Xmas in Portland

So I spent Xmas in Portland this year with my cousin's husband's sister's family. His (my cousin's husband) sister's husband took us to this place called the Vista House on this hill next to the Columbia River Gorge and Multnomah Falls.

To my surprise, Portland is smaller than Vancouver, BC. It's like Langley with a NBA team (see Portland Trailblazers)

Tony B and G Galloway - WAR

A British MP, George Galloway, was on The Hour (www.cbc.ca/thehour) on CBC today talking about the Iraq War and the war against the Muslims to my boy George Stroumboulopoulos.

Galloway is got a music video with the UK PM, Tony Blair, called "War" which was performed by Edwin Starr.

You know the song! and it goes like this:

War...huh...yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh ha haa ha
(http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/adulted/lessons/warsongs.pdf)

Alex Fraser Bridge - North Delta, BC

This is a bridge near my house. It's a pretty neat bridge. I noticed a lot of my friends from Ontario are quite impressed by the bridge.

The bridge is named for Alex Fraser, a former B.C. Minister of Transportation. (not the 18th century explorer) The AF Bridge crosses over the Fraser River (yes, named after the 18th century explorer)

"It is constructed of constant depth twin plate girders with anchorage assembly for the cable stay and transverse floor beams. At the time of construction its main span at 1525 feet was the “largest span” cable – stayed bridge in the world. (it is now the 12th longest bridge in the world as of 2006). 5500 metric tonnes of weathering steel were fabricated into girders as large as 8 feet deep x 80 feet long and weighing 50 tonnes for the Alex Fraser Bridge over the Fraser River. (http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.supremesteel.com/cwc/projects/alexfraser/alex_fraser_bridge.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.supremesteel.com/cwc/projects/alexfraser/alexfraser.html&h=225&w=425&sz=11&hl=en&start=13&tbnid=RvEN0PBU3K1k2M:&tbnh=67&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dalex%2Bfraser%2Bbridge%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DX)"

The Seed 2.0 - Thanks YouTube!

Here's "The Seed 2.0" featuring Cody Chestnut from the album Phrenology.

The Roots was named one of the "twenty greatest live acts in the world" by Rolling Stone in 2003.



You can find the lyrics from http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/roots/theseed20.html

The Roots - "Water" From Phrenology (2002)

So I have been listening to The Roots' latest album titled - "Game Theory" since I got back from Taiwan. My friend Jeff is even a bigger fan. He thinks this is even better than the Phrenology album which came out in 2002. Having only listened to half of that album myself, I gota say Game Theory is definitly is a better album. Nevermind the "Tipping Point".

Anyways, my favourite song on Phrenology* was "Water". ("The Seed" is an obvious choice, but "Water" has more significance)

Water is a startlingly honest song about dealing with a friend who was losing himself to addiction. It’s a blatantly personal song, about a former member of The Roots (MC Malik B), and has a sound that’s both intimate and rough. Halfway through "Water" the group go into space-rock mode, musically envisioning what a troubled mind might be like. (http://www.soulmind-online.com/2006/01/24/the-roots-phrenology/)

Malik B has since re-joined The Roots on Game Theory for "Game Theory" and "Here I Come".

*Phrenology is a theory which claims to be able to determine character, personality traits, and criminality on the basis of the shape of the head (reading "bumps"). Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall around 1800, and very popular in the 19th century, it is now discredited as a pseudoscience. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology)

The lyrics for "Water" can be found on azlyrics.com

Dinner After Shopping

So my friend mai and i went buy a wine celler for her boyfriend, chris. after that, i helpped her carry the celler into her place and we made dinner.

i remember this recipe which my roommate, andrew, from guelph made for me and our friend jenn during our last year of university.

anyways, it's basically chicken breast stuffed with sundried tomatoes and grated jack cheese. we baked it in the oven while i made some seafood fried rice. mai made this delicious steamed broccoli. she made this sauce for the broccoli which consists of soya sauce, butter, and balsamic vinegar.

we took a picture of the meal prior to devouring it.

Before and After the Sun

I just finished watching Before Sunrise and Before Sunset again. This is probably the 6th or the 7th time I have seen them both. They are both great movies. some ppl find them boring because the characters, Celine and Jesse, played by Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke have this long conversation and each take is about 10 to 15 minutes long.

Before Sunrise is about the american Jesse traveling in Europe and met the french Celine on a train. He asked her to accompany him in vienna for the rest of the day before he flies back to the us on June 17th, 1995.

They explore all the different parts of vienna on foot before spending the night at this park with a bottle of red wine, which he "bought" without paying. (You gota see the movie yourself to really understand what they talked about and learned about each other that day/night). So they part to their separate ways the next morning promising that they would meet in vienna again in 6 months time on 12/16/1995. The End.

Before Sunset takes place in paris where jesse now a published aothur is promoting his book about his story with celine 9 years ago. Celine came to the book signing after having read about him in the papers. They go out for a walk for about 2 hours before jesse has to catch his flight back to nyc. during this time, they found out more about each other's life since they met 9 years ago. they both let it all out about their lives, relationships with others, and their one night together back then.

The movie ends without closure. I am hoping for a third one in another decade. Hollywood has trained me well to expect for closure.

Anyways, these movies reminded me of my encounter with this girl in the summer of 2003. she was a customer at this place i worked at. she was on vacation and we had a great conversation while she was shopping for some shoes. she left, then came back after the store closed and asked me to check out some movie with her. so she gave me her tele number at the hotel she was staying at. we parted ways and i called her that every night at 1am to see if she got back ok. she invited me to go to whistler with her. but i was an idiot and turned her down because i had to work the next day. (i have done many dumb things in my life, but none was dumber than that)

so she came back from whistler and went straight to victoria for a couple of days. called me after she got back into town from victoria and we hung out that night. i met her downtown at her hotel and went to stanley park for a walk before heading the opposite direction to white rock. then it was after 1am at this time, we drove back downtown and just chatted all night. i left to give her some sleep before her early morning flight back to calgary.

she was a nice girl, i missed her. too bad she's not much of a writer, especially for staying in touch.

Before Sunrise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Sunrise

Before Sunset http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381681/

I just wanted to say......

I wrote this email tonight to my friend Ryan whom I was staying with in Beijing last month. The picture above is me in front of this bus stop the 1 hour after I arrived in beijing. The africa-china summit took place that very weekend. as you can see, the propaghandas were everywhere. I did my best impression of Borat from Kazakhstan. Chinquey!

Hey Ryan,

I just came back from watching a pres-creening for Blood Diamonds at ubc with Anne.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450259/)

I saw ur work's logo in a few scenes....UNHCR. what does the hcr stand for? I know the rest is UN Refugees Agency.

great movie......remember what we talked about on the subway? not the social justice thing, but about really helpping ppl? this movie reminded me a lot what we talked about that night.

i need to talk to u when u come back, as i am seriously thinking about quitting my job and moving to asia. i think i am leaning towards shanghai or singapore. thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you! did i tell u that i had such a good time with you there?

write me back!

and also to finish the sentence in the subject of the email.
......that i really appreciated you showing me around last month. i don't know anybody else that would do same.......nick and my cousin vince, but u know what i mean. i have not had that much fun since i can't remember when. i can't wait to come back to china. i think about u and beijing everyday. i am not lying, just check out my latest blog entry:

http://sometimesirhymequick.blogspot.com/

see you in a week!

Steve

Got the Travel Bug Baaaaaad. It's now or never!

This pic is me having my skull bit by the Chinese dragon gargoyle at the Forbidden City.

So I have been thinking a lot about moving back to Asia, even if it was just for a year. I am thinking it would either be China or Singapore. I don’t think Taiwan is for me. What would I do there? Teach English? I think not!

First of all, even if I wanted to teach English there, I would not get hired because I am not “authentic”. In Asia, they prefer English teachers whom are of the “white” origin. So even if I could speak perfect “Engrish good”, I wouldn’t get the job because simply because I look Chinese.

So it’s like I go back to my own country and I get discriminated against?! Did I loose you there with that “logic”? I am better off staying in Canada and get a gov’t job. At least I could take advantage of and check off the visible minority box. Anyways, I don’t think I would like to teach English anyways. I have too little patience’s for that. Plus I say “bacons” and “sheeps” a lot; I think I just lost my creditability as an English teacher! Ok, here’s my 2 cents: if you couldn’t count sheep, how come when you couldn’t sleep at night, you “count” them? Yeh, therefore it should be “1 sheep, 2 sheeps, 3 sheeps…etc”. The last time I checked, you could count goats, lambs, and even ewes. And don’t even get me started on bacons; if you have 2 strips of bacon, then it should be 2 strips of bacons.

Goose is to geese as moose is to meese. Now I am just being silly. I also couldn’t work in Taiwan because I would have to serve my 2 years term of the military first. YES, WHOORAY TO CONSCRIPTION! The only way I wouldn’t have to serve my 2 years there before I am allowed to work is to wait unitl I turn 35 YO and go back to work, but why would I do that? Or I could enter and work as a “foreigner”, but I would be taxed more there and I would still have to pay my taxes here in Canada (plus I’d have to leave Taiwan once every 4 months because of my visitor visa status).

Anyways, back to the topic, I already eliminated Korea and Japan because I would visit those places, but not work there. I am still more intrigued with the Chinese culture.

When I was back in Taiwan, I felt both like a tourist and at home simultaneously. It’s a pretty complex feeling to describe. Because I had been gone from there for so long, it almost felt foreign to me, but I recognize some of the places I grew up with the familiar food and business practices…..it all came back to me just like riding a bike.

Hong Kong and all the other SE Asia have also been ruled out because I could simply travel to those places while I am living in Singapore or China. I picked Singapore because I might be able to find a serious job there and when I come back to Canada, I can bring that international experience with me and that may help me in getting a job here.

So if I were going away for a while, it’s gota be now or never. I have done a lot things I regretted in this first 25 years. Or should I say there were a lot of things I didn’t do and I am regretting right now. For example, I wish I didn’t take life as an university students for granted. I wish I had studied harder, perhaps enrolled in a different program. I wish I had asked more girls out…..hahah! I don’t really want to feel like “I wish I did” again in 5 to 10 years.

What's holding me back, you might ask? Well, I am not quite sure. It may seems that I got nothing to loose being a 25 year old university grad with a decent job for the last couple of years. The truth is that I don't really enjoy my current work that much. I do what I have to because I expect myself to be responsible. The only thing that's holding me back from quitting my job, selling my car, flying to Asia is the thought of what am I gonna do when I come back to Canada? Will I gonna feel that I have lost a couple of years of my life because I was in Asia? Am I gonna be behind the game on climbing the corporate ladder? I am still a first generation immigrant and the concept of financial security is instilled in me at an early age.....subconciously perhaps!

I find myself to be saving up constantly for that raining day. Typical immigrant? That I am!

Anyways, I am currently working on another post that’s more personal to me. I held it in instead of sending it out while I was away on the trip. I wasn’t sure if I should mass email it to everyone on my list. Not that posting on the World Wide Web is any better, but at least I am not forcing down anybody’s throat that they have to read it in their email.

I am still debating on posting that message. It will be on the blog when I feel ready to share that story. Steve

MC Hotdog - Wo Ai Tai Mei (我愛台妹)

Here's the hottest rap song in Taiwan by MC Hotdog.

It's called "Wo Ai Tai Mei", which means "I love Taiwanese Chicks"

Pretty funny lyrics if you could understand Mandarin. At the end, MC Hotdog kept reciting in Mandarin "Throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care!"

Shoes in Saran - Only in Asia

So I have been thinking about Asia a lot. I sort of want to move there now, at least for a year.

I am just so drawn to it and miss it there a lot. i think i might have just romanticized it. you know how ppl romanticize a place when they are on vacation?! That's me! I know that the grass has always been greener on the other side for me!

I talked to my ex-roommate, Marta, recently about my feelings about Asia. She said she had the same feelings about Poland when she was there this past summer. but she won't be moving there anytime soon because she's doing her Phd in Nova Scotia for another 3.5 years.

Anyways, here's a picture of shoes on display in beijing. as to my previous post on shoes, only in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan do they wrap shoes in saran wraps (yes, the ones you use to cover up your leftovers). I forgot that's how it's always been done in there until I went back this time. This brought back the memories of when I was buying shoes when growing up in Taiwan.

This also reminded me of this collector's shoe store in NYC called Dave's Quality Meat. At this store, they pack their T-shirts on a styrofoam plate and wrap them inside saran to give it a "packaged meat" look. Clever? I think Dave may have got the idea from the Chinese?

(i am not sure why my hyperlink function is not working, but here it is)

Dave's Quality Meat http://www.davesqualitymeat.com/index.php