hoy's bitship

London. Check.

2006-05-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

Well, there you have it, Mate...London in 24hrs. Literally.

As the first stop in our 2 week whirlwind tour of Europe, London didn't fail to impress. My last visit to London was even shorter, a mere few hours spent in the hotel before waking up early in the morning to catch a flight back to the states. This time, the lenght of stay has at least been doubled -- which is not saying much, but definitely headed in the right direction.

Climbing out of the St. Paul tube station, we had no trouble finding our hotel -- Club Quarters St. Paul's, which is just 50 feet away from the grand cathedral and exactly where Google map showed it to be. The hotel is nice, very nice and contemporarily furnished. The staff is friendly and helpful. The room is...shall we say, cozy? ;) but again, it's all very modern looking and nice. Of course, for roughly $100 a night, you can't do much better than this centraly located hotel that's a brisk 2min walk to the tube -- so yes, I'd recommend it (thanks, TripAdvisor :)

After freshening up, we headed out to find Millenium Bridge -- it's only a few blocks away, but perhaps I was still a little disoriented from the 12 hr flight, we ended up taking quite a detour before we finally arrived at the river bank...but nevertheless, we found it. The bridge connects the City and Southwark, which used to be the industrial part of the town and nowadays is home to places like Tate Modern. Our Knopf pocket map guide (which I love) recommended this Anatolian (Turkish) joint called Tas Pide right across from the Globe theater, so we headed straight there. It turned out to be a really cool place, nice ambiance, packed and great food. For £18, we had a wonderful dinner with 6 tapas style dishes from one of their set menus -- even though it was basically vegetarian, I actually loved it. Again, I would highly recommend it. After dinner we took a stroll inside Tate Modern. I've always been fond of modern art, though not too knowledgable, it interests me and for the most part, I enjoy it -- Wei, on the other hand, is not a big fan of it. She went along with it for a good while, bless her heart...but when we got to this strange lil peace called 'double no' -- she finally cracked. After staring for a good five minutes at these 2 tv's stacked on top of each other, top one inverted, both displaying the same clown jumpin up and down shouting 'NO, NO, NO, NO...' repeatedly -- she bursted out into laughter. I can't blame her, it was really a strange lil thing...on the way out, we tried to avoid eye contact with the guard.

We had originally planned to go to Ministry of Sound for a night of hardcore disco boogie but soon realized that it was too ambitious of a goal. Tired and with a full day ahead of us, we headed back to the hotel to get a good nite of sleep.

In the morning, we woke up bright and early to go see what every tourist must see when they come to London -- Changing of the Guards. We arrived at the Buckingham Palace shortly after 10am, since the event doesn't start until 11:30, we strolled down Mall Street to Trafalgar Square only to see Nelson's Column is under rennovation -- but they did cover it up nicely with a rendition of what it will look like when the work is complete just like all the other under-construction projects in London. Odd but kinda cool. With a couple of croissans and coffee in hand, we made our way back through St. James park towards possibly the most elaborate 'clock-in, clock-out' ceremony. The event started right on time, and for the next 30min or so, the soldiers walked back and forth, shouting indistinct things, every now and then, the band played, and then, they walked back and forth some more. I got in quite a few good shots after I climbed up on the Victoria Memorial, but to be honest, it was kinda over-rated. But oh well, we had to see it.

We left the ceremony before it ended, partly because we were bored and partly because we didn't want to face the mass crowd trying to leave the event all at the same time. We walked down towards Big Ben, took a few post card shots and marched onwards to the Eye. The London Eye was built by British Airways and it's currently the tallest wheel in the world at 443ft, although my peepz back in China is already working on beating this meaningless record by erecting a 525ft high Star of Nanchang -- I know, I'm so proud of them. Anyhow, after about an hour of wait (getting tix and waiting in line to get on), we were finally 'flying'. It was a beautiful day and you could see all the way out the edges of the city, which made for some great photo opps. The ride was relaxing and quite satisfying -- much like my last BA flight.

After coming back down to earth, we headed to Convent Garden -- an old fruit and vegetable market with cool arched gallery that dates back to 1832, of course, now it's actually a shopping center with crowds of tourist from all over, street performers, street vendors and punk kids...but it made for a nice spot to sit down and enjoy lunch after walking around all morning.

Of course, we needed to burn off some calories after lunch, so it's back on two feet and walking again -- this time, we strolled down to Piccadilly Circle and Chinatown (cleaner than the other Chinatowns I've been to) before hopping back on the Tube to head towards Tower of London. We didn't actually step foot inside the famed tower...with a few photos outside, we contiuned onto Tower Bridge -- as much a symbol of London as Big Ben, the bridge was quite impressive but I must say I was a lil bummed that we didn't get to see the movable bridges in action; but since it didn't look like any big boats were about to come rolling down the river any time soon and we were getting hungry, it's onwards we go. LondonTown.com recommended this lil place called FishClub for some classic fish&chip, which is just what we needed to wrap up our event-filled day. It was kinda hard to find since the directions were very clear and we had to navigate between subway and bus, but we finally found it and it did not dissapoint. The chef, whom also happened to be the owner, gave his recommendations and they turned out just perfect. A cold beer, some perfectly fried battered Haddock and thick fries, I mean...chips -- just superb.

Well, that's about it...tomorrow, it's onto Paris -- I will blog pending internet availability. All in all, I'm quite fond of London, I would even go as far as saying I could see myself living here at some point. Despite the weather that can be dreadful, the city is great, historic yet modern, laid back and energetic, the people are friendly and polite, and you just get the feeling that you will never be bored here.

p.s. We are doing pretty well on our $40 a day (per person) plan. Breakfast=£3.50, Lunch=$10.05, Dinner=£20.10 -- Total (for 2)=£33.65. Even with the horrible exchange rate, we are still well under -- Not bad for a notoriously expensive city like London.

Indestructable

2006-04-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

If you look up that word in the dictionary, or nowadays, on Wiki...they should have a picture of a late model Toyota pickup truck next to it. Why? watch this video and you'll see.

Re-entry

2006-03-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm back. Back into the blogosphere.

It's been a while, and I gotta say, I miss it. But after my brief Autoblog tenure, I felt really burnt out about blogging.

It all started off being something really exciting...as somehwhat of an early adopter to the whole blogging thing, I started my first entries as mass emails to my friends during my first trip back to China in 2002 since I left the motherland 10 years prior -- basically, I just didn't want to have to re-tell my story like 10 times :) upon returning, I discovered Blogger, and it made sense to transfer my travelouges there so I don't accidently loose them to my email trash bin some day...and they sorta just sat there...until, when I decided to move down to SoCal, I started blogging again...this time, just more or less a journal of my new SoCal life.

Then one day, it occured to me since I'm such a car buff and I spend all this time online everyday reading about cars, I should just blog about them -- in comes AutoWonder. It was really a labor of love, I would spend hours researching on a story, find the best picture to post, discover the hidden angles, writing and re-writing each paragraph to get to that perfect delivery. The site got an early traffic boost when one day a friend sent me a photo he snapped while he was in NY, it shows Donald Trump presenting a brand new silver SLR McLaren to his supermodel wife Melania -- I did some research and put together a lil story on it, the story got picked up by a bunch of big blogs such as Jalopnik and Luxist, and next thing you know, I got over 10K page views that day and the story even made it onto radio. Yep, my 15sec of fame, sorta.

After that, I figured out that if I submit unique stories to the bigger car blogs, I can drive traffic to my site, and the one advantage I had was the fact that I can read Chinese -- so I started scouring Chinese auto sites for car news, translating them into English and then tipping it to Autoblog/Jalopnik. Yep, I found a niche, and I was able to sustain a pretty health following of readers. When I think back, those were the funnest days of my blogging career (if you can call it a career).

Then one day, I read a post on Autoblog that they are looking for new bloggers -- I thought, what the hell, I'll give it a shot. So I submitted what I thought were some of my best pieces, and sent it in. About a week later, I got a call from Randal, whom asked me to start blogging for Autoblog. WOW!!! this is Awesome! (yes, Awesome with a captial A) I felt like I just got discovered or something. Riding on my excitement, I started blogging feverishly -- something you might not know about blogging for Autoblog (and the rest of blogs on WIN, likely) is that you have to meet monthly post quotas, 120 was the target I was given, and yes, that would mean you'd have to pump out 4 posts per day, EVERY day of the month. And oh by the way, you get paid $4 per post -- do I sound a little bitter? I suppose I am. Here's why: while it's like extra gravy that you actually get paid to blog about your passion that you would normally just do for free (or a lil bit of Google AdSense $$), at WIN, quantity was far more important than quality. The focus is on making sure there are enough posts to go live every hour, rather than the writing is good and stories are well-researched, or a topic you are really passionate about for that matter -- in a matter of weeks, I found myself dreading the chore of having to check through Google alerts, bloglines etc for the stories that I can turn into a post the quickest, ideally something I can churn out in about 30min, thus making $8/hr. LOL. I found it to be insulting to be honest. Why do that when I can do some consulting work on the side which I enjoy almost as much for like $50/hr? (actually, that's what I ended up doing later ;) Oh, ya, and there were the commentors...that is the one thing I definitely did not miss, those nasty comments from losers just have nothing better to do. To make a long story short (and I just realized, this has turned into a long post, I only meant to say, "hello world, I'm back", but look what I ended up with...), I stopped blogging for Autoblog after a few month. I've had enough. It just wasn't fun anymore.
Since then, I've been pretty jaded about the whole blogging thing...Slicksta has on various occassions tried to convince me to jump on the blog on blog idea, but I just didn't feel motivated. Recently, I wrote a few pieces on a new domain I purchased -- Roboa, but that's pretty much where I left it.

So why now, you ask? what changed? Well, it's my upcoming Europe trip that got me all excited again. One of the things that I'm already excited about the trip is I get to write about my experiences...and this time, not in a lil journal bought in Amsterdam like on my last trip, but on a blog. So there you have it, my long-winded re-entry post.

I'm back. BIIIAATCCH.

From One Chinese Capital to Another

2005-05-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

yep, that's right, we moved to Irvine -- the Chinese capital of Southern California. and it's no exaggeration by any means: according to the census of 2000, 30% asian; there's this HUGE chinese temple on Jamboree and mind you, TWO ranch 99's within few miles of each other; and you won't go a whole day without overhearing someone speaking chinese at places such as the circuit city next door.

whenever i tell someone i had just moved from santa monica to irvine, they usually look perplexed while resisting the urge to ask "why the hell would you do that?" i know, it might seem like an odd choice to most ppl our age -- moving away from the fun, hip Santa Monica to the boring planned community of Irvine. But for me, it's the right choice. 1st, the job...a really good opportunity for me to further develop with plenty of room to flex and learn about other things i'm interested in; 2nd, at this point of my life, having been thinking and planning on buying a place to settle down, OC is the place to be; and last but definitely not least, something that's always been in the back of my mind -- the car biz...with so many car companies hq'd in the OC, i am now one step closer, at least geographically, to my dream.

NYE @ Palladium

2005-01-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

It seems like every year we go thru the same dilema...should i go all out partying or should i just chill on NYE? as most ppl would say, and as experiences have proven, big NYE parties are often over-rated -- shouting out $100 for a tix, dealing with traffic, parking and the amature crowd...

so needless to say, when it came time to decide what to do on NYE again this time, i was on the fence...at first, it seemed like it was gonna be the Giant Village party in downtown LA: the fact that digweed is doing a 6hr set, paul van dyk, mark farina, crystal method...it just sounded too good to miss; but i was really dreading havin to deal with a massive crowd of 12,000 ppl and once i realized it might rain on NYE (given it's a mostly outdoor event) -- it was an easy decision to call it off.

so we decided to go see Tiesto at the Palladium -- a much smaller crowd at a mere 4000; with Tiesto, the #1 DJ in the world; and best of all, indoors!

fastward to NYE, I pick up Tom and Emily, and with surprisingly little traffic, we get to the Palladium in record time...once we figured out the right line to be in, it actually took no time before we found ourselves inside the palladium -- and what a stunning venue it is:

the party seemed to already be in full swing by then -- Tiesto is on the decks, go-go girls on the plaforms shaking their tail feathers, a pumped-up crowd filling the grand circular concert hall, lights going in every direction, graphics flashing on giant plasma TVs and projector screens

The Best Day @ Work

2004-12-22T13:05:00.000-08:00

about 11am today, we all got an email saying there's a mandatory all-team mtg in 5 min...and when i looked over to the mtg area, i saw our HR director dressed up as a cop standing over a table with white table cloth covering what appears to be a big pile of CASH!!!

Bonus Time

a crowd quickly gathered around the table with an enthusiasm never-before-seen at any all-team mtg's...after our CEO gave the much anticipated "we had a tremendous years,thank you all..." speech and everyone gave a roaring round of applause (really just to warm up our hands to grab our share of the cash), the cover was lifted to reveal...guess what -- a BIG pile of cash!!!

Now with a thick stack of cash in our pockets, lunch arrives -- it's fried chicken, salmon, mashed potatoes and grilled vege's...and it was delicious.

Just as we are sitting back in our seats completely bloated, another email comes thru -- it turns out the lunch we ordered for tomorrow showed up TODAY! so on top of the great food we just ate, we now have 30+ pizzas sitting in the kicthen!

a few minutes later, I have my dinner, a sausage/peperoni pizza, sitting on my desk smelling wonderfully...

LOVE today :)

Glen, Glen-Glen-Glen!!!

2004-12-20T09:05:00.000-08:00

This morning, I woke up to the invigorating sounds of what i consider to be one of the funniest ad campaigns in recent times -- Starbucks Glen.

I know, I know, this is old news already, but I still love it nevertheless...it has much staying power with me.

Not sure why I didn't think of it earlier, but yesterday, it dawned on me I should get the mp3. So I googled "Starbucks Glen mp3", downloaded the tune, bluetoothed it to my phone, set it as my alarm ring tone, and waaalaaa, this morning, I was brought into consciousness by the sounds of "Glen! Glen-Glen-Glen! Glen-Glen-Glen....Glen's the man! goin' to work..."

I woke up giggling -- can't think of a better song to wake up to and get ready for work...

anyway, if by chance the brains behind the "Starbucks Glen" campaign is on this site -- THANK YOU and NICE WORK!

Air Blog

2004-12-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

So here I am, miles above in the sky, blogging yet again…in about another 8hrs or so, I will be back in Santa Monica, home sweet home…must say I’m quite looking forward to being back…it’s been a fun yet exhausting 2weeks.

My trip started in Beijing, as did all my other recent travels to China started…Beijing was brisk and cold just as I remembered in early winter, much like NY; that is not to say I don’t like it – Beijing has to be my favorite Chinese city, while I grew up in Shanghai, I never really considered myself a Shanghainese (after all, my blood is only half Shanghainese). If you’ve ever spent time in Shanghai, you would notice that Shanghainese people fit their stereotype of being the calculating delta region peeps whom are not always the most friendly towards outsiders to say the least; and the Shanghainese dialect is what I consider to be very feminine, which in a way, is true for Shanghainese men (Uncle, if by some odd chance you’ve learned English and are reading this, I’m sorry) – they are the ones who runs to the supermarket after work, goes home cooks and cleans, worries about the latest prices on eggs; not that I think these things are only women’s realm…but come on. On the other hand, Beijing is more like my town. It’s grand and it has history, the people are down to earth and friendly, there’s plenty of wide open space for people from all parts of the world to mingle; in short, it’s a very open and accepting city – it has to be, after all, it is the capital and the heart of this increasingly international country.

By the way, I must mention that at the moment I’m sitting comfortably in Business Class aboard Air China flight CA 983, with my feet kicked up, seat reclined back and plenty of elbow space – thanks to the 2 girls behind the Air China check-in desk, I was not only able to check in my massively over-weight luggage, but somehow, also scored myself a seat in Business Class (on the 2nd floor of this jumbo Boeing plane), in exit row no less!!! And the best part is, I didn’t even ask for it...Am I really that charming? I guess I would have to take that as a yes…but I digress.

Anyway, back to my story…after spending a couple of days in Beijing, the usual: good (and extremely cheap) food, cool hang-outs (found my new favorite lounge called Club Nuage in Lotus Garden – very chic and intimate ambiance, complete with loungey acid jazz on the soundtrack and Qing Dynasty beds which you can kick back on as you sip your cocktails), strolling down WangFuJing (a much bigger, nosier version of the Promenade), etc…we set off for Hong Kong.

Now, we must get something clear – I normally prefer to spend my vacations on exotic tropical beaches, sunbathing, swimming, diving, drinking my corona, checking out hot babes in bikinis…Hong Kong is not really my idea of relaxation; in fact, you can say it’s quite the opposite -- it’s an extremely over-crowed metropolis squeezed to fit on the tiny island/peninsula/landfill that has become to be known as Hong Kong. It takes the phrase “concrete jungle” to a whole new level – imagine taking Times Square, squeezing it from all sides to make the streets smaller, buildings taller and much much closer to each other, then add millions of loud, personal-space-concept-challenged Chinese people, the smell of China town and double-decker buses – you have Hong Kong! No exaggeration at all.

So it is no surprise that the moment I arrived in Hong Kong, I hated it. Not to mention that our hotel of choice (New World Renaissance) fell through and were forced to stay at this stupid little hotel in Mong Kok (think Moderne but without the attempt to be stylish), and that upon coming out of the train station, ill-advised to walk to our hotel, we dragged out luggage and trekked for half an hour only to realize we went in the wrong direction, at which point, I threw my body in front of the next oncoming taxi and hijacked him to take us to our hotel (and then, I paid him the fare of course). That afternoon, I tried to remember how the girlie got me to agree that Hong Kong would be cool to spend a week in…

But hey – “make lemonade out of lemon”, right? After all, it is not where you are at that matter the most, it is who you are with and what you do that matters. So over the next 7 days, we set out to get the most out of Hong Kong:

We strolled along Victoria Harbor at sunset, walked thru the crowded marketplaces to find delicious snacks and drinks; at nite, watched the light show that lit up the Hong Kong Island’s most famous architectural landmarks

Hopped on the double-decker tram (the oldest tram in the world) and saw the sites of the city from above, then jumped on the trolley that climbed to the top the Tai Ping Shan – the highest point of Hong Kong, enjoyed delicious candle light dinner with the breath-taking City Nightscape as backdrop

Wondered around Lan Kwai Fong and Soho (where foreigners and banana’s live and play), experienced the deliciousness that’s known as hot stone grilling, partied our heads off at little underground clubs (Nu and Yumla) to some Japanese trance and Euro break-beat.

Spent the afternoon at the Hong Kong Sea World, with its picturesque landscape and never-ending escalators, and of course, the gondolas that take you from the top of the mountain to the bottom, over looking the blue ocean water that surrounds it.

Paid our respects to the biggest outdoor bronze Buddha
at Da Yu Shan, burned some incense for the whole family and slipped a bill into the donation box as per mom’s instruction.

Shopped around the millions little cell phone shops crammed in a one mile radius to finally acquire my new toy – Sony Ericsson K700i, one of those cool phones not yet available to the U.S. market

Ate chop-stick-licking-good dim sum at this grand dim sum restaurant

– hey, dim sum here is always available,

EVERY day, no waiting another year for the kitchen to be remodeled.

Walked on the sandy (well, more like lil stones and nowhere near as nice as the SoCal beaches) beach of Qian Shu Wan
with super-high-rise apt buildings built right on the hills behind the beach and old temples right in front of them…pretty weird combo.

Watched fishermen bring in boat full of fishes right before our eyes as the Europeans drank away and tried their best to be loud and obnoxious like my ppl in the waterfront sidewalk pubs.

Spent the day walking, shopping, stopping, eating, getting back up, walking some more, eat something new, chilling, shopping, tired, rest, eat some more, and off again, shop and walk…

All and all, when it came time to say good-bye to Hong Kong, much to my surprise, I almost didn’t really want to leave. The city really grew on me. At first, it is very over-whelming to a degree it’s almost suffocating, then little by little, as you discover all the little in’s and out’s of this place, you couldn’t help but be drawn to the uniqueness of this crowed far east pearl – it’s a melting pot where foreigners and Chinese live, work and play together; a place where the ways of the new world and old traditions co-exist seamlessly; where natural beauty and man-made wonders compliment each other. You can spend a dollar at the side-walk vendor for some yummy deep-fried treats, or walk down the street and get some authentic (expensive even by American standards) cuisine from Japan or Korea. You will see whiteys working the cash registers in a coffee shop and Indian construction workers sweating their asses off as Chinese business men in their pin-stripe power suits, talking on their cell phones rush by. And you will also find bananas like me who find it easier to communicate in English rather than Mandarin Chinese because the locals have a better grasp of the English language than Mandarin as they all grew up speaking English and Cantonese (otherwise known as peasant talk)

So in a nut shell, while I would never ever consider living in Hong Kong, I can see myself visiting every once in a while – to get the latest gadgets, to satisfy my taste bugs for certain Hong Kong only side-walk treats, and to dance my ass off in the little unassuming little clubs in SOHO, and lastly, just to be reminded of how nice it is not to live in a crazy place like that…it's a very different kind of vacation than a nice warm sandy beach and blue waters.

------------------------

I am now back in my apt in Santa Monica, changed into my pj's and ready to hit the hot shower before i retire for the nite as i can hardly contain the excitement of returning to work tomorrow, but beofore i check-out, I had to share with yal my little encounter with the yellow cab driver on the way home from LAX:

so this van picks me up curbside, after we load in all the luggage and head out of LAX, the driver, an older korean man, turns and ask me:

"santa monica?"
"yes, santa monica, you can just take lincoln..." i said,
"u china people???"
"uuurggh, yes, i'm chinese..."
"u no goin to monterey park? lot of china people go monterey park"
"uuuuuuuuuuurgh, nope, no monterey park, santa monica, pls"
"ohh....(few minutes later)...hotel???"
"No, i live in santa monica"
"ohhhhhhhhhhhhh"

perhaps its just a very honest misjudgement combined with lack of effective communication on his part; and perhaps i was also a lil grumpy from my 12hour plane ride (granted, it was pretty nice to fly biz class, hehehe), but i was offended by his questions...i mean, what the fuck, is it so hard to comprehend that a normal chinese man like myself would want to live anywhere outside of monterey park, and rather, santa monica of all places? is that really so unbelievable?...needless to say, his tip was on the light side.

anyway, that's it...hot shower here i come!

Jet-setter

2004-11-11T01:23:00.000-08:00

Here I am, sitting at the British Airways laptop counter in JFK, blogging…well, kinda, since there’s no wireless connection, I’m just typing it into a word doc and paste it into my blog later…I got another half hour to kill before I board and besides, I gotta charge up my laptop so I can watch Old School on the plane.

what a crazzzzy week it’s been, I guess it all started last Friday…

woke up at 6am, jumped into my car, drove to LAX and was immediately greeted by the nightmare that’s called LAX, I fuckin hate this place…it is THE worst airport in the world, I’ve been to at least 20 or so different airports all over the world and I have to say, without a doubt, LAX is by far the worst…what a piece of shit, always the traffic jam, always the insanely long security screen line, and if you are catching a connection, faggettabawwwtit. Anyway, the line literally stretched from terminal 1 all the way to terminal 2…after walking about a mile down to the end of the line, I thought for sure I was gonna miss my flight…it was already only 30min to my departure time…luckily, this lil old man came to rescue and pulled all of us whom had flights departing soon to a separate, shorter line…so miraculously, I did not miss my flight and 45 min. later, we landed in Vegas.

After some breakfast, we hopped on a shuttle and headed towards our destination – SEMA!!! I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time…I mean, it’s like a dream come true…all the coolest and craziest aftermarket cars under one roof, it just doesn’t get any better than that…it wasn’t until we set foot inside of the Las Vegas convention center did we realize how insanely big this thing is…I mean, you literally cannot see either end of the hall…and it’s all filled with booth with heavily modified cars, car parts, car care products, engines, exhausts, turbos, tools, classic cars, rims, tires…anything you could possibly think about that has anything to do with cars, and of course, the import car models ;)

p.s. – now I am on the plane, about 35k ft above ground, flying somewhere over the red states, a couple of more hours to go til I land…anyway, back to the story…

We devised a plan – one row at a time, upon reaching the end of a row, turn up, and start going in the opposite direction on the next row – this way we don’t miss a thing...it was a good plan, and 2 hours later, we found ourselves just about covered ½ of the main conference hall…this was just a complete overdose of cars, and no 2 were alike: there’s the chrome m3, the original ford GT40 MKIV, a whole bunch of tricked out 350z’s with more than half of their panels carbon fiber, a mini convertible completely modified into just a rolling showcase of stereo system that didn’t even look much like a car anymore, the Shelby GR-1 concept and the cobra concept, about 30 different 06 mustangs in various different body kits and in saleen form (they actually look really tight)…as the afternoon progressed, we saw no less than 50 H2s in various forms, with spreewheels, 28”’s, slammed, all blacked out, big wheel, all with insane stereo systems – the white one sitting on 28s had no less than 10 LCD monitors in it with the dvd player right in the headrest…and then there were the 300C’s, another popular car to customize…again, the general theme is big wheels, billet grilles, and TVs in every place imaginable…

With about one hour left before the show officially shuts down, we headed to the south hall, yes, there’s a whole another hall we haven’t even hit yet – this hall is focused on wheels and tires, and when you add up all the dubs and low profile tires, and all the bling cars to display them – your bently’s, rolls royes, lambo’s, ferrari’s, etc…the hall alone probably held 100s of millions worth of cars, rims, and tires…and one of them even had the rims covered in diamonds…talk about bling…and it doesn’t even end there, upstairs, there were more SUVs and offroads, and there’s a whole international section we just simply didn’t have time to check out before they kicked us out…but once we got outside, the show continued…there’s the whole DUB show case, Shaq’s red superman escalade, Jack Osbourne’s X5, and get this, a truck with a set of turn-tables and a stripper pole!!!

This is pure car heaven…and the best part was, there we were, still refusing to leave, as the show cars started to pull out of the exhibit hall, one at a time, rolled by in front of us, some putting on shows, showing off their hydrolics, their systems, their muscle…it was by far the best parade I’ve ever been to…

The rest of the vegas trip was very typical, bars, casinos, clubs, titty club, bed, blackjack…

After having been home for less than 24 hours, I woke up Sunday around noon and went right back to LAX to fly to NY – I felt like such a jet-setter J I’ve always liked being in NY, it’s a real metropolis, a city with an invigorating pulse – when I set foot in NY, I find myself walking faster than I normally do…ok, maybe cuz it’s so freakin’ cold…

Sunday nite, checked into our hotel – Moderne, it pretty caca, it’s a wannabe art deco modern hotel that is really pretty cheesy…but oh well, went out to a late dinner with friends from work, got this AMAZING steak, so full of flavor and so juice, it’s just a slice of heaven to me, and the best part was it was already almost midnite when we sat down to eat, you just can’t do that on the west coast…so my food experience this trip is off to a great start.

Monday, the first day of AD:TECH, we walked around the show floor, for the most part, it’s not of much use to us…did stop by the nielson netrating’s booth and found out we were the #3 online advertiser last month! Woooohoooo…I kept myself busy with various sessions I had planned to attend, most were useless, with bits of interesting information here and there, had lunch with a client that’s not even mine, oh what the hell, thanks for the lunch…after lunch, a couple of more sessions, the state of the union address by the founder of eMarketer, and then I stayed for the adwards show…it was quite pathetic, more than half of the time, when the winner was revealed, there were no one there to accept them…what a joke…then came the best part of the day, DINNER – Eva, our SVP took us to Tabla, a place known for its Indian influenced gourmet cuisine, and it was deliiiiicious…I picked a $80 bottle of shiraz which was amazing, and it went great with my lamb dish, which was simply to die for…there we were, getting drunk, sharing stories, laughing, having a great time…we then headed out for some industry parties…first stopped at crowbar…but it looked like a sausage party judging from the line, so we bailed and went to PM, the tribal fusion party – and it was sooo fuckin packed, you literally had to fight thru the crowd to get to the bar to get a drink, even though it was all open bar, it wasn’t really worth the hassle…before going back to our hotel rooms, Jason and I decided to stop at the little Japanese sushi bar next to our hotel for a lil night cap – got some hot sake, eel and shumai, finishing it off with a rousing rendition of the yellow submarine on karaoke – couldn’t find a better way to end the nite.

Tuesday it was back to the conference sessions, when the morning sessions concluded, I decided it would really be a waste of time to go to any of the ones in the afternoon, so I went and grabbed lunch with Laurie at Ruby Foo’s, blew off this meeting that I didn’t want to go in the first place (as it turned out, the guy didn’t show anyway) and set off to spend my afternoon in central park. Just to give you a little perspective, the hotel is on 54th, central park south gate begins on 59th/60th and goes all the way up north to 110th, and it was unusually cold for this time of the year, with highs in the mid 40’s and with the wind chill factor, it felt more like 35…but that does not scare me, I was determined…and it was absolutely beautiful in the park, as I stood there in the park, next to the skating ring, surrounded by the lush landscape, peaceful atmosphere, and in the distance, the high rises stood proudly, and the combination of the 2 is very surreal…I continued north, walking pass the great lawn, the reservoir, the tennis courts, the meadow, stopping every now and then to take a little breezer and soak it all in, to be honest, I thought of giving up, I mean it is kinda crazy to try to traverse the park in its entirety on foot in this weather…but oh well, I’m crazy like dat…and if I say I’m gonna do it, I’m GONNA do it…it’s principalities man!!! So about 2 hours later, barely able to walk anymore, and the nite already fallen, I’ve finally reach the other end!!! I felt like running up the stairs and doing the whole Rocky thing…but I was too fuckin tired. We then had cocktails, apps with the girls from 180 at Butter, nice place, good food and nice girls, but we had to cut it short as we had to run off to the dinner with Yahoo in lil Italy…as it turned out, this is one of the best Italian restaurants in NY, el Mullino --one of those places you can never get reservations to. And OMG, the food is amazing, hands down the best Italian food I’ve ever had…from the moment we sat down, we were just bombarded with all kinds of delicious food, prosiuotto with fresh cantolopes, the best, most flavorful tomatoes I’ve ever had, white truffle ravioli’s, and my main course, salmon with mushrooms was simply divine – it literally just melts in your mouth…if only I wasn’t so full already…but I forced myself to eat as much as I could, even if it hurts a lil, it’s a good kinda hurt…seeing as how good the dinner was, we just had to try the desert, even though none of really had much room to spare, and good thing we did, cuz the desert was just as amazing as the rest of the dining experience…yup, this was an experience alright, one of those you just don’t forget…

Wednesday, woke up and went to the last session I had planned to attend, which to my surprise, turned to be by far the most interesting/useful one…after that, I had the whole afternoon to myself before I fly out at 9pm…plans to hang out with J. Ho fell thru as he was sick in bed, but I was able to keep myself entertained no less…had lunch at WhiteCastles – had to do it for Tara, and I got her a lil memorabilia too…then I went straight to Guigenhaim…it was quite an experience, the featured exhibit was Aztec mythology – and the exhibit was set up along the famous spiraling staircase of the museum, echoing the shape of a serpent – an important animal in Aztec culture, as are the eagles, leopards, dogs…and then there were the Vangoh’s, Monet’s, Kandinsky’s…the usual modern arts…as if not having had enough art for the evening, as I was walking back towards the hotel, I passed the Metro Museum of Art and decided to check it out as well, what the hell, I have another 2 hours to kill anyway…as I usually do when I go to these museums, I headed straight for the asian wing, I just like the fact that I can actually read the scriptions on these thousand year old paints and understand them…it makes me appreciate them so much more and I feel this inexplicable connection to them…and the fact that there were a group of cute asian girls being led on this lil guided tour didn’t hurt either. So when the museum closed, I continued my walk back to the hotel to catch my ride to JFK, and by the end…I had walked all the way from 89th back down to 55th…I’m amazed my feet haven’t fallen off yet at this point…I think I’m gonna sleep very well tonite….what a fun trip and what a great city.

By the way, the old chinese man sitting in row 18 just walked by again to go to the bathroom, poor guy, he has to use a walking stick, and I’m pretty sure he just caca’d in his pants again, cuz he smells of caca when he walked by earlier and now, once again…dammm, it smells bad…I sure hope I’m not that way when I’m old, or maybe by then they had come up with a cure for it, if not, just kill me.

Election Day

2004-11-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

This morning is by far the most productive one I've had in a long time...

When my alarm sounded at 8am this morning, rather than my regular routine of hittin the snooze button about 10 times and finally waking up at 9am, I got up, went downstairs, put my laundry in the dryer (i passed out last nite in front of the TV, AGAIN, only to wake up at 2:30am half concious and knowing i did not have it in me to finish my laundry)...i then walked outside my apt in my pj's and was immediately struck by the long line that's already formed in front of the old ppl home across the street from me -- the polling station; so, i lit up a cig, walked down the street to my favorite cafe, got myself a mocha and cheese danish (did the danish peepz invent the danish?)...walked back towards my block and got in line (which now streched around the corner)...to vote!

an hour later...i'm finally inside the old ppl home, got my ballot and ready to vote -- it's amazin how ancient our voting technology is...on the walls there are these posters showing the past, present and future of the voting technology -- past being the punch card, present being this "new" technology which is nothing more than a lil inked dot on a standard multiple choice sheet, and the future -- "touch screen" (you can already pre-vote at select location using touch screen), but to think in the 21st century, we are still tauting the "ink card" as the new way of voting, it is just obsurd.

so anyway, i voted for Kerry -- to be honest, he's not a great candidate...but given the alternative, it's a simple choice to me...in a perfect world, there would be a candidate that's good enough for me to say whole heartedly that he/she is the perfect choice, but we don't live in a perfect world...I'll take a indecisive boring rich old white man over an egotistic selfish dumbass white man anyday.

next blog >>

2004-10-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

lately, this little button on the top right corner of the blogger page has become my favorite past time...whether i'm at work takin a break to let my mind wonder or like right now, watching the yankee-red sox game at home...i inevitably end up reaching my mouse over to click on "next blog" and let it take me to some completely random person's blog.

i like getting a glimpse into some complete stranger's life, it must be the voyeur in me;

i like coming across sites written in chinese -- there are so many blogs written in all kinds of different languages, i've come across spanish, arabic, and probably others that i don't even know what it was...it makes me wanna learn more languages

i like reading blogs from ppl living in different parts of the world, cuz for that brief moment, i'm taken away from the corner of the world i live in and brought into theirs

i like those photo blogs that tell their own stories with pictures, no words, just pictures

i also like those who use the same template as i do -- very good taste ;)

i hate, however, those ppl who do not install the blogger header on their blogs, bringing my blog surfing experience to an abrupt stop and having to hit the back button to try again

i hate those kids who fill their pages with annoying jsp's and lil pop ups that insist you to update your windows

i hate those blogs blatantly trying to sell u something or make $ in click thru to their banners -- get a hosting service, this is a fuckin blog

and i wonder...would i ever come across the same blog more than once? would i ever come across my own blog? would i inadvertently come across the blog of someone i know? hmmmmmm

and as i'm writing this blog, it occured to me that sometime later, someone out there (YOU) have come across this blog by clicking on "next blog" and as we speak is forming your own judgement on my blog, me...perhaps even wondering whether or not to leave a comment (i have on several occasions wondered the same thing myself)...so go ahead, do it, leave a comment, you blog voyeur!

5-0

2004-10-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

is my record in my fantasy football league...that's right, 5-0, perfect start, and leading the 2nd place guy by 100pts. my sophmore year in this fantasy football thing, not too shabby. well, i have to say, i had a good draft, picked up McNabb, Shaun Alexander, Curtis Martin, Marvin Harrison and Daniel Graham...even got Seattle later as a free agent for my defense...working out pretty good so far, but i must say, i enjoy starting in the middle of the pack and fighting my way up to the top much more than trying to stay at top, it's a different kind of thrill.

the work on the web site for my biz venture with Kevin B is complete... www.iesglobal.net -- the placement/size of the logo could still use a lil work, but we'll let my play with it when she has time/energy...poor girl, she tire. so it's all set now, registration done, tax ID done, bank account done, website done, now it's onto the next phase, sending out the intro letter to the partners and hopefully we'll be off running soon so i can start to get a real gauge of what this venture can actually mean.

i guess now i will have time to start on my next project, after several convo's with Tom, i got really psyched bout building a car blog...i think it'll be a fun hobby, i mean i spend lots of time online lookin at all kinds of car info as it is anyway, wouldn't it be nice to have just one place to go to look for anything related to cars? if nothing else, it will be my personal ultimate bookmark to car stuff. the plan is to map out all different aspects of all things car related, organize them in a very intuitive fashion, and set up affiliate links to the respective online merchants. right now, still in planning stage, crystalizing all the different areas i want to encompass, and figuring out the best way to lay them out.

made Yvette walk all over the promenade today to find STA to pick my tix to china and were half hour late to our lunch with AOL at Michael's...oh well, they didn't really seem to mind...food was good, service was great, but i guess above all, it's the mystic of the place -- THE place for hollywood heavy hitters to do power lunches. so there we were, sitting in the patio, chatting away, it suddenly dawned on me -- after the years of detours i've taken since i first started to gain interest in the dot com world, i've finally arrived at where i wanted to be within the industry. i really enjoy being in the online advertising space, it's rapidly growing, exciting and always something new to learn; in particular, what i really like about what i do now is the fact that on one hand, i get to be very creative in coming up with ideas for ads and have designers go at it, and in no time, i can see them up and running on the web and able to then analyze the performance...and on the other, i'm getting more and more experience in managing these big budget spends, managing the biz, managing ppl and relationships. it's fun. after returning from our 2 hour lunch however, it dawned on me i had soooooo much shit to do for my yahoo campaign, i mean i had at least 30 placements i had to go thru and optimize...sigh

spoke to my dad earlier tonite, he told me grandma passed away this morning in china. i can tell he's pretty disdraught...but probably not as much had he not been able to go back couple of month back to see her. i didn't really know what to say to comfort him as i really don't have much memory of my grandma...the only memory of her that i have is from the stories that were told to me about how she's a chain smoking old woman...i moved back to shanghai when i was 2, so you can't expect me to actually form any memory prior to that. i guess i'm sad, sad for the fact that my dad lost his mom, it must be very hard...but i really didn't know my grandma.

Sean Penn's brother lived in the apt next to mine...

2004-10-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

"The elevator is out of service", says the note.

hmmmmm, then how am i gonna do my laundry -- you see, normally the evelvator is the only way to access the laundry room located in the basement garage.

so, i figured i try the swimming pool gate, which leads to the laundry room door, even though i vaguely remember having tried in the past and it didn't work...but hey, who knows, maybe this time it'd work...

so there i am, having just tried all of my keys, nope, no go...and suddenly i realized, Cici, this old lady that lives in the building is behind me (I've run into Cici several times doing laundry on sunday nites, despite looking all torn up from her partying days when she was younger, she's actually very nice lady)

"i've got a key to that gate" with a laundry basket under her arm, she said.
"really? u do?"
"yep, i do...i can open it for you"
"thanks! so...how come no everybody has a key to this gate?"
"well, the old lady that lived right above the pool doesn't like the noise"
"ahhhh...."
"ya, and...Sean Penn's brother used to live in the apt next to yours, and he'd always be having these parties with ppl running around drunk and crazy...it was a big problem"

??##?? did she just say Sean Penn's bro used to next in the apt next to mine? interesting...wow, suddenly the fact that i live in santa monica set in...yep, this is where the stars hang out, and in this case, their relative have drunken parties...i mean i did see michelle phifer at the ivy when we went to lunch with ad.com and carmen diaz was in the elevator of my office buidling a couple of times, so i guess it's not so much a shock that Sean Penn lived next door at one point...but still, very interesting to know.

and look what i found when i google'd him:
Sean Penn's boozing brother bounced for brawling

well, i guess somethings never change...

Choices

2004-10-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

Today I watched an interesting documentary -- "My Father's Son", about the life a self-reliant drifter, Big John, who decided to move into the woods in Orlando and scavenge as a living. While some might think it's a sad story about a man that's lost, I take a slightly different position... Big John simply made a choice of how he wants to live his life, without regard to what others might think. He chose the life that is right for him, that makes him happy. An intelligent, gentle and caring person by nature, Big John is also incredibly creative -- having built a comfortable living headquarters in the woods where he now calls home, burns wires to savage the copper that he can sell for $ while keeping up in readings of wall street journal on the latest market trends/prices in materials, dissemble and recyle windows for local window shops and sell the left-over materials. While he has own share of problems, self esteem, well...come to think of it, that is really about it...hard to believe isn't it? before he decided to move to the woods, he was just a "normal" guy...had a house, cars, family, a regular job...then something happened -- I actually missed the part where they explained what happened, but it must have been something tramatic...in any case, he got up and left, left it all behind and went into the woods -- a lifestyle looked down upon by the world, but in his own words "i just don't care"

when you think about it, we all make certain choices in life, even the seaguls down on venice beach do -- there are the ones that are flying around hunting for food all day and then there are the ones that just hangs out in the park begging for the tourists to throw some bread their way. In Big John's case, he made a choice that in his estimation fits him and he's not hurting anyone, in fact, in his own way, he still contributes to society and gives to his community (granted, it's a hobo community)...i mean who are we to fault him for that? the american dream right? life, librety and the pursuit of happiness -- that's exactly what he's doing, just in an unorthordox way. so in a way, i admire his courage to be an individual, to be unique and to not worry himself with having to live up to others expectations. He is my hero. Big John.

Trojan Man

2004-09-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

around 5:30 this afternoon, i get this IM from my old neighbor, Chester, whom moved to the other side of the cube wall:

"do u hear that?"
"hear what?"
"THAT! James is going crazy over there!" -- James sits on the other side of my cube wall.
"dude, i don't know what u are talking about, i didn't hear anything..."

just after I said that, i heard this, get this, horse noise coming from the other side of the 6ft divider -- and this is not one of those silly sound files on the computer either, it's....well, a grown man making a horse noise! that man, is...James.

??!!!!###!!!!??? huh? wtf?

i was in shock, i couldn't believe my ears, and as i looked up in disbelief across my desk, i found Auuudrey lookin up wide-eyed trying the hardest not to burst out laughing, so another im session ensued:

"is he making horse noises?"
"wtf?"
"i was just gonna write that..."
"i can't believe i'm hearin this, this is crazy, omg" and right then, some more strange noise came from the other side, this time, not horse noise, but rather, this time it came in form of what sounded like an angry drukard babbling about soemthing that nobody understands right before he's about to go piss all over himself. and keep in mind, this is still well before close of business day for our dept and most people are still at their desks. now, at this point, in addition to be in total shock, i was starting to get a lil afraid...

back to my IM with Chester:

"is he really making all those noises?"
"yep, he's been doin this...i think he forgot to take his pill today" -- now, normally, this is just a figure of speech...but under the current circumstances, i had to make sure...
"omg, i can't believe this...wtf?"
"ya, he has mental problems, i think he fogot his pill today"
"seriously?"
"well, it used to be a lot worse, sometimes he would throw shit all over his desk, swearing...he's gotten a lot better now, i think he just forgot to take his pill today"
"wow" -- i was reduced to just being able to say nothing more than wow, meanwhile, Seabiscuit continued to prance around on the other side.

so i promptly updated Auuudrey with the situation at hand via IM...
"r u serious?"
"yep, i don't think Chester is joking"
"omg"...more horse noise, devil speak and druken cowboy noise...
"wow, i think i need to get out of here...wait, aren't you going to see EJ's play tonite with him?"
"yeah, and i think it's just going to be him and I"
"wat??? Auuudrey, are you sure??? i'm worried bout your safety" ...trojan man moaned...
"i think it'd be ok...he said he'll drive, should i let him drive?"
"r u serious??? helllllll no!" as i looked up in disbelieve at Auuudrey and trying not to laugh out loud -- 1. it would not be polite 2. James might kill me.

I then spent the next half hour trying to convince Auuudrey that going to a play with James alone under his current conditions is not a very good idea, and that i'm genuinely concerned for her safety; and Auuudrey, being the brave girl she is, god bless her heart, assured me/herself that everything is gonna be OK, but she IS gonna take my advice of not letting him drive -- thank god. the entire time, about every 45sec or so, another weird noise will come from the other side of the wall, and we'd try out hardest not to laugh out loud as tears come streaking down our faces...

I CAN'T wait to get the details from Auuudrey tomorrow...wow, wow, wow...

*the names of the persons in the story have been changed for their protection.

moon cake thief

2004-09-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

so, this morning, the morning after the moon festival day, I came into work all excited about having my last moon cake that my dad sent me for breakfast...only to find it's missing from my desk!

Somebody STOLE my moon cake!!! what kind of person would do such a thing? and who the fuck likes moon cakes anyway??? personally i don't even like them unless it's the kind that's got meat in them...but again, that's besides the point, i mean, this is of sentimental values. i suspect it's the mexican cleaing crew that commited this heinous crime, but that would be very un-PC.

in any case, all disdraught over the disappearnce of my moon cake, i vented to my neighbors and was told apparently this is not the first time that things have been taken from ppl's desks, though i'm pretty sure that this is the first time that someone took a FUCKIN' moon cake! it was suggested that i bring this matter, albeit trivial, to the attention of our HR director.

so i did, i wrote this half joking email describing what had transpired -- minutes later, Jack showed up at my desk to comfort me (that sounded really gay) frankly, by this point, i was already over it, the fact that i wrote about it already let off the steam.

but much to my surprise, 10min later, Jack reappeared at my desk with box full of cupcakes with a moon hand drawn on the label, with "moon cakes" scribbled next to it. "i wanted to let you know there are nice guys in the office" he said, awwwwwwwwwwwww....i was so touched, wat a nice guy! this totally made my day!

and my day just got better and better from that point on, lunch was from hurry curry, a really good jap curry place down on Sawtelle. Andi was in heaven as that's her fav place and the guy even brought her a $40 gift card for makin the introduction -- note to self, i need to hook up Royal Star to cater our lunch so I can get some free $$ too. Anyway, lunch was deliciiious.

is it full moon yet?

2004-09-28T01:55:00.000-07:00

honestly, i can't tell...i mean, according to the lunar calendar, it should be, in fact, the moon should be at its brightest and roundest of the entire year. but is it? i dunno...just last thurs nite, the moon is only a hook...and i'm just too lazy right now to step outside to verify this fact right now...i will just have to trust the 5 thousand year old lunar calendar i suppose, chances are, it's round.

well, i was looking thru my emails earlier today and came across my old travel journals, ones i wrote during my two trips to china in 06/03 and 10/02...it occured to me i should move them to my blog, so...after an half hour of copy and paste...waaalaaaaa, it's done, they are now here! i didn't realize how long they were until i started reading thru them again...and reading them brought me back to those fun and life-changing trips. well, if you are reading this and you have about 3 hours to kill, feel free to check out...but don't say i didn't warn you, they are fuckin' loooooong.

the other day when i was chillin on the beach with tom, somehow we got to talking aobut the olympics, and i unveiled my theory on the relationship between the different cultures/countries and how their characters/qualities are reflected thru the sports that they excel at...tom encouraged me to blog them, so here it:

when you look at the sports that the chinese dominate: diving, gymnastics, rifle, etc...these are the sports that requires precision, the type of precision can only be achieved thru years and years of hard work, continuous training in mastering very precise motions, in fact, painstakingly so...in a way, it's a craft, a craft that the atheletes involved take pride in fine-tuning with their sweat and blood. and it can be argued that these sports don't necessarily call for the greatest physical talent, but more importantly, practice, practice, practice. I think this speaks to something that's engrained and highly valued in the chinese culture -- achieving perfection through hard work. i remember growing up, my parents and teachers always repeated to us, made sure that we remembered -- success is 1% talent and 99% hardwork...ok, maybe some whitey actually came up with this saying...but that's besides the point.

now, i'm not saying that all other countries are just a bunch of slackers, and they are just gifted athelets, and they dont' need to practice to achieve what they have achieved...i'm only sayin that in the case of china, having grown up in china myself, i think it seems to make sense that we excel at the sports that we do, rather than track and field, which requires lots of strength and explosiveness, which, no suprise, is dominated by the americans.

just food for thought.

The Gypsy girl on promenade...

2004-09-23T01:18:00.000-07:00

Rasha is her name, and I gave her my first dollar on the promenade...not that my dollar is particularly valuable or anything, but until today, I have refused to give away my hard earned dollas like a tourist...

It's not the first time I've watched her, in fact, she's always caught my eye. As I stood there today, I find myself trying to catch her enchanting sexy blue eyes as she twirls around to the beautiful gypsy guitar melodies...

I'd let my mind wonder and make up the story of her, and her lover, the gypsy guitarist that she dances to/for...how they spend the days together, on the promenade, drowning in each others sound/movement, whispering to each other through the slightest movement of a finger, twist of her hips, twirling in the wind as the insense burn; and at night, when they pack up to go home, she cooks him his favorite meal, they toast with some good red wine (Husch Pinot, preferbly), and then he fucks her brains out.

I'm not so inclined to find out what they are really like outside of what I know of them...I prefer to just have them live my imagination and periodically confirm their existence when I see them on the promenade...it's better that way, much more interesting...yes, sometimes i do have the urge to go talk to her, find out what they are really like, but then i realize i rather not cross that line, and the mystery of it all really is quite envigorating to me.

Actually, I started this entry about a month ago, never got around to finishin it, partly because i dont' want to screw it up, so i waited...tonite, for some reason, i felt like it was time, maybe it's cuz i went and got high with Tara and went to see Garden State after work that inspired me, maybe it's cuz pretty woman is now on TV and everybody knows it's the best bg movie to blog to ;)

lord of the four rings

2004-08-15T02:02:00.000-07:00

today was one of the funnest days i've ever spent hanging out with a bunch of strange guys...woke up around 10ish, showered, got dressed and hopped into my car and headed down to Pacific Audi in torrance to meet up with the guys from scc audi club for a day filled with car talks, car guaking, and most importantly, driving :)

As I pulled into the parking lot, my eyes lid up as an array of audis have already started to fill up the parking lot -- a nagalro b5 S4, a dolphin b6 S4, a heavily mod silver b5 A4, RS6, TT, A6 2.7T, Blk b6 A4 with rigger kit....ahhhh, this is gonna be fun :)

The first hour or so was spent meeting the group, chatting up around our favorite topic -- our cars, our shared passion for it, and opinions for all others on the road...we were then introduced to the master mechanic (RS6 specialist) in the garage where he proceeded to show us some of the cars they are working on: a 3.2L DSG TT roadster, b6 A4 Avant, A8L, and a neuspeed TT coupe; to our disappointment, the '05 A6 was not on site as it had been taken away for the show "nip and tuck"...I guess I'm gonna have to wait til it comes out officially in Oct/Nov. On the upside, I won this beautiful red Audi Sport mug in a raffle, which is now sitting proudly on my office desk.

Then the fun started, we began our rally up towards Malibu. First it was a fun game of chase on 405 as we weave in and out of traffic trying to keep the caravan in formation, once onto the 10, i took off and raced up front to snatch the first parking spot at our rally point -- the chevron station off of PCH just before Malibu. After a quick fill up for some of the cars, the caravan filed away and headed towards Topanga Canyon, where the real fun began.

My Caravan consisted of 5 cars, with the A6 2.7 T and a S4 leading the way, a TT and A4 Cab behind me. After quickly forcing the Suburban off the road, we had a brief stretch of fun with S-turns one after another...until we were slowed once again by a late model Saturn, whom actually played along with us to its best ability through the rest of the canyon...it was a beautiful ride, with the mountain on one side, and the canyon on the other, truly stunning...if you haven't driven through the topanga canyon, i'd highly recommend it, it's basically 15 miles of endless twists and turns...if the road could only be blocked on both sides as to not allow slow cars to come through, then it would really be a lil slice of heaven.

At the end of the drive, we gathered at a coffee shop off of Mulholland known as the local hang out for euro tunners, where the owner has readied complimentary deserts, as well as goodies --a book on the history of Audi, a miniture model of the b5 A4 (i got one in the pearl white color, exactly like my old '98 3.0), CD, key ring, and a digital tire pressure monitor. OMG, this is fucking awesome! And of course, we just had to line up our rides for a photo op in this beautiful sunny SoCal afternoon, Mine is the shinny black one on the right.

The drive then resumed up the canyon towards the infamous Stunt Rd. The road to the top of Stunt is anothe series of uphill twists and turns, only this time, the turns sharper, the twists bigger and more rapid...this is a challenging course, where according to the guys, one of the S4s flew off the clift on one of the trips and had to be lifted out of the canyon, luckily, he lived to tell the tale...with that in mind, i found myself suddenly a lil more nervous than I had been before, i mean, that would be a shitty way to end a day...and once we got on the hill, with no traffic in front of us, within matters of seconds, the 2 S4s in front of me just disappeared up the mountain, which left me a little more nervous as now I have to not only make sure I don't over-drive and plunge off the cliff but also making sure I don't hold up the traffic behind me...I've NEVER felt so nervous driving in the hills before, it usually is pure joy for me, but not today, my palms were sweaty, my eyes wide open, trying to keep my concentration on the road, make the correct turn in, accelerate out of the apex, down shift, up shift...finally, we are at the top of the hill, put the car in park, woooooosh...wow, what an exhilarating drive!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the top of the Stunt, overlooking the ocean on one side and the canyons on the other, trading war stories, turning over to check out the cars and bikes speeding up and down the canyon...we headed back down the hills for one last fun ride in the endless Sssss as the sun started to slowly inch towards the hills.

it's been a while...

2004-08-10T01:26:00.000-07:00

since i last blogged, between work and entertaining my mom, i've been keeping pretty busy...so i really haven't had the time to...and to be honest, every time i thought about sitting down and blogging i was always like but what am i gonna blog about, i mean i don't have any interesting stories about new girls i went out with, nor do i have any desire to indulge in a philosophical debate about why my people sound like they are fighting all the time when they talk, nor do i have any mid-late 20s delimas that i need to hatch out...yes, korean, compared to your blogs, my blogs are pretty boring, and i guess, my life at this point to a certain degree...

yet, i feel quite content, i mean, not too long ago, i was that guy that partied all the time, always had different girls on the horizon, whom my friends lived vicariously through...now, I am on the other side of the lense...nowdays, i really just look forward to the simple joys in life, so much so that even an extended visit from my mom has me yearning to get my "life" back -- coming back from a busy yet fruitful day of work, whip up something i like to eat (haven't had to do that lately since mom's been visiting), and just chill in front of the TV and watch my favorite car shows, races, and catching a good movie; and on the weekend, waking up late, fixing myself a good egg scramble, stroll down to the farmer market in my kung fun pjs, let the sun shine on my bald head, read a good book in the park, ride my bike down to venice, lay on the beach, go for a short swim when it gets too hot, have a cigarette as i walk pass the dancers on the promenade...that is all.

in some ways, i've always been lucky in that i think i understand what is important in life -- and it's hard to describe really, but i think the swedes really got it right, it's the luke-warmness that defines their culture. while i strive to be successful in what i do, money and power is not what drives me; while i love to have fun and enjoy life, i do not let that dominate my time; while i understand the importance of practicing fiscal management, i do not hesitate to reward myself with things that make me happy; of course, the importance of these different elements are different for everyone, but i think the key is to find that balance for yourself, find...your happy place...granted, that is not to say i don't have my issues, headaches, but i keep them in check...and remember to live in the NOW, not the past, and not the future. simply living in the NOW. and now, it's time to go to bed.

my mom is japanese

2004-07-31T23:45:00.000-07:00

i swear, if you didn't know, you'd think she's japanese too...i mean, all old asian ladies look alike to begin with, so she could have easily been mistaken as japanese on any given day...but particuarly tonite, when she's snapping away at each street performer eagerly with her digicam, moving to capture the action from different angles, inching closer to get a better shot, and checking her camera with a satisfying look on her face...and of course i kept 10ft away while she did this, god forbid if ppl thought i was a japanese tourist too! but i'm glad she's having fun...and yes, mom, they do this every day and every nite; and no mom, they are not all homeless.

Ecsentric

2004-07-30T00:25:00.000-07:00

was a good concert...and THAT was a fun night!

Sometimes I wish I had a fat ass...

2004-07-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

right now is one of those times...if i had a fat ass, i wouldn't be hurting from my 2hr bike ride now, in fact, come to think of it, a fat ass comes in handy in many situations: a long road trip, a long movie, a long flight...basically any situation involving prolonged sitting on uncomfortable seats.

so yep, i finally got a bike...i decided not to wait any longer, especially after a couple of trips to attws and waiting for the imcompotent fucks that "work" there to exchange the phones that for watever reason just refuse to work in my apt, despite the fact that they can snap pictures and gave me about 30 min's of "oh cool, i got new toy" high...i realized it's just plain stupid to wasting my $ on something that will probably be replaced with the next cooler and better version in about 3 month, not to mention the fact that it doesn't even work properly -- ok, maybe that's really the fault of my apt, but anyway, the point is...money can be better spent

so i woke up and drove down to sports chalet in mdr, and there it was, sitting right there in the middle of the showroom, like a champion race horse, well, a mongoose, actually. fast foreward, couple of hours later, i was on the beach path, riding alongside pacific, with the sun shining, gentle ocean breeze over my newly aero-dynamic head (oh, ya, i've just went back to ganster do, shaved and dangerous, it's summer time you know), and music blasting in the headphones... THIS is why i moved down here...i first headed north, turning around when the bike path came to an end somewhere in malibu (right before topanga canynon i believe)...i then headed down to venice, making my way pass all the stupid tourists and valley ppl not understanding that the bike path is for ppl to bike on and not for you to have a pre-beach meeting...finally i arrived at the venice flea market, where, i parked my bike and walked down to the beach where the drummer gathered. it kinda felt like being on the playa, except it's not a 120 degrees and in the middle of the desert...but the hippies, drummer, ganja in the air were all present. they mostly drummed in their own lil groups of 3 or 4, forming their own rhythm, but every now and then, the different beats from each group come together and form this harmonic session, and those moments brought me back to black rock city...the sun started to fade behind the hills as i got back on my bike and headed home.

Original or Crispy?

2004-07-18T23:48:00.000-07:00

Crispy would be my current state...i think they call it over-exposure to the sun, in another words, i got sun-burnt like a roasted pig...it wasn't until i saw myself in the mirror after returning from a lovely afternoon on the beach did i realize, oh shit, i did it again, i done did it again, i burnt meself...But the damn bottle said it's water proof!!! fucking liars! false advertising! aside from my entire front side outside of my swim trucks area a nice glowing red and tender to the touch, it was a beautiful afternoons. if it wasn't for the planes flying by with the banners saying "Ali G season premier" & "Sale at some local store", and the big glaring sign above the traffic on PCH that says Santa Monica, I have totally forgotten where I was. The white sandy beach, blue sky, pounding waves, and princess nubian in my ear...i just as well have been at a beach in barcelona, ibiza or puhket...it really felt like a vacation, and complete with the sun burnt too.

The rest of my sunday evening consisted of walking down to Wild Oats and picking up some much needed Aloe Vera, then stopping by T's Thai to pcik up some Tom Ka Kai and Rad Nar -- despite the fact they almost let somebody else walk away with my food, it was actually quite good, and the waitress was cute, altough she was way stressed out, poor girl. Then it was Ali G (the banner did work on me), Chris Rock and Entourage, Autoweek, WRC, etc...I do love my digi cable, can't wait til they have TVR. now here i am, half past midnite, blogging as I wait for my laundry to be finished, and of course, motorsport mundial in the bg (speed channel rules)

sleepless in santa monica

2004-07-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

i can hardly remember when i first got in touch with my insomniac side...i guess it must have been in college, the first time in my life i was really able to fuck around, hang out, watch TV or occasionally before tests, study til as late as i wanted to be...it sorta became a habit after that, i like the quiet of the nite, knowing that the rest of the world is at rest, but me, wide awake, as i am right now, letting my mind wonder...and what choice do you have when "A Bronx Tale" comes on at 2am in the morning, you just have to watch it! you know???!!! and you know what i really like, in fact, i really miss, are those all niters...where by 2am, you are only 2 and half pages deep, knowing full well you will not be sleeping tonite, so fuck it, let's smoke another bowl, let's start a debate on god knows what, oh shit, let me get back to my paper...then as you have pretty much given up any hope of putting together any sentence that remotely makes an intelligent point and decide to "borrow" some words and making the paragraph spacing DOUBLE....ah yes, it's almost there...and the sky outside the window is getting light now, you can almost feel the wetness in the air, you can definitely hear the freshness of the day, and take a deep breath, it tastes good, it's the morning air, and oh wait, i can still catch a 2 hr nap before class starts, of course, i'd run the risk of not waking up from this nap, but what the fuck, a wise man once said rest is important, or something like that...

i miss those days...

you just can't really do that anymore, now that i have a "real" job, gotta get good rest, so i can gather up enough strength to get myself out of the bed in the morning and start the busy day...yep, that means must be in bed by 2am, oh shit, it's 10min past 2 now, ooooops, oh well, i was gonna hit the snooze button for half hour anyway...i will survive.

really now, it's time to go to bed...

oh wait, did i tell you i had to guard syrus from the real world boston today during my co-worker organized basketball league today...i sucked, played soft, made mistakes, i haven't played in so long...he's a big fucking dude, wat a mis-match...i guess this is my first "celebrity" run-in...woopeeediiidooooo, and oh ya, he's sweaty.

my first blog

2004-07-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

well, i feel like i've finally caught up to the times...my first blog...maybe i was inspired by the blog of the sgrt whatever hisface in people w/ his experience in iraq, maybe i was inspired by my friends blogs about his drunken mistakes, maybe i just wanted to write again...in any event, here i am, blogging.

maybe this will become a sunday tradition of sorts, altough i was planning on going down to infusion, get my boba, and take advantage of the free wi-fi and sit in the sun while i blog, but as my luck will have it, having spent yesterday afternoon in ikea completing my home office set up and figured that "oh, sunday will be nice too", i missed out on the first real summer day here in santa monica...i could have been lounging on the beach or palisades park soaking in the rays, reading "me talk pretty one day" (by the way, David S just came out with a new book...i think i'm gonna have to get that once i finish reading mtpod)

so, instead of sunny and beautiful and 78 degrees, today is gloomy and cold...but in a way, it's the kind of sunday weather i've always had a soft spot for, it's one of those times you put on etta james, some nice breakfast at 2:30pm, perhaps a bath(wish i had a joint;) and maybe a white russian....hmmmm...a good sunday...but none of the above is currently taking place right now, instead, i'm bloggin for the first time...but you know what, it feels good, in fact, i think it might be added to my new sunday tradition.

time flies, it really does, now i've been in santa monica for just over a month now, wow, what a busy month it's been, after spending 2 wks in the dreadful pink palace, i was elated to have lucked out and found the "almost" perfect pad, 2 blks from the waterfront, and 2 blocks from the 3rd st prom (well, i think the touristy prom has already started to get on my nerves though...but it is a nice neighborhood regardless, and it is damn convenient, altough i'm no longer much of a shopper, not counting my weekly visits to ciruit city of course) i love being able to walk to the palisades park after work, breathe in the ocean...laying on the grass under the sun on saturday, and biking on the beach with the wind in my face and the occasional hottie passing by, and the sat. morning farmers market, etc, etc...

me hugry now...gonna eat, maybe even finally get to my bath, shower...hmmm

Hainan -- lazy china man's heaven

2003-06-19T01:38:00.000-07:00

why do i say this you ask? cuz it's true, of course!!!
life is fucking easy for a man in Hainan...it's
actually known as one of the infamous oddities of
Hainan -- Most native Hainnan men don't work,
instead, they sit around, drink tea, play ma-jiang all
day, and the women would be out working in the fields,
climing coconut trees, selling mangos to bring home
the rice. weird, isn't it? especially coming from
living in enviroments where if a man made less dough
than the woman, his preceived penis size seems to
decrease. anyway, it's not a bad lifestyle though at
all for the man...after oberving the above fact, i
seriously started considering movin' to Hainan. but
then looking at the older Hainnan woman -- dark,
dried, wrinkled, shruken, smelly -- i decided against
making such a move. i mean, common, do i really want
my wife ending up like such??? it'll be too
embarassing.

ok, so lemmme back track and bring you along with me
on my trip to Hainan:

Day 1 (6/12) -- our plane landed in Haiko in the
afternoon, the moment we stepped out of the AC'd
airport, the heat wave hit us smack in the face,
DAMMMM, it's hot in herrrrrrrrrrr...the humidity and
heat combination is sorta like the Bahamas. anyhow,
wei's old commerade is now stationed in haiko, who's a
captain in the transportation div...so we were greeted
by 2 uniformed PLA soldiers, who then took us to
downtown and put us in the hotel opened by the army,
pretty nice place, actually, and refused to let us pay
for the room, insisting "it's an order from our
superior"...i really admire soldier's approach to
things...so simple, orders, obey them, done. no
deviations.

did i mention it's hot in herrrrr? god, it's hot in
herrrr...i can't seem to stop sweating, it's really
kinda nasty. Dinner was at this popular seafood mart
by the water, where you'd pick out fishes, crabs, and
shrimps and whatever else from the tanks you might
desire, they'd kill them right there on the spot and
bring it to your table...i love my ppl, this is how we
got SARS dammmit!!! we acutually ate our dinner on the
boat, it was quite nice, delicious seafood, amazingly
cheap of course, and bunch of sweaty topless men
sitting at tables next to us, quite appetizing...

after dinner, we went...ok, we went kareoke...god, i
have done this in like 10 years...i always thought it
was too much of an asian thing for me to do and
refused to do it...besides, it's not like i had any
chine friends in the states that i can go do this
with, sniff, sniff...anyway, not to be bragging,
everybody was blown away by my singing ability...i
know, i know, it's hard to believe, i couldn't believe
it myself either, but once the songs came on, i
actually remembered how to sing them! i really got
hooked, i sang like 5 songs in a roll, totally hogging
the mic...i felt like a star that nite...

Day 2 -- had breakfast for 5 rmb and it was so fukin
good...we then got on the bus and headed towards Qiong
Hai, another seaside town...after having our temp
checked like 5 times, we were allowed into the hotel.
Quickly changed out of our sweat drenched cloth (i
know, TMFI), we headed out for water rafting in Wan
Quan River...it was absolutely beautiful, rolling
green hills, palm trees, water falls, water oxes
chillin', fishman on their tiny boats, all the things
i dreamed of...although the rapids weren't exactly
exciting, the scenaries are well worth the while.

dinner turned out to be an interesting event, we ate
at this seafood resturant, and when the shrimp we
ordered showed up, les just say it was not exactly
delicious...pissed off, we called the waitress over
and started complaining, the lil waitress went away
saying to ask the boss and came back with not much of
a solution, so we started the the convo all over
again, and again, nothing...after about 3 rounds of
battling...the manager finally showed up at our
table...in the end, we were victorious and were able
to make them exchange the nasty shrimp for another
fish dish...although by the time the new fish arrived,
we were already full from all the other food, we
decided we must enjoy the fruit of our hard work and
stuffed our faces anyway :)

we then went to this place that served all kinds of
shaved ice, and ice drinks and deserts for like 5 rmb
while you sat on swing chairs...it was moooooy coool.

dat nite, we decided to go enjoy life like the locals.
the girl at the front desk pointed us to Wan Quan
Riverside...it turned out to be a bunch of family
operated jucie bar/kabob/kareoke place outdoors...a
pretty good biz idea if you think about it: you sit by
the river outside, sign a song for 1rmb, while you
wait, you can order all kinds of kabobs for 1rmb, and
since they are all drenched in hot pepper, you'd get
thirsty and can order a pitcher of drink for
4rmb...needless to say, i relived my new found kareoke
startom, and showed the locals how it's done...it was
a blast.

Day 3 -- in the mornin, we jumped on the bus and set
out for San Ya, in my opinion, the most beautiful part
of Hainan...once we got off the bus and as we are
walking towards the hotels by the water, a taxi
started following us, at first, we ignored him,
thinking he's just a biz hugnry stalker like many
others, well, ok, he is...but he turned out to be a
pretty decent guy...so the way it works in Hainan is
you'd just hire one of these taxi driver/tour guide
for 100rmb a day and he/she will take you all over the
place, wait for you, eat with you, take pictures for
you, play with you, sleep with you...ok, ok, i kid
about the last 2...anyway, we decided to splurge and
got a ocean front room at a 4star hotel for what you'd
pay at a local holiday inn. it was beautiful...that
day, our tour guide took us to Wu Zhi Zhou Island, an
island previously occupied by the navy, now leased by
a bunch of developers and opened to public...it was
absolutely amazing...it once again reminded me of the
bahammas...white sandy beaches, clear blue water, palm
trees, except here we have a lotta chine ppl and
peacocks roaming around. after scuba diving(which was
absolutely amazing for you diving fans) and jetsking,
we headed back to the mainland for swims in the
natural hot springs...it was like a couple of giant
outdoor swimming poors that are warm 24/7...of course,
they also had private rooms that can be rented out,
which, we were told, are where "bisness" is conducted.
hmmmmmmmm

Next morning, we went to another famous tourist
attraction, Lu Huei Tou, it's basically this scupture
set on top of the mountain overlooking the San Yan
pennisula, and the legend behind it is that once upon
a time, a young hunter was following a deer whom he
shot in the ass, and when he got up close to the
wounded deer, it had turned into a beautiful girl, of
course, they fell in love, yadi yaddda...i know,
pretty lame story, huh...it's basically a place with
pretty scenaries and lots places for lovers to take
pictues under various stones inscribed with good-luck
type writings...as a result of SARS, there were like
no one there.

In the afternoon, we went to the ultimate attraction
of them all -- Tian Ya Hai Jiao, or Lands End, all it
is just 2 stones with those words carved on them, and
set at the southernest spot on the island...a very
sentimental spot, but the romance of it is often
overshadowed by the annoying woman/kids trying to sell
you seashells and other crap. anyway, it's one of
those places that you just have to go to if you are
there...

yep, das about it, i'm sure yal tired of reading by
now, and i'm pretty tired of writing too...time to go
eat some bibimbok, and get on that plane to sfo...i'll
be home soon, my friends...so long, china, so long,
korea...

Have you checked your temperature lately???

2003-06-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

Greetings,

ahhhhhhh, after a beautiful, and very very very hot 3
days in Hainan, I am now back in the capital of
SARS...well, ok, now that the whole SARS thing is
pretty much under control, perhaps i shouldn't call it
that anymore...but one thing that definitely stood out
from my trip to Hainan that undoubtly reminded me
constantly that SARS is still a threat to national
security in China ( i guess it could be the equivalent
of an AMBER alert in the states -- stupid whities), is
the frequency and variety of ways which my temperature
was taken at various points of the trip:

Point'n'Case:

1. Before getting on the plane to Hainan -- please
fill out health report form, have temperature checked
via a lil infra-red hand-held scanner pointed to the
forehead by port authority, provide contact info, temp
= 36.5...I'm in the clear.

2. Plane landed in Hainan airport -- before we are
allowed to unboard the plane, a team of health care
professionals wearing head to toe whites and of
course, masks and gloves, (looking like they just came
from the set of OUTBREAK) comes onto the plane and
adminsters temperature check, once again, the forehead
variety, to the entire passenger population, before
anyone is allowed to get off the plane. 36.4, wooo,
once again, i'm good.

3. Checking into hotel -- STOP, before you can even
touch the key, please fill out this form and put the
thermometer under your armpit for about 5 min. -- 36.4
again, i'm cool.

4. Getting on a greyhound-like bus to go to a
different city...guess what, of course, time to fill
out that oh so familar health report form, get your
temperature checked, yadiyadaaaa...ok, 36.3,
hmmmm...am i getting colder???

couple of hours later, pit stop on the way, bus stops,
an offical comes onto the bus, looking at a name list
in his hand, then looked at us --
"you 2! you 2 are from Beijing?"
"uhhhhh, yaaaaa??!!"
"OK, please get off the bus and fill out form again!"

oh god, here we go again, so, off the bus we go, fill
out health report form, check temp, yadiyaddaaa...sam
shit

5. Paying a visit to a famous natural hot spring --
STOP!!! before you can even enter the gate, please,
take a wild guess!!??? yep, fill out form time again,
this time, the nurse sticks a lil thing into my ear,
and declared 36.2....hmmmm, i'm begining to wonder if
i'm getting sick, i keep getting colder...

6. Getting back on the plane to go back to Beijing, of
course, fill out the same fucking form, but wait, this
time, they take a lil barcode scanner and scanned my
hand, luckly, i don't have a fever...maybe i don't
even have a temp anymore??? why don't they just put a
lil chip inside everyone that constantly reports temp
to the central computer and call it a day, damn
communists.

7. lastly, when you are actually getting through
customs at Beijing airport, as you walk through the
gate, rather than the "normal" webcam style body temp
scanner, you see a infra-red-heat image of yourself on
a huge flat pannel display as your walk by, parts of
your body that's warmer is red, others are
green....kewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwlllllllll.

the list goes on and on, the point is, just about
every where you go, airport, bus station, hotel, book
store, park, you are constantly being checked for
temp...and if you are from beijing, be prepared to be
pulled off the bus to stand in the corner...and just
short of having a thermometer stuck up my ASS in
public, I've pretty much had my temperature checked
every other way...But it's all for public safey i
suppose, besides, it was fascinating to see the
variety of technology out there now to check temp and
avoid the uncomforatble and embarassing rear entry.

but rest assured, i don't have SARS, at least not yet
:) ... i was going to write about the actual trip, and
believe me, i can't wait to tell yal all about it cuz
it was sooooo much fun, but it's getting late and i'm
very tired now, so i'm gonna have to postpone that
until tomorrow or something.

until then, please go home and check your temperature
and think of me when you do so,

peace, love and 36.2 still

Long Time No See, Chairman Mao!!!

2003-06-11T01:28:00.000-07:00

My Dear Fellow American Friends,

Ever since I landed in my motherland earlier this
week, it's been a whirlwind of great food, chinese
beers and visits to historical sites as well as some
more modern ones -- the mall for example.

To quickly bring you up to date on recent travels,
here's a day by day:

Sat. -- landed in Beijing Capital Intl. Airport around
11am, much to my surprise, not many ppl are wearing
masks...it seems like since SARS is pretty much under
control, ppl have finally decided it's ok to breath
the lightly poluted air again. Later on in the
afternoon, checked into the hotel of my
choice...nothing fancy, a queen bed, cable TV, AC, and
unfortunately, a smelly toilet -- but mind you, this
is a western style "sit-down" type john...and to be
fair, the chinese squat kind is actually more
santinary as your ass never comes in contact with
anything...however, i completely understand and
sympathize with you balance and squat challanged
peeps...it's not for everyone :) in the evening, we
sat out by Xi Dan square, enjoying bowls of red-bean
shaved ice, watching tons of my peeps roaming around,
quite a sight really...sitting there, all of a sudden,
i felt a strong sense of pride...after spending the
past 11 years of my life stateside...i became
accustomed to the american life style...work, go out
and drink, and everbody goes to their perspective
homes...not much community time otherwise...here, life
is different...although it is a buzzling mega city,
the pulse of it seems to be a little slower, calmer...
all kinds of ppl are out walking around, sitting
around the square chatting as the night falls on the
square, flying kites, playing badmiton, playing cards,
chinese chess, little kids chasing after each
other...all of these feels so initmate and familar. it
really is good to be home.

Sun. -- woke up bright and early and set out to Xiang
Shan, a famous mountain in the greater beijing
area....after about 768 steps up the mountain, i find
myself standin at the top of the world, looking down
upon hills covered in green and the modern city afar,
breathing the misty air, and once again, my peeps are
playing cards, chess, badmiton...ADOMMMMMAAAA, das all
they ever do it seems. Lunch was at this Mongolian
style resturaunt, great food and lovely atmosphere,
waiters/waitresses wearing traditional mongolian
outfits...once again, amazingly cheap and delicious...

Mon. -- woke up and got breafast from the local muslim
food market, amazingly cheap great food...the avg
chine can have a great meal for about 5 RMB, which is
about 60cents...ate my bao and tofu as I watched the
live broadcast of the NBA final, quite interesting
really...the rest of the day is rather uneventful,
just ran a lotta errands, books for mom and her
friends, and dad, etc. one observation though, as a
result of SARS, all kinds of innovative health care
tech. has sprun up in china...as you enter any major
store, you are politely asked to stand in front of a
webcam with a infra-red scan, which detects your body
temperature in 2 secs and takes a pic of you...and if
the red light does not come on, you are clear to go
ahead and shop...otherwise, you are likely to be
escorted away by security and send directly to the
hospital.

Tues. -- this morning, we set out to visit the summer
palace, where Ci Xi, the late Chinese Empress Dowegres
spent most of her time in her final days...the summer
palace conjures up a different mix of emotions all
together...a chinese equivalent of camp david, the
palace offers an insight into how the royal family of
the Ching dynasty lived...set on the outskirts of
beijing, the summer palace is made up principaly of
the long-life-hills and Qun Ming Lake, it's absolutely
drop dead gorgeous, not to mention it was a beautiful
day as well, light breeze...but when i see these, i
could't but help to also think about back in the day,
coalition armies fought into Beijing and burnt down
the palace and stole all the national treasures which
they are now proudly displaying in the museums,
BASTARDS!!!

Wed. -- Today is my most patriotic day thus far, and
probably for a loooooooooooog time. didn't sleep the
nite before, headed out to Tian An Men Square to watch
the flag raising ceremony at 4am in the mornin.
precisely at day break, a team of PLA soldiers and
band marched out of the forbitten city and settled
themselves around the flag pole in a robotic
precision. then the band started the national anthem,
in fact, it was playe 3 times before the full flag was
flying at the top of the square...a sense of national
pride again surged as i watched the flag go up...i am
chine after all. After a quick nap, it was time to
pay Mao a long-over-due visit. Mao looked smaller and
yellower then i had expected wrapped in the communist
flag...kinda creepy really...didn't actually get a
chance to converate with the old man, but....das ok.
We then went to Tian Tan, yep another iconic
attraction of Beijing...sorta overated actually.

Lunch was the best part of the day:
fried pan cake = 2 RMB
cold noodles = 3 RMB
soy milk = 1 RMB
sitting on the steps of a busy shopping center eating
lunch like a peasant workers...I felt strangely happy.
= PRICELESS

Thurs. -- this would be the start of my lil vacation
w/ vacation...we are going to Hai Nam,the chinese
equivalent of Hawaii...it should be very lovely.

well, dat is all for now, i'm really tired now,
haven't slept in a long time now, time to go to sleep

so until next time,

this is china boy reporting live from Beijing.

much love,

incheon, incheon, numba von

2003-06-06T01:27:00.000-07:00

incheon intl airport in seoul, korea has to be one of
my favorite airports in the world...it's totally
modern, bright, clean, with free internet access
virtually everywhere you turn, not to mention
ammenities such as video game rooms, shower, massage
and prayer rooms...and i must point out that at this
very moment as i'm sitting in front of the computer
typing away, the TV next to me is blasting some korean
hip-hop music video...THIS is truly priceless! in
fact, it just got better, on M.net (i'm assuming it's
the korean equivalent of MTV), they are showing this
korean hip hop video with ppl dressed up in
traditional korean outfits singing some hip hop song,
busting out an insync style dance routine...i'm diggin
it....dude, this just keeps getting better, now this
korean dude with an afro and hair pick in it is
rapping, seems like the korean biggie or
something....and i think he just said negga??!!
hmmmmmmmmmm

anyway, i've been at this airport since 5am this
mornin...when the resturants finally opened, got
myself a curry rice dish with kimchee, of
course...mmmm, it was dammm good, and only 6500 won!!!
now only 2 more hours to go, den i'd be on a plane to
my final destination...beijing.

for some reason, i don't feel as inspired to write as
i did last time i was here, maybe the novelty has worn
off, or maybe i'm just way too fascinated with this
korean mtv thing that i cannot concentrate...wow, come
to think of it, time really flies, it was just about 7
mo. ago, i was here, writing the first of the china
boy goes home series...now 7 mo. later, i'm back here
again...on my way to china...though this time around
the nature of the trip is quite different...

i feel the urge to comment on the korean culture, but
den i realize about the only exposure i have to korean
culture are the korean soap operas, the stuck up girls
that we see at asian nite clubs, my one korean friend
that eats a lot, and of course, this airport...so i
decided against doing such thing, as i am sure to
offend someone.

anyway, i will stop my babbling...this is not going
anywhere, neither am i...for another 2 hours at
least....yadiyada....

to be continued...

hot off the press -- China Boy Goes Home, Vol.4

2002-10-25T01:24:00.000-07:00

I must apologize for the delay in the publication of
this issue...i've been experiencing techinical
difficulties...in fact, the last time i sat down and
tried to do this, i spent an hour drafting it, then
the computer blew up on me, tried again on a diff
machine, an hour later...sam ting...at 2am in the
morning and having to wake up early the next day, i
decided to postpone it...

so anyway, here we go...since it's been a while, i
decided to forego the lesson-style journal, and just
do a day-by-day:

Tuesday:

Today i paid a visit to Zhou Zhuang (Zhou's Village,
about 2 hours bus ride from Shanghai), no, this is not
the place where this particular Zhou originated from;
nor is it named after my great-grand father...it is
actually known as "the No.1 Watertown in China", a
"Chinese Venice" if you will...

it's quite a beautiful lil town...

well, despite the fact that the moment you set your
foot in the town, you find yourself surrounded by
hundreds of
teeth-missing-old-peasant-woman-turned-tour-guides
offering for a mere 20 Yuan to accompany you
throughout the entire trip w/ the promise of
not-shutting up or leaving you alone for a minute,
whom simply would not take no for an answer and you
literally had to just stop saying "no, thanks" and
start running away quickly;

and despite the eagerly awaiting resturant hostesses
at every other 5 steps trying to convince you that you
need to come in and dine:
"COME ON, COME IN SOME FOOO, IT ALMOS LUN TIMMM!!!"
"...no, thanks, we are not hungry..."
"COME ON, OUR FOOD VEDDY GOO, SIT DOWN N LET ME SHOW
YOU MENU!!!"
"...no, really, thanks, we just ate..."
"COME ON!!! EAT SOM MOOO!!! YOU SOOOO SKINNY!!!"
"....uuuhhh...we...GO NOW!"

and despite all the lil street vendors trying to sell
you some lil pieces of caca that look exactly the same
as the caca's from vendors from 3 steps up and 4
dstips down...

yet despite all that, it really is quite a beautiful
lil town...

river lined with weeping willows on both sides, lil
stone arched bridges connecting the neighbors, strings
of red-lanterns hanging off of grey-brick roofs,
sounds of woman boat-runners signing some
unrecognizable song in the distance...

The town came to existence 3000 years ago and have
since then produced many talented poets, artists and
rich bastards...it is a town built on water, much like
venice, boats are preferred choice of vehicle; unlike
venice, zhou zhuang makes a damn good pig
feet....mmmmmmmm

Wednesday:

Su Zhou is the destination today, about 1 hr train
ride outside of Shanghai, it's known for its natural
beauty and also beautiful woman...unfortunately, my
purpose of the trip is to visit my grandma's grave, no
cute girls there, not even live ones...

coming back to see my grandma for the fist time in 10
years, it meant that i had to bring extra spending
money for her (for those of you not familar w/ chinese
customs, when visiting the deceased, we bring them
paper money issued by the Bank of the Heavens, fruits
and sometimes home-cooked dishs as gifts to the
dead)...so there i was, burning up bags of $8 billion
BOF bills...found my eye watering...oh, wait, it's
just the smoke.

the most interesting discovery from this trip, i must
say, is that i figured out why i am such a chatter
box. After spending an entire day w/ just my uncle
and him only taking breaks from talking to sip tea
from his cup and eat, it all of a sudden dawned on
me...IT'S IN MY BLOOD!!! my uncle talks a lot, my mom
talks a lot...IT'S IN MY DNA!!! so there...it's not my
fault.

At nite, i took a long trip taking photos around ppl's
square, Bund, and Nan Jing Rd Pedestrian Shopping area
of the dazzling night lights, and god, Shanghai is the
most amazing looking city at night...it's like nothing
i've ever seen before, it's simply breathtaking, and
it's ten times better than NY...i have plenty of
photos to prove it...

Thursday:

Woke up bright and early today at 6:30 to go to Long
Hua Temple, thinking it will be relatively empty...but
lil did we know, it was the 15th of the month on lunar
calendar, so by the time we got there, it was already
a sea of old ladies bowing, praying, and pushing to
get closer to the buddha...i really just liked the way
the incense smelled.

Afterwards, we went to the Revolution Soilders
Memorial Park next door, and just so happened to
witness the Citizenship Ceremony for a big group of
high schoolers (when you turn 18, you legally become a
citizen and they have this ceremony)...when the
national anthem started playing in the morning sun, I
found myself singing along it as if i was young again,
sniff, sniff...no seriously, it was a touching moment.

We then had lunch w/ our old neighbor and visited his
penthouse apt in downtown Huai Hai Rd which looks over
the entire city, and later visited my mom's old
student's new home in Pu Dong that's more modern than
the american versions later on in the evening, which,
together, offered a good insight on how the
upper-middle class (which, did not even exist when i
left 10 years ago) now live and play...quite a change
in deed...a good indication that this country is no
longer a communist state...in fact, i think the very
moment Chinese ppl became able to "lease" land from
the state, thereby having "property" of their own,
communisim ("property-less-ism") has been tossed aside
in exchange for economical development...sorry to get
political on yal.

Later on in the night, I decided it was time for me to
go and explore Shanghai's night scene. After doing my
research and pin-pointed a couple of interesting
discos...i was on my way...

first stop...Rojam...it sucked!!! the venue is
located on the top floor of a shopping center on Huai
Hai Rd (Shanghai's 5th ave)...while the space itself
is nicely done, the music sucked, the crowd was wack,
and 10 mins after i got there, all the music stopped
and they began their "main event" of the nite...they
pulled a couple of confused looking girls from the
crowd and began to give them make-overs...yadiyadda,
that's when i decided to bail...it's hard to belive
that Paul Oakenfold actually played their a week ago.

next stop...Peagusus...this place turned out to be a
pleasant surprise...it was mostly hip-hop, with some
reggae and dance-hall, mixed crowd, chinse, white,
black, more like what i'm used to back home...but the
interesting part was to hear the black kids speak
fluent mandarin and even a lil Shanghainese...

case'n'point, after the party ended at 4am, i was
outside getting a lamb-kehbab from a street vendor for
2 Yuan, just after i ordered, a black guy came up to
the kehbab king and began in perfect Mandarin:
"how much are the lamb kehbabs?"
"5 Yuan!!!"
"and how much are the chicken livers?"
"2 Yuan"
"ok, i'll have 4 lamb ones and 5 livers...that's 30
Yuan, right?...and take your time and cook them
nicely"
"ok"
all the while speaking perfect mandarin, although he
still got taken advantage of blatantly...

in any case, the music was pretty good and i finally
got a chance to loosen my limbs and dance my ass off,
i actually met the guy that throws this party, Andre,
this guy from North Carolina...that's right, North
Carolina...and he's married to this lil Shanghainese
girl, whom along w/ her friends, are go-go dancers at
another party he throws on Friday nites...interesting,
huh?

Friday

Well, today's really just a day of packing, taking
care of last min. errands, meeting ppl, having dinner,
saying goodbyes as it is my last nite in Shanghai...i
leave for Beijing tomorrow...i was gonna go hang out
with Marc (carissa --- your international male model
friend/only foreigner bartender at Hard Rock/birthday
boy), but it got late and i opted to write my dear
friends this letter :)

oh, wait, i almost forgot, i did vist the Urban
Development Exhibition Center today, and they had this
huuuuuge scale model of Shanghai w/ every single
building as of 2008 (in fact, it holds the Guiness
world record as the largest city scale model EVER),
and it's crazy how much more is going to be developed
given the current state the city is in...it's going to
easily become one of the most modern and progressive
cities in the world, if it already isn't.

so here i am, near the end of my stay in Shanghai
after returning in 10 years, and i have to say i feel
a whirlwind of emotions all at once, what a difference
10 years make:
what used to be farm lands now is the new economic
development center of the country;
what used to be a place where you couldn't find any
dancing other than senior citizen waltz or ballroom
now you can go party all nite listening to popular
hits such as "What's love..", "Jin and Juice", and
"Ghetto Superstar", while black kids ordered kehbabs
in perfect mandarin paying 5 Yuan instead of 2 and lil
chinee guys breakdanced/battled;
what used to be a city filled with ppl, bikes and cars
that swamped the streets and have no regards of
road-rules, now...well, there are just a lot more of
them;

so, am i sad to leave Shanghai, you ask? no...i'm glad
to see it has taken such positive steps towards
becoming a more open and diverse city, giving its
citizens a better way of life and greater sense of
pride, while, at the same time, i sense lotta
underlying social and economical problems
lerking...which, i will not get into right now...right
now, i should be getting my ass to bed so i can fly to
beijing tomorrow...so rather than being sad, i'm just
eagerly looking forward to meeting this ancient
capital for the first time and more adventures to
follow, and i'll be sure to bring yal along with me,
whether you like it or not;)

so until next time...this is China Boy signing off in
Shanghai...I AM OUT OF HERE!!!

Beijing, here i come!

peace, love, and 5 Yuan kehbabs,

Greetings once again from the land of the steamed dumplings and cheap knock-off name brands

2002-10-21T01:23:00.000-07:00

hello, my beloved american friends...

i am here once again, sitting in front of a computer,
writing to you cuz i know you are all so eagerly
awaiting for my stories :) ok, ok, it's really just an
excuse for me to write about my experiences and trying
to make some sense of it...but i do hope you guys are
enjoying my ramblings and not "shit, it's another one
of his loong emails" :) well, even if it is the
latter, tough shit.

so let's see...what happened since last time...

well, i went up to the Pearl TV tower, the giant
needle w/ 2 big balls, one slightly bigger than the
other -- "hehe, that's what she said!" (if you haven't
figured out by now, my 2yr old humor is mandatory in
every msg) it was quite breathtaking...it was kind of
a foggy day, so we were almost among the clouds when
we were up there...checking out Pudong from birds-eye
view, it really puts the whole thing in perspective,
just to think that 10yrs ago, there was absolutely
nothing there other than rice patties and lil dirt
roads and 10yrs later, its a bustling modern city
filled w/ awe-inspiring high-rises and wide 10-lane
blvd's...it's quite amazing...it really made me think
about how this relates to our own lives...if you just
set out an goal and pursue it relentlessly, you can
turn shit into gold.

but frankly, what touched me more is where i went
after that -- the part of the city where i used to
live and play...before i got there, i totally thought
i would be able to trace my footsteps and perhaps even
be able to find my own way home...boy, was i wrong!!!
the entire area looks nothing like it did 10yrs ago,
gone are the old lil roads and street vendors selling
kebabs and smelly-tofu, instead, McDonald's and Pizza
Hut now reign free. Even my old high school, where i
thought might still remain somwhat the same, was not
even recognizable anymore...my old dirty classrooms
are gone, replaced by these brand new, state of the
art 4-level buildings, they even moved the main
entrance to a different side of the street, our old
dinning hall across the street that we used to run to
at the ring of the bell is now some stupid lil
factory...all these have made me quite sad actually, i
keep trying to close my eyes and picture where i used
to get stopped at the front gate and explain why i was
late to school again (yes, it's been a life-long
problem); where me and my buddies used to go and get
our after-school dim-sum; where the whole school used
to do 30min exercises in the morning to an old beat-up
weird sounding record; where girls used to chase us
around (i swear, they chased us, not the other way
around)...it almost brought tears to my eyes...and
when i got to our old apartment building(which, by the
way, is now kinda run down, and seems like one area
that was left somewhat untouched by this machine of
change), i didn't want to leave, i just wanted to be
there and let all the memories come back to me...that
time when i gave my cat a bath and he ran away(i still
think he might have been abducted); that time when i
tested out my home-made rocket laucher in the park;
and that time when i stumbled home drunk after having
my first bottle of Qing Dao...i tried to gain access
to get inside the apt, but the current tenant was
apparently scared off by my bald head and thought i
was a thug...he didn't let me in, BASTARD!!!

i must say that was my favorite part of the trip so
far, though it wasn't sunny and beautiful, in fact,
the pouring light rain actually set the mood quite
well for a very sentimental afternoon for the china
boy returning home...and i belive it's important for
us to be reminded of our past, of where we came from,
of who we are.

the next day (today), wasn't terribly exciting, it was
yet another day filled w/ never-ending great food,
shopping for things that actually are made to fit me
and buying them at below 1st costs.

so what are the lessons i learned this time around,
you ask? well, here they are...

lesson #5 -- when bargaining in china (whether you are
in the store or out on the street), take their asking
price and divide it by 3, present that as you offer,
start the negotiation there, and if you are not happy
w/ the counter offers, simply start walking...to help
you master this, here's a lil demo:

you: "How much is this?"
her: "ONLY TEEEEN DOLLA!!!!"
you: "mmmmm, how bout i give you 3 dolla?"
her: "WHAAAAAAAA? NO, NO, TEEEEEN DOLLA GOOD
PRI!!!...OK, I GIVE YOU 8 DOLLA!!! OK?"
you: "8 dolla??? no, how bout 4 dolla?"
her: "NO! NO! NO 4 DOLLA!!! 7 DOLLA?!"
you: "forget it...i don't want it!!!" (start walking
away)
her: "WAIT!!! YOU COME BACK!!! YOU COME BACK!!!
AWWWWWWW, YOU GOOD BARGAINER!!! PINE!!! I GIVE U 5
DOLLA!!!"
you: "ok, bag it up! thank you!" and you walk away
happy, and trust me, she's happy too...

it's all just a game that we play

lesson #6 -- when ordering a fresh fish dish in china
resturant in china, ALWAYS ask to see the fish
(because, if you don't ask for the fish, they might
use a frozen fish rather than a fresh one in the
kitchen); when presented w/ the fish, it is a good
idea to take an extrat pre-cautionary step by punching
the fish to death at the table so that they won't put
the fish back in the tank once shown and substitute w/
its frozen cousin.

ok, kids, it's time for me to go to sleep and you guys
to get to work...suckaaaa...sorry, didn't mean to rub
it in...ok, maybe a little...

i'm going to Zhou Zhuang in the morning, a lil ancient
town outside of Shanghai, its name literally
translates to "Zhou's Village"...i'm sure i'll bring
back some interesting stories...so until then, take
care of yourself and remember to check the fish before
ordering!

miss you all,

much love, peace and rice-liquor

Home again and wide awake at 4am in the morning...

2002-10-19T01:22:00.000-07:00

it's me again...are you surprised at how deligent i am
with this email update thing? well, the truth is, i'm
using this as sorta like a journal for me self, but
unfortunately for yal, yal gonna have to read my
random thoughts at 4 in the morning...

1st day back in 10 years 6 month and 15 days is quite
a crazy one...landed in the same airport as the one i
left 10 years ago, but nothing is the same...highways
that weren't even in existence back then, endless rows
of highrises that seem to have just sprouted out
overnight, big advertisement everywhere you turn
replaces the big red banners of propoganda, crazy
structures everywhere you look, yet, underneath it
all, something very familar remains, the people, the
noise, the misty rain, the smell of the air, the
unrully traffic, and did i mention tons and tons of
people??? damn, and they are 95%, no, wait, 99%
chinese...this is really kinda weird for me, as you
can imagine, after surrounding myself w/ anthing but
chinese peeps for the past 10years, i all of a sudden
feel a bit lost..where are my white-ghost friends, and
my ppl from all other shades of the rainbow? i miss
you guys and wish you could all be here....seriously,
you guys gotta come here with me next time, this place
is a fucking trip!

anyway, i quickly got over my culture shock when a big
bowl of wonton showed up in front of my face....mmmm,
the good food, THIS is why i came home. and food i had
a LOT of (korean, you'd be so proud of me) for our
"quick" lunch, i went beeerzerk(afterall, this is my
first meal back) i think i must have ordered half of
the menu...i want this, i want that, or wait, 2 of
these,mmmmmmm, god, the food is soooooo good here,
it's heavenly...after i properly stuffed my face w/
all my favorite dishes, i went around the city w/ my
17yr old cousin (whom, was 7 when i left!), started at
people's square, went down to Nan-Jing Rd (the busiest
shopping area in entire china), which looks nothing
like what i remember, went by the water, awed over the
amazing amount of development that have taken place in
the bund (this is where the Pearl TV tower and all the
other crazy highrises are, when i left, it was all
just farm land), then it was aboard this crazy lil box
cart, went through a tunel that felt like you are on
acid with all the lights flying around you...and next
thing you know, we were on the other side, looking at
the TV tower from up-close, the magnitude of it really
is quite amazing (hehe, that's what she said
:)...after wondering around the city for a good 4
hours, it was time again to eat...dinner!!! dinner was
at this huge, i mean huge resturant, i mean this
resturarnt is literally the size of pac-bell park, no
exageration...it was three stories, probably 1000 ppl
dinning, and i was told this is only 1 of the
thousands of new mega resturants in shanghai...THIS is
food heaven...dinner was ridiculous, it was your
typical chinese banquet, dishes just kept on coming,
one after another, all beautifully presented and
delicious...and when the bill came, it was equivalent
of a lunch bill...amazing...after dinner, we were
taken to see the city night lights, and this is a
truly amazing sight, i didn't have my camera with me
like a good tourist should, so i'll go back and snap
shots later and show it to you guys, but simply put,
it's more ritzy than new york, and at the same time,
has a certain mystic to it...and then, on the way back
to the hotel, i guess my body finally said "hey, what
the fuck are you doing, i've been up for 48 hours, i'm
going to sleep" and i passed out cold as soon as i hit
the bed...6hours later, 4am in the morning, here i am,
wide awake, writing this lil msg.

so what are the lessons of the day...well, let's see,
continuing from last time...

lesson #3 -- when you put a couple of million chinese
drivers that don't know how to drive and don't give a
fuck about road rules, add couple of million more
bicylists that don't give a fuck about road rules, and
millions and millions more pedestrians that obviously
don't give a fuck about any road rules or their lives
for that matter, what do you get? MAYHEM!!! trying to
cross the street here is a serious life and death
situation...one false move, you could find yourself on
the cold concrete outlined by chalk...there are horns
honking, bells ringing, whitsles blowing, breaks
squeaching, people cursing...it's ridiculous.

lesson #4 -- you know how they say shanghai has the
most beautiful girls, blahblah...where the fuck are
they? i'm not so impressed at all...at dinner, when
confronted w/ such issue and asked to pin-point a
pretty girl in the massive dinning hall, the only one
that i came up with was determined by all others as
"clearly not chinese", she must have been a
mid-eastern mix or a desi or something...god, i know,
i AM crazy...

well, it's 5 in the morning now, i think it's time for
me to go...i'm not sure if i'll be able to keep up
this level of intense reporting, but i will fo sho
try...and yal thought you were off the hook :)

until next time, from china, this is china boy
reporting live in Shanghai, the land of great food,
lots of noises, and tons of my short chine peeps.

much love, peace and wontons

Greetings from the land of kim-chee!!!

2002-10-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

yes, that's right...after a 12hour flight consists of
such inflight entertainments as "man in black II" and
a halirious chinese kun-fu movie to be named, as well
as a chatter-box older chinese single-serving
friend...i am now in the land where kim-chee run wild
and all ppl care about is their hairrr, carrr, and
their clo ;) so i thought i take this time and drop
you guys a quick note...well, not much has transpired
thus far, but as with all travel experiences, this one
is already full of life-long lessons:

lesson #1 -- old asian ppl are some of the most
ruthless creatures on this planet, and should be
revered and respected...seems to make perfect sense
coming from their perspective...i'm old, i don't speak
any english, so what if i cut in front of a line of 50
ppl waiting to be checked in, what the fuck are you
gonna do about it? puzzling, indeed.

lesson #2 -- when koreans say "spicy", they mean
"SPICY"...as i was dazzled by the array of quality
airport foods being presented here and not fully aware
of what i was getting myself into, i ordered "spicy
beef soup combo"...30 secs later, a big bowl of
chilli-pepper oil and a variety of red kim-chee showed
up on my table...let's just say, it woke me up
completely from my earlier nap and made me begin to
wonder if my insides are burning...quite a satisfying
feeling, really.

well, that's about it so far, it's almost time for me
to board my connection to Shanghai, in about 3 hours,
i will be back home!!! i'll try my best to keep yal
updated on my adventure...so until next time, take
care of yourselves, and each other (i'm quoting Mr.
Springer, by the way...and if you already knew this,
you watch too much trashy TV programing like i do)