Posts

Posted on

Off to Asia!

Well, not yet. Off to Asia in November. It’s mostly a “visit the friends, escape San Francisco (where you can shit and piss on the street)” trip. Plus a side trip to Bangkok because I’ve never been there before.

So the trip will look like this:

SFO to HKG (for the day)

HKG to SIN

Sometime during this stay, there’s a trip to Bangkok and/or KL involved here

SIN to NRT

Explore the parts of Tokyo and Kyoto I haven’t seen yet

NRT to SFO

Back to purgatory…

But the trip should be hella fun; I’ve got tix in SQ Raffles Class!

Ha Ha Haaaah!

Posted on

Geez, not Hong Kong too!

More fun news from Asia via the BWG.

To sum it all up, HK is going to try to impose a smoking ban. Read the BWG’s entry on the subject; it sums up my position as well.

Sheesh. What happened to choice?

Posted on

Bad news from Singapore

Well, it’s been a nice summer, but as the seasons begin to change and the chill (relatively speaking) returns, so has that nasty thing called SARS.

Hope it’s a misdiagnosis (which happens) because if it’s not, the patient caught it from someone else. And hopefully that someone else is NOT in Singapore.

Posted on

Proof that Hong Kong is truly toast

It’s the little things in life that change that portend bigger changes ahead.

During my many visits to Hong Kong, the locals told me that HK is truly dead when you begin to hear putonghwa on the MTR announcements.

Well, according to the unlinkable South China Morning Post, it’s happened.

“The MTR Corporation is going after the mainland tourist dollar by promoting its train services and malls at the border and at mainland visa counters. And this month it will make its train and platform announcements trilingual, rather than using just English and Cantonese.”

The communist government has tried to crush Cantonese dialect (and pretty much everything else) in favor of putonghua, with the exception of Shanghainese because much of the communist leadership hails from there.

Historically, it’s easier for a dictatorship to keep control when everyone is forced to speak the same language (think Yugo-Slavia during Tito and then after). I hope, for Hong Kong’s sake, that this small change in everyday life is not part of something darker in future.

Posted on

Asia travel and Communications

I’m off to Asia in November; yet another funfilled trip during my vacation season of October-November and February-April. Why these times of the year?

It’s usually hot and gross during the summer high season and winter is also high season because of Xmas-New Years-Lunar New Year all happening between Dec-Jan.

Tickets are prohibitively expensive during this time and the weather during the other times.

I recently got a new Palm Pilot, the Tungsten C. It is fast and has wi-fi built in. Ideally, I wanted to leave the Powerbook at home this time around because I can keep up with email via the Palm Pilot and try to post from the road.

I’m going to give this a shot later on and I guess you’ll read the results if it works.

Posted on

Food and Culture day!

10 July, all day.

Food day again!

Met my friend @ Katz’s Deli in the Lower East Side. That’s a big old school deli that is new again with the hottie crowd, especially on weekends. However, it was late lunchtime on a Thursday which meant it was only kind of crowded as opposed to being really crowded. Had a thin sliced pastrami with chicken noodle soup. Mmmmmm.

As far as I could tell, this was the place where the infamous deli scene in “When Harry met Sally” was filmed. Nice movie, even though it was directed by Rob Reiner.

Wandered around other parts of SoHo and TriBeCa before having to head back uptown. Found Dean and Deluca’s and had a NY Egg Cream. No egg but some cream.

Dinner was Pizza Blanca, or white pizza. NY seems like the only place you can find this thin crust pizza. Came out of the subway and had the fastest dinner in recent memory.

Went to the Great Lawn in Central Park to catch a performance of the NY Phil. Their summertime in the park series of concerts are free and attract a LOT of people. It was nice. Big. And organized. Best of all, no bums so you could enjoy the show.

Everyone stayed until the end to catch the fireworks. They were intense but brief. 5 minutes of fireworks! So short!

View image

I would wind up walking 25 blocks back to the hotel since the MTA wasn’t running buses down 5th Avenue. Naturally, when I got back down to 58th Street, three busses show up. Maybe their bus division is secretly run by MUNI. Bleah.

But right at the entrance to Central Park, there was this really nice fountain. So i took it. A picture, that is.

Of course, these are the folks responsible for keeping New York clean! I have a healthy respect for the work they’ve done over ther past seven years…


Posted on

The greatness of New York City (even with Bloomberg in charge)

9 July, all day.

A friend asked me why I go to New York so often. Of course she should talk since she’s from Singapore, land of the most traveled of travelers. And she got to go to Scandinavia last summer!

Why do I go to New York? Because New York is so big, each time I go there solo, there’s always new places to visit. Today was food & booze day. I was taken to a store called Century 21. Thought it was a place for real estate (ha!) but it was a big crazy clothing shop housed in an old bank. My NY friend has pretty good taste in what works clothing wise. It’s the big deal over there.

Lunch was at Shanghai Joe’s in Chinatown (xiaolongbiao is great) with shopping afterwards. Kind of routine, eh? Wound up strolling up to SoHo to drink coffee while she shopped around. There was a fantastic Apple Store in the heart of SoHo. Free broadband to boot. Nice. I spent two hours in there.

When it’s really hot outside, it does goofy things to your appetite. So no dinner tonight; more like a bunch of snacks. Green Tea ice cream with mochi at dinnertime in a chi chi Japanese place and a Cookie Dough Surprise sandwich at a peanut butter restaurant in the Village behind NYU. nice. And that was dinner.

Posted on

Forbidden Nightlife (no smoking) and the UN

Campbell’s Apartment is one of the few surviving cigar bars in New York. Mayor Bloomberg, the ultimate RINO, has pushed through a smoking ban very similar to California’s but with no loopholes.

It’s a classy joint in Grand Central Station. Get into your nice clothes and smoke a Habano. Their martinis, excellent!

I met a bureaucrat from the UN there. She spouted the same garbage that Kofi Annan and that bunch of corrupt third world outcasts use against the US. “Pay your dues and do what we say”. What has UN membership done for the US lately? What have we gotten for all the billions of dollars we pour into that? To keep corrupt third worlders in New York?

How about this: Move UN headquarters to Boise or Des Moines and see just how plum that assignment is, eh?

Posted on

Free Wi-Fi and great pizza

8 July, High Tea to Dinner Time

Wisdom of free Wi-fi

After my visit to the house of Nat, I sauntered across the street to Bryant Park. This is a community park that was taken back from the powers of scum (drug dealers and bums) by the powers of good. Besides free Wi-Fi that blankets the park, there’s a cafe and games and private security. Very safe and very busy.

So I sat under a tree in 90+ degree heat and went online. Did my business for two hours (!). Time passes when you have free Wi-Fi. Even in that kind of heat.

Met up with my Hells’ Kitchen friends at John’s Pizza near Times Square. A famous pizza palace in an old church. Mmmmmmmmm.