Jiuzhaigou pictures

This is the link to the pictures from the Chinese national park at Jiuzhaigou that I visited 2 weeks ago.

http://web.mac.com/damiaolo/iWeb/jiuzhaigou/Page%201.html

VLC player

VLC player is a software program that runs on every single platforms, almost. It is a very versatile and is free! It plays pretty much all the formats which Microsoft Windows Media Player has problem. If you have problem playing videos, audios or streaming, try this VLC player. Download at: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Vista part 3...

Had to reinstall everything from scratch on the sony laptop. Somehow there was a conflict to the sony internal webcam driver with a programs.... This, I had never seen before. Despite my every effort, I had no choice. Restore the computer back to when I got it in HK resolved the problem; now, just have to apply all the patchings and the software I need, one by one.... Make sure the conflict won't happen again. A pain in the butts.

Going to Boston

Another early flight; pretty soon, I am going to be my own jet! Darn it! Good thing I was in shape - not round. Interesting though, Pearson is huge; but the US immigration people were hard to find. We only had one US officer for all the US transit people! So allow a lot of time - 2 hours is a must!

I must have flown too much; as I walked into the YYZ to BOS flight, the flight attendant was the one who served me last December going to Thunder Bay. What's the odd of that? Keep this type of coincident, I may have to buy more lottery tickets.

Back in Canada ...

Back in Canada; the flight from PVG to YVR was brutal. The plane was packed. Actually oversold by a lot; AC was asking people to get off. Go figure. The seats in the back were much tighter than I remembered. Pretty cramped; but good thing it was only 10 hours or so. The service was totally bad. My meal was handed to me by shoving into my face. I thought the flight attendants were worry about spilling food and drink on their clothes than on passengers. Maybe AC has cut back the laundry expenses to the flight attendants. Out of the entire crew, I believe I saw one or two that were below 40's. The rest were in the high 50's and overweight. Wonder what happen in the event of an evac? The flight attendants would be a block or not to the aisle or the door!

One interesting thing....

At the Sheraton Jiuzhaigou, I tried using the safety deposit box. Followed the instructions, I successfully set my combinations, lock and unlocked. After that, I expect to use this same combinations as any other hotels I accustomed to. Well, this one was not. The combinations were only used ONCE. Once you have locked it, your combinations were no longer in use. And guess how to open it? It was a secret - all the staff knew, use "0#" to unlock. LOL!!! So, what good would this safety deposit box to me? Very funny indeed. The staff was so serious explaining to me how it worked. ;-)

Chengdu 成都

What a messy city! Polluted. Well... After spending time in Shanghai, this city does not appeal to me at all with the heavy pollution, cramp streets, traffic rules pretty much non-existent at times. Maybe I have not spent enough time outside yet. But....

My impression is such: city overgrown very quickly because of economic growth. Streets cannot handle that many cars and people and bicycles and motorcycles. You either see very old buildings or very new buildings side by side.

Shangri-la hotel, opened this May, provided the best oasis in Chengdu. It has everything. You really don't want to get out once you are in there. The hotel was very grandeur and very service oriented. Cafe Z offered the best dinner buffet I had ever seen! 7 or so large food stations: Japanese, southern Chinese, northern Chinese, Mediterranean, Brazilian, Indian, bakery station, dessert station. If that's not enough, skewers of meat were brought out to your tables. The total cost: $138RMB or about $20CAD.

One thing though, food is cheap in this city even in hotels. Here's the thing, I don't think I could eat any food at street level. Too much pollutions!

Very interesting...

Ummm.... I am going thru the www.google.cn site; my gmail works good and I can get back on my Google related blogs.... Wonder what's up with that.