Let this image serve as a preview of the photo-set to come. Speaking of photo-set, I’m quite stoked to be finally gutting my dust-collecting desktop and refurbish it with some brand spankin’ new parts tomorrow. Then hopefully I won’t have such a hard time processing photos.

Things are finally looking up a bit, hopefully it will get better as this year unfolds.

Well, it looks like I’m headed for another trip to my beloved hometown of Taiwan, with a stop in Hong Kong on the way back. My grandpa is turning 90, which is quite an incredible feat if you ask me. I can only wish that when I’m 90 (if I even get there) I’ll be as fun and loving and mobile as he is.

The not-so-fun part about flying standby is that there’s no such thing as “connecting flights” if you’re flying between two airlines that are not in the same “alliance”. Therefore, I spend hours and hours usually somewhere if I fly the Vancouver to Taiwan route. Last time I did that, I spent 6 hours in the Vancouver airport waiting for a flight back to Toronto on a return flight. Thank goodness there was the 2004 summer Olympics, or else I would’ve died from boredom. Today’s journey will see me at the airport from 8:00pm Vancouver time all the way to 1am — a grand total of 5 hours; a thought that has “tired” plastered all over it.

So wish me a pleasant journey! If anything, the prospect of eating a bowl of authentic Taiwanese beef-noodles will make the long hours flying all worth it.

First up was the 2009 Canadian Auto Show. I’ve never been to one before, but decided to go this year because the family is looking into a new car next year to replace our problematic Camry. It was also nice to go with Peter, since he knows so much about cars. The auto show was kind of like Disney World for Pete, his eyes glimmered with excitement every time a “worthy” car came into view, models names, features, and various little fun facts would come flowing out of his mouth. I was quite impressed with the amount of knowledge he has for cars, and made me extra glad that I was with him at the auto show, otherwise I’d be discombobulated beyond belief.

The best part however, was when we reached the Suburu floor, where Baymba, the Sumo Wrestler featured in the Sexy Suburu Campaign was there to take photos with the guests. Did you know Byamba was featured in “Oceans 13″? He also has never lost a match while competing internationally. Craziness.

I also got to do “the walk” at my Convocation yesterday! It was a day to “tie up some loose ends”, shall we say. First stop, the University Bookstore to get the official frame for my degree, and of course, order my grad photos, a “to-do” that is overdue by a year. I also went back to my old office to say hi to everyone, I miss it! I suppose now that everything with Guelph is over, I should write some sort of reflection on the past four year of my undergrad life, for myself if anything. Maybe later.

Of course, Mommy was very proud:

On a side note. I go skating every Saturday from 7:00pm – 9:00pm with a few friends at the Pleasant View Community Center, so if anyone ever wants to join the fun, come on down! Rock Band at my place afterward!

Nevertheless, this is an exciting day today, for it is my very first American Thanksgiving… spent in the US of A. It’s quit exciting, we are apparently having a huge feast tonight, and then the cousins and I are going to line up for some black Friday deals, imagine, I can finally experience the joy of elbowing crazed shoppers as we race for the door crasher deals, and the pain of getting trampled over by hundreds of people. Don’t worry, I’ve got my helmet, gloves, and knee pads ready.

Will update more later, probably when I return home from my trip. Seattle and LA are amazing cities that has very different things to offer (I’ll write about them in depth later!). I definitely recommend a visit. San Diego tomorrow, followed by Vegas, then home for the Holiday blitz. Not counting the jobless-ness, life is pretty good right now.

Time for more adventures.

Wow, it’s really been a while since I updated. The summer was officially over a few days ago (or was it last week?), which seems particularly crap-tastic when you look back on days like this one. This photo is from the end of August on the Grand I Yacht at the Seven Seas Lagoon of Disney World in Florida. As you can clearly see, I was a very happy man, and so was everyone else on that yacht.

What was going through my mind at the time, you ask?

Nothing, except that “warm and fuzzy” feeling. It was the summer. I was on an 1.2 million dollars yacht. My friends Dan K. and Amanda just got engaged, and I was surrounded by some of the best and finest friends I could ever ask for, and thinking at such times — is highly overrated.

The photos are finally ready. As I mentioned last entry, I took no part in taking photos at Disney World, too busy leading Tim’s Eleven around! (Har-har, Get it? We had 11 people, lead by me, Ocean’s Eleven? Hello? Anyone?) The photo above is taken and retouched by Dan Truong, and you can find them lovely photos here.

More photos and commentaries to come!

I’ve just returned from my week long Disney World trip two days ago. The night I returned I unpacked, packed again and drove right back to Guelph early in the morning (like, 1:00am early) to get ready for work the very next day. It is currently Orientation week 2008 at Guelph, and well, work has been quite busy, and it is definitely different to look at the incoming first year now that I’m done my undergrad, it’s quite a change in perspective.

Surprisingly I’m not all that tired, although I do wish I had a few days to recover before jumping right back into work. That being said, I guess I should cherish my last week working here in Guelph, as I will be jobless in less than a week, or on my way to new adventures and new chapters of my life, depending on how you look at it.

Disney was amazing. It’s my 3rd year in a row and it’s still amazing, every time. It was a great end to my undergrad career. My friend Amanda and Dan K. got engaged while on this trip, I was honored to be a part of that. It was also very rewarding to watch my friend’s faces as they expressed their excitement, surprises and joy during shows and rides they’ve never experienced before. Not to mention the crazy yacht and many VIP treatment we’ve received. I think it’ll be quite hard to top this trip the next time I visit, whenever that will be.

Those of you looking for photos, I have bad news — I took non! Not even one! I was too busy being the leader and figuring stuff out to stop and take photos. The entire time my camera rested in my resort room. I kind of regret bringing it all the way with me to Florida, going through security and all. That being said, I will update my blog and tell you about all the shenanigans and adventures while we were down there for 7 days, there’s lots to be told, so stay tuned.

Back to work!

I arrived home Friday to find a very exciting package waiting for me in my room. It was the Disney trip pre-package, which I had fun “unboxing”, in a sense. The package consists of the Disney Magic Express tickets, luggage tags, some vouchers, a short itinerary, and “welcome guides”.

The most exciting thing was perhaps the luggage tags, as this marks the first physical evidence that we’re really going to “the world”! The vouchers was pretty exciting too, as I did not know they were included. They’re not crazy savings, but it’s still nice to be surprised by some fun vouchers — $15 meal voucher for Planet Hollywood at Downtown Disney Westside, as well as a free souvenir merchandise, as well as two free mini golf voucher, and two 90 minutes for the price of 60 minutes sea raycer voucher. A closer look at the items can be found at my flickr, which will also act as the future home of this year’s Disney trip photos.

Ahh, finally an update. Sorry it took so long. Things have been pretty hectic thus far, and has prevented me from having the time to sit down and go through all the photos I’ve took, and really, without photos, there really isn’t any point in talking about my trip to Taiwan. Let’s get started, shall we?

I arrived in Taipei at 6:45 Taipei time after a grueling 19 hours of flight, plus an hour at Anchorage. My trip from Boston to NYC was successful with no delays and engine breakdowns this time. I did have to taxi my way to Laguardia airport to pick up my luggage, but that’s another story for another day.

First thing on the agenda, as set by my sister Tina, was to go visit the elementary school: 金華國小. Unfortunately, all of my teachers has now retired, so I didn’t get to see any of them. My sister’s school music teacher was still there however, so we went to visit her. Some of you have already seen a similar photo from the same angle from my trip to Taipei three years ago. Taiwanese schools are huge. There are around 10 classes for each grade. Note that the building wraps around to where I’m standing, it’s a big school.

Now that visitations are over, time for some great food. Behold, Beef noodles! A staple Taiwanese food if there ever was one. This one is from 永康牛肉麵, which is a pretty famous place. It was pretty packed at lunch time, on a weekday too. We shopped around for the rest of the day, and then headed home for a good night’s rest. That night, I battled bravely and managed to eradicate 4 mosquitoes, which caused me considerable damage — 5 humongous bites (one bite was 10 cm in diameter) that itched like crazy. One mosquito was unfortunate enough to be caught in a pretty darn good slap. It was a good slap alright, I accidentally put a little hole in the wall when I swung, I was really angry at the time. Ooops.

The next day we visited the beautiful campus of National Taiwan Normal University (Don’t ask me why it’s called “Normal”, I would never translate it that way), it’s best known for its Teacher’s College (Heather!!!). In fact, the name 師範大學, contains the character “師”, which means “Teacher”. Here’s a statue of the funding father of Taiwan, in which is re-decorated in a very tasteful way to celebrate the University’s Drama Festival.

At night, my sisters and I met up with Anna’s friend Amanda for some more shopping and catchin’ up. We decided to get our fix of $120 NT (= ~$4.00 CND) Steak and Egg and Pasta, which comes with all you can drink soup and tea. I devoured the thing in seconds, and probably drank at least 10 bowls of soup, it was so good, I’m drooling just thinking about it.

Taiwan is a fantastic place to be. The city is amazingly beautiful. I feel grounded when I visit, as if I took out an old box from the attic that contained childhood, and everything comes pouring back, the little things I use to enjoy as a kid, the frustration and the satisfaction of killing those darn mosquitoes, the great food, the funny aunties and uncles… it’s very distant, yet very familiar.

When I returned to Toronto, I felt discombobulated. There was a day when I feel like Toronto was my vacation, and my home belonged in Taipei, it was a strange, and scary feeling.

Taiwan update continues tomorrow, you can get a sneak peek by going to my flickr! Enjoy.

First, Wong Fu Productions came to visit the Boston College campus. Pictured here is Wong Fu Productions with the Chinese Student Association of Boston College, who coordinated with Wong Fu for a campus tour. I personally enjoyed the event, first, I got to meet tons of new people that goes to Boston College, and they are pretty fun people. Second, Wong Fu guys are actually quite down to earth, and pretty fun to hang out with. Ted an I had a conversation about Nikon and Canon dSLRs, and Brian, Wes’ brother and I had some conversation about Origami and the MIT campus. Third, it was pretty cool to get some insight with Wong Fu about being Asian American film makers, it was quite an interesting event, not to mention the exclusive dinner I got to go to at Eagle’s Deli, which by the way, has the meanest burger ever (Appropriately titled the “Godzilla Burger”):

The next day is the celebration for APAHM (Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month), an event called “Know to be Known” ran by the AHANA (African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American) group at O’neill Plaza on the Boston College campus.

The event was a celebration, but most importantly, it was a chance to advocate through demonstration for an Asian and Asian American Studies program at Boston College. From what I’ve learned, recently the administration there decided to cut a lot of classes that deals with Asian and Asian American studies, and the minor program it has in place only has two or three classes available (not really a minor if you can only take 3 classes!) Asians accounts for 13% of the student bodies on campus at BC.

I was pretty inspired by the whole movement. I’ve realized that I’ve taken Toronto and Canada’s multiculturalism for granted. It seems, at some part of the world, even in a city as vibrant as Boston, there seems to be some sort of discrimination towards certain races. It was amazing to see all these students fighting for their right to learn about their own culture and heritage.

I did not stay for the entire event however, as I had to take the T and head over to the airport. The T was surprisingly simple to use for somebody who has never taken the ride by themselves. As the Delta plane took off for NYC, I’ve come to realize that I’ve fallen in love with the city of Boston, something I didn’t quite expect. The only reason Boston is on the top of my list is because my cousin, Brian currently lives there. If it wasn’t for him, I would’ve probably never feel the need to visit the city. Nevertheless, I’d definitely recommend a trip to Boston to anyone, it’s a city full of rich history and brilliant cultures, something not to be missed. Place I have to visit next time: MIT, Harvard Campus, Bunker Hill, and some sort of museum, since all I’ve really done is walked by them, but never actually ventured inside.

Hello from Taipei, Taiwan by the way, today’s day two of my visit, tons to do. I’ve already have had quite an adventure on day one (complete with an hour long battle with four mosquitoes, which I’ve successfully managed to eradicate). Visit to Taiwan is always filled with visit with families, some I haven’t seen in almost 11 years. More update later.

Oh yea, to see all of the photos I’ve managed to upload so far, head over to my flickr, and as usual, comments are always welcome.

The day started out at the Cleveland Circle and Reservoir station west of Boston College. Brian, his roommate Wells, and I went for a trip to explore downtown Boston on foot. The city is really a walking city (as oppose to NYC, which you can’t really cover by walking).

First we arrived at Copley Square, where we saw the Boston Public Library, as well as the John Hancock tower (tallest in Boston), plus lots of other places like Berkeley’s College of Music along the way:

Then we walked around Newbury street, a high class shopping area, the shops and boutiques along the way were amazing. Weirdly enough, we couldn’t find a local coffee, so we decided to go for a more corporate setting, yup, Starbucks. Nevertheless, it was a nice stroll down a very busy and lively Boston street:

Then we ended up at Boston Public Garden, and the Boston Common. Where we saw the famous statue of George Washington:

After that, we trek all the way to the Faneuil Hall Marketplace, established since 1742, in the crazy rain. The marketplace also included the Quincy Market, built in 1826. We had Boston’s very famous Clam Chowders, and my, it was so awesome, it was quite expensive though!

Then, we made our way to Mike’s Pastry on Hanover Street, the place was PACKED! And apparently, the crowd size at the time was “okay”! People apparently go crazy over Mike’s Pastry, they line up around the block late in the evening trying to get their hands on the famous Cannoli. I had a Cannoli and a chocolate chip cheesecake, and dear lord, it was good. No wonder people line up like crazy for this stuff.

On the way home, I caught a little bit of home (Toronto), good o’l Safeway Tours:

Day 3 was pretty chill, didn’t do much except had some great pizzas at the Prud with Brian. Then I headed for the airport, where I was suppose to catch a flight to NYC…

Of course, that didn’t happen. Halfway screeching down the runway, the Delta flight suddenly came to a screeching halt. Everyone on the plane was like “… why did we stop?” Turns out, there was an engine problem, and they had to stop and fix it, so we got deplaned and waited, and waited… people were pissed, I thought it was great we found out about it on the ground instead of after take off, so I was grateful in that sense, nevertheless, because I was trying to catch a flight to Taipei in NYC, there was no way I was going to make it on time, so I ended up re-booking my flight for Tuesday. Interestingly enough, my luggage somehow did end up, not at JFK, but LaGuardia Airport! So now I have no clothes for the next two days. As for compensation? Forget about it, because I didn’t book my NYC to Taipei flight with Delta, I’m not in “the system”, and therefore they will provide me no compensation (because I would’ve flown to NYC later that night, therefore, they would’ve completed the contract/service flying me there). Legally, it all makes sense, not very humane though. Not a biggie, I called my cousin and left for Boston College once again.

So now I’m here, just chillin’, oh yea, dinner with Wong Fu in just a few minutes, life is quite crazy here. Update later.