January 27, 2007

Back from Disneyland

Luna and I just returned from a two-night trip to Disneyland. We drove down on Wednesday, spent all of Thursday in the park, and then drove back today. It's about a five or six hour drive, which isn't horrible but it isn't great either. Since Luna can't drive, she spent a lot of the drive sleeping. Traffic in some parts of the Los Angeles area is pretty bad as well.

We stayed at a motel called the Parkside Inn & Suites, which is located very near Downtown Disneyland. The location is very convenient, and we could walk to the Downtown area and to the park, but the quality of the rooms is somewhat low. The floors were stained and dirty, there was no TV remote, and the old refrigerator was actually off and we didn't realize it. The first morning we found a grasshopper walking around. However the bathroom area looked very clean and well kept. There was a strange hole in the ceiling near the beds that we couldn't figure out though.

The first night we had dinner with Alan and his girlfriend Gen at a New Orleans style restaurant in Downtown Disneyland. I hadn't seen Alan since leaving North Carolina, and it was cool to catch up. He works for Disney now as a developer for their web site. Since he works for Disney, he could give me and Luna two free park tickets which was really nice.

We woke up early the next day and got to the park entrance around 9:15am. But it turns out the park doesn't open until 10am. I don't know if that is just because of the season, or if that's the year-round time that the park opens. People who stayed at one of the Disneyland hotels could enter at 9am though. It was warmer than Luna and I expected though even at 10am, and we should have worn lighter clothing. Instead we ended up tying our jackets around our waists the whole time.

There weren't a whole lot of people, but the park was still very active. A few rides were closed down for whatever reason, but they tended to be rides Luna didn't want to go on anyway. She found the more "violent" rides, like Indiana Jones or Star Tours, scary so we didn't go on many of those. She liked the more calm storybook rides like Pirates of the Carribean or Winnie the Pooh. Actually, she found a lot of the park somewhat boring, but we did end up going on just about all the rides. We did have a good time and it was fun though. I was hoping they'd be selling the large turkey drumsticks but they weren't, and of course all the food and drinks in the park were expensive.

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January 10, 2006

Shanghai is Cold

Over the new year, I visited Shanghai which was my first time in China (excluding Hong Kong). I stayed at my dad's place because he has an apartment/office there, and went because I wanted to visit Luna. Shanghai is a lot like New York City, only more so in the ways I don't like New York City. It is even more crowded, dirtier, and noisier. Buses were frequently packed way past capacity, and no one obeys simple traffic rules like driving in one lane or not running red lights. So it is also pretty dangerous because you can be easily hit by a motorist and people can steal easily on the buses.

Despite that, the city planners have done a good job in many ways. There are separate lanes for bicycles and motorcyles in many areas, and raised or subterranean walkways for crossing busy streets. You can also find completely underground strip malls. And the traffic cops are doing their best to enforce good and safe pedestrian and motorist behavior in many places.

The biggest problem for me was the extreme cold. Temperatures hovered very close to 0°C or only a few degrees higher for the majority of my stay. I ended up getting sick on Wednesday or Thursday because it was raining heavily at freezing temperatures with strong winds and I got very wet while walking around. Plus, my dad doesn't like to use the heater so even on the 23rd floor when it is so cold outside, he had the bathroom window open and the heater set to 18°C or 20°C in the main room. So I would be really cold when there, and also when sleeping. He only turned up the heat later after I got sick. It was warmer to leave and get on the bus or go to the shopping mall.

Food is cheaper there, and of course there is a great variety of authentic Chinese food available. But if you decide to visit one of the new Western chains such as Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonald's, or Burger King the prices are the same as what you'll find in the U.S. (The same goes for any other imported brands of clothing or electronics.) But the menus are very different, and more like restaurants rather than fast food joints. You will find yourself waiting for a table at Pizza Hut, and the menu is Chinese-flavored at all of these places. I did really like the food at Ajisen Ramen though.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi have a strange sort of competition going on though, with Coca-Cola clearly spending much more on advertising. Both of them have created "teams" of celebrities to promote their brand, and you can find their faces pasted all over the place individually or as a team with their respective company brand in the background.

While I was there, Luna and I visited the TV broadcast tower, which is the 3rd tallest tower in the world or something like that. We also went to the museum which was featuring the paintings of many renaissance artists, but Luna wasn't interested in seeing any paintings. Plus the line was really long. Instead we looked at the gemstones, which she really liked. Shanghai also has a really cool aquarium with lots of different types of fish and other ocean and river life. The introductory exhibits are not that exciting, but later on you go down deep into a really long underwater tunnel so you can see all sorts of animals up close.

One thing that I did get a chance to do was visit a HiVi store and listen to a pair of Swans 2.2. These are amazing speakers featuring ribbon arrays for the tweeter and midrange, and four woofers. What I heard was excellent. Unfortunately, no one in Shanghai knows how to sell speakers. The room was acoustically horrible, and the salesmen did not know what they were doing (the DVD player and integrated amp were not configured correctly). The salesmen didn't even turn off the nearby television or close the doors into the rest of the mall. The room was glass walls and a hard floor, although there was a suspended ceiling. The speakers are rear-ported, but were placed way too close to the wall.

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April 29, 2005

Las Vegas

Saturday through Tuesday I took a vacation with Szu-Huey to Las Vegas. We stayed the first night at a Super 8. The next two nights we stayed at Harrahs for only $40 because we went to a time-share presentation by Fairfield Resorts. They gave us $20 and free buffet tickets for spending three hours listening to their sales pitch.

We didn't do much on Saturday except walk around. Szu-Huey played some Roulette and won $1 from betting $20. She was super happy for the rest of the day. Sunday we checked out of Super 8 and into Harrahs but had to leave our bags in the baggage check because they had no rooms available in the morning. We ate at the Rio seafood buffet. It was super-expensive but Szu-Huey's favorite buffet there.

Szu-Huey wanted to keep playing Roulette but lost so I convinced her to play Blackjack because the odds are not against you in that game. On Sunday I won $20 from $30, and on Monday I won $40 from $60. Tuesday before leaving for the airport, we played again and actually more than doubled $60, but instead of stopping we kept playing and ended up losing everything.

On Sunday we saw Mystére at Treasure Island. It was a very funny and entertaining show. We had excellent seats in the very front row, center section. After the show we ate at their buffet but Szu-Huey didn't like it as much. It wasn't as much as the Rio buffet but not as cheap as some other buffets.

Monday we saw the Bellagio water show, the Mirage volcano, and the Treasure Island Sirens of TI show. We ate at the Harrah's buffet with the free tickets we got from Fairfield Resorts. After that, we got on the strip trolley trying to get to the Stratosphere to see Bite but the trolley was going the wrong way. So we had to hop off and get a taxi to get there on time. I liked Bite, and they had some interesting plot twists and a really good acrobatics show. Szu-Huey was scared a few times though.

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