I saw this on Chirlene's blog, so I nicked it...
I'd like to know myself better, so please tell me about me...
http://kevan.org/johari?name=jasmineleejasmine
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Cycling to another county
Last week, Bo cycled from home to work, while I drove in. Since we moved office, we're now working in another county, which is about 6 times further than our previous office. Bo did the 10 km trip in 32 minutes.
There's not much bike paths so he had to go on the roads. I thought it was a bit dangerous. Especially when I cycled for the first time from work to home that day. I wasn't planning on doing that but Bo proposed a bet, that I couldn't do the trip in less than 1 hr. Of course, I didn't think I was that much out of shape, so I couldn't refuse. What I didn't take into account was the long stretch of uphill that I had to climb. But I persevered and push on hard. At the end, even though I wasn't in tip top shape, I managed it in 42 mins! My legs were feeling a bit stiff afterwards, but I recovered fully the next day. Though my butt was still sore from riding on the bumpy road.
There's not much bike paths so he had to go on the roads. I thought it was a bit dangerous. Especially when I cycled for the first time from work to home that day. I wasn't planning on doing that but Bo proposed a bet, that I couldn't do the trip in less than 1 hr. Of course, I didn't think I was that much out of shape, so I couldn't refuse. What I didn't take into account was the long stretch of uphill that I had to climb. But I persevered and push on hard. At the end, even though I wasn't in tip top shape, I managed it in 42 mins! My legs were feeling a bit stiff afterwards, but I recovered fully the next day. Though my butt was still sore from riding on the bumpy road.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
I've noticed that...
I've noticed that...
UK roads are very twisty and ridiculously narrow. I started to drive to work a few times and it feels like driving in a video game, except the whole avoid hitting 'things' part. So nerve racking!
I suck at parallel parking. It took me hundreds of turns and thousands of milliseconds to get into a parking spot. And that's with Bo helping, so that I don't hit any parked cars.
I turned into a zombie this week. We've been doing nothing but watching TV. Not that we weren't TV zombies before but this week was quite extreme. Other than going to work, eating, and sleeping, we managed to go through two seasons of 'House'. I must compliment the main character. He's got an awesome personality, who presents like an ignorant SOB. But I think he's a misinterpreted, intelligent, ignorant SOB, with a touch of Jack Bauer.
UK has a lot less stat holidays than Calgary and they're not spread out very well. There's a total of 8 holiday and this year there's 1 in Jan (New Years), 4 are in Apr/May, 1 in Aug and 2 are in Dec. So there's not much to look forward to in the months of Feb, Mar, June, July, Sept, Oct, Nov. We haven't taken any time off since last Christmas. However, work is quite busy and since Bo and I are the only 'resources' on the main project, any time off adds additional days to the project release.
I have a problem, and the first step is to admit that I have a problem. Now I just need to find out what the problem actually is. So my problem, is not knowing what the problem is or do I have a problem that is hiding from my conscious mind? Then do I still have a problem?
UK roads are very twisty and ridiculously narrow. I started to drive to work a few times and it feels like driving in a video game, except the whole avoid hitting 'things' part. So nerve racking!
I suck at parallel parking. It took me hundreds of turns and thousands of milliseconds to get into a parking spot. And that's with Bo helping, so that I don't hit any parked cars.
I turned into a zombie this week. We've been doing nothing but watching TV. Not that we weren't TV zombies before but this week was quite extreme. Other than going to work, eating, and sleeping, we managed to go through two seasons of 'House'. I must compliment the main character. He's got an awesome personality, who presents like an ignorant SOB. But I think he's a misinterpreted, intelligent, ignorant SOB, with a touch of Jack Bauer.
UK has a lot less stat holidays than Calgary and they're not spread out very well. There's a total of 8 holiday and this year there's 1 in Jan (New Years), 4 are in Apr/May, 1 in Aug and 2 are in Dec. So there's not much to look forward to in the months of Feb, Mar, June, July, Sept, Oct, Nov. We haven't taken any time off since last Christmas. However, work is quite busy and since Bo and I are the only 'resources' on the main project, any time off adds additional days to the project release.
I have a problem, and the first step is to admit that I have a problem. Now I just need to find out what the problem actually is. So my problem, is not knowing what the problem is or do I have a problem that is hiding from my conscious mind? Then do I still have a problem?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Happy Chinese New Year
This year's Chinese New Years falls on Sunday, Feb 18. To celebrate the new year of the pig, Bo and I went to London where they're hosting the China in London 2007 event. Trafragal Square had 7 hrs of performances from Chinese opera to lion dancing. We were lucky to have caught the lion dance. They invited two brothers from the Canton province to perform the lion dance on the traditional bench setup, and they were excellent. They also hold the Guinness book of records for the longest lion dance jump.
The London Chinatown was about the size of the one in Calgary. However, it was really difficult to go anywhere. The number of people there were incredible. The police initially didn't control the direction of the crowd, so people were walking in every direction and this caused a huge deadlock. People were unable to get anywhere, there were lots of pushing and shoving. It took us about 30 minutes to get from one end of the block to the other (which normally takes 2 minutes) Every restaurant had a lineup. They blocked off several roads that run in and around Chinatown and turned it into pedestrian walkways, but the roads were still congested with people.
Leicester square was set up for the fire cracker display again this year. There were two shows but unlike last year, we only caught the second one. From last year's experience, we thought the show would last 20 mins. However, this year, it was around 5 mins long. It was still a nice display.
In the evening, we caught a show in the Royal Opera House in Covert Garden. The first group performed music with traditional Chinese instruments. The second was a Chinese rock and roll band called 'Big Yellow'. Though the drummer is Caucasian. The last group was called 'Frank Chickens'. They're mostly Japanese performers except for one big Ireland dude. This group was weird and funny. They were singing and dancing and keep changing into weird costumes.
The London Chinatown was about the size of the one in Calgary. However, it was really difficult to go anywhere. The number of people there were incredible. The police initially didn't control the direction of the crowd, so people were walking in every direction and this caused a huge deadlock. People were unable to get anywhere, there were lots of pushing and shoving. It took us about 30 minutes to get from one end of the block to the other (which normally takes 2 minutes) Every restaurant had a lineup. They blocked off several roads that run in and around Chinatown and turned it into pedestrian walkways, but the roads were still congested with people.
Leicester square was set up for the fire cracker display again this year. There were two shows but unlike last year, we only caught the second one. From last year's experience, we thought the show would last 20 mins. However, this year, it was around 5 mins long. It was still a nice display.
In the evening, we caught a show in the Royal Opera House in Covert Garden. The first group performed music with traditional Chinese instruments. The second was a Chinese rock and roll band called 'Big Yellow'. Though the drummer is Caucasian. The last group was called 'Frank Chickens'. They're mostly Japanese performers except for one big Ireland dude. This group was weird and funny. They were singing and dancing and keep changing into weird costumes.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Video Games
... they're just evil. This past week, Bo and I have been taking turns, spending hours, on a PC game. Today, I spent all day playing it! A perfectly good Sunday, wasted away just like that! I mean, I could have spent the time watching TV. ;) Anyone else addicted to this bad habbit?
Interesting observation:
The Brits call cigarettes/smokes 'fags', so am I correct to say, Calgary is fag free since 2007, and in 2008 all the Calgary casinos are going to be fag free too?
Interesting observation:
The Brits call cigarettes/smokes 'fags', so am I correct to say, Calgary is fag free since 2007, and in 2008 all the Calgary casinos are going to be fag free too?
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Severe Weather Condition in the UK
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! Today we woke up to a white Tring. Before we started our drive to work, we knew that it would take a bit longer. We've also been relocated to another office in a different town. We started in the Wendover Office last week and it now takes us 15 mins to drive there in our tiny Hyundai. However, we did not expect our trip time to increase by almost 90% because of the weather. Luckily, we left a bit early, around 8am, and there were less vehicles than usual on the road, otherwise, the trip would have been even longer.
We were passing cars left, right and centre. (Mostly by passing on the lane used by the opposite traffic) High end vehicles like BMW's were skidding and some stopped in the middle of the road. Cars were unable to drive uphill (tiny slope) We had to follow a car driving at 15-30 km/h on a single flat one way lane. Unable to pass, we took deep breathes and meditated, until we finally turned off. When we eventually made it to the office, the parking lot was near empty. We did a few fun handbrake turns before finally pulling up to park.
There was a total of 5 people that made it into the office before us. One of the ladies told us that many people wouldn't be making it into the office. She was the only person out of 20 that made it in. So she's running around answering everyone's phones. My colleague made it in a few minutes before us and he left home at 6:30am. It took him 2 hrs to get to work (normally takes only 1hr) and he was behind a high end BMW travelling (skidding) at 15km/hr. Today I say, the cheap cars did better than the expensive 'rice boy' rides.
Later, I found out that schools were closed, some runways are closed and flights were cancelled. Traffic was so bad that they are advising people to stay off the roads unless travel was essential! Tring (the town that we're living in) had one of the highest snow falls at 15 cm. People in Calgary, I can hear you say "What, 15cm of snow? What's the big deal?" Well, snow, is rarely seen in the UK and drivers have a vague idea of how to deal with it.
We were passing cars left, right and centre. (Mostly by passing on the lane used by the opposite traffic) High end vehicles like BMW's were skidding and some stopped in the middle of the road. Cars were unable to drive uphill (tiny slope) We had to follow a car driving at 15-30 km/h on a single flat one way lane. Unable to pass, we took deep breathes and meditated, until we finally turned off. When we eventually made it to the office, the parking lot was near empty. We did a few fun handbrake turns before finally pulling up to park.
There was a total of 5 people that made it into the office before us. One of the ladies told us that many people wouldn't be making it into the office. She was the only person out of 20 that made it in. So she's running around answering everyone's phones. My colleague made it in a few minutes before us and he left home at 6:30am. It took him 2 hrs to get to work (normally takes only 1hr) and he was behind a high end BMW travelling (skidding) at 15km/hr. Today I say, the cheap cars did better than the expensive 'rice boy' rides.
Later, I found out that schools were closed, some runways are closed and flights were cancelled. Traffic was so bad that they are advising people to stay off the roads unless travel was essential! Tring (the town that we're living in) had one of the highest snow falls at 15 cm. People in Calgary, I can hear you say "What, 15cm of snow? What's the big deal?" Well, snow, is rarely seen in the UK and drivers have a vague idea of how to deal with it.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Holidays
Its been a while since my last log and a few things has happen. We took 2 weeks off and went home for Christmas. I had an awesome time. Mom made alot of very tasty food! ;) I missed the huge open space in Canada. It's a nice break from living in a little hole (our room in the UK) for a year.
S and A (Sandi and Andre) was kind enough to organize a festive gathering, so we managed to catch up with quite a few people in one go. One of the party goers brought the Wii, so I took this opportunity to test it. This console gets an A+ from me. I played quite a few tennis games with 'A' and I'm still undefeated. I think we were the last ones to leave at the wee hours. Thanks for hosting S & A.
Those 2 weeks went by so quickly. It doesn't help that I got sick, only a week later. So annoying, this happen last year too. But it was far worst last year cause I had a flu as well as a cold. I convinced myself that going snowboarding would help my cold go away faster so we booked a trip out to Banff over the weekend. We went to Lake Louise on Saturday afternoon with Bo's parents and had dinner with em in Banff. The next day, We were planning to meet up with Ambrose and gang at the Lake Louise ski resort. However, I had troubles getting up on time. My body was still recovering from the cold virus. Eventually, we made it there, but had a hard time trying to location our gang. I decided to get the afternoon pass since I didn't think I would last the whole day of intense snowboarding in my condition. We managed to meet up with our gang when they came in for lunch. The snow conditions were quite nice, it snowed the entire time. There were lots of powder, so it was quite tiring for my whole body. It has been nearly 2 years since I last boarded so my first run was quite scary... actually, most of the runs were a bit scary. This was my 2nd or 3rd time on this mountain so it's new territory for me. I managed to board till almost closing time but I was quite tired so I decided to call it quits before I pass out from exhaustion. This time round, I fell many times but luckily, I didn't hurt myself (too bad)
Time flew by so quickly when you're having fun. Once again, I felt quite depressed when the time came for us to board the plane. You'd think that I'm used to saying farewells but nope, going to the airport gets me teary all the time. It's the time spent on waiting to check in and getting through security that take forever, so it gets me thinking about what I'm leaving behind. Luckily, this emotional phase always lessens after the plane takes off to my destination.
Bo went back to work the next day after we arrived, meanwhile, I haven't even gotten over my jetleg and my cold. This time around, I was being more conscious of my health and made sure I had enough rest so this cold wouldn't turn into anything nasty like last year. By the time Saturday rolled around, I was nearly at 100%. We went to a piano recital by Alexander Ardakov with our British friends at a near by church in Tring. Seats were first come first serve and are always sold out, so we all went early. Score, We sat literally three steps (my little steps) away from the pianist. We were close enough to see his fingers in action and even hear him hum to the tune. I don't know much about music, but he sounds incredible. This guy played in Bosendorfer in Vienna, St John's Smith Square in London and the Carnegie Hall in New York. I think he plays in this church about once a year, where he does the practice run before going to one of the big venues.
S and A (Sandi and Andre) was kind enough to organize a festive gathering, so we managed to catch up with quite a few people in one go. One of the party goers brought the Wii, so I took this opportunity to test it. This console gets an A+ from me. I played quite a few tennis games with 'A' and I'm still undefeated. I think we were the last ones to leave at the wee hours. Thanks for hosting S & A.
Those 2 weeks went by so quickly. It doesn't help that I got sick, only a week later. So annoying, this happen last year too. But it was far worst last year cause I had a flu as well as a cold. I convinced myself that going snowboarding would help my cold go away faster so we booked a trip out to Banff over the weekend. We went to Lake Louise on Saturday afternoon with Bo's parents and had dinner with em in Banff. The next day, We were planning to meet up with Ambrose and gang at the Lake Louise ski resort. However, I had troubles getting up on time. My body was still recovering from the cold virus. Eventually, we made it there, but had a hard time trying to location our gang. I decided to get the afternoon pass since I didn't think I would last the whole day of intense snowboarding in my condition. We managed to meet up with our gang when they came in for lunch. The snow conditions were quite nice, it snowed the entire time. There were lots of powder, so it was quite tiring for my whole body. It has been nearly 2 years since I last boarded so my first run was quite scary... actually, most of the runs were a bit scary. This was my 2nd or 3rd time on this mountain so it's new territory for me. I managed to board till almost closing time but I was quite tired so I decided to call it quits before I pass out from exhaustion. This time round, I fell many times but luckily, I didn't hurt myself (too bad)
Time flew by so quickly when you're having fun. Once again, I felt quite depressed when the time came for us to board the plane. You'd think that I'm used to saying farewells but nope, going to the airport gets me teary all the time. It's the time spent on waiting to check in and getting through security that take forever, so it gets me thinking about what I'm leaving behind. Luckily, this emotional phase always lessens after the plane takes off to my destination.
Bo went back to work the next day after we arrived, meanwhile, I haven't even gotten over my jetleg and my cold. This time around, I was being more conscious of my health and made sure I had enough rest so this cold wouldn't turn into anything nasty like last year. By the time Saturday rolled around, I was nearly at 100%. We went to a piano recital by Alexander Ardakov with our British friends at a near by church in Tring. Seats were first come first serve and are always sold out, so we all went early. Score, We sat literally three steps (my little steps) away from the pianist. We were close enough to see his fingers in action and even hear him hum to the tune. I don't know much about music, but he sounds incredible. This guy played in Bosendorfer in Vienna, St John's Smith Square in London and the Carnegie Hall in New York. I think he plays in this church about once a year, where he does the practice run before going to one of the big venues.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Betrayal, Deception and Happiness...
A lot has happened in the past week and I've been going through a whirlwind of emotions. I've experienced feelings that I've never felt before. Someone who has absolutely no consideration of my feelings, was deliberately playing with all of our emotions. The incident was so horrible that I couldn't even start to find words to blog. I think the words 'Incomprehension', 'Betrayal', 'Treachery', and 'Deception' should be amongst them... Yes, I should read more. Perhaps I would be a better writer/blogger if I did.
Who stole my 5 pounds? I left it in my shared office, by my workstation, on my table, by my monitor, on a Friday and when Monday rolled around, it was GONE! Who's greasy, smelly, rotten fingers reached out and snatched my hard earned 5 Elizabeth II one pound coins? Am I angry about this? No, not really. A bit annoyed though. This year we've got another story to tell. It's nothing like last year's no water, no fridge, no stove, no microwave, living on top of a bar story.
Work has been even more demanding than ever. There will most likely be work for us till at least February. However, we're going to take some time off to go home for the holidays. I'll be on the Christmas Eve plane back. Since I'll be flying back west, I'll be arriving 3 hrs after take off and be home just in time for Christmas Eve! I was going to leave a few days earlier but Bo couldn't book anything earlier. He'll be flying out on Christmas Day. I'm already excited to be back for the festivities. See you all berry berry soon.
Who stole my 5 pounds? I left it in my shared office, by my workstation, on my table, by my monitor, on a Friday and when Monday rolled around, it was GONE! Who's greasy, smelly, rotten fingers reached out and snatched my hard earned 5 Elizabeth II one pound coins? Am I angry about this? No, not really. A bit annoyed though. This year we've got another story to tell. It's nothing like last year's no water, no fridge, no stove, no microwave, living on top of a bar story.
Work has been even more demanding than ever. There will most likely be work for us till at least February. However, we're going to take some time off to go home for the holidays. I'll be on the Christmas Eve plane back. Since I'll be flying back west, I'll be arriving 3 hrs after take off and be home just in time for Christmas Eve! I was going to leave a few days earlier but Bo couldn't book anything earlier. He'll be flying out on Christmas Day. I'm already excited to be back for the festivities. See you all berry berry soon.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Our trip to Berlin...
We went to Berlin on Friday, September 22, 2006 for 4 days. We were quite lazy this time round and didn't plan at all, which was a big mistake. The Luton airport parking was completely full! We packed our backpacks an hour before we left, and I forgot my hair brush and towel. Arg. But we managed to get a ride from our co-worker, booked a taxi for our trip back and buy some towels in Berlin. So we everything worked out. All good.
Berlin was just as I had remembered it to be, awesome! We arrived at our Berlin flat at around midnight and there were still many restaurants open. I was able to get us some take out (Pizza) with my limited German. Lot of normal people were in the restaurants and on the streets at this time of the day. I felt quite safe walking around at night.
We were in Berlin the same weekend last year but I remembered it as being much cooler. We had to figure out how the heating worked in the apartment last year. This year, we had to open the windows. Walking around the city, I was sweating in my T-Shirt the entire time. Even after it got dark, I didn't need my jacket.
Saturday we slept in till 11am (would of been only 10am UK time), we didn't do too much because Bo had to run the next day. The only thing we needed to do today was to go and get the Marathon package for Bo (getting his number and chip) at the Berlin Vital. They have the Registration package at the very end of the buildings so you need to walk through all the sports vendors first. The buildings were huge. I think my legs were quite tired after that long walk. Afterwards, we walked into a street festival of some kind. Didn't finish walking through that though. It was really long and Bo should probably take it easy. We called it a day after 8pm.
Sunday's the big Marathon day. Bo got up at I don't know when, I think it was around 6am to prepare himself. I was still sleeping. He left at around 8am, I did manage to wake up and say 'Good Luck!' to him before he left. He didn't need me to go there since the most I can do is to walk him to the runners entrance. I'd have a hard time keeping up with him to cheer him on.
Eventually I got up sometime after Bo left. The Marathon was on TV and I looked out for him but he didn't wear anything noticeably funny so I didn't see him. I saw some guy dressed like a bottle of shampoo, another guy was dressed like a smurf, there was several Vikings, but no Bo. I bet if he dressed like a beaver, I would of had a better chance on spotting him.
Bo officially finished the Marathon in 4:17. He's somewhat pleased with his time and was 10 minutes faster than last year. He expected to be faster because the route was flatter in Berlin compared to Dublin. However, no one anticipated on how hot that day was. The Dublin one was not as hot, so it was easier to run in. After the run, Bo rested in the finish area, ate some fruit and chocolate and got a free massage. I met up with him almost 2 hours after he passed the finish line. For obvious reasons, we didn't do much that day and was home by 6pm. Bo fell asleep almost as soon as he sat down. So I went down and wandered the East Berlin streets by myself. I walked passed several streets of restaurants (lots of Pizzarias) before a little Thai place caught my nose. I managed to order some take out with the little German that I know, but luckily, the Thai guy knew a bit of English.
Monday, September 25. The day after The Big Run. Bo status: He got up before me and was hobbling around the apartment. It was kind of funny watching Bo walk down 8 flights of stairs as he hugs the rails. (Our flat was on the 4th floor with no elevator) We went for a late breakfast at the same cafe that we went to last year. It was a grand breakfast and was once again, the most nutritious one I had since that last time we were here. The difference this year was that I was able to read most of the items on the menu, so was able to omit items that I didn't like. Last year was random finger pointing at menu items because no one at the cafe knew any English. We got a basket of bread and each plate contained about 4-5 different types of cheese, 4 different pieces of fruit, 2-3 different types of sliced meat, and a hard boiled egg. Bo bought the Morning Berlin newspaper and found his name in the Marathon section. He's ranked at 14 thousand and something place. Yeah it's a big number, but there were probably over 20 thousand runners. They said the Marathon hit their target of 40 thousand people (where it was capped) Some where Rollarbladers that bladed the marathon distance on Saturday. The runners and walkers were on Sunday.
After the wonderful breakfast, we headed out. We trained to the city centre and caught the Number 100 bus that took us around the city. I thought I'd give Bo a break from walking, so we did some site seeing on the bus and got off at a stop by KFC. Bo really likes KFC, so we stopped there for lunch. I started to people watch and I think I can confidently pick out people that were running in the marathon the day before. Those people would most likely have the following traits: hobbled around, hobbled around in runners or sandals, wore a heart rate monitor watch and hobbled around, and a big give-a-way was the "Berlin Marathon Finisher" T-shirt.
The KFC was by a really old Church that looks like it was bombed in the War, and no one restored the hole on the tower. We watched a group of street dancers doing their routine and I think they were one of the best that we've ever seen. I wonder how much they would be able to make doing that number over and over again? I suppose it's quite a touristy area so there would be alot of different people watching the show. They are quite talented. We did a bit of shopping, there were many top shops in this area. Afterwards, we headed over to PotsdamerPlats, an amazing plaza. We sat at one of the cafes to relax and kill some time before we went for an original language movie. We paid 20 euros for 1.5 pint of beer, 250ml apple juice, some wings and fries. This was about average price for 2 drinks and a small snack in a touristy area, but at the restaurants by our flat, we would be able to get 2 entres.
We watched Miami Vice in a theatre in the Plaza that shows original language films. This film came out not too long ago. I guess movies come out at an even later time in Berlin compared to the UK. The movie was entertaining and was exactly what we expected it to be, a shoot em and shoot em again movie. By the time we got back to our flat, it was nearly midnight. It was a long day, and we did more walking than anticipated. I was surprised to see how well Bo held up. He's usually only hobbling in the first few minutes of walking, then he walked somewhat normal. It was late so we decided not to have a restaurant sit down meal and opted for some takeout instead.
Tuesday, September 26. Bo update: still hobbling. We'll be flying back to the UK at 9pm in the evening so we still have time to play around in Berlin. My original plan was to go to the Berlin parliament on Monday, but an hour of wait turned us away. Today we made it in after a 30-40 minute wait. After going through security, we got shoved into this huge elevator that took us up to the roof. There were many people waiting to go up so they tried to pack in as many people as possible each time. I suspect many people were praying for the elevator to take us up without a hitch. There was absolutely no room in there to even faint!
The roof gave us a panoramic view of the city. From outside the parliament, it looked like there were people on an escalator taking them up the dome, but no, there was no such luxury. We snapped some pictures then went to the restaurant on the roof for a drink. I figured Bo needed a rest before we walked up the parliament dome. Half way up and looking at the centre of the dome, the shape reminded us of a kabab. The top of the dome was another panoramic view of the city, not too much different from the view on roof, except that we were a bit higher up and there was the glass that separated us from the view.
We didn't do much afterwards and arrived in the airport at around 19:30 then found that our flight was delayed by half an hour. However, the pilot managed to get us to UK 30 minutes early. So we made it there in half the flying time! But it took us an hour to get through customs. WTF, if we were in Heathrow, it would have taken us 10 minutes to get through (we would be allowed into the UK residents line)... but in Luton there was no such thing. There were the EU Nationals line or the Non EU Nationals line and it took them forever to process Non EU Nationals. Arg. Eventually, we made it home at around midnight and went to work a few hours later.
Berlin was just as I had remembered it to be, awesome! We arrived at our Berlin flat at around midnight and there were still many restaurants open. I was able to get us some take out (Pizza) with my limited German. Lot of normal people were in the restaurants and on the streets at this time of the day. I felt quite safe walking around at night.
We were in Berlin the same weekend last year but I remembered it as being much cooler. We had to figure out how the heating worked in the apartment last year. This year, we had to open the windows. Walking around the city, I was sweating in my T-Shirt the entire time. Even after it got dark, I didn't need my jacket.
Saturday we slept in till 11am (would of been only 10am UK time), we didn't do too much because Bo had to run the next day. The only thing we needed to do today was to go and get the Marathon package for Bo (getting his number and chip) at the Berlin Vital. They have the Registration package at the very end of the buildings so you need to walk through all the sports vendors first. The buildings were huge. I think my legs were quite tired after that long walk. Afterwards, we walked into a street festival of some kind. Didn't finish walking through that though. It was really long and Bo should probably take it easy. We called it a day after 8pm.
Sunday's the big Marathon day. Bo got up at I don't know when, I think it was around 6am to prepare himself. I was still sleeping. He left at around 8am, I did manage to wake up and say 'Good Luck!' to him before he left. He didn't need me to go there since the most I can do is to walk him to the runners entrance. I'd have a hard time keeping up with him to cheer him on.
Eventually I got up sometime after Bo left. The Marathon was on TV and I looked out for him but he didn't wear anything noticeably funny so I didn't see him. I saw some guy dressed like a bottle of shampoo, another guy was dressed like a smurf, there was several Vikings, but no Bo. I bet if he dressed like a beaver, I would of had a better chance on spotting him.
Bo officially finished the Marathon in 4:17. He's somewhat pleased with his time and was 10 minutes faster than last year. He expected to be faster because the route was flatter in Berlin compared to Dublin. However, no one anticipated on how hot that day was. The Dublin one was not as hot, so it was easier to run in. After the run, Bo rested in the finish area, ate some fruit and chocolate and got a free massage. I met up with him almost 2 hours after he passed the finish line. For obvious reasons, we didn't do much that day and was home by 6pm. Bo fell asleep almost as soon as he sat down. So I went down and wandered the East Berlin streets by myself. I walked passed several streets of restaurants (lots of Pizzarias) before a little Thai place caught my nose. I managed to order some take out with the little German that I know, but luckily, the Thai guy knew a bit of English.
Monday, September 25. The day after The Big Run. Bo status: He got up before me and was hobbling around the apartment. It was kind of funny watching Bo walk down 8 flights of stairs as he hugs the rails. (Our flat was on the 4th floor with no elevator) We went for a late breakfast at the same cafe that we went to last year. It was a grand breakfast and was once again, the most nutritious one I had since that last time we were here. The difference this year was that I was able to read most of the items on the menu, so was able to omit items that I didn't like. Last year was random finger pointing at menu items because no one at the cafe knew any English. We got a basket of bread and each plate contained about 4-5 different types of cheese, 4 different pieces of fruit, 2-3 different types of sliced meat, and a hard boiled egg. Bo bought the Morning Berlin newspaper and found his name in the Marathon section. He's ranked at 14 thousand and something place. Yeah it's a big number, but there were probably over 20 thousand runners. They said the Marathon hit their target of 40 thousand people (where it was capped) Some where Rollarbladers that bladed the marathon distance on Saturday. The runners and walkers were on Sunday.
After the wonderful breakfast, we headed out. We trained to the city centre and caught the Number 100 bus that took us around the city. I thought I'd give Bo a break from walking, so we did some site seeing on the bus and got off at a stop by KFC. Bo really likes KFC, so we stopped there for lunch. I started to people watch and I think I can confidently pick out people that were running in the marathon the day before. Those people would most likely have the following traits: hobbled around, hobbled around in runners or sandals, wore a heart rate monitor watch and hobbled around, and a big give-a-way was the "Berlin Marathon Finisher" T-shirt.
The KFC was by a really old Church that looks like it was bombed in the War, and no one restored the hole on the tower. We watched a group of street dancers doing their routine and I think they were one of the best that we've ever seen. I wonder how much they would be able to make doing that number over and over again? I suppose it's quite a touristy area so there would be alot of different people watching the show. They are quite talented. We did a bit of shopping, there were many top shops in this area. Afterwards, we headed over to PotsdamerPlats, an amazing plaza. We sat at one of the cafes to relax and kill some time before we went for an original language movie. We paid 20 euros for 1.5 pint of beer, 250ml apple juice, some wings and fries. This was about average price for 2 drinks and a small snack in a touristy area, but at the restaurants by our flat, we would be able to get 2 entres.
We watched Miami Vice in a theatre in the Plaza that shows original language films. This film came out not too long ago. I guess movies come out at an even later time in Berlin compared to the UK. The movie was entertaining and was exactly what we expected it to be, a shoot em and shoot em again movie. By the time we got back to our flat, it was nearly midnight. It was a long day, and we did more walking than anticipated. I was surprised to see how well Bo held up. He's usually only hobbling in the first few minutes of walking, then he walked somewhat normal. It was late so we decided not to have a restaurant sit down meal and opted for some takeout instead.
Tuesday, September 26. Bo update: still hobbling. We'll be flying back to the UK at 9pm in the evening so we still have time to play around in Berlin. My original plan was to go to the Berlin parliament on Monday, but an hour of wait turned us away. Today we made it in after a 30-40 minute wait. After going through security, we got shoved into this huge elevator that took us up to the roof. There were many people waiting to go up so they tried to pack in as many people as possible each time. I suspect many people were praying for the elevator to take us up without a hitch. There was absolutely no room in there to even faint!
The roof gave us a panoramic view of the city. From outside the parliament, it looked like there were people on an escalator taking them up the dome, but no, there was no such luxury. We snapped some pictures then went to the restaurant on the roof for a drink. I figured Bo needed a rest before we walked up the parliament dome. Half way up and looking at the centre of the dome, the shape reminded us of a kabab. The top of the dome was another panoramic view of the city, not too much different from the view on roof, except that we were a bit higher up and there was the glass that separated us from the view.
We didn't do much afterwards and arrived in the airport at around 19:30 then found that our flight was delayed by half an hour. However, the pilot managed to get us to UK 30 minutes early. So we made it there in half the flying time! But it took us an hour to get through customs. WTF, if we were in Heathrow, it would have taken us 10 minutes to get through (we would be allowed into the UK residents line)... but in Luton there was no such thing. There were the EU Nationals line or the Non EU Nationals line and it took them forever to process Non EU Nationals. Arg. Eventually, we made it home at around midnight and went to work a few hours later.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Word Association Game
If you have time, see if you can try and fill in the missing words in this word association game. I started this on my lunch break...
Word Association Game
If you manage to add in any missing words, don't forget to save the game and post the latest link for the puzzle in the comments section.
So check the comments section for the latest version of the puzzle...
Word Association Game
If you manage to add in any missing words, don't forget to save the game and post the latest link for the puzzle in the comments section.
So check the comments section for the latest version of the puzzle...
How Boyish or Girlish Are You?
I saw this on Kitty's blog so I tried it out myself...
| You Are 40% Boyish and 60% Girlish |
You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be. |
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
So very busy...
It's been a busy month. We've been working many hours of overtime for the last few months. So we didn't do too much. There was a long weekend in the last weekend of August so we took that opportunity to go for a road trip to York. We wanted to outside of the UK, but we didn't have anything planned. Then there was a terrorist scare at Heathrow and the airport was shut down for a bit. All this chaos made us think twice about boarding the planes... we didn't want to spend half time waiting in line at the airport.
We met another Canadian girl that's working at the same place we are. She's been here for nearly 2 years on a working holiday visa and she's picked up an English bf. They seem to be quite nice. We took the road trip to York with them. Bo was the only one driving due to insurance restrictions but he likes driving so it's all good. York is North of England and is about 180 miles from Tring. Bo was flying down the motorway with all four of us (and luggage) packed into a little 1.4L VW Polo. It took us about 3 hrs to get there but we spent 20 mins driving around town, looking for our hotel.
York has alot more action than Tring for sure. This town is famous for it surrounding castle walls. Our hotel is quite close to the city centre to we walked everywhere. We did the usual touristy things like visit museums and spend most of our time deciding which restaurant to eat in. Overall, we had a good time. I don't remember last time I did so much walking. When I'm working, I'm sitting in front of the computer for 8 hrs / day. Not much walking going on there... so we just need to go on vacation once a month so I can get my exercise time in.
This weekend, we're going to Berlin again. Going to be leaving on Friday and coming back on Tuesday. So the project will be behind for another 2 days because of us... anyways, enough about work. This trip was planned about 6 months ago, when Bo signed up for the Berlin Marathon. He's going to be running on Sunday. I think I’ll just sleep in, get up in time for Sunday bunch, then meet up with Bo at the finish line. Ah, how exhausting! =)
BTW, anyone still reading this?
We met another Canadian girl that's working at the same place we are. She's been here for nearly 2 years on a working holiday visa and she's picked up an English bf. They seem to be quite nice. We took the road trip to York with them. Bo was the only one driving due to insurance restrictions but he likes driving so it's all good. York is North of England and is about 180 miles from Tring. Bo was flying down the motorway with all four of us (and luggage) packed into a little 1.4L VW Polo. It took us about 3 hrs to get there but we spent 20 mins driving around town, looking for our hotel.
York has alot more action than Tring for sure. This town is famous for it surrounding castle walls. Our hotel is quite close to the city centre to we walked everywhere. We did the usual touristy things like visit museums and spend most of our time deciding which restaurant to eat in. Overall, we had a good time. I don't remember last time I did so much walking. When I'm working, I'm sitting in front of the computer for 8 hrs / day. Not much walking going on there... so we just need to go on vacation once a month so I can get my exercise time in.
This weekend, we're going to Berlin again. Going to be leaving on Friday and coming back on Tuesday. So the project will be behind for another 2 days because of us... anyways, enough about work. This trip was planned about 6 months ago, when Bo signed up for the Berlin Marathon. He's going to be running on Sunday. I think I’ll just sleep in, get up in time for Sunday bunch, then meet up with Bo at the finish line. Ah, how exhausting! =)
BTW, anyone still reading this?
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Day trip to Fussen, Germany (Part 3)
We drove about 2 hours to Fussen, Germany and walked around the town for a bit before going to Schloss Neuschwanstein. Schloss = Palace. This palace looks amazing. There were so many people there that day,so we had to wait 1.5 hours before our tour began. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to wander around the inside of the palace, guided tours only. The palace was half way up the mountain.
The hike up to the palace was steep but it took us only 15-20 minutes. Since we had to wait 1.5 hrs for our tour, we decided to hike to this bridge (Marienbrucke). This is a view of the bridge from outside of the palace ground. Looks far eh? But looks are deceiving, it didn't take very long to get there. I think it was less than 10 minutes away.
The view from the bridge is gorgious. This is Schloss Neuschwanstein taken from on the bridge.
Town hopping in Austria and Germany (Part 2)
Walking through another small town, we came across this 'old' building. This place looks like it was built over 100 years ago. I doubt it if anyone still lived here.
People here has a tendency to decorate and paint their house. In another town, we saw this painted building. It looks very nice, I want my house to have a painting on it too! =)
We were small town hoping and I found this painted church. Alot of little towns have colourful buildings.
Austria trip from May (Part 1)
We went to Zurich to visit Bo's aunt. (That's where we thought they lived) But it turned out that they lived in a small town, somewhere in Austria. We got picked up in the Zurich airport, drove out of Switzerland, into Germany, then out of Germany and into Austria. They're about 30 mins from the German border. Their little Austrian town is very close to mountains. This is the view from the washroom.
On the first day, we crossed over to the German side and drove up a large mountain. We came very close tothe Italian border. I don't remember what this place was called. In the winter, people can ski and snowboard here. We walked around the large water reservoir that's on the base of the mountain. The view was gorgeous. On the other side of the reservoir, we saw people climbing up the side of the mountain.
I don't think many people in Austria or German uses curtains. From all the towns that we visited so far, I aways see houses with those wooden window covers. Bo's Aunt's house also uses these wooden things. They work just like curtains. With these, people can open them up in the morning to let in natural light or close them if you want to sleep in so no light would come in.
Friday, July 28, 2006
HOT HOT HOT...
It has been incredibly hot the last few weeks, with a couple of days of 30+. This temperature is unusual in the UK. We bought a fan for our little room, and taped aluminum foil on the windows to reflect the heat from the sun. Yes, it did make the room a bit cooler. Having the West facing sky windows allows us to easily view the beautiful sunset in our room, but it also turns it into an oven in the afternoons and evenings.
At work, our team managed to get another mobile AC unit in our tiny office that has 6 sardines *cough* people stuffed in. But still, the heat was unbearable. We all had troubles concentrating on the work, which was quite bad since the project deadline is approaching very soon.
This weekend, we will be working again but we've managed to score some tickets to the NASS (National Adventure Sports Show) in Birmingham. I quite enjoy watching these performances on the telly, so I think it's going to be a great show this weekend.
Events over the 2 days include:
Huge action sports exhibition
Kings of Vert Tony Hawk (Skate) & Mat Hoffman (BMX)
Yasutoko Brothers (in line)
LG action sports World tour, Global round Skate, BMX, and Inline
Urban Attack Skate / BMX Comps
Kings of Dirt Mountain bike dirt jumping
Dirty Dozen DC shoes BMX Dirt comp
Mountain bike trials (MAD) Ot Pi, Martyn Ashton
World FMX freestyle Moto-cross
Live stage presented by Metal Hammer magazine
Eastpak Throwdown B-Boy comps
Outdoor arena
Public Skate Park
Interesting thing about the U.K.
Air Conditioning? What's that? We went into an electronics store, one as big as A&B Sound and it has no Air Conditioning... One day, it started to get very hot so I decided to go to the library to cool down (expecting there would be AC) But no, they didn't have AC. I would say that majority of the shops do not have AC, restaurants that have AC advertises this on the window.
At work, our team managed to get another mobile AC unit in our tiny office that has 6 sardines *cough* people stuffed in. But still, the heat was unbearable. We all had troubles concentrating on the work, which was quite bad since the project deadline is approaching very soon.
This weekend, we will be working again but we've managed to score some tickets to the NASS (National Adventure Sports Show) in Birmingham. I quite enjoy watching these performances on the telly, so I think it's going to be a great show this weekend.
Events over the 2 days include:
Huge action sports exhibition
Kings of Vert Tony Hawk (Skate) & Mat Hoffman (BMX)
Yasutoko Brothers (in line)
LG action sports World tour, Global round Skate, BMX, and Inline
Urban Attack Skate / BMX Comps
Kings of Dirt Mountain bike dirt jumping
Dirty Dozen DC shoes BMX Dirt comp
Mountain bike trials (MAD) Ot Pi, Martyn Ashton
World FMX freestyle Moto-cross
Live stage presented by Metal Hammer magazine
Eastpak Throwdown B-Boy comps
Outdoor arena
Public Skate Park
Interesting thing about the U.K.
Air Conditioning? What's that? We went into an electronics store, one as big as A&B Sound and it has no Air Conditioning... One day, it started to get very hot so I decided to go to the library to cool down (expecting there would be AC) But no, they didn't have AC. I would say that majority of the shops do not have AC, restaurants that have AC advertises this on the window.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Working Hard...
Work has been quite hectic these past 2 months. We've been working almost every Saturday trying to keep up with the realistic *cough* project schedule. It's been almost 2 months since our last Europe trip, so we decided to get ourselves something for working so hard.
At around midnight on Wednesday, we ordered the Dell UltraSharp 2007 WFP 20.1" Widescreen LCD Flat Panel Monitor. 300 cd/m² brightness, 800:1 contrast, 16ms response time. Black TCO99. I got a call from Dell on Thursday to confirm the delivery time and on Friday, we receiveded the monitor. This had been the quickest response time thaI've experienced in the UK.
Bo's laptop + TV tuner + New Monitor = Watch Telly. So far, we've used it for about 3 hrs and it's working great! Hopefully we'll be able to take it with us when we leave.
At around midnight on Wednesday, we ordered the Dell UltraSharp 2007 WFP 20.1" Widescreen LCD Flat Panel Monitor. 300 cd/m² brightness, 800:1 contrast, 16ms response time. Black TCO99. I got a call from Dell on Thursday to confirm the delivery time and on Friday, we receiveded the monitor. This had been the quickest response time thaI've experienced in the UK.
Bo's laptop + TV tuner + New Monitor = Watch Telly. So far, we've used it for about 3 hrs and it's working great! Hopefully we'll be able to take it with us when we leave.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Truncate/Delete All Data in Database
I found this awesome script to easily delete all data in all the tables of a database. There might be an issue with large tables, or if some constraints were previously disabled then you will need to disable them again afterwards. Here's the T-SQL, I found it here
-- disable referential integrity
EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? NOCHECK CONSTRAINT ALL'
GO
EXEC sp_MSForEachTable '
IF OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id(''?''), ''TableHasForeignRef'') = 1
DELETE FROM ?
else
TRUNCATE TABLE ?
'
GO
-- enable referential integrity again
EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? CHECK CONSTRAINT ALL'
GO
-- disable referential integrity
EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? NOCHECK CONSTRAINT ALL'
GO
EXEC sp_MSForEachTable '
IF OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id(''?''), ''TableHasForeignRef'') = 1
DELETE FROM ?
else
TRUNCATE TABLE ?
'
GO
-- enable referential integrity again
EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? CHECK CONSTRAINT ALL'
GO
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Amsterdam pics
I've just posted my Amsterdam pictures after Bo had to retrieved our travelgoats.ca password from our old harddrive. Here are the Amsterdam pictures.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Moving around...
No, we didn't move flats. I'm having a great time in the little town of Tring. Nice and quiet and a lot of fresh air. I'm not missing the city at all. People come to our town on the weekends to relax. It reminds me of Banff, with a lot fewer shops. Bo has really picked up on model gliding. He's got magazine, books and picked up a model gliding mentor too. We've been going to Ivinghoe Beacon the last two weekend to learn and fly his glider.
As for work, we're always busy. The way that this project is going, it reminds me of the paper I wrote at UC, which highlighted my days as an intern student, working without much guidance of requirement documents. On top of that, let's add in a touch of unrealistic deadlines, blend it with a bowl of hope and pry, put it in a bigger bowl, seal it up and let stand for 2.5 months...
More about work. We came in the other day and were stunned that our computers were gone. Thoughts were racing through my mind, like did we get axed or who took my cup? It turned out that our team moved to a different location. I think to myself, WOOHOO, we're no longer in the call center. However, they put us in the warehouse! Does this remind you of the TV show, IT Crowd? On the plus side, the ceiling was a lot higher so in comparison, the air was better. Though it could be quite loud at times. It's no longer the sound of people taking on the phone, but replaced by the machines chatting away. I wonder if we're ever going to be moved to a proper office...
Just a week later, we were no longer in the warehouse. We got kicked out because they needed that space. We had to move again but there was no room for us anywhere. So they converted a meeting room for us. It was very small and stuffy. It had no air system installed and had a small window. They stuck 6 of us in there with 6 computers. HOT AND STUFFY! But they promised to get us a mobile air con unit, and we also nicked a fan somewhere to push the warm air around. At least it was quiet in here and we were one door away from the lunch room. Very handy in getting coffee and tea...
The mobile air con unit finally arrived a few days later. Not a moment too soon, cause we were contemplating on wearing beach wear to work. It got so hot the last few days that the tiny unit barely had any effect. We managed to nick two more fans from somewhere and I came up with the awesome idea of putting a fan in front of the air con unit to help blow the cold air out a bit further. I was desperately trying to stay focus on writing 10,000+ lines of code per day, but in this heat, I was struggling to write even 1000 lines...
Eventually (a week later), we were blessed by the god of water by getting cats and dogs thrown at us. The heat finally subsided and I'm back to my peak levels of writing 10,000+ lines of code! All is well.
As for work, we're always busy. The way that this project is going, it reminds me of the paper I wrote at UC, which highlighted my days as an intern student, working without much guidance of requirement documents. On top of that, let's add in a touch of unrealistic deadlines, blend it with a bowl of hope and pry, put it in a bigger bowl, seal it up and let stand for 2.5 months...
More about work. We came in the other day and were stunned that our computers were gone. Thoughts were racing through my mind, like did we get axed or who took my cup? It turned out that our team moved to a different location. I think to myself, WOOHOO, we're no longer in the call center. However, they put us in the warehouse! Does this remind you of the TV show, IT Crowd? On the plus side, the ceiling was a lot higher so in comparison, the air was better. Though it could be quite loud at times. It's no longer the sound of people taking on the phone, but replaced by the machines chatting away. I wonder if we're ever going to be moved to a proper office...
Just a week later, we were no longer in the warehouse. We got kicked out because they needed that space. We had to move again but there was no room for us anywhere. So they converted a meeting room for us. It was very small and stuffy. It had no air system installed and had a small window. They stuck 6 of us in there with 6 computers. HOT AND STUFFY! But they promised to get us a mobile air con unit, and we also nicked a fan somewhere to push the warm air around. At least it was quiet in here and we were one door away from the lunch room. Very handy in getting coffee and tea...
The mobile air con unit finally arrived a few days later. Not a moment too soon, cause we were contemplating on wearing beach wear to work. It got so hot the last few days that the tiny unit barely had any effect. We managed to nick two more fans from somewhere and I came up with the awesome idea of putting a fan in front of the air con unit to help blow the cold air out a bit further. I was desperately trying to stay focus on writing 10,000+ lines of code per day, but in this heat, I was struggling to write even 1000 lines...
Eventually (a week later), we were blessed by the god of water by getting cats and dogs thrown at us. The heat finally subsided and I'm back to my peak levels of writing 10,000+ lines of code! All is well.
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