The LoLee Planet

Everything was just like any other day. I woke up, I fed Laifu, I walked her, and then she demands to go to the backyard after her walk. I opened the sliding door and wholly-c.r.a.p, there was a gigantic moth resting at the corder of the sliding door. I have NEVER seen a moth that has a wing-span of about 15cm. It was HUGE, it was colourful, and it was pretty scary. Even Laifu was scared! She barked at the moth, and was very careful not to get too close to it. I, on the other hand, rushed to get the camera. I was unhappy that Jason’s not home yet, therefore the D50 was not home, but any camera can capture the gigantic thing! Though Laifu and I were very restless, the moth seems to be in its own world. It slowly moved its wings a couple times, and just sat still there, never moved in the 5minutes that Laifu and I were all over it!

After lunch, i figured I should find out what kind of big-moth it is. And w.h.o.l.l.y..c.r.a.p., i think it is THE largest moth on earth, the Atlas Moth. Now i was totally intrigued and had to read more. Oh what? it only lives in south east Asia (see reference)? How did it get to my backyard? DId I? Could I have brought it back from Asia when I was in Vietnam and Taiwan in March?! I don’t know!!! How did it get outside? Where was the cocoon? I had so many questions!

I was getting paranoid so HAD TO FIND SOMEONE.   I eventually emailed someone at Queen’s Biology, and he got back to me suggesting that i need not to be too excited because the moth is probably a Cecropia moth, which is native but uncommon in urban area to North America.  Well, now the mystery all made sense……… nothing so mysterious anymore.  But check out this picture, it’s crazy how big the caterpillar is!  3/4 the length of a pop can?  crazy…..
Here’re some pictures:

I was in Vancouver for one week.  It’s been about a year since I last visited, and I surely would love to visit more often!  Mom n Dad were there for a cousin’s wedding, and it’s too bad that I couldn’t stay there for the wedding.  Now i think it’d be really nice to finally meet some of my relatives that i have hardly ever seen in my 13 years in Canada!  Also saw lots of friends, which was also great =).  I miss you guys alot.

On the way back to Kingston, the second leg of the flight was delayed, apparently a common thing.  I was told I should feel lucky that the flight wasn’t canceled altogether!  I was on one of those small jet that only seats 18 passengers.  It really reminded me the good old time that I used to work at Kemess Mine as a co-op student.  Kemess was a remote mine that has a post box in Smithers, BC.  I used to go on two-weeks in, two-weeks out schedule and always flew in/out with these small jets.  What made me wonder about the jet, which I had never thought about, is the number of emergency exits there were.  For a 9-row airplane, there were four (4) emergency exits!  there were on row 2, 4, 6, and also the entrance where we stepped into the plane.  So, does that mean these planes are that dangerous?  Or does it mean that we have far too few doors on those bigger jets/airplanes??

Will post some pictures in facebook, since they’ll be “face” shots……  but here i’ll post some random pictures I took while I was there….
 

Jason and I went up to Ottawa yesterday to see the Tulip festival. We’re here for the fourth summer and it’s the first time we went up there! There are several locations for the tulips and we opted to check out the Dow’s lake site. Luckily we decided not to bring Lai-fu, because the park does not allow dogs…. i guess too many kids there. Here’re some pictures:

Oh yeah, we were in Ottawa when the Senators clinched the seat for the 2007 Stanley Cup Final! It was such a nice afternoon but thanks to that increasing the number of American viewer’s strategy, the game was on at 2pm. It’s still uncertain who’ll win the series in the west… at least in my mind =).

After 2 weekends, I have completed my first wood working project without instructions. Using 90 screws, 8 (1×6x5) fence board and about 40 ft of 2×4, I have a picnic table. I resembles more of a fence turned on its side, but I’m not gonna complain. Pictures to come soon.

Pocky is my sister Tracy’s dog. She’s a mix of… many breeds… i don’t think anyone knows how many! Tracy picked her up on the street after dreaming about Himei, our late dog whom we grew up with. So it’s meant to be that she owns (and is owned by) Pocky. Anyway, Pocky has really weird fur. it’s kind-of long, like those Australian shepherds. Her fur is especially long around the neck, making her look like a lion when the hair is all-out. Since it’s getting to summer time in Taiwan, tracy took her to a hair cut…. HAHAHA.. she’s so cute!!!!!!!!!!!

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.