We're Home

Well, we're back from our lovely, long trip to Thailand. We spent our first week on Ko Lanta, in Krabi province in the south of Thailand. We spent our days lazing on the beach and motorbiking around the small island on our rental motorcycles. We experimented with different beaches, ate in different towns, did a lot of good reading, and even enjoyed an elephant ride in the "jungle" (um...more of a tree-lined path...).

Our main motivation for our trip to Thailand, actually, was to get comprehensive check-ups at the renowned Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok. We were both overdue for a real check-up (overdue by several years, in fact). We made our appointments about a month ago and were scheduled for Tuesday, March 27 in the morning; we were then to pick up our reports on Wednesday morning. So - we left the beach to fly back to Bangkok the Sunday before our appointments.

Our adventures in Bangkok began before we even left Krabi - a superstitious person might suspect that missing our flight back to Bangkok was the first of "bad things" to come. Our ferry was later than expected, and we were cutting it pretty close to begin with, so by the time we arrived at Krabi airport, it was too late to board the plane. We did manage to catch a Thai Airways flight, though, so that worked out o.k. Bangkok was on the whole great - but there we found out that somebody had been shopping on Brian's credit card (though he still had it in his wallet!), and we got totally (aggressively) pick-pocketed while exploring the Patpong area of downtown. Bad things come in threes - and that was our third. Phew - let's all breathe a sigh of relief!

As for our health checks, all is well. Although I have a few minor things to follow-up on, we are both in good health and both had a very good experience with the Bumrungrad Hospital, its doctors and staff.

Of course, much more info, reviews and photos to come!

Counting Down...

We will be leaving here in about 3 hours to head to the airport (which is so far away it's unbelievable!). Our last weather update said that it was 39 Celsius in Bangkok - I hope that weather holds at least until we get there!

We're not bringing a laptop and will not have easy internet access during our trip - however, we will blog when can and check email whenever possible, too!

We'll be back home on March 31st, hopefully with photos and tales to tell:-)

Going to Thailand

I'm happy to hear that not everyone thinks we've been dull:-)However, we have been photoless bloggers(much to my mother's disappointment!) - but hopefully that will all change this coming weekend when we find ourselves (and our cameras) in the beautiful country of Thailand. We're flying to Bangkok on Friday evening and from there we're catching a little plane to Krabi, down near the Andaman coast. We plan to spend some time on the beach, and some time hiking around the small island of Koh Lanta before heading back for a few days in Bangkok, savoring the sights and sounds of the city.

But until then...

Boring Bloggers

We haven't been blogging as much recently simply because we've been a little less active; well, at least, our lives have been a little less eventful. We did a good bike ride on Saturday - several kilometres up hill, then down a rocky, rooty fun trail. Then we spent some time cooking dinner (a lovely soup), and watching TV before going to bed. Sunday was spent enjoying some quality time with our PCs. Brian bought an extra hard-drive to install in his desk-top, and I picked up a more powerful graphics card and did some more experimenting in Ubuntu. We then ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed.

As much as I enjoyed the weekend, we haven't been out and about and haven't been taking pics lately, either -

But all that may change by this coming weekend....

Ubuntu 6.1 Edgy - Japanese Input Fixed!

Well, I've been enjoying and testing my new Ubuntu system (on my rather old Sotec laptop) for about five days now, and as I stated in my earlier post, the verdict is Excellent. I love the clean Ubuntu desktop and overall smooth-running system.

And - after some (a lot of!) trial and error, I now have my Japanese input working great . I tried different tutorials, encountered problems similar to mine but with no solution - but I finally found this tutorial (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Japanese_input_and_font_setup), followed it and now my Japanese input works perfectly (I am blogging this on my Ubuntu PC - よかった！).

Here's a screen shot of my Ubuntu desktop (the little square in the bottom right-hand corner is my SCIM language bar):

Clockwork 29" in Line Art

Bernicky has also been busy with Photoshop, and as a creative project he transformed a photo of Brian on his new Clockwork bike into a pretty cool piece of digi-art:

Ubuntu 6.1 - Edgy

Sunday morning dawned sunny and warm. As happens, however, I was awake before dawn, and as I netsurfed aimlessly and my mind wandered contemplating the numerous projects I have on the go, I found a link to Ubuntu, a very reputable (and very free) Linux operating system. My thoughts then drifted to my neglected old Sotec laptop that has been sitting in the closet for several months...the rest writes itself, I suppose.

From the Ubuntu homepage I downloaded the newest package - Ubuntu 6.1, nicknamed Edgy Eft. I burned the image to a CD (by burning an iso image rather than just copying the data, I made a bootable CD).

I then dusted off the Sotec, uninstalled all extraneous Microsoft programs and deleted large files, like videos and music; I then ran a de-frag so that my hard-drive would be in the best possible condition before proceeding. I was planning not to over-write the XP system, but rather to create a dual-boot for it by installing Ubuntu on a partition. I wanted to keep the XP just in case things didn't go very well with the Ubuntu. On the other hand, there was nothing of value on the pc, so if there was a melt-down and I fried the whole computer, that would not have been the end of the world.

Ubuntu first runs from the CD, giving you a look at what it can do. If you like it, just double-click the "Install" icon on the Gnome (Ubuntu) desktop. I did this, and then it installed the system on my PC, walking me through everything including partitioning my disk (I allocated 60% of the disk space to Ubuntu!).

Ubuntu 6.1 installed and was up and running without a hitch! Even my wireless network card was working - that in itself was impressive. I spent all day Sunday (minus a couple of hours out for an invigorating bike ride with Brian) testing and playing with the system. Ubuntu recognized my USB memory stick, USB mouse, and even my USB webcam (no drivers to install). I then tried a card reader - no problem; my photo software even opened up to help me retrieve my photos from the disk; same thing when I plugged my Nikon directly into the USB port!

There is only one little thing that I can't get Ubuntu to do - and that is to allow Japanese input. It can be done, I know that. But - it isn't easy, and despite following tutorials, downloading extra packages, entering some code in the terminal, I still can't enter Japanese in all programs, and I may have done more harm than good! However, I have managed to gain a little success: I can enter Japanese into the text editor by using the SCIM tool that comes in Ubuntu - I can then cut and paste that into other documents. It's not ideal - but for a free OS with tons of free programs that has given new life to an old laptop, I'm not complaining.

EDIT: I now have the Japanese working just fine. I followed this tutorial - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Japanese_input_and_font_setup - and it worked great.

Further resources on Ubuntu:

Beginner's Forum - http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?s=a5c2a08614b4a58a24f5ef636c25e1e9&f=73

Excellent Tutorial on installing Ubuntu and then getting the programs you want!
http://www.howtoforge.com/the_perfect_desktop_ubuntu6.10

Susono's Izakayas and Beer Halls

Well - here it is again, Friday evening. It's also March already. More and more these days I remember (and quote to myself) a famous line from Andrew marvell: But at my back I always here/Time's winge'd chariot hurrying near.

So let's sieze the day, shall we?

Brian and I went to the new izakaya,Ryoba, on their opening night (Wednesday). An izakaya is a Japanese style pub; they serve Japanese izakaya fare, such as kara-age (deep fried chicken chunks) and yaki-tori (chicken "shishkabab"), along with big mugs of frosty cold beer. And that is the attraction:-)

We further destroyed our diets by going to the Gotemba Kogen Beer Hall for the all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet on Thursday night. We went there with a few friends/co-workers and just had a good time.

So tonight, ironically enough though it's Friday, we are enjoying a very very small dinner (probably fasting, in fact) and a quiet night in!