Back to 北京 (Beijing)

i've never really had one city or town to call home. i always went with the cliché "home is where the heart is," meaning mainly wherever my parents resided. having grown up just 50 miles north of the city, and then living there the last few years have definitely contributed to making NYC home.

it was strange yesterday when i returned to 北京 because it felt a little bit like coming home. perhaps it's because my dad lives here, or that it's been my home base this summer, but i definitely felt the kind of relief you have after being away from home for a long time. of course not to the degree i'm sure i'll feel when i go back to California and then NYC, but i guess 北京 is now a home as well.

one negative thing was how poor the air quality was! made HK's air quality seem crystal clear. but this morning, after it was gloomy and rainy first, it became much clearer and even a little sunny (as much as can be expected here anyhow).

so since i had promised some ppl i'd update my blog with my last HK entries, i proceeded to go to this blog to update it to find it was CENSORED! hrm. i forgot about this issue while spending 3 weeks in censorship-free HK. i can at least still edit (and thus view old entries) and add entries, but sorta sucks i can't see the blog (as a design person i like to see what the final look is...). (sorry Eric, i won't be able to read or comment on your blog for at least a week.) i wonder if i could put up with the net censorship if i ever moved to China... i guess there are proxies out there, right?

so last night i just wanted to stay in and not do anything. since my dad was getting back later that night from a business trip, i had to figure out what to eat. i could've gone to the restaurant in the apartment complex (part of the members' club here), but decided instead to try to order a pizza.

they have a pizza chain that is (supposedly) owned by Pizza Hut and very similar to Pizza Hut (but no pan pizzas). i found the chain's web site and proceeded to attempt to order a pizza online. this took about 40 minutes. :P (to be fair, i was chatting with a few people at the same time...) this was largely due to my sub par Chinese reading skills. but with a bit of help from NJStar (Chinese Word Processing program), i was able to enter in my address, navigate through the pages (reading slowly), and place my order! it was actually not a bad way to work on my Chinese... definitely why living in a place is the best way to learn its language.

while doing this, i was struck with how helpful computers are. not that this is something i've been aware of (far from it), but i'm able to construct conversational e-mail messages in Chinese since recognizing is easier than recalling and the software presents with me with a list of choices to choose from. another example of how helpful computers were in this process: i could Baidu (sorry Google) my dad's apartment complex with the English version to find the Chinese text to copy and paste.

anyway, after getting my pizza and eating it (yum!) i decided to finally upload some HK pics to share. finally added pics to most posts from my trip in HK. i also spent way too much time adding photos to facebook... their system isn't horrible; it has some cool features, but it definitely wasn't the smoothest nor most pleasing experience...

it was actually kinda lonely getting back to the big apartment and being by myself. i was happy when my dad got home from his trip and the place definitely felt better.

since now i'm back to Beijing and my days will prob get even less eventful, i'm going to stop blogging daily and just blog when interesting things happen or when i feel like recapping a couple or more days at a time.

so the brief on today was sleeping in! i slept before midnight last night, got up at 9am when my dad was leaving, but went back to bed and got up around 11! i could've easily slept a couple more hours (or days) but decided to get up. god it feels good to be in a real bed!

i spent much time on the laptop, chatting in the morn and catching up on various things. i then met up with Jini (pretty 'ridicerous' that she's here at the same time) for lunch. we had a big and delicious meal at 鼎泰豐 (Din Tai Fung) in the new 新光天地 (Shin Kong Place) department store. seriously ate too much. oh, and we had mango with shaved ice. not quite 許留山, but it was still good :P. we then stopped by my dad's place before she had to leave to meet up with work people.

and now i'm continuing to 'catch up' on things (like email, blogging). i need to get more disciplined on my personal projects, since i have a week here in Beijing, then about a week in Cali (where i'm sure i'll have plenty of distractions) before heading back to the east coast. last chance to make progress or complete some things before i have to get ready for school. hopefully that starts tomorrow, as today was my "adjustment" day (good excuse, huh?). :)

"i'm" is stupid

one of my pet peeves is B.S., especially when it comes to image or identity, and especially when the substance is lost or forgotten.

take windows live messenger. i go there to try to find the program or an online version so i can chat. what do i get? a campaign message on "i'm":

i’m is a new initiative from Windows Live Messenger™. Every time you start a conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world's most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. We've set no cap on the amount we'll donate to each organization. The sky's the limit.

this is what the whole page is about. i must do good in order to chat! don't get me wrong--i think it's great to promote good causes and be charitable, but let's not forget why people want a chat program, to chat. so let us have access to the program without having to be told how by chatting with Live Messenger i will be helping the world out. it sort of makes me want to vomit a little because of how ridiculously in your face it is, and the fact that this is Microsoft we're talking about here. it just seems like a lame attempt to get more users with their new in-your-face advertising.

okay. i'm done ranting now. and refuse to go through the hoops just to download live messenger. i guess i'll finally give trillian a second try.

EDIT: so Trillian defaults checkboxes to have you install some Weather.com thingy and also an Ask searchbar... god. and people wonder why i (and many others) love Google. UI designed to help users, not to bring in more money or business. hopefully that doesn't ever change.........

HK Day 10 (Sat Jul 7)

slept in a bit this morn, then went with anna to get lunch. tried this new thai place near her apartment which was alright, then followed it up with some yummy mango desserts. :P

she had some afternoon appointments so i stayed in and caught up on some stuff and worked on some music. also got started on laundry!

when anna got back, i gave her a brief WT lesson before we went to meet up with Robin, Jon, Inez, Ming, Doris, et al for a barbecue in Lion Mountain (EDIT: i think it's called something else... Nine Mountain park? OH--and we saw wild MONKEYS!) Park. I had met all of the aforementioned named people in Hungary four months ago, so it was great to see everyone together again. Besides them and me and anna, there were another 9 people, all WingTsun students/instructors.

after a bit of time getting the fire started, we got to finally cook and eat! my fave was bratwurst (that i picked out) since it reminded me of eating them during my childhood in Wisconsin when my dad would BBQ them. i was seriously full after 20 or 30 minutes, but everyone else seemed to keep eating. and eating. and eating. from around 7:30 PM 'til around 11 PM! i wanted to eat more, but simply had no where to put the food.

lots of pics were taken (esp. by MakYu), so i'll try to post some when i get them.

EDIT: here's a group pic that was taken that i had Makyu send me first before i got the rest of the photos:


i'll also fill in details more when i get pics. :P

EDIT: I must comment on how lame wimbledon.com is; it lets you download large video files (300 MB - 1 GB+) , but only when you attempt to watch it do you realize you have to PURCHASE the rights to watch it. LAME. try being a little more user friendly and have us BUY the rights before we waste time downloading the file.