New Life

Haven't had a chance to post anything since August. Life has been on a fast forward pace since my last post. First I decided to move from a smaller apartment to a bigger one in the same complex. At first I was so excited to move into this much brighter (and bigger) place, but soon as the excitement faded, it became very remote how I managed to squeeze my life into such a dimmed tiny place so contently for two years. In fact I even had difficulty remember the layout of my old place. I guess that's just how adeptable we humanbeings are.

Then came parents visit. It was the first time I was visited by them as a grown up (have a job, live in my own place...), so I was excited yet nervous about it for the longest time, worrying about where to take them, how to impress them, this and that... but turned out it was very different from what I had expected. They didn't want to go to many places, and I didn't do a very good job "impressing" them. More like they came out to cook for me and doing housework for me and that was it. Looking back it was very nice to have parents come visit me. But during their visit, I was very puzzled with this new "dynamics" in our relationships. I am not sure I fully understand what parents want from a grown up kid. It felt like the relationship remained the same and yet certain expectations have changed.

Few weeks after parents left for Maryland to look after my newborn nephew, Paul finally moved to San Diego for good, along with his parents visiting us for about a month... Some people said I was very courageous to live with my future-in-law before our marriage. Indeed I was courageous, because not many people have lived with someone as "easygoing" as me. But maybe Paul is ultimately the courageous one, that he is officially stuck with me, at least for now.
But that one month came and went too. I had this weekend all to myself again, like all this masquerade was just a dream. In fact I had a dream of going to restaurants with Paul and his family this morning, you can't have anything more regular, yet when I woke up, the house was extremly quiet, and I found myself being here alone.

Maybe I'm being overly sentimental, but this new life I'm learning to get used to, can be just as temporary as the old life I used to have. In the end, we are all alone. I wish I have the courage and wisdom to treasure what I have now and do not get attached to it too much once it is gone.

A baby was born

星期二在公司收到媽媽的留言, 說"某某某" (聲音太小根本聽不到) 生了, 是個男孩, 問我知不知道. 說完氣都不喘一口就噗地一聲掛了. 我這麼聰明伶俐的人一下子之間也給矇了, 不是明熙阿, 人家懷的是千金, 而且再說時間又還沒到. 所以到底是誰阿????
結果搞了半天, 就是明熙啦! 聲音怎麼那麼小, 下次要買金鐘散孝敬我娘.

接下來陸續接到小姨子傳來的照片, 真的因為是家人嗎? 別人的小孩看看也就算了, 看到那種照個不停的父母我也都會在背後匪夷所思, 那翻來覆去不都一個樣嗎? 但看著這個沒有名字的小姪子, 我忍不住翻來覆去一直重複地看著那幾張照片(到底有幾張...讓我算一下... 39張!!!??? 換做別人老娘3張之後, 好啦, 9張之後就沒耐性了), 深怕沒記清處他的長相...其實每天都長得不太一樣, 我看我也就甭瞎忙活了.
做姑姑阿姨叔叔奶奶都已如此, 又何況是他的父母? 最神勇的就是明熙沒打麻醉的壯舉, 要是我一定會死活求醫生給我多來兩針一勞永易. 但難道說這就是母愛嗎? 寧可自己挨痛也不願意冒那哪怕只有萬分之一的危險. 母愛真的很神奇, 說不定萬一我(不幸)懷孕, 我也會激發我偉大的母愛叫醫生給我多來一針就行了!

隔著距離, 而且還要好久才會見到面, 但全家老少都洋溢在添丁的喜悅之中, 真是神奇!

(附上一張照片以做紀念, 希望哥哥不要介意, 這是他兩天大還在醫院的模樣)

Chicago--the "breezy" city

I'd better jot down my Chicago trip before I forget as I am not getting any younger, that's right, baby, I'm turning 30 in 6 days! (Boy don't I feel old)
Paul and I went to Chicago for our second time. Last time was back in March 2005 and it felt indeed like a "Windy City" as it is often called. Chicago is also known as the "Second City". However, it didn't give me any of that bitter pride that we always see in a typical second biggest city (the typical we- think - we're- so- cool- yet- really- everything- is- just- a- notch- down syndrome). Why? Maybe it's got to do with the fact that Chicago has long been knocked down further into the third place by its younger counterpart Los Angeles.
But overall, I'm so impressed with Chicago that in some regards it is even better than NYC. (On a side note, I think I figured out why everybody needs a car in LA. No, it has nothing to do with its spanning geographic region or the lack of public transportation. If you have ever been to LA downtown, you would strongly feel the urge to lock yourself up in an iron cage.)
Chicago, despite its harsh weather, seems to be a much more adorable city.
First thing Chicago striked me was how clean it is. It is definitely not as clean as Singapore or even Tokyo, but it is surprisingly clean without any sense of restraint or rigidness. Secondly it is extremely convenient. A $2 fare would take you from either one of its airports to the heart of downtown by subway. I can not think of any other city to beat that. You would think it's the most natural thing to do but somehow they always manage to miss that part just to torture you.

Chicago is most surprising as a friendly city. On our first trip we were stuck at a subway station as we came short 15 cents to take a ride back to our hotel. I put up this apologetic face (I'm your most traditional nice little Asian lady when I need to ask a favor) and walked up to this Uncle Joe working at the station hoping he would nicely break some change for me. (Using my NYC reference point, I was pretty sure I'd get asked to just move to the side.) But this Uncle Joe climed all the way out of his booth, helped us figure out where exactly we were going, and then reached into his own little pocket and handed us the 15 cents and said "here, use this".

Even the homeless were comparatively non-hostile too. This time around, while waiting for the train one late evening, my tired eyes absent mindedly wandered on to this homeless guy. He looked back at me and friendly replied "It's a chilly night, isn't it?!" (OK, for those of you who have never messed with a homeless guy, Paul did the same thing one time in NYC, and this guy almost jumped on to Paul, and kept yelling "What the f*ck are you looking at? What THE F*CK are YOU looking at!!!") So you see why I was a bit surprised by our cheery Chicago friend.

I'd better get down to some of the nice spots of Chicago before I further make it sound like a Mid West farm land city like Columbus, OH...

First and foremost, if you ever get a chance to stop by Chicago, make sure you visit the Field Museum too. It is so far the most impressive museum I can recall. Right at the entrance, there it stood the 65 million years old T-Rex fossil Sue. Not only it was one of the very rare museums to display a real fossil, it was just so casually standing there, and everyone just clicking away the fossil like mad (WITH FLASH!) It truly makes you wonder why all the other museums are so fussy about their no photography/ flash policy.

Right now they're having the King Tut exhibition, which was a returning hit since 1977. (Actually the Egyptian Govt angrily pulled out the Exhibition after some "Careless" German chipped one of its artifacts in 1998.) It tells the story of a Pharaoh Tutankhamun (or King Tut) who shortly ruled the ancient Egypt for ten years before his mysterious death at the young age of 19. There were no mummies in the whole exhibition (or the 10 layers of coffins that wrapped the mummy), but none the less it was totally rewarding experience. And the audio tour was passionately done by Omar Sharif (Dr. Zhivago), who's done a great job making a chill up on my spine by telling a mystery that really was just a lot of lost facts. To complete the tour, right across the hall there is a permanant Acient Egypt Exhibition that has all these mummies lying around in the dark corners--mummy that was properly prepared, mummy that was crushed into too small a coffin, mummy woman that was carelessly shoved into a male coffin, and mummy that fell out of the leaves that casually wrapped it... you name it, they got it!

There's also the Shedd Aquarium right next door to the Field Museum but it's certainly dimmed by its far more interesting neighbor (plus they got way too many screaming kids).
Another gem in the city is its many jazz and blues bars. Last time we hung out at this legendary Buddy Guy Blues Bar and it was defenitely jiving. Although that night's performance didn't turn me into a Blues fan, it was definitely worth recommending. And I guess I'll leave the rest to your imagination or better yet, til you personally get to experience what Chicago has to offer.

(Since I'm not a tower person as previously explained, I didn't do the Sears Tower or the John Hancock Center but this gives you a pretty good skyline of Chicago--photo contributed by Paul)

南加州的生活

來了加州一年半，去LA卻才是第二次，這次我們沒有去Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard 或Beverly Hills 等遊客勝地。不過我倒是念念不忘在Sunset Blvd的午餐，吃了什麼是完全不記得了，卻總覺得身邊會不會隱藏個什麼明星而感到神密且興奮不已。 這次去的應該算是真正的LA，或者說平民的LA。先是去了LA County Museum of Art (LACMA美術館), 湊巧撞上了Klimt 的5幅畫特展。總之有名真好，就為了5幅畫竟然大排長龍，也不知有多少人是像我一樣是來看不懂裝懂的，反正大家都看起來很嚴肅，好像站在那邊愈久就愈看出來點了什麼。

(Adele Bloch-Bauer I: 別看他把這女的畫得醜，原來還挺逼真的。這畫是一個猶太貴婦出錢請Klimt畫的，Klimt卻花了整整3年才畫完這幅畫，要是我們拿錢做事的都像他那麼認真就好了。)

(補: 這幅畫刷新了Picasso的"Boy with a Pipe", 成為最貴的畫, 價值US$135M)

接下來我們去了LA的downtown, 現在想想好像從來就沒聽過誰會去LA downtown的。這一路開去有點像NY的Bronx區，反正腦子裡就是不斷閃著車門到底有沒有鎖好或是拜託不要碰到紅燈的想法。真正開進了downtown連陽光都被高樓擋在外面，路上連一個行人都沒有，真是有點陰森森的感覺。到了目的地Little Tokyo, 車才一停好就有個homeless 拖著她的大垃圾袋貼上我的車門，嚇得我馬上重新鎖起車門，原來她只是要撿我輪胎旁不知什麼東西。不知為什麼我們這些有房子往的人總是非常害怕那些沒房子往的人。雖然我們口口聲聲說一無所有的人很可憐，心裡面我們似乎相信他們更可怕。LA downtown 其實是很不能代表南加州的，它顯得太過灰暗與貧窮。然而當人口聚集到一個程度的時候，那似乎也是一個城市必然存在的一個角落。

第二天我們接著前往位於全美房價最高的Orange County的Huntington Beach。有時候這種碧海藍天充斥著遊客的地方反而不知要怎麼形容才好，似乎太陽一照人都給曬懶了。

最後這張照片是張旭回Michigan前他靈機一動把我從辦公室拉出來野餐照得。地點又是在我喜愛的La Jolla, 別看我平時裝悠閒(其實是很悠閒)，卻也是十分難得的一個体驗。

The prejudiced San Francisco

I visited San Francisco twice but haven’t really done the tourist bit. The closest I got was accidentally standing right in front of my Mecca “China Town” while I was doing my after dinner stroll. OK, for the record, China Town is NOT my Mecca (really!!). Why would ANYONE, other than Paul, see China Town as their Mecca?

But sometimes you get to see a lot more while you’re in town for something else. For both times I went in for some VC annual meetings at the Four Seasons Hotel. Not only it is the best hotel I’ve ever stayed, it was indeed some eye opening experience for me. While I believe time should be spent outside the hotel rooms during any trip, I think everyone should at least indulge herself in one of those truly top notch high-end hotels once in her life time. Although I was lucky enough that the company paid for it because I would never spend $400 on hotel rooms, I can buy a bag AND a pair of shoes with that kind of money.

San Francisco is famous for many things, and among them, it is the Mecca for gays and lesbians in the US. And one can totally feel the vibe of freedom while walking on the street. In my opinion, US is probably one of the most conservative countries I’ve been to, among many other things, there’s the big debate over Darwin’s Evolution theory vs. the God created the World theory (why can’t we teach them both and let them make their own choices), but I won’t go into much detail except to say that therefore it takes a great deal of tolerance to become San Francisco, and for that I respect the city.

As much as I’d like to pretend my open-mindedness, my most bizarre encountering with such diversity also happened on my first visit here. I was shopping in Neiman Marcus, right next to me was a gay couple trying various shoes in the women’s shoe department. I overheard him explaining to the shop assistant that he tends to shop women’s shoes because he could never find the right shoes in the men’s department. (Hey, I don’t care about your excuse but you’d better not pick MY shoes!) And then in my big awe, he then said, “I am looking for this pair of shoes I saw last week when I came here with my wife, she and I saw this…” Forgive my overreaction but it was before the whole Brokeback Mountain thing, and how dare he has a boyfriend AND a wife? No wonder there are all these desperate singles out there! But I guess there is no other city in the US where you can casually disclose your bi-sexual polygamy relationship to a shop assistant.

Therefore, it was to my deepest disappointment when I had the following experience on my second visit. Mike and I finally decided to have our little reunion dinner after four years. It was a windy rainy night so we decided to hail a cab to the restaurant several blocks away from us. And there was at least a dozen, if not more available cabs stormed past us like a hurricane. Some even bothered to slow down, took a closer look and decided to storm past us in an even more hastily fashion. OK, as much as it is politically incorrect for me as an Asian girl to point this out, it was obviously because of Mike, not me. Some of you might think I’m half joking, but trust me I’m dead serious. As an Asian girl who look semi attractive from the back, this may be the closest experience to know what it is like to be an African American male. And let’s be totally free from being politically correct for a second now, many of these taxi drivers looked like Iraqi or Palestinian and ever since 911, you would think they have had the most painful experience about racial prejudice. And yet, every single one of them, in a universally unspoken agreement, drove by us with their feet passionately pressed all the way down on the accelerator. Finally there was a nice cab driver who decided to pick us up, and sure enough, it was an African driver.

I wouldn’t be so disturbed had this happened in any other part of the country. But for a city renown for its diversity and liberty? Sorry if I didn’t know it only applies to your sexuality, not the color of your skin.

Not too impressed with Toronto

I want to do some recollection of the places I've been to while the memory still faintly resides somewhere...Decided to go backwards but this is really a bad choice, as I don't have much recollection of Toronto really. Well, in my last post I said I was sick on this trip, so unfortunately that negatively impacted my whole experience with Toronto, honestly I didn't do all that much, but it's quite telling that I didn't even take a photo (I still can't quite believe it myself!!!) So for any Torontoan who accidentally surfed here, don't hate.

Among many people, Paul is one of those who praises Toronto like it's the greatest city in North America, as he certainly thinks Canada is so much cooler than its filthy neighbor. I only agree on the surface, it is truly much cooler, the temperature was around mid 40F under bright sun in the middle of April. Canada may surpass US in many regard (size for example), but certainly not on the diversity of what its cities has to offer (am I stating the obvious?)

Toronto, unlike its more controversial counterpart Montreal, is a lot more like any other North American city. It's quite huge in size, spanning into several districts, but definitely without much of the spice you'd expect in a city of its size. The prime spots we went was China Town. As Chinese decents, we always try to show our respect to our root--food. For the record, Toronto has the most amazing Chinese food that I've known to, it has to be true because I felt that way during my stomach illness, isn't that something? But the better Chinese food are probably in the other sections of the city namely the 太古廣場 and Highway 7, as the old China town was way too congested and is more like a tourist scam for the Westerners. But 太古廣場 and Highway 7 are really only for the Asian Americans/Canadians. I don't think there's anything exciting to see for anyone who can't fully appreciate the authenticity of the food, including those who live in Asia who can taste authentic Asian food anywhere they go.

After the China Town, we went to the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario. Well, maybe the whole trip was at a bad timing because it's under some major construction (lesson learned: research is key before any trip). So the admission was free, but as expected, nothing much was on site.

One famous attraction spot we didn't go was CN Tower. I'm really not a big fan to get on top of a city tower, besides the crowd, it is like viewing the city without its landmark so what is the point?

The other famous place was the Lake Ontario, but to our own mistake, we drove to the east side of the lake and it was just miles and miles of empty lands between us and the lake. I assume the nice part is on the west side judging by the fact east side was really not serving its name well, but by that time I was already feeling ill again and had to finish our short Toronto trip in a hastily fashion.

I certainly don't mean to disrupt Toronto's tourism business, but personally, I would probably never pick the city as my vacation spot again. My personal advice to my family and friends: go to New York, San Francisco, or even Chicago instead. It's a lot more fun there!

(Note: Photo from Toronto's official website as I didn't take any photo during the trip)

ER

My Easter break had an unexpected downturn. As soon as I landed Detroit, Paul had to take me to the ER. I've been vomiting since 4am that morning, and I couldn't even drink any more water because nothing seemed to hold. 'Oh Great', I thought to myself, 'perfect way to start what I called my "eating contest" Easter vacation', as I had planned for a really long time to raid every Chinese restaurant in Toronto for my Easter Holiday.
I was really reluctant to be sent to the ER. OK, some of you may know I got a bit of a vomiting problem here. I once went to see a nurse (back in my OSU days, the doctor woulnd't even see you) to describe my symptom and she said it is normal for people to throw up once in a while. And then Paul and I got into a bit of a disagreement over the definition of "non-stop vomiting". He thought I was not doing too bad since I was only vomiting like every other hour or so, and at least I wasn't doing the non-stop vomiting. And since I still had the energy to argue with him, I must have proven to him further that things weren't so serious. So although I was a bit upset that no one takes my illness seriously, deep down I was also convinced that I must have been over reacting a little bit.

And if you've ever watched the sitcom "ER", you'd understand why the word ER gets my stomach cramped. I was waiting to see some serious scary scenes unfolding in front of me. The fear of someone dying before me had momentarily took away my mind from my own pain. And just as I feared, shortly after my admission into the waiting room, a kid got rolled into the ER with some terrifying screaming & moaning. I turned away immediately but couldn't shut out the moaning and the heart wrenching cry from his family. There were even times when this kid sounded like he was not gonna make it. This lasted about 10 minutes or so, and then I heard the doctor said to the mother, "Look! We've got 3 kids and 2 adults crying over a scratch here. If you can stop crying, I guarantee that you guys can be out in no time." A scratch? I thought I was a drama queen sitting in an ER over some food poisoning , guess the kid (and his whole crew of family) just took my crown!

And that was the only incidence that caused some stir. Everyone else seemed pretty fine, no one got shot and no one died. In fact there was a guy who was handcuffed by the police with his face down on the roller, but even he was not shot or bleeding whatsoever. Nothing like what they showed on the TV really. Due to my extreme fear of illness and death, the thought of anyone ends up in the hospital always gets me upset. And besides feeling sad for the person, I often wonder what I have done to deserve a rather hospital-less peaceful and healthy life. So it is kind of funny to see people's concerned face when I told them about my trip to the ER. But truth be told, even during the five-day trip when I was occassionally feeling ill, the one big feeling that keeps occupying my mind was the constant feeling of hunger, not fear or pain. I guess we human beings are way more courageous than we'd thought. Even I, the one with the faintest heart, was able to look forward to the positive aspect of life (food) while being totally deprived of it.

The Age of Innovation

OK, for the huge base of my fans who eagerly, routinely or occasionally check out what's new (actually it's more like myself, checking in eagerly to see if anyone left any new messages), I had to force myself to sit and write right now. Coz I'm sort of lost in the middle of something, uhh.., namely "Lost". For whoever hasn't checked out that series, you should stop reading this boring crap already and find yourself a copy of the DVDs.

But it's getting somewhat scary now, and with only 30 minutes into midnight, I think I need something to migrate my mindset before sleep.

I got a hell of a crazy month with the start of the new year. Two days after getting back from HK, I headed to the airport again, attended my first Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in the sin city-- Vegas. Unlike most people there who genuinely have a passion in this kingdom of gadgets, I actually just went there for my redemption. For someone who works for a "high-tech" company, I am guilty for being so ignorant and uninterested in knowing the greatest and the latest gadgets/technology. But, everything has to start from somewhere, so I signed myself up for this CES. Great to learn anything when it's on company's dime. So here's my observation from the show, however naive they may seem.

1. Overall, there was this huge integration (of anything, or everything) going on:
a. Integration of your home entertainment center, like this one button activation by Panasonic, forget about the 'one remote control' idea, all you need is a push of a button and everything will be set up, ... in the speed slower than you joggling between several controls yourself though. Plus, what I really need is for someone to brew me a nice cup of tea, the remote? Didn't they tell you girls want controls too? (For guys? How many guys out there hold on to the remote control like it's part of their organs?)

b. Motorola has combined home wideband router with cell phone. So besides all your cable TVs, local phones, internet... now they want to tab your cell phone money too. It's just one indication that everyone's trying to eat everyone else's lunch. It'll be interesting to see who will win this battle in the years to come, but I don't see me as a consumer getting any good deal out of it. (yeah they tried to convince me with the one-bill concept, how come I heard 'monopoly'?)

c. Samsung came out with this WiBro technology. The dude checked out my name tag, squinted his eye and whispered my company's name like I'm some industrial spy (I actually took that as a compliment!), so I didn't get to find out much about what WiBro does. All I know is it's short for Wireless Broadband, supposed to be very capable with huge data transmission such as for TV or video files. It's a step up from 3G and a step away from 4G, and it's tested successfully in Korea

2. Lots of music entertainment focus, or to be more specifically, iPod copycats:
a. Seriously, you think going to an Apple store is the epitome of its success. You should check out Microsoft's booth. There were hundreds of MP3 players showcasing in Microsoft's booth trying to compete iTunes+ iPod with the Media Player + anonymous wannabes. (For those of you who may not be familiar with Apple, they don't go to CES, they think they're too cool. They have their own show in the Bay Area a week after the CES. But in a way, I'm sure the pressure is bigger coz imagine the outrageous consumers if they came out finding nothing revelutional.

b. The saddest of all, was Sony. For someone who was positioned so perfectly in this game field, with its natural resources to its music business, it flunked again, badly. It came out with this what looks very much like a iPod generation one (B&W screen, no video/photo capability). So who exactly came up with the idea to showcase in a grand scale to promote such thing that's bound to fail? I felt sorry for our generation who used to think Sony is the acronym for revolution. And I felt sorry for spending a good portion of my time in their booth, but I did get a free cup of coffee at their Connect Cafe.

3. The copycat trend didn't end with iPod there. Here's on Google and Microsoft:
a. Google didn’t really have any exciting things at the CES. They copied ideas from http://my.yahoo.com and called this the “Personalized Home” they try to play in the wireless too. I think the reason I didn’t quite get excited because I know a bunch of Google fans (including myself) out there and I’ve already knew most of their new buzz. and is coming to the States later this year. To find out its exact capabilities, I guess check out the latest Korean soap opera and we might get some glimpse.

b. I went to check out Microsoft and its Window Vista. OK, for all of you anti-Microsoft/Bill Gates out there, here's the news, I actually admire what they've done over the years. (Extra admiration points for Bill Gates being such a donor--sure he's still the richest guy in the world.) I really think those who hate them are just envious. Vista is pretty cool, combining several competitors’ ideas like "Google Desktop" and "Firefox", with improved visual display. As much as I worship Google, I really don't feel safe to use Google Desktop coz it's like I'm opening up my underwear drawers to my guests. So I feel safer for Microsoft to come up with a localized version. But being such a stoneage newbie, I coule have trusted the wrong guy. However, Microsoft sort of tricked me into believing their http://local.live.com is so much better than http://maps.google.com. Well, after I tried it at home, it’s really not. I’m a bit pissed off coz I did several free advertisements for Microsoft, even to the guy I met at LAV airport!! And you know me, I don’t normally talk to guys I don’t know!!!!

OK, here sums up this long report from a first timer. I got two more business trips to go in January and my apartment is a mess. But when I do get time to chill at home during the weekends, I start to get grumpy about my not-so-rosy 2006. No wonder I heard the consumer confidence is down and business outlook is dim—look no further but at myself, the sign is obvious! Stay tuned to hear me whine more on the outlook of this year to come.

Coming Back From Hong Kong—II

Let me continue on the remaining two aspects of HK.

Living:

HK is notorious for its limited living space. So I came prepared, expected to be squeezed and squashed, but apparently I survived okay.

I think people in America normally don’t realize how wasteful we are. Yeah sure we shop at Costco and we invented Wal-Mart. But we are wasteful in every other regard. Everyone sort of “pity” me when they heard I live in a 600 sq ft apartment. Until my friend I-Ching came to visit. She thinks my place is oversize (oversized?!?!), not surprising if she just lived in Tokyo for the last 3 years coz everything is relative! So after living in US and NZ for a total of 12 years, where space is never a concern, HK did seem very crowded.

My experience is limited to the one apartment at Paul’s folks live. It is definitely at the top tier if not the cream of the crop, so what I see might be a bit biased. Albeit its size, it is definitely very well planned out. Besides the gym facility, which isn’t that attractive since I never exercise, I love the fact there are magazines reading lounge as well as a library (like I ever read?!?!) The bus stops are always right beneath the high-rise so less chance for you to become the road kill by a bus, at least not around your neighborhood, I guess. Shops are usually within walking distance, same with every other Asian countries, but what’s interesting is how HK has brought the shops into underground, so the basement of your apartment could also be a shopping mall or supermarket. Pretty neat for someone who hates making special trips to supermarkets (and that’d be me) or someone who absolutely loves going to supermarkets (and that’d be Paul).

Well, there’s always a downside to everything. What I didn’t like about what I saw, is how half the nation is hanging the flags outside their windows. And no, I’m not talking about patriotism like those displayed by fellow Americans (which I don't agree with also, I simply dispise patriotism), I’m talking about pragmatism like hanging your yellow-stained panties right next to your next door’s grandma’s bra. I’ve seen it in other countries but never in such a right-in-your-face kind of fashion. But I guess it was that manner that made it almost like an art form. But I guess from the pragmatic HK style, why pay for extra space like a patio when you can hang your clothes for free in the public space?!

Oh, and one big gigantic minus point for indoor smoking allowed in HK. OK, maybe it’s not allowed everywhere but I saw lots of people smoking indoors and I saw this one guy smoking in an elevator. Maybe that’s why the whole city seemed to be very hazy. But somehow HK managed to work around this fogginess and make the city looks more mysterious.

Commuting:

I always notice how there is no fat guy in Asia (and girls are obsessively thin). Transportation is very convenient in HK, the most common transportation form is always accessible 24/7—your feet. Except for cars (which has been an indispensable item to me for years), there’re abundant choices in HK: subways, ferries, buses and taxi. But to here and there and in-between, your feet are still the one thing you have to rely on for the most part.

There’s this one cool feature I have to mention about HK’s transportation system. This one deserves a blog of its own at my techie site but unfortunately I don’t have one so here’s a brief mentioning. They made your life a lot easier with a prepaid card called the Bah Dah Tong (I think the English name is Octopus, meaning you’re with eight feet which allows you to go anywhere with this card). Sure, prepaid card isn’t so unique, but this card allows one to take ferries, buses and subways, and what’s more, you can also buy newspapers at a convenience store, and eat your lunch at a fast food chain restaurants! And they even apply the system for school kids so they can clock in and probably eat lunch at cafeteria with lunch money too. This is definitely something to be adopted on a worldwide basis!

Going back to the walking, HK is very well designed for walking. There’s the underground passages (so you don’t get run over), and the overbridge (so you don’t get run over). And like I mentioned early on, the bus stops are usually at the ground level of a major building (so you don’t get run over)! It is truly essential in HK because (note!!) drivers don’t stop for pedestrians!! And that included the double-deck bus driver who toured me around the city! (To fully exploit the benefit of being the first-time tourist, I sat at the first row of the second deck, greedily moving my eye balls checking out things around me, and almost saw the very road kill that Hong Kong city government is so eager to prevent).

But hope you didn’t get me wrong, I don’t think Hong Kong is in any disorder or being rude. Growing up in Taiwan, I learned very early on that you never mess with the Taxi driver. In US, you simply don’t mess with anyone because you have no idea who's going to turn into a nutcase, could be the lady driving in a Mercedes, or someone walking with a stick. In Hong Kong, I didn’t get any sense of that feistiness. It only seems to me that everyone is just minding their business and if you cannot follow the order, you get killed and no one is going to turn around and look at you. They’re just too busy, that’s all.

Of course I’m only exaggerating, I don’t know what’s on their mind or the whole culture all that well. After all, I was only a tourist in HK, minding my own business and tried not to get run over.

I guess this concludes my short albeit exciting HK visit and next time I’d like to share with you my day trip to Vegas on the CES (Consumer Electronic Show). So stay tuned.

Coming Back From Hong Kong—I

Before the trip, I wasn’t all that relaxed about going to Hong Kong. This was what I called a trip with agenda, and the agenda wasn’t set by me.

First of all, it was unspokenly acknowledged that it would be an engagement coming out of this trip. You may laugh at me for it is Paul who needed to feel more stressed out as he was the one who had to get the ring. But I felt like he only needed to commit 2 months of his salary (at most), and I had to commit my life (at least). What about his life, you may ask. I don’t know, but it always seems to me that guys can always say “You know what? Keep the ring but I’m outta here”. But you know me, girls are always the victims of everything, but you also know I’m right.

More importantly, it seemed like I had to like Hong Kong, because eventually whether I like it or not, I may have to quit my job, give up all I have in US and move to HK and become a loving wife of a man, an obedient daughter-in-law of his parents, and scariest of all, a caring mother of his child, or even in plural form (oh no). Mom even suggested that I might as well get it all over with and get married while I was in Hong Kong. If I really wanted to hurry into a marriage, why she thinks I waited for all these times??

But to my surprise, I was really impressed, at least by its first impression.

Comparing to Taiwan (or Taipei), another East Asian Tigers, Hong Kong is indeed a lot more developed—the city is in better order, more high rises (call me superficial but why do you think the world is all so crazy about building the tallest building just to prove themselves?), cleaner, prettier, and much more shops (I’m sure all the girls out there appreciate this too). Here’s couple of observations I made about HK.

Eating:

The taxi driver on my way home in San Diego asked me how cheap things are in HK (I sometimes wonder if I reveal too much to the taxi drivers, especially those inquisitive ones). See? Even the taxi drivers asked me how cheap things are in HK! That’s why I built my misconception. Not how delicious the food is, how pretty the place is, I guess those are too subjective a thing to ask from the very pragmatic taxi drivers’ point of view. Eating is great in HK, from very high-end food (thanks to Paul’s parents, I had too many of them over the 8 days there) to the very low-end, there’s great varieties there. But even the low-end is probably about the same price level as in US. I find that a bit disappointing coz the average income in HK is definitely lower. (I should be concerned if I don't like cooking and may move to HK, don’t you think?)

It’s interesting how when I’m in US, all Chinese food seems indistinguishably delicious to me. But when I got to HK this time, I noticed how Taiwanese taste really is still quite different from the HKese. It was most obvious when I had dinner with Paul and his Taiwanese friend Joyce. Paul would point to items on the menu that looked either totally unattractive or plain boring. I ended up liking the meal but Paul thought it was done poorly--and he didn't finish all the plates, and that's not a bit like him!

Personally I liked the “Yuan Yang” (it’s a mixture of coffee and black tea with milk and sugar) and had more than 10 cups during the short 8 days. But Alvis gave it a big thumb down, “it’s not coffee and it’s not tea”, he said. And I still don’t quite get the whole idea of broiling the lettuce (along with all other vegetables) with oyster sauce. In Chinese, it is called “raw vegetable” so why broil it? For all the vegetarians out there (since I know so many in my own family), it’s to be noted that Hong Kong isn’t really accommodating for vegetarians. Unlike its popularity in Taiwan, vegetarian food is very rare in restaurants and I hardly saw any vegetarian restaurants on site. Thankfully I live on meat so no points taken away for that.

Clothes:

Maybe I’ve built up too much expectation from all the great things I heard about shopping in HK. But shopping in HK is not so cheap either. Yeah, I got some great things from Paul's mum's stores, but what about those unlucky ones without the connection? I saw several LV, Gucci, and all the name brands you can imagined; Salvatore Ferregamo even has 3 stores in one mall (and who told me rent in HK ain’t that cheap?). I’m a bit curious how, or WHO can afford all those stuff. They told me it’s the travelers from Mainland who do most of the shopping. Then I can’t explain the young folks who apparently looks like locals lining outside LV and Gucci (every time I walked by these two stores, there were people lining outside waiting to have the doorman call them in, how crazy is that?!). I’m quite a label victim myself but I think it’s sad if teenagers, be rich or not, all lined outside name brand stores waiting to be beckoned by the doorman. It’s just bad to learn how easy to spend before learning how hard to earn, eh? Overall, I am impressed with the variety but I may feel more at ease to shop in US. People simply couldn't care less on what they wear in US.

Several notes about HK girls style: overall you can see they all care about their looks--a lot, I saw too many girls meticulously touching their hair while walking—have to say it’s such a big turn off to me. Maybe it’s a tweenager thing I don’t know. The jeans tucked into boots are the number one trend in HK right now. OK, when Kate Moss did it she was phenomenal, when Sienna Miller does it she looks uber chic, but when half the girls in HK do it (I’m sure same in Japan and the whole Asia right now), some even pulled the style with their not-so-chic jeans and bit-too-old boots, it’s time for us to realize we all spend too much time reading the same magazines. One note about HK boys (can’t say too much coz I just got engaged), they dress a lot nicer than Taiwanese boys and a lot fancier than US boys. Many of them in suits and a lot less in very weird clothes. But I thought half the time I was there it was weekend or public holidays, so why are they wearing suits on a public holiday? You got me there!

I will write about the living and commuting in my next blog, stay tuned.