We've been on our Antarctic adventure cruise for a few days now, and we just finished crossing the Drake Passage. It was terrible. The Drake Passage is always the most difficult part of the trip. The waters are VERY rough and almost every passenger on the ship had a tough time. It's so bad that even when you're lying in bed, the motion of the ocean will make you slide around. It's crazy.
Traveling is fun - IMO, one of the main reasons traveling is fun is because you have to figure stuff out and solve problems. There are so many unknowns when you go to a foreign country, it forces you have to figure stuff out, like: How am I going to get from the airport to my hotel? Will people understand English or my crappy Spanish? Where is the best place to exchange currency? Am I going to get ripped off? Will the taxi driver drive me to the middle of nowhere and kill me? Will I be able to find all the restaurants in the Frommer's guide? Are my city maps accurate? Will I be able to figure out the public transportation system? Where can I get free internet? So many important problems to solve...
(We didn't have an internet connection for 17 days, so I'm back-dating these posts as if you were receiving them real-time.)
We're on our way to Antarctica. Yup. You heard correctly. We are going to Antarctica via Argentina, so we'll spend a couple of days on both ends in Buenos Aires. When we tell people we're going to Antarctica, the first question they ask is, " now why would you want to do THAT?" There are actually plenty of tourists who go to Antarctica each season, but most people have just never considered it. The only reason this showed up on our radar is because my sister Renee heard about an opportunity to be a cruise ship doctor from one of her ER colleagues, so she applied and got accepted. The deal is that she gets to go for free and gets to bring one person for free, so she asked if we wanted to go with her. Then all three of us could go for the price on one. And to us Chinese people, that's a pretty good deal, so naturally we couldn't resist.
We moved! But don't freak out - we're still in Austin. For those of you who don't know, since the real estate market is in the crapper, we had to sell our house in North Austin and move into one of the homes I built in Travis Heights near downtown. Of course this wasn't the original plan, but it was our best option given that we couldn't sell the Travis Heights house. But we feel fortunate that we were able to sell our North Austin home in this market. Of course we had to lower the price considerably from the original asking price, but whatever. At least we had the option to move...
We voted! Hurray! We did our civic duty. Early voting opened on Monday and we went because we didn't want to wait in long lines like we did in 2004. Yes, even though we vote only once every 4 years, at least we take it seriously. We've been looking forward to this for a few months now. Even Jocelin was pretty pumped. It's just too bad there wasn't a candidate we were terribly excited about. Like most people, we felt like it was about voting for the lesser of two evils. But who knows, if Obama wins, maybe that means that Jesus will come back sooner? Because I'd be ok with that. In fact, I'd be perfectly happy if Jesus wanted to come back this weekend...
The day after Hurricane Ike hit Houston, several of our good friends fled to our home in Austin, where electricity was plentiful. At one point, we had 9 adults, 1 two-year-old, 2 6-month-old twins. and a dog in the house. For a week and a half, there was no privacy anywhere. Every single room had a mattress or a person in it - usually both. During our time together, 5 people got sick. It's a good thing that all of us are great friends, otherwise this kind of communal-style living would have been awkward.
Not only is September 8th Jocelin's birthday, it is ALSO my mom's birthday. This year she turned 60 and had a big celebration in Hong Kong with family. Since we weren't going all the way to Hong Kong, we didn't hear about the party until the last minute, and we were asked to put together a video/slideshow/whatever to show at her party. So last night Jocelin and I stayed up until 2am putting this together:
This past Saturday I rode my bike to the bank and went through the drive-thru. I thought that was pretty cool.
On a different topic, Jocelin and I were talking about how we'd like to see a movie similar to Alien vs. Predator, but with the "good guys" instead. Wouldn't it be cool to see Jack Bauer vs. Jason Bourne vs. Rambo? That would be so sweet.
On one of our excursions called the "jungle tour", we got to drive around in our own little speedboat to a pretty decent snorkeling site. Our guide gave us instructions not to weave in and out of the wake because it was dangerous for the other boats. I was like, ok, no problem. So as I was following him in our speedboat I was doing little mini-weaves back and forth from left to right (the "miami vice" as I called it), but staying within the boundaries of the wake, of course. Apparently, we did not understand his directions correctly, because about 20 minutes into the ride, he looked back at us and just lost it. He turned around, pulled his boat next to ours, and started yelling and screaming at me because I was being a danger to humanity. At first I was like, is he serious? But after he threatened to take us all back, I turned to Joce and said, I don't think he's joking. I was like, dude, I'm sorry, I didn't know what you meant, I thought you were trying to tell me just stay inside the wake. But he kept yelling and screaming and saying stuff like, what happens if the other boats flip over? After a few minutes, he calmed down, directed us to get in the back of the line where we couldn't injure anyone, and then took us to the snorkeling site. Jocelin was really scared, and she rebuked me, saying, look what you did, why can't you just follow the rules, how come you had to do the miami-vice? I was like, hey, look on the bright side: at least we don't have to tip him anymore!
1. All of the food here is fairly decent, with one exception: the oriental food. It's just terrible. Which just baffles me because isn't it the Mexicans who are cooking all the food at P.F. Changs? But I guess it's like expecting good Mexican food in China. Can you imagine what kind of disaster that would be? Chinese people cooking Mexican food? That's so gross it's funny.
We've been on our Antarctic adventure cruise for a few days now, and we just finished crossing the Drake Passage. It was terrible. The Drake Passage is always the most difficult part of the trip. The waters are VERY rough and almost every passenger on the ship had a tough time. It's so bad that even when you're lying in bed, the motion of the ocean will make you slide around. It's crazy.
Traveling is fun - IMO, one of the main reasons traveling is fun is because you have to figure stuff out and solve problems. There are so many unknowns when you go to a foreign country, it forces you have to figure stuff out, like: How am I going to get from the airport to my hotel? Will people understand English or my crappy Spanish? Where is the best place to exchange currency? Am I going to get ripped off? Will the taxi driver drive me to the middle of nowhere and kill me? Will I be able to find all the restaurants in the Frommer's guide? Are my city maps accurate? Will I be able to figure out the public transportation system? Where can I get free internet? So many important problems to solve...
(We didn't have an internet connection for 17 days, so I'm back-dating these posts as if you were receiving them real-time.)
We voted! Hurray! We did our civic duty. Early voting opened on Monday and we went because we didn't want to wait in long lines like we did in 2004. Yes, even though we vote only once every 4 years, at least we take it seriously. We've been looking forward to this for a few months now. Even Jocelin was pretty pumped. It's just too bad there wasn't a candidate we were terribly excited about. Like most people, we felt like it was about voting for the lesser of two evils. But who knows, if Obama wins, maybe that means that Jesus will come back sooner? Because I'd be ok with that. In fact, I'd be perfectly happy if Jesus wanted to come back this weekend...
The day after Hurricane Ike hit Houston, several of our good friends fled to our home in Austin, where electricity was plentiful. At one point, we had 9 adults, 1 two-year-old, 2 6-month-old twins. and a dog in the house. For a week and a half, there was no privacy anywhere. Every single room had a mattress or a person in it - usually both. During our time together, 5 people got sick. It's a good thing that all of us are great friends, otherwise this kind of communal-style living would have been awkward. 
Not only is September 8th Jocelin's birthday, it is ALSO my mom's birthday. This year she turned 60 and had a big celebration in Hong Kong with family. Since we weren't going all the way to Hong Kong, we didn't hear about the party until the last minute, and we were asked to put together a video/slideshow/whatever to show at her party. So last night Jocelin and I stayed up until 2am putting this together: 
This past Saturday I rode my bike to the bank and went through the drive-thru. I thought that was pretty cool. 
On one of our excursions called the "jungle tour", we got to drive around in our own little speedboat to a pretty decent snorkeling site. Our guide gave us instructions not to weave in and out of the wake because it was dangerous for the other boats. I was like, ok, no problem. So as I was following him in our speedboat I was doing little mini-weaves back and forth from left to right (the "miami vice" as I called it), but staying within the boundaries of the wake, of course. Apparently, we did not understand his directions correctly, because about 20 minutes into the ride, he looked back at us and just lost it. He turned around, pulled his boat next to ours, and started yelling and screaming at me because I was being a danger to humanity. At first I was like, is he serious? But after he threatened to take us all back, I turned to Joce and said, I don't think he's joking. I was like, dude, I'm sorry, I didn't know what you meant, I thought you were trying to tell me just stay inside the wake. But he kept yelling and screaming and saying stuff like, what happens if the other boats flip over? After a few minutes, he calmed down, directed us to get in the back of the line where we couldn't injure anyone, and then took us to the snorkeling site. Jocelin was really scared, and she rebuked me, saying, look what you did, why can't you just follow the rules, how come you had to do the miami-vice? I was like, hey, look on the bright side: at least we don't have to tip him anymore!
1. All of the food here is fairly decent, with one exception: the oriental food. It's just terrible. Which just baffles me because isn't it the Mexicans who are cooking all the food at P.F. Changs? But I guess it's like expecting good Mexican food in China. Can you imagine what kind of disaster that would be? Chinese people cooking Mexican food? That's so gross it's funny.