Holiday 2010

The Rapunzel Sparkle Princess Fashion Doll is impossible to find...
Target, Toys R'Us, Walmart, online... all sold out!

Anyways, happy holidays 2010!

Isabelle

Cute compiled Isabelle (wedding cake/pastries company) commercials~

SF

San Francisco Giants!
World Series Champion 2010!

Well deserved...especially after that last disappointment in 2002...(I actually watched every game in the 2002 World Series btw)

10 10 10

十全十美!

Trips

So in the last couple of weeks in Taiwan during August, we planned several trips mostly to the central mountains. We went on a one day trip to Alishan with my dad's friend, and the next day we went to Sun Moon Lake (been there every summer since 2008) to stay at a fairly luxurious hotel for a night.

Alishan's trip was supposed to contain 特富野古道, which is a trail used during the Japanese occupation periods to transport Hinoki logs (檜木). Unfortunately it was under renovation until November... so photos of the entrance counts right?... yea I'll definitely go back there next time!

Sun Moon Lake trip was very fun. We reserved a room in the hotel that faces the lake. Go out on the porch and you see the water beneath you! And the best part is that we saw fish, hundreds, in the clear water in the morning. Anyways The hotel package included a boat tour of the lake ticket to the new Sun Moon Lake Ropeway (gondola) traveling to Formosa Aboriginal Culture Resort (九族文化村), and tickets to that resort. And this year also marked my third time in a row taking a boat tour of the lake...did that previous two summers too.

What a wonderful feeling it was sitting on the porch watching the calm lake in the morning...

Well all thanks to dad for planning and driving, and mom for...allowing it to happen haha. I mean, I was leaving Taiwan again, so we got to do something! And since the beaches was too hot...

Majestic

中秋 2010

I realized that I stopped posting after August 1. I still need to catch up posting about several trips in Taiwan. I'll do that later. Anyways it's Mid-Autumn Moon Festival and the moon is bright and round as ever. Mom and dad called to wish me happy moon festival. They had white wine and mooncake, and a clear night sky for viewing. 享受~~

Moved into my graduate housing. It's a new fully furnished studio room (including flatscreen TV, desk, bed, tables, and others) in UCLA's Hilgard Houses and I'm apparently the inaugural resident here. For all four years in undergrad I have at least one roommate. And now I am finally living by myself! Here's testing if I'm up to the standards of my parents in terms of household chores... and cooking!


Photos of the full moon with backdrops at my apartment.

中秋節快樂!

新竹二日遊

南園人文休閒客棧

This resort located in the outskirts of 新竹 has everything designed in traditional Chiness style from buildings to gates to ponds and bridges. It used to be a retreat for 聯合報. But after it ran out of business, the garden was enlarged and a residential building was added to accomodate tourists.

The residential building has only 20 rooms of various sizes. The rooms are very comfortable with a mix of modern and retro design. The staff and service made us feel exclusive and special, like the whole resort was serving the dozen of customers. But it also means that it is expensive! About 13,000NTD for a night! 3pm was the room check-in time. At 4pm we went on a tour of the garden. 6pm was dinner and there were only about twenty people eating and staying for the night there. After dinner there was another night tour of the garden which I went with my dad, but it was the same garden so nothing more interesting other than changed lighting.

I think if you like to see traditional buildings designed according to 風水, that's a place for you. I like how small-scale the lodging is, and that we could just relax outside without getting bitten by mosquitos. It was surprising that I didn't see any mosquitos there.

六星集Spa新竹會館

The next day we went to a foot-massage place next to Hsinchu science park. The place has a Bali style design. I asked for a male massagist and I think he made the loudest noise hitting my legs. Every punch he took at my thigh was pretty loud, but with a tempo too! It was also my first time to this kind of place.

Both of these places are hidden in mountain roads or small alleyways that, if you're not a local, you wouldn't know about them. But they're more interesting than the average tourist attraction spots!

庫肯花園

Ok I went to this place (庫肯花園) about two weeks ago (7/14) with several friends from NCKU BME lab. It is tucked in a alley on 大學路, but the exterior looks very lovely. We sat on the second floor which unfortunately didn't have much interior decoration. The first floor was much prettier. Food was pretty good. Actually I loved the soup. It was a pumpkin soup and I could actually taste some chunks still hadn't been scrambled. We all got spaghetti, so next time I have to try the steaks.

But the main focus is of course meeting friends which I haven't seen in a year. Sure I've talked to them online but when actually talking in person, they bring back this familiarity that one cannot forge just by cross-distance chats. One year may seem short (some friends from elementary school I haven't seen in 10 years!), but still enough time has passed so that we have something interesting to reveal.

下雨天

下雨天, 早上跟Dee坐在大學路Starbucks二樓聊天, 聽著外面的雨聲, 一杯Starbucks的香草密斯朵, 配一塊西點麵包. 中午時晶片中心辦主任歡送會, 吃喝玩樂沒上到什麼班. 晚上衝去波哥(Bog)品嘗茶飲小點, 之後上二樓的誠品書店逛逛, 看了許多攝影書, 瞄了一些小說, 還研究了一本墾丁旅遊書, 準備八月中去墾丁玩!! 逛完後突然決定看電影, 選了特務間諜(Salt). 蠻緊張刺激的動作片, 可是結局讓大家很傻眼@@

豐富的一天, 謝謝Dee騎車載我! (喔對Luke也是, 麻煩他們倆啦!)

豆花

Here's an interesting story...

Tonight I was at a restaurant reading some magazines and came across a column about 豆花妹 (蔡黃汝), a newcomer celebrity who just became famous this past year. I saw some of the shows she hosted like "電玩快打," and apparently she'll have a new song album out... So one of the sentence was like "她2008年7月時在台灣故事館打工賣豆花, 之後受很多網友熱愛, 應此一路紅到今." Wait...台灣故事館(Taiwan Storyland)...I've been there two times and the first time was in 2008.

Flash back to August 3, 2008. I was at Taiwan Storyland with a few of my friends from Taiwan Tech Trek summer internship. I distintively remembered that I saw a cute girl selling 豆花 at a food court. After buying a bowl from her, I took a pic of the stand with her in it.

So after reading that bit in the magazine, I went back home, took out the external hard drive, and searched in my pile of photos from TTT 2008. I found the pic, connected the two and mystery solved! Funny how a seemingly insignificant photo would finish the puzzle haha.


(Left: August 3, 2008 from my camera, the focus wasn't that great but oh well. Right: 2010 from eh...facebook)

Also, I think it's amazing how some could become well-known in less than a year or so. But if they are not humble about it or don't put the effort keeping up, their several years of fame could very well be the average "5 minutes of fame." I guess this means that we can still make piles of money if we start working in small vendors...just kidding, best persevere at our own work and we'll eventually find 0ur moment!

50!!

拿到了!!! 兩個禮拜前預購的蠟筆小新第50集今天終於到手啦!

就先不多說啦! 我要趕快去看...
Hmm又有一點捨不得看耶...

花季冷泉會館 (Spring Hill Hotel)

高雄縣大崗山有一家2009年開幕的溫泉旅館, 今天跟我爸媽和他們的朋友一起去享受午後泡溫泉的感受. 我們的房間是專泡湯的, 沒有提共床過夜, 房間裡咖啡, 茶, 水, 應有盡有, 地面還是用木板鋪的, 裝潢散發著日式的風味, 而設備又有西洋的fu.

房間供我們用90分鐘, 裡面有分冷池跟熱池, 邊泡湯邊喝杯梅花茶 真是享受無比呀!

另外值得誇獎的是 它們整個溫泉區都很乾淨, 比起關仔嶺蟲蟲聚集的湯屋, 這裡真是舒服百倍. 泡完之後跟大家一起在外面涼椅下欣賞風景, 吹個微風, 聊個天, 讓星期天下午畫下了美好的句點!

Cite Paris (心巴黎)

Buffet style restaurant in Queena Plaza Hotel (桂田酒店). It had great atmosphere, live piano/singing, illuminated floors, and comfortable seating. The food is just like your average hotel buffet in Taiwan. Outside, trails intertwine the garden infused with tropical plants, waterfalls, and Japanese architectures and sculptures. It's a great place to take a walk at night!

Tasty and Cake

I'm in Taiwan from June 27 to September 2!

My parents celebrated my birthday yesterday. We ate at Tasty (西題牛排館). It was really good, and the service even better! The cake below was not a cake. It was made from a towel!

After, we bought a taro and pudding cake home and downed it...the next day because we were so full after the meal!

Toy Story 3

(Spoilers present)

I forgot how and when I first watched the first two TOY STORY films. I just know that I've seen them countless times, never got tired of them, and noticed more detail that I haven't picked up before. The first TOY STORY came out when I was 7, the same age as Andy in the film. Since then the films just stayed with me while growing up. And this second sequel sort of feels like revisiting an old friend after these years. After 15 years I had graduated from college. Similarly Andy, the owner of those toys, is going off to college and parting with these friends.

I collect a variety of toys...or, in a more non-childish way of saying, collectibles. They serve different purposes, whether to incite and practice our imagination, or to personally own a memory from certain media or places. Often there is a greater image behind the toy we see, and it is satisfying to have them around. This is why I "hang-out" with them again when I come home to the pile of toys that I haven't seen for an extended period of time. I kind of connect how the toys felt in the films, how they want to be played with and be there always for the owner. But there is a point in life where separation may become imminent, where a choice has to be made between lingering on to the past or moving on to a new one, and maybe onto a new cycle of life (there might be some Buddhist ideas here). Sheriff Woody in TOY STORY 3 has an epiphony that loving or staying loyal to someone does not mean to be physically with the person at all times. It may very well transcends space and time. Thus Woody made the decision to allow Andy to give him to a little girl. Sometimes letting go may be the best path to proceed. This is a powerful theme and idea that I can't even fully follow. I collect stuff because I am afraid of losing them and thus losing a part of my experience or memory. But new memories can't be create if one keeps on reminising at past ones right? (as cliche as it can sound...but true). I still am reluctant to throw some of my stuff away...sigh.

Oh right, the film...it is amazing. There are hundreds of other reviews that praise it in more articulate ways so I'll keep it simple. PIXAR team has again made a funny, creative, and thematically and emotionally powerful animation movie. It's amazing how emotional these films can become. In Japan, there is Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli. In U.S., there is Pixar. Good job Lee Unkrich and his team! I applaud them for giving an ideal example of a perfect trilogy (assuming this is the last one). Also, Pixar studios, Skywalker Ranch, and Studio Ghibli are three places I want to visit if they give out open tours...I know Ghibli does.

Now, time to do research on which new Toy Story toys I should get!

And happy Father's Day!

節慶連連

今年為了慶祝媽媽的生日, 我特地預約了Palace Hotel 的 sunday brunch buffet!
真的是飽餐一頓!

端午節到, 昨天我媽媽又開始包粽子囉!
端午節前一天大家一起包粽子(好啦只有我幫忙), 我的技術越來越厲害啦 哇哈哈! 可是粽子包完還是要經過媽媽的整形.
八寶粽...有肉, 香菇, 土豆, 鹹蛋, 栗子, 蝦米 ,干貝 ,糯米! 可惜這次的荷葉太小了包不大.
又香又Q料又多的粽子, 啊我肚子又餓了~

下個星期是美國的父親節, 又要怎樣過呢?

Commencement

The graduation for UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences was yesterday. Mom, dad, big sister, second sister, and cousin Peter attended the ceremony. It didn't seem like an end or even that bitter sweet. Maybe it's because I'm still going back for graduate school. Thanks mom and dad, sisters and brother-in-laws for the continuing support and advices this past four years and the future years to come!

Congratulations, class of 2010 everywhere!

Splice

I just watched SPLICE this afternoon, and I think it's one of the better and intelligent science fiction movies in recent times. The plot: two scientists working for a private gene splicing company secretly create a hybrid between human and various animals. The movie narrates through the relationship between creators and the creation. It's also sort of a homage to "Frankenstein." The two lead scientists, Elsa (Sarah Polley) and Clive (Adrien Brody), are very intriguing in their character portrayals. Their creation, Dren (female), is also very well acted out by human/animatronics/computer graphics combination. Throughout the movie, we gradually feel a sense of sympathy, or actually ambiguous sympathy, towards her. The movie walks a thin line between letting us feel like she is being treated horribly, or feel like she is a threat to others and needs to be eliminated.

The movie gives us ethical and moral dilemmas of genetics without ever going too preachy. It also shows the process and roles of fatherhood and motherhood. There are a couple of really disturbing or sensual scenes, depending on how you look at it. The climax is a bit abrupt and could have been much better, but still fits within the structure of the movie.

On the last note, watch this movie with people from both genders. I think everyone will have interesting discussions about this film. The friend (a girl) whom I saw the movie with thought one of the scenes were morally wrong and absolutely disgusting while another scene she was okay with but I thought was more uncomfortable to watch.

In general it is refreshing to see something that is not based on a book, remake, or sequel! It's something that makes you think also about your own moral standards. I definitely recommend this one!

Spoilers to follow:

I found interesting that when Dren is a baby, Elsa is really protective of her while Clive tries to persuade Elsa to get rid of Dren. As Dren grows up, the dynamic begins to change as we see Elsa becoming more crazy and vindictive of Dren while Clive becoming more protective of Dren.

The whole gender and aggression change (female to male) that Dren went through in the last 15 minutes sort of ruins her character build up and disregards any relationship she had with Elsa or Clive. The movie could have been terrific, but still it is very good!

Bruin Run/Walk

I participated in the 5km Run/Walk event for UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA. I took a photo with one of the participants: Dakota Fanning!

Harrison Ford was there also!!! But why was he so 低調. I guess it's good for him not to be so showy. But I didn't know he ran until a guy showed me a photo he took of Mr. Ford. Ahh so sad~

There are 1400 participants. I run with some friends and stayed together sort of...else I could have gone faster. Harrison Ford did great too considering his age!

The score:
Me - 00:26:54
Michael - 00:26:54
Nancy - 00:27:43
Harrison Ford - 00:48:58
Dakota Fanning - 01:05:23

Happy Birthday Tesla!

My nephew, Tesla Chen, is one year old!
祝你生日快樂!!

Tesla with his Grandma.

Moving

We're moving from Millbrae to San Jose!

For the past 10 years we rented an apartment in Millbrae, a small city that is conveniently in the middle of San Francisco peninsula. It is 30 minutes north of San Jose and 30 minutes south of downtown San Francisco, and is right next to San Francisco International Airport. There's not much to do in Millbrae. Sure it has modern living necessities but not a lot of variety. It's mostly residential areas, similar to neighboring cities San Bruno, Burlingame, and San Mateo. But what makes these areas great is easy access to surrounding areas. Want to buy groceries? Ranch 99 is 15 minutes away both north and south. Craving Japanese food? several good restaurants in downtown San Mateo, 15 minutes away. Traveling? we can see the airport from our apartment windows. Movies? there are theaters within 10 minutes drive...although the Millbrae Blockbuster and Hollywood video stores closed down within the past 2 years...sad. One other aspect is Millbrae has a good academic environment. with parks, trails, recreation center, a fairly decent library, and prestigious schools, it is perfect for students.

A trend nowadays is to live in the suburbs and work in the city. San Francisco Bay Area is exactly like this. Sometimes work is also located in the Suburbs, like those high tech companies in San Jose/Silicon Valley. But living like this allows more opportunity to go to different places. I know a lot of people from San Jose and Fremont area who do not know where Millbrae or San Mateo is, but people from Millbrae know where other places are. I would also recommend taking the Caltrain. It is a good way to get familiar with the peninsula from San Fran all the way south to Gilroy. BART is useful for north/east bay also.

One disadvantage in living in San Jose is that mom and dad have to drive to Lai Lai Restaurant, and I couldn't walk them back when they get off work... But since they might stay longer in Taiwan from now on, the cost of renting an apartment comes first. Hopefully living at my sister's place now would give me another perspective of the bay area...though I doubt it because I lived at both sisters' place before and they're about the same XDD

2010 Time 100

Nice to see someone from Taiwan (just a normal 賣菜的) getting recognized in Time Magazine.
This shows every hard work would eventually get recognized.

Check it out here! The article was written by Ang Lee.

山水心燈

Taiwan Pavilion (台灣館)


The Taiwan Pavilion in the 2010 World Expo looks pretty amazing. It combines modern technology to create the rich cultures and diverse environments of Taiwan. I really want to check that place out...hopefully people put more videos up so we can see more of it. Taiwan often carries a motto of 小而美, small but beautiful. The actual building is not that big, but the effort put into it seems concrete and substance, deep.

A major attraction is the 4-D, 360 degree viewing of sceneries, people, and festivals of Taiwan. One may experience water droplets, flower scents, gushes of wind, and other events that truly places the audience in Taiwan.

A part I think will be spactacular is the virtual release of thousands of sky lanterns (天燈), carrying our hopes and wishes up to the sky. The lanterns would be shown by millions of LED lights. Though if I want to truly experience 放天燈, I'll go to PingHsi (平溪) in Taipei county during Lantern Festival hehe.

The Pavilion has already generated a lot of positive feedbacks and an estimated of over 70 million poeple will visit through October. 台灣加油!!

Earth Day

Happy Earth Day 2010!!

你今天吃奇異果了嗎?

發現了一個好笑又catchy的廣告
很搞笑

空氣人形

Just got back from a screening of “Air Doll,” or “空氣人形." I'll talk a bit about the movie since I haven't really done this before. It was a thoughtful little art house Japanese film by Hirokazu Koreeda. The movie is about a life-size inflatable doll that comes to life. While her owner is away during the daytime, she would wander out to the outside world, during which she meets a variety of people and even works at a video rental store and fell in love with a co-worker. Yes, the premise sounds bizarre, but the movie is able to carry it through while conveying its messages: the emptiness and loneliness of urban life and what it means to be human. These messages may be done many times in other movies, but here it’s another creative way to present them.

One of the main themes it brings is the inability for people to connect to each other, to share their sorrows. Because of this, they are empty inside, like the doll. This is quite reflective of the current society. As the doll with a soul learns to become human and fills the emptiness inside, she also discovers that the human characters live lives that are empty, always relying on a “substitute” to release their troubles and feelings. Though I think it is also important to note that the world can't be without the hardworking kindhearted people which the movie didn't mention.

As the doll goes around the city, she also collects glass bottles, fragments, and things in which one would consider garbage. But she finds the beauty in these objects. When she walks, she notices grass, flowers, and dandelions. All these small objects may signify the things we missed as we go on our lives. By the way the scenes in the movie are all well-crafted and beautiful to look at. It’s interesting how the glass bottles are transparent and we can see light shining through…just like herself...

Anyways this is an interesting movie…weird and shocking at some parts (well it is from Japan) but overall I definitely recommend this movie. It premiered at Cannes Film Fest in May and Japan in September 2009. Oh and the lead actress is Bae Doona… she’s Korean who speaks near-perfect Japanese. She was amazing here…hmm both acting and body haha.

March

...of the Penguins? No not really, though I think that film is pretty heart warming. I'm just catching up on stuff since February. Let's see...oh yea spring break was from March 18 to 28 and was probably the only thing worth mentioning out of that month.

At the end of December last year I finally told dad how to download some Taiwanese shows like 豬哥會社, 綜藝大哥大 and 綜藝大集合. That gave him something more to do to fill up his daily activities. And since the internet at home is no doubt provided by Turtle Inc., he had to wait several hours...hmm make that more than ten hours to download a two hour show. He used the computer my sister didn't want anymore and was that computer a raging firetruck! The cooling fans must be running on Red Bulls because it was just too loud!! He mitigated the annoying sound by putting up our Blu-ray player container next to the computer to block the sound when they sleep. That was hilarious! I brought the HP computer back home during spring break so they could use that to download instead.

Anyways it was very enjoyable watching those shows with them during the nights that week. Those shows really gave them something to look forward to after a long night of hard work at Lai Lai Restaurant, and they certainly end the day with fun and somewhat nostalgic note.

二姊 moved into their new house in San Jose area. I would have to say it is a really nice place: nice front/back yard, great view of the mountains, and convenient anywhere you go. They painted Tesla's bedroom baby blue, and Tera's pink. I would say Tesla's bedroom feels like going to Hawaii. It has that nice, relaxing, and refreshing feel whenever I walk into the room. Another thing is that 大姊 and Erika live 10 minutes away so they often have dinner together. And on Fridays mom would be like a caterer bringing everything over there for dinner. What a task!

Oh and I also get to go to Toys 'R Us and BestBuy. That Samsung 3D TV in BestBuy was gorgeous. Though you look weird having to put on the glasses every time you want to watch 3D. I think the TV comes with 2 glasses, so unless you want to pay more, only 2 will get to watch 3D...well, unless you switch around or something..."alright 5 minutes! my turn!!"...When will glassesless 3DTV come out??

Mom, dad, big sis, and Erika are in Taiwan right now (went back on March 31). They'll stay in Tainan for a month! I have my 200-minute prepaid calling card ready...wow I've already used 100 minutes of it O_O

Pale Blue Dot

Voyager 1 (1990)

Quote by Carl Sagan:
"Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

That makes me think how seemingly insignificant we are. From a photograph of Earth 6 billion kilometers away made by Voyager 1, we're not even a grain of dust in our own solar system. But it doesn't matter, and what matters is that we cherish what we have here. It is the mind, the curiosity, and the determination that make humans significant. It is the wonderful life on Earth that makes us stand out (well at least for now) from the rest of the universe. And one day, we'll venture to the unknown, look back at the pale blue dot, and say, proudly, that that is our home.

Been wanting to read that book "Pale Blue Dot" for a while. Alright, this March 18, spring break equals reading time!

虎

Winter Olympic XXI begins!
Watching the opening ceremony last night, I saw a lot of familiar sceneries especially when the camera showed the night view of downtown Vancouver. Felt like I was there...well I was, just two months earlier :) Anyways the shows was really beautiful, and showcased the diverse seasons of Canada effectively...

Last night's trip with sisters and brother-in-law to Okazuya Japanese Restaurant was pretty amazing...probably because their little ones are at home sleeping. 可以專心吃!

祝大家 新年恭喜! 虎年行大運!

Lucky

So my uncle always plays this game for Superbowl at his restaurant. It's basically a grid with each square partition corresponding to a set of two numbers, representing the scores for the two teams. My dad chipped in thirty dollars for three random squares. And we luckily won 300 dollars!

I guess this can cover the Bluray disc player he bought two days ago (more than cover actually). Now if only we have a bluray disc to play...haha hmm...

Next weekend is surely a busy one. We have President's day (2/15), Valentine's day (2/14), and Chinese New Year (2/14) all in one weekend. I'll be going home from thursday to monday, a good relaxing weekend hopefully. Before that however, must study for midterms monday to wednesday > <...

2010/1/17

Start of the new quarter in school...well third week already. One more to go after this quarter and I will end my undergraduate classes.

I thought I will be more active in clubs this quarter since it's my last year and the graduate school applications were done, but turns out I am still being a hermit in my room=/... !(宅印)!

Yesterday was pretty fun watching the Golden Globe Awards. AVATAR wins best director James Cameron and best picture drama! Yay! The global box office is like what...1.6 billion dollars already. I think he's going to re-sink Titanic (1.8 billion) soon.

It was a novel experience since I found two websites that provide live streaming of the show, one of them was from Facebook. It's interesting how this process worked. You get to watch the show (need fast internet connection of course), but then you get to interact with community online as you are watching it. There was this chat room next to the screen in which users such as facebook community posted comments. In the video, the hosts actually used questions from facebook users to ask the celebrities. Other devices such as PS3 and XBox also allow one to go online to watch videos while interacting with others online. In a way it was as if one was actually there interacting with thousands of people.

Through this internet community people seem to be connected to events more, but in a way that has a plastic box with semiconductors separated between the real world and ourselves. And too often do most people view the world through this window, whether 15 inch or 50 inch. I guess one of the ideas AVATAR is trying to convey is to wake up, perceive things clearly, and relate to the world first-hand instead of through a barrier.

Happy New Year

2010!