About base layers

Ben is going on a hiking trip to Mount Kilimanjaro at the end of July. We were discussing about the gear he needed for the trip and we got to the subject of base layers.
Matt: So you bought your base layers yet?
Ben: Yeah, I spent over $100 on them, they are super comfortable and warm. Some sort of high tech wool.
Matt: Meh... Base layer are just expensive underwear. They just call them base layer so they can charge you that much for them.
me: So... Victoria Secret sells base layers then? Their under wear are really overpriced.
Matt and Ben: ...

Thoughts about photography

So Ben bought a digital SLR today, and this made me think about getting one myself. I have long been thinking of getting a nice SLR to play with. Unfortunately, lack of money, time and patience to do the research and plenty of other stupid excuses stop me from getting one.

Kuo takes amazing pictures with his old school film SLR. Check it out here.
This brought to mind one of the biggest debate I had, to get a digital SLR or an analog one. Of course people argue about quality of digital SLR, I think that we are getting closer and closer to film SLR quality. I give it a few more years, until we can get the same resolution. :) But that is not my main concern.

The one good thing about digital photography is you don't have to worry about wasting film, so you can take a million bad pictures for one good picture. The bad thing about digital photography is you don't have to worry about wasting film. When shooting with film SLR, I think I would be a lot more careful before going trigger happy and would spend more time worrying about lighting, composition, and what have you. Film is expensive after all. :)

Sierra at Tahoe

Went to Sierra for a day trip with Ben, Flo, and Alan. Lots of fun. 8 hours round trip driving. 8 hours of boarding. Not bad~ I like Sierra better than NorthStar. :) Unfortunately it is a small mountain so it is fairly crowded, especially in the lifts for Tahoe King and Grandview Express.
West Bowl is my favorite place in Sierra. The wait is shorter and the runs more tailored to my level.

Hard Blue:
- Powderhorn (Upper + lower)
- DogWood

Fun Blue:
- Beaver (My favorite so far)
- Pyramid (Real fun if you can survive Powderhorn x_X)

Ok Blue:
- Marmot (I am sure this one is a real cool one if I didn't face plant on it)

Ok Green:
- Corckscrew (Twisties~ Need I say more? The only reason why I wouldn't go back to this one is that it there are way too many people on it, and I almost got run into a couple of times)

For the price and location I would definitely go back to this mountain again. :D
Can't wait to be better so I can tackle Powderhorn and Dogwood without braking so much. :X need to find my balance and be more fearless.

Other notes, tried the deluxe breakfast at McDees for the first time. Pretty good. :) Also, tried the double double for dinner. A double double is a cheeseburger with an extra patty. So worth it. (since it is the same price as the cheeseburger).

Other random cool things I learned today:
- Face planting with braces hurt more than usual. I cut my lips when I face planted in Marmot. Maybe this is why I am not stoked about that run as Ben. I was so relieved that I didn't lose any brackets. ;)
- A kids meal is so much more worth it than a hot dog combo for lunch
- Instant ramen as a snack is awesome. I am so bringing this in my future trips, especially since people at the lodge are pretty cool at providing hot water. Miam. :)
I felt like such a fob tho, eating instant ramen in the middle of the slopes. Hahaha
- Walkie talkies are damn useful to find people on the slopes, need to get one for future trips. Srpint sucks, since I get no reception in the mountain at all... nada...silch... If I had broken a leg somewhere, I would have been helpless. :x
- A McDee's cheeseburger has 300 calories 110 from fat. eeps. XD I had 3 of these... =.='
- A McMuffin has 300 calories 200 from fat. XD I dare not find out how many calories my deluxe breakfast had, with all those pancakes (or hot cakes as they are called) with the hashbrowns and crumpet. XD
- The 5 hour energy drink is actually pretty good. Tasted like concentrated Red Bull. Kept Ben and me awake after we drank it, but ended up with a headache after a few hours. Good thing I had some advils handy.
- Snowboarding with a camelback rocks! :) Get to drink and not slowdown. Carry snacks and other goodies. Give me better balance carving down the slopes... or so I think. Heh.

Road trip complete

My 7 day road trip from Montreal to Santa Clara is finally complete. Some of the major or more memoral stops include:
- Montreal, QC, Canada
- Toronto, ON, Canada
- Waterloo, ON, Canada
- Chicago, IL, US
- Sioux City, IA, US
- Mount Rushmore, ND, US
- Custer, ND, US
- Casper, WY, US
- Salt Lake City, UT,US
- Salt Lake Flats
- Reno, NV, US
- Tahoe Lake, NV, US
- Santa Clara, CA, US

Travel logs - Taiwan Day 11

It is strange how I get to spend the most time online when I am at my Grandpa's place. I guess it has to do with the fact that there is nothing else to do here. I have a love-hate relationship with this internet cafe. I love the fact that it is so convenient and cheap (20 yuen/hour which is about 67 USD cents/hour). I hate it because a lot of the computer are old and decripit. Some of the equipment works half of the time including the internet. Also, people smoke like chimneys in here. Urh... I havent experience second hand smoke this bad since high school.

Since my last entry, I have spent some more time in Hsin Chu and Taipei; mainly Taipei. I ended doing all the touristy stuff. :) My friend Yen yu took me to see the Gu Gong Museum in Taipei. They have on display a large amount of ancient Chinese artifacts. I regret not knowing much about the history, because I don't think I appreciated the whole point of the exposition.

On one of the off days, my cousin took me to the top of Taipei 101 (tallest building of the world with the fastest elevator, as of today) and I got a crash geography lesson on the layout of Taipei.
I got to say that shopping inside 101 is kind of boring, most stores are either European or American, which makes it really pointless. Also, the price for most stuff in there was a lot higher than in Canada or the States. I got a chance to meet up with Annie and do some catching up. :)

As a more cultureal experience, my aunt took me to a Joshua Bell's violin recital at the National Concert Hall in Taipei which is next to Chang Kai Shek's Memorial. Listening to Bell play so well made me regret not taking my violin lessons more seriously. That guy played some mad fiddle. I
never knew human fingers could move that fast. My aunt is taking me back to the Concert Hall to listen to my cousin's concert. She is going to be singing and playing some chinese concert/musical. I can't wait. :)

Among other things, my sis took me to the night markets and I finally got to shop. I got to say that going shopping with a local makes it so much easier. My sis did all the haggling and I did the looking. :) It was awesome to finally meet up with her after two years. Funny thing about the night market, yesterday I went to another night market with my friend Yuen Yu and we got conned. It pissed me off at first, but then I laughed caused I finally eperienced something I never expereienced before. :) What happened was, the sales lady was trying to convince us to buy more from the store and we said we would if she could give us a deal. We try haggling with her, but she said she couldnt lower the price any longer, but could give us a gift for each person. However, after we paid, all she did was give us a VIP card. Totally useless for me since I was never going back to that store. haha. I guess the fact that I told her I was from out of the country made it easier for her to trick me. XD

Oh.., I almost forgot to mention the food I ate. How can I forget about the food? Taiwan is all about the food. I had some delicious Hunan cuisine, Grilled shrimp, veggies and ribs in spicy sauces. Really good. I also had a bunch of food at the night markets. Most memorable among them are: stinky tofu, lamb in medicinal stew, Pepper Cake. The stinky tofu was not bad, it tasted like fried spicy tofu. It didnt stink once I put it in my mouth. :) As for the lamb in medicinal stew, it was a lot better than I expected. My mom used to make me drink some weird medicinal stuff as a kid to make me stronger or something. I used to hate it. However, the lamb I tried out was delicious. Totally different from the stuff my mom used to force me to eat. Finally, my favorite new discovery in this trip was the pepper cakes I tried at the night market. It was so delicious. It tasted like a fried baozhi. :) MIAM

NDS Tetris on the net. :)

I recently lost all my wifi information on the nds. This sucked because I lost all of my friends on Tetris, but I figured out that as long as you have your friend codes you can still add them.

How to locate your friend code:
Wi-Fi>Friend Settings>Confirm Friend Code
And you should see a set of eight numbers.

Mine is: 465852 448674
Feel free to add me and we can play. :) You will have to tell me yours too.

NDS + WiFi = Da Win

So I figured I might as well try out this wifi thing on my DS since I am about to leave Waterloo. Good way to kick my roomies or ex-roomies ass via the internets. haha...
Man this feature so rocks. Gotta get back to kicking people asses.

Mario Kart did not prepare me for this

I went go carting yesterday with a couple of friends. It was fun, but too short. We did 10 laps of 2km. Also it wasn't as fast as I would have liked it, but it does not matter. :) I kicked Clement's ass a couple of times. But he got back at me by bumping me all the way.

We also went to eat at this Japanese BBQ place near Pacific mall. Not too bad, but I think I ate too much again.