Triscribe

Author: Y C

  • Belated Happy New Year Greetings

    Thanks FC for the always enjoyable year end recap. One of the things I look forward to now that I can’t do it in person.

    I’ve been traveling a lot, actually almost constantly for the past 6 months now. Currently back in the hometown, Ipoh Malaysia . B- and I have been running errands and took a couple of days off to visit Damai Laut (see previous postings) at the Swiss Garden Hotel Damai Laut. The trip started out very nice, our stay was extremely relaxing and we bummed around a lot in bed watching TV, eating and sleeping. But the experience leaving the resort was very disappointing and leaves much to be desired. In terms of the overall experience, I think it was bit better than the Mutiara Burau Bay Resorts Langkawi except for the poor spa service and travel arrangements from the resort to Lumut bus station.

    Next stop to KL for some meetings and a B-‘s cousin’s wedding to attend. Tonight is a family dinner for my cousin who’s getting married tomorrow in Ipoh. Non stop eating of course but getting slower in my old age. Can’t pack it down like I used to :-(. I suppose that’s a good thing. It’s sobering when you’re insurance shopping :-|.

    Limited email and internet (by design) to enjoy myself here. Let’s see how it works out.

    Cheers all,
    =YC

  • Christmas in Wulai (烏來)

    B- and I went to visit the hot springs around Taipei. Wulai (烏來) is one of the more famous places to visit (the other is BeiTou (北投)) for hot spring rest and relaxation. B- found some places online and ended up settling for Full Moon Spa, a Japanese style place. We had dinner and breakfast included with our stay.

    From the aboriginal Tai Ya Tribe we get a lot of multi-colored arts and crafts which reminds me so much of the type found in South America, Andes, Peru etc. I wonder if that’s by accident or not due to the similarities.

    Nice relaxing time… getting scorched by the hot water and turning lobster like. Definitely like. Will be back 🙂

    =YC

  • Merry Christmas

    Wishing you all a warm, happy Christmas and Holiday Season. A time I think to count our blessings, give thanks, be generous and act in the best of human spirit.

    A lot to appreciate, be thankful for blessings received as well as to to give this year. Hope you all are going to have an enjoyable Christmas.

    Warmest wishes from Taipei,
    =YC

    Taipei 101 Xmas tree

  • Posting the FF Miles

    Back in Kuala Lumpur today. Last night, spent some QT with friends over dinner and drinks, Choya Umeshu over a big block of ice. Great stuff :D!

    This weekend, me and B- had an extra helping of sushi and sashima and it was all good. Taipei definitely was festive with X-mas with bus drivers, store personnel all getting into the act and dressing as little Santa helpers.

    Kuala Lumpur is hosting the ASEAN meeting this week. It’ll be fun and hectic here while I do my second training for project management.

    In a month I’ll be back in the States. Woooooo.

  • Don’t screw a lawyer

    Happy B-day ssw15, co-poster in crime 😀

    So, talk about having your head up your ass: Are Lawyers Being Overbilled for Their Test Preparation? Why do that to lawyers? Is that like asking for it???

    At least now I know what happened to West Bar Review 😀

    Today, did a good thing. We helped a couple get their Taiwan visa immigration papers accepted. Taiwanese government is just really racist and for two years, this couple wasn’t allowed to change status despite trying to do everything the government requested. The problems were (1) one spouse was Filipino which is an undesirable in Taiwan and (2) the government had their heads up their asses and no one knew how to interprete the law. The couple called us and whamo, we got it done. It was hard though and touch and go. But still….. *sigh*

    Taiwan’s 3-in-1 elections was done yesterday. Election reading can be had at the Pan-Green (DPP) mouth piece Taipei Times. If the election rout was any more complete, the DPP would’ve been swimming in the South China sea. Losing Ilan and Chiayi must really hurt the DPP as those were both so key to the DPP and anti-KMT that you could say those places were like what Boston and Lexington was to the American Revolution.

    It’s finally winter here in Taipei. Ugh.

  • Nice Sunday outing – Baishawan (白沙灣)

    B- and I headed out for a whole day of R&R. She found this place within the North Coast and Guanyinshan National Park area.

    We visited my favorite Yonghe Dou Jiang (永和豆漿) for some traditional Chinese breakfast stuff like soybean milk (dou jiang 豆漿), breaded stick etc. Then headed out to Danshui (淡水), the last stop on the redline MRT. From there we took the bus to Baishawan, about a 40 min bus ride. Nice slightly overcast and breezy day. But that’s the best kind fo weather to be traveling and moving about. Feet tired but a nice good day for us. Headed back to Danshui around 5-6pm and ate some HK style food which was great. Good call by B- again on this one. Walked around the Danshui boardwalk and then headed home.

    Tomorrow, back to work.

  • Beijing 北京 back to Taipei 臺北 (台北)

    hey FC, wanted to mention I like what you’ve done with the little tweaks here and there.

    Arrived back in Taipei yesterday. My traveling seems to be always rush rush these days. I forgot my laptop battery pack at my friend’s home in Beijing. The trip out to Beijing airport early morning was pretty busy for 6 am. Most of the highway roads are at least 6 lane highways, 3 each way and plenty of road traffic hmmm. Got to Beijing airport by 6:30am ish and wham, road jam as everyone just stopped at the international airport. I have to say, they got to do a better design and quickly speed up the build up of Terminal 3. There’s no way that they can support Beijing 2008 with two terminals which are about the size of CKS Airport Taiwan.

    At the Beijing airport with the mad rush of international flights early morning, there was a remarkable 5 immigration agents on hand to check your passports …. so everyone was feeling the squeeze. But before then they had a system I’ve never seen before in any other international airport.

    So, you arrive at the terminal and you need to check-in. But before you check in, you need to pass the Customs gatekeepers with your “Goods to Declare” or “No Goods to Declare” card. The problem is that there were only 3 lines but then in the middle of it, they closed down one of them! So all the folks in that line had to go back to the end of the line in the other two custom lines. Ouch. The reason? They were only for the airline crews. Huh? But can’t they also service the other people? By that time, we’re talking about a few hundred people queued up. So everyone’s trying to cut into line and moving forward (just like on the highway, roads of Beijing). Once you’re through, then you go to the airline counter to check in. My Cathay Pacific agent was very nice. He put a priority check-in tag on my luggage so that it would arrive first when I got to Taipei. (It did, I didn’t have to wait long and it came out fast, instead of last). I’ve travelled so many places before and never knew that you could get this nice customer service feature. Great because I hate waiting at the luggage claim carousels.

    So then after the speedy efficient Cathay Pacific check-in (Cathay is starting to get my vote for top airline award here in Asia-Pacific), I hit the immigration check-in wall. When I get there, they saw my English written declaration/exit card but with my Taiwanese Tai Bao Zin “passport” and he said I had to fill it out in Chinese. WTF! Apparently, someone who was Taiwanese had to know how to write in Chinese, not English. So anyways, I did that quickly as best I could (thank God for my drawing abilities learnt as a kid), and then on my way. Had about 10 minutes to spare before boarding time.

    Flight into HK, I had 10 minutes to spare before my transfer onto CX406 to Taipei. One of the downsides of the hub system is that they really cut the transfer times close. By the time I got there, they were already boarding. Luckily there were other planes feeding that flight so I was able to settle in and deposit my bags in the plane’s luggage compartments. Managed to catch the latest Batman movie. Liked it a lot. Wasn’t sure but was that Gary Oldman as the good cop? I was surprised because he seems to always play the bad guys.

    Taipei is very warm and the weekend is good. Catching up with B- with some QT time this weekend. It’s been nice to decompress from the work and enjoy.

  • China adieu — for now

    Another beautiful day in Beijing… as I near the end of my visit, the weather gets warmer and my comfort level with the city gets higher and higher.

    Read in the NYT about the China development – economic and social – and have faced the reality. Yes, the driving here is nuts. The amount of cars is off the wall as well. Bicycles I’m happy to say, haven’t changed, ubiquitous but slowly dying out, replaced by cars. I even saw motorized bicycles.

    China certainly has caught my imagination in a big way. The meetings I’ve had with locals, expats doing business or thinking about doing business, seems to be what it must’ve been like in NYC way back when it was just a big tower of babel of people coming to trade and make money. Beijing is like that, and that’s not even talking about Shanghai and Shenzhen which arguably much more so than Beijing. Beijing is like the 3rd city behind these two. Beijing has about 18+ Million people, those “living” here and those who are “temporary” – meaning they live here but are technically migrants because they’re from out of town but have set up residences to work. That’s nearly as many people as whole of Taiwan.

    Sat in an entrepreneurial meeting where startups were taking turns making their business cases in front of their peers and panelists. Given a chance to refine their business plan and talk about business issues. Talked with a consulting firm whose been in China for 25 years (that would be 1980 !!!) and learning about their views of China and business operations. Then talked with a project management firm about working together and seeing how to develop the market.

    CCTV, Chinese TV has alone over 14 channels, not including the other places and satellite TV options. Man, China is BIG.

    As for culture – I found out about these talented 12 Girls. Going to pick up a couple of CDs or two, for a mere 10 RMB (legit prices)

    Lots to think about and consider on my flight back to Taipei.

  • The mother of all tech goodies – Hilon IT Mall

    Hilon IT Mall….

    And I thought Malaysia’s Sungei Wang/Plaza Loh Yat/BB Plaza was good at it but Hah! Hilon the original in Beijing. 10 floors of just tech goods, from laptops, pc parts, PCs, office equipment, mp3 players, Apple, Ipods, digital cameras, you name it. The guys are aggressive pitching their wares. Have to be careful though, some are just bad fakes but look real (gee, haven’t we heard this before)? I was checking out the USB 2.0 portable slim hard drives and they guy was saying not to worry because his goods were real. We could call the Samsung or Hitachi number to verify the serial numbers on the HDs to make sure they were legit !My friend bought a webcam so he could communicate with his wife in NYC and allow his wife to see her daughters in Beijing.

    I also did a drive through around Zhongguancun central where Hilon Mall is located along the west side of Zhongguancun near a lot of the universities, Peking University and Qinghua University. Then drove all the way east again where I’m staying with my friend. This area is known as the foreigner enclave and it’s got some of the best stuff around. of course security is good too. Private guards posted all around who will salute you when you enter and leave the compounds… stuff like that.

    I’m about 1 block (1 Beijing block is at least one NYC avenue block in the east-west direction) from the Canadian Embassy and 4 blocks from the US Embassy. Western food is good too – bread just like in the US and the Chinese made jams also like Smuckers.

    China has come a long way baby.

  • Warm day!

    Had some internet problems with my new Asus laptop. Missing network controller seems to not allow me to use a regular RJ45 line to plug into the internet. So I was kinda down, borrowing terminals here and there from my friend’s company dealing with entrepreneur startups in China.

    Past couple of days was warm, but the winter dryness is killing me. Used up most of my small hotel lotions I pack with me and had to buy chapstick, Chinese style which costs about USD 4 :-0. Been sampling the eats and boy I haven’t been disappointed. Other than being a bit on the salty side, just delicious. Cheap but not so for the local people. Folks are still poor where the average salary for new grads – 3 yr experienced people is about 1500-2500 RMB. Dinner for two could cost us about 100 RMB. The average Beijing rental is about 1000 RMB. This evening was invited to eat at a Sichuan place near An Ding Men MRT station, Beijing. Great stuff and was literally stuffed. At the begining of my trip I weighed a svelte 95kg but since then have gained about 2 kg.

    Interesting thing about the taxis in Beijing. It’s a fleet of them that would crush the yellow cabbies of NYC. They run it like the NYC medallion system but they don’t allow individual owners. The other neat thing is that they’re easier recognizable in various ‘colors’
    – there’s the all red Citroen fleet which is older. The cabs usually have a metal interior cab around the cab driver.
    – there’s the local sketchy looking all-red Xiali which looks really beat up.
    – there’s the all baby blue Citroen fleet
    – there’s the Elantras
    – there’s the Jettas

    The last two have combinations of yellow +
    a) maroon
    b) purple
    c) white (rare)
    d) brown
    e) blue
    f) green

    And the cars on the road are new and of the expensive kind. Mostly VWs but the Japanese and the Hyundais’ are popular as well. Everyone in Beijing wants a car.

    Got two more meetings tomorrow and then call it a trip. Unfortunately no chance for sightseeing :-(.

    ps- Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends. And I thank God for all his continued blessings.