The LoLee Planet

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!

After getting the new car, we had to help break in the vehicle. In doing this, we will get improved fuel efficiency after the vehicle is broken in. Thats the best excuse I had for driving the car… so I’ll use it. Flora and I decided to drive up to Jones Falls, part of the Historic Rideau Region. Much like the Kingston Mills, Jones Falls had many locks to bring boats up and down the Rideau River System.

I was pleasantly surprised at the park and how the buildings have been restored. Laifu enjoyed the ride in the new car as well and actually sat the whole way there and back.
She enjoyed running around the park as well. At the same time she overcame her fears of walking atop the locks and did it 4 times over. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, It was a nice daytrip none the less.

This is why i can’t make money as a blogger, the rate that i blog things are just way to slow. And now with the Facebook addiction, who knows when will i stop blogging! But really, all of the sudden everyone is on Facebook! the process of finding friends that i lost contact with long ago and look at their pictures is a great feeling. you know what i mean!

So back to Vietnam!

I went on to a tour with mom, dad, and older sister Tracy. Julia, my younger sister, was not able to make it…. If she had, it would’ve been our first “family trip” in 10 years! We arrived in Hanoi, the biggest city in the northern Vietnam. The airport is really new and modern looking, the most modern looking building in the whole trip. I’ve always heard that the airport exchange rate sucks, but it doesn’t look like the local guide “little Yang” was going to bring us to a bank. The tour we were on was small, only 12 people, because it’s just after Chinese new year and no one has holidays, which is good (to us). This is how Chinese tours work: you have a tour manager who’s responsible to bring you from taiwan and bring you home. And you have a local guide who takes care of all the tickets, hotels, and food. It’s been a long time since i last went on a tour, and i think i will not go on another one for a long time =).

The tour is 5 days 4 nights, and we were in three regions: Hanoi, Halong Bay (150km north east of Hanoi), and Hua Lu-Tam Coc (100km south of Hanoi). Although the distances don’t sound very far, the speed limit on highways are 60km/hour and due to high fines, drivers rarely speed. In fact all these tour bus drivers have developed their own codes to remind buses on the opposite direction where (if any) the traffic polices are.

Halong Bay is our first destination. It’s kind of like the thousand islands except these islands are all rock (limestone to be more specific) islands! There’re 1900+ islands there and many of them are too small to do anything but to be viewed. We were on a boat trip that was about 3 hours long. My dad HATES boats but he never got sick! They’re going really really slowly =), but why not! i’d like to spend more time there. Here’re a few pictures at Halong Bay. More pictures are here…..

   
The boat trip was about 3 hours along with seafood lunch serviced on the boat. However, on the last hour, we were like helpless abducted kids surrounded by robbers. I mean, they were nice and all but I almost felt that they won’t let us off the boat if we didn’t buy something from them………
After the boat trip, we got to our hotel. This hotel is very nice and new….. by far the best hotel i’ve stayed at in a long time =). Jason and I don’t usually spend much money on accommodations during our travel, as all we need is a bed to sleep on. But this is the advantage to go with tours! discounted 4 star hotels =). I took some pictures from the hotel looking out, and this one is the best. Northern Vietnam used to be French colony, so their buildings are heavily influenced by the French. You can see that the houses are all very narrow and long, with balconies each floor. Houses are in general very colourful with at least 2 lightening protection rods on the roof, mostly for decorative purposes.

Another French influence is the French bread, which is sold everywhere. A fleet of bread vendors will line up along the highway that takes travelers away from the city, like this picture.

After two nights at Halong Bay, we returned to Hanoi and visited the Confucius temple and the Ho Chi Minh Maosoleum. Vietnam does not have too many temples, and I think the Confucius temple is one of the biggest and oldest. There were Chinese characters everywhere, and this indicates that the temple is more than 300 years old. The modern Vietnam written language was developed by a Portuguese in the 1600’s. I heard the story from little Yang but i didn’t do any further research. The Maosoleum was sort of….. open. There’s a big park infront of it like Tian An Meng Square, but much smaller.

We stayed in a hotel in Hanoi for the second two nights, and went to Hua Lu-Tam Coc on Day 4. It is also quite nice there, and must be experienced by boats again! This time we get into these canoe type of boats and were driven along the channel. These canals are really shallow, as indicated by having rice fields surrounding the canal! I had been wondering maybe there’re rails underneath the water and these drivers were just on the boat to sell us stuff….. Like the other boat we were on, they tried to sell us hand-made stuff. This trip really reminds me of Dr. Yunus’ book “banker to the poor”, people who live in hard conditions already have skills to earn money, they sometimes just need a little capital!
 
On the way back to Hanoi, we visited a temple. I didn’t know what temple it is, but it’s pretty neat. There’re actually more than one temples, scattered along the way up a small mountain. I find it fascinating how the temples are so uniquely located along the cliffs. Wouldn’t it be easily destroyed if rocks fell from the mountain top? I guess that’s why these temples are protected by the gods?!

We spent the afternoon of the 4th day and a bit of the last day in the city of Hanoi. We went to a few more sights, mostly just driving by, and stopped at this famous “36 old streets”. But honestly, i didn’t find this place too exciting. I was imaging small streets that’re only accessible by foot or by 3-wheel bicycles, but they were wide and busy and … really nothing that special. Maybe i missed the good parts =).

Overall, i enjoyed my time a lot with my family in Vietnam. The tour itself is not my favourite travel mean but i think my parents really like the fact that they don’t need to plan anything and just go with the flow. I liked the sights I saw in Vietnam, but I felt that I didn’t have an opportunities to learn about their culture in first person experience. Our local guide, little Yang, was great but he was also the only Vietnamese that I had interaction with. I didn’t even get to eat REAL pho! He told me that real pho is really really really heavy on MSG and salt, and normal people can’t take it. Maybe if i have a chance in the future, i’ll try it and see if my heart rate shoots up afterwards. Northern Vietnam is about 20 years economically behind the southern cities, mostly due to the fact that North Vietnam was the communist side and was closed while Southern Vietnam was under development. Now they’re slowly opening up, like China, therefore a lot of development in terms of manufacturing are underway. I think Vietnam now is like Taiwan 40 years ago!! They’ll go through an economic boom like many other south east asian countries, that’s without a doubt.

I was in Northern Vietnam (mainly Ho noi, Ha long bay, and Hua Lu-Tam Coc) for five days with mom, dad, and my older sister. it’s the first time that i went with a tour in 15 years, and i must say it (still) isn’t my style of traveling, but i can also see why it’s so attractive to people like my parents =).

There’re three things that really stuck in my mind after visiting northern Vietnam, and i’ll write about the sites a bit later.

1. Developing nations are crazy
2. Women work much harder than men
3. There is no fat Vietnamese and I am taller than many of them (now this is something to remember).

I’ve never been to China, so my view can be quite limited. When a country is developing at a fast rate, there are many infrastructure upgrades. When a city like Ha noi is booming, houses are being built everywhere, new roads, new businesses, and these all came with increasing demand of electricity. Of course their original transmission lines aren’t capable to handle the growing demand, so this is what happens:

In some places, extra cables are rolled up and hung at the pole for future use……….

Apparently every woman works very hard in Vietnam, but not all men work. We noticed many men gathering around Chinese chess boards and playing cards, and I was later told that they were gambling. There’re also many men who’re just doing nothing and hanging out. Women, on the other hand, work very hard. Observing their lifestyle reminds me of what Muhammad Yunus wrote in his book: those who’re so poor have found their ways to survive! They need no further training to learn skills to live! Vietnamese women are certainly like that. They sell everything they can find or make, and they will do anything to get that money they need to live. I’ll have one example here why women have to work harder there. Upon entry to a highway, there is a toll station where women sell tickets about 50m before the toll station, rain or shine, while a man collects those tickets in a toll booth.

This is a picture of women selling French bread by the highway.

Finally… I am taller (and fatter) than many vietnamese people!!!!!!!! I don’t have any prove but by how excited and happy I sound, you know that is true =).

As Jason heads home for the holiday season, I met up with Daisy and went to Quebec City for a three-day trip. This winter has been warm in Kingston, which made Quebec City that much colder! The temperature wasn’t too bad, around -10oC, but with the windchill and my bad memory of how cold winter can be, I felt cold! It didn’t help that we were outdoors most of the time.

The first night we went to a fancy resturant and had a good meal, just in time to prepare for the next two cold days in Quebec city! After dinner, we went to Old Quebec and took some pictures. This one is infront of a famous illustrating 400 years of Québec history called La Fresque des Quebecois (The Mural of Quebecers).  Oh, and the chateau at the background is Chateau de Frontenac, a really fancy heritage building now serve as a hotel.

The next day, we went back to Old Quebec in day light and we discovered an ice-bar. In the month of February, there’ll also be an ice-hotel in Quebec city!

And finally, this is the famous Quartier Petit-Champlain, small street that is very European and it looks so cute in the wintertime.

We’ve finally got the new nikon d50 paired up with a lens. We ended up getting the kit lens for the d50 which is a 18mm-55mm lens. Its a pretty good general use lens but a telephoto lens in the future may be pretty useful.

Vancouver is notorious for its gray skyline and never ending rain. Today was a nice exception, the sun peaked through and the skies become clear late in the day. I took this opportunity to try out the new dslr.

The lesson learned from this excursion was to read the camera manual. I had to leave the photos in the auto settings cuz i couldn’t figure out how to adjust anything except for iso and no flash. :p