4.2.2004 park lane sheraton, rm. 539
well, i'm off to london in about 20 minutes... can't wait to see jason. my cousin jason. it's been... like, at
least 3 years. not that we usually see each other more often than that, but still... it'll be neat meeting up on
the other side of the planet from where our families are... kinda like the time back in '95 when matt and i hung
out in hk and we chilled by the harbour, eating mcd's... :P
4.4.2004 isn't today like a really bad day for chinese ppl?
gosh, i love london. some ppl like living in small towns, or out in the country. not me. not that i don't like
having a nice, big house, with a front yard where i could have a swing set for the kids, or a big tree to hang an
old tire from... but i just love the energy that comes with big cities, like london or barcelona. even when
there's nothing open, there's still tons of ppl milling about. there always seems to be something going on, and
all really accessible. i love being able to walk everywhere - from the movies to a late-night meal at a hk-style
diner for some ngau lam hoa fun...
me and my cousin jason at covent garden
anyways, jason and i had a blast. we chilled together the whole weekend, catching up with each other, with the
family, etc., etc... i hadn't seen him since that time i went to interview in san fran 3 years ago... it's funny.
we've both moved into the career phase of our lives, and things are pretty different for both him and i, and yet
i keep thinking about that clichE the more things change, the more they stay the same.
we didn't do much of anything... walked around a lot, talked a lot, ate a lot, chilled a lot... lotsa good fun.
we even talked about moving to london... i'm actually pretty keen on the idea and he's interested too, though i
think he would have a rougher time moving away from home...
one thing i forgot about london was how rich the place is. i saw some sweet cars there this weekend... a couple
ferrari 360 modena's, 3 tvr's of
assorted models, a rolls-royce silver something (shadow?
spirit?), and in one memorable sequence, a porsche 911 carrera 4 (among the
many porsches i saw there) racing a lamborghini gallardo and both
mashing each other up (the porsche ate it pretty bad) when there was only one lane open at a red light...
anyways, just about the title of my post... would anyone be surprised if some
Eer-superstitious chinese ppl didn't leave the house today, being 4/4/04? hahaha...
4.5.2004 another day at the office
what a raw deal. no friday five again. pooh. i actually have to write
something...
actually, i did wanna write about something i forgot in my last post,
which is that i saw a couple movies over the weekend in london... which probably doesn't surprise you in the
least. that's ok, i accept my flaws.
anyways, jason and i watched zatoichi on
sat. night... it was a japanese-language samurai movie, and quite excellent in our opinion, aside from the
obviously cgi'd bloodletting... i'd wanted to see it before, but not here or in maastricht or wherever, cuz the
subtitles would've been german or dutch or french or whatever... anything except english. good thing i waited.
jason had to leave early on sunday morning to fly to the next part of his business trip, romania. so with a few
hours to kill, i walked around a bit and then decided to watch another movie. luckily for me, the cinemas at
leicester square open pretty early, and i wanted to see something that probably wouldn't be shown in köln or
heerlen or maastricht... so i decided on the station
agent, though i knew nothing about it, aside from the multitude of praise on the posters i saw...
so glad i watched it. fantastic film. great character-driven dramedy. everyone deserves a friend like
bobby cannavale's character, joe... really great flick. go see
it if you have the chance.
anyways, to tide you over the time when i'm in japan (i'm leaving in 4 days!), here's a bunch of links to check
out... a selection of stuff that may only interest me... :P
- i personally helped this man become richer than bill gates
- rather dated, but this kinda stuff just reinforces the fact that the present usa administration has got to go
- old stuff again, but the comments are great
- interesting stuff on the rennes le chateau mystery
- someone with too much money on his hands... at least it works though
- email discriminator which claims to be 10x more accurate than a human
- another email filter with the same claim
- one link...
- and another about secret trials in the oh-so-free us of a
- one of my fave daily reads, riffing on science and dark energy...
- who wants to come in with me on this? sounds like fun!
- or this one. i don't mind either way.
- we could do worse than having this woman as a role model
- is the usa really heading down this path? it sure seems like it
- hilarious top 10 rules of debugging
- very scary look at the man who controls the us justice dept
- this is why the so-called christian right scares me
- somebody's tax dollars went into this research?
- and you thought bush was the biggest problem in america?
- this is the definition of wasted money
and just for carol... a couple links i think you should check out, going into your law school stuff... read this and then read this...
well, another 12 hours or so until my trip to japan starts... this easter weekend is the great exodus... so many
ppl are taking off and going places. jason and nina are going to prague, fatima is going to london, breda is in
amsterdam...
who are these ppl, you ask? well, fatima (aka fatty) and breda both work at ericsson here, both on temporary
contracts, since they're from other locations... fatty from australia (melbourne) and breda from ireland...
they've both discovered this website cuz they wanted to look at some pictures and such, so i thought i'd give a
shout-out to them...
so i went to pick up my guitar today... i brought it in cuz the pickup was busted. well, turns out, it really
was busted. i was looking at at least 200 euros for a replacement (who knew guitar electronics were so
expensive?), so i said forget that... so now i've got an electro-acoustic guitar that only acts as an acoustic.
well, it's alright, it still sounds really good... i just need an external mike if i wanna amplify it.
i met up with chris and a couple friends of his from england, sarah and laura, for dinner and some drinks... it
was nice. sarah and laura are both on this special european exchange program where they can do an extra year of
studies in their field in another european country... sarah is in france, and laura's in belgium... that's coolz
man. i wish we had something like that. comp sci in italy? sweet!
anyhoo... i should start packing and all that.
4.11.2004 konnichiwa from tokyo!
hallo from the other side of the world! that's right kids, uncle steve is in japan!
i'm writing from clara's snazzy new laptop here in saitama... we're
just a bit outside of tokyo. can't sleep for some reason (funny, i'm not as jetlagged coming east over here
as i was going east to germany from toronto), so i thought i'd just write a bit.
my trip here was fine. it was about 17 hours of travelling in total, from the time i left my house in aachen,
until i finally got out of the terminal at narita international airport. and then, it was still only 11:30am
here (albeit the next day)! hahaha...
after the most efficient de-planing procedure i've ever experienced (from the plane actually
stopping at the gate until i finally left the secure area with my pack, it was no more than 25 minutes, and that
includes customs and immigration), i picked up my japan rail pass and
took the narita express train to tokyo...
clara and bobby met me there, and it was just fantastic seeing them. seriously, it was sorta a weird thing,
being able to pick them out so fast in the sea of asian faces that is tokyo station. it's quite overwhelming,
the sheer number of ppl here. kinda like london, only everyone sorta looks the same here. hahaha...
anyways, we walked around ginza, the high-roller's area in tokyo, and then the imperial
palace garden, which was, honestly, nothing to write home about... but after that, we went to
shibuya, which is exactly how i pictured tokyo to be... neon lights and crazy lcd tv ads
galore, tons upon tons of ppl just milling about, and the sheer energy of the place...
it was bobby's bday, so we met up with some other ppl, emily and rosh (both
jet teachers in the same town as clara) and rosh's lady friend,
mari (sp?) and went to outback steakhouse... yeah, that's right. my
first meal in japan was steak. ugh. oh wellz. i'm gonna load up on so much japanese food this week, it
won't matter...
anyhoo, that's about it... we did some sticker pic stuff (the japanese name for it escapes me now), and then
headed back home, cuz the trains stop pretty early here. not sure what's on the sched today, aside from some
more walking around tokyo.
aight, that's it. this was far longer than i wanted to write... i probably won't update every day here, but
we'll see... sayonara!
4.16.2004 from tokyo to kyoto to tokyo
just a quick update before i hit the sack...
got back from kyoto today, where i spent the last few days... beautiful city. temples out the wazoo, if you
like that kinda thing. if you're not into temples, well, you're just out of luck, cuz that's basically all
there is (that makes kyoto any diff from, say, tokyo). of course, after 2 straight days of nothing except
buddhist temples and shinto shrines, they all sorta look alike after a while... :P
before i left for kyoto, i spent a couple days hanging with clara...
last sunday, i went to her church here, with emily and bobby, and i was almost completely lost, seeing as how
the service was in japanese. the pastor's wife was kind enough to translate a few parts of the short message
(there were a couple baptisms), and all in all, it was definitely interesting. em and clara had a couple
special songs to sing too. i'll post the pics later.
on monday, clara and i just hung out in tokyo, going from shibuya to
roppongi, and many places in between. at one point, we were certain we were witnessing a
yakuza big boss getting harassed by the cops. i mean, does it really take 20+ cops to
put a red sticker on the windshield? hahaha, well, we didn't really know what was going on, but it was still
interesting to see.
on monday night, i met up with john and paul, a couple of jason's friends from high school in vancouver. it
was pretty coolz. we went out to eat dinner at this empty pseudo-izakaya (japanese pub),
and then tried to find a bar or something for a drink. well, monday nights aren't so hot for doing that,
even with all the ppl in tokyo. john tried to locate a cool bar (ie. not a sausage party), but we called it
a night when it was evident it wasn't happening.
took tons of pics in kyoto, which i got to by riding one of the famous bullet trains, the superexpress
hikari shinkansen... there's also the ultraexpress nozomi, and the
plain express kodama. what took em and clara 10 hours using local trains, it took me 2.5
hours on the hikari. nice, eh? pics of the shinkansen and kyoto to
follow.
oh yes, in case anyone wanted to know (i'm sure no one does, but i just wanted to say it anyways), i've
consumed what feels like a veritable smorgasbord of japanese cuisine over the last few days... to recount,
i've had sushi, tempura, okonomiyaki (sorta like a omelette/pancake thing), soba noodles,
udon noodles, shabu shabu (like chinese hotpot), gyoza (japanese fried
dumplings), a bento box, green tea ice cream, sakura (cherry blossom) ice cream, a red
bean manju (filled rice ball - at least, i think that's what is was)...
anyhoo, tomorrow, i'm heading out to hakone to take some pics of mount fuji, and then on saturday, my trip
ends off with a bang as john's hosting a bbq at his place before a night on the town. probably won't update
again until i'm back in germany...
4.21.2004 the ditch is a state of mind
back in germany. still alive. jet-lagged like you would not believe. so tired. pics and stories to come.
4.29.2004 lethargy, thy name is wongoz
ok, i guess this time i've fallen in the ditch. i dunno what it is. just haven't been inclined to post anything
lately, though i keep telling myself i should post some pics. soon... patience, little ones.
anyways, those of you who are expecting emails from me should rejoice! i've discovered i can get
hotmail at work again... it's been there the whole time, but i didn't have
the right proxy settings. well, it's not really public info anyways, but somebody found out and somebody told
somebody else, who told helen, who told fatti, who told me. so there you go.
it's been a pretty crappy week, since saturday, when my last stash of
allegra-d ran out... so it's been hayfever city around here,
and i finally got some drugs from my doctor yesterday. got some cortisone tablets plus something called telfast,
which is the german equivalent of allegra...
aight, i've been sleeping a little earlier these days, and it's a good habit to keep, i think...