Grant's Pad

A Baby Care Observation

2012-01-30T22:25:00.002-05:00

So, I've finally finished my latest travelogue about my November trip to China. In my travelogues, as you might expect, most of the text documented the sights and scenes of my travels themselves. However, aside from seeing sights, I also had ample opportunities to observe daily life and even have some conversations about daily life. One particular conversation occurred when I was at a restaurant treating my customers to yet another lavish lunch. Somehow, the customer always picks nice places when I'm treating! But that discussion is for another day...

Ye Olde Station Restaurant in Shanghai

Named largely because of the train car that sits in the back of the restaurant

It was during this lunch that I started talking about my dear daughter Fifi, who at the time had just turned one year old about a month prior. Cherry had told me over the last few days that she and Fifi took a walk around the neighborhood each day, and that Fifi was able to walk most of the approximately 1 km route all by herself! Proud papa that I am, I relayed this story to my lunchmates, a few of which have young children of their own. One of my guests, a young lady, expressed shock that my wife and I "had the heart" to subject my poor 13-month old baby to walk a whole kilometer on her own!

This experience to me exemplifies the state of baby care in China that I have observed for the past couple of years. When Fifi's grandmother was with us, Fifi almost never left her arms. Babies are treated with such, for a lack of a better term, babying, especially by their grandparents. Walking down the street, I often saw young children on walks with their mother, but inevitably being held by the grandmother.

Holding babies and never letting them roam around on their own seems to be the norm. My in-laws' neighbors also just had a new baby born into their family, shortly after Fifi was born. When we saw her at age 8 months (in our summer trip to China), the child was extremely overweight from eating mostly congee (boiled soupy rice - a common staple of infant diet in China which I find to be one of the causes of overweight babies and diabetic adults in China) and could not even turn herself over, much less crawl. She also frequently got ill because she was being fed chunks of shrimp (which is typically taboo in the U.S. due to the high rate of allergic reactions to seafood) that her grandparents chewed up for her to make it easier to swallow! My mother-in-law even told us that she had no hair because the doctors shave her head in order so that the hair wouldn't interfere with the IV they connect to her head when she went to the hospital!

Cherry and I go through great lengths to keep Fifi from getting sick, make sure she eats enough of a diverse diet and gets plenty of exercise each day. You might even say we go a little overboard sometimes, making sure everything is sterilized and disinfected, and making fresh organic steamed baby purees consisting of vegetables, fruit, and meat every week. However, all of our hard work seems to have paid off, as Fifi is a very healthy, active, smart, and obedient (though she has started throwing little tantrums from time to time) child.

Maybe it's just a superficial difference, but it seems to me that if baby caretakers spent less time keeping the babies off of the ground, getting exercise, and more time keeping them hygienic and eating right, the babies would get sick less often...

November in Shanghai, Part V: Finale

2012-01-28T22:29:00.001-05:00

This travelogue was about a trip in November, and seeing as it's now nearly February, it's time we wrap things up!

My trip to Shanghai only allotted me two weekends in Shanghai, but my trip wasn't quite over just yet. One day, after work, I hustled east to get a glimpse of nearby Longhua Temple before it got dark. I didn't make it before closing time, so I didn't get to get a chance to see inside of the temple, but I did manage to get a few shots of it. Longhua Temple is one of Shanghai's oldest temples, with a history dating back to before 200 A.D. As with many ancient temples, it has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times, but many of its structures that still can be seen today, including the signature Longhua Pagoda, are over 1000 years old.

Some monks exiting the temple complex that I didn't get to go into

The 1000+ year old Longhua Pagoda, which has the distinction of being the only pre-modern pagoda in Shanghai today.

I also couldn't leave Shanghai without visiting the famous Bubba's Barbecue restaurant! Where else can you find real Texas-style BBQ in a place that has real American football team pennants scattered around as decor?

No tripod + poor lighting = FAIL. But that is a Gators pennant, situated on top of some Ohio State memorabilia, as appropriate

Before long, I was on my way out of Shanghai and on towards... Taiwan? Yep. Interestingly, by routing my flight through Taiwan, my airfare turned out to be less than that of a round trip to Shanghai, so I took advantage of this win-win situation to take a short trip to Taiwan to see some relatives. I hadn't been back to Taiwan since about 2004, after all!

My return trip to Taiwan started with quite a rush. My whole trip would only be two nights, so I had to move quickly to see the relatives I needed to see. I had originally planned on visiting my paternal grandparents (Ah Gong and Ah Ma) first, since they lived near the airport, and then on the second day, travel to Hsinchu to visit my maternal grandmother (Waipo). However, Waipo had some things to do the next day, so since I wouldn't get another chance to see her, I decided to reverse the order of my visits and headed straight away to Waipo's house, courtesy of my uncle Yicao, who is a "black cab" driver specializing in airport trips.

Rabbit that lives at Waipo's house

Cousin Bojun and the big meal Waipo made for us!

At Waipo's house, I got to talk to my cousins, Bojun and Boting, and my aunt Xingji came over to drop off some pineapple cakes that my mom wanted me to bring home. Unfortunately, things were so hustle and bustle that I didn't get a chance to get any photos with Aunt, Boting, and Waipo...

Early the next morning, Uncle Yicao drove me up to Ah Gong's house in time for their weekly hike with my aunt and her family. While aunt, cousin Tingjia, and my grandparents took a more leisurely route, uncle, cousin Tingen, and I took a slightly less leisurely route up the mountains, stopping at a coffee hut along the way.

There are quite a few hikers in this area, including this dog wearing a diaper!

Karaoke set up in the coffee hut

The view from the mountain

After the hike, we went into the city for lunch

Before heading back to my grandparents' house, cousin Tingen took me shopping for some last minute Taiwanese sweets and gifts to bring home.

A big shopping center

After I got everything I needed, I went back in for the night.

The next morning, I accompanied my aunt and grandparents to the hospital where my grandmother is being treated for cancer. My grandfather calls the hospital a "market hospital", alluding to its huge size and patronage. I personally think it kind of looks like a train station on the inside!

While Grandma was getting her checkup, Grandpa and I took a walk around the pond just outside the hospital.

It wouldn't be a Chinese park without some interesting exercise equipment!

Some interesting fixtures

Bronze water buffalo statues

View of the pond

Grandpa

Some ducks

Waist-twisting machine

An all-mechanical treadmill!

After lunch in the giant basement food court of the hospital, we made our way back to Grandpa's house where they rested and I spent much of the afternoon flipping through Grandpa's hundreds of photos that he'd taken since the late 60s. I made a note to myself that someday, we should scan all of those great photos!

Finally, it was time for me to go to the airport. Before leaving, I did not forget to get a photo with Grandma and Grandpa this time:

Finally, I headed to the airport, and off I went back to the USA!

Some nice umbrellas on the ceiling

The entrance to the airport lounge. Those are not real airline attendants, alas...

And that concluded my November in Shanghai/Taiwan!

Happy Year of the Dragon!

2012-01-25T08:54:00.003-05:00

Happy Year of the Dragon! To celebrate this year's Chinese New Year, the clan went out once again to see the Wah Lum Lion Dance and Kung Fu Show! It takes me back to the old days, when I performed with the Meihua Student Association of Martial Arts at UF that I co-founded with my Shi Di, Kir-Wei, for most of the major Chinese holidays!

Though I haven't trained with the Wah Lum school in Melbourne, I have a number of connections there these days. For one, the lead systems engineer in my group, Jeff, has been with the Melbourne school since before it began, as he was part of the college club (similar to MSAMA at UF) that eventually became the Wah Lum school years later!

Jeff is the guy with the sunglasses at the left

I've also worked with Yoel before - he's pretty good!

I never did a Lion Dance, but I hear nowadays MSAMA does them with regularity. It's definitely a very unique piece of Chinese martial arts culture.

Fifi meets the lion

Getting ready to feed it

OMNOMNOM

No more money...

Yay!

Firecrackers!

As usual, after the Lion Dance, the school put on a number of demonstrations.

This guy is one of the best performers

This guy is the new Sifu of the school

The two best performers going at it. The guy on the left is Hedison, who is technically my Sisuk, or kung fu uncle, since he trained under my Sifu's sifu many years ago. The kung fu world is a small one sometimes!

And here's a video of Fifi with her staff, filmed in stunning HD!

In this video, not only does Fifi demonstrate her staff skills, but she's also demonstrating responses to a number of commands. She nods her head, claps her hands (though she pauses to figure out how to do it with staff in hand) points out her ears and eyes, dances, and says a few words. She still refuses to say "Mommy" however, instead insisting on saying "Daddy" whenever asked to say Mommy!

新年快乐！恭喜发财！

November in Shanghai, Part IV: The French Concession

2012-01-22T22:09:00.001-05:00

My second weekend in Shanghai started off with a bang at the Wushu Museum and the Urban Development Exhibition Hall, but it was far from over yet!

Shanghai, at least by Chinese standards, is a relatively young city. Though people had settled in the area since the 6th century A.D, it was somewhat insignificant up until it became an "official" city in the 20th century. In contrast, cities such as Xi'an and Chengdu were historically significant as early as the 3rd century B.C, often serving as seats of power for various Chinese dynasties.

Unlike Shanghai, Xi'an has thousands of years of historical significance

However, Shanghai's history got a kick-start in the early 20th century, as this sea-side city was hotly contested between a number of foreign powers as well as the two modern domestic powers of the era, the Kuomingtang, which founded the Republic of China in 1911, and the Chinese Communist Party, which of course founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and is the current governing body in China today.

For the modern tourist, one of Shanghai's draws (aside from world-class shopping) is the unique architecture that blossomed from late 19th and early 20th century Shanghai. The most famous exhibitions of Shanghai's signature architecture from this era are on the Bund, but I'd made several trips to the bund in the past. More inland, and less touristy, than the Bund is the French Concession, a district in Shanghai that was once populated mostly by French expatriates and is today the stomping grounds of many Western expatriates due in part to the trendy bar and dining scene as well as, you guessed it, its unique architecture.

My trip largely followed the walking tour itinerary outlined in Frommer's website here. In fact, I downloaded this handy map to my iPod Touch to help me from getting lost, though it still happened numerous time.

However, this trip was mostly an architecture photography session for me. I didn't have my Canon 450D on me (I left it at home so Cherry could take pictures of Fifi), but my Canon SD1200IS filled in nicely!

Walking under an overpass, yet over a street

Many of the early 20th century buildings have this brick motif

A whole set of Mario Karters on the dash of a Lexus!

My first actual stop was Fuxing Park near Xintiandi. This nice park features a number of interesting statues of famous Communist figures, such as Karl Marx. Not being a Communism historian, I can't tell you that I recognize the statues, but then, in reality I don't know that I can recognize statues of most any historical figures to begin with!

According to Frommers, these are Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel

Fuxing Park isn't really that big, and there were these maps dotted throughout, but it took me a really long time to figure out how to get to the entrance that I wanted to emerge from!

I'm told camping isn't very popular in China - however, you do often see people setting up tents in park meadows like this

Girls blowing up balloons

Those rolling tubes that you run around in to no avail

Cool caterpillar suspended in the air

After circling the park a number of times, I managed to get out of Fuxing Park and move on to the next stop on my walking tour, the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church. This building featured some pretty stunning architecture amidst a backdrop of the typical dark grey Shanghai shikumen buildings, but alas, that was all there was to this building, because it is no longer open to the public.

It looks nice, but you can't go inside any more

My next stop was the primary destination of my tour, the former residence of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. Dr. Sun Yat Sen is the most prominent figure from early 20th century China. Most interestingly, both the Republican and Communist parties of China consider Dr. Sun to be the founder of modern China, although officially, he was the founder of the Republic of China that overthrew the last emperor of the Qing dynasty. He also owned a relatively modest mansion in the French concession, which his wife, Soong Ching-Ling eventually donated to the state.

The neighbor's house has been converted into a museum with exhibits about Dr. Sun and his adventures in early modern China

This one is Dr. Sun's house

Not too far from Sun Yat-Sen's former residence is yet another former residence - this one of the first Premier of the Communist Party of China, Zhou Enlai. This residence was actually a little more interesting to me because of its role - although it was registered as Premier Zhou's mansion, it was actually used primarily as a local base of sorts for the Communist Party (although Premier Zhou did actually live in a small room in this mansion. It's interesting that prominent figures from rival sides both had residences in Shanghai - at various locations in the houses, the guide placards pointed out various spots along the street where the rival parties often stationed plainsclothes agents to keep an eye on each other!

Premier Zhou must have liked vines

The premier's modest bed in this rather large mansion. Many of the other rooms served as dormitories or temporary quarters for visiting Communist party officials and staff.

This particular segment of the French Concession is still occupied by many mansions, some of which have been converted to high-end hotels, such as the Sinan Mansions:

Some of the mansions are storefronts serving one of the largest Expat populations in Shanghai

The remainder of my walking tour consisted primarily of visiting some historically famous hotels, such as the Ruijin, the Jinjiang, and the Okura Garden hotels that are located along the main roads, which, unfortunately, have been renamed from their very French "La Rue ____" to more standard Chinese names today that really don't have much historical value. Still, the architecture is pretty spectacular:

The grounds of the Ruijin are a popular Wedding Photoshoot spot

An old movie theater that still operates today!

Lobby of Okura Garden

This is the old British-run Lyceum Theater, which, sadly, did not seem to be operating...

I snapped this shot because I read about these buses in the paper. They are supposed to be "super green" due to their use of super capacitors for their power plants.

Another Russian Orthodox Church

This former mansion is now a popular restaurant

And that concluded my walking tour of the French Concession, which has eluded me during all of my previous trips to Shanghai over the last decade!

Stay tuned for the conclusion of my November travels!

Wrapping up Holiday Season 2011

2012-01-07T22:54:00.000-05:00

Our Winter Holiday kicked off with a bang on the ocean, as we took a cruise with the rest of the family and some friends to Key West and Cozumel. However, that cruise ended on the day after Christmas, leaving me with quite a few days off before having to go back to work.

The first day back from the cruise, my good friend Chris invited me to his girlfriend Carrie's parents' house on the beach. Cherry stayed home to restock Fifi's food, but Fifi and I accepted the invite and headed to the beautiful beach house:

With Uncle Chris at the beach

Fifi had just gotten up and wasn't really up for playing in the sand...

The backyard was a little better

But the stairs were the best!!!

For the rest of the week, the family and I went on a couple of small excursions to places near our house around the county that we'd never been before. We started with Historic Cocoa Village, which is made up of a number of quaint little shops, similar to Historic Downtown Melbourne, but a little bigger. We got there rather late, so we just played at the playground and at the park next to the river most of the evening:

The next local excursion was to Barrier Island Sanctuary, a sea turtle rehabilitation center on the coast near Sebastian Inlet. Unfortunately, there aren't many seat turtles in the winter, and once again, we got to the park rather late so we didn't really get to hike the trails. Instead, we spent some time at the beach:

Wide Angle Sky Shot

Barrier Island Sanctuary Visitor's Center

Making her way across the parking lot

Fifi weighs about as much as a large fish!

Crossing the boardwalk to the beach

Pelican in flight

Picking up a shell

Before long, it was New Year's Eve, and we headed down south to my parents' house again to spend New Year's with the family. On the first night, we went to dinner with some friends at a Chinese restaurant, but on New Year's Day, we visited the Flamingo Gardens for a relaxing morning:

Three Crazy Flamingos

Peacock

Some nice water landscaping

Rawr!

Sun star on a sausage tree

Pelican

Flamingos

After lunch at Toa Toa Dimsum Restaurant, we headed back home where we said goodbye to the family, but not before Ed's girlfriend Sarah gave Fifi some bubbles to play with!

OoooOOooh!

With that, it was back to the grindstone as 2012 kicked off!

November in Shanghai, Part III: Wushu Museum and Urban Planning Exhibition Hall

2012-01-04T15:47:00.000-05:00

My second week in Shanghai went by pretty quickly. Being at work most of the time prevented many adventures, although I did get a chance to take some pretty cool night-time photos on the way home from the office:

The Renaissance Zhongshan Park Hotel, where we stayed over my Shanghai trip over the summer

I'm pretty proud of this composition. Very Castlevania-esque, plus I did not have many opportunities to actually see the moon as clearly as this

Renaissance Yangtze at night

Turtle fountains outside Club Obama (no joke, this is a real nightclub in Shanghai)

Fountain at Club Obama

My second weekend in Shanghai was pretty eventful, however. It started with a trip to the Shanghai Wushu Museum.

You would think this is the Wushu Museum, but it's not. It's just another building at the Shanghai University of Sports.

Avid Grant's Pad readers know about my interest in martial arts, especially Chinese martial arts. It turns out that there is a Wushu museum at the Shanghai University of Sports.

Martial arts enthusiasts are probably most familiar with Wushu as the acrobatic, stylized performance martial art that captures elements of kung fu styles and has been featured in numerous films over the years. However, in Chinese, the term wushu is synonymous with kung fu, and simply refers to the various martial arts practiced in China.

The Shanghai University of Sports is quite a distance away from my hotel (about 15 metro stops), so I started the day with a leisurely walk through the park to get to the metro station. I'd gone through the park several times over the previous weeks, but never had an opportunity to really just enjoy it.

Families in the meadow

Stone block path across a small creek

Weeping Willows over a pond

Bamboo

Bamboo canopied path

Interesting statue

Busted... Unfortunately, this does happen, even in nice parks in Shanghai...

After the very long subway ride, I got off near Wujiaochang, which incidentally is near where Cherry used to live when she lived in Shanghai. It's changed quite a bit - I remembered it being more dusty in years past. Before long, I made my way into the Shanghai University of Sports.

However, it would be a while yet before I found the actual museum. Along the way, I helped an old man fly a kite:

In return, the old man pointed me in the right direction to this unassuming building, which turned out to be the Wushu Museum:

Note that there is no English translation for the name of this building. But it does say Chinese Wushu Museum, for the record...

As I got closer to the building, it became more evident that I was in the right place:

A good ol' fashioned weapons rack

Inside, the museum looks pretty sharp. The first chamber features several glass cases with different types of classical weapons, such as swords, spears, bows, and halberds, but also some less conventional weapons such as chain maces and projectile launchers:


This neat map on the ground depicts China and has little scrolling lights that list the styles of kung fu that originated from that region

Awesome looking projectile launchers

Compact launcher

Some more obscure weapons

Choy Lay Fut!

Huo Yuanjia of Jingwu fame (featured in the Jet Li film "Fearless" and was the sifu of the fictional character Chen Zhen featured in Bruce Lee's "Fist of Fury" and Jet Li's "Fist of Legend"

The most interesting part of the museum, however, was the interactive exhibits in the basement of the building. In this section, you could test your balance on the Plum Blossom poles, where you change stances on a set of poles according to a specific order, test your punch strength, take on Bruce Lee in a virtual sparring match, and test your aural awareness in a room that surrounds you with drums and challenges you to tap the drum that last sounded.

Kids on Plum Blossom poles (shortened for safety)

Testing my might

I was a little disappointed with this mark - my highest was around 2600 but I didn't take a picture of that. Still, no one else that day got higher than 1700, so I guess I feel pretty good about that...

Scenes from my epic fight with Bruce

Various hand forms

Wing Chun dummies

The drum room

After my visit to the Shanghai Wushu Museum, I took the metro back to People's Square. The People's Square Metro Station is an attraction in its own right, as it is largely fitted to resemble a busy 1930s era Shanghai street:

People's Square is definitely one of the best tourist spots in Shanghai. In my previous trips to Shanghai, I'd visited the huge Shanghai Museum, arguably the centerpiece of People's Square. This time around, however, I decided to pay a visit to the incredibly drearily named Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall:

Dreary name that almost sounds like something to do with China's one-child policy...

Awesome looking building though

The building actually sits right on top of one of the main gateways into the People's Square station, and, as you can see, it is a pretty impressive piece of architecture. Inside, however, more wonders await!

As dreary as its name sounds, the exhibition hall really is a place to show people plans for urban development, not just for Shanghai but for other regions of China as well. It does this using primarily using scale models of buildings, and, most prominently, a massive scale model of Shanghai.

A model of the Bund region, showing the to-be-built Shanghai Tower, which will be the tallest structure in China by its completion in 2014

People's Square

The Renaissance Zhongshan Park, where we stayed over the summer!

The China Pavilion!

Century Park in Pudong. That's the Science and Technology Museum there on the upper left.

View of the Bund area

Pudong International Airport

The Exhibition Hall also has a history museum section, showing models of Shanghai's past. A very interesting exhibit displayed Chinese Communist Party propaganda posters, presumably from the 40s and 50s:

Back to more modern days, however, there are also a number of high tech exhibitions as well.

Panorama with projected displays of activity

VERY convincing 3D hologram of pearls

There was a 360 degree film-tour of Shanghai. You can tell it's fake because the sky is perfectly blue throughout!

This was kind of neat. It's a cross section of the utilities distribution system, presumably used in parts of Shanghai.

But to me, one of the more impressive demonstrations of technology was in the hall's escalators! These babies moved super slow if no one was on the escalator, but would accelerate once people got on! A neat way to conserve power, especially in times of day when patronage is low (like the late afternoon that I visited).

This photo does not properly do these escalator designs justice

That concluded the second Saturday of my November Shanghai trip!

Holiday Cruise 2011

2011-12-26T21:27:00.001-05:00

I'm interrupting the travelogue of my latest trip to Asia to write about our latest family vacation - a four-day cruise to Cozumel on the Carnival Destiny!

As you may imagine, this was our first cruise since Fifi was born. While the trip did go smoother than I expected, cruising with an infant still provides some challenges. For one, although Fifi is starting to eat table food, her primary form of nourishment is still our home-made purees, so we had to make sure we brought enough squash and apple, green bean and pear, and sweet potato, carrot, and chicken purees onto the boat.

Fifi is starting to eat table food

She still needs her purees though, or she'll put on her angry face...

Also, because of her need for at least one nap, we had to work our excursions around her sleeping schedule, but that did not cause many problems. The biggest impact was that we didn't do things we'd ordinarily do on cruises, such as watch the Las Vegas style shows (since the loud noises tended to scare the baby) or go on the pool slides. In fact, we didn't actually get a chance to swim at all on this short four-day cruise...

We didn't get to ride on this slide...

The Carnival Destiny still had plenty of activities, though we didn't necessarily spend a whole lot of time on the boat:

Playing with wine-bottle stoppers

Fifi was pretty pleased with her ability to put the stoppers back!

Fifi at the slots

Karaoke on the giant out-door screen. They actually put football and basketball games on this screen too!

Mini-Golf!

Fifi setting up her putt

And of course, towel animals!

All-you-can-eat ice cream!

Climbing stairs!

But what would a cruise be without land excursions? Though this was a short, four-day cruise, we still got to visit two ports-of-call. The first was Key West, where we took Fifi around to see the statue garden at the art museum and where I also took her up the Treasure Museum Tower:

Long-exposure shot of a wind-wheel

A neat sculpture of a painter painting the scene across the way

Same scene, focusing on the sculpture in the distance

And to round out this photography clinic, a final shot focusing on the painting!

The big excursion, however, was at Cozumel, Mexico, where we went to check out some Mayan ruins!

This Davy Jones statue is actually a real person...

We stopped at this shop for some trinkets and supplies

Mexican wrestler masks!

This says "Big Brother" in Mayan

An iguana riding a mule

Novelty T-Shirts

I love how this wide-angle shot turned out

Hi-Yah! Ninja Kick!

Fifi loves swinging!

It was a short trip, but it was a great time with the family!

Kung Fu Fifi

2011-12-20T11:42:00.002-05:00

Kung fu has been a big part of my life for more than ten years. It all began when Ed and I started studying Choy Lay Fut with Sifu Ken. Then, in college, I met Sifu Des in Gainesville, who gave me a lot of chances to learn more kung fu that I never took (and I regret it quite often - I could have been such a bad-ass!). Kir-Wei and I then started the Meihua Student Association of Martial Arts, the first organized martial arts club dedicated to Chinese martial arts at the University of Florida. The club continues to operate today, years after the original founders graduated! Cherry even did a speech on Kung Fu once, at Brevard Community College.

So, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that little Fifi was intrigued she saw me practicing kung fu staff!

I love the face she's making in this one

<3<3<3<3<3

Fifi Likes the Older Boys

2011-12-19T10:50:00.001-05:00

Well, over the past few weeks, we've learned a little something about our daughter. She likes older boys!

Exhibit A: This little boy waved and said "Hi" to Fifi at Wal-Mart, and she got super excited!

Exhibit B: We went to the second annual Christmas party at Aunt SaRah, Uncle Adam, and Izzy's house this past weekend, where Fifi couldn't stop playing with this young man!

We're gonna have to keep an eye on her!

Some holiday-themed photos:

I'm pretty proud of this no-flash night-time shot

Santa returns!

Fifi finds a friend

The younger bro is not bad, either!

November in Shanghai, Part II: Memoirs of Weekend One

2011-12-14T13:46:00.000-05:00

My first week in Shanghai was somewhat abbreviated since I flew out on a Tuesday and arrived on Tuesday night. I did meet Ken, who also works for our company as a full time onsite engineer in Shanghai, at the onsite office. Being onsite by yourself can get pretty lonesome when the customer isn't asking for you - and though the customer does ask for me quite often, I'm usually not with them all day. Meeting Ken was thus significant because now there is someone that I can go out to lunch with when I'm out there!

After the first couple of days, however, I made my way over to Mashan to visit Cherry's family. This time, I didn't bother with the high speed train, instead opting for the less expensive and somewhat slower regular train. The speed isn't that much of a problem - in fact, I think it took maybe half an hour longer, and on the weekend, I wasn't in much. However, it has been a while since I've been on a regular train and I'd forgotten how much of a mess the regular train (and the regular train station) is, compared to the nice and shiny bullet train/station! But more on the regular train experience later.

My train wasn't until the afternoon, so I did a little sightseeing around the area first:

Horse Statues

One of many statues at New Town Central Park

Taiji at New Town Central Park

Fountain at New Town Central Park

Doves

Statue

City Center building, and the location of our local office

Badminton in front of a mall

Riding down a slope

Statues in front of McDonald's

After a fairly short train ride, I arrived in Wuxi, where brother-in law picked me up to go the rest of the way to Mashan. I was still somewhat jet-lagged, so we didn't get around to doing much that evening.

The next day, my brother-in-law took me on a drive in his new stick-shift Ford Focus hatchback (they'd gotten it last year, but I hadn't seen it until this last trip since it was in the shop over the summer). He even let me drive for a small leg of the trip - it'd been close to ten years since I last drove stick, but I only stalled once, and it was because I lost my mind and forgot to hit the clutch when I parked at the end of my drive!

Our destination was Long Tou Zhu, or Dragon Head Park. My father-in-law brought Cherry and me to this park about eight years ago, but man has it changed. Back then, there was not a whole lot there. There is a large plain along the water. That plain today is now a large entertainment picnic area with all sorts of activities. I'm not actually sure this is better than it was before - it was a lot more peaceful back in the day. But it definitely is more lively:

The once barren plain is now dotted with activities for families

These water activities are actually quite fun

A guy sinking into the drink

Me showing everyone how it's done

Bro-in-law crossing the pond

Fortunately, not all of Long Tou Zhu's natural beauty has been repopulated. In fact, much of the surrounding area is still relatively untouched:

Tea Leaf

Yangmei (Yang Berry) buds

Tea Plants

Toad Rock

Snail Shells

Looks like a little castle beyond the cave...

Zooming in on the castle

The path to some pavilions

Not sure what this is...

Okay, this actually isn't natural... it's a disguised cellphone tower...

Top-down view of the plain

Shortly after heading home (and after a short nap on my part) we headed out again, this time to check out my mother-in-law's budding farm:

Mother-in-law picking some radishes

Pipa tree

Daikon Radishes

Tent set up in the farm

After a trip to Sister-in-law's clothes shop and picking some new threads for me, we stopped at a local market to pick up some fish and get ready for dinner:

Live fish in pans

After dinner, I boarded another train to go back to Shanghai, with new clothes and also a large sack of tangerines in tow. The return train is usually more packed because Wuxi is more of a transit stop, in contrast with Shanghai, which is more typically a destination or origin for most travelers. So, when I got on the train at Wuxi, there was an elderly lady in my seat. Being the good Samaritan I am, I did not have the heart to kick her out of my seat, so I decided to tough it out until the next stop at Suzhou.

Indeed, at the next stop, people got off of the train, so I took one of the vacated seats. However, minutes later, the new passengers getting on at Suzhou boarded, and they did not extend the courtesy I showed to my beneficiary, subsequently kicking me out of their seat. Long story short, I ended up standing for the two hour duration of the train trip with multiple bags.

Things didn't get much better upon my arrival in Shanghai, either. The train rolled in at around 10 PM at the regular train station (remember how station is much less nice than the stations for the high-speed trains). So here I am, walking around in a not-so-nice area around the regular train station. The metro had stopped running, so I started looking for a cab. For some reason, however, none of the cabs were willing to run the taxi meter, instead opting to charge a fixed price of around 100 RMB, which I knew was way too much. Finally, after about 6 or 7 cabs, one driver agreed to run the meter, and I was pleased to find that I was right about the price: it took only about 45 RMB to get back to my hotel!

Tune in next time for more on my November in Shanghai!

Gators in the NFL Save the Day/Season

2011-12-12T11:47:00.000-05:00

2011 was not a good football year for Gator fans, as we run the risk of assembling a losing season for the first time in something like four decades.

Fortunately, Gators in the NFL have come on strong to salvage football for this year, at least for this Gator fan. It's not hard to see why UF was so successful from 2006-2008 - the list of NFL starters/meaningful contributors from those teams includes (in rough order of entry into the League)

Reggie Nelson
Andre Caldwell
Ray McDonald
Brandon Siler
Marcus Thomas
Derrick Harvey
Percy Harvin
Louis Murphy
Joe Haden
Maurkice Pouncey
Tim Tebow
Brandon Spikes
Jermaine Cunningham
Aaron Hernandez
Riley Cooper
David Nelson
Mike Pouncey

I'm probably missing quite a few, but the number of meaningful NFL players on those teams is just staggering.

These players have kept weekends this fall bearable for Gator Fans in a year when Gator Football is simply painful to watch, between the games themselves to the mass transfers of both players and coaches. The players listed above have been very successful. Last weekend's reunion of Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin was a veritable exhibition of former Gators as both players had very good games for their respective teams.

We always knew Percy Harvin would be a star in the NFL. Tim Tebow, however, has been doubted ever since he was picked in the first round of the 2010 draft.

Tebow-mania is just completely mind blowing. Since getting his chance to start at Denver over a struggling Kyle Orton, Tebow is 7-1, while being behind or tied in just about all of those games. His play has left much to be desired, as he has typically stunk up the joint until the last 5 minutes of the game, which the media now endearingly refers to as Tebow Time. In fact, Cherry and I were listening to the Denver-Chicago game last night on the radio when Chicago went up 10-0 with just 5 minutes remaining, and the announcer made the statement that Denver has Chicago right where they want him! At that time, we were thinking that Tebow's luck has definitely run out - there's no way that he can come back from yet another double digit deficit with just 5 minutes remaining.

Lo and behold, the end of the game goes on like this:

Tebow tosses his first TD of the day with just over 2 minutes remaining
Denver fails to recover onside kick
Chicago RB Marion Barber inexplicably runs towards the sideline on 3rd and long and gets pushed out of bounds, forcing a punt
With no time-outs remaining, Tebow drives to the Chicago 41, where kicker Jeff Prater nails a 59-yard field goal to tie up the game and send it into overtime
Chicago wins the toss and drives to the Denver 41, where Marion Barber breaks away and appears to be on a long run, but the ball is stripped and Denver recovers
Tebow manages to get close enough for Prater to kick a 51-yard field goal to win the game

The luck is astonishing. Divine even. Denver has a great defense, but why doesn't the offense do anything until the fourth quarter? Tebow's fourth quarter statistics are incredible. Despite having 5 fewer starts than most other starting QBs in the league, he as more 4th quarter passing yards than any other QB. His 4th quarter passer rating is double that of his rating in Q1-Q3. It's incredible and a lot of fun, especially for Gator fans. Hearing about/watching his heroics has really made football season fun for me, and a lot of the rest of the country. It might not last, but for now, it's a heck of a ride!

Courtesy of one "gators_and_niners": "I don't always complete my passes, but when I do, I prefer doing it in the 4th quarter."

- Tim Tebow, the world's most interesting quarterback

November in Shanghai, Part I: First Class Travel

2011-11-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

In case you were wondering, I was away in Shanghai for most of November, for a short-term business trip. This time, I'm went all by my lonesome, as Cherry and Fifi stayed at home. It's been busy, but I've still had a chance to do some new stuff.

Shanghai Renaissance Yangtze, as viewed from New Town Central Park

For starters, this time around, I flew first class! At first, I didn't think first class was a big deal, especially in my domestic leg from Orlando to Detroit, which was in a 757. There were some perks - I got to use the Delta Club Lounge at Orlando and Detroit instead of waiting in the normal crowded waiting areas, but more importantly, flying first class grants you the benefit of being able to check 75 pounds per checked bag instead of the usual 50. This came in handy because my "Grantis Mantis Scale" had estimated that my luggage was around 50 pounds, but it turns out that it was off by about two pounds (not bad, if you think about the fact that this is based entirely on muscle memory). But the first class cabin of Delta's 757s are pretty much just bigger seats with slightly more leg room.

On the plus side, I did get to chat with a real airline pilot for this leg of the flight. I got a lot of insight into what kinds of things pilots like to see in their cockpits and the types of navigation aids and other stuff about the aviation industry in general.

However, it was the next leg of my trip where first class really paid off much more. This leg - the 14-hour leg - was in one of the finest ships flying today: Boeing's 777. The first class cabin of Delta's 777 fleet has been equipped with individual pods for each passenger - just four two a row in the two aisle aircraft. Each pod has the ability to adjust in various positions from seated take-off and landing mode all the way to full recline for sleeping and everything in between. The leg rest, lumbar, thigh support, upper back, and headrest are all adjustable, and the seat itself is spacious enough that a normal sized adult should be able to lie down without hitting any of the plastic sides, making sleep that much more comfortable! And of course, each pod is fashioned with one of the better personal in-flight entertainment systems I've seen. It provides access to over 100 Hollywood and international films, numerous TV shows, some interactive games, music, and more!

The back of the pod

Pod controls

Leg room

Entertainment!

Last but not least, the first class cabin also featured slightly better dining options. It's still airline food, but it did seem to taste a little better, although not as good as it looked, admittedly.

That's all for this episode! Stay tuned for Part II: Memoirs of Weekend One!

Funny Chinese Time Travel Commercial

2011-11-11T14:33:00.000-05:00

YouTube Copout today!

Once in a Lifetime!

2011-11-11T03:47:00.001-05:00

ATTENTION!

Today will be likely the only time in most of our lives when we can experience 11:11:11 on 11/11/11!!!1one!

I also learned in the newspaper that this date (November 11th) has taken on some special meaning in modern China - apparently it is "Singles Day", sort of a Valentine's Day for singles. Supposedly it is hard to book a restaurant or go Karaoke on this day because of all the young (and young at heart) single people going out to party!

It so happens that today is also Veterans Day in the U.S., so here's a Grant's Pad shout out to those who have served for our country!

You may now go back to your normally scheduled programming.

Fifi's First-ish Halloween

2011-11-03T03:49:00.000-05:00

Halloween is an interesting holiday. It is always a big deal when you are a young child, say, between the ages of 4-10. Then, by the time your early teenage years come around, it's not cool anymore to dress up like a monster or a pirate and go house-to-house asking for candy. Several years later, especially in college, it became a wonderful opportunity to party, and in the many cases, a convenient excuse for women to dress more scantily in public than would be acceptable virtually any other day of the year!

But this Halloween would not be one of those. Nay, it was Fifi's first foray into Trick-Or-Treating! Technically, Halloween 2011 is actually Fifi's second Halloween, but, seeing as she was just 10 days old last year, she did not dress up or go trick-or-treating.

Mommy made this awesome costume with about $2.30 cents worth of material and about four hours of needle-and-thread work the night before Halloween:

This same costume probably could retail for around $18 at the Halloween store!

Then, on Halloween Day, after I got home from work, Fifi helped me carve our pumpkin!

I feel kind of like Hannibal Lecter...

Yay! Fun stuff!

Pumpkin head!

After completing our pumpkin, Fifi got suited up:

Then, she picked up a Kit Kat bar from our candy bin to warm up:

We loaded her up in her wagon, decked out with a bunch of junk mail for her entertainment:

Still chomping away at that Kit Kat bar - she eventually started to get through the plastic!

And we headed on out! Some of the cool sites and costumes we saw:

Interesting carvings

Captain Jack and a stroller-turned pirate ship!

There was a heck of a lot of kids trick-or-treating that night. I had no idea our neighborhood had that many kids. We ran out of candy at our house, twice! The kids were so voracious that they even took the bin!

And of course, Fifi got in on some of the trick-or-treat action:

First!

A passerby saw Fifi at this house and was so taken by her cuteness that she exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, is she real?!?"

We stayed out for about an hour, making our way around about half of the neighborhood, before the mosquitoes drove us indoors. All in all, a pretty successful Halloween!

To [insert excessively large, yet finite number] And Beyond!

2011-10-31T11:25:00.002-05:00

I didn't get around to posting about this last week, but better late than never!

Last weekend was the ever elusive "Salute to Brevard" event at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. This awesome food drive event grants Brevard County residents free admission to Kennedy Space Center, which is a fantastic deal considering normally priced tickets are somewhere around $60 for non-residents these days. Cherry and I went to it many years ago, but because it is so quietly advertised, we've missed it for the last several years.

Thanks to Tarang, however, we heard about it this year, and so, we wasted no time in taking Fifi on her first trip to the Space Center!

Helpful note for parents with small children: We had initially planned on bringing her new wagon to pull her around in, but apparently, wagons are considered a tripping hazard by NASA and thus prohibitied at Kennedy Space Center. So keep the wagon at home and bring the stroller instead.

No wagon? No problem! I'll just walk!

To be honest, I still can't get over the exorbitantly high price of regular admission at KSC. The visitor's complex is woefully small and there really aren't that many attractions. There is the KSC tour, which we opted to not go on this time around to reduce the amount of walking Fifi would have to do. New since our last trip is a live Star Trek show and mini-exhibition center:

Captain Fifi!

There was also the new Shuttle Launch Experience simulator ride, which is a cool concept but wasn't quite up to snuff, in my opinion.

In front of the Space Shuttle Explorer

For this particular trip, the main attraction turned out to be the Rocket Garden. It gave Fifi plenty of space to run around in and provided some pretty good photo ops!

Experimenting with star-ring the sun

In a Mercury (I think) capsule!

Giant Fifi!

Rawr!

Catwalk

At a price of FREE, however, I can't complain about a nice, relaxing trip like this!

The Lian Family Astronauts!

Safety First

2011-10-25T09:46:00.002-05:00

We had a pretty scary episode yesterday. It arguably started when Fifi's pediatrician appointment was inexplicably moved from 8:30 in the morning to 10:30 in the morning. We'd driven all the way to the doctor's office when we were frustrated with that bit of news (the doctor's office is about 20 minutes away from the house). So, we decided we would come back later. I headed to the office and Cherry and Fifi headed back home.

By the time Fifi was fed and happy, I guess 10:00 had rolled around, and Cherry got hungry so she started to warm up some soup on the stove when she realized what time it was. In her rush to get Fifi ready, she rushed out the door without eating, but also without turning the stove off!

After Fifi got her multiple shots and hemoglobin test (poor Fifi!), I headed back to the office again, and Cherry and Fifi back home again. Shortly later, I got a phone call from Cherry telling me to come back home and that there was smoke in the house!

I told Cherry to call 911 and rushed home, and by the time I got there, there were three fire engines and a few police officers at the house already. Fortunately, no fire had blazed, and the only real loss that we incurred was to the pot that the soup was simmering in. The firefighters were able to get most of the smoke out, but the house is still pretty smoky.

We're still trying to get the smoke odor out by airing out the house and cleaning, but we are really lucky to have gotten away this time with fairly minimal impact. We're considering this a lesson learned to always consider safety first, no matter the rush!

Happy First Birthday Sofia!

2011-10-21T10:28:00.004-05:00

One year ago today, a very special person arrived - Our very own bundle of joy, Fifi!

Some photos from her birthday party last weekend:

Sweets!

Kenzie personally delivering gifts

Kenzie checking out some of the loot

Reading a card

Trying on a hat

Where's Kitty?

A classic!

Some of the guests

More guests

Taking a ride in her new foldable wagon!

Saying bye bye to Grandma and Aunt

Happy Birthday Fifi! Tiger you!

The History Center

2011-10-14T13:23:00.001-05:00

This post is a little late, but better late than never!

Each month, on the first full weekend of the month, Bank of America members can take advantage of their "Museums on Us" program, which grants free admission to all cardholders at a number of cultural attractions all over the country. Last year, we were took the opportunity to visit the Miami Science Museum using this program. Since then, we've been kind of busy and most of our travels have involved nature walks with the occasional multi-month excursion to China!

A few weeks ago, on the first weekend of October, we decided to use this benefit once again. This time, the destination was the Orange County Regional History Center, located in Downtown Orlando. This rather mundanely named attraction is actually a relatively large history museum that focuses on the history of central Florida from prehistoric times all the way up to approximately the mid 70s (significant of course due to the arrival of one Walt Disney World!

The main (and somewhat ugly) gate of the History Center

Actual sized Gator statues prowl the courtyards

The first several exhibits teach you about the geographical characteristics of Central Florida

Fifi wanted to touch all of the model artifacts from the Florida Cracker Home exhibit, which came after a couple of exhibits about the native Floridian and Seminole tribes history

Recipes for Cracker Cuisine

That fake orange from the Citrus Industry exhibit looks pretty tasty!

The History Center actually used to be a (the?) real courthouse of Orange County (which was once called Mosquito County in the 19th century!

Florida has a rich history in Aviation...

...And of course, space travel, as Cape Canaveral is the home to the Kennedy Space Center and numerous launch facilities. Here, Fifi examines the controls inside a model of an early space capsule!

No history museum in the southern US would be complete without some exhibits about the KKK...

... but the advent of Walt Disney World certainly represents a brighter age!

This is an awesome book - I should find a copy of it!

Postcards statue

It was certainly not a shabby way to spend an afternoon, and all at a cost of just the parking spot in downtown Orlando!

We now leave you with an image of true love:

Until next time!

Fifi Walks!

2011-10-03T12:12:00.000-05:00

I didn't get a chance to post this last week - Fifi started walking on September 28, 2011, approximately 11 months and one week old!

We're in trouble now... it was pretty hard to keep up with her crawling!

Zoo Day!

2011-09-28T15:44:00.000-05:00

Another day, another great local deal! For the month of September, the very cool Brevard Zoo featured $2 pricing on Tuesdays. I happened to need to burn some vacation off before the end of the fiscal year, so I took yesterday off to take the family to the zoo!

They've since added the "Treetop Trek" attraction at Brevard Zoo, which is basically an obstacle course high above the zoo in the trees, and includes some ziplines. We didn't get a chance to do it this time, but it looks really interesting:

We'd taken Fifi to the zoo last winter, while Cherry's mom was here, but Fifi was clearly too young to really appreciate it at the time. This time, however, she was much more engaged.

Walkin' on the boardwalk

Fifi was a little scared when these parakeets started flying around and screeching. She did try to touch one though!

Rhinos, daddy, Rhinos!!!

Video of Fifi checking out the Rhinos:

Fifi had such a great time, she didn't want to leave! I think she was still upset at night too, because she really had a hard time sleeping last night... which of course, means Mommy and Daddy had a hard time sleeping last night...

Gators and Woolly Mammoths

2011-09-19T16:27:00.000-05:00

Fifi's really coming along fast! I'm having a hard time keeping up with all of her milestones!

First, a video of her aforementioned CD player behavior:

We've been watching her do some pretty cool stuff lately. Last Friday, I was doing some butterfly stretches, and she crawled over, sat next to me, and started copying my stretch! Super cute.

The Gator fans out there will appreciate this one - the second word Fifi seems to have been able to repeatedly say (first word was Daddy - w00t!) is "Gator"! Of course, she says it more like "Gaaaaaeee-tah!" Unfortunately, it's hard to catch video of her doing it. Seems like the Gator mobile paid off!

Gaaaaeee-tah!

This last weekend, we had a special event. Twenty or so years ago, my dad got this great book called "The Way Things Work", by David Macauley It was an illustrated book that made understanding machines and basic physics more accessible via the use of woolly mammoth cartoons.

Last week, during the First Art Walk at the Eau Gallie Arts District, we visited the newly re-named Foosaner Art Museum (formerly the much more intuitively named Brevard Art Museum). After about 20 minutes or so, I began to recognize Macauley's art style - specifically, the woolly mammoths. You see, it turns out Macauley drew all sorts of stuff, from buildings to boats to depictions of ocean dives, in addition to woolly mammoths demonstrating how racks and pinions work, so it took me a little while to recognize that I was indeed looking at familiar work. Shortly thereafter, one of the museum volunteers informed me that Mr. Macauley himself would be showing up the next Saturday for a lecture and a gallery walk through! Well, I certainly couldn't pass up a cool chance to meet him!

So, we showed up at the museum again this past Saturday to sit through some of his lecture - a bit of a challenge with an infant, but Fifi was very well behaved, despite missing her nap.

David Macauley lecturing about one of his sketches

After the lecture, we got his autograph on the new, updated version of the book my dad got 20 or so years ago - the New Way Things Work! He made it out to Baby Sofia and also drew a complimentary Mammoth!

Getting in line

The man himself

Drawing a Woolly Mammoth on our copy of his book!

The moral of the story? Keep an eye out on your local events - you never know when you might run into something unexpectedly familiar!

Baby Sofia Milestones, Entry No. 5

2011-09-16T12:31:00.000-05:00

Wow! This week marked a few other milestones for the star of this show, Fifi!

Earlier in the week, Fifi learned to say "Daddy" on command! Unfortunately, I didn't capture it on video and she decided to stop saying it after Wednesday...

TEETH COUNT = SEVEN. Four on the bottom (two little fangs flanking the rabbit-incisors in the front) and three on top. The fangs and the third tooth on top came in shortly after we returned from China, but based on the quantity of drool Fifi produces, I'd say tooth number 8 is coming in shortly!

But the big milestone that we're documenting today is... DRUMROLL PLEASE:

Chinese drum

Sofia's taken her first unassisted steps this week! I'll throw a video up when I get those uploaded to my computer, but for now, these photos of her standing up and sitting down will have to do:

Not sure if I wanna do this...

Look at me! I DEED EET!

Ooops...

That's better!

Baby Sofia Milestones, Entry No. 4

2011-09-08T12:34:00.001-05:00

Well, it's hard to believe we've been back in the USA for a month as of yesterday! Since then, a lot's happened... like the 2011 College Football Season! The Gators opened their season far more pleasantly than they did in the 2010 season, racking up close to 500 yards of offense and actually moving forward more often than backward! Seems like the new coaching staff, headlined by head coach Will "Boom" Muschamp, Charlie Weis as OC, and Dan Quinn as DC is off to a good start in this new Gator Football era!

The new Gator Football coaching staff

More on topic per the title of this post, however, are the strides Fifi has been making. She recently passed her 10 month birthday. Since getting home, we've switched to exclusively baby formula (so mommy has a little less work to do), and we've expanded her diet quite a bit. In China, her diet was almost exclusively vegetarian, consisting of apple, banana, zucchini, sweet potato, corn, carrot, and green been purees, with an occasional yogurt snack and some bread to chew on. On getting back to the States, we added steamed chicken puree, string cheese, Cheerios, and beef. Unfortunately, she still seems to have a bit of allergic reaction to dairy - the cheese made her face break out a bit, so we're cutting back on that again for the time being.

Yum! Cheeeeeeese... too bad my skin won't let me eat it...

As she's gotten older, eating has become more and more of a pain in the butt. Now more intent on playing, she no longer sits nicely and finishes her meal, instead often twisting around and spitting her food out. The activity also causes her to throw up her food more often than we would like. Part of the growing pains of parenthood, I guess!

Although mealtime is more problematic than it used to be, Fifi is becoming more and more entertaining and alert. Each morning, she will wake up and point to the Hello Kitty rug that my sister gave her when we got back from China. She's able to associate names with objects, as well. Asking her "Where's Kitty" will result in her scanning the room and pointing her out to you. She's also able to recognize her Gator mobile, sparkly ball, and the bamboo in the hall. Commands are also coming along - she'll "sing" and dance, clap her hands, shake your hand, and wave hello or bye-bye on command.

Kitty!

Each night, before bed, she'll play "Peek-a-boo" with whatever object is available on hand, or, if no objects are available, she'll just use her hands. This is actually a trick she picked up while she was in China, as it was part of her "going to bed" ritual before she finally passed out for the night!

Sometimes, she'll cruise around the room, go and turn on the CD player, and dance a bit (she'll dance whenever she hears music, or, if no music is available, she'll hum to herself and dance!)!

There's also a pretty good chance Fifi will be able to walk soon. She's been "cruising" along walls and tables for some time and she's been getting a lot of practice with the walker. She's also experimenting with standing without support - she can do it for about 4-5 seconds, and the record is being routinely broken!

Whee!

We also finally started letting her sit in the child seat in shopping carts. Fifi was absolutely thrilled!

YAY - I get to sit in the big girl seat!

And that's it for this episode of Baby Sofia Milestones!

Keeping a lookout for the next Baby Sofia Milestones entry...

2011 Shanghai Adventure - Part Five

2011-08-21T15:22:00.001-05:00

The last leg of our trip featured a couple more excursions. The first of which is a lesser-known jewel of Shanghai, the rather unfortunately named Shanghai Municipal History Museum. This museum is located in the basement of the famous Oriental Pearl TV Tower:

At the base of the Pearl

The Pearl by day...

... and by night

Despite its incredibly unimaginative name, to its credit, that is exactly what this museum is - a history of the municipality that is Shanghai. It features full-size panoramas and miniatures that depict various points in the history of the city from the early Qing dynasty all the way up to the Republic of China era.

Life-size panorama of the Bund in the late Qing dynasty

Life in the early Qing dynasty

Panoramas of Shanghai's waterfront in the Qing dynasty

Shanghai during it's Western Imperial era

Nanjing Road at the turn of the century

Funny Mirror

The museum itself seemed pretty small when we first went in, but it spans multiple floors in the basement of the Pearl and is spread out across what must be most of the base area as well! And, admission at the time of our visit was a measly 35 RMB per adult (around $5.50 USD). Plus, when we finished our visit, we were treated to these fantastic views of the Lujiazui in the New Pudong Area:

The World Financial Center and the Grand Hyatt

Our last major destination in Shanghai was the China Pavilion from the 2010 World Expo, hosted in Shanghai.

Jumping for Joy at the China Pavilion

This huge monument is one of the pavilions that has continued to welcome patronage long after the end of the World Expo in December. However, in late August of 2011, gone are the three hour lines that it used to take just to get in! We actually got to wait even less, thanks to Fifi and her stroller. In some cases (like at the train station), having a stroller in China is a huge pain in the butt - but in several other cases, it's like being a VIP - the security will take you right to the front of the lines and help you avoid the huge crowds!

Imagine having to actually wait for the whole queue...

And, the admission has gone down from around 180 RMB (~$30 USD) to just 20 RMB. We actually used our UF IDs to get in for the student rate of just 15 RMB!

The top floor of the China pavilion is the most impressive, as it features quite a few high tech exhibits, including a huge animated scroll depicting an ancient Chinese city.

Cool displays in the ceiling

Wide-screen film

Swallows forming a galaxy-thing

Animated scroll. The top part, that is...

Each of the living things in the scroll are moving!

Unfortunately, pushing a stroller around has some disbenefits as well - we didn't get to see most of the 3rd floor of the pavilion, which had a neat-looking ride. Instead, we headed right to the second floor, which featured all of the green technologies. Green and Environmental Friendliness was a huge focus of the 2010 World Expo:

Electric Car

Windmills

Fifi is not just environmentally friendly - she's friendly all-around!

LED lighting, with a twist...

Each light is housed in a beer bottle!

These fountains were dropping water in the shape of words and Chinese characters!

With that, we had completed the explorations of Shanghai that we would complete for our Summer 2011 Shanghai Adventure!

2011 Shanghai Adventure - Part Four

2011-08-15T11:22:00.002-05:00

Towards the midpoint of our trip, things began to turn over.

Turning over

The weather had progressively gotten better, especially when compared with when we first got here. Work was more of in rhythm. And we explored the city a bit more.

My aunt came by from Taiwan to check on her investment home in an upscale Shanghai suburb:

Aunt's investment property in Sheshan, Shanghai

On a lake at the Le Meridien hotel near Aunt's property

Yea! Check out the beach party on the other side!

With my aunt

A few days later, Cherry's mom, sister-in-law, and nephew came to visit, and we took them back to Zhongshan Park:

Tai Chi at Zhongshan Park

The weather was finally good enough to where Cherry and Fifi started coming to visit me at the office more often. I took them to the nearby Caoxi park. It's not quite as big as Zhongshan Park, but arguably I like it more as it's quieter with some really nice scenery!

The entrance to Caoxi Park

Willows and a Pavilion on a Pond

Old guy stretching

The Hangtian building, as seen from Caoxi Park

A "Doraemon" stroller!

I hadn't done chin-ups in some time... could still do more than ten in a set though, thanks to iwantsixpackabs.com!

Cool rowing machine

The fitness area of the park

I really like this composition

Next up was the massive Shanghai Museum, which is a huge collection of Chinese art, ranging from costumes to ceramics, bronzework, furniture, paintings, and calligraphy. What amazed me the most was how intricate the bronzework was, especially considering that some of the artifacts were close to 3000 years old - among the oldest artifacts in the whole museum! The second most amazing thing is that admission to the Shanghai Museum is free!

People's Plaza near the museum

Wide angle shot of the museum, which is designed to look something like a 'ding' vessel

Interior shot of the museum

Ming dynasty furniture from around the 1400s

Ancient bronze pot... with spikes. This thing dates back to about the year 600... B.C.!

These oxen are also forged from bronze... again, this artifact is close to 3000 years old!

Jump Split!

Jump Kick!

More photos to come!

Home Sweet Home

2011-08-07T08:31:00.000-05:00

And, after 55 days across the pond, we've made it safely back home! We lucked out pretty good too - just hours after we left Shanghai, Typhoon Muifa made landfall right on the eastern seaboard of China - that could have been bad.

We're still busy getting re-situated, but over the next few weeks I'll try to post the rest of our Summer 2011 Shanghai Adventure!

Interesting Observation

2011-07-13T11:45:00.001-05:00

I posted this photo of Best Buy way when we first got to Shanghai and added the comment that Best Buy seems to have failed in its attempt at entering the Chinese marketplace:

I commented that perhaps the reason for Best Buy's failure was predicated on the lack of the typical Chinese consumer's appreciation for a refreshing, clean shopping environment (I can vouch for this in spades after having braved the jungle that is Carrefour supermarket several times over the past month!). Turns out the real reason may actually be much simpler.

Granted, only the Chinese reader will be able to notice this observation, but if you look the Chinese text under the yellow Best Buy logo, you'll notice that it reads: 百思买, which is pronounced "bai si mai".

First, to give you some background. Many products, when first introduced into the Chinese marketplace, are given a Chinese name that attempts to transliterate the original name so that it sounds like the original words, all the while maintaining some meaning. You see, Chinese names almost always have a meaning that is very evident, unlike English names, which might have a meaning, but no one ever knows or cares about it. An outstanding example of a western products with a Chinese name: Coca-Cola is "可口可乐", pronounced "ke kou ke le", wonderfully translates to mean "tasty happiness"! Brilliant!

So, it looks like they tried to achieve the same thing with Best Buy. They got the translitaration part pretty good, as "bai si" sort of sounds like "Best". It's the meaning part that got completely hosed. True, "mai" accurately translates to "Buy" in Chinese, but "bai si" has the unfortunate meaning of "100 Thoughts". At first glance, it sounds all deep and Confucius-y, which was probably the original intent. But then, Cherry pointed out, if you have to go through "100 thoughts" before "buying" something, that probably isn't good for business!

While we're on the topic of goofy translations:

Make sure you slip, but be careful doing it!

2011 Shanghai Adventure - Part Three

2011-07-12T03:23:00.000-05:00

As of tomorrow, we will have been in Shanghai for a full month, with less than one month to go!

One month anniversary in Shanghai FTW

The weather has improved dramatically since we first arrived. Some days, it is unbearably hot, but most days it cools down towards the later part of the day, which works out nicely. We've also gotten better adjusted to our schedule. Fifi's getting older and more naughty - feeding her, as can be seen in the above picture, is now quite a chore as she'll play, or decide she doesn't want any more and spit food out. So, mealtimes are actually probably the biggest constraint on time we have as it takes about an hour or two to feed her, then clean her up afterwards.

Regardless, we have finally taken the opportunity to try to engage in some recreational and even some touristy activities! We took Fifi to the pool briefly:

First time in the pool

However, the pool is actually open to the public and we kind of got grossed out when we saw some people doing the characteristic Chinese "hack and spit" near the edge of the pool. I'm not sure why people do that so much here in China - I guess people's throats get too full of gunk so they expectorate a lot. In any case, it didn't take long for us to get out of the pool after seeing that!

With the weather improving, we finally got up the gusto to go ... outside! Our hotel is actually located next to one of the largest parks in Shanghai - Zhongshan Park. It's literally less than 5 minutes walking distance from the hotel, and we can see people flying kites and doing exercises every morning from our perch up on the 58th floor during breakfast. It took us a long time, but we finally decided to patronize the park ourselves!

Outside?!?! Say it ain't so!

Rock with the park's name

Cool big screen at the park's gate

On the bridge

Artsy fartsy photo of the lion on the bridge

Kite flying is popular at Zhongshan Park

Baby eyes and nose

Families enjoying themselves at one of the park's meadows

Our hotel, as seen from the park

We set up camp in the meadow too!

Zhongshan Park was not our only outdoors adventure these past couple weeks. We also ventured out to Xintiandi, which is a notable shopping/bar district in Shanghai.

Getting ready to hit the road!

Some of the cityscape along the way

Plaza 66 in the back there. Cherry used to work in this building.

You can get some pretty good shots when the road turns downhill like this!

What is Xintiandi notable for? For starters, the architecture is somewhat unique. Much of the district is comprised of old buildings that have been restored and renovated so that they still retain their classic look on the outside, but have been pimped out on the inside to be coffee shops, luxury goods shops, and other ways to spend your money. And money is important here - it's a popular area for expats and big spenders:

Unfortunately, it's hard to tell the unique architecture from this shot. Turns out I didn't take that many photos on this trip.

But like any self-respecting district in Shanghai - of course there are skyscrapers!

This gives you an idea of the kind of folks that might hang out around Xintiandi

Also notable about this district is that it is home to the location of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China. For all the criticism we from the "West" have of the CPC, it cannot be denied that China would not be what it is today without the Party. As mentioned in my previous post, this year commemorates 90 years since the CPC's founding, and so, appropriately, we paid this historical spot a visit. Unfortunately, we could not take many photos - there were quite a few cool exhibits with original documents, weapons, and relics from the turbulent Chinese Republic period (1911-1949) during whilst China was searching for its post-Imperial identity. But you'll just have to take my word for it and/or come and see for yourself. Once you get to Shanghai, it's cheap - the admission to the museum/site is free!

Hammer and Sickle

One of the lanes that you can traverse on the site

More adventures next time!

Bigger and Faster in China

2011-06-30T22:59:00.000-05:00

So, today is a big day here in China, and especially in Shanghai.

First of all, today is the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party of China, which held ts first congress here in Shanghai. Ever since we got here, this event was being promoted on TV and in newspapers all over town. Many of the people I work with are participating in "Red Song" events, commemorating the anniversary.

In conjunction with the 90th anniversary of the Party, China also opened its latest and greatest civil engineering projects for business. The first is the longest cross-sea bridge in the world, the Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, an 8-lane bridge spanning over 41 km connecting two business districts of Qingdao. The second, and more publicized, project is the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed rail, which offers airplane-like speed coupled with more comfort at comparable prices. Previously, a the fastest train ride between Beijing and Shanghai would take over 9 hours, but the new trains can cover the 1,318 km in under 5 hours, depending on the class of ticket you buy, with the training reaching top speeds of over 350 km/hr!

If there's one thing that really stands out about China - they like to do things big and fast! Unfortunately, the same can't be said for in-city traffic!

2011 Shanghai Adventure - Part Two

2011-06-28T03:07:00.002-05:00

First, a cute video to whet your appetites (Facebook readers, please go to the original post to see the video!)

So, we've been in China for about two weeks now. My TPM has gone back stateside, so my workdays are largely relegated to doing documentation and research from our onsite hotel/office. It's less stressful, but it can definitely get a little lonely sitting in that office all by my onesome! However, I did get a chance to visit my company's official office in Shanghai and met some of our local personnel, who are available to help me out if I need anything:

Cute receptionist Tiffany manning her station at the Shanghai office

As I mentioned in my last post, Shanghai's weather has gotten substantially better. At least from the standpoint of being able to see the sky and things like that. I've been thus able to get a lot better shots of the scenery from my window:

Our hotel, in real, live sunlight! Or something close to it...

Night lights

More lights!

Mediocre attempt at long-exposure highway shot

Blue skies???!?!?!!?! in Shanghai?!?!?!

Okay, bluish grey anyway...

With a proper zoom lens, I could properly show you the taiji practitioners at Zhongshan Park in the morning...

You can see the iconic Bund skyscrapers from my hotel lounge! From left to right, the Oriental Pearl, the Grand Hyatt, and the International Trade Center

Just another cityscape shot...

We started to do a little apartment/house hunting this past week as well. There are some very nicely equipped "serviced apartments" in Shanghai. These are basically fully furnished apartments that come with housekeeping and bedding and linen changing services, similar to a hotel. They're quite popular with expatriates because of this convenience, and I have to add that, with the sheer amount of dust that accumulates within minutes in Shanghai, it certainly helps to have some housekeeping services!

But the highlight of this past week was a visit to Wuxi, where Cherry is from. Actually, she's actually from Mashan, which is a small, somewhat rural suburb of Wuxi roughly an hour's drive from the center of the city. To get there, we took the new high speed rail early in the morning.

High speed rail station

Fifi fell off the bed the previous day, leaving a little red mustache!

The first-class coach

The high speed train

Moving along at high speeds

And high speed it was! I was thoroughly impressed when I saw that we had reached speeds of 188 km/hr, but towards the end of the trip, the speedometer got much, much higher:

Roughly 200 miles per hour!

After about an hour on the train, we arrived in Wuxi, where my wife's sister-in-law picked us up. After another hour on the road, we arrived at Cherry's house, where we were promptly greeted by Grandma and Grandpa!

Grandma and Aunt

Reunited with Grandma

Aunt

Grandpa

We took Fifi out for a stroll around Mommy's hometown:

Outside a local restaurant

A lady in the street admires Fifi and her wheels

The street

Grandma caught up with us on a tricycle

Chickens in the street

Grandma in front of the path she forged to her illegitimate vegetable garden

Fishing in the canal

Willow!

Before long, Uncle and Cousin Wenping came home to meet Fifi too!

Fifi bonded right away with her newly met relatives

Wataaah! Chop Choy!

Big Smiles

Fifi was also expectedly a hit with the elderly folk in the neighborhood:

To commemorate Fifi's first trip back to her mother's hometown, we went to get some family photos taken:

The photographer's mediocre skills couldn't keep up with my awesome camera

After taking pictures, sister-in-law took us to her clothing shop to let me pick out some nice clothes. Of course, Fifi was a main attraction there as well:

On the way to the shop

Some tiny domestic dogs that terrified Cousin Wenping

Dolphin statue

Sister-in-law's storefront

Sister-in-law's sister-in-law

I'm actually not sure who this is... but Fifi doesn't seem to care

After picking out some slick threaded back to have dinner with some of Fifi's great-grand-relatives - Cherry's dad's uncle and aunt!

Fifi's great-grand uncle and great-grand aunt!

After dinner, we headed back to Shanghai, getting ready for our third week in China!

2011 Shanghai Adventure - Part One

2011-06-19T17:13:00.002-05:00

So, my first week in Shanghai has come to a close. I'm not going to lie - it's been a pretty stressful week with quite a few ups and downs - including a pretty big argument about halfway through the week that I wanted to note for posterity, but don't really want to go into detail about. So, without any further ado, on to the travelogue!

So Ed came over on our last day before the trip because he needed a little company after some personal issues. This allowed him to see us off at the airport!

Uncle Ed sent us off at the airport

Shortly thereafter, we hopped on the plane to Detroit!

I'm on a plane!

In Detroit, we met up with my Technical Program Manager, Jay:

Who needs teething rings when you have carrots!

Some 20 hours after leaving Florida, we finally arrived in Shanghai! Near our hotel is this Best Buy! Unfortunately, we won't be buying anything from this Best Buy, because the chain has since closed through all of China. Apparently, Best Buy's business model of trading off low prices for better customer service doesn't fly well in China...

Defunct Best Buy

Before long, we entered our hotel, the Zhongshan Park Renaissance!

External shot of the hotel

Main Lobby

Sittin' on the bed

Snazzy bathtub

The living room!

The reason we opted for this hotel was because it was comparably priced to the hotel my company usually stays at when we come to Shanghai, but with the added benefit of having a separate work/living area from the bedroom.

Some other perks of my room in the hotel are unlimited access to the lounge on the 58th floor, which provides virtually an unlimited supply of alcohol and soft drinks from 6AM to 11PM, plus has a full buffet breakfast in the morning, some finger foods during supper hours, and some late night snacks and desserts!

A nice stairwell in the lounge

Flowers and fruit

Crawling along the windowsill

The view from the Lounge

Artsy decoration in the lounge

Grabbing Breakfast

And eating it!

Food spread!

The lounge isn't the only place we can get good views, however. From our 47th floor suite, the views aren't half bad either!

Nighttime cityscape

Hanging out by the window

Pressed up against the glass

The view from our bathroom!

Visibility has been a bit hit-and-miss, with mostly misses as it rained most of the week. But today, the visibility is first class! I'll have to add some photos next time!

The other perk we've used in the hotel is the first-class gym!

Yes, that is a boxing ring

All sorts of equipment!

Treadmills overlooking the city

Another huge plus of our hotel is that it's actually co-located with one of the premier shopping malls in Shanghai, so we have easy access to a Carrefour supermarket, a Toys 'R Us, a whole bunch of high end apparel and accessory shops, and of course, lots of food!

So that's about what we've explored of the hotel so far. But of course, the primary purpose of this trip is for work. And work has been an adventure in its own right. With Jay in town, the customer wanted us to participate in meetings all week discussing contractual issues. These meetings are often 3-4 hours long with a lot of locking horns, so it's a bit stressful and a pretty new experience for me.

We usually meet with the customer in this building - the Astronautics Hotel

This is the onsite office provided by our customer. It's actually a converted hotel room.

Getting to work has been fun for me. For the first few days, we relied exclusively on the taxis, which are relatively cheap - it's about 30 RMB per trip, which is about $4 USD. However, in the middle of the week, I got adventurous and decided to use the metro! The metro is actually usually a bit quicker, but of course you have to walk a bit to get to the station. However, it's hard to beat the price - just 3 RMB (roughly 50 cents) per trip!

The metro is fast and cheap! But a little crowded...

Part of our adventure is also finding out ways to reduce costs. China, and Shanghai in particular, has become surprisingly expensive. Our first area of cost reduction was switching from eating room service and instead using the plethora of dining options in the shopping mall below. Another big discovery was the Laundry Express service. The hotel has a laundry service, but it charges an arm and a leg for each piece of laundry (around 50RMB per article! Including tiny baby clothes!). Laundry Express is still expensive, but it charges by the load, which makes a huge difference.

That's all for this edition of 2011 Shanghai Adventure! Tune in next time for more!

It was a bit windy on this day...

We're going to China to have Breakfast!

2011-06-11T14:59:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure where the title quote is from - but Cherry says it's from some cartoon show on QUBO channel, which is Fifi's favorite TV channel.

Anyhow, I thought it was an appropriate title since, in a few days, the statement will be true! My company has sent me on assignment to Shanghai, so the next few posts will be chronicling our latest adventures!

We tried to save on airfare this way... but the airline wouldn't have any of it...

Of course, that's assuming I'll be able to get past the Great Firewall and onto Blogger somehow... but keep an eye out - we here at Grant's Pad are a resourceful bunch!

Memorial Day Weekend 2011

2011-05-30T09:13:00.000-05:00

The last few weeks have been super busy, as evidenced once again by the low blog post frequency. But Fifi has had a lot of fun over the last few weeks, as well as some sad times as well. We've gotten her to pretty consistently sleep on her own at night, and we've even gotten away from having to hold and rock her to sleep most of the time during the day. As such, we've had a lot more energy than what has been typical in the last couple months since Cherry's mom went home.

The extra energy has allowed us to do things that we hadn't done in a while, like go to the mall! A few weeks ago, we went to the mall and let Fifi ride the (overly pricey) train ride. While three bucks for a ride around the mall seems like a total ripoff, to see Fifi's face light up while she was on the train is absolutely priceless:

Choo choo!

Why isn't Mommy on the train?

Fifi's also grown more and more courageous/capable with her crawling expeditions. Just a few weeks ago, she would try to crawl under the executive desk in my home office, but get stuck!

FAIL

This last week, however, she figured out how to get all the way under and through tables all through the house!

WIN

This past weekend, because of the long weekend, we decided to go ahead and spend a day or two in South Florida to visit my parents and siblings. It had been a while since they had seen Fifi, so it took her some time to get familiar, but not long afterwards, she was full steam ahead!

I remember Grandma now!

Fifi's been eating baby cereal mixed with veggie and fruit purees lately, but she's not really good at eating whole foods yet. However, that doesn't stop her from trying! Here's a cute series of Fifi trying a banana at the restaurant that Ed took, complete with his captioning:

"mmmm BANANANANAAAA!!"

"YUM!"

"wait..."

"WHAAAT?!"

We'd see this reaction out of Fifi several times now - she usually puckers up, squints her eyes, and shivers when she tries a new food!

The next morning, we went to South County Regional Park for a walk. Fifi'd been here once before, when she was still in Mommy's tummy! But this time, she was able to see it all for herself! Of course, it was also a good opportunity for Ed to shoot with his Canon 40D and his new gigantic L-series 100-400mm lens!

Cherry and I had decided to travel light, so we just shot with our Canon PowerShot SD1200IS. You can view some of our shots below!

Canon 40D with L-Series 100-400, shot from approximately 3 stories down

I had to play with Ed's new lens as well - this is taken from around 50 feet away...

Woodpecker, shot from the ground with the Canon 40D L-series Lens

Another woodpecker, taken with the PowerShot SD1200IS

Dragonfly with Canon 40D and L-Series Lens

Cardinal, shot with the Canon 40D and L-Series lens

Same bird at the same distance, using the PowerShot SD1200IS

Spider, shot with the Canon 40D and L-Series Lens

Some dead wood, shot with my PowerShot SD1200IS and slightly post-processed using a focal B&W effect

The landscape, taken with my Canon PowerShot SD1200IS

Some berries, taken with the PowerShot

Fifi and Mommy in the pavilion, taken with the PowerShot

Ed taking a photo of me taking a photo of Fifi, using his Canon 40D and L-Series of course

That's all for this update!

Fifi Testing the Tile

2011-05-18T20:48:00.000-05:00

Baby video cop-out today!

In this video, Fifi, who has learned to crawl at right around age 6 months, has discovered that the tile is a very different world than the carpet. She keeps testing it, but never gets the courage to venture out on it!

Enjoy!

So I've been diagnosed with...

2011-05-13T20:03:00.000-05:00

Gout. Yes, gout. The "rich man's disease".

The diagnosis was quite a surprise to me, considering my relatively young age. Most people, including myself, typically consider gout to be something contracted by men right around the top of the hill. I certainly wasn't expecting to hear that I had a gout attack!

So it started late Sunday afternoon, when I began to feel some throbbing pain in the top part of the outside edge of my right foot. Thinking back, I had actually experienced this kind of pain once or twice in the past year or two. This was also the foot that I had rolled many times in sparring matches and playing football over the years, so I figured it was probably related to that. However, it did occur to me as somewhat odd that I could not recall experiencing any sort of trauma to that foot prior to the onset of pain. In any case, I went to sleep, thinking that the rest would help in the recovery.

That didn't happen. Early Monday morning, I decided to try to rub some tiger balm on it before going to work. Then, as the day progressed, the pain worsened to the point where my whole lower leg started to feel stiff and cold, and people saw me hobbling about and wondered what had happened. I told them that I didn't know, because, as stated earlier, I didn't sprain it or bang it on anything or anything like that! That evening, when I got home, I gave my now swollen foot a good long soak in hot water, which seemed to help a bit, and eventually was able to go to sleep again.

On Tuesday, the pain seemed to be subsiding, and my limp had definitely reduced. In fact, I was able to work through most of the day without much issue. However, after going to bed on Tuesday night, I woke up in pain at about 4 on Wednesday morning. It was almost as painful as the peak on Monday.

I decided to go see the podiatrist on Wednesday afternoon, and, although the X-Rays showed some excess bone right around the area of pain, the doctor said that he still suspected gout. He promptly gave me a nerve blocker shot to help ease the pain and improve my circulation, and shortly after I was able to walk again almost limp-free. He sent me to get my blood tested for uric acid, a substance that's usually removed by your kidneys but that could get into your bloodstream and crystallize around your tendons, which often causes gout attacks.

The results of my blood test came back today. My levels were pretty average, which makes it somewhat difficult to determine if I actually had a gout attack. However, the doctor said that these tests are not definitive, especially since uric acid levels fluctuate - they spike up when you have an attack and go back down again over time. So, he still thinks that's what happened, and seeing as I've had a few, more minor incidents of foot pain over the last couple of years, as much as I'd hate to admit it, I have to acknowledge that possibility.

Getting older sucks...

New Choy Lay Fut Feature Film!

2011-05-05T18:01:00.000-05:00

Wow, I had no idea that Sammo Hung made this!

For those of you who don't know, my primary martial art is Choy Lay Fut. It's not very well known outside of kung fu circles, so it's pretty cool to see a large production based on it!

Enjoy!