This past weekend was a great one. It was my first so-called "vacation" in Taiwan, and it brought me, and 3 friends from Vancouver (CS, LC, SC) to the Southern-most tip of Taiwan: Kenting (墾丁).

I took Friday afternoon off, and we took a 5 hour train ride to Kaohsiung (高雄) where we switched to a 2.5 hour bus ride to our hotel (Howard Hotel).

The first night was taken a little easy, just a quick walk over to the 7-eleven for a meal. After breakfast on Day Two, we made a quick decision on transportation means -- car rental wouldn't be worthwhile, didn't have a scooter license, didn't see any taxis -- so we rented bikes: two regular bikes and one tandem. It turned out to be the right choice (although scooters would have been hella fun), and we managed to hit quite a few spots. Most rewarding was the 3 minute downhill, which had followed a 45 minute uphill climb. The sight of the day was definitely 龍磐公園 (Dragon Rock Park), an astonishing view perched upon a high cliff overlooking the Pacific. Also fun was standing near the edge for pictures while getting blown by the strong winds. That night, we walked along Kenting Street, played some little games to win prizes, ate tall ice cream cones, and bought a few souvenirs.

Day Three, we bought tickets for the Kenting Street Car (墾丁街車), a shuttle bus that follows a predetermined path, picking up and dropping off passengers at the main attractions/sights. Here, we picked a few worthy stops, including a nice beach, and saw what we could. The bus itself was a bit of a pain, because it left us waiting for much longer than its scheduled arrivals... but that aside, it was another great day, with even better weather than the first. The site of the day was 貓鼻頭 (Cat Nose Head), another great view from a cliff, even better than from 龍磐公園, and allowed us to walk down to the sea. My camera got some great pictures from this place.

Later that night, because of seat availability, I took an earlier train back from Kaohsiung, while the other three took the next train. Turns out, although being on a 5 hour train ride alone, I was the lucky one. I slept most of the ride, while they had to deal with some guy puking in the seat behind. Ick. We got home around 5am on Monday, and I went to work around 2pm. L&S stayed an extra day, while CS headed off to Korea for the remainder of his business trip.

With three digital cameras snapping away, we managed over 1GB of images and movies over the weekend. Great memories. Thanks guys!

Here's a laugh. I received this email two days ago.

For those who read my blog two postings ago, you would be glad to know that I completed the survey giving my honest opinion... and it wasn't pretty. Of course, I didn't give the lowest rating to every question, since that would make me look like a bitter customer influenced by rage.

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Dear KK,

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My mind always looks forward to weekends. My feet always look forward to the end of weekends. This past weekend was yet another 2 days of continuous walking.

On Saturday, I went to Yingge (鷹歌), a town in the Taoyuan county known for their pottery and china. My mom, sister, and I went from store to store looking not to leave the Old Street (鷹歌老街) empty-handed. What I had thought would be a 3 - 4 hr day (on one street!) turned out to be a 7 - 8 hr promenade! But we didn't leave empty-handed, and for that we should be pleased. That night, we scooted over to our cousin-in-law's for some wine and snacks to end the day.

On Sunday, I met up with L&S who had just arrived in Taipei on a 5am flight. We had a quick breakfast and MRTed Northward to Danshui (or Tamsui), a town along the North coast of Taiwan -- also a very popular tourist area. We spent the day walking around, looking at the many little food stands/shops, little boutiques, and small eats. We even played a game that my dad used to play when he was young, trying to catch fish with a paper net... I only caught one, while SC managed two, and LC managed to scope one into his bucket after his net broke. Cheater. The best part of the day was when the clouds dispersed and left a great blue sky for me to enjoy. And enjoy it I did. It was the first of a few great days of weather - the best I've had since arriving. Strange how just seeing a blue sky can make me grin like a child who just got his dad to buy him a lollipop at the fair.

That night, I did some record keeping.

- 8:18pm leaving home
- 8:30pm arriving at bus stop just in time to catch a bus
- 9:07 arriving at the bus stop in Hsinchu
- 9:20pm arriving at home in Hsinchu
[this is for my future reference.]

In other news, I've got a new furry pet. It sits upside down on my chin. It's been a week-long project, and I've concluded that it's probably not possible for me to grow any kind of beard or goatee. It's bad enough that the beard isn't thick and consistent -- but on top of that, a good percentage of the hair grows out light brown so it looks even thinner. What's that all about? But since CS wants to see the upside-down Chia Pet, I'll keep it around for another week.

Work is busy now. I'm taking a day off around this weekend, and I have to give a short presentation of some results to some directors on Tuesday. Work work work! But I'm glad to be useful. I should get a promotion after this. ... haha... umm... yeah.

I've been in a good mood recently. I'm happy to see friends, I'm happy to have a computer to use at home (albeit one with a buzzing left speaker), I'm happy with the way things are going at work - both work-wise and socially, I'm happy to have some things to look forward to in the coming years, I'm happy that things are going well with family, and I'm happy to see the sky blue again. I might even get to play volleyball the weekend after next... now wouldn't that be a treat?

So the Saga begins...

In May of this year, I purchased my first laptop off TigerDirect.ca. It was a refurbished eMachines M5312 that came with just about everything I needed, and at a very nice price. I received the laptop in the mail about two weeks later, which was just in time for me to leave to Taiwan on a round of interviews. While in Taiwan, I realize that the left speaker buzzed slightly, as if blown, and the right speaker had some sort of loose connection because it would cut in and out. So, towards the end of June, when I returned home, I sent it in for repairs -- still on warranty.

About 3 weeks later, I get the laptop back. The speakers sound fine... but I soon noticed that the DecisionOne (eMachine's 3rd party repair house) technician didn't take care in closing the case, and the PCMCIA slot was jammed, warping the entire left side of the laptop chassis. You can imagine I was most unpleased with this, especially since I was moving to Taiwan for "good" in about 10 days. So I quickly called eMachines customer support who passed me the number to their corporate office to handle the problem. A lady I spoke with sounded sympathetic (isn't that their job?) and ensured they would do whatever they could to try to get it back to me before I left - i.e. overnight courier, high priority repair, etc. Well, long story short, after many non-toll-free calls to the U.S., I didn't get it back in time.

While in Taiwan, I had my father and sister, check up with eMachines on the status of my repair. The communications on the eMachines side, between their different offices and repair centres was HORRENDOUS. No one seemed to know what the other side was doing, and at the end of it, it sounded like the part I needed was in back-order. Well, to me, it seemed like a matter of time. After X amount of time, I would get the laptop back, and things would be okay. I'd then have to bother someone (probably my sister) to bring it to me thereafter. At some point, someone called my house saying that the laptop was ready to be released, and they wanted to talk to me to ask me some questions. After calling back, it seemed we couldn't figure out who wanted to ask the questions, and no one over at eMachines seemed to know anything.

Some 6 weeks after I had come to Taiwan, My sister emails me one day saying that the laptop had arrived. YAY! But wait... IT WASN'T EVEN REPAIRED!!! Well, you can imagine how infuriating it was to hear this, that it took 2 months for nothing to happen, meanwhile I was in another country without a computer. For the last 2 months, my blood boiled each time I thought about my laptop -- and I was thinking about it constantly. I was damn right pissed off at this point.

Then, I had my brother call eMachines' corporate office. On his second call, he managed to get a hold of someone who seemed like he would be more able to get something done. I followed up the call with this email (editted slightly for public posting) to that "support specialist", C.H. I got a reply the next day from him, which was a first. It seemed like things were going in the right direction. After a few more days, a few more back and forths, eMachines sent a new refurbished machine to my home in Vancouver, and my old one was sent back. Out of it, I was able to gain one extra laptop battery. That's it.

My sister brought me my new reburbished laptop... and guess what? The left speaker buzzes slightly, as if blown.

Quick and friendly update:

- Last weekend, I went to Taipei and spent most of Saturday with my mom, sis, and parents' friends (who have an amazing house, and whose neighbours includes the ex-president).

- On Sunday, I met with WW, who took me went on a whirlwind tour of Taipei where I saw the Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall, the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall, 228 Peace Park, the Presidential Office, Taipei City Hall, and a few other places.

- Tuesday was a holiday, Mid-Autumn Festival, which means a day off work... although I decided to go into the office for a while and then for a great back/shoulders/tris workout.

- Tonight, our company had a Mid-Autumn Festival catered BBQ by the beach (postponed from last week due to bad weather). It was fun. Had a live band on stage, coworkers singing, me singing a part of "What's Up" by 4 Non-Blondes. A good time.

General Ramble:

- On the highway at night, many of the cars and trucks have blinking blue, green, yellow, red, or orange lights. They look like big Honger cellphones with wheels.

- The only rule on the road by foot is: what you can't see can't hurt you. You can pretty much walk anywhere you want, so long as you don't look and there isn't a car in front of you.

- The Taiwanese have abused the privilege of clapping. They clap for everything. It's too much. They must stop. They must.

- I miss blue sky here. I realized this when my sister pointed upwards on Saturday and said "hey look! some blue sky!"

- Life is so much better with my laptop. Evenings are fulfilled with IMing with friends, Skyping with friends, or videoing with friends. Miss TV has been replaced, and she's not happy about it. She's giving me the silent treatment.

Saturday and Sunday composed a company retreat to Sun Moon Lake near the center of Taiwan. It went a little something like this...

SATURDAY. Getting up at some 6:40am, my mother, sister, and I got up, got ready, and got out to get to my company for the tour guide buses leaving my company's building at 7:30am. The first stop was roughly two hours away, with a pee break at the one-hour mark. The on-board movie was Alien vs. Predator (oh, you didn't know it was already out on DVD?). Our five buses arrived at the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village, which was an odd mix between amusement park and cultural shows. Getting there early meant there was no wait to hop on the limited number of exhilirating rides. My sister and my first stop was the UFO Gyro Drop, while mom watched from below. An 85 meter free fall (well, it slows down at the end), the UFO is similar to the Hellevator at PNE -- but free. Then we boarded the Mayan Adventure (what do the Mayans have in common with the Taiwanese? Nothing... but they have section of the park dedicated to them), a suspended looping coaster: one of those spiralling coasters where your feet dangle as you get whipped around and upside down. Thrilling. And to add to that, you get a massage as you bump in every direction in your safety "vest" -- everyone stepped off with red ears. Then we took our mom to some of the less heart-testing rides, the monorail, the carousel, the balloon race, and the Jurassic Cruise. One last stop for a second drop at the UFO site, and it was lunchtime. Lunch included an embarrassment to the pizza community - a pizza with cheese, corn kernels, green peas, and bits of ham. It was a confused salad/shepard's pie/pizza ensemble. Hideous, just hideous. Nothing like the picture.

The afternoon was spent absorbing the natural beauty from the top of the short mountain, whose face the amusement park decorated. We watched a few aboriginal dances, and my mom even joined in the group activity to learn to dance. I just sat at the side and filmed.

Another short bus trip landed us at our hotel, the El Dorado, on the brink of Sun Moon Lake. After dinner in the hotel, we headed outside and watched an unenthusiastic Sun Moon Lake Festival aboriginal dance performance. You know the performance won't be good when they introduce the following dance with a "We're not from this tribe, and we're not professionals, so the next dance won't be that good." Umm... ok. Next. Then we walked around the side of the lake for a short while and called it a night early.

SUNDAY. If I thought getting up at 6:40am the previous day was early, our pre-sunrise 5am decision was difficult too. But, nevertheless, we got up and headed down to the lake to embrace the growth of that day's sun. It was nice. Not awesome, but nice. Then we did more walking around. Towards 9am, we hopped on some boats and had a tour of the lake, stopping at certain places to take pictures and for the tour guides to get kickback from the local store owners. We departed from Sun Moon Lake towards noon and went for lunch in PuNi, known for their plums. Lunch was at a restaurant shared with a wedding party, and the food was excellent. Next stop was a short one at a wine market, although I didn't like the rice or plum wines enough to want to buy a bottle. Finally, we spent just over an hour at a paper factory where we made our own paper fans -- which was good because it was hot. Finally, back on the bus, with a "pre-released" French movie called Michel Vallant, we came back to Hsinchu.

All in all, it was a fun and eventful weekend where I got to visit one of Taiwan's well-known tourist spots, thus allowing me to strike it from my list of To-Sees. With just under 300 photos and videos taken over the two days, I think I have everything anyone else needs to save themselves the trip.

It's been a long week of meetings after meetings. I've averaged about 7 hours of meetings for the first 4 days of this week. Fortunately, tomorrow I get a day off meetings, so I get to sit at my desk and do work instead. The thing about meetings is, someone's always sleepy. At 1:30pm or 2:00pm today, we had 16 people in a meeting, and 4 people dozing or taking "power naps away from the action". Even the project lead was sitting beside me doing "the bob". It was humorous in a now-I-don't-feel-so-bad kind of way.

I think I learned something. In meetings, you can always tell who's about to sleep by the frequency of their eye blinks. I noticed that when I am about to fall asleep, I have an extremely hard time keeping my eyes in focus, so I blink vigorously. I often wonder whether my eyes just focus differently in depth, or whether they go crossed. Anyway, the point is, I blink lots. Now, if there's a guy in the corner blinking lots WHILE twitching, he's got other problems... just stay away from him.

Each quarter, during the week of meetings, we have lunch provided (the lunchboxes I've talked about), and one good meal on one of two companies. Yesterday, we had the good meal for lunch. We went to a Japanese all-u-can-eat, and it was the bestest all-u-can-eat Japanese I think I've ever had. Or... perhaps it just felt that way because those lunchboxes do something weird to your stomach. As I would've at home, I took the opportunity to stuff myself with sashimi. But, as my oyster incident in China should have warned me, it isn't wise to eat too much seafood in Asia, where ever you are. And by the fourth trip to the washroom that afternoon, I was very well reminded. I don't regret it. I'm stubborn. I'd do it again if I could.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been entertained by a show called Monk starring Tony Shalboub as an OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) detective who can't help stand the sight of anything unorderly or dirty. It's a hilarious show, and apparently has been getting some pretty good reviews. Anyway, it's my new favorite show here.

My sister's on the plane over right now. So I will see her in less than 24 hrs. Hope you're having a good flight, Nel! Yay!

Anyway, it's past 10pm, so I'm heading home. With my sis on her way, it also means my laptop's on its way... which means I don't have to stay at work to email! Double yay!

Last Monday or so I talked about "the ideal cubicle". Now, I can talk about what makes a cubicle not-so-ideal. Last Friday, my group of 6 people (+ 1 manager) moved from the 5th floor paradise to the 2nd floor hell. Who knew Heaven and Hell could be so close? Today, my desk is in a cluster just outside the CEO's office. What luck! This floor is mainly admin/IT and has all the big wigs walking around. My cubicle is the second on the right in a double-sided row three cubicles deep (i.e. 2x3 = 6 cubicles), so people can walk by and look at my screen.

We can't wear shorts or slippers on this floor, and I was told today by my coworker that we can't eat at our desks on this floor either, or else we'd get words from "above". Sigh...

My internet connection should be up and running by the end of the week; just in time for my laptop, which is arriving on Friday along with my sister. Hehe... I suppose one would say "my sister is arriving along with my laptop". Woowee!! I can't wait for my laptop to get here! ... and my sister!

They've been broadcasting a number of Stallone, Bullock, Reeves movies lately. I caught Rambo: First Blood on the tube the other night, and decided that Sly, in his earlier years, wasn't such a bad actor. David Caruso (CSI: Miami) was in that movie too as a young police officer that Rambo stabs in the leg. I thought Rambo was supposed to be a critically acclaimed series of movies... according to RottenTomatoes.com, only the first one got good reviews.

Taiwanese censorship sucks. In movies, all the "good parts" are skipped or lead right into commercials. If the scene is important, they just cover up with big unsightly mosiacs. When WWF Monday Night Raw is on (I don't keep up with Wrestling), any time someone is hit with a chair, thrown on a table, or beat viciously, the screen pause just before the attack and resumes right after that attack. It makes the show unwatchable... not to mention the Mandarin translating commentator.

Also checking RottenTomatoes.com, I noticed that Hero made it into the U.S. box office. I guess it was a matter of time. I, on the other hand, got my original copy of the DVD through a contact in Shanghai in January. And contrary to what I had thought, they're putting the Chinese version of Infernal Affairs in North American theatres. I had heard (thru the grapevine?) that a U.S. film company was filming an English version with North American stars. Glad to see that that's not true.

Ok, random update done.

My weekend? Sure, I'll tell you about my weekend. I went back to Taipei to enjoy the bad weather from the 9th floor instead of the 2nd. Without a vehicle, and with minor flooding in many places, one feels stranded and compelled to stay home... and sleep. I finally finished Les Miserables, and perhaps I'll drop a post about that in the coming days. So, because of the weather, I took a few short trips out of the house, walking to Sogo with LN who was in town from Vancouver, and going to breakfast, then lunch, with my cousin, BH, and TH. Then I left Taipei on Sunday afternoon to beat the rush and crowds returning to Hsinchu on Monday morning... little did I know it would be crowded on the Greyhound-like bus anyway. I had a conversation with a middle-aged man who immigrated to the United States 20 years ago, and was back for a temporary stationing in Hsinchu for work - it gave me a chance to preach my ideas on how he should force his children to speak and learn Chinese, because his youngest son always speaks to him in English. We had a crazy bus driver, who must have been flying down the highway at 110+ km/hr, and literally making sharp swerves on a wet pavement. It was a little frightening, but denying fear, I bit my lip. The older folks at the back of the bus were more open and they started yelling at the bus driver... one man came to the front and scolded him, telling him to stop driving recklessly and to slow down. The bus driver said he was swerving to avoid the potholes. After getting into Hsinchu, I noticed that the bus skipped my stop. So I got off a few stops later, and lined up to double back on the opposite side of the street. Then, the bus driver wouldn't let me on because I didn't have my ticket stub "stamped"... How am I supposed to know to get it stamped? It was their (company's) bus driver who didn't stamp it! Anyway, after a few minutes of confrontation with the driver and the rude b.tch of a ticket lady, they let me on without charging me. So I arrived home...

This week is full of quarterly group meetings. Ugh. Meetings aren't bad in themselves, but when you have nothing to contribute, you tend to get veerry veerry sleepy. Not to mention that I got in at 9:24am for a 9:00am meeting. Hehe, oops! But that's okay, no one seemed to care. We finished today's meetings at 6:40pm... now just 3 more days to go. Save me.

There's a lot I can complain about. Last night, I watched the last episode of Couples Fear Factor, and the team I was rooting for lost. I couldn't sleep for the first hour because the air conditioning installed in the building outside my room (about 2 meters away) was dripping onto a low metal roof driving me absolutely nuts. Broken down, I succumbed and opened a pack of ear plugs I had brought from Canada. Damnit, I was saving those for a special occasion. I slept poorly thereafter, tossing and turning, making my 7 hours sleep seem like much less. In the morning, I watched some UFC 39 that was on TV, and the heavy-weight bout ended with Ricco Rodriguez beating Randy Couture, which wasn't the ending I was hoping for. I walked to work because it was pouring out. This gave me a chance to realize that the umbrella that came free with my body wash doesn't cover diddly squat (maybe the idea is to make you think "shower"...) and reduced my pants to two wet extensions from a dry pair of shorts. The hood of my water resistant windbreaker did a fine job of collecting rain before a gust of wind lifted it, emptying its contents into the back of my shirt. Work started with a frustrating debugging task that cost me my lunch break, my lunch nap, and it never got resolved before we decided it wasn't our fault. Now, I'm still tired, and I probably can't go for a workout because it wouldn't be worth my time to sit at the equipment and yawn.

And oddly enough, it spite of all this, I'm still deliriously happy because my laptop crisis has come to an end. I should sleep well tonight.