Siem Reap (Angkor Temples), Cambodia

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!

 

Internet connection is very slow here so I am blogging via emailing. Hopefully it'll turn out ok on the blog.

 

I been waking up at 3:30AM every morning, probably due to jet lag. Thus I feel ok during the day but gets very sleepy after 8pm.

 

Here's a short summary as I am too tire to write more right now. I will write in details after trip or if I get bore once I get to southern thailand islands, I will write more there.

 

Day 0 (Dec. 26 - 28):  Left home at 10AM. Plane leave LAX at 1:50PM. Los Angeles to Taipei took 15.5 hours. Saw 4 movies, finished entire "Insight: Thailand"book , plus random music/video surfing during the flight, was very productive. Love the fact they gave me ramen noodle for snacks. Oh, I wanted Ginger ale, they offered me vodka and gin instead. No, i didn't take the offer cuz I don't want to puke on plane. 2 hours layover in Taipei, then 3.3 hours flight to Bangkok. Picked pasta for meal, bad idea. Asia Airlines made horrible non-asia dishes. 6 hours layover in Bangkok. Realized I left my visa photo at the other plane during transfer (damn, all those preparation for nothing), so have to change USD to Baht so I can take some visa photos at one of their photo booth. New BKK airport is HUGE. Very clean and nice. Can't fall asleep at the airport as planned so went to get a full body massage instead. They gave me a cup of tea afterward. Then 1 hr flight to Siem Reap.

 

Day 1 (Dec. 28): Siem Reap reminded me of my hometown in Chinatown 20 years ago. Met a Canadian woman named Victoria D. while waiting in line for visa, she's currently an English Teacher at Korea. She decided to come along with us to our hotel since she have no reservation. Cambodia custome officer discreetly asking me for bribe ($$$), i play dumb, he eventually gave up and I didn't have to pay more than the $20 visa fee. Walk around Siem Reap, ended up in local resident areas, saw a lot of shacks, lots of poor people (sad), lots of kids running around naked. Wandered into several monasteries, central markets, saw some deep fried grasshopper/insects (no, i didn't try any), went to Land Mine Museum (very sad) via tuk tuk (crazy bumpy roads, lots of craters), lots of friendly people waving and saying hello, lots of childrens running after you asking you to buy souvniers (poor kids). Go to bed at 9pm.

 

Day 2 (Dec. 29): Tour guide (Vin Sary) and driver (Tray Peng An) picked us up at the hotel around 8:30am. Visited all the temples around Angkor Thom in the morning, visited Ta Prohm and a few around there in the afternoon. Ta Prohm is where they filmed tomb raider. A lot of trees growing on top and side of the temples. Lots of HUGE tree roots merge with temples. They can't cut down those trees now cuz the tree roots are supporting the foundation. Watch sunset from another temple. Saw wild monkey, they got long tails. Saw people riding elephants, they are not as big as i imagined. Ate at street stalls, much cheaper than the restuarant (like 3 times cheapers). NOt enough food so have to ate 2 dinners but so tire by 2nd dinner, not even enough energy to chew.  Go to bed at 11pm, bad idea.

 

Day 3 (Dec. 30):  Got picked up at 5:30am to go watch sunrise at Angkor Wat. Weather is a bit cool in this early morning. Angkor Wat looks awesome as sun rays break through the clouds. took some awesome pic, will post later on. Drove an hour to Banteay Srey. Temple statues and carving are out of pink sandstone. very very pretty. Tons of Korean tourists. Saw how Cambodians made candy from sugar palm. Saw more temples.

 

Tour guide is going to take us to go see Angkor Wat in detail tomorrow, they will pick us up at 8AM. Looking forward to it. Then may see more temples and may go see lake if have time. Then will catch flight to Bangkok. Flight will arrive Bangkok at 9PM, hopefully will make it to hotel by 11pm so we can go catch some fire work or go somewhere to welcome in new year's eve.

 

Then my cousin Paul and my college friend James will leave early moring of Jan. 1, and I will be all alone till I get to Singapore 2-3 weeks later. Plan to wander around Bangkok before catching overnight bus to Koh Pha Ngan for Full Moon Party.

 

Written in Siem Reap, Camobida. Dec. 30th, 2006, 9:45PM

Day 1: Siem Reap, Cambodia

34 hours after leaving home, I finally landed in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Internet connection at this cafe is slow and keyboard sucks, will write more tomorrow.

Written from Siem Reap, 2:23PM, Dec. 28, 2006

Feeling Sentimental

All my belongings are in one little backpack. After scrambling and packing the last few days for the upcoming month-long trip, all the preparation is done but I am suddenly feeling very sentimental.

I spent the last few days at home with the family instead of going out. I think this was the first weekend I did not go out in a long while; it was very nice. I am going to miss waking up in my own bed, eating mom's porridge breakfast, lazing around in my bathrobe...

Merry Christmas!

I can't believe I am leaving for a month-long vacation tomorrow!

Camera Phone is Awesome!

Did a guy/girl broke your heart? Now you could mess with his/her life with a cute voodoo doll.

I love my camera phone because I don't have carry an additional gadget and still can take pictures of whatever interesting thing I see (like this one here).

I finally got around to download the pictures from the phone, you can see them at my flickr.

Medical Care Abroad

I have PPO and just out of curiousity/safetly, I called about medical care abroad. I would just pay copays like I do here (though I think it's cheaper to just go see a local doctor and pay in local currency for small problems like stomache). Turn out they have in network provider all around the world (even South East Asian countries like Cambodia), I just need to call collect (1-804-673-1177) to locate the provider or go online to find one. I checked their worldwide provider websites and was amazing with the array of medical hospitals that is part of network if I ever need to use them. :)

Mozza

I finally visited Mozza, the LA's buzzing restaurant of the moment. Mozza is the creation of the famed American Chef Mario Batali and his partner Nancy Silverton.

Pizzeria Mozza is located at the corner of Melrose and Highland and the building can be easily spotted as it is bright orange. The decor at Mozza is very warm, brightly lit, good for family and business meals. The price for this eatery is pretty reasonable, with all dishes price under $20 and desserts under $10, with many wine selections. If you did not have a reseravation, you would be seated at the bar or wait hours for a table. We made reservation so was seated right away.

For appetizer, we have the prosciutto with fresh mozzarella. The prosciutto was fresh but the mozzarella was amazing! The mozzarella was soft and moist, probably the best mozzarella I ever have. The waiter told us this is mozzarella di bufala, Mozza ordered it from Seattle. I should find out which company Mozza order it from and see if I can get some for myself.

I have the little neck clam pizza and my friend have the prosciutto di Parma pizza with arugula and mozzarella. I love the pizza crest, it was very thin and crispy at the bottom with airy high rising edge; delicious! The pizza itself was not greasy and full of flavors. Both pizzas were excellent.

For desserts, I have the Butterscotch buddino with pine nut while my friend have the Affogato (2 espresso shots with ice cream and biscuit). I like the butterscotch but don't really care for the cookies that came with it.

Overall, I like the food and would recommend Mozza to anyone that likes gourmet pizza. Next time I go, I would like to try the squash blossom and lardo and oregano salami pies. Click here for more Mozza reviews.

Pizzeria Mozza

641 N. Highland

Los Angeles, CA 90036

(323) 297 - 0101

Labels

I feel unsettle without any sort of structure or plans.

For example, I was panicking and stressing out a few weeks ago because my Asia trip was all up in the air as I did not have time to do any research nor planning. Now, I am excited because I have a good idea of where/when I plan to be, mode of transportations, and budget associated with each place (although day to day activities is not planned nor have I make hotel/transportation reservations, but I am ok with that).

When I started this blog, the "lables" at the end of each entry was random. Labels could be a great way to search my past entries if the labels have a structure or category logic behind it. After a few minutes of organizing, this is what the lable structure going to be for all blog entries:

• Thoughts: my thoughts, when I am in reflective mood
• Review: my review on places I went, things I did, etc
• Travel: when I blog about travelings
• Food: any entries related to food
• LA: entries about or happen in LA
• Blog: stuff found on other blogs or about blogs
• In the news: articles I found from the news
• Tips: article or things that can be helpful
• Life: for when I write about what I did this weekend and such
• Intersting: can be about my hobbies or interesting article I read
• Rant: when the entry is nothing but me complaining
  

This list will be the main categories for all "The LA Life" entries, with infrequent sub-label such as "Travel, Palm Springs".

I like having structure, I like having plans; I think it's good being organized.

Clubbing, Tourist, White Elephant

RW and MH were visiting this weekend so we went clubbing (Vanguard and Garden of Eden) and did the LA tour. I took them to the Getty Center (I love this place), UCLA, Diddy Riese Cookie (still like Pinkberry better), Rodeo Drive, and the Grove (so pretty during Christmas season). RW likes Taiwanese food so we ate tons of it this weekend. I found out the best time (shortest wait time) for Din Tai Fung is go there at 10:30AM on weekends.

On Sunday evening, I went to the white elephant holiday party at ET & LN's place. It was very fun.

More Pictures here and here.

Love is Bullshit!

Funny video on studying the business of Love!

22 Ways to Overclock Your Brain

Here's an interesting lunch time reading material (found from lifehacker).

Bullet points of the article (with my own interpretation).
1. Run Up Your Brain Cells
Go outside & play. Exercise!

2. Exercise Your Mind
Use your brain, try new things!

3. Ask Why

4. Laugh

5. Be A Fish Head
Eat fish!

Reminded me of this joke I read many years ago in Reader's Digest:
In a crowded train, a man start making conversation with an old woman in the next seat. The woman seem very smart and knowledgeable. The man notice the old woman carry a lunch box full of fish heads in her bag. The man ask "why do you carry fish heads?" The old woman told him the secret of her knowledge was to eat these fish heads. The man gets very excited as he always wants to be smarter, so the man buy the fish heads from the lady for $100. The next week, the man saw the same old woman on the train and yelled at her for ripping him off because he does not feel any smarter. The old woman smile and say "see, you’re gotten much smarter already.”

6. Remember
Look at old pictures/videos/reminiscence.

7. Cut The Fat
Don't eat so much junk food.

8. Do A Puzzle

9. The Mozart Effect
Listen to Mozart or just music you likes :)

10. Improve Your Skill At Things You Already Do

11. Be A Thinker, Not A Drinker
Drink once a week is good.

12. Play

13. Sleep On It

14. Concentration

15. Make Love For Your Brain
Have lots of sex.

16. Play With Passion!
Indulge yourself, have fun.

17. Cycles Of Consciousness
Listen to your body.

18. Learn Something New

19. Write To Be Read
Blog/Diary is good :)

20. Try Aroma Therapy To Activate Your Brain
Perfume is good too.

21. Drugs To Increase Brainpower
Coffee and tea works but try healthier alternatives, such as gingko biloba and gotu kola herbal teas.

22. Build A Brain Trust
Surround yourself with people and things that inspire and stimulate you.

Weekend Getaways at Palm Springs

I went to Palm Springs this weekend.



Highlights:
-Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
-Holiday Lights Parade
-Roy's
-The Corridor

Lowlights:
-Trouble with hotel reservation(see my other blog)
-Stuck in traffic getting there

Surprising things:
-Palm Springs weather is just like LA but very windy
-If you love golfing & shopping, you'll love Palm Springs.
--I don't like either so Palm Springs is pretty boring to me.
--I have fun on this trip because it's my first time here and I like discovering things.
---Now I been, I don't need to visit Palm Springs any more.
-Palm Springs have many casinos.
-Downtown Palm Springs is quite nice. Lots of stores and resturants. I like!
-Palm Springs Valley is very spread out.
-I realized I prefer destinations near water.
--I wonder if this has to do with the fact I grew up near water.
--Before I immigrated to US, we lived 30 minutes from the ocean. However, the town is surrounded by rivers and creeks.
--After I immigrated to US, I still lived 30 minutes from ocean; not surrounded by rivers and creeks though.
--Whenever I think of vacations, I think of beach and sun and lots of good food.

Questions:
Is Palm Springs a favorite getaways spot for gay couples? I saw many cute looking men holding hands in downtown Palm Springs.

How to capture image of lights/stars at night? All the pictures I took of Holiday Lights Parade came out blurry.

Why Do Poor Childs Fell Behind Richer Childs and Stay Behind

An interesting artcile from NYT on the upbringing of children and how it affects them later in life. Article excerpt:

There had, in fact, been evidence for a long time that poor children fell behind rich and middle-class children early, and stayed behind. But researchers had been unable to isolate the reasons for the divergence.

Researchers began peering deep into American homes, studying up close the interactions between parents and children ...They found, first, that vocabulary growth differed sharply by class and that the gap between the classes opened early. By age 3, children whose parents were professionals had vocabularies of about 1,100 words, and children whose parents were on welfare had vocabularies of about 525 words. The children’s I.Q.’s correlated closely to their vocabularies. The average I.Q. among the professional children was 117, and the welfare children had an average I.Q. of 79.

When Hart and Risley then addressed the question of just what caused those variations, the answer they arrived at was startling. By comparing the vocabulary scores with their observations of each child’s home life, they were able to conclude that the size of each child’s vocabulary correlated most closely to one simple factor: the number of words the parents spoke to the child. That varied greatly across the homes they visited, and again, it varied by class. In the professional homes, parents directed an average of 487 “utterances” — anything from a one-word command to a full soliloquy — to their children each hour. In welfare homes, the children heard 178 utterances per hour.

What’s more, the kinds of words and statements that children heard varied by class. The most basic difference was in the number of “discouragements” a child heard — prohibitions and words of disapproval — compared with the number of encouragements, or words of praise and approval. By age 3, the average child of a professional heard about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. For the welfare children, the situation was reversed: they heard, on average, about 75,000 encouragements and 200,000 discouragements. Hart and Risley found that as the number of words a child heard increased, the complexity of that language increased as well. As conversation moved beyond simple instructions, it blossomed into discussions of the past and future, of feelings, of abstractions, of the way one thing causes another — all of which stimulated intellectual development.

Living Your Best Life

Today is one of those nice lazy Sunday.

I started the day with Champagne brunch at The Crepe Vine. Trying to compensate for the greasy food on Friday, I ordered the Apple Walnut Salad and Peach Bellini. My friend ordered an egg dish with chicken, avocado, bacon, and mushroom; it looked delicious.

I spent rest of the day at Barens & Noble, reading a few articles in "Living Your Best Life." The book are categorized into: Your Personal Best, Diet & Exercise, Health & Beauty, Balance, Happiness, Confidence, Dreaming Big, Spirituality, Relationships, Dating, Couples, Marriage, Sex, Talking & Listening, Family, On Being a Parent, Friends, Living in the World, Everyday Heroes, Giving Back, and Make a Connection. Since it's more than 300 pages, I did not get to read the whole book. Here are a few interesting tips/facts from the pages that I read:

• "Sex solved all problems." - From a couple that been marry for a long time.
• Toner is only necessary for people with oily skin or have acne.
• Laser skin hair removal only if you are comfortable with temporarily extreme discomfort and monthly treatment.
• Teeth whitening is not necessary if stain is cause by bacteria or caffeine.
• REST!!! You're more productive when you are rested and happy with your life.
• Oprah takes every Sunday off to laze around.
• Facial will not solve skin problem, but it's a nice luxury if you can afford it.
• During orgasm, brain temporarily shut down.
• More sex a person have, the happier he or she is.
• More connected a person is, the happier he or she is.
• One of the surest way to lower crime rate is have greater community involvement from its citizen; such as in a small town where everyone knows everyone by first name.
• The best way to improve behavior of those around you is to change your self. Grayson (the psychologist) got this insight from "Quantum Theory" written by David Bohem. Grayson also provide how Heisenberg uncertainty principle also work with Human Being (can't remember the witty example anymore but I did remember it being quite witty).
• All the nuns in Regina Laudis Abbey in Bethlehem, Connecticut have impressive resumes (executives, professors, etc) before joining the abbey.
• Don't take unnecessary pills and be paranoid about health. It's more productive to get vitamins from food than from pills.
• "Find a Husband after 35" by Rachel Greenwald. The program started with you calling everyone in your phone book to set up blind dates for you, set up online profiles, and pick three terms that best describe you. Rachel Greenwald reported an 80% success rate.
• Go to Hell if you want to feel better or stop procrastinate so you can start living again; as Dante did in "The Divine Comedy."

It's a very good book. I love it! I definitely want a copy of this. But I'll get it when I return from my Asia Trip or in late December (so I won't spend time reading this book instead of planning my trip).

Overeat Chinese Food = Feeling Disgusted

Usually when I go out to eat, I avoid eating Chinese food because I can get that at home. Another reason is Chinese food tends to be greasy, so if I eat too much of it, I'd feel disgusted and in need of a good cleansing (maybe I should get that Parsley Colon Cleansing Recipe from Alice). I am usually pretty good about eating just enough to be satisfy, but lately, I seem to unable to control myself but adhere to the sin of gluttony.

It all started last Saturday with dim sum at MVP, then dessert at Bin Bin Konjac, followed by hot pot dinner at Little Sheep. I spent the last whole week feeling sick from having ingested so much grease. Like most people, I ordered too much and ate too fast if I was hungry. Thus, I pigged out after waited almost an hour for a late lunch at Ding Tai Fung yesterday. I'm feeling very disgusted right now.

Maybe if I drink those puke-green grass drink, I'll feel better.

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