turkey

like:

• hospitality
• historical scenes
• flowers
• balloon
• food
• & more

dislike:

• hotel in rural areas
• rural roads
• also food

turkey in flickr

egl kcja05-0622

• food: ok thru agency arrangement even only last included (beef steam pot) & self paid ones are good
• accommodation: lotte world jeju is very good. courtyard by marriott seoul times square is new, but a bit small. and the design of toilet sucks. glass door of shower has a gap between ground & lower hinge so water keeps running out… btw we can watch now tv & cctv 1 in courtyard.
• scenes: quite balanced
• time arrangement: as best as they can
• tour guides (egl’s wicky, local agency’s joy & photographer peter): excellent. can accomplish nearly every needs and provide lots of side info

=> target: 25-35 years old couple. they have energy, start to have money to spend, and start to know how to enjoy the trip

P.S. Pix on flickr

another year

first is to secure my job, i.e. to work in cautious. the mistakes i made are not acceptable. i need a well balance between efficiency, stability and multi-skills. i’m not bad on efficiency, multi-skills, but really sucks on stability. sometimes i can do some miracle things, but often i give troubles to others. even everything is not perfect, i hope i get better eventually. a tough challenge is ahead to test my weakness due to recent layoff. besides everyday tasks, the new one would be very demanding on both efficiency and stability. can i still do my best after high workload and long working hours? others can, but i’m not sure. should i find another way out after the turmoil of the economy?

and it should be wise not to apply the master course when we are sure whether the job can be secured. but there are things i can consider, driving, learning german, first-aid… let me think about it in coming holidays. besides i need to put a bit hard work to continue my self-learn access thru this book and get back some java skills from robocode.

when everything is not safe, spending is another key topic. except things mentioned below for personal entertainment would use extra money on my low expense life, a pair of leather shoes, some shirts were bought already. another trouble thing should be my cell phone. the battery cover is already loosen. the connection of charging adaptor is not as firm as used to be. but i still don’t firm what kind of phone i want yet.

money saved still puts to stocks. this year should be a good year to absorb more. but i can absorb less than i can as i did some stupid decisions last year. first is not trying to add new member including ipo in my list of stocks in this year. i was suck to get 00005.hk, 00151.hk, 00330.hk, 02318.hk (luckily sold with profit), and 02827.hk in 2008. and i will concentrate on 00410.hk besides 00006.hk under monthly investment plan. but i cannot withdraw the possibility to get more stocks for other members.

summer makes me sportive. nearly every week i kept swimming last year from june to october. but after then only played tennis once with my friend and no major exercise was done until now. i really need to think what to do during winter to keep my body fit.

for personal entertainment, this year should be mostly on lego, empire: total war, the remaining books of poirot series. already bought two when it is firstly available in this year, but there are more attractive sets from lego to be available later this year.  like 10193 - medieval market village, it can be said as one of the master pieces from lego in these recent years. besides there are rumour sets also attractive. really hope lego hk can import them and sell them not only in special event.

despite the disappointment of medieval ii: total war, empire: total war should be promising. it is built by the same team which brought rome: total war to us and they also bring new way to play in the game as what they did in rome: total war, like naval battles. the only drawback is the map will be too large. just better wait it out & commented by game sites before further decision. game time should be much less even i still play america’s army which should be a new version out later this year and civilization iv in long holidays.

finally bought mrs mcginty’s dead at a reasonable price, but i don’t start it yet as i’m reading 44 scotland street right now. hopefully i can finish it within this year and get me back into the world of poirot.

and please give me more time to chase house, 24, doctor who, and torchwood.

investment strategy

hold & buy more in long term: 0006.hk, 0410.hk, 0806.hk

short term interest: ipo (some in the list)

other will try to sell @ better price (but dunno when)

'07 holiday

finally is the last day for my block leave and time was wasted on...

1. america's army
   
   
2. civ 4: bts
   
   
3. 唐朝十講 (readin' 平民資本家)
   
   
4. lego 7990 (7991 is not yet built)
   
   
5. taipei
   
   
6. house season 3 & season 4 episode 1
   

taipei

we, four boys & a girl, started our journey on 23rd by takin' cathay's b777-300 near noon (boys only) and used an hour and a bit more to land on taoyuan airport there. nt$200 was used to get visa and another $140 was paid for shuttle bus.

the hotel is just next to sun yat-sen memorial hall (but we didn't go there until the last day). after unloading our luggage, we went to taipei 101 for sightseeing. there was a package during mid-autumn festival so we could go to 91/F (89/F originally) without extra ticket. took few shots there, we went to flagstore of eslite books nearby as one of us needed to buy things there. due to rain, we took our late dinner at shilin night market (the only one with cover) before back to hotel.

second day was away taipei city and went to northeasy side by train. we dropped off at rueitang, then took a taxi to jioufen. there were so many people as that was a public holiday in taiwan (the day before mid-autumn festival). we bought some souvenirs there. later we took a public bus to keelung under "nice" driving skill. we had a look at miaokou night market before we took another train back to taipei. this night we went to ximending for our dinner.

next morning we took metro taipei to have hot spring in beitou. few hours later we went to tamsui which is nearby. but we were a bit late, we didn't have enough time to take a look of hong mao cheng before the lovely sunset down in front of fisherman's wharf. dinner was taken at tan tsai noddle in downtown taipei and we continued to hunt for taipei night markets for rest of night.

the last day was credited to museums. first was chiang kai-shek memorial hall, but interior was under maintenance. so we quickly moved to another spot, national taiwan museum, to get some basic information about ecosystem and taiwanese aborigines. in bad luck that miniatures museum of taiwan was closed after public holidays, so we moved to din tai fung to take our last lunch in taipei. before going to the airport, sun yat-sen memorial hall which is next to our hotel was the last site we visited.

more: flickr gallery

don't force me

hey classmate

i know you feel you have wasted time to study master of philosophy and now pursuit your future in another field. we are now your potential clients in order to support you surviving in this field. please don't push us too deep and hold your action a little bit to give some space for us. if you are still working so hard, we will scare you more and we are going to be further and further away. we will find you when we feel unsecured.

take it easy man

date fixed

annual leave: sept 12-28
taipei trip: sept 23-26

life in the middle

obviously my body and my mental wish are making me stay away of city life. basically i can live healthier in countryside in the country like new zealand, ireland, denmark or even japan. staying in a nice house, working in a field, working books in front of field, seaside, or even a roadside, taking a dog to walkaround, and making own meal is kinda wonderful thing.

or i can be a priest or a monk and lived in monastery to learn to inspire how the real person should behave.

and i'm too naive compared to normal city guys. it's hard to live with them.

but this kind of thing cannot be happened in forsee years! living in city too long, i even cannot sleep in too silent place. i cannot live without friends. and there is too much temptation to make me stick inside a city.

the most important is money. i need to work harder to get financial freedom and buy a house at my dream place.

wed is kinda important

1. i will start job rotation starting from that day for coming two months. will know the products much deeper from different angles.
   
2. apple will deliver new products in macworld, maybe new ipod/iphone, new software, or upgraded mac mini (any chance for core 2 duo?) / mac pro (quad core?)... if new product line is out from ipod/iphone, i need to think to have one since my shuffle is gonna pass its peak. (hk time)
   
3. it's last microsoft's patch tuesday before windows vista & office 2007 selling to general public officially (hk time)

p.s. 2nd book from that series also sucks. obviously the author wants to have more money for marriage!