that’s whacked

epicness

Thursday, Feb 22. 2007  –  Category: Outdoors, Travel

between MLK day, all the jurassic (home directory server) outages on tuesday & wednesday, and me leaving soon for a weekend of epic awesomeness in the snow at Park City, this has got to be one of my shortest work-weeks ever.

… for which i do feel guilty …

but i can’t help but be psyched for this weekend. i haven’t seen some of these guys in a while, and i’m looking forward to 3 days of boarding in the powder. i’ve only been up to tahoe twice so far this year in our winter-of-crappiness we’ve been having, so i’m feeling totally ill-prepared for this weekend. but oh well… i’ve got my asthma inhaler and a crapload of ibuprofen – i should be set, right?

the seoul shuffle

Monday, Nov 6. 2006  –  Category: Photos, Travel

had a fun day exploring seoul yesterday with my buddy raghu, who coincidentally happened to be out in seoul this very same week.

the day was gorgeous out (thankfully the weather forecast lied and it was completely sunny and warm). i’m a huge war buff, so we headed out to the Seodaemun Prison History Hall to see some exhibits on the Korean independence movement, and to learn a little more about the Korean War. along the way, we saw the requisite bit of engrish, and ended up walking around seoul for the rest of the day asking each other “didn’t you see my panty?”.

we wandered around the Insadong street shopping area, and had lunch at a place famous for its “doughy potato noodles” (they taste amazingly better than they sound), and an oyster pancake (also better than it sounds).

the famous hammering man statue was well… a hammering man. slightly underwhelming, and not worth the 2km walk.

we saw a street vendor with some pokemon puppets that were bouncing up and down to music. it was amazing. raghu and i stared and stared and could not for the life of us figure out how the thing worked. we plunked down 3000 won to buy one and see how it worked. after what seemed like an eternity of watching (though really probably about 10 minutes), we finally saw the tiniest thread of string running horizontally between the two speakers. the pokemon puppets were then attached to the string, which went into the speaker, and i presume were attached to the actual cone. so as the music played, the cone would vibrate, which sent waves through the string… which in turn caused the puppets to bounce.

amazing. and totally better than the hammering man.

stores/malls seem to have parking lots which have these little booths at the exits with cute girls in them. the girls wear a headset and have a huge speaker system, from which they bow and thank every car that leaves the parking lot. wow. i mean… just wow.

we also saw a really cool performance of an electronica/techno classical violinist in a metro station. he was accompanied by a gaggle of hot russian girls. go figure.

in the evening around dusk, we headed to seoul tower where we got some incredible 360° views of the city in the evening. we took the fun cable car ride up and down. on the way back, we wandered around the Myeong-dong subway station area trying to find this specific restaurant mentioned in the Lonely Planet that serves samgyetang (korean ginseng chicken soup). it was mentioned as being on the second floor, with no korean or english sign – but only chinese lettering. i can’t even begin to tell you how impossible it was to find this place. after 30 minutes of wandering around trying to map an out of scale map against the streets – we actually finally found the place.

the soup was amazing. totally worth the hunt.

initial impressions and random ramblings

Saturday, Nov 4. 2006  –  Category: OpenSolaris, OpenSource, Travel

got in to the hotel last night @ around 20:30.

• stayed awake the entire flight (watched 4 movies, synced up the PG gate to snv50, live-upgraded to snv51, reinstalled frkit, and failed miserably to write better documentation on the Teamware->Mercurial bridge. note to all fr4k users: lugging 3 batteries in your carry-on is totally worth it)

• once i got to the hotel, i did some much-needed stretching/not-really-yoga (i say not-really-yoga, because i don’t think traditionally yoga is practiced while drinking beer) to get my back unkinked from the flight.

• paid the ridiculous 25,000 W/day (~$28 US) for Internet access (what a rip-off. i should see when dp/jimgris get here if we can get adjacent rooms and use my travel wireless router i brought).

• wandered into the COEX Mall late last night (~11pm?) to try and find some grub (of the edible kind, not the boot loader kind. wow. it was still pretty busy. ate some soba, and wandered through the arcade, where i had the following random three observations:

  • is it common for couples to wear matching or identical shirts/outfits?
  • girls play arcade games.
  • why is everyone so dressed up?

• i punched-in to Sun’s network, latency to sfbay is pretty reasonable… and was greeted by a flurry of messages through friday of various opensolaris.org machines being down, non-responsive, etc. etc. looks like i picked a good day to miss work

anyway. it’s 7:37am sunday morning here. i just had some great coffee at the breakfast buffet downstairs and i’m waiting for a friend to get here (who also happens to coincidentally be in Seoul this week) so we can go checkout the city.

i’m torn. should i go to the knife museum? or the kimchee museum? both are supposed to be wonderfully weird and wacky.

bangkok

Monday, Feb 28. 2005  –  Category: Travel

is it sad that everytime i think of Bangkok, the first thing that comes to mind is Tom Shane (of the Shane Company commercials we hear on the radio all the time here in the SF Bay Area) talking about how he goes to Bangkok every 3 months to purchase rubies and sapphires?

sad isn’t it?

anyway. so this is the conclusion to my travelog of my month in Taiwan/Southeast Asia. we spent the last 3 days of our travels in Bangkok, Thailand – doing… well, a lot of shopping. Ah Bangkok, home of the 95 degree heat and humidity. home of the wonderful air conditioned shopping malls. home of the INSANELY huge Chaktoochak (I’m sure I misspelled that somehow) open air market. home of countless night markets. home of strangely attractive transvestites.

we didn’t visit a single palace or temple or museum. National Palace? nope. skipped it. Temple of Dawn? nope. skipped it. Lucky Buddha temple? nope. skipped it. seriously, all we did was shop.

we stayed at this great little place called La Residence. what a wonderful place! it was a really cute little hotel with great clean rooms (it’s small, only 24 rooms). it’s run by some great ladies, with some really helpful staff. everyone spoke great English and were really really helpful with lots of local info, and tons of guidebooks/maps to give to us. definitely highly recommended. it’s really close to the Patpong area, 5 min. walk to a BTS station, and is just overall a great place.

upon arriving we went out in search of glasses. i finally bought a pair of wrap-around prescription sunglasses (can’t get them in the states w/ my prescription due to optometrists being scared of the liability). and wendy got a pair of eyeglasses.

then we started hardcore shopping. bought lots of great little wooden trays for our house, a gorgeous (and big) wooden vase. we of course bought lots of clothes, and wendy went shoe-crazy. anyway, i won’t dive into it – but suffice it to say Bangkok has some great shopping, and some awesome night markets. bargaining was fun as always, though i think not as fun as in China.

in China, the vendors treat it like a game. they size you up, and then basically throw out a ridiculous #. the Thai do this as well, but they seem to be more serious about it. they really ARE trying to rip you off. whereas the Chinese vendors throw it out and almost have a grin on their face because they know that you know that it’s ridiculous (like the woman who tried to sell Poorna a pair of sandals for 1200 yuan!). anyway, it’s just a vague feeling, but i feel like the Chinese vendors are more fun to bargain with.

my only real negative impression of Thailand is really just that i felt like everyone was out to try and rip me off. i realise i’m an American tourist travelling, and that i will get charged higher than locals – but don’t treat me like i’m stupid. i know that taxis are supposed to start at 35baht, so don’t try and charge me 200 baht to go 2 blocks. really, come on. i would say Thailand is certainly more developed and modernised as a whole than China. Bangkok is by far a more international city than Beijing – but i would have to say that in Beijing, i never felt like i was getting cheated. i don’t mind paying more – it’s natural that i’ll inevitably get ripped off as compared to the locals. it’s no big deal if i’m willing to do it, but what gets me is when people really try to cheat you – and i felt like this happened a LOT in Bangkok.

all in all, would i go back to Bangkok? eh. maybe for a day or two to do some shopping while en route to somewhere else. Thailand was fun, but a little too hot for me. nice beaches, nice resorts – but i think i’d like to go somewhere else next time. more countries to explore!

holy koh

Tuesday, Feb 22. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we took a crazy speedboat to Koh Tao today (1.5 hr there, and another 1.5 hr back) to spend the day snorkelling and lounging around on a beach. the speedboat driver was insane. that’s all i can say. certifiably insane. he was racing another boat out to Koh Tao for the better part of half the ride out there. wendy and i were holding on for dear life. after some really great snorkelling, we had lunch on the island and then headed over to some random beach to do some more snorkelling and lounging on the beach where we talked to some girls from Germany.

quote of the day: “for real man. fuck that shit.” – not amazing in and of itself, but it sounded better when it came from one of the German girls who was ethnic Korean. it was startling.

after that, our ride back to Koh Samui was even worse. the driver was trying to surf the waves…. with a speedboat. he would throttle down right before the wave, and then floor it off the crest of the wave causing the boat to SLAM back into the ocean every time. it was a long painful 1.5 hr back to the island where we recuperated by having dinner at Sandal’s again.

lazing around

Monday, Feb 21. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we did virtually nothing today. i bought a pair of swimming goggles. we lounged by the pool drinking mango shakes, reading, and swimming.

once we got tired of swimming in the pool, we walked all of 10 feet and headed into the ocean… to go swimming.

ah. what a lazy day.

around noon we moped’d around the island, this time riding north to see the Big Buddha and have lunch at Angela’s Bakery.

in the evening, we headed into town for our big indulgence. wendy got a massage, facial, anti-stress massage, and a body scrub. i got a massage…. and yes, my first ever facial. you could ask me how it was, except i have no idea. i fell asleep after 15 minutes. i woke up not being able to see (because of the mask/towel thing over my eyes), and with the faint scent of jasmine in the air. let me tell you, this is a disorienting feeling.

anyway. that was our day.

moped’ing around

Sunday, Feb 20. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we woke up late (9am… hey, it’s late for us) at our beautiful hotel. we stayed at “Baan Haad Ngam”, a really great hotel that’s in the best beach on the island: Chaweng Beach. Chaweng suffers from the usual glut of tourists, and it’s basically a strip of really loud noisy bars/restuarants/hotels. fortunately, Baan Haad Ngam is allllllll the way at the north end, secluded from everything else – but close enough to be a 10 minute moped ride into town. the only downside to the hotel? nobody speaks English. oh well. this is Thailand after all.

we woke up, did laundry, and headed into town to find a nice spa to book before heading off to Na Muang 2 waterfall on the moped. along the way, we stopped for a quick half hour elephant trek. it’s really tricky riding one of these things. i kept feeling like i was continually falling forward. all in all, a really interesting experience.

after the waterfall hike, we headed back into town where Wendy got what was apparently the best facial of her life at the Four Seasons while i bargain hunted for a new pair of flip flops.

in the evening we had dinner at Sandal’s, in my opinion – one of the best restaurants on Chaweng. it’s great, the tables are literally on the beach – you can take your shoes off and you’re in the sand.

to samui

Saturday, Feb 19. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we headed back to Bangkok today to catch our connecting flight to Koh Samui, a beautiful resort island in southern/central Thailand on the east coast (unaffected by the tsunami).

my airport observation for the day: you know people have traveler’s diarrhea when there’s a queue for the toilet stalls, and everyone in line is a westerner.

at the Bangkok airport we saw a huuuuuuge group of Muslim people… who were all Chinese! this was interesting to Wendy and I since you don’t often see Chinese Muslims. we guessed they were from eastern China, but what were they doing here in Bangkok? we asked, and it turns out they were on a pilgrimage to Mecca. cool!

landing in Koh Samui airport is a trip. the place is like Disneyland’s take on “Paradise-land”. there are little trolleys/trams taking you from the large open air terminals which look like big huts to the airplanes directly. a very very chill airport with almost no security. you can jump over the gazelias at the international immigration/customs, and you’d be on the island illegally.

we had dinner at this little Thai restaurant called Captain Kirk’s which had high recommendations. eh. not impressed. the food wasn’t great. the drinks were good though.

after dinner, we rented a moped and i proceeded to try and learn how to ride a moped at 8:00pm during the busiest time of day and on the busiest road on the entire island. fun experience.

that evening we headed into an English pub, because even though i’m on vacation: i gotta cheer for ManU as Ronald THRASHED Everton in the FA Cup 5th round…. at 12:30am (half past midnight)

shoooppping

Friday, Feb 18. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we made a very very brief visit to the Cambodian National Palace today. it was brief mainly because we were turned back due to Wendy wearing a tank top and shorts. damn westerners! excuse us for dressing for the 90 degree weather. oh well.

while everyone else went into the palace, Wendy and I took a tuk-tuk (those crazy motorcycle-drawn 2/4 seater taxi carriages) to the Central Market, a huge shopping market in Phnom Penh built by the French. after that we headed to the National Museum. i had mixed feelings about the museum…. it was only $3, so whatever – the architecture was really cool. the building was really nice, but exhibit wise – it’s just all statues of Buddha. i like Buddha and all, but after Angkor Wat, i was a little Buddha-ed out.

we had lunch at Crazy Uncle’s house where his personal cook (!!!!) made us a great Cambodia noodle curry.

after lunch we headed to the Russian Market, another shopping market – only one without any sort of air circulation at all. and metal tin roofs. and in 90 degree heat, you can only take that for so long.

in the evening we played pool with my crazy uncle at the SunWay hotel before heading out to dinner at Topaz, this really nice ritzy French restaurant near our hotel for our first try at Cambodian-French food.

wanna know the ironic thing? i ate all the Cambodia/Chinese food all week with no problems. but the French food? gave me traveller’s diarrhea that would stick with me for the rest of the trip.

damn French.

phnom penh

Thursday, Feb 17. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we headed back to Phnom Penh today, so i had some time during the drive to jot down my thoughts on Cambodia so far.

the country really is destitute. by far, the most poor and rural place i’ve ever seen. it’s sad to think how a country with a huge abundance of natural resources (Battambang was once one of the greatest rice producing regions in Asia, and Cambodia used to be covered in forests before the Khmer Rouge deforested it massively) and a great culture could have modernised and advanced so far if it just hadn’t gotten pulled into the whole war against Vietnam/Communism thanks to the political connivings of the French & Americans. sigh. go America. yay.

it’s interesting…Cambodians use US currency everywhere. The Cambodian riel is accepted of course, but you just can’t get around Cambodia w/o US money. at the gas stations, all the snacks/drinks, and gas are marked in US prices. bizarre.

anyway, after getting back to Phnom Penh, we visited Tuol Sleng (or S-21 as the Khmer Rouge called it), an old former high school that was converted into a detention/interrogation/torture centre. my initial thoughts were to compare it to Dachau (concentration camp in Germany I visited many years ago), and that this place was SMALL. it’s puzzling until you realise that not there was a high turnover rate. the Khmer Rouge didn’t imprison people for too long… instead, they chose to ruthlessly torture and kill them at a fairly quick rate. it’s a pretty moving place. they have a powerful exhibit of a large # of the photographs of all the victims. the Khmer Rouge were almost anal retentively obsessive about photographing everyone they tortured and/or killed.

after that sombering experience, we drove to my mum’s old junior high school, one of the few Chinese-community schools/temples in Phnom Penh. we saw the basketball court where my mum was captain of the basketball team. growing up, i never knew much about my mum’s history, and i always thought it was somewhat odd that we only ever visited with my dad’s side of the family. the past few months of studying up on Cambodia, and its holocaust have made me appreciate what happened to my mum’s family a lot more. the money to help rebuild my mum’s old school was actually donated by Haing Ngor, the author of “Beyond the Killing Fields”, and the Cambodia actor who portrayed Dith Pran in The Killing Fields (with Sam Rockwell, and John Malkovich), the movie portrayal of the Cambodia holocaust.

random thought for the day: “on choy”, a Chinese green vegetable that is popularly served at dinner is ridiculously cheap here. in the states, Wendy and I love it – but it’s expensive. how cheap is it in Cambodia? it’s so cheap and prolific that they have it at every meal… it’s in fact, SOOOOO cheap they use it as pig food.