Category: General

Monday morning was very wet.
This is the Dapeng Fortress billboard at the entrance of Da Peng, the town where we work, seen through the bus window.

 

The rain showers from Saturday gave way to nicer weather here today.  It was still cloudy but in the mid-80s.  So there were plenty of visitors to the Dameisha beach, and the sellers of swimwear and swim floaties were out in full force as well.  This sea turtle was one of my favorites.

I found this picture on a side door of a restaurant I walked by here in Dameisha on Saturday night on the way to dinner.  The warriors are from the Three Kingdoms period, the period 220 A.D. to 280 A.D. immediately following the loss of the Han Dynasty rulers.  The red in the picture may well symbolize blood, as the Three Kingdoms period was one of the bloodiest in Chinese history.    Still : books, television dramas, films, cartoons, anime, games, and music on the topic are still regularly produced in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam and Japan.  [Information from Wikipedia].

Alright, I confess : I watched CNBC-That-Wall-Street-Cheerleader-Channel for coverage of the Facebook open and for the close.  The close turned out to be more exciting than the open.  It would have been bad if the stock price had not stayed above its initial offering price of $38 on its very first day .. but then again, that $38 share price is stratospherically expensive.

Here are the rounded price-per-sales ratios for
Facebook   Google   Microsoft  Apple
25              5            3.5          3.5

Yikes. So now the 8 year-old Facebook public company is worth $105 billion.  CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s share of that is $19 billion.

There is a annular (ring-shaped) solar eclipse due on Sunday that will start in southern China, be visible over Japan, and then over parts of the western USA as well.
We may even see a partial eclipse in Seattle but I’m not counting on it : there is rain in the forecast for Sunday!  (But don’t feel too sorry for us .. we have had spectacularly sunny weather for the last several weekends here in Seattle).  Below are some cool pictures I found on-line that shows what’s going to happen.

The NASA picture is at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/ASE2012/ASE2012.html

P.S. The answers for Monday’s Mazda picture : 1. Guy with Bugs Bunny tie has ‘big hair’; 2. Hot dog eater gets ‘stabbed’ with beach umbrella anchor; 3. Shark ‘eats’ surfer; 4. Guy ‘grabs’ black bikini gal’s – um – top; 5. The Titanic ‘sails again’.  Yes, it wasn’t too difficult, but it was fun, right?

 

 

Check out this old but cool Mazda print ad from a South African magazine that I found in my study while cleaning out some boxes with magazines today.  ‘Spot 5 things that are not what they seem’ says the ad, and enter the answers on-line to win the Mazda. (Ignore the green line in the middle – it’s where the pages from the print ad meet). I will give the answers tomorrow.

 

Here’s Mark Zuckerberg making quite a fashion statement at his arrival in New York City on Monday to meet with investors : wearing his hoodie and sneakers.  Wow! Where’s your suit, dude? Zuckerberg notes on his Facebook Timeline (of course) that he wore a tie every day in 2009 to show everyone that was an important year (after the 2008 financial crisis).  And as Doug Gross notes in the CNN story : ‘Maybe Zuckerberg, sitting on the verge of a blockbuster stock offering, no longer feels the need to prove himself’.

 

A little rusty with your mathematics from way back when? I am. I have very fond memories of math in high school. I remember thinking, this is cheating.  It’s not biology or history – so you don’t even have to study! You just do the math in the test, and voila!  And now it’s 2012 and the venerable Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has put all its math and calculus courses on line (at http://math.mit.edu/classes/18.01/) and I can take a look and re-try some of the basic little problems of old times.

 

I always seem to return with a sheet of stamps after a trip to the post office.  These ‘Forever’ stamps are depicting the Cherry Blossom Centennial in Washington DC.  The post I made on April 6 was about these same cherry blossoms.  I just didn’t realize the trees in Washington DC actually came from Japan, a gift of 3,020 trees from the city of Tokyo .. which explains the Japanese woman and child in the corner of the stamp with their kimonos and sun umbrellas.  The first two cherry trees were planted on March 27, 1912.

 

 

Click on the link to explore the cosmos and the microcosmos. I will take a little time to load if your connection is slow. The pictures are from the web site.

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The RMS Titanic sank on Apr 15, 1912 on her maiden voyage. These commemorative pictures were in the South China Morning Post’s weekend edition at Hong Kong airport.

Here is an 8 am in the morning glimpse of the Da Peng town plaza as we drive by in the bus on the way to work.  The pedestrian is listening to his music and the Tai Chi exercise group is at it in the background.  I no longer read e-mails or news articles on my phone or iPad on the bus but just take the time to relax or even take a little nap if I can.

 

The picture is from NHK TV, showing a news conference at the site of the scheduled rocket launch from North Korea.  Japan prime minister Noda has given permission for the Defence Ministry to shoot down the rocket with Patriot interceptor missiles if it strays over Japan airspace.   (The missiles are parked in the grounds of the Defence Ministry in the heart of Tokyo : two giant green batteries surrounded by a stunning white blaze of blooming cherry trees).  And on state TV in North Korea it was announced ‘Whoever intercepts the satellite or collects its debris will face resolute and merciless punishment by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’.   I am keeping track of the events since I am scheduled to stop over in Seoul on the way to Seattle this weekend !

The sign is new – but the ’80 Step Sea House’ apartment building across from our hotel is not.  (50 sq m is small – only 538 sq ft.  140 sq m is about 1,500 sq ft). Construction of the complex was completed a long time ago, more than a year.  Some units might have been sold, but not a single person has moved in yet.  Singapore-based investment guru Jim Rogers for one, says the property bubble in China is ‘over’, and that there will be no hard landing for the economy.  If that is true, that is good news for everyone.

 

I may have to apply for an extension for filing my taxes since I don’t have the information for the foreign taxes I owe.  Applying is easy enough : there is a Form 4868 to file and extensions for 2 months are then granted automatically.  HOWEVER – as the form says ‘Even if you had a good reason for not paying on time, you will still owe interest‘.

This is a street corner in Da Peng around 6.15pm from my perch on the bus back to the hotel. The weather has warmed up and is pleasant, so more people are out and about. Maybe the convenience store will sell more ice cream now (the ice box in the doorway). And the red lanterns, red carpet and red banners on the entry on the right must have been put of for the start of the Year of the Dragon, and was not taken down.

Here are the only two souvenirs I bought in Seoul.  Tintin goes by Ttang Ttang in Korean.  (No, of course I cannot read Korean. But I have this Tintin book in 5 other languages already, so I had to buy the Korean one).  The other item is the lid of a porcelain bowl I spotted in a department store.  It was not expensive (about US $30) and it is very very Korean with the cranes and the deer and the blossoms. I would love to know what is used on modern porcelain for gold trim.  I am sure it’s not GOLD, but I could not find the answer immediately on-line.

The pictures are all from last night’s Japanese TV channel NHK news at 9.  1.  The Skytree Tower in Tokyo is now open for tourists.  It is the tallest tower in the world at 634 m/ 2,080 ft (formerly it was the Canton Tower in Guangzhou), and it is the second tallest structure in the world after Burj Khalifa at 829.84 m/2,723 ft.  

2.  The news reader is from North Korea’s state TV. She speaks with gusto and probably mentioned the intended missile test from North Korea. 

3.  File footage of South Korean soldiers inspecting the Demilitarized Zone’s fence.

 

 

4.  I passed on the opportunity to go for a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)/ Joint Security Area (JSA) while in Seoul – even though there was a brochure right there in the lobby of the hotel, touting it as the ‘Traveler’s No 1 Choice.  It probably is perfectly safe.  I see even President Obama will go and take a look when he arrives for the bi-annual 2012 SeoulNuclear Security Summit next week.