Instead, the words kept being about something else. Like, say, Ithaca by Constantine P. Cavafy.

Ithaca was shared with me by a very good friend some dozen years ago. Under what context I forget now. But to this day, whenever I set foot in a new part of the world I think to myself, hah, I made it. In Ithaca, these would’ve been my Phoenician markets and Egyptian cities… But more and more, the last line of the poem makes me think different: “that you should understand already what these Ithacas mean”.

These Ithacas? What’s with the plural? Hm… So, change of perspective in recent years — I no longer think of Ithaca as a someday-someplace thing. Ithaca is when I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb– no wait, wrong reality. Oh yea, Ithaca is when I learned to stop worrying about what others thought you were supposed to be doing.

If I did what others thought I was supposed to do I would have more than likely, to say nothing of where I’d be living and what kind of job I’d be holding down, be visiting the Tower of London in a theme park in Shenzhen; I wouldn’t be in London, looking at the Tower of London and getting drenched, while walking Tower Bridge, in a storm that was so quick and fierce it felt like getting sandblasted. How can one even begin to compare the experience of that to seeing a facsimile completely removed from context in a different continent?

My mother has an anecdote she likes to bore us with every so often: her scrooge-like bosshad once declared, “No need to travel lah, watch tv can already.” To which she responded (very wittyly too, she would tell you), “Ya lah, you also no need to eat lah, see pictures can already.”

Pictures, images, and miniatures only tell you so much of the story. The rest is for you to write your own. This entry is 3 months late. With any luck, the rest of this summer will be more productive for fatuitous thoughts, and more Ithacas to follow.

It looks like the sort of thing that might be called “comtemporary luxury with a touch of whimsy” in magazines.

But all this eclectic modern sophistication is not the main point. The main point, the real kicker, is that – are you ready for it – this hotel has a “Modern Malaysian” restaurant, named “Suka” (Malay for “like”).

The menu lists such items as

PAPAYA & PORK BELLY SALAD
Slow braised and crisped pork belly tossed in chili vinaigrette with papaya, roasted jalapeno and spring onions
£11.00

LOBSTER WONTON MEE
Egg noodles cooked with poached lobster, lobster consommé and lobster wontons
£22.00

PUMPKIN TART TATIN
Spiced butternut squash tart with gula melaka syrup and crystalised ginger ice cream
£7.00

If you say, “So expenseef! Go all the way to London to eat fried rice?” then you are not the intended audience, theirs or mine. And if you (God forbid) say that we are apeing the West and still after all these years enslaving our culture to theirs, then I have nothing more to say to you.

But I’ve now added another entry to the List of Places To Go Before I Die.

How did I come across this, you ask?

I was wandering around here. (The rest of the site may not be work-safe.)

Patty Griffin – Burgundy Shoes, 2007

“My friend said ‘What the heck you don’t have any happy songs at all. You really should try to write a happy song.’ So I went home, and this is my first stab at happy song. It goes like this – and of course it’s got to do with shoes. And my mum.”

We wait for the bus that’s going to Bangor
In my plaid dress and burgundy shoes
In your red lipstick and lilac kerchief
You’re the most pretty lady in the world
Sun

Pity UofM doesn’t have a library science program.

I’ll be back to Bumfuck, Indiana on Sunday.

Toodles till then.

It’s not the A380 but the A340 is a pretty sweet piece of equipment.

This is the last time I’ll be flying the BKK-JFK route. Thai Airways will no longer fly this route beginning the first of July. Also, they’re selling all the A340s in their fleet. The rise in oil prices has made the endeavor a loss making one.

Siiiiiiigh…

yes, I do need a frikkin haircut.
yes, that’s GRACE.
yes, I’m “back”; as in back to reality and away from vegas.

And Tommy Trojan is keeping well:

My camera lens, however, is cruddy as hell.

And what happens in Vegas… stays in Vegas until you ask me in person cause I’m too effin tired to type.

I just got up from a 10+ hour sleep. That really helped since I passed on sleep the previous nite. Heh.

We’re leaving for LV but not before a stop downtown for Chanos.

My mind can’t wrap around the fact that I’m back here. It’s familiar and wonderful; at the same time things are happening in a blur.

Traffic on the 405 is still evil. Anyone who’s ever been in this town for more than 2 days would have known that but not Grace, going on 8th year Angelino. :p

At least it has free wifi. Or I be very upset.

My upset face:

This sucks because I am losing precious hours that I can spend cavorting around southern cal. That’s right, I said ‘cavorting’.

The bro texted and said that with the hammering they’re getting from the current front, it’s entirely possible that his flight out will be cancelled.

siiiiiiigh.

I also met up with H on Monday – almost exactly 4 years to the day since I last saw her when she went out to LA for my graduation.

The brother and I got to experience rush hour subway travel. That was almost like Hong Kong but grungier. 

Right now it is still wet and cold and threatening to rain more. I think the statue is going off our itinerary. Met, here I come!

Mom, Dad and Bro #1 went on those boats that take you up close and personal with the falls. Bro #2 and I stayed on the observation deck to watch – we weren’t up for that this time.

But then later, in a fit of temporary insanity, we all went down the ‘cave of the winds‘ and had a close encounter with the Bridal Veil Falls. (The link lies about the price of admission!)

The Cave tour takes you down the gorge and we were all deliriously soaked at the end of it. But we couldn’t find a t-shirt that says “I Survived The Hurricane Deck!”.

Anyway, this is one of those places you need to see for yourself. Soak it up. Literally.

My brother graduates today. Woo!

The 18-hour flight from Bangkok was pleasant – as pleasant as being stuck in a plane for a better part of your young life can be.

weather in wonderful Buffalo, as predicted, is wet, very wet, and slightly wet. Temp is nice in the mid to high teens. windy. like Chicago. The weather channel is my good friend.

Today (it’s now 5.45a.m. on Friday) we’re supposed to go to Niagara Falls but I don’t know how long we’re gonna wanna be out in the drizzle. Not much sun either, mind.

We brought the wet weather to the northeast and we’re also Sabres bad luck charm as they went down to top seeded Ottawa Senators last night, 2-1, failing to sweep the playoff. Teehee.

I hope someone will scan the postcard and post it.

But here are the only 5 photos from my visit I got time for.

Road towards Office:

Road away from Office:

View from the Office Balcony 1:

View from Office Balcony 2:

This one is at the Frankfurt airport showing the cafe next to the McDonald’s:

The trip to Romania was postponed once and again but we finally left for Romania in the fourth week of February. As with every long flight, there were unpleasant characters who would irritate not just me but fellow passengers and even the flight crew. However, that’s not what I am going to write about.

It was the end of winter and not yet the beginning of spring, and it even snowed the week before we arrived. Thus the temperature was mostly below 10 degrees Celcius.

The first surprise was the size of the  Henri Coandă International Airport. I don’t have the specifics but I thought it felt quite small. I found out later on the way out of Romania that it has only about 10 gates. Oh, and photo taking is strictly not allowed.

The next thing I learned was that the people resented the former president, Nicolae Ceauşescu, so much so that the Palace of the Parliament with a total area of 350,000m², 1,100 rooms and 12 storeys tall, was left unused for a very long time since 1989.

On my first day in Bucharest, I had the opportunity to interact with the local young people. They speak good English and were very fashion conscious, but much better behaved than some in Western European cities.

During my daily travel to the office via the Metroul BucureÅŸti, I noticed the female office crowd were very neatly attired and fashionable too. And maybe it’s just the area that I was in but I thought they all walked like Ally McBeal.

Well, there are much more nitty gritty details that I have whined about but I felt the above observations made a significant impact on my impression of Romania. Perhaps I should make another trip, and visit Prague too.