This is a grandma weekend. I visited both of my grandmas in 2 days.

The grandma from mom's side was in taichung but came up to taipei to do a surgery on the spine, and she's temporarily staying in my auntie's house for the recover. She looks fine and spirited, just having hard time to walk smoothly. We had light dinner together with mom and aunties, watched tv, and talked about my india trip and work and other stuff. I hope she gets better soon.

The grandma from dad's side was busy worshiping today. This lunar month is so called ghost month and buddists have to prepare big food for all ghosts in mid lunar july. So as usual she moved the dinner table outside, put chicken/ fish/ pork/ other hot food/ fruits/ rice/ groceries... on the table, hold a bunch of insences and woriship ghosts and ancestors, then dig each incense on each item and wait for them to finish food. Once the incense burns to the middle, she would start to burn the ghost money until all papers are burned out. As usual I helped her move the table the food and everything, worship and burn the money, then clear up everything including food. I like her food especially the fried rice noodles. I've packed some back for tomorrow's lunch.

Grandmas are like this. You can hardly stand their nagging once you live with them, but when you're away you miss their food their cute face and philosophy. They also see you as a pain in the ass when you're always around, but when you leave them and come back to visit them once in a while, they will give you all they have including food the smiles and the sweet concerns. I love both of my grandmas and taichung grandpa, who I haven't seen for almost a year. They're all in their 80's now. I hope them healthy and happy in their rest life.

Alcohol is amazing. It makes you laugh and gets all the confusion and upset go away. It brings out your language ability even tho the sentenses come out from the mouth more slowly than usual. It makes you look attractive by slowing down your reaction and dismissing your defenses. It even gave you more courages (or tears down your wall) to talk to strangers than ever. It makes you do things you're hesitant to do when your mind is clear.

So after 3 shots my mind got retarded. It's just retarded and I still know what I'm doing and remember what I said. I could stand still and dance but just after one spin I might fall off from the stair. I kept laughing and felt everything just funner than usual. They liked my smily face and thought I looked more cute than not smiling. Some eyes caught mine but I only felt like talking to my friends who I haven't seen for ages. Jenny looked extremely pretty tonight than before and I guess because she lost weight. See gym works. Bernard is easier and more fun to talk to when he's relaxed and put all work down. Terry joined my shot game and we both just poured the yellow liquid straight to the throat without hesitance after the salt. Stephanie just danced and smiled all the night.

My roomate caught me home at 4am and looked suprised (cuz he never saw me go out at night). I guess some other day Dave will come to me and ask about my party night. Now I got a spy in my house so I have to be more careful. But humph why should I care?

I'm still glad I went out and had a fun night.

I watched this movie called 'the notebook' on the flight from Delhi to Singapore. The story starts with an old man reading a book to an old lady, who got parkinson's symptom and lost her memories. The book is about a young couple who fell in love in their 17th but due to the background gap they were forced to breakup but the love still remains strong. Then they met again when girl's about to get married and the guy accomplished his dream of reconstructing the manor. Their love came back again and finally their story went on and on. However, the lady got old and eventually lost her memories, even couldn't recognize her children and grandchildren, the guy decided to do something to save his love and her memories- by reading her notebook for her everyday. Sometimes she finally woke up and recognized her life long husband, but 5 mins later she started to scream to this stranger and pushed him away. Nevertheless, the guy still keeps the faith that she'll come back to him again one day. It did happen at one dark night, and their love also took both of them away to an eternal land.

This is a stereotype romantic movie, but my tears still poured uncontrollably. When you have faith to true love, you can do everything to make it happen and keep it. While the pathetic thing is, not many peolpe believe in true love any more nowadays. When you were 17th, did you know the girl you chased and loved (no matter it's real or impulsive) is the right girl to you? If you had no idea of it, why did you still think you love her and want to do anything to keep her? Did you really know who's right to you? I don't think any of us can give positive answer to these questions. However, most of us remember the love we had in our 17th, and it still tastes sweet when we think of it. It's not becuz we met the right person, it's becuz we had faith to love.

Every couple fights and sometimes sees the other half as a pain in the ass. But does that mean they're not right to each other and have to breakup? The movie got an impressive answer, that no matter how much a couple fights and how much they don't see each other perfect, love is still there and for the sake of it the couple will look after each other for the rest of life. I love you, so no matter how many wrinkles you'll have when you get old or how ugly you'll turn to, I will still guard you with my whole life. I love you, so no matter how poor you're and how sick you get, I will still take care of you until the last minute. I love you, so no matter how far you'd like to go and how terrible the place you settle at, I will still go with you to the end of the earth. This is the faith to love.

I still believe in it deeply. But my tears tell the sighs I feel to this reality.

-To a guy who doesn't know a girl has given him all of her heart since their first meet.

Finally I'm back to a... city. I was about to say modern but it's actualy not so yet. Neverthless, it's Dehli, a city, where has neon lights and shops and nice resturants and clean 5 star hotels.

I had been staying in a town called 'Moradabad' for 4 days. It's an industrial town 150km away from Delhi, 3.5hrs by car. This is where most of indian metal items are produced from. There's only one 'big' hotel in the town, others are only guest house sort of small hotels. The hotel has 3 stories and totally around 10 rooms. I don't know if my feeling about the room is too subjective but from the stained floor and non-bedcover blanket, I decided not to step on the floor with bare foot and covered my own bath towel when sleep. In fact I once stayed in this hotel in my last business trip for 4 days or so. That's why I remembered to bring a bath towel with me there. The bathroom has no shower, so the water has to be held in a plastic bucket and we used a plastic cup to ladle the water and pour on the body. This hotel has one resturant, which is one of the only 2 nice resturants in Moradabad (others are street booths), but it's actually dark, old, full of rotten smell, and the food is merely 'edible'.

This town has only market, but few shops. A big shopping mall is under construction, and will be finished in 1 year time. Most of people here are factory workers, so their dresses are always messy and muddy. The streets are small but full of trucks and cars, so the air and ground are always dusty and smoky. Cars are always horning, and trying to take over thru cows water bufflos horse carts or roaming people.

Everyday we left the hotel, jumped up the car, got to the factories, squating on the floor working on the development item by item, program by program, or walking on the dusty ground checking out factory facilities, smelling engine oil or color paint, and breathing metal dirt or diffused air. Some factories have A/C only in the office but not showroom, so we had to endure the indoor heat and sticky pants and tried to get work down as soon as possible. At night we came back to hotel and had dinner in that dark smelly resturant and tried to order different food in each meal. I could only grab a book but not internet before going to bed.

Now finally I can lie on a tidy cosy bed in luxurious Marriot hotel again with high speed internet clean bedsheet and shower nozzle. Gotta go to sleep and have some nice dreams.

I went jogging yesterday and today. In the hotel fitness room. Where I've never done it before. I didn't do it only for lossing weight or something. I didn't even push myself to do it. I guess I've been addicted to it. I can recall the feeling everytime I think of it- in 10 mins start sweating like after shower, eventually the ear gets humming, the mind gets empty, the legs get sore, but suddenly some sort of electric current flows from head to toes, just simialr to the feeling of orgasm but in milder way. Ha! Now i know why people jog.

Some nice side of my India days...

Someone is resting outside my hotel window. It's on 7th floor and I have no idea how it got there...

-Marriot Hotel, Delhi












-India Gate, Delhi

The sea view from my hotel room in Mumbai. Too bad we only stayed for 1 night...
-Marriot Hotel, Mumbai

No More India Pls....

Now it's 12.30pm and I'm at singapore airport. There's going to be another 8 hr waiting for the next flight to Delhi. 8 hrs I could've just got a landing stamp and had some walk in down town. But except for shopping and eating, what else can I do in this tiny country in 8 hrs? In fact i don't mind staying in the airport and my time could've been easier, but a coworker came along with me and she doesn't have Priority Pass so even if i want i still can't try the VIP in the airport. I even can't just sit down and read on my own, or sit at bar watching people coming and going. For business trip, I'd rather travel independently.

I remember when i just transferred to offshore dept, I was very excited at being able to fly to india and philippines and other south east asain countries. I don't mind travelling every 2-3 months, for a couple of weeks each time. But I started to feel sick since this trip, especially after I was informed to stay in india longer than 2 wks.

I admit I prefer to live in somewhere clean, convenient, and organized. I like the way that when i open up the door i see hopes. Philippines is ok for me. At least the city is convenient and developed. I'm not saying how bad india is, i still like indian movies and food and shopping, but the weather and the environment just make me smother. Also I have to look out my dress, it's very improper for women to wear sleeveless and shorts. I can't walk in the streets at night alone. There're some more stuff but i don't want to complain anymore. This is just not my type of place to stay long.

I guess it's time for me to have some change. I've been in this job for 2 years and even if I like it and still do, I need some other expereince except for India. Yes i think i need to get some china experience. ALso I have to look for a higher income. So far my bosses like me more and more after I got several big orders, and it seems my promotion will be announced soon, but i've made up my mind that i'm not going to stick on india business. Yes i have to leave this team and this company.

The change will most likely be made after next chinese new year. Until then I will be looking for jobs in the world. Ideally the sales job in some manufacturer and do business worldwide.

Let me get thru this 3 week trip first.

Flying to India tomorrow early morning. The boss asked me not to come back until next month. Great...

And this is a cool one from Evilasad... create your own visited country map

So it came out my map like this:



Visited 19 countries (8%)
No bullshit...

So did I tell you I lost my digital camera canon S30 (I even couldn't remember if the model number is right...) in LA?

It was in a sega game room and we were playing table hockey. I put it underneath of the table so that it wouldn't drop off from somewhere higher when we had the radical game. I got some shots but still lost the game and we left with some discussing about the miscalculation of the score machine. We talked and walked and laughed until when we almost got home, I found my camera wasn't with me. It was already around 1 hr later when we had the hockey game.

We rushed home, drove the car, and got back to the accident spot. We looked down the table, it wasn't there. We looked around other tables, nothing was underneath of them. We asked several counters and none of those ladies got any cameras returned. We wondered some goddamn kid found it and kept it. We left out number to the counter but no one called to us since then. I lost my 3 yr old 17,000nt buddy and all my vegas photos.

***************************

So this is my new baby... casio EX-Z750, who's only 2 hr old and also w/ a value of 17,000nt plus 1G SD card. I know you're gonna say things like: 'omg... i can't believe you dropped your professional taste so dramatically!', or 'what does casio know about photography?' But the truth is, I was actually looking for something small but also has manual function, but canon now only got those A series craps (they even did A520 in pastic cover!), and other fellows like nikon or olympus don't even do manual function on those tiny consumer models. You know what the second choice they recommended me? Samsang. So I made up my mind on casio before they started to show me panasonic, asus, sony, benQ, nokia, motorola..... (no only some of them made digital cameras and others still stick on their mobile business. But who knows? Their mobiles have come w/ a camera, haven't they?)

I hope this new baby can stay with me for another 3 years, or even longer.

Leave Our Butts Alone!!

Dancing Panda
-San Diego Zoo