We're finally back home.
The trip back always seems to take longer, and require more energy, than the trip there (wherever there is). We got home about half an hour ago, and I've successfully unpacked (a task that I loathe), and am now looking forward to a bottle of Brut (which, with great foresight, I purchased before leaving for Thailand). We're going to stay awake just long enough to have a toast to the New Year which will occur here in about an hour and half, then I think we'll sleeeep!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Update #2 from Koh Samet
Christmas has come and gone, but being on a tropical island and in a Buddhist country, it was not much of an event. However, because this is a touristy island, there was lots of kitsch (imagine shiny elf-hats and plastic reindeer antlers the light up!). It was still pretty fun.
We've been pretty relaxed, not doing too much of anything, getting some sunshine and drinking good Thai beer (the subtle Singha is my favourite, while Brian opts for the more robust Chang).
We've also done some fun stuff - motorcycling, hiking, swimming and snorkelling; but our time here is winding to an end, as we are leaving here on the 30th in order to catch our flight out of Bangkok on the 31st.
We'll be home in time to celebrate the New Year in Japan.
We've been pretty relaxed, not doing too much of anything, getting some sunshine and drinking good Thai beer (the subtle Singha is my favourite, while Brian opts for the more robust Chang).
We've also done some fun stuff - motorcycling, hiking, swimming and snorkelling; but our time here is winding to an end, as we are leaving here on the 30th in order to catch our flight out of Bangkok on the 31st.
We'll be home in time to celebrate the New Year in Japan.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
From Koh Samet
Well, we've been here on Koh Samet for about a week and are really enjoying our time.
Although, in our brief time here, I managed to slice open one finger on a mosquito-coil holder, get another finger slammed in a door (ouch!), and burn my calf on my motocycle exhaust pipe (stupid!). However, all's well that ends well and we really are having a good time.
We are stying in the south part of the island, at 'candlelight' beach, which is not as noisy or populous as other parts of Koh Samet. On our two rented motorbikes explored pretty much the whole island. It was good fun to get more practice with off-road motorbiking, though some of the roads furthest south were a bit challenging, they were great.
Internet access here is limited (and non-existent on the beach we're staying at), so updates will remain sporadic!
Although, in our brief time here, I managed to slice open one finger on a mosquito-coil holder, get another finger slammed in a door (ouch!), and burn my calf on my motocycle exhaust pipe (stupid!). However, all's well that ends well and we really are having a good time.
We are stying in the south part of the island, at 'candlelight' beach, which is not as noisy or populous as other parts of Koh Samet. On our two rented motorbikes explored pretty much the whole island. It was good fun to get more practice with off-road motorbiking, though some of the roads furthest south were a bit challenging, they were great.
Internet access here is limited (and non-existent on the beach we're staying at), so updates will remain sporadic!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
One night in Bangkok
We arrived safely in Bangkok and enjoyed a few hours sleep at our hotel. We are now breakfasting and planning to soon make our way to the bus terminal!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Quickly from Taipei
We're now in the Taipei airport waiting for our connecting flight. Blogging from an ipod...had a rare train delay in Japan,but no problem. 3 hrs in Taipei was dull but soon boarding our flight to Bangkok!
Leaving for Thailand
Well, it's December 16th, and the Bangkok airports are definitely open, and we definitely have confirmed our flight to Thailand! We fly out today on China Airlines at 4:30 p.m. and will return in the evening on New Year's Eve.
We want to seek out a nice, quiet beach scene, and Thailand has lots to offer. In fact, too many idyllic islands to choose from! The last time we were in Thailand we went to Ko Lanta, which is in the north of Thailand. Before that, we went to Ko Chang, near Trat. Those islands were great, but as we get older, we don't enjoy the multiple-flights, buses, and ferries, and more buses that it often requires to get to our final destination. So, this time we're doing something more daring - we're going to strike out for Ko Samet, a small island that's not all that far from Bangkok.
We're landing at the new Bangkok airport (Suvarnabhumi) after midnight, but have reserved a room at the Sawasdee Sukhumvit hotel, near the Ekamai bus station. We intend to catch a bus in the morning to Ban Phe pier, where we'll then be able to catch a ferry or a speedboat to the island.
We're not sure how much internet access we'll have, or whether we'll be able to blog, but we'll try!
In case we can't get to a pc, we'll wish everyone a Merry Christmas now!
We want to seek out a nice, quiet beach scene, and Thailand has lots to offer. In fact, too many idyllic islands to choose from! The last time we were in Thailand we went to Ko Lanta, which is in the north of Thailand. Before that, we went to Ko Chang, near Trat. Those islands were great, but as we get older, we don't enjoy the multiple-flights, buses, and ferries, and more buses that it often requires to get to our final destination. So, this time we're doing something more daring - we're going to strike out for Ko Samet, a small island that's not all that far from Bangkok.
We're landing at the new Bangkok airport (Suvarnabhumi) after midnight, but have reserved a room at the Sawasdee Sukhumvit hotel, near the Ekamai bus station. We intend to catch a bus in the morning to Ban Phe pier, where we'll then be able to catch a ferry or a speedboat to the island.
We're not sure how much internet access we'll have, or whether we'll be able to blog, but we'll try!
In case we can't get to a pc, we'll wish everyone a Merry Christmas now!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Building a New PC
Ever since Brian cannibalized and rebuilt his PC, upgrading much of the hardware, he's been nagging me - I mean, suggesting to me - to do the same.
While I enjoyed helping Brian on his pc rebuilds, I was reluctant to lose the perfect setup that I'd achieved with my machine. Rebuilding would mean losing my operating system (OS), and all my great programs, and, most important of all, all my settings that I'd customized over time to be just right for me.
However, my motherboard could only use an AGP graphics card, which are going the way of the dinosaur, and considering how I wanted to upgrade my graphics card (the nVidia 5200 just wasn't cutting it), in the end, Brian prevailed. For Xmas, he bought me a new mobo (motherboard), powersupply, CPU, cooler, and ram, and together on Sunday we spent the entire day (from about 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.) taking apart and rebuilding my PC. The longest part of that was actually installing a new OS (Vista this time - don't give me any guff, it's getting the job done!) and then adding all the stuff back that I wanted.
Before basically destroying my setup, I sat down and made a list of things to do. Since I was going to stop using two of my older hard disks and only use my one large disk (1tb), I partitioned that disk, alotting 100 GB for Vista, 250 for photos, and 250 for documents (including videos). So, I still have 400 gigs unalotted. I copied everything valuable that I wanted to keep onto the new drive. I also made a list of favourite programs that I wanted to remember to re-install. And, to ensure that I kept my Firefox browser just the way I liked it, I downloaded and used this free program called Mozbackup. This let me very easily (nice, simple GUI) save my FF profile. When I started FF on my new machine, I just installed that same program and 'restored' the profile. All my bookmarks, addons and even passwords were successfully transported!
For those who care, my new mobo is a Gigabyte EP43-DS3R, and we went for the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor. We added 4gb of RAM, and an Radeon X1300 graphics card that Brian had left over. I'll probably upgrade that soon, but for now it's doing great.
Here are a few pics:
My pc tower, before taking out the old stuff:
Inside the tower (still old stuff):
The guts of the old setup:
We were too excited to try out the new build that we didn't take pics, but I can say that since the new power supply is modular, it's much, much tidier inside and there is no more nasty nest of wires!
While I enjoyed helping Brian on his pc rebuilds, I was reluctant to lose the perfect setup that I'd achieved with my machine. Rebuilding would mean losing my operating system (OS), and all my great programs, and, most important of all, all my settings that I'd customized over time to be just right for me.
However, my motherboard could only use an AGP graphics card, which are going the way of the dinosaur, and considering how I wanted to upgrade my graphics card (the nVidia 5200 just wasn't cutting it), in the end, Brian prevailed. For Xmas, he bought me a new mobo (motherboard), powersupply, CPU, cooler, and ram, and together on Sunday we spent the entire day (from about 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.) taking apart and rebuilding my PC. The longest part of that was actually installing a new OS (Vista this time - don't give me any guff, it's getting the job done!) and then adding all the stuff back that I wanted.
Before basically destroying my setup, I sat down and made a list of things to do. Since I was going to stop using two of my older hard disks and only use my one large disk (1tb), I partitioned that disk, alotting 100 GB for Vista, 250 for photos, and 250 for documents (including videos). So, I still have 400 gigs unalotted. I copied everything valuable that I wanted to keep onto the new drive. I also made a list of favourite programs that I wanted to remember to re-install. And, to ensure that I kept my Firefox browser just the way I liked it, I downloaded and used this free program called Mozbackup. This let me very easily (nice, simple GUI) save my FF profile. When I started FF on my new machine, I just installed that same program and 'restored' the profile. All my bookmarks, addons and even passwords were successfully transported!
For those who care, my new mobo is a Gigabyte EP43-DS3R, and we went for the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor. We added 4gb of RAM, and an Radeon X1300 graphics card that Brian had left over. I'll probably upgrade that soon, but for now it's doing great.
Here are a few pics:
My pc tower, before taking out the old stuff:
Inside the tower (still old stuff):
The guts of the old setup:
We were too excited to try out the new build that we didn't take pics, but I can say that since the new power supply is modular, it's much, much tidier inside and there is no more nasty nest of wires!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Cars and Japan
Brian and I love our cars. We both drive Mitsubishis - Brian has a Pajero (marketed as the Montero in North America) and I have a Pajero Mini (not sold in N.A.!). We both enjoy driving, and I think neither of us can imagine living without wheels (apologies to all the enviro-freaks).
This is my car:
And this is Brian's:
Import cars in Japan are a status symbol, but we'd never buy anything but Japanese as long as we're here. The cars are well-made and durable (our cars are more than ten years old), and made for Japan's narrow roads. They're also affordable.
The auto industry fairly drives Japan's economy. And, as we know, the American auto industry drives that economy, too.
We've been following news on the Big Three quite avidly, especially as our main client happens to be an auto parts manufacturer. The crisis in America has had a huge effect on the world economy - the European markets as well as even the Japan markets are suffering. And yet - I had to post this humourous image that we found via Digg (click image for a larger version):
(original image from http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/auto-industry-buy-our-shitty-cars.php)
This is my car:
And this is Brian's:
Import cars in Japan are a status symbol, but we'd never buy anything but Japanese as long as we're here. The cars are well-made and durable (our cars are more than ten years old), and made for Japan's narrow roads. They're also affordable.
The auto industry fairly drives Japan's economy. And, as we know, the American auto industry drives that economy, too.
We've been following news on the Big Three quite avidly, especially as our main client happens to be an auto parts manufacturer. The crisis in America has had a huge effect on the world economy - the European markets as well as even the Japan markets are suffering. And yet - I had to post this humourous image that we found via Digg (click image for a larger version):
(original image from http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/auto-industry-buy-our-shitty-cars.php)
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Death by Overwork
As I look forward to an extraordinarily long holiday (three weeks off), I also feel a bit guilty. Japanese workers simply do not get that kind of time off; just the other day, my hairdresser was lamenting having only two days off for the New Year holidays (the 1st and 2nd).
This is a culture where hard work is respected highly, where slacking off is frowned on, and taking a holiday is fairly unheard of. Very often, company culture endorses service zangyo (サービス残業） - 'voluntary' unpaid overtime that workers are more or less forced to do; employees have been known to work more eighty hours a month overtime. We occasionally read in the news about someone literally dying from overworking - there is even a word for 'death by overwork': karoushi （過労死）.
In recent years, after several companies (including Toyota) were successfully sued for causing karoushi, some companies have tried to reduce the amount of overtime (both paid and 'voluntary'). Because leaving the office at five o'clock is seen as slacking off, many employees experience pressure to stay, and it is bad form to leave before the boss. So, these companies have adopted procedures to force people to leave on time at least one day a week. For example, it may be one person's job to go through the company and force people to leave if they are still there; another strategy that's been adopted is to require the employee to first get permission to stay late, and then to write a report about why exactly he had to work late.
Not bad tactics, and while some men enjoy the chance to get home early, typically he is obliged to participate in a company party which is, of course, held on the day of the week when everyone finishes 'early'!!
For more information, check out the Wikipedia article here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi
or
the Economist article here at http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10329261
This is a culture where hard work is respected highly, where slacking off is frowned on, and taking a holiday is fairly unheard of. Very often, company culture endorses service zangyo (サービス残業） - 'voluntary' unpaid overtime that workers are more or less forced to do; employees have been known to work more eighty hours a month overtime. We occasionally read in the news about someone literally dying from overworking - there is even a word for 'death by overwork': karoushi （過労死）.
In recent years, after several companies (including Toyota) were successfully sued for causing karoushi, some companies have tried to reduce the amount of overtime (both paid and 'voluntary'). Because leaving the office at five o'clock is seen as slacking off, many employees experience pressure to stay, and it is bad form to leave before the boss. So, these companies have adopted procedures to force people to leave on time at least one day a week. For example, it may be one person's job to go through the company and force people to leave if they are still there; another strategy that's been adopted is to require the employee to first get permission to stay late, and then to write a report about why exactly he had to work late.
Not bad tactics, and while some men enjoy the chance to get home early, typically he is obliged to participate in a company party which is, of course, held on the day of the week when everyone finishes 'early'!!
For more information, check out the Wikipedia article here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi
or
the Economist article here at http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10329261
Monday, December 08, 2008
O-Soji (大掃除)
One of the New Year's customs here is O-soji, or, big cleaning. It's like Spring Cleaning, but in winter. It's also part of the tradition here of starting the new year completely fresh and free of the unpleasantness of the past year; like starting of with a clean slate.
On Saturday, the day after our final staff meeting at work, followed by an evening of drinking and karaoke, we decided to spend the day doing our own o-soji. We're a bit ahead of schedule, but it felt great to stuff several garbage bags full of old and useless things we'd accumulated, and we were able to enjoy a Sunday free of the weight of all the clutter.
Today I begin the week by going out of town for a few days, which I always enjoy. And it is also our final week of work before our holidays and trip to sunny Thailand!
On Saturday, the day after our final staff meeting at work, followed by an evening of drinking and karaoke, we decided to spend the day doing our own o-soji. We're a bit ahead of schedule, but it felt great to stuff several garbage bags full of old and useless things we'd accumulated, and we were able to enjoy a Sunday free of the weight of all the clutter.
Today I begin the week by going out of town for a few days, which I always enjoy. And it is also our final week of work before our holidays and trip to sunny Thailand!
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Some More Wild Monkeys-in-Japan pics
On Sunday, since we were a bit tired to ride, we instead packed our cameras and went for a drive around Mt. Fuji.
Though the Fuji photos were merely ---okay, before heading up the mountain road, we cruised by the 'wild monkey hangout' and were fortunate to get yet more wild monkey pics. Oh, yes, by the way, these are wild monkeys. Not tame, not used to people. And they live less than a kilometre from us. They're kind of cute... okay, they're not really cute at all...(click on the photo for a larger image):
Though the Fuji photos were merely ---okay, before heading up the mountain road, we cruised by the 'wild monkey hangout' and were fortunate to get yet more wild monkey pics. Oh, yes, by the way, these are wild monkeys. Not tame, not used to people. And they live less than a kilometre from us. They're kind of cute... okay, they're not really cute at all...(click on the photo for a larger image):
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