*&#$^ing Priceless

Air Tickets to Las Vegas - $322.40
O-Show Tickets at Las Vegas - $108.90
Grand Canyon "Skywalk" Ticket - $75
Having to cancel my Memorial Day weekend trip due to work and study commitments -
@#%*ING PRICELESS

(Well at least I got about $220 of my air tickets refunded)

It's good to be back (part II)

Penang, Malaysia - wow it's been a year and a half since I was last in Penang. Got to meet a lot of friends I haven't seen in ages, and indulge in one of my favorite activities (eating). This picture was taken from Penang bridge, an approximately 14km bridge where an semi-marathon is held annually. It's an event attended by people all over, going across the bridge and back to the starting point. I remember participating in this event a few years back (okay, 10 years back ><). It was fun, especially the part of almost passing out halfway through the run.

Saint Anne's Church - one of the oldest churches in the region, also a site of an annual event where people light candles and place them in or near the church.

Last stop: Taiwan

This picture shows Taipei 101, the tallest (or was the tallest - it's hard to keep track nowadays; everyone wants to build the next tower of babel) building in the world. Since this was taken around mother's day, the chinese words for "mom" were displayed ont he building. At the top of the building is a revolving restaurant which I heard requires a reservation made several months in advance to eat at.
















A live street performer at Dan Shuei (淡水), about 1 hour from Taipei via subway. Dan Shuei was probably the highlight of my trip, for reasons I won't disclose here ;)

Anyway this particular live performer was extremely good - I bought a CD of his for NT 100(about 3 USD). I'd say he's at least as good as the majority of taiwanese pop singers that are of "superstar" status. Yes, he's that good. It's a pity my crappy cellphone camera couldn't zoom in enough to show his face - this photo would be really $$$$ when this guy becomes famous in the future :D




Sunset at Dan Shuei...

"Lover's bridge" (情人桥) at Dan Shuei - the bridge really is skewed (it's not the camera). Nice atmosphere, live music, waterfront - now I know why this place is one of the more popular... dating (ahem) locations near Taipei.














Overall I had a great time there, and I hope to return soon ^^

It's good to be back

Ahhh... not to say I didn't enjoy my free time during my business trip (I really, really did :) but after 2 weeks of not being at home, I'm glad to be back ^^ So, just like every other trip return - my apartment is in a mess (bummer), the fridge is empty (damn), and I'm behind in my studies again (#^&*%#$)

I didn't bring my new camera on my trip this time - in fact most of the time I just used my cellphone (which has a crappy 1.3 megapixel camera) to take shots I found interesting. Surprisingly, the pictures turned out better than I expected. So here are some interesting shots, in chronological order:

"GyroDrop" at Lotte World Seoul, Korea - this still holds the record on the second most scary ride I've been on (the first one being a ride at San Antonio's Six Flags). I didn't go on the ride this time, but when I was in Seoul last year I went on it - twice - because someone said she accidentally closed her eyes on the first time ;)

Here's the experience in a nutshell - it's a vertical drop from about 30 stories high. So basically you start from the ground, the ride slowly elevates you in a revolving manner ,which is when you get flooded with the screams of terror (or is it joy? hmm) from all the nearby Korean girls all the way to the top of the ride, then you wait at the top for a couple of minutes. Then without warning, the ride drops you 30 stories to almost ground level. Interestingly, the entire ride is silent almost throughout the drop. Fun, fun experience :D

Another thing I always enjoy about Korea is the food - oh man, it's a pity I didn't take a pic of the "spicy beef soup" I had with some customers and colleagues. I rarely sweat during meals, but almost evey meal I had in Korea was a cardio workout.

Boredom pic at the airport...

This is the Raffles Hotel at Singapore - a $6000 SGD (approx. 4000 USD) per night hotel - the most expensive hotel in Singapore. Disclaimer: No, I did NOT stay at this hotel.

Cosafe Maid Cafe in Singapore - a little piece of Akihabara in the heart of Singapore. Akihabara in Tokyo has quite a few of these "maid cafes" where the waitresses dress up in cute french maid costumes (guys, y'all can stop drooling on your keyboards now, thx). A friend of mine which I hadn't seen for quite some time took me out for supper at this place in Singapore which was quite a good replica of such a maid cafe. The waitress was even kind enough to oblige me with a photo of her in front of the cafe! :) Needless to say she got a big tip (I thought it was a big tip, anyway)

Chili-sauteed crab from "Jumbo Seafood" at the east side of Singapore... The picture doesn't show it that well, but the crab was HUGE - just lifting one of its pinchers was like lifting a turkey drumstick. It was pretty spicy, but extremely good too. I must have gained 3 pounds from that meal, which isn't really a bad thing for me actually :D

家捷 - 恭喜恭喜 ^^

Just wanted to give a shout-out to my friend 家捷 who's getting married today. Congratulations! I'm sorry I'm going to have to miss your wedding since it's today already, but I'll catch up with you later. Again, Congratulations!

Edit: I made it to the wedding! ^^ Got to meet his lovely wife as well as some friends that I had not met for ... 10 years running (why do I feel old all of the sudden)

Since we have quite a bit of blog coverage on 家捷's wedding, I'm only going to refer to blogs by the others covering the wedding:

威正篇——《男人的故事》
锡辉篇——《一念，一首歌， 一些故事》（一）、（二）
盈盈篇——《Ah Ying eh Blog》（一）、（二）

Babel

Wow, I had such high hopes for this movie... a movie based on multiple interwined storylines, each story taking place in a different part of the world. I was expecting a rich, suspenseful story with twists and turns at every corner.

I'm sorry, despite all the rave reviews the movie has received, I can't give it more than a big *yawn*. At one point (okay, many points) I was kind of hoping the movie would hurry up and just end.

The whole story revolves around an american that gets shot during a bus ride in Morocco. The other stories are all related to the first one - trust me, when you get to see how they're related, your reaction will be "DUHHH". I've seen better storyline interweaving in an average episode of Seinfield.

Overall a very disappointing movie, and a total waste of 2.5 hours (seemed more like 5 hours to me) of my time. I'm so glad that a few months ago my friends had decided to go watch Pan's Labyrinth at the theater instead of Babel.

The score? Hmmmm.....3.5/10 (maybe a notch above the skull-on-fire skeleton, but not by much)

I'm back at the blog :D

Sorry for not updating my blog, folks. I was too busy during the past few weeks, that I couldn't do anything except eat, work, study and sleep (my priorities were in that order too). Well... I did take one or two weekend days off now and then :) But in essence, my Monday - Saturdays were all work and no play and 5 hours of sleep every day :(

I was discussing this with a colleague that other day - balance in work and life. More and more so, I feel like my work is becoming my life. Just now, at 11:30pm, I finished replying to all the e-mails I had to reply to, and then didn't know what else to do, so I started looking for other e-mails to see if I could reply to them too. It's a sad, sad state of things.

Anyway, I'm in Singapore now, so tomorrow I'm meeting with CK and CH - hahah CH was pretty surprised when I called him out of the blue... it's been about 10 years since we met. Who knows, maybe I'm taller than him now :P

I did bring my camera, but did not bring my USB cable or memory card reader, so photos will have to wait until I'm back in Cali (unless I find the time to buy one over here).

Cheers, and for those of you in Penang, I gave CL a call, so maybe we can set something up for this coming Wednesday night - late night supper most probably, since I'm going out for dinner with my parents that night :)