Not Made in China!

It's not earth-shattering news, but I was surprised by one key aspect of a product I picked up today.


I knew Philips was originally a Dutch company, but I really didn't expect to buy a new shaver made in the Netherlands.

A Defining Image

Generally our vacation pics end up being one of us taking a snapshot of the other in front of a famous site. The goal is simiply to document the visit and the time we spend there. I don't ever pack my camera with the intention of taking prize-winning photos.



Once in a while, however, quite by accident, a defining image emerges from the files. I'd like to think this photo taken from Tienanmen Square sort of acts to represent the Beijing portion of last month's trip to China and Malaysia. I don't really know what the picture is supposed to be saying, but I think it has a special quality which I like a lot.

Freedom of the Press

Our little city has a twice-weekly newspaper called, The Royal City Record. A while back they started the tradition of printing folks on vacation showing an issue of their paper. We have already done this a number of times so far. I still have some fading, yellow paper copies somewhere.

I had to hunt up a picture from the most recently completed trip too. We made it to several countries though, so this time Jay will send in a separate one of Malaysia. I am going to email the following image of me right now.



In it, I am standing in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. I never really stopped to think how Chinese authorities might react if they'd seen my stunt. I wasn't making any comment about their government in the photo. Yet, a free press is a pretty foreign idea for them at the present time.

A year ago, we sent The Record one from Marrakech, Morocco. If you have patience and an eagle eye, you might be able to spot it among the 13 which were published that month. I didn't even know previous ones were kept on the website until I just checked when writing this entry. We may have others. I am pretty sure, though, that we didn't take along the New Westminster newspaper during this spring's visit to Central America.

Good Planning Makes for a Good Trip

We've still got two and a half weeks before this year's second big trip. I fear that we have been focusing mostly on preparing for the segment in China up to now. That portion of the trip requires visas. Also, as we've decided to do it alone, we've heard that it's a good idea to plan things such as hotels before leaving. I see that many folks still take tours in groups when going to Mainland China as little English is spoken there. In addition, we've had three main cities to reasearch: Shanghai, Beijing, and Xi'an. We will be there for around two weeks in total.

The other segment of our trip is also new to us. We've never been to the country Malaysia. That's what is finally occupying the majority of our research now. We will focus on just Kuala Lumpur and Penang. It is an easier place to travel as backpackers, or so we've been led to believe. We're only there for 10 nights. Now though, I'm looking forward to that stretch of the journey just as much as the first. We've not been in that little corner of the world for quite a long time, except for a few weeks in Thailand and Cambodia in 2009. In fact this photo below is 19 years old. This might be evidenced by the size of the lenses in my glasses as well as the bulk of the camcorder!


Borobudur is an 8th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia.

Drop It In Here. Use It There.

I have noticed how dropbox changes the lives of people who use it. Students never seem to carry around USB memory anymore. If you've got Internet, then you can have access to your commonly used files. The concept is brilliant as it allows 'sharing' by an email link as well. I can drop something in my public folder in order to share with anyone. Furthermore, dropbox applications can run on all sorts of platforms or in any computer browser. I have it loaded on all systems and my Android phone. I mentioned dropbox on Facebook and a friend, Bret Wirta, mentioned he finds it useful too. It's nice to have intelligent company.

Universal storage space on the Internet is what people mean when they talk about the cloud, although some implementations like online email have been around for a long time now. As an aside, I have never understood why anyone would want a standalone email client in this day and age. I demand that my email data be available from everywhere. The fact I was able to send out a message with attached picture from a desolate beach yesterday shows the benefits of online and cloud services.

I wanted to suggest another use for dropbox. I think it's going to be useful for travel. I have put passport copies and important document PDFs in a special folder. Today, I thought that I should also carry maps and information from guide books in a folder as well. I'll just snap a photo and upload it. Why print out something extra to carry along?

Border Crossing Authorization

We decided to go turn in paperwork today in order to process our tourist visas for China. There's a full embassy in Vancouver but one has to visit the Chinese Consulate General at 1338 West Broadway for visas. We'd filled in our forms on an online PDF form yesterday. We had printed them and affixed a passport-type photo.

The line was long. We got there and 'took a number' at about 9:20 am. Our number was #831 but the electronic counter showed just 757 at that point. The queue went more quickly than one would expect because a lot of people who'd taken a number had decided the wait would be too long. So on occasion three or four numbers clicked by at once. On the other hand, there were only two windows and often people would have to return after making a photocopy or something and need to go to the window directly. I didn't mind waiting at all as I was in a zone where it felt like I was already on vacation. The experience was ... well ...just part of the experience. When we finally got to the window, it only took several minutes for the officer to check the papers. She gave a slip needed after four business days to pick them up. Apparently a lot of people were attempting to pay double fees in order to complete the process in one day. We're in no hurry as we're not leaving until September 14th. It was probably 11:30 by the time we left.

It was a beautiful summer day, so we went to look around Granville Island. We also had lunch on the way back to New Westminster.



I am trying to think of the last time we needed to get a paper visa before a trip. It's been years, I think. Well, on last year's trip to Cambodia, we did the whole application online but the visa was waiting for us when we crossed the border on the highway from Thailand. When, travelling on Canadian passports, getting visas, if required, are usually granted right at the airport.

Doing Homework for Real Life

It's time to hit the books again!

Well in this case, we can study the books as well as view several videos. Although there is a tremendous amount of travel material online, there's still the reassuring organization of a well-written travel guide. When one travels like we do, we need to learn about the places before going. We generally get right out there and experience things on our own. Of the dozens and dozens of countries visited, there was nary a need for a tour group. I don't find them particularly insightful unless one has been too lazy to research what one is actually going to see. More importantly, I hate having to stay on someone else's itinerary.

For research reasons, I stopped by the municipal library on the way home from class this afternoon. These materials were on the shelf in the New Westminster Public Library. My library card also works in Burnaby, so I will probably stop in the new Edmonds location after we're finished with today's booty.

Doing a Little Pinning

I hadn't looked at my TripAdvisor world map for quite some time. In fact, I had to turn the pins in Central America from the green 'Going' to the yellow 'Been'. I am now confident in adding new pins in China and Malaysia too. The autumn flights have already been ticketed via expedia.ca.

1. Hong Kong, China
2. Prague, Czech Republic
3. San Francisco, CA, USA
4. Barcelona, Spain
5. New York City, NY, USA
6. Fes, Morocco
7. Siem Reap, Cambodia
8. Budapest, Hungary
9. Varanasi, India
10. Paris, France
11. Istanbul, Turkey
12. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
13. Unawatuna, Sri Lanka
14. Naples, Italy

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Autumn Approaches Rapidly!

I don't often run into colleagues at work. Generally, I run directly to class without seeing any staff due to our vastly different schedules. I did meet Lynda, another teacher, last week when walking back to the parking lot. She asked about this fall's big trip. I didn't have an answer! It should be said that finding me without a lot to say happens on rare occasions only.

I love my job for many reasons but an important one is that I'm pretty much able to chose my own schedule. For example, I'm teaching three days a week until the middle of August this year.

For at least a decade, September and October have been the time we take on our larger, annual vacation. We find it a perfect time of year to get away. Usually, the summer crowds have dissipated but the weather in many destinations is great. In recent autumns, we've seen such far-flung countries as Spain, Cambodia, Morocco, Italy, and Sri Lanka.



We usually have started discussing possible places to visit by this time of year. In fact, by the end of June, we've had plane tickets in hand. We're not tour-group type people, so any trip requires a lot of preliminary research. Just in the past few days, we have seriously started narrowing down our options. I think a month away could include a chance to see a great deal of Malaysia and perhaps 10 days, either coming or going, in China. I am ready to see the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors.