So yesterday was a good night, celebrating the Chinese New Year with friends, cooking some Crawfish etouffee, and playing few rounds of poker. The etouffee was extremely popular, it was all gone fairly early. I need to make alot more next time and the poker? Well, lets just say that I did not do too bad.
So Today isn’t too bad as well. Today is a really relaxing day at home made some red bean bao zi. It was ok. Only one batch turned out ok, and the rest looked really bad. It tasted ok, but just looked bad… however, I’ve learned alot and I think I’ve almost got it.
The weather forecast said that today the weather suppose to warm up and snow will turned in to rain. Well… that did not happen. The snow continued. I did not mind at all. Get a chance to work from home and of course enjoying the snow a bit.
This morning, I receive a small box from Apple via FedEx. Inside this small FedEx box is a 6th Generation iPod Nano!!! No I did not order a new Nano, it was a replacement for a first generation iPod Nano from Apple!!! So here is the story, few month ago I saw an blog post about Apple replacing 1st generation iPod Nanos on TUAW. I remember Vicky having an old iPod Nano… so I dug it out of the desk drawers and try to see if it is replaceable with the Apple website. And to my surprise, our iPod Nano’s serial number is with in the range that is being recalled. So few weeks later, I received an prepaid envelope from Apple, I mailed my iPod back to them and today I got it back!!!
And Yes … Apple upgraded to the latest iPod Nano… so now it is an 8 gigabyte 6th Generation iPod Nano!!!!
Actually, it is pretty awesome, the new nano comes with off air radio, and a Nike+ pedometer. Oh I hope Vicky don’t want her Nano back.
Today is another wonderful day. The day started very early making dough for my chinese stuffed buns. With Vicky’s help we were able to make 18 buns. They were wonderful!!!
Check it out!!!
So today is an atypical Sunday, or maybe it is a typical Sunday in 2012. Anyways, today started off with me steaming mantou (饅頭) (Chinese Steamed Buns), then in the evenings making some dumplings, and of course Vicky baked some yellow cake from scratch!!!
Today is my first day returning to work. Oh my gosh I was so jet lagged in the morning. The weather in Seattle today is just wet and nasty, but it is still great to be back in Seattle. So work is still work even in 2012, but I did catch up on my Auburn football tonight. Well, instead of watching the boring Orange bowl. I decided to watch the replay on ESPN3 of the Chick-fil-a bowl (Peach bowl). It was actually a pretty good game, especially in the beginning. I am very glad that Auburn won. What a great way to end 2011. So what’s next? the LSU / Alabama rematch. I can’t wait.
At the end of every year, I look back on the year before and see what I have accomplished. This year is no different. So here are what’s went on last year 2011 !!!
1) I got married. Yep… Min is off the market and not available anymore. I got married on February 5, 2011. It was a lovely wedding and we are very very very happy together. As a matter of fact, in 2011 my little sister also got married plus 4 other close friends.
2) STP – Seattle to Portland bike ride. The 202 miles bike ride from Seattle to Portland. It’s the longest I’ve ever travelled on a bicycle in one day 150 miles and 202 miles in two days.
3) Auburn National Championship — AMAZING in the beginning of the year, Auburn beat Oregon and won the national championship!!!!
This coming year 2012 what are my goals…
1) be more healthy — dang cold and flu and all these other aliments go to heck.
2) be more productive — But for work and for family … enough said.
3) be more attentive to my professional life — maybe get another certification
4) be more time cautious and travel less — most people want to travel more in the year ahead, I want my wife and I to spend more time at home and less time on the road. This past month is one such example of the total craziness.
5) be more money conscious — I am no longer single… I got to start to think long term and long term planning, therefore I got to be thinking more about my future fiances.
I am sure there are more things that should be doing for the new year but I am sure this is a good start!!!
Happy New Year Everyone!!!
Oh and one more thing… check out my new project365 website. It is my 2012 goal to have a photo-a-day blog journal. Check it out!!!
Today, we are traveling to Yuan Yang. Yuan Yang is a very small town in Yunnan province and the only way for us to get there is by bus. I’ve never travelled by bus in china before so this is a new experience. The bus ride to Yuan Yang is around 7 hours long. I did not realized how far Yuan Yang is and I did not realized how rural of a place Yuan Yang is. The ride to Yuan Yang was very interesting. The adventure began at the KunMing bus station.
Vicky and I were in the number 1 and number 2 seat in the big bus. On the way there, we went from the city of KunMing to the outskirts of civilization. On the way we saw all sort of development and lack of development.
As we get closer to Yuan Yang, the road are pretty bad and also we begin to enter mountain roads. I did not realized that Yuan Yang is broken up into two towns. The new town and the old town. The new town is more developed however there are not much to look at in the new town. The old town is less developed and is about a hour drive away in the mountain roads. Once we arrived at Yuan Yang our guide met us at the bus station, we grab our bags and headed toward our hotel. Our hotel is pretty much the only major building in town. It IS the best hotel in town or in the region. The room was clean, but a bit cold. There is a air conditioning unit with heater, but we are not allow to turn it on. The only thing that is there is a small electric pad that is on top of the mattress for you to lay on.
Shortly after our arrival, we drop off our bags and grab our camera, we went out to look for our first sun set. Oh … the reason why we are on this adventure is to take pictures of the beautiful rural southern China. Our guide took us to this secret location for pictures. He said to us, “the road condition is pretty bad, so we will be taking to little car to help us get around”. The little car is a 3 wheeler, similar to the three wheeler in Mr. Bean. The ride there was interesting.
Once we got to our destination, we immediately saw a water buffalo walking by with a farmer. We then walked down a small muddy trail to the terrace rice fields. The view was magnificent!!!
After our photo shoot, we travelled back to town and went to a small local restaurant for dinner. The food was decent and cheap. After dinner, at the town square there was a group of locals line dancing. Pretty neat!!!
So our plan tomorrow is to head toward our next location around 5 AM in the morning for sunrise photo taking. This will be an interesting morning tomorrow. More to come.
Today we travelled from Beijing to Kunming. This is my first time flying Air China and will probably be my last time. The flight was fine, the service was good except for the seat space. I was in a Boeing 757. However the seat spacing was so tight that the 3 hours flight was almost unbearable. I will probably never fly Air China again.
Once we got to Kunming. We got a cab and went to our hotel. After we checked in we went for lunch. I follow my number 1 rule of finding a decent place in an unfamiliar place. That rule is to always eat at a place where there are the most local people. We that said, as soon as we were on the street we found bunch of people carrying a little white lunch container, so we were off to find that food. It did not take long and we ended up in an alley and the food was from a travel agents staff cafeteria, and the place was packed. We bought food there. It was super cheap, and it was pretty good
My first day in Beijing. I am still majorly jet lagged. The air in Beijing is so bad that it did not help at all. Today was a very quite and uneventful day. Since today is Vicky’s birthday, I spend most of my time with her and her folks.
Check out the Amazing lunch we had.
I did go and check out an indoor ski place. I did not ski or snowboard but it was very interesting to see an indoor ski resort.
So it seems like in the last month I’ve spent alot of time in the airport, on an airplane, and just travelling all over the world. So for example, two weeks ago, I was in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. This past Thursday, I was in Princeton, New Jersey having a great time for work. Remember, I am working on Doctor House’s Hospital. Late Friday Night, I returned to Seattle, and Today (Sunday), I am currently in SFO waiting for my flight to Beijing. Yep… very very busy some business and some pleasure. The number of travel is really starting to catch up. So I know I still have alot of Mexico posts, that I have not updated yet, but I assure you they are coming. So let’s talk about my day today so far? My day started off super early. I took a cab from home to SeaTac airport, once checked in, I was able to spend some time at the United lounge. I thought the Delta lounge was bad, well, the united lounge was not any better, everything is very very basic. After an hour or so of waiting, I boarding my flight and headed toward SFO; The view in the morning right after take off was just amazing!!!
Once I’ve got to SFO, everything seems to be pretty routine, I went to check out the United Lounge in SFO as well, did you know there is a business class lounge and a first class lounge? I did not know that until I walked in to the wrong one. I wonder what is in the first class lounge. There was also this nice TV exhibit in the terminal in SFO. Very Interesting.
So this is the first time that I’ve ever take an international business class on a 747. I remember see the stairs going to the second floor of a 747 but I have never been there. This is my first experience of that.
My ticket, 14 is on the 2nd floor of the 747!!!!
Special entrance hall for business class passengers.
The steps up to 747 second floor. It is interesting, that first class is actually in the very tip of the plane on the first floor. I would have thought it would been isolated on 2nd floor, but it is not.
My seat. The video display is huge and the seat actually lay flat, which is pretty nice, but it is like sleeping on a hardwood bench for 6 hours, it is nice and flat but still not very comfortable.
However, once I borded my flight, we were quickly informed that there is a mechanical error and there will be some delay. After one hour, they kicked everyone off the flight, because they needed to “Reboot” the plane. I hope our flight wasn’t running Windows 95 or something similar.
After 2 and half hours later, and some terminal japanese food and another round at the lounge, we finally started to board the flight again. My flight to Beijing was 2.5 hours late.
Once on board, what’s interesting is that UA actually have the flight control communications linked up to their passenger entertainment system, so during take off and landing I was able to listen to the flight control provide directions to our flight. Flight UA 889. The Entertainment system is pretty nice, big screen, lot of movies. Very enjoyable.
This is our in-flight meal. Not too shabby, better than the Delta’s hot TV dinner but not as good as EVA air’s lamb ribs. humm…
So after a long day of flying and 2 movies later, I finally arrived in Beijing. Beijing air is as dirty as ever, I am sure it will take some time to get use to this.
Oh yesterday evening was such a beautiful Friday evening!!!
Few years back, Colin, Brian, and I went to watch Harold and Kumar 2, and we had a blast. So when the new Harold and Kumar came out, of course we want to go see it together again. So last night the 3 of us plus Teagen, first meet up at one of our favorite happy hour spots (for some beer and appetizers and then headed over to the movies. And as usual, the oysters at Blue Acre was amazing!!!
After the quick and short HH, we headed to the movie. So without reveling too much, I have to say this movie,, was an amazing and fun to watch movie, especially with your good friends. First of all it is definitely a late 20′s or 30 something’s movie. There are a lot of references to things and movies of people in that generation. (e.g. Christmas Story, Space Camp, etc) So what about 3D? Is it a another 3D gimmick? Well, I have to say that this movie’s 3D effect was well done and enjoyable. To me, this movie tries to do what 3D movies tries to do when 3D was rare (like Caption EO). For example, there are lots of enjoyable and funny moments in the movie where viewers will reach out and try to grab the incoming objects. All in all, the movie was just a fun and enjoyable holiday movies that set you in the Christmas mood!!! I would recommend all my grown up friends to watch it, but please keep the kiddies at home .
All in all, it was an amazing evening. Oh and I LOVE YOU WAFFLE-BOT!!!
So I’ve tried to get Vicky to start blogging for a while now, I even set up a wordpress site for her (vicky.mintrix.net). After a long time of nagging Vicky, she finally posted her first blog post!!! Yeah!!!! It is still work in progress, but go check out her site and give her some positive encouragement!!!
Remember a time when you are not harassed as an airplane passenger by TSA agents at the airport security? Well, Yeah I do, it was before Sept. 11, 2001. Yesterday, I once again experienced that hassle free experience. So while going through security at the ATL airport, there is a special line for the “Pre Check”. I have forgotten that I have signed up for this a while back, but when I was going through the security, I got directed to this special line. As I was getting ready to strip down to my undies for security check, the TSA agent asks, “do you know about this line?”
I responded, “oh yeah, you take everything off and put it on the scanner and walk through in your undies”.
He responded, “No, just take off any metal objects and leave your jacket, belt, and shoes on. Also leave your computer in your bag”
I was shocked, and I followed his instructions and in 15 seconds I was through security and waiting for Vicky on the other side. This was such a good experience, that it gives me hope that we are slowly going back to normal!!!
So a long day of travel we finally made it to our rental home in PLAYACAR phase 2 in Playa Del Carmen. The flight over from Seattle to Atlanta was pretty good. Vicky got upgraded, as for me … I got to enjoy the wonderful economy class.
While in Atlanta airport, we went to our favorite Chicken place in the airport for lunch.
From there we met with Vicky’s friend Monica and flew in to Cancun airport. Originally, Delta was offering a 800 dollar voucher for anyone to volunteer. I was planning on doing so because I still have some work I need to finish up, and a night in ATL hotel will do wonders for my unfinished work. But at the last minute, the seats opened up because of some idiot trying to go into Mexico without a passport. Ok people, when you leave the country you need a Passport, it doesn’t matter if you have a green card or not, that is only for ingress not egress, Mexico could care less if you have a green card or not. Anyway, the guys and his girl friend flew from Denver to Atlanta, only to be send home by the gate agent, while all of their friends boarded the plane and headed toward Cancun. Sucks to be him.
Anyways, after a really short flight from ATL to Cancun, we arrived. As we walked out to find our rental car, there are alot of people trying to help us or trying to sell us something, I wasn’t very sure. We did find the Hertz shuttle and found the rental car place. Yes, I know, why are we renting a car you say? Well, I think it is just more convenient, and we are betting that it is pretty safe to be here with a rental car. Or at least we hope. Anyways, renting a car is very different in Mexico, since my car insurance doesn’t cover outside of the country, I have to buy the rental car’s insurance. The the super cheap rental car became 500+ dollars US for 1 week. When we finally got our car, it was such a cheap ass car that it is no comparison to anything in the US. I had a very hard time finding the defogger and the internal light for this look PoS car.
Driving at night in Mexico is interesting. Oh and this is the first time that I am driving outside of US, Canada doesn’t count. First of all, they don’t really have a free way system, they have a highway system, almost like State Highways in the US. What is surprising was the speed bumps on the highway. You can be driving around 70 km/s and all the sudden you see a weird sign (I was still trying to figure it out) and BOOM!!! Speed Bump or Speed Trench!!!
Luckily, I was able to get to Playa Del Carmen with a little help from my trusted iphone. I use an app called Galileo. It is an offline map app that let you create any offline map for free. This is a great travel app for anyone going outside of the US without data plan.
With the location mapped on Galileo, I was able to get us safely to our rental home with speaking very very very little Spanish.
All checked in … since this is considered an international flight, we get to hang out at the all new Delta Sky Club in the S terminal. All I have to say is they tried, but failed. The feel is a little bit European, but everything is super cheap. And of course, there are no good food in the club. Oh I miss the clubs in Asian countries. Oh … Almost time for our flight.
So a while a go we got some Seattle Musical Theatre tickets from Living Social. Since we all been pretty busy, I wanted to take a break and treat ourselves, so I was able to fit in a show today. The musical is Hairspray at the SMT in Magnuson park. I’ve never seen Hairspray before nor have I ever been to SMT, but I heard good things. Oh and as for the actual show? I LOVED IT!!! Seattle Musical Theatre is not Broadway, but it is not bad… not bad at all. Most of the actors and actresses are very new, this maybe their first production after college. The actual venue is small but cosy, I think it reminds me of a high school play. The overall show was very entertaining and captivating. I would definitely recommend it to anyone that is thinking about going to see SMT’s production of Hairspray.
So it has been few days after my purchase of iTunes Match and my first attempt at using iTunes match.
During my last post, I complained alot about how I lost all of my music on my iPhone and how it is nearly impossible to use without a home library. Well, this is what I found out, since then.
I was impatient. Once my entire library is matched and uploaded to itunes “cloud”. I toggled the iPhone setting to turn off iTunes match and resync. The resync of course brought back my the music on my iPhone. I then again toggle the iTune Match setting and it did tell me that I will lose my library, however, this time it did not erase my local files on my iPhone. YES, this is how I expected to work in the first place. With the iTunes Match activated, I can download/stream on the fly the music that’s in my library but not currently on my phone, but still listen to the things that is on my phone as well. So what I think happened the first time is when I activated the iTunes Sync, most of the songs on my phone is not in my “cloud” library, therefore it erased them.
I am glad it works now, I will update if things changes.
Oh another cool feature of iTunes match, I am currently updating all my sub 256kbps bit rate music files to a iTunes 256kbps files!!! That’s alot of files but all my music is starting to sound better!!!
And finally, it is amazing how much music I forgot I have… it is amazing to rediscover music in your own music library!!!
So, being a bleeding edge geek that I am, I decided to jump on the Apple’s attempt at “cloud” music. BTW, I really hate the world “cloud”, but that is another story all together. Anyways, since my music library is only around 8000 files, which is way under the 25000 allowed in iTunes match, I figure, I should give it a try.
The iTunes match is a 3 stage process. 1st it gathers information about the music library, then it matches the library with the iTunes “cloud” library. Finally, uploads the remaining non-matched files to the “cloud”.
So after stage 2 of the process, you can actually start using the iTunes Match. So here is the catch, as soon as you enable the iTunes match in your iPhone, it erases all of your existing music library on the phone. What people (Apple) don’t tell you (clearly), is that iTunes match relies very heavily on the network. Your entire library is in the cloud, so as far as I can tell right now is that it streams and caches on your phone/ipod on the fly. The cache is cleared after a while. So here is the bad part, if you are on a long flight or somewhere where there are no network access, you are screwed. No music for you.
I hope I am wrong, but this is what I see so far. I thought initially that iTunes Match is part of it, you can have both music stored locally and iTunes match from the “cloud”. But that doesn’t seem like the case. Well… I will update as I learn more, but for now, I will probably turn off iTunes match when I go on my international vacations. You know, Apple really annoys me sometimes.
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