Ocean Park

It was 90% my idea to go to Ocean Park. Allison has had the Charleston Aquarium for most of her life and she thinks dolphin shows are inhumane, so another park dedicated to sealife didn't interest her.

"But Allison," I said, "Ocean Park has pandas!"

She brightened. "Really?" Scowl. "What do pandas have to do with the ocean?"

"Uh... well, they're from the mountains of China... which is a country... with shorelines... uh, on the ocean."

She blinked at me, then shrugged. "Okay, sure. I love pandas."



And as promised, here are some more pictures of An An in mid-pace, and Jia Jia in mid-sleep.


An An pacing back and forth, back and forth.


Jia Jia taking an afternoon nap.

Coming out of the panda building, Allison proclaimed, "It was worth $40 just to see the pandas!"

... but we went to check out the fish anyway. :P


I found Nemo!


Cuttlefish. I'd seen these at the market near our hotel. Cool creatures but not worth $40 at current market prices.


Japanese spider crabs. These had leg spans of 3 to 4 ft. but spider crabs can grow up to 12 ft. in leg span.



So as you can see from this blog post, we made it! :)

Victoria Peak

Our first full day in Hong Kong, Allison and I went to Victoria Peak because... well, that's what tourists do. :)

We rode the Peak Tram, which is really steep, read the posters about the history of the Peak and how the British colonists made it into what it is today, had Haagen Dazs and took a few pictures.



I took this picture through the glass barrier that surrounded the observation deck. As you can tell, I'm terrified of heights.



Here's Allison against the Hong Kong skyline. Ah, so beautiful. And the skyline ain't bad either. :P

And of course, for something like this, we need a longwinded video:

Hong Kong Day 1

Allison and I have embarked on a great adventure to Asia consisting of 16 days in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

This building near our hotel in Hong Kong is under renovation. One uniquely Hong Kong aspect to this engineering is the type of scaffolding that they use.

Look closely:



Every time Allison and I passed by construction sites, we marveled at the lattice-work of bamboo scaffolding that reached up ten or twenty storeys, lashed solidly together with thousands of plastic ties:




What freaks me out is the idea that, as the scaffolding extends upwards outside these 20-storey buildings, someone has to lash more bamboo poles at the top! Just the thought of it gives me shivers!

Closer to the ground, around the corner from our hotel is this street market. This vendor is selling live seafood.



You can see crabs, shrimp, halibut, and snails in this picture. Being raised far from any ocean, sealife has always fascinated me. Allison keeps having to drag me away from this market, haha.

California Dreamin'

One of our studio's clients is Blizzard Entertainment, which makes the Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo videogame franchises. Allison and I enjoy playing their games, so we volunteered to go to Blizzcon in Anaheim to "shmooze" the clients. :)



Of course, being a videogame convention, Blizzcon was heavy on: a) nerds, b) costumes, and c) nerds in costumes.

Here is one such mega nerd.

Standing next to her is an attendee dressed up as a moonkin, a type of druid from the World of Warcraft.


"Half price wings at Denny's! Yargh!!"

Throughout the halls were these massive statues of iconic Blizzard game characters. This is an orc warrior riding a worg mount.

And of course, we couldn't go to Anaheim without stopping by the Happiest Place on Earth!



Here is Allison at the Mickey garden just inside the gates of Disneyland.



The biggest problem of entering the world of yesterday and tomorrow: what verb tense are you supposed to speak in?



Overlooking the Finding Nemo submarine ride. In the background is Mt. Wannahockaloogie. It's much bigger than it appears in the movie.



Coffee, tea... or me? :P



Allison and her little gryphon hatchling from Blizzcon give us the all-clear for takeoff back home!

And th-th-th-th-th-... that's all, folks!

Oh wait.

If Grapes Were...

If grapes were birds, this would be an ostrich.

If grapes were cars, this would be a Suburban.

If grapes were countries, this would be Russia.

If grapes were mountains, this would be Mount Everest.

If grapes were tedious, repetitive blog posts, this grape would be this post. :P

Mont-Tremblant

Sorry for the blurry video! My iPhone has trouble focusing on distant landscape, obviously. Time for a 4S, I think. :)



Our hotel at Mont-Tremblant overlooked a lake:



This picture was taken from the shoreline next to the hotel, which we didn't realize at the time was a whole separate piece of property. And there I was, telling Allison, "Oh, don't worry, I'm sure this is just a hotel banquet area for weddings and stuff."

After this picture was taken, I saw someone walking around in a bathrobe in the "banquet hall" behind us and realized that we were in someone's yard!

Scenes from a Mall

There's a mall near our house called Fairview that we go to a lot for shopping, food, movies, etc. Today, Allison and I went by there to get sandwiches and coffee and we noticed a new Lego Store had opened up.



The Lego Store is heavily Star Wars-themed right now. This is the Death Star at the top and an imperial destroyer on the bottom. If the lighting was better (or if I was a better photographer) you'd be able to see a little lego tie-fighter in the hangar in the top part of the Death Star. (Luckily, what I lack in photography skill, I more than make up for in dorkism.)



This is the Fairview Apple Store. I've heard that the windows of the Apple Store downtown was covered with condolences written on Post-Its. Here, there were just some flowers and candles.

If superheroes were real, I think Richard Branson could be Batman and Steve Jobs would've been Iron Man. RIP real-life Tony Stark. :(