Downtown & Stuff...

Jacqueline's take on makeup:

JACQUELINE says:
they like patching their face like those contractor patching the cement on the wall

---

Today AK called me up and asked if I wanted to go join him for some dinner, we ended up in DownTown Vancouver. It's been awhile since the last time I took a walk down here and some things have already changed. One of the most noticable changes for me is the fact that public traffic is allowed on Granville street between Robson and Smithe... it used to be reserved for city vehicles only. Meh... another thing that REALLY blows me away is the fact that the McDonald's on Granville and Smithe is now a Footlocker, WTH... have you EVER heard of a McDick's picking up and leaving from ANYWHERE?

Anyway, we ended up eating @ Kitto Japanese restaurant, one of our usual spots. It seems that this place has changed too... I'm pretty sure it's been awhile, but I've decided to rant about it today. It used to be that this restaurant was authentic... how authentic depends on what YOUR definition of authentic is. But, it used to be owned by Japanese and run by Japanese. Now if you go in, you'll hear Mandarin and Vietnamese... that kinda ruins it for me. There are a couple of employees who are Japanese, but it seems like the original staff are all long gone *sniff*. Is it just me or do Chinese / Vietnamese chefs in a Japanese restaurant NOT make it feel authentic anymore? Especially when you're sitting at the Sushi Bar and the Vietnamese woman who's handling the asparagus for the asparagus rolls picks up a noodle container (vat, bin, whatever) while STILL holding the asparagus which is now touching the outside of the bin rubbing against it... not only does that not feel authentic, it's frickin' disghusting. If you're going to do that, do it somewhere out of sight... no no, wait... how about DON'T DO THAT AT ALL!!!

Blah... we had our food, then we went for a walk.

Today I was on a mission to get a picture of the Darth Spirit Bear and the Batman Spirit Bear :). Apparently there are 200 of these things kickin' around all over Greater Vancouver. If you're wondering what they're all about, you can read about them here.

Darth Bear I had come across awhile back when I was walking downtown w/ AK... unfortunately, at that time I didn't have my camera on me (heaven forbid). As you can imagine this bear gets alot of attention... IMO, I this is the greatest :D. AK seems to like it too... but I'm sure if we found an Incredible Hulk Bear he'd prolly soil his pants :p

Batman Spirit Bear I had no idea existed until I saw a piccy of it in Nando's Avatar :D It's actually on Burrard street as well, just 2 and-a-half blocks North (across from Burrard Skytrain Station). This bear is another one of my favorites too (obviously) although upon closer inspection AK had to point out that, "It looks like it's got Dookie in its drawers!" ... I had to admit... he's not lying :p

From there we walked back to Robson and headed over to the Kombiniya on Robson (past Bute). Dunno... I had a hankering for some Japanese stuffy-stuff. We ended up exploring the WHOLE store and discovered alot of junk... they even have an internet cafe in the back, one which I've never noticed before regardless of the fact that I've been in the store numerous times. It looked kinda like a little Japanese sweatshop :D. When I went to the counter to check out I stumbled upon...


Inset is a picture of a CalorieMate 'in-game'
The first time that I had heard of Calorie Mate was in Metal Gear Solid 3. I figure if it's good enough for the main character 'Snake'... then it's good enough for me :D. Anyway, it should be interesting...

Here's the script from after you consume a CalorieMate and then call Para-Medic (Snake's Medical Correspondant):

Para-Medic: "I see you have a Calorie Mate."
Snake: "Calorie Mate?"
Para-Medic: "The thing you're holding now."
Snake: "Oh, the little block that looks like a cookie?"
Para-Medic: "Try it. It's pretty good."
Snake: "Okay. But what is this thing? I've never seen anything like it."
Para-Medic: "Calorie Mate is an energy supplement that contains all the
proteins, liquids, vitamins, carbohydrates and minerals needed for
a balanced diet. It is a well-balanced food. Because of that, it's
just perfect for giving your body the nutrition it needs in
combat."
Snake: "It sounds like a space-age food."
Para-Medic: "Real astronaut food is not very good, but that should taste fine."
Snake: "Yeah, and it will help balance out all this jungle food I'm eating."
Para-Medic: "It's easy and quick to eat, so it's perfect for when you are
running late for an important mission in the morning."
Snake: "I've never been late for a mission."
Para-Medic: "Really? Aren't you always keeping people waiting?"
Snake: "?"
Para-Medic: "It's easy to keep track of your calorie intake and receive the
nutrition your body needs, so it's good for losing weight too. All
of the geisha girls in Japan use it for watching their calories."
Snake: "Is that why they're all so slim?"
Para-Medic: "Right. And any diet where you eat nothing at all is bad for the
body."
Snake: "I see. You seem to know a lot about Japan don't you?"
Para-Medic: "Yes, I love Japan."

Time to see what it's all about O.o... At the Kombiniya there were 3 flavors of CalorieMate Block to choose from: Chocolate, Cheese & Fruits. I chose Chocolate. Upon opening the package I found 2 baggies and inside each of those 2 CalorieMate blocks... they reminded me of the ShortBread or ButterCookie sticks that I used to get during X-Mas time... interesting. I sniffed the block just to get an idea and uh... it smelt kinda like cardboard with a hint of chocolate. euh. *sigh* oh well, now for the moment of truth... Not surprisingly, it tastes like it smells... and it has the consistency of, um, dirt? Ok, not that bad, close to a butter cookie, but not... maybe dry playdough? You get the idea. I'm a little disappointed because in the game it says: "It was unbelievable tasty!". Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Snake, after all, in the conversation that he has with The Boss he reveals that he can't smell a thing... which would then lead me to believe that he can't taste anything either... wth. Now I'm confused... grrr.

I'm still curious as to what the other flavors taste like (minus the cardboard taste, of course).

---

Before I forget... on the way back to the car we saw:

Ferrari F450

Lamborghini Gallardo

BLING BLING!

BTW, that yellow Porsche (first picture)was parked behind the Ferrari... if I were him, I would have parked somewhere else :p zzzzzzzing!

Accidental Summer Day Project...

I was helping my dad clean out the garage just last week and we discovered that the previous owners of this house was a packrat. Yes, that means that we've never EVER cleaned out this garage O_o Interesting innit? The garage-cleaning story can be a post all on its own, but I'll just summarize the highlights here:

While cleaning stuff out... I found that we had some fairly large spiders in there. Nasty, nasty spiders. I'm not one to kill insects (unless they're trying to inflict some sort of harm to me) so my dad kept mashing the spiders whenever we came across them. *sploosh* that's right, *sploosh* that's how big they were... eew.

While mum and dad were outside I stayed in the garage moving the boxes in the corner to the outside of the garage. The purpose of this exercise was to clear the whole floor so that we could sweep it and then use the hose to spray it down. I noticed tikus droppings ALL OVER THE PLACE... that should have been some sort of hint that MAYBE, just maybe there was a tikus hiding somewhere in the garage. Guess what? I found its home O_O. For some reason I decided to open this one particular box (styrofoam) dunno why... the giant hole in the side should have been enough of a warning to stay away from it... but noooooooooo.

The next thing that my parents heard was a muffled yell (no, I didn't scream) as a huge black rat jumped out at me from inside the box (the yell was muffled because I was wearing a mask to protect my lungs from all the dust, etc...). I'm not sure that I was scared of the rat... I was surprised as hell tho. Wish I had my camera at that moment... meh. To tell you the truth, I wasn't sure whether I should kick it, step on it, or try to catch it :p I decided to just let it run off... into the neighbor's garage :D shh.

Anyway, the purpose of this tangent was to point out the fact that there was tons of wood store along the walls of the garage. We bundled them up (sorta) and put them outside our fence in the alleyway.

Along with the wood, we threw out boxes (with wood, of course) hoping that the garbage men would simply take it away the following day.

As it turns out... garbage men don't qualify wood & wood scraps as ordinary household garbage :p it was still there when we went out to check the next day. To tell you the truth, I wasn't too surprised. So I walked over to my dad and asked him:

"hey dad, have you checked what's in that box? I mean, before you threw it out here."
"Uh, nope"
"Ooookay, why don't we have a look at what we were about to blindly thrown out"

I then proceeded to tear open the box and check the contents... wood... more wood... beveled wood... wth. It looked like pre-fab. Then I came across some assembly instructions.


Weeeeeeeeee! Instructions on how to put together a garden chair :D And so I made it my accidental project for the day :D

I opened up the box and laid out all if its contents... ok ok... they were just strewn about but whatever... The package even came complete with the galvanized nails and bolts :) The wood seemed like it was all in good condition and it looked like all the pieces where there. I ran off and grabbed our little red toolbox hehe... now I get to do some Tim Taylor stuffy stuff... tho I wasn't about to soup it up and make into some freaky Tool Time disaster project.

Time for me to put stuff together... Step 1. Nail wedges to rear legs even with slots. Space round edge seat bars evenly along rear legs. Looks simple enough :p problem was I didn't have a set square so I wasn't sure how square the pieces were... another problem... I don't have a workbench :p I had to sit on a stool and use the walkway... keke. Regardless... It seemed to turn out ok :) you'll notice it looks like there is a chunk missing from one of the slats, it's actually where a knot used to be... I didn't break it... I swear <_< >_>


Step 2. Using Two 21" pieces fit front leg support into slots on front legs. Place the two arm supports on front edge of leg and level with the top. Step 3. Join together assembly 1 & 2. Use bolts provided. Hrm... Step 2 was simple enough, come step 3 however... I discovered that the holes that were pre-drilled for the bolts didn't even come close to lining up... and NO I did not put something together backwards. :@ Weee! I got to use the drill :p

Step 4. Nail back support sections evenly along last square edge 19 1/2" piece. Umm... what last square edge 19 1/2" piece? OMGWTFBBQ... I'm missing a piece. *sigh* well, since we had so much wood kickin' around and I had already come so far, why not make my own square edge 19 1/2 piece? In that whole pile of wood I found 1 decent candidate... wow. And even that was stretching it... I had to file down one side to make it even (no I didn't have any sand paper on hand... so I have to use the file). and then I had to use that handsaw (shown below) to cut out the notches.

Step 5. Place assembly 4 in slots on rear legs and nail. As you can see, I managed to do an ok job regardless of the minor setback :p I had to cut the notches because the wood was not the right dimensions and the slats for the back would not have fit if I didn't otherwise. :) It worked out fine. The saw is just there to prop up the back ... just to match the drawing in the assembly instructions.

It's starting to look like a chair!!!

Step 6. Bolt arms to back support. Step 7. Fasten arms to front legs and arm supports. Taking care to note arms are level. Fasten back support to chair back.

TADAAAAA!!!!

I'm quite pleased with the end result, AND it really does work :p you can sit in it and it doesn't break.. hehe.

Total time spent: over 4 hrs.
I believe you can pick up a chair like this in select stores... they cost somewhere between $50 and $80. If you're looking to get the original Adirondack Chairs they come at a greater cost... for some reason O.o...

The final product was sanded and stained :) I'll post a picture of it later ;)

No Excuses... Time To Pick Things Back Up... :)

Hello people... it's me again... Time to get things going again :)

Malaysia Trip Second Leg... Tokyo - Singapore

Weeeee... Another Malaysia entry :p Well, things are starting to get back on track with me, so hopefully I'll have more time to blog... Or I should stop making excuses and set aside a few minutes to write an entry everyday :$ keke.

My parents and I got off at our designated stop and they proceeded to run to their gate... I on the other hand had a couple of hours to kill. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I almost got off the bus without my documentation (passport) and boarding pass O_O. I remember turning around (when I was already at the door) and looking back at my seat... Wow. Imagine what an ordeal that would have been... Who knows? Maybe I would have ended up like Mr. Merhan Karimi Nasseri. So I talk to one of the airport attendants and they point me towards my gate... I follow the directions they give me... and it turns out they pointed me in the wrong direction... they overshot me... meh. It was a short walk back.

I had a couple of hours to kill before boarding time so me, being the geek that I am, headed for the closest network drop :D I had to sit around for a little while because 2 Japanese Businessmen had commandeered both network drops :( that's ok... there was a nice flat screen TV playing the local news. To the right of the TV were some massage chairs :D I would have tried them... but I didn't have any Japanese change, ah well... maybe next time.

After about 10-15 minutes I got a chance to jump on the network. My intentions were to blog, of course O.o and I remember getting some stuff drafted, but I didn't have a chance to finish because I also logged into MSN and got distracted. BTW, I can't recall if I had to pay or not... I'm pretty sure that I did tho.


One thing that I noticed across all airports, no matter how beautiful the airport, I have yet to come across one with a nice smoking room :p This one was atrocious... it looked like the airport had been renovated but the renovation had been built around this room! Not only was it ol' school, it was damn small... and stinky :p hehe but that's to be expected. I can't imagine what it would be like inside there when the airport is busy... wow...

Finally we boarded and I was on my way to Singapore! :D

Airline: Singapore Airlines! Yay me! To tell you the truth... I don't remember much of this flight :p I don't usually remember very much about any flight... probably because after take off I try to sleep until arrival :$... not sure why, but ya. Probably something to do with that 'I don't like being stuck in a can for x amount of hours' thing.

Let's see what I can remember :)


I had a TV :D Unfortunately, I didn't spend much time watching it... as Jacq would say, "The TV watched you." :p

I must say, the next item is something I will not forget... the food was phenomenal! I couldn't believe it... I guess I'm just too used to flying all the N. American airlines... specifically in Canada... 1) the service is crap 2) the food is crap 3) the crew is ugly O.o

Yes, I realize that it's not a nice thing to say... but I'm not saying that they're physically 'ugly'... more so that they barely look presentable as crew. The thing I noticed about Asian airlines is that they seem to take more pride in their appearance. Their uniforms are tailored to fit and they were designed well! Both, the men and women, look professional and friendly. Not to mention, a lot of them were 'good-looking' as well, they had nice faces and were young. If you ever have a chance at flying with a Canadian company you'll know what I'm rambling about. Most of the stewardesses are in their 30s-40s, hair not nice, face not nice... but worst of all, Uniform not nice! Wait, there's the Cherry on top of it all... the service isn't exactly 'top-notch' either. Needless to say, any airline company in Asia puts any airline company in N. America to shame.

Uniform Comparison:

Left: Air Canada (2005) Right: Singapore Airlines (Current)
Taken from: UniformFreak.com
Back to my original topic: food :D

This leg I remember ordering the Chicken Pasta... well, I don't 'remember' per se, but I have PICTURES :D so I know I'm telling the truth! Naw... I remember because as soon as I heard they had the same thing as I had on my previous flight I was curious to see if all the rumors and praise about Singapore Airlines were true ;)


Indeed they are... The chicken was very nice, lots of flavor, moist... the pasta was very nice as well just the right amount of sauce, not over/undercooked.. yumm. The meal also came with: uuuh.. some salad thing with some smoked fish... dunno what fish, it's the one on the top-left.. looks familiar tho :$. A dinner roll, water, crackers, cheese... and most importantly :D real METAL UTENSILS!!!


When we were done the steward/stewardesses ran around and provided us with Ice Cream :D I don't know what flavor it was tho... Ice Cream flavor I suppose. Kinda Dragon Fruit-y. It came in a cute little container, hehe.

I must say, the food was outstanding (as you can see from the aftermath) ;) I probably would have licked the plate clean if I was still a kid :p

Wow... look at those shiny utensils :o I was tempted to pack them away in my bag just to show them to my friends in Canada... would have been too obvious tho :D

Anyways... wrapping things up... after eating, and sleeping, and eating again, and sleeping again :p (gawd, I'm a pig) I was pleasantly awakened by the announcement of our approach :) Hey look, I took a picture of our landing! :p


No... really, it is :D you can see a light in the bottom-left corner :) LOL... actually, I know it is because it comes after the food, and before the inside of Changi Airport :p

And there ends the post on the Second Leg of my trip ;)

It's getting late so I'm going to sign-off now ;) Until next time! BTW, next post will be Changi Airport (obviously) but more importantly, Jacq and I's FIRST ENCOUNTER!!! Wooooo!

Together Again...

Tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."

Grandma's Funeral was on Tuesday, May 16. It was a sad affair but beautiful in its own way. One thing that was apparent was that, even though everyone had written speeches, and not collaborated, the dominant theme was obvious: Grandma was a caring, nurturing person who instilled great values in all of her children/grand children. None of us can recall a day when she was angry, and none of us had ever heard her ask for anything she did not already have.

We will all miss her dearly... but we are happy that she is together with Grandpa again...

---

That evening we all decided to go out to a Malaysian / Singaporean / Taiwanese restaurant called Ellie. I should probably write a review about it, but I leave that for another day... assuming I ever go back :p

Here's something to give you an idea of what our experience was like. We arrived there in a group of 14 (ya... that may have marred my experience a little). Our group seemed to take up about 1/3 if not 1/2 of all the seats available (I didn't count). There were only 2 waitresses on the floor, so service was a little slow... understandable considering how large our group was.

To drink, a few of us ordered Sasperella. I have to admit I can't remember trying it before that day tho I'm sure I have... O_o it's quite nice actually :) Like RootBeer.

I'll try to recall what (our section) ordered, but no promises... the menu was actually pretty extensive. We had Sambal Blacan Asparagus, Peatips (Sambal Blacan I think), Chicken Rendang (I prefer beef, but they didn't have any), Seafood Paper Hotpot, Beef Paper Hotpot, Roti Canai, Bak Kut Teh, and what dinner is complete without White Rice?

Asaparagus - Not too shabby... I'm biased on this one... I love asparagus.

Peatips - Delicious... but then again, Sambal Blacan anything is good :p

Chicken Rendang - tasteful, but I still prefer beef.


Seafood Paper Hotpot - This one is interesting. When we first read the menu we were wondering wth it was. And it's exactly as it says... it's a small hotpot, but the soup and rest of the food is in a 'paper' container over a small open flame. (You can see the tops of the 'paper' in the picture.)

Beef Paper Hotpot - Similar to the Seafood Paper Hotpot but with beef.

Roti Canai - is my favorite edible item from Malaysia... I was sorely disappointed in the Roti Canai in this restaurant :( The taste barely even resembled Roti Canai. All I could taste was Dough and Butter... I don't even remember what the Curry tasted like :/

Bak Kut Teh - was not as good as some other places that I've tried, but then again... I just got back from M'sia (where we stayed in Klang) so I guess it's not fair to compare.. actually, you can't compare :p I'll just say this, it's passable.

White Rice - is White Rice ;) another one of my favs :D I'd recommend this anywhere, anytime keke.

Maybe I'll go back soon with a smaller group to give it a fair chance ;)

Hmm... I think I'll have to move this over to the eats section.. it turned out to be more of a review than I expected :p

It's late now :( time to get some shuteye ;)

Sad Times...

To the few who have been checking up and not seeing updates, it's because I've taken up helping a friend with a project, studying up for my Father's work, and more recently on a more sad note my Grandmother has just passed away.

Her Viewing was tonight at 6-8pm. And the funeral will be tomorrow at 11am. I will try to get back on track once things slow down.

Regards...

WiFi Hunting...

Here I am inside Blenz on Robson and Bute on their open wireless network :) It's the first time I've actually come out in search of an open wireless network with intentions of just sitting down, relaxing and... sipping coffee(?). Ya well, I'm sitting down and relaxing.. but I'm not sipping coffee. I'm actually sipping on a Bolthouse Farms (Since 1915) Strawberry Banana Fruit Smoothie with Apple Juice drink (that's a mouthful).

Earlier today, x-tension caught me on MSN...

x: hey sam.
me: w/sup
x: nothing much. trying to figure out what to do on a sunny b/ windy afternoon
me: fly kites :D
x: i got no kites.
me: blading
x: no blades.
.
.
.
(about an hour later)

me: I just thought of something...
x: ?
me: if we can find somewhere with a WAP then we can go blog :P
me: hehe
x: like a coffee shop?
me: something like that
x: i'm down. LOL

And here we are :) BUT.. I forgot to bring along my Camera :'( I'll just have to steal pictures off x's Photoblog

So our adventure began on the way Downtown. Apparently today is the day where all the crappy drivers in Vancouver come out and hit the road... I had people slamming their brakes in front of me, weaving in and out.. and people who drove as if they were the only ones on the road.

I brought along my power inverter so that we could plug a laptop in while we were riding around in the car. The last thing that I wanted to do was end up walking around aimlessly (carrying our laptops around) and not find a wireless hotspot. My plan was to drive downtown and poll the area for potential WiFi hotspots before parking and getting out. This would require us to drive around looking like UberDorks (passenger) with a laptop in his lap :D Lucky for me, I was driving :p

As I suspected we were able to find an open WiFi network @ Blendz on the corner of Robson and Bute, right off the main drag.


After leaving the car at the underground parking garage in Pacific Center Shopping mall we slowly made our way back to Blenz. It was quite the walk, but it was a nice day and it was nice to see all the different people walking around downtown. It was a beautiful day, and I wish I had remembered to bring my camera... X had his... and he was even tempted to start taking random pictures of VanCity's bums (transients, not backsides) :p

As I was writing this I had a look at X's post on this day :p and funny thing. He mentions something about his Apple Laptop and Widgets... SEE X?! Even PC users can have Widgets! :D

Damn you x you're right :p I have a weather widget set for Singapore weather, but I don't have a clock set for Singapore time ;) Don't need it hehe.

Well, the day was fun, and we're definitely going to do this again hopefully sometime in the near future :) We'll have to plan a day just to do geekstuff ;)

Yea, I read over this post and realized that it's pretty mish mashed as well... sorry :(

WoW - The Internet Is For Pr0n...

On a light note ;) and this is in good taste btw... just some suggestive language.

Malaysia Trip... First Leg...

Finally... for the few people who are reading this... I'm posting about my Malaysia/Singapore trip. Again I have to apologize for the delay :(

Just a !warning! : I've been having trouble gathering my thoughts lately so the following posts are not going to contain much wit and might not even make that much sense... O_o. Bear with me

We arrived in Vancouver International Airport on the morning of March 5th. (I realize that it's been over a month since I arrived back in Vancouver.. so i'm going to do my best to recall everything that transpired, again, my apologies) I decided to take a snap of this sculpture because (since I left everything to last minute) I though this was a prefect representation of how I felt! BTW taking this picture was almost an adventure in-and-of itself... let me explain.

I actually wanted to take a picture of that particular sculpture from the other side (which would make it look like he was dashing to the right)... good thing I didn't. As I was about to snap the shot... I heard someone yelling at me, "Hey you can't take it from that side!" or something along those lines. I looked up and it was security... thank God they didn't tackle me O_o The reason behind everything was (and I realized this afterwards) right behind it was the security checkpoint where everyone comes through before moving on to their respective gates. That being said, no, they do not want people taking pictures of their security checkpoints (metal detector, x-ray machine, security guards) because then people would be able to study them and blah blah blah... anyway, back to the story at hand. (I'm pretty sure I could have gotten away with a pic facing the other way if I had taken it w/o the flash... the guard didn't even check my cam to make sure that I hadn't taken one).

Ah, yes.... now I remember where we were going when I took that picture. We had actually passed that point but came back to go to the Maple Leaf Lounge :) One of the perks that my dad has. I wish I took more pictures of the Lounge.. it was really nice. The only piccy that I have is the one of the network drop that I was at. Very impressive, it felt like I was back at work :) The facilities were really nice, and if I remember correctly it was free to use the internet.


I was hoping to catch a flight on one of these contraptions :DOur journey to Malaysia had 3 legs:

1^st leg: Vancouver - Tokyo
2^nd leg: Tokyo - Singapore
3^rd leg: Singapore - Malaysia

---

1^st leg: Vancouver - Tokyo

This portion of the trip was with Canadian Airlines I believe we were on a DC10. My seat was an aisle seat towards the back of the plane. interesting thing was that since this was a flight to Japan I was surrounded by Japanese people, mostly students... some elderly folks. I was hoping to have a cute Japanese student as an aisle mate :p but no dice, keke. I ended up sitting with some homely looking Japanese girl who spoke almost no english at all. Mind you, I didn't make much of an effort to converse with her... I'm not much of a conversationalist when I'm on planes.

Funny thing is, I've been flying for as long as I can remember (dad used to be a chief stewart on Malaysian Airline Systems) but I still can't stand flying... I guess that's not an accurate statement. It's not so much that I don't like flying, but more the fact that you're stuck in that tin can for x amount of hours and nowhere to go. Everything inside there is so confined as well. I wouldn't say I'm claustrophobic, not by any stretch of the imagination, but unless you're in business/first class you're not going to have much room to yourself, expecially if you've got your carry-on luggage stowed under the seat infront of you. There's no way in hell I'm going to put my laptop in the overhead bin. Plus I have more than just my laptop in the bag. I have my books, etc... anyways back to the topic at hand.

Since this was going to be a long flight we had a couple of meals planned. First, we had a choice of Salmon or Beef. I chose beef... it was damn salty. I remember we had another meal... I can't quite recall what the choices were but I'm pretty sure I chose the Chicken.. I'm also pretty sure that it came on a bed of rice (?) :p or risotto or something :D The chicken was actually not too bad. It was edible as airplane food comes, so I guess that's saying enough of it already ;)
Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it. I was too hungry and forgot :(

Also, anyone who's been on a flight to Asia will know that it's a damn long flight. This leg was over 12 hrs I believe. That being said, I think I recall there being 3 feature films... all of which I slept through. There were a couple of news broadcasts as well as a documentary (I think) :p

On the approach to Japan I was surprised to see that there were Windmill generators along the coast! I'm not sure what area we flew over bud it was a really beautiful sight. The crop fields looked like patchwork, and I could see little vehicles running along the roads. I was half-expecting Godzilla to come out of the water and start battling it out w/ Ultraman :D.

On the approach I also overheard a couple of (younger) Japanese passengers say, "Choh inaka!" Which, if my Japanese serves me correctly, is a slang term meaning "boonies", "countryside" or more appropriately "rural".

The other thing that threw me for a loop was the fact that when we flew over another section (a little farther inland) there were golf-courses as far as the eye could see... seriously... it was whack.


My mom was just as awestruck as I was... I'm sure we counted at least 8... then again, that was over a month ago... and the mind tends to embellish things, right? :p

We finally arrived at Narita airport and after a near-perfect touchdown we taxied to our gate. After we disembarked, those who were transitioning were greeted by Narita airport attendants... I was very impressed with the effeciency of the Japanese system. Apparently there are almost NO incidents (passengers/baggage getting lost, delays, etc...) in the Japanese airports (I could be making that up as well :p) regardless of the fact that Narita is massive compared to Vancouvers piddly airport. I wish I had the frame of mind to snap a shot of the attendants that greeted us *sigh* They even had our names printed out on a large signboard :p

After the attendants confirmed who we were, they also verified that we had our tickets so that we could get our boarding passes at next check-in. We all did... that is, all of us except my dad O_o The Check-in lady in Vancouver tore off the wrong coupon when she issued his boarding pass in Vancouver. My parents had to catch their connecting flight in the next 1/2 hour or it would leave without them. Crappy. This was Narita's chance to shine... and a perfect example of how systematic and effecient they were. The Attendants immediately took out their ticket books and drew up a manual ticket with the proper details. Within 10 minutes, they (mum & dad) were on the way past the security checkpoint making their way to their gate (along with me) in one of the shuttle busses. On the bus... we looked around and saw this...


ya... I'm not sure what to make of that either...

Anyways... more to come ;)

Moving on...

Well... here I am, back from the dead. I know it's been over a month since I last posted (a real post) and now I can explain what was going on. First, yes, I have attempted to post in the past... but the two times that I was about to update the blog 1) blogspot crapped out and I had not saved the post as a draft... and 2) my laptop crapped out before I saved what I had written over the 2 hours. Now on with the show :)

Apart from the above mentioned... here is what has been going on since I have landed back on Canadian soil...

I am happy to say that I am no longer single. As of March 7th Jacq and I are officially a couple :) There isn't much to explain apart from the fact that she's brought an immesurable amount of happiness into my life. Our relationship is great so far, and she and I are working to see what we can do to come together :)...

On another note, before I took off on the trip, I had already been contemplating resigning from my position at the IBM CSC. To be honest, I had not thought too much about it over the trip (being on vacation and all) but when I went back to work again my mind went into overtime, driving me nuts trying to decide whether I was going to stay there or not. Those of you who are observant will realize that I'm speaking in past tense, so yes, I finally decided to resign.


On Friday March 30^th I went into a meeting with my HR rep.. followed up on all the things that we talked about before I left for Malaysia/Singapore, and at the end of the meeting let her know that I was going to tender my resignation on Monday. To my surprise, she was actually expecting it:

"Yea, I could tell from the moment you got back into work. Your attitude had been different all week."
"Really? But I'm always very impartial :)"
"Yeah, but you've been even more impartial this week."

That's not exactly how the conversation went that day, but it's pretty close.

For those of you at IBM who may be reading this, it was not an easy decision... There were even tears shed during the exit inverview, and I have to say JM is a great guy, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. My decision to leave was a result of a culmination of many different things, but mainly to come back and help my father w/ his business. :) Though that is the main reason, I am not ruling out other options... That would be another post in itself ;)

Accept it or not, those are the main reasons I have not posted in such a long time... that and the fact that my laptop mobo/vid card is slowly crapping out :(

On w/ the show...

Yes I'm Still Alive...

For my two readers who are wondering... Yes, I'm still alive and plan to get back into the swing of things :p I'm just taking some time to slowly get things together :) Regular posting will resume shortly ;)

I Never Procrastinate...

I guess this will be the final post before I officially leave the country ;) Unless, of course, I manage to get internet while I'm in the airplane O.O... how cool would that be? Mind you, if they do offer those services on-board, I'm sure I'll have sacrifice a limb or two. That being said, there aren't going to be any accompanying photos until later :(

On with it. Sooo, actually, this is the first post from my personal laptop (Toshiba satellite 5200) because, as you know my HardDrive died awhile back. The reason I bring this up is because...

Since I am going on this trip and my Personal Laptop was dead I HAD to go out and purchase a new HD in order to feed my 7.7 lb a day Laptop addiction. After consulting with ASOO my choice had been made. I wanted a: Momentus 5400 100G 2.5" Seagate 100GB 5400RPM ATA6 2.5" 8MB Cache for notebook. I was now officially on a mission.

I realized now that I probably shouldn't have put it off to the last minute cuz I had other things to do. I was expecting to have the weekend off but was asked to work a full day of OT and seeing as I'm taking 2.5 weeks off (unpaid) how could I turn down the offer? I got off work at 2pm and began my journey... here's a list:

1) Pick up car from dad's work (to run errands).
2) Get haircut. (I was past my bi-weekly limit and was almost at 'afro' stage).
3) Go to ATIC computers and pick up the HD.
4) Pack/install/reimage computer.
5) Try to call up AK for a last BBT run.

** 2 and 3 were kind of a toss-up but meh... actually, nm... 3 had priority but for some reason I didn't feel like I had my priorities straight that day **

*sigh* it's almost boarding time... more to come...

*** Update from Narita AirPort ***

I got a ride to H&R Block on Kingsway and grabbed the car. Then I booked it over to the Hair Dresser's on Rupert & 29^th Ave. There were 2 people in front of me so I was contemplating just leaving and to go pick up the HD. Turns out that it was a good thing that I didn't go, it didn't take long for Andy to cut the first 2 guy's hair :D Maybe he rushed cuz I tip him well? :p dunno.

I managed to get out of there by about 4pm and made it home by 4:10pm. I then proceeded to go to ATIC on Broadway. For some reason traffic this Saturday was retarded busy. wth. I took Boundary to Grandview and decided that Grandview was too narrow and traffic was too dense. I busted a right on Rupert and then took Broadway all the way down. What a waste of time. ATIC didn't have ANY Seagate notebook drives in stock! FEK!

I then proceeded to make my way up to NCIX. On the way there I got a phonecall from pa. "Can you go and pick Jeff (my cousin) up? I need him to sign his income tax papers". WTF... so I had to make a detour and head back home to pick up my cousin. I forgot to mention earlier that I initially went home to pick him up because he said he wanted to come along but subsequently decided to stay home (bastard).

After going home (yet again) we went to NCIX. Ya... they don't carry Seagate drives in stock. they order them. ARGH! You can imagine that I was frustrated by this time.

"So what DO you carry here?"
"Samsung."
"OK fine, let me see what you have."
"Uh..."
"Nevermind, do you have the 80GB HD that comes with the enclosure."
"Yes, it's on special."
"Fine, I'll take it."

$140 later (after taxes) I had my drive and started making my way over to H&R Block again.

"Hey Jeff, can you check the receipt?"
"Uh.. where is it?"
"Shit."

I had to go back to NCIX cuz I forgot to pick up the receipt after I left.

We eventually made it back to H&R Block, signed the papers and then went home. I spent the next hour and a half: swapping out the HDs, using the recovery discs (as I didn't have the time to do a clean install and do all the updates. Then I partitioned the drive, installed Ghost, and reimaged my laptop with the last one that I had. I was all set to go.... except that I had to take over 1.5hrs to xfer all the files that I had backed up on my external drive.



The remainder of the night I spent in-between chatting w/ Jacq, packing and installing the apps that I thought I'd need... so that was my day :p



I ended up passing out fairly early... without finishing my packing first but continued after I woke up this morning. Then I had to taxi my (work) laptop back to the office to lock it up. I'm not allowed to take it out of the country because of the sensitive information that's on it... (tho I know of a few people who have done so :p) psh.

frack.. I want to upload pictures.. but I'm not sure I have enough time :( Ah crap... they're boarding my flight... :@

Ciao for now.. I'll post the pics.. I promise ;)

Putting The Pieces Together...

Got called in to work a full day of overtime today, and I should probably be doing something more constructive.. but ya... enjoy ;)