HK, Beijing and Singapore... with the Chans (minus one or three)

I know this is out of chronological sequence... but since I have been lazy, this is the best I could possibly do.

In March of 2011, Jessica and I travelled to Hong Kong to meet up with Kit Wah, Karen and Derek. We spent 3 days in Hong Kong and then from there we travelled to Beijing. We spent 6 days in Beijing and then the Chans returned to Singapore with us.

In combination of a few of our cameras, there are were more than 1,000 photos taken. However, since Picasa only allows me to upload 1,000 photos into one album, that's what I have done. You can find all 999 photos here.

In Hong Kong, we visited Kit Wah's old "hood". He has not been back for more than 25 years. So, it was really an experience for him . And he got to show Derek and Karen where he grew up.

My HOOD!! It has changed!

Kit Wah's old hood.

And then he showed us the "doctor" his mom had sent him to... you can still find them under the bridge...

Kit Wah calls them "witch doctors"

The most interesting that happened to us during this trip... was Kit Wah and I got food poisoning. I was knocked out for an entire day and a half and he was knocked out for 2 and half days. It was bad. I swear it was either coming out the front or back every 10 minutes.

Other than that, we did the usual tourist stuff... Great Wall, Forbidden Square, Summer Palace, etc.

In Singapore, the Chans stayed with us. And all the ex-Ducks helped with entertaining and hosting them.

The Rose Bowl Game

Jan 3, 2012
Rose Bowl 2012
Wisconsin Badgers vs Oregon Ducks

My first ever Rose Bowl game. I had been to the Rose Bowl for a UCLA home game in the past but had never been to the Granddaddy of them all... till now.

My good friend, Mark, called me a few weeks after Oregon had won the Pac-12 Championship and told me that I had a ticket to the Rose Bowl. He really didn't give me much of an option of whether I wanted to go or not... which in hindsight, was good.

He and 2 other friends were going to drive down to the game and they had reserved a house where the 4 of us could stay. I had the option of driving down with them. However, the drive was going to take over 15 hours... and I really hate long drives. So, I started looking for flights. Obviously, flights for this game were going to be expensive but, after a few weeks of searching, I managed to get 2 one-way tickets, to make a return trip, for under $250... which was really good.

The trip was awesome. We rented a house on Venice Beach. The weather was perfect. The tailgating was subdued, but that was not necessarily bad. And the game, for obvious reasons, was GREAT.

Here are the rest of the photos... many of them are not great, but hey... I was there!!

Our last goodbye to JB.

On February 11, 2012, we said our goodbyes to JB. There were many pictures taken, however, I wanted to share the flag presentation by the US Navy.

James Burke - THE END

Again late but better late than never.

On Nov 14, 2011, JB passed away peacefully. Register Guard Obituary (you'll have to scroll down).

On the morning on Nov 13, I visited JB at the hospital. He was asleep and wasn't very responsive. Very unlike the previous 2, 3 days I had visited him.
His breathing was heavy.
And the thing that caught my attention was that he actually had an IV stuck in him. He had, up till then, resisted the IV... for anything.

I decided to ask the nurse, who happened to appear right outside the room, what was going on.

The nurse then went on tell me how JB's heart rate and blood pressure took a nose dive the night before. When further questioned about what that meant, the nurse went on to say that that is usually the last stage. He wouldn't commit to say how much time JB had left but from his insinuations, it was not to be much longer... 24-48hrs. That really took me by surprise, considering how well he had been doing the past few days.

I left JB's room immediately and began calling anyone I knew who might have wanted to come see him... it was a tough call. He probably wouldn't have recognized anyone at that moment and being practical, it was pointless. But, then again, there would be a few who might have wanted to.

Later that afternoon, I left to go to Portland with KW and Karen to help Derek move. At about 7pm, the phone call came. JB had gone to a better place.

We will all miss him. Its characters like this that make the world a more interesting place. We will miss him the greatest this fall, when football season comes around... RIP JB!!

Lazy!

That's what I have been.

Anyway, this blog was dedicated to writing about returning back to Singapore. That experiment... errr... might be considered a failed experiment.

We are now back in the US. Seattle to be exact.

Why Seattle? (1) because the Bay Area is way too expensive to live at the moment with both of us not having a job and (2) Jessica plans to start her own business... more about that later. And we were told that Seattle was a more pet-friendly place than the Bay Area.

I am now going to dedicate this blog to advertising Jessica's business, write about our Gentle Giant and the part 2 of "returning HOME".