more bathroom jabber...

So I'm sitting in the men's room today, doing my own thing, minding my own business. In comes a man. I immediately recognize his voice because he was in the bathroom the same time I was, yesterday. This time he's with a different friend, no less. He goes into a stall and begins the same speech I heard him give yesterday.

"Hey <>, In all my 50+ years of going to public restrooms, I've never seen one designed quite like this one. I'm amazed! This is the first bathroom I've been in where they have stalls perpendicular to each other. Usually they are just parallel, side by side. Sometimes facing each other. But this person really had to think outside of the box."

Two days in a row...same speech. And both times, while that guy is sitting in a stall talking to a friend. What are the chances...?

Exiled from my own home...

Wonderful 4-day weekend. Perfect timing for us to recover from our jetlag and reaccustom ourselves with California's laid back lifestyle. Mmm Mmm Good!

Friday morning, we unorthodoxly woke up at 5AM to go to Macy's at 6AM. All that for a rice cooker - we were hoping for some kind of super duper sale. We came home with our tail between our legs. There was no sale!! Luckily, we didn't have to cook that day...

Saturday we slept in until 3PM. That's 15 hours of sleep. I did get up once to go wee-wee. We had our hearts set on fixing the broken pipe too. Oh well..guess that'll have to wait. After having breakfast/lunch/afternoon tea...whatever you wanna call it, we "cleaned house." Went through all our boxes and clawed through everything that even slightly resembled evilness. Threw away a bunch of charms my dad got for me at Wong Dai Sin, a charm Gracie got for us from Japan, my 招財進寶 piggy bank, volumes upon volumes of so-called "literature." It felt really good! Probably the hardest thing to do was to throw away were Joycie's 龍鳳扼. We were contemplating melting it and reusing the material for something else...but since we couldn't think of anything, and honestly, no one is going to miss it, we hurled it into the trash. Sayonara!

Sunday was oh so cold. We get home around 4PM to watch the 4th quarter of the Cardinals/Jaguars game, then decide to head off to Barnes and Noble cuz it's warmer there. We figure a $2 cup of coffee is cheaper than turning on the heat.

During the summer, we go to Barnes and Noble to stay cool. During the winter, we go to Barnes and Noble to stay warm!! Anything wrong there??

Thanksgiving

Winter is officially here for retailers. Tomorrow will be the biggest shopping day of the year. Places like Walmart and Circuit City are selling laptops plus printers plus Wireless cards for $200. That's insane. INSANE!!!

Joyce and I decided to spend Thanksgiving this year with her dad. We rarely spend time with this side of the family. But the time we spend together is definitely worth cherishing. They were so surprised that we had lunch and dinner with them. Almost unexpected. The day went by quickly. We finished Thanksgiving dinner by 630PM -- when most families start to have dinner. Instead of heading over to the Louie's for dessert, we decided to rest up for shopping tomorrow. I'm actually gonna hit up Macy's at 6AM. I can't help it!! Our rice cooker broke and we need a new one. Hahahahhaa... amazing huh? A chinese family w/o a rice cooker is like a football game w/o a football.

There's no place like home...

As flight SQ002 skidded back onto the runway at San Francisco International Airport and with clicking of seatbelts before the captain turns off the Fasten Seat Belt sign, our honeymoon officially came to an end. Two weeks of hustle and bustle culminated anti-climatically in an abnormally warm autumn evening in the Bay Area. Compared SFO to Hong Kong's airport is like comparing a bowl of white rice to a Filet Mignon. There's no comparison. As leaders of the free world, you'd expect some order within the confinements of the customs. Au Contraire, mon Fraire. Minimum wage in California is too high for the government to afford a few more people to help direct traffic. We skip through customs and the luggage belt with no problems. Since I didn't sleep a wink on the plane, I think I can sleep tonight and head straight into work. I'm sure people at work will be understanding if I'm glassy eyed. Hahahaha.. not like it's anything different eh?

不到長城非好漢 -- 毛澤東

The home of the 2008 Olympics. The capital of several centuries of Chinese emperors. The birthplace of 北京田鴨。 When astronaut John Glenn first orbitted the earth, he saw two things from space...one of them being the Great Wall of China, located north of Beijing on the border of Mongolia. Joycie and I were planning to go to Phuket, Thailand for the second leg of our honeymoon. We even packed all but shorts and t-shirts. Huda guessed instead of travelling to 80 degrees weather, we'll be going to 20 degree weather. But God was watching out for us and preparing us every step of the way. Climax of our trip to Beijing came on day 3 of 5. Our bus arrived at the Great Wall of China. As we stepped off the tour bus..I uncontrollably started weeping and humming 中華民國頌 (much to Joycie's annoyance).

中華民國頌
青海的草原 一眼看不完
喜瑪拉雅山 峰峰相連到天邊
古聖和先賢 在這裡建家園
風吹雨打中 聳立五千年
中華民國 中華民國 經得起考驗
只要長江和黃河的水不斷 千秋萬世，直到永遠



But I couldn't help it. This was the main reason we chose Beijing. To be at the very place that our forefather's labored so intensely for the protection of the rest of China. Someone shoulda told them to build it not just North, but on all four directions. China finally fell to the Invasions of the Eight Nations - but we'll leave that for the history books.




Then the next day, we went to Tiananmen Square, the place where so many students were massacred for the price of Freedom and Democracy. There happened to be a bunch of students there on a field trip. I looked upon them and imagined this square, the world's largest square. Filled with students. It's not hard to imagine why Deng Xiao Peng ordered troops upon them. If the students decided to start an uproar, with their size and their heart, there was no telling what they could've done. Despite the melancholy, I was standing in the center of the captial of my mother country. I haven't even been to Washington DC!!! But here I was, in between the Tomb of Mao, the Great Hall of the People, the Beijing Museum, and the Forbidden City. I couldn't help but whistle and hum the Chinese National Anthem. I surge of national pride came pouring out of me.

Press me!!

中華人民共和國國歌
起來﹗不願做奴隸的人們﹗
把我們的血肉，築成我們新的長城﹗
中華民族到了最危險的時候，
每個人都被迫著發出最後的吼聲。
起來﹗起來﹗起來﹗
我們萬眾一心，冒著敵人的炮火，前進﹗
冒著敵人的炮火，前進﹗前進﹗前進﹗進﹗

Most imporantly, Beijing is a place full of evilness and temptations. PCS definitely was able to prepare us for this sin-filled place. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we were capable of protecting each other. A very curious thought of what the 1 Billion Chinese people are doing in their ignorance... my heart grows sad.

PCS 2005

Day 1: "Buckle up"
Day 2: "Come out!"
Day 3: "Chop! Chop!"
Day 4: "Think!"
Day 5: WHOA.......!

Highlights from my 5 days:

1) Sisters outnumbered brothers 4 to 1. Come time to voluntarily give testimonies: 4 brothers vs 2 sisters. Yeahhhhhhhhhh.....

2) Some older brothers taught me 三句三字經. Three phrases to a healthy marrige:

對 0吾 住 -- I am sorry
係 我 錯 -- I am wrong
我 愛 你 -- I love you

3) SoChi, Becca and Susan.

4a) Second night, after receiving the Holy Spirit and returning to our room, I asked Joyce, "Do I look different?" She says, "Nope. But your skin feels smoother." I reply, "That's cuz I just shaved."

4b) A sister runs up to me the next day and says, "Your face really changed. God bless you." Hrm....

5) Pastor SARS - Simon Tse.

6a) During worship, all the sisters are jumping up and down with their hands raised. Like a group of teenage girls in a moshpit in a concert, trying to shake hands with their idols. These sisters are trying to reach and grab a hold of Jesus. All the brothers on the otherhand, at most, have two hands raised. Some clap, one particular one jumped up and down. I guess we have different ways of expressing ourselves.

6b) An older gentlemen in my cell group was extremely reserved throughout the entire week. He never clapped or raised his hand or showed any emotions during worship. On the last session on the last day, when 95% of the people were up and dancing in a conga line during worship, the Holy Spirit invited him out with everyone.

7) My brother, Kelvin.

8) The ministers were a little understaffed and Amy had to sing solo for over an hour before someone came to relieve her. She was weeping but couldn't reach for a tissue cuz her hands were tied to the keyboard.

9) $7 HK Milk Tea

10a) Leaving Breakthrough Village, we were in a huge hurry to get to Kong Oh Pier. The bus won't leave Breakthrough for another hour and the little vans were pretty full. One of the sisters was wise enough to call for a taxi -- was willing to share it with us (thereby fitting 6 ppl in a car) and even paid for the trip. Good Samaritans are everywhere.

10b) All the girls piled into the backseat of the taxi and I'm last to get in. So I run to the passenger side of the taxi, open the door and see a steering wheel!?!? Whoops...ain't in America no more! Hahhahaha

As the saying goes, "You give a man a fish, he eats for a day. You teach him how to fish, he eats for his entire life." Like what my friend Chris said about PCS... it's not about a life changing experience within the five days inside the confides of Breakthrough. PCS is about arming you with the necessary weapons and knowledge that'll continue to protect yourself against the world's challenges and temptations.

After an 8-year hiatus...

What happened to Hong Kong? It's nothing like what I remember from 8 years ago? Where'd all these people come from? And why are they in such a rush? What are they in a rush for? First two days back in Hong Kong and I'm ready to go. Seriously!! There's nothing worth sight-seeing. We have nothing to buy. Anything that we need to buy, we can get it back home. Maybe we're just ignorant and don't know where to go or what to do.

Saw grandma today. She's 98 yrs old and going strong. Our guess is we'll be back in two years to celebrate her centennial. We also got lost and ended up retracing Joyce's childhood. The place she lived, the school she went to, the hospital she was born in. I guess we didn't get lost, we were just pushed to go into this direction. Everything happens with a reason...

After a 14 hour flight...I end here. Sad...so sad. Can't wait to get into Breakthrough Village and escape from the hustle-n-bustle.

So this is our honeymoon huh???

Nostalgia

Where would we be without the internet? Email? Mapquest? Google Earth? Match.com? Still remember back in 1997, 80% of the Superbowl commericials were all dot com commericials. The last few years, we've had a setback, a recession even. But there are still dot com's popping up here and there. One of which is Friendster.

I mozied on to Friendster about 2 years ago when a buddy invited me on. I thought it was another scam, another junk mail bait. So signed up and created a junk account just to entertain that "friend." A year later, I traverse back and lo and behold -- EVERYONE and THEIR MOTHERS are ON FRIENDSTER!!!!! That night, I spent about 4 hours going through everyone's network finding long lost friends. A great night that was. Then the novelty wore off.

Yesterday, I crawled back onto the world of FRIENDSTER and oh-mylanta...now EVERYONE and THEIR MOTHERS and THEIR MOTHERS' MOTHERS are on it!!!! People I haven't seen or heard from in years. Everyone is so different now. No longer are they the screwups and the immatures. Some are doctors, business owners, mothers and fathers. A part of me want to oh-so-bad contact these "friends." Yet.... another part of me is tugging my ear saying, "Let it go.... it's in your past."

And today...out of the blue, I receive an email from a friend. And there on the cc-list was her email address. Long have I forgotten this person. And now, I have proof she's still around. That's probably enough for me to know. All good things must come to an end... and even things that aren't good must come to an end.



Weight check: Before Hong Kong - 165lbs. Let's see how much I weigh when I come back. =)

Hong Kong...here I come.