Ringing in the new year in my ears

Yup, we're all recovering from a cold.

They say that whatever you do on New Years eve when the clock strikes 12, is what you'll be doing the rest of the year.



So great.

For the next year we're going to have clammy rainy weather, and ruining our eyes watching reruns on an old picture tube where the reds are bleeding into all the other colours and recovering from some illness.
Oh ya, don't forget cleaning up a pool of fabric softener that was poured on the basement rug floor by the little person of the house.

But at least we'll be doing it as a family.
As they say 'the family that is sick and miserable together,
stays together.'


Hopefully it's just a myth.
I'm sure it is.

Hope everyone has a safe and Happy New year.
Don't drink and drive.
Or just make sure there's a Derrick in your group.

The gift that keeps on giving

It's the night before Christmas and not a creature was stirring except for some live bacteria culture on someone's hand.

Thanks buddy.

Kieran got the gift that keeps on giving.
A cough, cold, runny nose, a bit of laryngitis and sleepless nights.




That's okay. We're gonna re-gift this one.

Should be ready to enjoy in about 24-72 hours after the initial exchange.




So make sure you have that
coughing
sneezing
aching
runny nose
so you can rest medicine handy.

Cup runneth

It was a last minute get together since Tony was heading off to the UK with Anne on Thursday for the Christmas holidays.
So all four of us got together at our place.
Figures the person living closest to me arrives last.

Can you guess who that was? Here's a hint. You can blindfold him with dental floss.

Anyways, we won. AGAIN!
And it was a close series. Despite the fact that we won 4 straight games, in our best of 7 series.
I just checked last years game summary and we'd lost the first game and then won 4 straight to win in 2006.

The 2007 Four Homey's Cup still belongs in our (Antonio and Ray's) possession.
Although our team was not at 100% health, both players suffering from ailments, I was fatigued (from being up since 2am) and Tony was suffering from double UK vision from an elbow he took to the head for doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

It was a complete team effort on both Offense and Defense.
We were like the Sedin twins only in brown. We knew where the other was and where he was going. TO SCORE!

We played hurt and inspired NHL 99 hockey.
Winning most of the faceoffs.
We figured that if our team scores more goals, we'd have a better chance of winning.

Hong was wearing his traditional yellow target on him.
No he wasn't in his birthday suit, that would be nasty. I'd have to throw out our sofa or burn it. It was the colour of the star on his player.
Everytime he had the puck. The 'hit me HARD' sign came on.

Despite this being Derrick's game. He had been ineffective the whole game. Our goalie and defense were like a big BROWN wall.

It's been a tough last few years for Derrick and Hong as a team.
Sooner or later Derrick's gonna hit rock bottom and start practicing on his nintendo in order to win again. Either that or he's going to go to church asking God for a sign.

Here's a sign. Ditch your team mate.

ET phone home

Calling someone to pick us up from the airport.
We've finally landed.

And I re-shared the Singapore pix so you don't have to sign in. Thought I had fixed that before. So go back to the Tropical Christmas and check out the photos.

I gotta say that Air Canada has got to be a pretty crappy airline representing Canada.
The service isn't that good, the flight attendants aren't that friendly. I've been on the cheap no-frills jobs in Europe and those were better.
And the checkin folks aren't even helpful. The worst leg on our flight was the shortest. From Toronto to LA.
Even the Southern China Air was better. They even gave Kieran a meal.

And the airport terminal 2 needs to be knocked down. It's crap. The only other place we encountered line ups was at LAX. And I gotta say the security in the US makes travelling inconvenient for everyone.

But we're happy we're home.

Thanks again to Gin & Jonathan, Paul & Susan, and Ramesh and Charul for taking care of us and showing us around and letting us make a mess in your homes.

I had to add this real live hispanic parrot that we saw in Santee Alley.
He'd wake up every few seconds to repeat the same words.




Click me for more videos...

Jet Lagged

Phew...finally we're heading home today.
I felt like getting myself tagged and checked in if I had to go on another plane.
After 4-1/2 weeks of airports, backpacks, and eating pigs organs, exotic fish, and indian cuisine we're going back home to Jumbo Burgers and Mr. Pita.
And my own bed.






One question. How come in the Toronto Airport we have to pay for those luggage carts? It's the only airport we've encountered that we have to pay. And it's $3.00! What a rip!

This is what we had to lug around at the airports.





So here's some memorable movie clips of our trip.
And Kieran is giving his review there on the left.




Paul the food critic.


The Wall.


Speaking Chinese.



Waterskiing Singapore Style.



The Photo Organizer.


The Incredible Swimming Baby.



Who let the Dogs out?

Bling Bling

This is LA.
We went from the fabulous food stalls in Singapore with dishes influenced by the cultures of Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia all the way to the Tom Bradley terminal and the Arrival Cafe where the speciality is coffee, hot dogs and danishes.
And if you don't like that La Cantina is right beside it to make that jet lag go away.

We went to check out Santee alley which is probably the LA equivalent of Hong Kong's ladies market in Mong Kok.
Only the asians have been replaced by hispanics. They look the similar, short - only chunkier and with facial hair.
They even sell the same fake crap. You'll hear it referred to as Real PVC Leather.
Actually they give better deals here. In China you'd have to bargain your way down to the price they're selling for this junk.
We even witnessed the vendors hiding away their fakes because the LA fraud police were coming. I thought someone had stolen some CD's, but he was rushing to hide the stuff before they got confiscated.

The other difference was only in LA can you find an ATM machine parked on the street.
We happened upon it while munching on a churruso. I'd never had one before. It was like a sugar twist only shaped like an extruded piece of plastic tubing.
Tasted pretty good. Should have got another one.
I also witnessed a cop giving a jay-walking ticket to a pedestrian.
I took a photo.
So don't be jay-walking in LA. I'll say it now. "I told you so."

Before it got dark we took a drive through to the Bling Bling capital of america.
This is Rodeo drive.
Where the street lamps are chandeliers.
And stores are invitation only.

And drove through Beverly Hills. But apparently Bel-Air puts these houses to shame.

We went from one extreme to another.
There's so much emphasis put on material things, when it's really not that important.

It's one of the reasons we travel to asia. To seek out new life forms and new civilizations.
Wait that's Star Trek.
Same premise though. And the prime directive is not to exceed the credit limit of my visa.

We go to experience other cultures and bring a bit of it home.

It's worth the 20+ hour plane trip and the turbulence.

Hello Fotos....

Tropical Christmas

Thanks Gin and Jonathan, for letting us stay at your home and taking us around to all the Singapore sights, food centers and shopping malls.

We're now in LA recovering from jet lag and the time change.

Singapore has got to be the pizza face capital of the world.
I think it has to do with the humidity and the food - it's oily and yummy. Clearasil has got to make a killing here.

It was kinda good to get back to Singapore from HK and China. It's still a hustle and bustle city, but the people don't bud in front of you in line. And if some one accidentally bumps you, they apologize. In HK and China, that's the norm.

The flight over was okay. We very nearly didn't make our flight, due to some immigration problems. But we made it. And all of our stuff made it as well.

The leg from Singapore to Tokyo was pretty turbulent. The most turbulence I've ever experienced on our travels. It was a little unnerving.
Hurricane Durian had just past through and it's winds were still impacting our flight path. The Tokyo to LA journey was much better. Kieran slept quite a bit on both legs and that made our journey a lot easier. And we've been lucky to sit beside some really nice folks who have been nice enough to entertain Kieran while we ate.

We're almost home.

Hello Singapore fotos...

Hong Kong

We're beginning our homeward leg of our vacation now, having left Hong Kong and staying over in Singapore for a few days before doing the cross pacific flight to Los Angeles.

We managed to see an old highschool buddy in Hong Kong, after we got back from Beijing. I didn't realize that he frequently visits my blog.

We usually see him in Toronto every 7 years. Sort of like Haley's comet. Or when the planets align just right.

If you can't tell he's filipino, just like me. But he's really more like Antonio, because only true filipinos, can really pull off saying 'rubber shoes' and keep a straight face.

Unfortunately we didn't get to see Jo. We were just worn out from fighting the crowds in HK and also from the side trip to Beijing. The hawkers in Beijing just don't understand the word 'no thanks' Also I came down with a cold.

But things were more or less the same.
Edsel was the same.
Paul was the same old Paul.
Carman. Same.
Jo sounded the same.

Thanks Susan and Paul for letting us crash at your place and taking us around.

Derrick, man, you don't know what you're missing.
There's a whole world outside of Ancaster.
Just bring a large pepto bismol bottle and imodium and you'll be fine. And sedate your kid, if you're bringing Timmy.

Hello Hong Kong Fotos...

Shenzen

Paul and Susan took us to the last train station before the border into China. One thing I've noticed is that there are a billion forms to fill in to enter China and another billion when you depart. Well maybe not a billion, but 3 each way. So have your VISA document info and passport info handy.

Like I said before the Chinese invented long queues.

This is the reproduction capital of the material world.
Where absolutely anything can be copied for cheap.
But be warned the copies are looking cheaper and cheaper.

This mall was right at the train station.
It was 5 floors of the same stuff.
Asians.

My first question regarding the bags, wallets and belts - Is it leather? I dunno. Most times the answer is 'no'. It's usually PVC.
They'll do this lighter test to show you it's real leather.
But what is the flash point of vinyl? (For Antonio, this is pronounced 'vee-nil')
But whatever price they say, under cut it below half and try to get to half of what they started. Be prepared to walk away and the little asian lady will be pushing you back into the store but keep walking. It's like a bug. She'll eventually give in and say - 'ok...you good bargain.'


Paul comes here every week.
He part times as a bouncer.

Hello real photos...

Made in China

China. Where everything is made nowadays - the really cheap stuff anyways.
What I didn't know was that the Chinese also invented long slow queues, traffic jams and bad drivers.

Our first stop was the pizza place. Because everyone knows the Chinese invented pizza.
Tresa's stomach wasn't feeling all that well when we ate in Shenzen. So she saw something she recognized and wanted to eat there.

The next night though I found the food courts in the mall and it ws so much cheaper. For less 8 bucks I had brought back tons of food - all of it chinese though. And some of it I wasn't sure what it was because all the signs were in chinese.


Someone used to call me Chairman Mau. I don't see the resemblance. I still have hair and I'm not Chinese. But that didn't stop all the locals from talking to me in Mandarin and still trying to rip me off.




We were only here for 4 days so we had to cram a lot of sights to see. All I wanted to see was the Great Wall.

But there was also, Tian amen Square and the Forbidden City. This place was massive but we managed to find the food court in the Forbidden city. And immediately afterwards the toilet at the Forbidden city was a very popular attraction for most tourists.



It was like this for most of our trip in Asia. People would look at Kieran, then Tresa and then see me walking behind. Someone even asked if he was adopted from China.

I said 'not made in China, Kieran very good quality, made in Canada'

But the people were really friendly to little toddlers. I remember Dante, Bamdad and Melissa's experience and we were getting the same.




The next day we got a tour to the Great Wall at Badaling for 90Y each. A far cry from the 375Y/person at the hotel and the 600-800Y to hire an illegal driver to take us there.

It included food, but there was a few catches. We had to wait until the bus was completely full so the start time was not fixed. And we had to visit a Jade market about 30mins prior to Badaling. This wasn't on the tour description.
But they were more interested in Kieran than selling. Like how many sales people does it take to make a sale?

So this was what I really wanted to see in China. The Great Wall.
It's pretty chilly this time of year. We made sure we were all bundled and didn't bring our stroller. The locals had never seen a baby backpack carrier before and were just in awe.

We made it as far as the second last lookout tower in the photo. The next tower was pretty steep and we needed to get back to the bus by a specific time.

We also found lots of hawkers there. This guy must have been doing an all nighter.


The wall was steeper than I had anticipated. Which is why I'm hanging on to the railing there and sitting down. With Kieran on my back I was going to make sure I wasn't going to be tumbling anyware.
At least we didn't bring our stroller. Like two other families we saw.



We met these guys that were on our bus and at our table for lunch. The two on the right are from Italy, and the asian dude was Korean. But that didn't stop the the locals from talking to him in Chinese too. He kept telling them he wasn't chinese. But they didn't believe him and continued to carry on the conversation.

The Summer palace was our last stop before heading back to Paul and Susan's place in Hong Kong.
We only spent a couple of hours here but the grounds were massive and very calming.






This was Kieran's favourite place in all of China.
He was able to stretch his legs and roam around.








This is the palace in the background. We made it to the entrance of the palace but we didn't have enough time to check it out.









For some reason, Kieran wanted to hug all the trees on the grounds.
He wanted all of us to hug the trees.

He kept pointing and saying 'tree'. He wanted to hug them all.






This is how we felt after our little side journey to Beijing. Like road kill. The flight back from China was a little rough. Kieran was restless. It felt like Air Canada all over again.

My little speaker that I bought in Sham Shui Po had run out of juice and he was frustrated that no sound was coming out of the Zen player.

Tresa said she could have spent much longer there. And with all the sights to see. Yeah, 4 days wasn't enough. But for her 4 days of chinese food was making her insides go outsides.


Hello Beijing Fotos...