Hey all!

Again another long hiatus. Anyway, here are some of the pictures from the Philippines. I was there from December 22 to Jan 1 mainly to catch Albert and Zarah's wonderful wedding in Manila! Sufficed to say, philippines was great! Here's a short list of what I did:

23rd: Shopping, The Spa: Massage #1, Went to Pangasinan (Edi's Hometown).
24th: Went to Christmas eve's mass.
25th: Puerto de Sol (Beach Resort)- Swimming, lunch, walk along beach, calendar pictures.
26th: Body Combination Massage #2.
28th: Visit Manila - Manila Cathedral, Saint Augustine, horse carriage tour. Shopping
29th: Albert and Zarah's wedding!
30th: Casino Filipino - won $50!, Foot Massage (#3)
31st: Go to Batangas. AWESOME scuba. Cute dog Bogart. Watch wonderful fireworks display in Manila

Yay, I finally got around to posting the Thailand pictures! It only took 4 months! Click here to see. I'll get around to summarizing the Thailand trip soon too. In the meanwhile, you can view a video I took of dog racing at Macau. Click here to see the race! If you click, but it doesn't work, try downloading quicktime player 7 to view it. You can download it here. Now back to Harry Potter! ;)

Hello, my large number of loyal followers (dad/mom?) Finally put some pictures up from Hong Kong to see!

I've been to Hong Kong before. So more of the same 'ole stuff. I attended a conference there and had a presentation that went pretty well. After it was done, I had a chance to head on over to Macau--I saw dog racing as well as donate $100 to the rich casino owner's retirement fund. All in all a productive day! I also had a chance to meet some of my buddies were did a exchange program to Oregon State while I was there! It was nice to meet up with them and catch up!

Back from Hong Kong, safe and sound! Lets finish Vietnam first!

Halong Bay

So the following day, the conference I was attending started, so I went there. Its a academic conferences...so skip the details about it! After it was done for the day, I went to met Thao’s sister again and visited a couple of the museums. The Ho Chi Minh Museum would have been better if I understood Vietnamese, but I guess it was a lot about the trials and tribulations of the Vietnamese as a country. On the other hand, the ethnology museum was great! They had wonderful exhibits regarding some of the older history of the Vietnamese people and culture. You can say that the Vietnamese people have had it hard-- if it wasn’t the Chinese, it was the French, or if not the French, then the Japanese or the Americans..etc. that ruled over their country. I also had some Pho, a Vietnamese noodle dish.

Cave In Halong Bay

The following day didn’t really have interesting topics, so I only briefly went. After that, Thao’s sister and I ventured to the Halong Bay for a wonderful boat ride. Halong Bay is a world heritage site with tiny island scatter throughout the bay, supposedly by ancient giants fighting...? I didn’t get to see any giants though. Anyway, the boat ride was awesome, it was a little bit hazy, but that added the mystical feel of the place. We also went to a couple of caves on some of the islands.… they all had stalagmites and stalactites and we’re artificially illuminated with colored lights.

Rowing Up the River

Other places I went was the perfume pagoda, where you get to take a boat and ride up a river to the a Buddhist temple for praying. Unfortunately it was quite crowded. They also managed to stick 15 of us into a small wooden boat. It was seriously only a few centimeters about the water after all us overweight foreigners piled in the boat. The other weird thing was that all the other boats were metal, and us overcrowded foreigners were in one small wooden one. I felt a little better when I saw a metal boat with about 25 people in it though.

Pictures are here

My plane arrived safety at around 11pm, although about 45 minutes late, due to the late arrival of the aircraft in Kansai Airport. I got my bags and was picked up by the hotel staff. They were pretty casual dressed--although I didn’t expect much for my $20 a night bookings. It saved me for the hassle of dealing with shady taxis drivers who ‘mistakenly’ drive you to different hotels then the ones you’ve requested. Unpacked my stuff and went to bed only able to see a glimpse of Hanoi city.

The next day, the conference didn’t actually start until the next day, so this was my free day to walk around. I first went to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum--which much to my dismay was closed on Monday :o One of many motorbike who was soliciting tours told me that right away. I didn’t believe him at first, but the Lonely Planet Book agreed. I was pretty persistent about letting him take me around, so I finally caved in. He went to the lengths of showing my his notebook who had comments from previous foreigners he had shuttled around. I was a little scared at first, but after I hopped on his motorbike and he took me around.

All I can say, is that Hanoi traffic is crazy :o Its motorbike and scooter heaven. I think it was about 20 bikes per one car or so. Which means traffic was crazy (as well as dirty). Many if not most ignored the traffic lights and just zoomed through--even through oncoming traffic. Even when turning into a street, they simply just cut through the oncoming traffic to get to the other side... its crazy! Being a pedestrian is worse too--they don’t stop to let you through. You just have a walk slowly and force your way through. They thankfully do slow down for you though.

Anyway, the first day I went to several temples, including the Temple of Literature and two temples near the West Lake. In the afternoon, I was able to meet Thao’s sister and she took me to see the Water Puppet show as well as take me to dinner.

Water Puppets

The water puppet show is a traditional Vietnamese show, where puppets are dancing on the water. They are controlled by puppeteers from behind a curtain who hold sticks under the water which hold up the puppets. The puppets look they are floating and many of them have independently moving arms and legs. It was quite a cool show! I got some of it on video and will post it later!