include lots of drug addicts in the city - interesting why the gov't decide to legalize drugs and also have drug houses offering free injection. My relatives told me that it was to control AIDs from spreading too quickly in the city as people were using recycled needles for drugs before they were legalized. Despite this fact, I think by doing so; people are encouraged to use them more and causing additional crime and prostitution in the city. Last observation was the slow pace of the city (motorists, getting served in a restaurant), I guess it's a retirement city afterall; and maybe i'll like it if i'm 70 or so... Eitherway, it's a nice short getaway from work and the hectic life in Toronto; and somehow i'm motivated again (not really from Vancouver trip)... but it's another story for another day :) Here's some pics!

Drive...

2007-06-28T22:50:00.001-04:00

Drive is important. As humans grow older, they are more clear as to what they want and what they want to pursue... ranging from short term to long term goals. Everyone has something that they want to do, despite sometimes saying 'I don't know what I want in life.' I had, earlier... been in that situation too if you recall from my older posts. Even being confused and unclear; we all have that inner being that tells us what we really want... Lately, after returning back from Austin and settling in back to work here; I've been looking at people who work close to me... Interestingly, people with drive sure does make them stand out from from the pact. Even without knowing it; people shows flashes of strength and ability to what they do... I start to find driven people who has a goal to what they want to pursue regardless of outcome is attractive. A few of then lack this and take life as a joke. Why do they bother to go to work if all they do is fool around? They see me in deep thought and always ask me "Are you ok?" like i'm some workaholic yet all they do is goof around the office, surf around the net, flirt with the opposite sex, dun take responsibilities, and wait to get off with bare minimum hrs. I never knew that drive and having a goal (even a small one) is so important... well, until I see these mindless zombies at work just waiting to get paid. I hope I won't be like then, even during times of uncertainties >:p

Back in Tdot!

2007-05-28T22:34:00.000-04:00

And so, I just checked in to the airport and am waiting for my flight back home. Although this businesss trip was more of a technical boost, somehow some of the things we already knew got to me this time. I was more than ever more convinced that one of the sayings that we all know is true and will help make us a better and stronger person: "Don't speak for the sake of just speaking, and don't just go somewhere for the sake of going." This is so true. Someones we find ourselves caught in the web just just blabbering on, starting conversations that we never meant we wanted to. Of course, there's no problem in using phrases to stir up a conversation. But it really amazes me that how many people just... talk, for the sake of it. Austin is a little town, and I had expected some really snobbish people before I headed this. Mainly because it is the 'new' silicon valley of the west with lots of talented people, home to headquarters to many world corporation, and rich CEOs with 40million houses. However, after I got here; I didn't expect to notice that the people here are very down to earth, and peak with their hearts - something harder said than done. No hiding, not saying just for the heck of it, and just being sincere. Of course, there's good and bad people everywhere as my colleague says there may also be some very racist people here as well. But, my getneral impression of Austin was that there were more 'sincere' people than in bigger cities. Ok, don't get me wrong; i still very much enjoy the life in bigger cities where there are more activities and events - but we have to stay true to ourselves and speak from our gut, talk when we mean to listen, visit somewhere when we really want to know, and just be true to ourselves. Some shots on my ride back to Toronto... Gosh, really brought out the little boy in myself, always marvelled at the aerospace industry...

Roadtrip to Houston and NASA

2007-05-20T20:20:00.001-04:00

I always had been a close follower of the space program, and so this weekend I headed out to Houston in search for the Houston space station. It was a 3+ hr per way) from Austin but that didn't stop me. I woke up early at around 9:30 (tough during the weekends), packed up some light belongings not knowing if I want to spend the night in Houston if I'm tired, or if there's some really cool attraction. Grabbed a quick bite along the way and arrived in Houston around 1 o'clock. The downtown was smaller than I expected with only a handful of skycrapers, the Chinatown was also small - well, I just got back from Asian countries so it wasn't much of a comparison. I did found the highway structures pretty amazing though, along with those T-shaped oil-drills that looked huge from a far distance already. Anyways, toured NASA facilities and it was pretty cool although I had been to Floria NASA earlier. However, most of the exhibits were based on old technologies that most of us are aware already. The only exhibit with new news was only verbal explanatoin but was interesting itself. For some of you space program followers out there:
- The fleet of shuttles will be decommissioned in 2010 where there will be a new design coming. The new project, Constellation will be basd around lander capsules (Orion) and being propelled by reuseable fuesealage rockets.
- People aged 3-20 currently will have a chance for the beginning of spacetravel regularily.
- Currently the ISS (int'l space station) is having its new solar panels readjusted so that the panels will follow the sun at any moment. Instead of of turning the station, the 240ft long panels will rotate itself to absorb solar energy.
- ISS revolves around the Earth at an amazing speed of 17500km/hr, meaning astronauts aboard the station will see 26 sunrise/sunsets in one day!
- The next moonwalk planned in 2020 and a marswalk in 2030.
Hearing all these news of future plans really made me feel excited yet... old. Anyways, after touring NASA; headed to Galveston which as another hr drive from Houston. A small ocean city to the east before heading back to Austin.
BTW, the Mazda6's Cruise controls are pretty sweet. I think it's even better than the controls on my dubber. It was one of the features I highly used on this 8hr total roadtrip. Anyways, here's some pics!

Car review...

2007-05-16T23:53:00.000-04:00

And so I bi7ched and complained... and it was worth it. As mentioned earlier, I was lucky and got a new Mazda6 as a rental car here. I have put around 900kms in 2 wks on it already, ho... It's a pretty nice car yet torque was a bit lacking mainly cuz the gearbox wanted to simulate a smooth Tiptronic transition as a family type sedan, so at times it was lacking power to overtake those endless trucks down here... ha ha. Speakin of cars, there's a new concept Audi for 08/09, and most likely i will get it as my next car... doesn't it looks good? Talking cars, there's also roadtrips of course! And over the weekend - went to Fredricksburg, the mountains were nice and there were lots of turns along the way. Can't believe that there were so much people - mainly visitors at the small town; and atmosphere was pretty lifely. The locals there were polite and merchants were still nice despite I was just lookin without buying. Kids were sitting around enjoying ice cream, dogs on leashes were out, and there were sidewalk sale everywhere.
I also went to another small town named Roundrock on Sunday, well - mainly to check out its' outlet mall... ha ha, anyways; highly lookin fwd to the next weekend. Anyways, another story for another time... i'm back to watching the Phoenix-San Antonio game now, and of course i'm cheering for Phoenix as that was a pretty bad harsh foul by Horry.... no way to play a game.

San Antonio Roadtrip....

2007-05-07T23:52:00.000-04:00

The past weekend was a nice one... Firstly finished a TVB series (HK drama) so that freed up some of my time, finally got a card reader down here, met up with a cousin who lives in Austin (the hyde park fries was an Austin specialty with original batter recipe), and drove to San Antonio. Yup! it's around 1+ hr drive, but since i was having fun with the tiptronic to the new car and stopping to take pics here and there; it was a bit longer for me.... But it's all good, I guess i'm just like a small kid - really into cars. With the new ride, I was pretty hyped up to drive around the neighbourhood - I guess it does take a toll on ones' mentality :) San Antonio is big but the skyline can't really compare with other cities like LA, TO, SH, etc... I can't believe that the outskirts and the downtown was just separated by several blocks - not to say it's a small city; but the architecture between these areas was very different in only a small distance away. The main attractions include the Alamo (which actually was relocated off another location), and the riverwalk which was an artifically-channeled river flowing into the middle of the city. It's alright but maybe i've seen similar things in Venice and China (ZhouJiang) which were not as commercialized, so I didn't really find it that appealing.
Speaking of roadtrips, I'm planning a Houston trip to look at NASA since i'm a close follower of the space programs (Houston, we have a problem...), and Fredricksbery. I learned from my cousin that the ladder is a small German town located west of Austin and featured small shops and distinctive architecture styles. Somehow I can relate to a game I play back in Toronto - feeling like a character going around searching for unknown towns, too bad there's no trophies or artifacts. Anyways, as promised - here's some pics that i finally can post up after downloadin it off my card reader... ;)

In Austin Texas..

2007-05-05T19:30:00.000-04:00

Since I haven't been updating - but as most of my longtime readers might know already, i'm in Austin. Austin is a small town in Texas US between San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas. The city is blossoming with big R&D companies even now and can be compared to the likes of a miniature Silicon Valley. Work brings me here and now i've been in this south-central America location for 2 weeks already. The things at work are tiring, and very hardcore technical (it's crazy... i feel tired trying to catch up at work); but I guess it's something I want, before i head towards the mgmt direction. The food here comprises mainly of hamburgers, grill, mexican, BBQ, and steak. Comparing to Toronto, Shanghai, Taipei; there really isn't that much of a variety, but I do still try to keep myself eating healthy foods despite there's so much high-cholesterol foods out here. The downtown - 6th Street along Congress - is pretty small. It's just a short 2-3 blocks of bars and small shops and nothing really special. The people I met so far are actually pretty nice, maybe less prejudice and snobbish as people one would find in larger cities like New York, Toronto, etc... And so, there's not too (too) much to do here. Just some sightseeing and looking at wilderness (I somehow like city landscape more) with lots of outdoor activities. Oh, and did I tell everyone that I exchanged my rental car today? I exchanged the super big Dodge Stratus for a Mazda6 which is quite a good ride... No pictures yet, as I forgot my CF read back in Toronto - so please bear with me with this all txt posts until I lay my hands on one... ha ha

I'm back!

2007-05-05T19:18:00.000-04:00

I'm back! Thanks for all those readers out there that's still visiting my site despite that I haven't updated it in a long time. Mainly because I feel that there's nothing special to update about.
Was there a time when you were unsure of yourself? Feel tired, not sure what you want to pursue in life, and start to question if this is where you want yourself to be? These were some of the questions that I have been pondering since I returned from Shanghai... and still am. Career-wise, it's a cool position to be in but it just feels like a 'job'... Socially, i do have lots of good friends I know will be there for me - but sometimes it's sad to see that many friends are distributed around the world (HK, US, and whatnot...) and it's hard to gather all the people in one place just to catch up. Family-wise, i'm on good terms with parents, relatives, and siblings; Toronto is still the place i choose to settle mainly because everyone is there. Romantic-wise, there's some better-than-normal friends here and there and I'm happy to be still single as I really hate to rush into things and regret over it later. Seeing that everything seems fine... but somehow the passion, the energy isn't there anymore. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining, since life really couldn't be better and I cherish highly of what I have right now... Maybe, it's just that time in life.... and all I need is time to see what we really want and how we want to pursue it for the rest of our lives.... Just a strange thought.

Corrupted by facebook

2007-04-08T22:55:00.001-04:00

Been recently hooked on facebook, it's pretty cool! Try it!

You can find my profile here

Recently... unmotivated

2007-04-04T23:42:00.002-04:00

Don't know why..... but feels that planning isn't too important lately... prossibly due to the recent changes at work so I don't really do any planning anymore and stick with the 'Sh1t Happens' thoery now... ha ha. There's still the long term goals like saving for a house, nicer car, yadda yadda... but feel that short term planning isn't that important anymore since things change too rapaidly. Anyways, didn't update much since not much happened, but will be doing a major revamp of the blog soon. Some news:
- latest planned biz trip to US has been pushed now to April 22nd... may stay there for a months' time >_<. It's cool, but i'm not overly thrilled.
- went to David Tao's concert last weekend! Will post up some pics after i find some card reader for my new camera's mini-SD memory stick. Anyone know where i can find one cheap? Been comparing with prices in SH and gosh, things are definately overpriced here!
- bought a new toy for myself: Macross YF19... a very detailed plane, same with my VF1S from the Macross serise I got earlier. However, the colour is kinda yellow... thinking of repainting it to white :) Oh, and this things pretty expensive; can't imagine i spent so much on a toy :p
And the rest? Pure work work work, ffxii, work work work, K, and sleep. Not much in progress plans at all... oh well.

300... the movie.

2007-03-25T01:34:00.002-04:00

I knew it would be bad, just not this bad. Went to see 300 with the university friends today since there was some reunion where we went for dinner and a movie after. The cinema was tightly packed with people even sitting at the front 2 rows, youngsters who were just mature to see a rated R film had their eyes glued to the screen. The movie featured 300 barbarians fighting in a war, killing lots of people, and ended up getting killed. Period. There were lots of unnecessary bloodshed, woman in skimpy clothes, mindless hacking/slashing - purely for fanservice. There's this scene that had an enemy monster with knives sticking out his hands going 'Rrrrrrr' and it reminded me of one of those creatures you see in PC games. I couldn't hold back and was giggling crazily until some teens turned their heads and gave me the 'look'. Opps, sorry; I didn't know they were so into the film. So, what happened to those movies that actually had a plot? Like Forest Gump, Catch me if you can, or even Troy on a similar note? Did our society fall so low with only demand of plotless mindless bloodshed? I guess i was one of those idiots who spent 9.50CAD on it fueling for more demand afterall - money better spent elsewhere (not to mention the things i can buy/see with 70RMB in hand back when I was in Shanghai). Anyways.... on a positive note, I finally joined gym at Sheraton today! A friendly good looking girl showed me around the facilities, and I signed up after learning that my company actually has a corporate rate. Did some weightlifting and cardio - hopefully it can help me focus more on my new role at work, and for myself to have more clarity into the path that I should pursue moving forward....

Spring is here!

2007-03-21T21:25:00.002-04:00

Dang, don't know why i haven't updated my blog in such a long time. Yeah, it's been busy at work, but it's no excuse - probably I don't know what's to write after coming back from very different cities in the far east. Been in the new team, and the same story applies - politics, meetings, lack of budget/training, yadda yadda yadda... but good thing is that I'm learning things quickly which is the only cool thing i guess (gosh, i do need a better oscilloscope tho; hate to beg from other teams to borrow their higher bandwidth ones). Oh, also went to Niagra Falls the past weekend with the family - and it was cool... trees surrounded by ice since the ice pellets were forming around the branches due to the mist created by the Falls making it a very rare phenomenon. People were surrounding the trees pointing and taking pics, while children took off icicles from signposts and used them as lightsabers, and tourists gathered in awe talking pictures and having a good time. It was a good time and great to feel some human interaction in this otherwise cold fluctuating winter. Another thing is that I've made up my mind to pick up my guitar once more; time flies and before one know it - a long time have passed. But if I learn something that I like, then maybe several yrs down the road - i'll learn something^. Also made a pact with a friend from Shanghai where she's picking up piano at a mature age, and myself picking up guitar in a similar case; and who knows? Maybe sometime, someday; we'll join together for a chorus... ha ha, life's unexpected and interesting....

Busy busy lately

2007-03-14T22:53:00.001-04:00

Whoa! Haven't updated for a while... mainly cuz quite busy with work after transitioning to the new team. During weekends, totally hooked up on FFXII and rogue galaxy which had been queued up for such a long time. However, I still think that the PC game Oblivion is better than the two games - mainly due to it's opened storyline and different human interaction. In FFXii or Rogue Galaxy, you pretty much know what people will say you meet on the street which somehow lacks AI intelligence and the storyline is too linear. So right now, i'm wondering what i should get; a kicka$$ PCIE gfx card or a LCD TV... ha ha, oh well; that will have to wait after i get back from Austin since these electronics drop prices anyways... PS. attached pic is a recent pic with my coworkers to K... release stress! :)

Cold weather...

2007-03-05T22:35:00.001-05:00

And so, starting to feel that work has been consuming up most of my life lately.... How come as one grow up - we feel that there's lesser and lesser amount of time left? Is focusing too much on career over other things a bad path? Did I really make the right choices so far? These are some of the things that's in my mind lately possibly causing my lack of motivation. Oh well, I hope I'll snap out of it before I head down to Austin soon. Anyhoo... I'm just going to stick with my good friend's view: 'everyone tries to make the best decision when they need to, and it will be the best choice at the particular moment that they were made at. There's just too much uncertainties in the future to really understand the opportunity costs and consequences.' Yeah; I hope there's a time machine :p But, maybe if there's one - I may choose the same path again... ha ha. Oh well, here's some belated pics from my ski trip 2 wks ago (hoping to fit one more in before season ends), and also attached a McMaster invention on the air lately - an interactive CPR glove that can save lives. Cool! (WinWin - you know these folks?) ha ha...

Nuthing new

2007-02-27T22:18:00.001-05:00

Don't know why i'm getting a lack of motivation and energy; maybe it's the change of environment, the lack of human interaction, or i'm growing old despite much as happened. So, in a nutshell; here's some recent developments:
- Officially reporting to Austin and will start forming up a new group in Toronto.
- Bought skiblades which was the highlight so far.
- Went skiing with the guys last Saturday and planning for another one soon.
- Had lots of reunions with Toronto friends lately.
- Attended an Agilent seminar today which was pretty cool.
- Lack of motivation to reply emails.
- Feel awkwardly uncertain of where I want to settle down.
- Bought Rogue Galaxy and Final Fantasy Xii that were on my Ps2 queue.
- Chinese new years endless gatherings and gained weight.
Oh... and feeling tired all the time... Mmmm.

Pure Adrenaline

2007-02-18T21:44:00.001-05:00

Gosh, was stumbling across some car sites as I was getting tired of studying HW stuff all weekend (aside from Chinese new year activities). Saw the new Volvo C30... My my... it really is irresistible. Despite still having 2+ yrs before I can change my car, my eyes widen after seeing this car and it has highly shaken my thought of getting an Audi for my next car. A3 vs C30 vs IS? Gosh.

Busy back in Toronto

2007-02-17T22:20:00.001-05:00

Being back to Toronto since last Saturday, I didn't get much time to rest up and recover from jetlag. Work has been quite busy right after I returned to the Toronto office on Monday. Since the merger, there were lots of meetings including conversations between Austin, Toronto, SRDC, and soon there's going to be more. I may also be transtioning to my new role depending on next weeks' outcome as well. Not having much time to recuperate, clothes and the massive amount of things that I bought from SH are still scattered throughout my room^^; and I also came home to find a totally virus infected system. It wasn't a pretty sight - I had to do fresh install 2 times, along with lots of spysweeping / adware / virus checkers and the ordeal lasted for 4 days before I finally recovered my desktop. It was a colleague at work who provided me with an application called Kapersky that finally detected and killed all my viruses / adware, those Symatec and McAfee are totally useless. Aside from a crazily busy week and missing SH lifestyle for a bit already, it's good to be home to spend Chinese new years with the family; along with meeting and finding out what old friends had been up to. Although there are still lots more friends that I still neet to meet and catch up with. Oh yeah, also picked up a new phone (Moto K1) as mines' was stolen in SH last Oct...

A new journey awaits

2007-02-08T08:51:00.001-05:00

Wooo... the Mini-skirts are back! The weather was absolutely wonderful last several days with temperature shooting up to as high as 15deg Celcius in early Feb. Colleagues and friends suggest that it was abnormal for it to be so warm in the season but I'm still enjoying the nice scenery as klickitty heels and mini-skirts are back in the hood. Gosh, I'm going to miss this. As my term nears, I'm getting excited to head back to Toronto to meet up with friends, family, and hopefully do some skiing; yet at the same time I am getting mixed feelings as I know I'm going to miss Shanghai. Afterall; I had been here for 8-9 months on and off, building a group up from scratch, and getting to meet some wonderful personalities and see things I really enjoy (prev post of things I will miss) which guided me to understand more of myself. All too true now that it's nearing my departure as I will be heading back this Saturday - time does fly, and I thought I had only been in China for several months. Oh well, a journey ends and another one begins.... I'm not going to say goodbye since if opportunity knocks again, maybe I'll travel to this side of the world again. Till another time, but never say goodbye.....

Regaining clarity and momentum

2007-01-31T08:50:00.001-05:00

Thanks for all those encouragement; Phen, Miki, Dee, and Michely :) A few words does make a big difference. Over last few days, I had been regaining clarity of what my goal is, I don't have a 100% picture but i'm getting there. If I never try I never know, my passion is ignited once again... even if I fail, no big deal... and who knows? Maybe I'll get a little closer in understanding myself, along with things that I am looking for in life... Targetted next destination: Austin.
卫兰(M.masser lyrics): 'do you know where you're going to? do you like the things that life is showing you?.. do you get what you're hoping for? when you look behind you there's no open door.. what are you hoping for? once we were standing still in time chasing the fantasies that filled our minds...'

Another crossroad

2007-01-29T09:37:00.001-05:00

Ever had a time that you felt uncertain and emotionally tired? Not sure why I feel this way, but I'm once again feeling like i'm at crossroad without a direction. Normally, I always have a goal in mind that I want to pursue regardless of career or personal life; but, somehow I still haven't figured out a clear goal that I want to work on this year yet... and it's Feb already! Maybe i'm just away from home for too long, or maybe it's getting close to the time I'm returning back to Toronto. The questions of what have I accomplished so far, and what I want to pursue and how I am getting close to my goal is surfacing in my mind lately. Mmmm... feeling strange man :S but thanks to Miki-san and Andy for hearing me out.PS. I may be heading out again soon after I'm back from SH, it's still early in the game so will keep everyone posted after things are confirmed.

Continuing to explore SH

2007-01-23T10:38:00.001-05:00

And so, after treating the team for a dinner with lots of lamb (2 posts earlier), they insisted on bringing me to somewhere nice too (they are such a nice bunch man). We headed to 吴江路, a nightstreet in SH. If some of you remembered, I as in love with TW's nightstreet from a few posts back. The nightstreet in SH was similar, but not as clean nor did it have as much food - but it was great nevertheless as it satisfied my pampered tummy once more. It was a pity that I learned of the place after spending so long in China - doh! We had a great time enjoying oysters to lambsticks to cotton candy. BTW, there were some 'interesting' food that the guys urged me to try... but i'm not here to freak anyone out (non-insect), so feel free to give me a ping if you wanna know... ha ha. >There were also much street vendors selling small trinkets here and there although it was rainy the night we went so there were lesser stands. Despite climate problems; the atmosphere was great as you see sellers shouting prices, buyers haggling for a better price, and happy children. Of course, there's also the endless honking and people squeezing everywhere - well, i've somewhat gotten used to that as I am trained well on my subway comuute before :p

Things that I will miss in SH

2007-01-21T05:14:00.002-05:00

The energy, the excitement, the dissapointment, the joy, the powerless feeling... once a friend told me that I have to be in China to really understand these feelings, and he was right. Being here on and off for 7/8 months already; here are the list of things that I will definately miss (some points I raised up before already):
1) Pretty girls; topping my list is what i've mentioned repetitively before. Having been to some places (Jap, Rus, Swiz, Fra, Eng, Gre, H'waii, most of NA, etc.), but never have I seen so much good-looking girls in my life - well, maybe TW. What can I say, i'm a guy :p and no pics, as I don't want to look nerdy. hahaha.
2) The human interaction: Being in this place, you feel human, just because you interact with so many people with various backgrounds. In Toronto, you may only get exposed to friends or people you meet being in clubs or religions; however, in China; you will never feel bored since there just too much people to see, to talk to, and to understand.

3) Food: there are alot of different food you can get here, along with many foreigners deciding to start a business here; you can also enjoy great flavors of food at a good price.
4) Mixed feelings: Feelings love and hate, pity and mad, getting scammed and getting helped - all packaged here. As from my last post, sometimes one can get pissed seeing all these everyday; however, most of the people just greet it with a laugh after seeing the other side. As my SHnese friend told me: 'you have to live everyday with a balanced and open mind in Shanghai or you'll burn up too much white blood cells as you fume up'. Very true.
5) Big scocial gap: Not that it's a good thing, you see a hugh gap between the rich and the poor: SL600s honking old men transporting water, 700RMB meals where people literally feed you and 1RMB for 10 buns, 1000RMB hotel suite/night and the same monthyly salary for a hotel stewardess... Seeing all these makes one appreciate how lucky we are, and to cherish life for what it is.

6) Elegant high heels: That clickity sound, along with pretty girls walking in high heels in rain and heat are absolutely elegant. Maybe I should start looking for a new job in downtown Toronto... ;)
Conclusion? China has it all. The poverty, the filthy rich, the powerlessness, the rude, the hidden dragons, and just... feeling human. During this outing, I definately felt like I have a clearer picture of where I fit in the world, and who am I. I don't know if it's something that's good as too much exposure is a 2 edged sword, but so far I'm learning from it. I'm sure that I will have more miss & hate points as I near my SH-departure date, but which one tops your list?

Life after work

2007-01-17T09:54:00.001-05:00

And so, after much negotiations, meetings, and conference calls; my departure was delayed for around 2 weeks' time. It's ok considering I had been here for 7-8 months already, so another 2 weeks' time was fine with me. The delay was because they were afraid that we would just drop the ball and to ensure a smooth transition. My set date to come back would be on the weekend of Feb 10th, woohoo - looking forward to coming back and enjoying skiing as I heard that there's much snow in Toronto. Ha ha ha, my buddy mgr next door (a flamboyant married man), and many friends all suggested that I may miss SH for a bit and I guess it's turning out to be true. Here's some pics of hanging out with my team, along with go around 骗饮骗食, drinking 55% alcohal, shopping and enjoying the life here after work. One of my next posts would be things I will miss in SH, as my previous one was things ticking me off in SH...^^

What ticks you the most?

2007-01-10T07:39:00.001-05:00

What ticks you off the most? Making you frown, laugh nervously, mad, or jeer? In Shanghai, this is what I go through everyday. I'm sure that other countries have it too, but just some observations of the country of the people (not @ environment yet):
1) Guy spitting: yes, you see the spit come out of their mouth to create one of the many spit splashes on the floor. You try so hard to avoid them but....
2) People standing in front of you for no apparent reason. It's amazing how these people slip in - even with like a hole in the wall - they manage to somehow find space in front of you and just stand there.
3) No lining up: you'll probably starve to death if you wait in line at the food court. Expensive places or places for foreigners are better.
4) People peeing on the side of the road: this doesn't happen everyday, but you do get see some drunk guys doing their thing on the side of the road.
5) Picking noses: it's incredible how deep and how thorough these guys can dig into their noses. Yikes! I avoid shaking hands with ppl here.
6) People speaking in other dialects: now that I can listen to mandarin well, i start to pick up hearing different dialects here and there. But, then again; these happens in Toronto too where we speak cantonese in a foreign place.
7) Clipping nails: ocassionally, you will get people clipping their hands or toes in the subway when it is less crowded or in public places.
8) People swearing if you do not buy their merchandise: It happens!
9) Cars not stopping when turning right during red light: cross the street when the lights are green? Wrong! You get bulldozed approx 182 times /day if you do that. Other than running red lights, China people like to drive in the middle of the lanes, and they don't stop at the red lights when turning right. So sometimes you find youself standing in the middle of the road when the green is has past since you were avoiding a big Mac truck and the bus next to it.
10) Dirty people: people squatting and you could smell alcohal in their breath, see
11) Long pinky fingernails: hey, what's with the long fingernail for a guy? I still do not know why they save their nasty fingernail (2-5cms sticking out). Do they want to show others they are some ugly homosexual dude? a master ofpicking noses? or is there something behind it. I only knows it looks nasty!

Enjoying afterwork hrs in SH

2007-01-08T09:17:00.001-05:00

Now that most things had ben confirmed, I am enjoying my last few weeks in Shanghai - especially great food! My sis was in town earlier and we headed out for nonstop foods (全聚得,每龙镇,鼎泰豐,新吉士,干锅居,苏浙汇,etc) almost everyday until I had to eat something regular for one night for a break (a normal noodle) ha ha ha. No complaints there tho! Then over the weekend, went out with some HK friends - Eva and Ganny to try 龟兹古丽 which is extremely famous for their 新疆 food.
And tonight after work? Went out with my buddy manager next door for authentic Jap food at some expensive fancy restaurant. Wooo... good thing I am working out on a regular basis now for cardio to keep my calories in check :) ho ho.

Coming Home...

2007-01-06T10:59:00.001-05:00

It has been confirmed. I have been given the green light to head back to Toronto for good soon. The reason? Because Toronto does not hold the jurisdiction for the team in Shanghai anymore. It is up to Austin to drive the process and SH mgmt to execute things in the future. It really is a pity, I had just built a solid team of people; but like what they all say - Shit happens. And that's what happened after the merger; projects were delayed, and the team doesn't belong under the same umbrella as myself anymore. It's going to take some time to work out all the details, cost
centres for the newly merged company; big companies merging up share the same political fate (like the HP-Compaq merge). Although I do pity @ the fact that the local SH team will have some hard times ahead and i am going to miss China (esp the endless sea of pretty girls), I have no regret. I know if I didn't come, i wouldn't be able to:
1) Gain so much exposure to upper mgmt and have experienced at how mgmt/politics work in the office at a very high level.
2) Made lots of friends with great personalities during and outside of work.
3) Have the chance to really use my mandarin and improve a bit on it since I had to rely on it every day (diff than a course).
4) See so many new things that I would never see if I stayed in Toronto.
5) Get to visit Taiwan and Malaysia, of course Shanghai & surrounding too.
6) Great expat experience which is a once in a lifetime career opportunity.Gosh, after this experience; I really enjoy going to different places experiencing new things, meeting new people, and absorbing the amazing atmosphere.
And now, I will be real busy during my last few weeks in SH drawing up transition plans and providing feedback to mgmt here about what the team is working on and what needs to be done. I should be back in Toronto within a month's time with all paperwork completed; looking fwd to be returning home!

Scuba diving, here I come!

2007-01-02T03:58:00.001-05:00

Woooo... Although I had wanted to try this for a long enough time, I finally gathered enough guts, time, and $ to try this out: Scuba diving. The gear was so cool, it featured emergency floatation device (although bad if used improperly), along with gadgets to suck out air'n cough from the mouthpeice. Being only a beginner, i was only taken to -5m deep, which is already very hard already, due to the water pressure. In the beginning, it was quite scary since it is nothing like what I had encountered before, along with many things to keep in mind. I couldn't beleive how much concentration was required, especially to time the breathing rhythm.
Good thing there's a personal instructor right next to me (for all beginners). I think it is a very worthwhile experience, here's some pics taken with my disposable underwater cam^^

Destination: Langkawi

2006-12-31T13:58:00.001-05:00

Since the TW fiber optic cables had been down for a while, it has been hard to update my blog despite there are so much to say and to post... Anyways, hopefully tonite i'm lucky in uploading this. My second destination: Langkawi which is a small island 1hr away from KL by flight, and is actually closer to Thailand more. This tropic paradise comprises mainly of Thai and Chinese decendants and featured only 2 seasons: raining and sunny. Being here in Dec, I was able to enjoy great weather throughout my trip. Langkawi island isn't too big and only takes around 40mins from end to end of the island and is mainly a relaxation location with sunny skies, beaches, and water sports. Despite having much visitors from abroad; it still doesn't feature much shopping, nor western restarants. Instead, it has much local shops and restarants. The shops were cool as one can relate to how locals live, but the restarants were *ahem* so-so. I was only able to locate a more 'westernized' eatery towards the end of the trip to make my stomach comfy... Eitherway, Langkawi still has one of the worlds most beautiful scenery due to it's tropic climate, and their island locals are very friendly as well (you feel really safe here).

Destination: Kuala Lumpar

2006-12-26T20:44:00.001-05:00

And so I lied, didnt get the chance to update my blog while travelling so I've left all my blogging after i enjoyed the nice sun and fine sand :)... Anyways, I arrived to Kuala Lumpar late Friday nite and got settled into Renaissance hotel around 11:30pm. The hotel is close to the Petronas towers which looks pretty nice. Phoned up Charlize, and she was so nice to head out at such a late time from her place. After she picked me up, we headed to the tourist bar streets who's skyline was guarded by Petronas :) Many of the shops along the street were closed already, and we still able to chat and chill for the night.
Then Lizzie took me to a local night market street (Jalan Alor) and ordered us exotic fruit drinks, shrimp noodles, and the feature of the night: fried stingray. It actually tastes very good, and was one of the highlights of my trip. The local street compared to the tourist street was packed till late. After that, I was a bit tired; so headed back to the hotel, but still slept around 5am (woo, i feel young again)... haha. It's so nice to meet with Lizzie in such an exotic and beautiful land as Malaysia :) Here's some pics!

Into my 3rd day of holidays

2006-12-20T11:08:00.003-05:00

I haven't updated my blog in a while already, don't know why i'm feeling all tired lately; maybe it's because of the humidly cold weather in SH. Cranking up the heat to those portable heaters doesn't help either (SH does not have those furnace unless you live in a hotel), along with those things can make noisy chunk-gloo-glook sounds if you turn it up too high. Geez, what place is this? I'm wearing 2 sweaters and underwear to keep me insulated even inside my apartment. These three days were good so far; played games till late at night (hooked on 天龙八部), joined gym next to the place (package comes with a free trainer but too bad it's not a pretty girl), hitting the pubs, and shopping around town with friends during weekends (weekdays they all had to work...) Last night the friendly waitress at a coffee diner also helped me get www.qq.com working on my laptop (afterall, I eat there like 3-5 times/week so everyone recognizes me there). The program is a China communicator tool similar to MSN but features lots of functionality. Talking about the waitress, she told me she has to work from 10am-11pm everyday and there's only 2 days/ month that can rest up at home (no weekends). Wow, that is insane; and i used to complain about so much OT work in ATI and when I was working as a customs officer in terminal 3. $$$ sure is hard to earn over here and I can somehow relate there's much rude people everywhere; so after watching how locals live, my tolerance level has increased slightly, just slightly... :p Oh, btw, will fly out on Friday (picked up tix today), and looking fwd to warmer weather!

Holidays begin!

2006-12-15T20:57:00.001-05:00

A nice way of starting holidays is to have my internet connection restored. Gosh... I feel so much better after I can log onto MSN and surf the net at home! Last night after work also marks the beginning of my vacation and I didn't waste any time; started out for dinner at a 四川 restaurant clashing beers with the guys in my team (learned that it is actually 巴蜀 where 刘玄德 started his quest in the Romance of 3 Kingdoms). After dinner as I was a bit woozy after all the alcohal, a colleague from Toronto on biz trip here gave me a ping and we headed out to a pub (I'm not really a pub person, but since there's no internet, pubs wouldn't hurt :p), after more alchohal, we headed to the Bund; he wasn't satisfied and suggested we continue bar hopping, and so we went till around 3:00am... Ho, I feel young again, lols; I don't think I had barhopped ever since I graduated some 4 years ago... ha ha ha

Not internet... again...

2006-12-12T13:36:00.001-05:00

This is such a stupid place. I got home last night to find out that my network doesn't work again. Called Chinaman telecom 2 times as the first one can't answer my questions and hung up; turns out cuz last time apartment mgmt helped me escort the workers to wire up the signals. But, China telecom insists I will need to be home personally for them to wire it up and explained that the last few days on internet access was just for 'try'. $%#!@&! Idiots. Now I'm without internet at home until Sat when I'll be at home to meet up with their workers personally. I was told that China telecom is the best place to work with high salaries and gov't subsidized, but they sure have a dumb system.

Next destination: Malaysia

2006-12-10T09:15:00.001-05:00

Hoho... I've decided where I want to be this X'mas: Malaysia. It's a change of scenery of the traditional white X'mas that I have grown so accustomed to back in Toronto. I've just placed my order in today... Will arrive in KL for one night and fly out to the beach resorts floating on water in Langkawi for the next 5 days. Too bad the package doesn't allow me to stay longer in KL since my friend is there. I can only meet her up for one day in KL along with talking a glimpse of Petronas (next to my hotel that nite). However, this itinery is the best i can find cuz the price is cheap - if I book air-malay or sing-airlines; the flight alone will cost the same as the whole package I have which includes hotel. Nevertheless, I'm highly looking fwd to this relaxing, exploring, and meeting more ppl around the world X'mas :) he he...

Relaxing Sat

2006-12-09T11:16:00.001-05:00

Everyone's Got to relax once in a while...! Woke up late, applied some bugspray around the building (gosh, those things can bite!); and headed out to 新天地 to meet up with Crystal-san for lunch. We shopped around and it was good to have a friend to talk to and vent about work stuff and other things. Afterall, most close friends are in Toronto so it was good to have someone neutral to talk to outside of work... (we talked about you too Lucy-san :p ha ha) Gosh it was cold today with temperatures dropping to 0-5 deg. Bear in mind that Shanghai doesn't have as good insulation, cars, and infrastructure so it was cold everywhere - even at home surfing the net (now). The rest of the day I just took a nap until Yida called me up for dinner. We headed out to 上岛咖啡 for dinner as there's free wireless there.... It was just a soothing and relaxing day to rest up and attend to something stuck on my mind from last week, and it was good. But tomorrow will be workday for me... oh well, all's well and things are under control :)

Connected back online.

2006-12-08T07:54:00.001-05:00

As Dr. Nick says: 'Hello e-v-e-r-ybody' I'm back! Finally, after 1 weeks time of living without internet at home, i can finally see again! ha ha. Yeah, it is really THAT important. Today I want to talk about smiling. Never did I thought it can have such a powerful effect. This past week was just insane; bosses after bosses flew in from around the world to Shanghai to lay out the roadmaps. Guess what? It was just dang political as one would expect as there were so much upper mgmt. The outcome wasn't that bright either as it will take some time to execute and plan out what's going to happen. However, one bright side was that I met a new friend from Taiwan. She's ALWAYs similng, regardless of being in meetings that doesn't make any sense or businiess dinners/lunches like 4 days in a row (no complaints there tho, but sometimes it's hard to come up with topics with lots of bosses around). Ok, i'm not talking about those dumb laughing like drunk people, I'm talking about that warm reassuring and encouraging smile. The gatherings were sometimes tough and rugged; but when I looked at my friends' smile, all the uncertainty and worries just melt away like sun shining on a big lump of iceberg, it feels great even if it only lasts for several seconds. Wow. I really never thought I would write this strange thought, but; the world is an interesting place eh? The people who we meet are endless and the feeling of different strangers around the world being friends is just mind-boggling, isn't it? Nature does works mysteriously. Wow.