First Time in Bangkok

Me and Sue are in Bangkok as part of our usual Chinese New Year travel. It is our first time here, but, despite the writing being just as cryptic as they are in China or Taiwan, we feel more at home here. For one thing, a lot of things look the same: the people, the houses, the weather...

Many things are different though:

• The airport looks great from within. I've never seen unfinished concrete look so nice when accentuated with glass and steel.


• Despite multiple warnings, I think there is less risk of getting ripped off in Bangkok than in Manila.

What have we done?

• Arrived in BKK an hour late at 1:00AM because of the new Cebu Pacific motto "better late than never".


• Got lost taking a taxi to our temporary hostel.


• Found the hostel very nice--super clean rooms and nice wooden floors. Got the same complaints from my wife: common toilets and not so neat backpackers. But, overall, the place and its people were nice. I will come back there when backpacking with my more "not-so-neat" friends.


• Had a great (and very cheap) breakfast at the hostel. Nothing beats pad thai noodles and banana pancakes for breakfast. They also served us some brewed coffee and a nice glass of fresh OJ.


• Checked out. Left our bags at the hostel (yes, they have free storage for 8 hours) and took the BTS to MBK mall. We realized that the hostel was not very near the BTS. It's a 10-minute walk in not-so-nice pavement.

• Sue bought nice looking sunglasses for 150Baht (bargained down from 250Baht). I'm looking to buy one for myself before we leave.


• Sue bought sandals for 390Baht (no discount from Babana shop), which they said was real leather. Sue decided to put them on because she was so happy with them and they looked great with her dress. After an hour, I stepped on the heel while she was about to stride, and, voila, the pure leather strap broke. Good thing she managed to convince the angry store owner to replace the sandals. Moral lesson: don't buy real leather.


• We found a food court called Fifth Street something inside MBK. Food was great. Sue got a set meal of Tom Gum Yum soup, green chicken curry, some vermicelli with vegetables and three-colored rice for 180Baht. It was the best soup I've tried in a while. I was tempted to buy food from the Indian stall--the garlic nan on display was too tempting. I ended up paying 360 for garlic nan, a lamb masala, and some saffron rice. The food wasn't bad, but it was nothing close to Sue's Thai set, which cost half of what I had. The lesson: order Thai when in Thailand.

Now I'm back in Taiwan. I haven't blogged for two months because of work. I'm posting this draft nevertheless. Here are some pics from our trip:

Should we only have 'cancer-free' babies?

Haven't heard of the 'cancer-free' baby? Read this article from CNN Health. Well, here's the gist of it:

Born: the first baby who has been prescreened for the gene known to drastically increase the chances of developing breast or ovarian cancer.

Interesting, huh? I wonder whether we should start screening all embryos. It's like bottled water really. It doesn't matter whether we pollute the water around us, we can always buy water sourced from the French Alps at the local 7-11. Yup, as long as we can be filtered free of this nasty cancer gene, the world can sustain a lifestyle of hotdogs and Coke Zero.

If this post just made you want to go out and grab a bag of chips and a can of Coke, please enjoy the picture below.


Sarcomatous degeneration of testicular cancer
on
Dheitkamp's Flickr photostream.

Giant Flight M3

I've been trying to look for information in English about this sweet bike I saw at our friendly neighborhood bike store. It seems that this bike is either too new or too unpopular that I could not find any reviews about it from people outside of Taiwan. Unfortunately, my Chinese is still bu hao.

The bike is not a mountain bike or a pure road bike--I understand that most bike enthusiasts focus on these kinds of bikes. It's more of a comfy cruising bike designed for the road. And it's hard not to fall in love with it because it really looks great, not to mention that it's not very expensive. I got the picture above from Giant.

I've been visiting the two bike shops near my apartment the past few weekends to get a decent commuting bike. There are some really nice choices within my budget, including:

Giant Boulder Hardtail (no rear shocks) Mountain Bike














Merida RB660 Road Bike












Merida MTA 57 Hardtail Mountain Bike













So what makes a bike a good bike? Personally, I like all these bikes because they have decent Shimano parts that will let me ride at reasonable speeds. They're all made by respected bike makers, which also means that owners have to be extra careful with them (too many bike thieves). They all have very light aluminum frames as well. But I just don't know enough to make an informed decision. For example, I don't know the difference between SRAM, SIS, or Acera derailleurs (whew, had to look that up) or whether grip shifters suck. So, I'm probably picking the one that looks best: the Giant Flight M3.

I'm sure I'll do well. I also chose my previous bike for its looks. It was made of sturdy heavy-gauge steel by an unknown Chinese manufacturer. It had a frame designed for women, and it always managed to hurt my back. But it was the coolest green and black ride you could get for 300 Chinese Yuan (~US$45).

Strong Ladies' Bike (may you rest in peace)

New year, same frustrations

Ahh, a new year. I celebrated my first New Year here in Taiwan yesterday and was very excited to try my newly acquired mastery (I read a blog somewhere) of fireworks shooting on the famous Taipei 101 fireworks show. I asked my wife to bring my trusty D50, my cheap but functional tripod, and my amazingly useful little infrared remote control. I knew what to do: small aperture, low ISO, extended exposures.

By five minutes past midnight, my camera's monitor was showing some great pictures of the spectacular light show. At around 2AM of 1/1/2009, after a few hugs and goodbyes and xin nian kuai les, I was finally able to get home and boot up my computer. With hands trembling in excitement, I inserted the memory card of great and important content. Right-click Start, select Explore, navigate to F:, look at all the nice thumbnails, double-click what appears to be the most exciting picture and voila... I see the world's tallest building (need to check if this still holds) lit up by amazing fireworks and all the glorious... wait... Where the hell did all this blur come from? Why did I let this happen? Now, I have to wait another year, making sure that I still live in Taipei and that I still know someone living in a building with a great view of THE Taiwanese mega structure. Oh well, life sucks.

But it's a new year, and I'm still excited. I'm starting this new blog for one, although I'm still unsure what I shall write about. It will probably feature more blurry pics, but will hopefully have some nice sharp ones with fairly interesting (yawn) subjects.

So what happened to my Taipei 101 fireworks pics? I couldn't figure out how to use bulb mode (extended limitless exposure) with my infrared remote, so I pressed the shutter button with my finger and kept it pressed until I was ready to close the shutter. Turns out this was like hand-holding a long exposure shot (only with the help of a tripod). I got the fireworks, but the shots were blurry in a nasty way. When I tried the remote, I was pressing it too hard, causing the shutter to open and close with a single press. A light remote press would have opened the shutter without immediately closing it. Another light press would have closed it, finishing what COULD HAVE BEEN THE MOST AWESOME shots of Taipei 101.

Hmm... somehow it just doesn't seem right to dwell on what could have been right at the start of the year.