because the boy is sleeping...

This is a post by the girlfriend. Because the boyfriend is too busy taking a nap to blog about his own life, I, the girlfriend, will help him.

Christmas morning with the family. He was very happy to spend time with family back home. He's been trying to get the computer set up so he can do this more often. He misses the kids.

"Hi Steven! Hi Peter! Hi Katie!"

This picture was taken just now. As you can see, he is taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon. So lazy!

This is a picture taken on christmas day.


And this is a picture of his christmas present!

christmas dinner!

Yumz. It was good. Homemade turkey. Taters. Stuffing. Some other less important stuff. After dinner we had dessert. In trying to explain what it was in chinese to the tai chi teacher, we apparently decided that we were having chocolate hotpot.

And I'm happy because we finally got the silly webcam going and I could finally see the family a bit. Yes, I'm kind of pathetic. Merry Christmas!

The Amazing Race!

I feel like I just completed an episode of the Amazing race. I had to go up to China again for work. To a place called JingZhou. Which is in Hubei province, and I should really see about putting up some sort of map so I can list where I've been to. At any rate, it's a fairly small town, which in China terms means it's probably bigger than Richmond, but 2 hours to an airport that is maybe the size of the Prince George, or maybe Thunder Bay one.

Getting there was okay. I decided to see how difficult it would be to catch the train to Guangzhou and then fly from there. It was actually not too bad, if you discount the fact that I screwed up and bought a ticket to Donguan instead of Guangzhou so I had to get off the train, clear customs and go buy another train ticket to Guangzhou. But I did that okay.

Getting from my hotel in Guangzhou to the airport the next morning was a bit of an adventure as the taxi driver tried to cheat me but was foiled (Yay me!), then did cheat me (!!!) and then may have cheated me. First he tried to get me to agree to pay 250 RMB for the taxi ride to the airport which should have cost about 100. After that, when I insisted he put on the meter, he drove away from the airport for a while before heading back up to the airport. There wasn't really much I could do at that point though, as getting out on the highway doing 120km/h wasn't really an option and when I kept insisting on the airport, he'd point at signs saying we were going to the airport expressway. Keep in mind that Guangzhou has a ring system of highways, so you're always going towards the airport expressway, even if you're going away from the airport itself. Finally, when I paid, he gave me back 100RMB and said it was no good and asked me for a different one. It wasn't until after that I realized it wasn't the one I gave him. I asked my colleague if it was counterfeit later, and he thinks it might be okay, just very old. I don't know though. We'll see at some point.

The work itself was pretty uneventful, with things going as they should, so fast forward to when I'm coming home.

We leave the hotel and get into a taxi. It's a little overcast, but it's still super early, and other than that, the weather is fine. As we leave town, it gets foggier and foggier. I imagine there's a good scientific reason for it, like concentrations of people generate more heat and therefore less fog, but in all honestly it felt like the plot of some bad video game: The evil wizard Melifliron has cast a horrible curse upon the land, blanketing the area in an impenetrable fog through which hideous beasts are running rampant! Villages have been able to stave off this magical fog, but you intrepid hero, must venture forth, find the source and stop it!

So, what with the evil cursed fog, we got to the toll gate at the highway and found that it was closed. So we start going along through the side streets, the fog receding every time we pass through a major settlement. After 2 hours of this we finally get to the airport. 20 minutes late for our plane. I should add that the airport was perfectly clear. Blue skies. Nice and sunny. No fog.

After some consulting, we realize that the next plane to Guangzhou is 36 hours later. So, that's probably not something we want to sit around waiting for. We could try and catch a plane to Shenzen that night, but a better option is probably to head to a larger city (Wuhan) and then try to catch a flight from there. So we head into town to the bus station and catch a bus to Wuhan. It was only slightly ironic that the bus ran along the highway that was closed earlier, and we went past JingZhou where we started in the first place.

4 hours of a bus ride later, we get to Wuhan where we get in a car to take us to the airport. I honestly don't know what to say about that ride. The part through the city was fairly standard, but as we got near to the airport we started going through these really narrow back street roads and such. Like barely wide enough to pass two cars, so when we were passing delivery trucks, it was a bit hairy.

We got to the Wuhan airport with 30 minutes to go to catch the flight to Guangzhou, and everything after that is kind of anti-climactic. The flight, taxi, train and then taxi to my door was totally uneventful.

But all told, that was:

8-10am - taxi
11am-12pm - bus station
12pm-4pm - bus
4pm-6pm - car to airport
6-8 plane
8-9 taxi
9-11 train

And I got home sometime around midnight. I'm just flying direct next time.

I miss the kids

I was talking with Mom today and she was telling me about the kids. It's not really a surprise to me that Katy doesn't like her quiet "princess voice" and likes her "witch voice" better. This is the same kid who was walking through the airport screaming about how she's pretty like her mama after all.

I suppose it is bad that I'm all happy that Katy is apparently missing me and wanting me to come home. It's definitely a nice change from when I first started visiting her and she'd burst out crying every time I walked into the room. I miss the boys and their incessant chatter about the MMO that they want to design - not together mind you, they each want to make their own. I miss Katy, and her constant demands that I go downstairs and play computer. It's definitely different coming home to the empty house instead of coming home to the bustle of the kids.

On a work note, I'm in China again. Solving problems makes for a good job, and I solved the one that had been plaguing the system for like 4 months. It took me like 3 hours of poking around on the system, but it's good that I was there, because there is almost zero chance that I would have solved it if I were in Vancouver (off site). Yes, I'm very proud that i figured it out =)

Christmas

Yes, the missus and I put up our Christmas tree on the weekend. It's kind of weird doing that when it's still warm enough outside that I'm not wearing a jacket (though apparently it's cold enough for down jackets for the locals). I can't imagine what it would be like if I were in somewhere like Australia where it's the middle of summer now.

I actually realized that this is the first time I've put up a tree since I moved out the first time. I never did it while I lived on my own, and I don't really remember ever helping out at Jen's place. It's nice. Just one more thing to make it feel like this is actually home. Of course, going shopping for furniture that day also helped. I can't wait until we go ahead and get the new couch. Somewhere to nap on after work will be awesome!

Stupid news

I was going to talk about how D and I made some ice cream sandwiches last night. Fresh oatmeal cookies that I made around homemade ice cream that she made. But then I started reading the news this morning and saw an article on cbc about how jurors in the pickton trial can possibly be facing stress and stuff after the trial.

No shit. What do they expect? You sit there for a couple months listening to the exact details, or at least as much as has been allowed in court, of something pretty damn disturbing for a couple of months, and of course it's going to affect you. And then after you finish, and the publication bans lift and they print all the stuff that were potential factors, and you almost feel betrayed that they didn't give you the full information in the first place.

Anyways, yeah. It kind of struck a nerve, for obvious reasons. I've refused to ever go to Alouette Lake.

Pictures!

Some random pictures that I've taken and either wanted to share or - well, no. They're all random pictures that I've taken and wanted to share.

I'm not quite sure how to caption things properly in HTML, so this may not work out all that well. If you're reading this and know how to do that, please post sos I can learn.





Anyways, the first picture is a sign that has been up in Hong Kong for quite a while and I keep wanting to get a picture of it. It shows the way to Disneyland HK. Because you know, we need to funnel people on the way to the airport into tourist trap attractions.

Hmm, maybe I'll put up the rest of the pictures later once I host them properly.

I drove into town today. All by my lonesome. The parallel parking on the wrong side felt kind of strange, but I did it. Today, I became a man.