Absurd Singularity

So my dad took all of us back to his childhood home yesterday down in Ping-Tung to pay our respects. It's a more rustic area where things move much more slowly and practically nothing changes. I haven't been back there for quite awhile (last time was when my grandmother passed away over 6 years ago) and still, nothing's really changed.

Back Row (from left): Me, Dad, First Uncle, Third Uncle

Front Row (from left): Erin, Mom, First Uncle's Wife, Little Aunt

but poor old Ghenghis should be rolling in his grave by now.

[UPDATE]: ARGH!! I can't stop watching this damn clip! More info on the song here.

[UPDATE 2]: English version here.

Erin's childhood friend drove us out to Chijin last night for a seafood dinner which was quite fresh, good, and affordable. Many dishes which I was too busy polishing off to take pictures of but we did wind up ordering two of these "mushroom heads" which were pretty good. They're basically lobsters 'cept they look like someone went to town on their heads and flattened 'em with a mallet.

Afterwards we drove all the way back to the other side of the bay/harbor to Shi Je Wan cause our resident bottomless gullet wanted to try out the big bowl 'o ice. This was the 3-person portion. It goes all the way up to 8.

In case you're wondering what all that crap is on it, that's a huge pile of hard and soft peanuts, tapioca, red beans, fruit jelly, condensed milk, and 3 whole caramel puddings.

Apparently this place has gigantic milk tea with tapioca as well but we didn't have enough bladder left to want to find out.

from the last few days.

Erin, before her family's lunch reception

Me, Erin and Yu Wen after the lunch reception

They were having dragonboat practice at night so we went down by the river to visit the ongoing festival. Tried to do some long shutter speed shots but it's tough to get good results without a tripod.

Damn, has it already been 2 weeks? Can't believe I'll be leaving back to the States tomorrow. Definitely not enough time here. Since most of it was spent on mandatory family functions this didn't seem to be much of a vacation. More like a giant 2 week long feast.

Anyway, today I had some free time since Erin ditched me to go kroakin' with her cousin and high school friend. And since I've recently become infatuated with these things (even though I know I really shouldn't), I decided to hit 5 of the 6 major department stores in Kaohsiung to check out if any of their toy departments might have the ones I was looking for. On foot. And also pick up some reading material for the trip home, look for a pet fish store and pick up my contact lenses while I was at it. I started off at around 2 and had four and a half hours to kill before having to meet up with all my relatives for one final dinner near my last department store destination.

and passed customs with nary a word. Not that we were carrying any contraband or anything. Another 5 hours or so to go.

aren't restricted to the Internet apparently. Ran into one in person last night when we went to JFK to pick up my mom. Had just pulled into a parking spot when this earnest/stressed-looking black guy comes over and starts babbling on a mile a minute about how he had locked his keys in his car (waving to a car parked in front and to the left of me) and that after talking to one of the parking attendants he needed $36 to get himself out of his predicament but he only had $20 something and this was legit and he worked for Fleet Bank (waving what seemed to be some sort of ID card at me) and I could take down all his info and he just wanted to get out of there and could I help him out. I just looked apologetic and said, "Sorry, but I need to get cash from the ATM in the airport myself." Which got him off my case. He then proceeded to walk to and stop in front of his "car", yanked out a cell phone and chatted on it for a little while before running off somewhere. A pretty good performance I gotta say on his part but really dude, Fleet got bought by Bank of America a little over a year ago. =p

Grrr, I accidentally deleted the first (and only) two trackbacks I've ever had on this site. =(

Anyhoo, having fun reading these editorials written by a JET Program participant. Some very funny stories.

Next, these have got to be some of the most creative wedding invitations I've ever seen.

And lastly, today's entry at angry asian man brings to attention a new trend (?) amongst Asian women (in Cali at least) in regards to their never-ending battle against that burning disc in the sky. I'd like to take a look at those visor/mask things these guys are talking about cause it sounds hilarious. However, I think the women they're talking about are possibly FOB Asian-Asian women as opposed to Asian-American women cause the majority of Asian-American women that I know aren't as massively paranoid about Ra as the women in Asia. I remember the first time Erin asked me where she could get whitening cream at the mall. Apparently it took me 25 years to realize that apparently there was some sort of lotion (no, not makeup) that people could apply to their skin in an attempt to make them more white. I'd wager that the only other guy in the United States who knew of such a thing was Michael Jackson. ;-p

While I never really followed the anime religiously, I've always been a big fan of the Gundam mecha. So I was pretty psyched when I saw these pre-built Gundam Fix Figuration figures since I was never that good at piecing together plastic models. I've picked up 4 of these so far (0009, 0013, 0020, 0025) but haven't put them all together yet except for 0009 which was my all-time fav Gundam. Some pics of this, the FA-93HWS Nu Gundam + Heavy Weapon System. This bad boy packs 2 60mm Vulcans, a beam saber, 1 new Hyper bazooka, 1 Hyper Mega rifle, 6 fin funnels, 2 anti-ship rocket launchers, and 8 multi-dispensers.

So I'm still a geek. =)

Front

Left

Back

Right

Closeup

but our pics and notes of our honeymoon in Hawaii is finally complete.

Now on to our Taiwan pics. Not too many there though...

Before I forget, in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which I found to be an entertaining movie, Mrs. Smith's office happens to be at 570 Lexington Avenue, which is my office building. Obviously they didn't come here to film cause the actual lobby looks nothing like what Mr. Smith walks into but at least they did get the flyby view correct. ;-p

Opened up another kit last night and pieced it together to form the RX-78-6 MADROCK armed with a 300mm cannon, head-mounted 60mm Vulcan gun, grenade launcher, beam saber, beam rifle, Hyper bazooka and Hyper hammer.

Picked up a Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro lens over the weekend and took some shots at work.

I hope all of you Maroons out there will remember to get more active in our alumni club!

Those of you with a relatively recent computer (PC only for now) and broadband connection should immediately download and install Google Earth. This is some amazing stuff they've pulled together here. Simply amazing.