I used to have a pond in Taiwan, very industrial looking as it was a ceramic tiled cement box with the size of 6′ x 6′ x 2′. We had a Brazilian turtle “Red Stripe”, who preyed on dog kibbles, half dead cockroaches, and gold fish. Well most of the time he just ate dog kibbles and did the 360 degree turning trick when I fed him. I also had to assist on getting his other food source: I remember trying to not-kill cockroaches with my slipper so that my favorite turtle can enjoy it. I also remember biking to this little aquarium in town, buying a bag full of gold fish, and then watch the turtle chasing the them. I regularly rearrange rocks that I stole from the river bank in the middle and at the corners of this pond so that the fish have places to hide. I don’t remember ever seeing Red Stripe getting any fish, but I do have to buy new fish periodically.Now 15 year later, I have a new pond! It comes in an irregular but man made plastic box that gets inserted into the ground in our front yard. It’s besides a few trees and it even comes with a small fountain (or a cheap pump that will move the water). Sadly since we’ve acquired the house, it’s been ignored and has become home for millions of mosquito babies. So I did my research, and thought to myself that I’d buy a few “mosquito fish” to eat those larvae. But I never come across to cleaning the pond. Finally this weekend, I went out to purchase mosquito fish only to find out they don’t exist in Kingston. I also found out that gold fish would do the same. It’s been two days, I haven’t observed any dead fish and I can still see moving larvae in the pond…….     And I was just thinking….. 15 years later, another engineered pond, another bag of gold fish, maybe with some half dead cockroaches and a turtle, I would be back to my childhood….    Back to reality. I’ve also included some pictures of my veggie garden. Things are doing really well, as you can see it’s very green =p. Dill and Cilantro look like they’re growing like weed, and what’s up with the four head of Nappa Cabbage?! They look nothing like what I buy in stores…. But they taste pretty good - more like bok choy than nappa, that’s for sure. Oh yeah, I also have zucchinis, cucumbers, and strawberries for this arbour. More pictures are on the Picasa page.

 Oh yeah, we also bought a canoe… so here it is…

You remember how we almost moved to Hawaii last year! Well, if we weren’t ready, certainly Laifu was. And all of you who want to visit us only because we’re in Hawaii =p. And believe me we’d love to have you visit us in Honolulu too!

If you don’t know why I’m still in Kingston, the story went like this:
Flora contacts Craig
Craig offers exciting opportunities in Hawaii
Flora gets excited
Flora gets Jason excited
Flora and Jason look into real estate and surfing classes (exciting!!)
Flora and Craig exchange emails and phone calls madly
Flora gets Laifu ready for immigrating to an island (needs to get blood tested at least 3 months before moving and the test must be done in one specific lab in the US)
Craig disappears and Flora/Jason/Laifu stay in Kingston

So, a little more than one year later (now), Craig and I got in touch again!

This time, Craig offers an exciting opportunity (yes this sounds familiar, doesn’t it!)! But one has to be aware of the fact that things may just fall through the exact same way. Either I’m too stupid, or I just REALLY want to visit Hawaii! I am still pumped about the potential opportunity, but I know I should not be too optimistic until I get to meet Craig face to face and get some actions on paper. So I will update if there’s any exciting news, or i’ll update next year this time when I talk to Craig again ;=D

因為時差還沒有改回來，昨天晚上昏昏沉沉的在沙發上睡著了．．
睡著了以後做了一個感覺很真的夢，只能說我自己是嚇醒的．

夢中，我和我妹在一個平房的屋頂上檢垃圾，這間房子很不穩，搖搖欲墜，所以我叫我妹先下去．
他下去了以後我也就跳下去，這時我看到房子就要垮了，我死命的往前跑，
然後我感覺到房子押到我身上，

然後，一片空白

起來的時候，不確定自己在哪裡躺著，往上看到的就是白白的屋頂．．．
呼吸有點困難．
躺在那裡，我回想房子倒下這狀況，心理想這當時應該怎麼跑才可以完全脫離險境，
同時覺得自己還真幸運，撿回一條命．

在玻璃的反光下看到了一部警車，才忽然發現自己在救護車上．．
但是車上沒有別人．
然後有兩個阿姨上了車，和救護車司機聊了起來．
我咳了幾下，好像有血吧．
一位阿姨說這麼嚴重怎麼不載回去，是回去哪我也不清楚
我又咳了幾下，這回好像有血噴到了眼鏡上．
阿姨看了我一眼，有那種絕望的樣子，然後就什麼都沒說了．

後來我們到了一個地方，我也不曉得是哪裡
我問阿姨情況是否很糟糕，他說是．．．
然後我問他我什麼是後會死掉，
他說下午吧．．．
我說我要打電話給我媽．電話有通嗎，我說了什麼，我不記得了，
只記得好像拿起電話後很興奮，呼吸急促起來，肚子都鼓起來了可是空氣好像近不到我的血液裡．．．

這真的是要死的感覺嗎?
然後我就嚇醒了．

今天早上ｇｏｏｇｌｅ夢到死的意味．．．．
原來是自己想要改變現狀，與過去的生活說ｂｙｅｂｙｅ．．．

哈．是日有所思，夜有所夢哦．．．
最近那麼多的事在想，到底我要怎麼做，還要好好的考慮．

So you have seen the amazing race, and you know what I’m talking about!

I bought my flights to Taiwan at the end of February and stupidly I made a big mistake and booked a flight that included a 12-hour stop over in Washington DC. Start counting in Syracuse (airport) makes the total trip time to about 54 hours! I tried calling to get my flights changed once, but it was going to cost too much. I was prepared to sleep over at the Washington Dulles Airport. Then, I had a brilliant idea! I decided to try standing by the flights. Now your should realize that it’s not a direct flight that I’m flying. In fact, this is how my trip looks like:

Kingston -> Syracuse (car)
Syracuse (5PM day 1) -> DC (8AM day 2) -> San Fran (5PM day 2) -> Taoyuan airport (7AM day 3)
Taoyuan -> home (car)

I figured that if i can go on to an earlier flight (like 12 hours earlier) from Syracuse to DC, then at least I can stop over in DC for 24 hours instead of 12, which will make the hotel and rental car all the more worthwhile. But deep inside, I was hoping that I can take the flights that I have taken last year, which would allow me to get to Taiwan 24 hours earlier!

4:00AM EST
At the Syracuse airport, I met the most helpful UA agent in my life! He was very patient to help me with my crazy request to basically change my entire itinerary and two luggages that were supposed to somehow follow me. He was able to switch me to an itinerary that allows me to fly Syracuse -> DC -> Orlando -> Tokyo -> Taoyuan all for 26.5 hours! Although there’s one more stop, I thought it’s still much better than 54 hours. He then went the extra mile to put me on wait list for the DC -> San Fran -> Taoyuan flights that would allow me to go to taiwan all for 23 hours! But the flight from DC -> San Fran was completely checked in and I was one of the 30 people on the wait list. In other words, it’s highly unlikely that i get to do that….. Because it took him a long time to fix my flights, the line up for checking in was building up and caused a series of minor delay (check in and at the gate). I really appreciated his help and i can see why some travellers might get pissed off as a result of it. My flight from Syracuse to DC was rather smooth, and i had a great feeling about the trip! I’m writing a compliment letter regarding to his service to UA today.

8:10AM EST
I got to Washington DC, I had about 20min to catch the wait listed plane, which was, of course, in a different terminal. I had to take a shuttle bus and luckily it came as i ran to the stop. The shuttle ride was very short, at most 5 minutes, and then I ran to the gate. I spoke to the agent there and she told me I have to wait until everyone’s on-board, and then she’ll go to the wait list. It’s pretty cool that they have the wait list on the monitor and I’m No. 2 on the wait list (of 21 people), and I suppose it’s because of my Air Canada Elite status, that’s pretty sweet. The flight was scheduled to leave DC at 830AM, and by 825AM, she started calling No.1 on the wait list who didn’t show up (YA!!!). So I got in! At the gate, i asked to get my boarding pass for San Fran to Taipei (now that she took my DC-> Tokyo one which obviously confused her), but she said there’s no time for her to do that for me but she’ll work on it during my flight. Wow, UA’s got great service! I’m not sure why people complain about them!!

2:30PM EST
Now I’m in San Fran, I got off the plane and realizes that I had to go to another terminal again, but this time with a bit more breeze room as the flight to Taiwan was delayed. It looked like the only way for me to go to the international terminal was to get out of security and then go through security again. I was worried how long it might take! After speaking to another UA agent, I was told there’s a secret shuttle bus that i can take to by-pass the security, but to take the bus they needed a boarding pass that I did not have. But they let me on anyway, see, I told you UA agents were nice!

4:00PM EST
Everything’s so smooth that something must go wrong. I waited impatiently for the UA gate agents to show up, and when they finally did, I explained my situation and asked if I could get a boarding pass. The process of printing my boarding pass was about 10 minutes, but for them to give that boarding pass to me without charging me 200USD was about 1 hour. The agent called several people, and then another customer service director had to come and explain to me that I wasn’t supposed to change my flights at all, and they needed to charge me 500USD but since I’m already at the gate, they’d charge me 200USD. But they really should have charged me in Syracuse and not in San Fran. Long story short, they gave me the boarding pass for free (one time deal), but they had to complain about the agent in Syracuse, I felt really bad about it, and I hope my complimant letter will counter the effect of the complaint they made in San Fran!!

5:20PM EST
Finally, boarding time!! I was almost going to get on to the airplane and….. I got stopped at the Gate. I was supposed to have a paper copy of the ticket with my boarding pass. what?!?! I totally thought I’m going to find a hotel in San Fran now… but somehow, I made it.

7:20AM EST (day 2)
I’m in Taiwan!!! 24 earlier than scheduled arrival time! I got here in one piece and even my luggages shows up!! What a wonderful trip, and I think i’ve just won the amazing race!

Well….. almost… I got home and was informed that my wallet was missing!! So today I’ll have to go to the airport before 5:30pm to claim my wallet, which, as a result, means I’ll be at the Taoyuan airport exaxctly the same time as I am supposed to if I had just went with my original schedule, but from the the other side of the custom!

We finally got all the bills a week and a half ago for the geothermal heat pump and related work done. It took a while for the job to be done, but it also looks like they’re not in a rush for the money! It’s funny how things work in a smaller city/town. No one asked us to pay ahead of time, and most of them did not even give me a bill right after the job is done. You could say they know where I live so they can always find me… well, almost! At least for the well pump, he had to call and ask where to mail the bill because he’s lost my address!

And you ask if it’s worth it (financially) to put in the geothermal heat pump? Let me break down the cost first and provide a very rough estimated pay-back time for you. A more thorough analysis will follow after I take some actual data of my energy usage at home. This study is under a few assumptions:

1. The compared system to my WaterFurnace Envision geothermal heat pump is a 93% high efficiency propane furnace. It would be the furnace that qualifies for the same EcoAction grant that I’m getting, and I’ve actually got one or two quotes on it.

2. The cost of propane is 81cents/L as stated on my receipt that I have recently got from my propane supplier.

3. Estimated propane usage per year is about 2000L, which is based on the usage of the previous owner, and also from the Ontario Ministry of Energy website. I took the high efficiency propane furnace there for an average sized home. The estimated geothermal heating cost is $500 instead of $810 from the website because our heat pump is rated with a 5COP instead of 2.8 listed there, so I thought that would be a fair estimate.

4. AC cost is also based on the MOE website for an average home with a conventional electric AC for an average sized home. Our heat pump is rated to have 30EER, so I also think $100 is probably reasonable.

5. Hot water cost is also based on the MOE website, and we’re going to put a 50% saving for this table.

6. It should be noted that for this calculation, we’re assuming both electricity and propane price don’t change in the time to come =p.

So here you have it. We’ll give you a much more detailed and realistic study in the future, but I think a 4.21 years pay back time is not too shabby at all! And, we really think we can beat it!

The truth is that I don’t know much about Taiwanese politics, and I’m learning. I try to keep myself connected to Taiwan by reading news and talking to my parents, but I often shift to those entertainment news above all other topics. Talking to my parents really is the only way that I am connected.

So I’ve been following the election for the last few weeks, and I must say I’m glad to see the election results: 馬英九當選!! (The Nationalist party a.k.a KMT won! Ma won!!)… I suppose this is enough to express my political stand. Anyway, it is annoying that it was really difficult to find objective articles to read about. In addition, it was almost inevitable to read negative (and often unrelated) news articles about the candidates and their extended families. Like all other countries, we now have to research about the media companies before we read their articles, and we have to always take what we read with a grain of salt. Not sure what everyone else thinks, to me it’s a lot of work. I understand that it’s very difficult to be objective, but news media nowadays seem to use the “newspapers” to include propagandas in the news section.

I tried only reading positive news about the election, and I did find enough to keep myself occupied. One thing that really caught my curiosity was actually Ma’s family. His wife 周美青, and his daughters 馬唯中(Lesley WeiChung) & 馬元中 (Kelly YuanChung). It’s common knowledge that to run for the president, one has to make his/her private life transparent, including those that s/he loves, and I think they’ve handled the situation fairly well. Their lives are very unknown to the public until the election phase, the mother works in a bank and the two daughters currently work/study in the US. Having his daughters in the US apparently was a huge patriotic issue, which I can not comprehend! My parents, like all parents of my immigrant friends, sent their children abroad so that we can be exposed to the (so called) more advanced western culture, be immersed in different values and gain “global vision”, and to learn new language(s). And I believe that it is with such experience that we might be able to take part and help Taiwan move forward! Personally, being in Canada for the last 13 years has made a huge difference. Although I don’t have any plan to move back to Taiwan, I have been thinking about what I can bring back to Taiwan from my experience. I’m not going to run for the president or anything remotely close to that, but I still love Taiwan and I see opportunities where I can be useful. I feel that it’s because of my experience abroad that I am ABLE to make certain contributions. I feel that it’s because of my parents sending me abroad, risking their money that they earned in Taiwan and sacrificing our family time in my teens that created a different “me” that can have the opportunity to do something for Taiwan down the road. It’s a privilege that my parents have given my sisters and I, it’s a privilege that all these parents have given their children, and I think it is a privilege that Taiwan will receive!

I look forward to the new government and new policies, and I look forward to my opportunity to make a small difference some where down the road.