July 31, 2005(Sunday)

I went to Baptist Church in the morning. Rather than having Sunday School, we had a general assembly. They introduced the new committee. It was long and boring. We had lunch at church. In the afternoon, I went to MB church and led song: "En las Nubes Oirás", "little universe", "grace is too beautiful", "Vengo a ti con mi Oracion" and "La Mejor Bendición" (from SoP). Dr. Chu returned from China and little Yison returned from China. I have not seen him for over a year! I am so happy to see him and I am so glad that he (5 years old now) remembers me. I played around with him for a while and it recalls my previous time in Venezuela. I really wish that Carmen can be here to share my time with Yison. At night, Yanting came to our house for dinner and I tutored her for Physics.

July 30, 2005(Saturday)

I have taught the IPCE course for 10 times and most of the time, Saturday is off, even though this is a six days (48 hours) course. However, the progress of this class is slow. Also, I do not mind because I have nothing to do today anyway. I was there from 10:20 to 3:30.
I went to the airport and took flight back to Caracas. In the airport and in the plane, I finished the book "Digital Fortress" that I purchased Tuesday. I read for about 4.5 hours! At the Caracas airport, Qiao, Elaine and Yanting picked me up from the airport and I went to Qiao/Elaine's house to stay overnight.

July 29, 2005(Friday)

I let the student work on the lab. I also received the evaluation. Even though my average score is 93.8%, I still think that this is not a good one. I have put in a lot of heart and hard work but the result did not turn out to be as good as I hope.
I went for a run during lunch time and had a short afternoon nap. After the class, I also went home for another late afternoon nap. I went to eat Japanese food at night too.

July 28, 2005(Thursday)

We moved from the QoS class to the IPTX class today. The students are doing the lab and I am relatively free. I called Carmen and it is good to talk to her. At night, we went to the Dolphin Mall again. I read the "Dragon Ball" comic.

July 27, 2005(Wednesday)

I had the online section this morning for the Orlando group. Therefore, I let the students work on the lab while I hid in another room. During lunch time, I went back to the hotel for an afternoon nap and then went to the post office to ship two boxes of personal items to IU while the sponsoring company of the course, techdata, brought the students to their office for a long lunch. I also discussed with CTT about my future involvement in CTT. We had a pretty good relationship in the past year and it sounds like to me that they are interested to use my service in the future. This is a good news to me.
The progress of this class is slower than the other classes that I had. But I do not mind too much because I cannot go out for tour on Saturday anyway. We returned to the hotel at 6pm. I had the second afternoon nap. At night, I did some exercise and MSN/phone Carmen. This is a peaceful night.

July 26, 2005(Tuesday)

CTT rented a taxi and brought all of us to class at 8:45 this morning. There was a fire drill in the morning. Other than that, everything is working fine. The equipment is ok and I did some lecture too. However, speaking in front of this English-deficiency crowd is difficult. They are not as knowledgeable as my other groups too. Therefore, the progress is slow.
We all left CTT at 5:30. And then, I arranged them so that 8 of us went to the Dolphin Mall this afternoon. It is better for me to go to Dolphin Mall than watching TV in the hotel. We were lucky enough to have the hotel shuttle bus to drive us there at 6:15. I was there reading the "One Piece" comic. Afterward, since I enjoyed the "Da Vinci Code", I purchased the book "Digital Fortress", also by Dan Brown. After Carmen's inspiration, I am now into the reading mode, which I have never tried before. As for my other students, they went there shopping big time, and carrying several bags. Probably because they are from Central/Latin America (Panama, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela), so they got a lot of stuff for their family!

July 25, 2005(Monday)

Monday morning is always difficult and busy. When I arrived to the CTT classroom, the equipment is clean and no initial setup is done. For the next hours, I am busy cabling the equipment. The students are arriving too so I need to spend some time to greet them. The lecture was fine. However, these students are coming from Central or South America. Out of the 11 students I have today, two of them cannot speak English. And most of them are not native English speaker. Therefore, I have to speak slow and use a lot of body language to make sure that they understand what I am trying to mean.
I originally planned to make this class to be 9 - 5. However, when I announced the class ends at 5pm, the students are not willing to leave. They kept on working. I found out later that CTT books the students in the same hotel as I am staying. And only one (out of 11) of them has car. Therefore, I think that they have nothing to do so they planned to stay here for a longer time. CTT ordered taxi for us and we finally left when the taxi was here at 6pm. It felt really weird to know that the students are in the same hotel as I am.
After a late afternoon nap, I went to the Japanese restaurant to eat as many (sushi, sashimi, lobster teriyaki) as I can. I also packed the boxes for shipping to IU. Including the luggage that Carmen and I will bring to US in Aug 14, I estimate that this account for 22 boxes! Here is the breakdown:
• 12 boxes are mailed to IU
• 2 boxes are mailed by Che So later
• 2 luggage are carried back to Vancouver by Carmen in May 29
• 4 check-in luggage (including digital piano) will be brought along with Carmen and I in Aug 29
• 2 carry-on luggage (including violin) will be brought along with Carmen and I in Aug 29
• wedding photo frame will be brought to Vancouver by Semson/Ana in October (tentative)
  I did not top Hansel's 60+ boxes when he moved back to HK. Yet, my items do not have any furniture, I have only lived in Venezuela for 3 years, Carmen has only lived in Venezuela for 6 months, and we did all the mailing without big sum of money (thanks to cheap US Postal System, the estimated overall moving cost is less than US$400)

July 24, 2005(Sunday)

I finally can go to Sunday Service. I have not been to one since June 12 in Denver! Because of numerous travel times, I think I miss more than half of the Sunday Services this year! And I do not have a lot more time to worship God in Venezuela! I am the singspiration leader today, and I led the songs "Brilla Jesús" (Shine Jesus Shine), "En las Nubes Oirás" (High Sing to Cloud), "Little Universe" (the children song that I know for over 25 years), "Grace is too beautiful", "Vengo a ti con mi Oracion" and "La Mejor Bendición" (from SoP). As my departure date from Venezuela is drawing near, I am cherishing every incident that I can go to Sunday Worship here. (I did not leave my seat even during the sermon section, which is very rare).
Mimia drove me to the airport afterward, since she has to drive her customer to airport anyway. I took a flight from Venezuela to Caracas in the afternoon. Originally, the flight is supposed to leave at 3:19 and arrive to Miami at 6:30 pm. However, it is delayed by an hour. Afterward, in the Miami airport, the "parking lot" is not ready and the plane has to wait for 20 mins for a space. It took quite some times for my luggage to arrive to the conveying belt. And even more horrible, when I arrived to the Hampton Inn at 9:30, there are about 15 people (probably a group of several families) waiting for checking in. The situation got terrible when the shuttle bus drove 10+ flight attendants to the hotel for checking in! It is obvious that summer is here and this is the high-season for traveling! I finally arrived to the hotel room at 10:05. This is a smoking room; I think that the hotel is full and I have no choice.
I went to the gym to do some exercise at night. After a day of sitting in the plane, it felt so good to do exercise and sweat like crazy! It felt especially awesome since I cannot do exercise during the Europe trip! (The first jogging experience last Tuesday did not end up in sweating because it was raining at that time). I am, after all, a person who likes to be productive so that the sweat after exercising is good.

July 23, 2005(Saturday)

Yanting has a membership in some kind of club. Therefore, we drove there to have fun. We need to go to the central area to pick up Katy and also tennis racket from Elaine. The traffic is terrible there and we wasted about an hour there. We left home at 9 and arrived to the club, which is an hour drive from our home, at 11.
I played tennis and some diving at first. I tried to dive from the spring board and the 3 meters diving. I have some height fear and I need to conquer my fear. In addition, there is another kind of diving that I tried today. When the swimmer needs to swim, he would be dive into the water and then swim. I never tried this but Pastor Chan knows how. Therefore, he taught me and I practiced many times and took some really good pictures when I am in the air.
We went back to Che So house for dinner and then we had youth committee meeting. They are thinking of how to play me (again) before I left. I challenge that whether they have the ability to "play die me" because I have so much experienced to play people and to be played.

July 22, 2005(Friday)

I had a busy morning. I have to come to work at 8am in order to meet with my supervisor Mario. I woke up at 6:50 and there is no water in my apartment again. I modified my morning routine and read the Bible first. Water came back in the middle of the devotion, so I can take the shower before leaving home. On the way to work, I know that I would be really angry if Mario cannot make the meeting. I am glad that he is there and I talked to him for 15 mins and cleared up some doubt and tried to negotiate about my future enrolment in Desca.
Afterward, I prepared some PowerPoint for church. In addition, Ah Qiao and Paco need to purchase something online and ship to my Miami address. Therefore, I helped them to check with the online purchasing. It is extremely difficult to use Venezuelan billing address because they do not trust international credit card. I had terrible experience before and they blocked my credit card automatically. It is definitely a bad experience. I helped them to call the customer service and check whether everything is ok. I also called the visa and insurance agency in Indiana University to know the exact policy.
I went to Parque del Este for a run. It is great to run under sunny weather, given there is water for me to take a shower afterward. Che So went to US for holiday today for a month. However, she is great enough to let us use her house in the mean time. Therefore, tonight, Eric and I went to her house to have dinner and also practice music. Since we will go to some club to have fun tomorrow, Pastor Chan, Mrs. Cheng, Wilson, Cindy and I stayed at her place overnight.

July 21, 2005(Thursday)

I am still having a hard time to find Mario (my supervisor) to discuss about my contract. He always leaves Venezuela, and whenever he is in Venezuela, he is busy with other thing. Originally we agreed to have a meeting yesterday at 11am. He was busy and postponed to 3pm yesterday. He was busy again and postponed to 11am today. And when I go to find him at 11am, he was not in the office. He said that we will have the meeting tomorrow at 8am. I do not mind that I have to come to office early. I just don't want the case that when I am in the office, he is not here. This is the situation that I absolutely hate! But he is the boss and there is nothing much I can do.
Rather than going home for afternoon nap, I ate lunch with Semson. I am helping him to translating some English Christian questionnaires to Chinese. I am not good at translating and I wish Carmen is here to help me.
Finally, I have completed to update the photo from the Europe trip. There are 170 photos in the website! Carmen helped me to write the caption. It is quite an accomplishment. With the completion of the photo website, the Europe trip finally comes to an end. (Actually, I still need to develop some of the photos, and also waiting for AA to update the air mile)
I will go to Orlando for my last week of work/training. And then I am going to fly to Indiana. There is a return ticket back to CCS in Aug 28. However I will not use it because I do not plan to return to CCS. Here is the iternary:


Aug. 14 (Sun)	AA2106 CCS - MIA 11:53 - 15:10 AA752 MIA - Orlando 18:06 - 19:11
Aug. 22 (Mon)	AA867 Orlando - Chicago 07:00 - 08:53 AA1672 Chicago - Indiana 11:27 - 12:24
Aug. 28 (Sun)	AA1143 Indiana - DFW 10:30 - 12:45 AA2155 DFW - CCS 14:45 - 21:03

I am such a valuable employee and CTT is good enough that they pay for Carmen's trip too. Carmen has a return ticket to Vancouver in Nov. 20. So just in case if we need to go back, this may be useful. Here is the iternary:


Aug. 14 (Sun)	AA282 YVR - Orlando 09:05 - 19:43
Aug. 22 (Mon)	AA867 Orlando - Chicago 07:00 - 08:53 AA1672 Chicago - Indiana 11:27 - 12:24
Nov. 20 (Sun)	AA1143 Indiana - DFW 11:19 - 12:44 AA887 DFW - YVR 16:39 - 19:02

July 20, 2005(Wednesday)

I did lots of administrative stuff today. I called my dad to clear up the insurance issue and his opinion of setting up a business. He also mentioned that he joined some kind of Christian politic union so that Christian has some voice to the politic. I am happy for them. I also packed stuff to a box so that Che So can bring it to US and mail it for me. However, I am still working on the Europe trip photo.
Mrs. Chu returned from China to Venezuela today. Therefore, I went to Semson's home to have dinner with them and also joined them for the prayer meeting for the second time. (The first time was June 12, 2002. We were doing the Purpose Driven Life book and we had a great time sharing. I have not gone to church for several weeks (Europe trip and work trip) and it is a great time to pray and share with brothers and sisters.
Here is the iternary for my 6th (and probably the last one in the next long while) Miami visit:


July 24 (Sun)	AA936 CCS - MIA 15:19 - 18:38
July 30 (Sat)	AA2133 MIA - CCS 19:39 - 22:52

July 19, 2005(Tuesday)

I did not go to work today. Instead, I stayed connected to the internet at home. Carmen wrote the caption for the Europe trip photo. I will upload the photo to the website within a few days. I also went for a run today. I have not run for a month and I need to get myself back to shape, even though Carmen and I walked for about 6 hours per day during the Europe trip. I also had a 1.5 hours afternoon nap and hope that I can get over the jet lag.
I went to church at 4pm for the wedding dinner of Yemmy and Jacky. They have the idea of having a wedding banquet last month but they waited for me to come back so that I can join them. The wedding dinner / ceremony for Venezuelan Chinese is not as complicated or highly organized as the one in Vancouver. This is a BBQ dinner and people can sit anywhere in the church. There is no exact start time or no exact end time for the dinner. Also, there is no dress code at all. It is just like another dinner at church. And I designated myself last night to be the MC/GM (without going through them, because they assume that I will fill this role) for what the program (playing, sharing, singing) should be. So I asked Carmen some suggestion about what to do. Basically, the Chinese youth fellowship sang two songs to them. Then we played a game that other people played us during my wedding - we blindfolded the groom and the bride has to guide him verbally from one place to the other, while five pair of people holding string as the obstacle. The other game that we played was to ask some questions and check whether their answers match. They also shared about their dating history and we also have some sharing about wish them well in the future. The program lasted from 7:20 to 8:10.
There were about 11 new friends came tonight because they went to attend the dinner. Therefore, instead of giving out a talk about how to host worship service, the Toronto STM shared about salvation. It was a boring talk, yet I hope the non-believers hear some important messages.
I helped out cleaning afterward, and returned home at 11:30.
I had a great time reading the Hansel's diary for Jul 15. He said that he volunteered in "Boys and Girls Club" and saw a problematic kid. The kid was EXTREMELY hyper active and talkative and he reminds Hansel of the younger version of Hubert. Reading his diary fills my memory of my childhood. I was smiling hard at that time, and almost wet my eyes too (my childhood memory with Hansel is one of the VERY FEW non-traditional things (traditional things mean that people would normally weep when there is death or extreme sickness or separation) that can wet my eyes).

July 18, 2005(Monday)

I went back to work this morning. I called IU regarding about my visa status because they said that they required me to arrive before the theoretical program start date of Aug 14. So I asked them to fax me some letter such that I can arrive afterwards.
I went to work in the morning to check email and doing other administrative stuff. In the afternoon I went back to home and worked on the expense analysis (yes, I like to do analysis, especially using excel) for the Europe trip. We spent US$4699 for the entire trip, including everything such as air ticket, hotel, food. Originally I allocated US$5000 for this 26 days trip and we are under budget. We did a great job.
The Toronto STM has some workshop on how to lead worship in Baptist Church. Even though I did most of the worship stuff in church, I went to Semson house to teach guitar instead. I find that this is more rewarding and more important for me to do.

July 17, 2005(Sunday)

We woke up at 2:40am. This is one of the earliest times that we have wakened up. Then we took train and bus and arrived to the airport at 5am. This is the first time that we took public transportation to the airport.
After checking in, Carmen escorted me to the gate. My flight to Caracas is 7:15am while her flight to Vancouver is 12:30pm. We had a hard time separated. When we went to the waiting room, it is only a glass door away from the public area. Therefore, we can still see each other and we had several extra farewell.
I took a 1.5 hours flight to Paris and then another 8.5 hours flight to Caracas. I was sleeping, reading Times / Newsweek in the plane. There is once again another 9 years old girl sitting behind me kicking the chair periodically. That prevented me from sleeping well.
I arrived to Caracas at local time 2:30. Che So and Mrs. Cheng picked me up from the airport. I returned to home to check email and did some exercise. Then I went with the church people to have dinner and then we went to the airport (second time for me today) to pick up the STM from Toronto. I returned home at 12:10am.
For a positive side of separating from Carmen, it is good return to the familiar environment so that I can settle down for a while. I was moving too constantly in the last month. I am not a person of chaos. Therefore, I felt good to have stability again (but chaos is necessary from time to time). I also need to get used to the English keyboard again. Previously, in German keyboard, the "y" and the "z" are located in opposite. I have gotten used to this already. Now I need to reverse my typing pattern back to normal.

July 16, 2005(Saturday)

We went to the Zoologischer Garten area to have a walk. We have been there previously in June 25. We visited this place more detail today. We went to a high class mall named KaDeWe. We have walked around the place, ate lunch there and I also read comic "soccer kid". We have spent 3 hours in this place. We also burnt the photo that we took in this trip to CD. We took about 500 photos, worth 160M.
Afterward, we walked around Zoologische garten and Tiergarten. We returned to Sony Store to check more emails and play play-station game.
At night, originally we wanted to go to the TV tower to enjoy our planned 50 Euro luxury dinner. However, the entrance fee to go to the top of the tower costs 7.5 Euro per person. Thsi is too expensive so we went to a nearby place to eat instead.

July 15, 2005(Friday)

This morning, we went to the Berlin Wall located in the neighborhood of the Warschauer area. Basically, most of the Berlin Wall is teared down. However, there is still some remaining part. We walked along the Wall for 20 mins. There is a lot of graffiti on the wall and this is the protected art. The souvenir shop sells the Berlin Wall stone for about 3 Euro (thumb size stone) to 20 Euro (fist size stone). Ridiculous. I can pick up a stone from anywhere and claim that this is Berlin Wall stone!
We went to the Berlin Wall Museum afterward. There is some kind of tower which we can view the Berlin Wall. I have confirmed that I really have the height phobia. When I go up high, I am really scared. I used to play the monkey bar without any problem. However, lately, I have this problem. I do not know what has happened to me.
In the afternoon, I went to see an Einstein Museum. In 1905, Einstein made 5 breakthrough papers. This year, in order to celebrate the achievement 100 years later, this is the World year of Physics. This museum is only here from March to September. It displays lots of modern physics (from 1870 onwards) achievement and about the life of Einstein. I took my time and had great fun in this museum. The museum designer also did a great job in creating this museum. I also see lots of other nerds having fun in this place. Carmen was sight seeing other places during that time.
We went to Sony store (again) to upload the photos and check email for over an hour. Then we went to a Chinese restaurant to eat dinner. The name of the restaurant is called "Very good friend" (sounds like "lo yau kee"). We saw the flyer of this store in the Berlin wall museum and we are immediately attracted to this store. We had to take train to travel far away to this restaurant. The price is quite expensive. We ate a dim sum menu. It costs about 10 US but has only 8 dim sum. We also ate sauce chicken costs about 10 US. We can refill rice as much as we like so we filled ourselves up this way.

July 14, 2005(Thursday)

We went to the Berlin town center today. We first arrived to the Alexander Platz. Then we went to the Berliner Dom and then walk along the main and big Unter den Linden Street. There is a Micro City that is a cool modern style car dealer. Then we arrived to the Pariser Platz where the famous Brandenburg Gate is located. This is the most famous gate in the Berlin Wall. We had a great time feeling the history in this important wall.
We went to Sony Store afterward and there is free internet! They let the display laptop have internet access. Lots of people are using it and I use it like an internet cafe. I can update online diary and check email. Their internet access speed is very fast too!
Afterward, we went to a musical instrument museum. The museum normally cost 3 Euro but then from 6 to 10pm every Thursday it is free. We are lucky enough to have the free access. We have avoided a lot of fee so far in Europe, such as the internet access, washroom (it costs about 20 cents to go to washroom each time) and museum sometimes.
At night, we returned back to the Pariser Platz because today is the French Day (and also the Pun family 15 years in Canada). We ate some food there and watched some shows. We were there until 8:30 and then walked back to the far end train station until 9:30. We were looking for water to drink but we cannot find one. Therefore, we have to be thirsty until getting some ice from Burger King.
I always love to take night time picture using the camera. There is a moon sign in the camera but yet it cannot capture as much light. Finally, I discovered a new feature in the Sony W1 camera with the M sign such that it would capture light for 30 seconds and then process for another 31 seconds. It can take a dark picture very clearly. I played around with this for about an hour.

July 13, 2005(Wednesday)

We left home at 10am and went to the train station. We took train from Plague to Berlin from 1115 to 1630. We arrived to the new bread and breakfast home at about 630 pm. During today, I did not sleep much in the train. Rather, I read 350 pages of Da Vinci Code book and finished it today. I read for 8 hours! I obviously enjoyed this book. At night, we were gone out to take a look in the area of Berlin. There is a shopping area around. But other than that, nothing really interesting.

July 12, 2005(Tuesday)

We walked around the shops in the Vaclavske namesti area and other area to shopping. Actually, Carmen was walking while I spent about 4 hours reading the Da Vinci Code book. I felt addicted to this book. I read this book started from scratch again in my own pace so that I can get all the meaning. It takes me about 90 seconds to read one page.
I hate the street and map here for several reasons. 1 there is lots of small street. 2. The map is not detail enough. 3. The street is not only vertical or horizontal but also in different orientation. 4. The map uses some short form for the street name which is very confusing. I got lost many times, especially around the area of the old town. I dislike this feeling,.

July 11, 2005(Monday)

We went to Prazsky hrad, the Plague castle, from 11 to 3. We took lots of photo. And the weather changed from very sunny to pouring rain within an instant. During the first change in weather, we went to the info center and I hide near the hidden sanctuary to sleep for 30 mins. And then I finally purchased the Da Vinci Code book. However, later we found out that I purchased it 3 more US dollar expensive than I need to. I felt bad about this
Also the weather changed dramatically several time today. It was raining in one instance and then it is very sunny the next minute. This is very unpredictable.
At night, we went out to have another 2 hours walk and purchased some souvenirs. I also spent lots of time reading the Da Vinci Code book.

July 10, 2005(Sunday)

Last night, Carmen and I played the board game flying chess. Also, we played Big 2 with just two people. I used to play Big 2 card game with Hansel when we were young, also with just two people. Therefore, it refreshed my memory when I was young.
We woke up at 815 this morning and had breakfast. This is also a Bread and Breakfast hostel. However, the breakfast is not exciting at all. They only provided us with some jam and bread and cheese. It is better than nothing though.
We went out to have a walk afterward. We went to the tourist area nearby the Stare Mesto area. We checked out the shop in this area. Afterward, we walked across the Karluv Main, aka the Charles Bridge. We took lots of picture there and we also ate a Chinese lunch there. Yes, another Chinese food for me. For some reason, I like Chinese food after Carmen left Venezuela.
We looked around in the exchange rate. Then we were approached by someone asking us to whether we want to exchange money through the black market twice. We ignore them because we were almost caught yesterday by the police that thought that we were doing black market exchange.
Afterward, we returned to the Staromestske nam area and we went to a church to listen to free choir music by some university student in Cambridge England. We went there because it is free, I am a bit tired and the weather turned from sunny to rain.
Afterward, the weather suddenly turned really ugly and rainy. There is a high school band performing outside. We felt bad for these people because they will get really wet. However, I think these people will be ok because this will be a very good memory for them. However, life is not the same for some of the waiter. There is a restaurant with some outdoor cafe. They have a tent cover the area. However, this tent is right under the gutter of some building. The gutter overflow seriously and water was pouring onto the tent. The waiters need to stand on table or chair and push the tent upward to prevent the tent from collapsing. We watched them doing this for 40 mins. The waiters were all exhausted. Actually, there are many people watching them but only one or two customers help out this team of waiters. We felt bad for them. The customers inside the tent were so embarrass because it is pouring outside. They want to go but all the waiters are busy with holding the tent. Therefore, they did not leave. I did not help out because I do not want to get myself wet.
We wanted to return to the supermarket that we visited yesterday. However, I got lost and we have to walk under rain for additional 30 mins. Of course we had umbrella but it still made us wet. Therefore, I am very angry about the weather, especially because the weather was sunny when we took the train, yet the weather was bad when we go for the tour. From a positive side, it is good that the weather is sunny when we took the train because it means that we do not have to walk under rain.
After dinner, we went out to have an almost 2hours walk. Originally, we wanted to walk to Vysehrad but then because it was late at night without light, we did not go there. Then we walked across the river and walk back the Charles Bridge here again. It is a very romantic place to be at night.

July 09, 2005(Saturday)

The weather was rainy yesterday during our full day in Cesky Krumlov However, when we are about to leave today, the weather turned sunny and bright again. I do not know whether this is good or bad. Obviously, we cannot enjoy bright weather yesterday was bad. However, we need to carry our luggage for 20 mins walk to the train station. So this may be good that it is not raining today. Anyway, we had a morning short walk in the town center after breakfast and then we checked out at about 11am.
We took a train back to Ceske Budejovice. Then we took a 30 mins bus to the next train station and then arrived at Prague at about 5pm. And then we started our quest to locate the hotel again. The hotel is located in the Karlovo Namesti, aka Charles Square. Therefore, we took the subway to this area. However, we had serious trouble finding the address 16 Karlovo Namesti. We thought that this is a square so we do not know why there is a street number. After carrying our luggage to go for some search, we finally located the street. However, the street number stopped from 33 to 20 and then it started to number again but with another street name. We were really confused. We tried to ask for people but they do not speak good English. Also, when we asked one of the people, some strange thing happened. A person came to us and showed us the police badge and asked us and also the person who helped us for the passport. And then, even more ridiculous, that police asked us to show him our money. According to him, he is trying to arrest people who are doing illegal black market selling money. Therefore we have to show him all the US, Euro and Czech money we have, even the one that hides inside our clothes. Both us and the person who helped us are affected. Obviously we are cleared but then it is very intimating.
Anyway, after the police incident, we continued to find the hotel. After some luck, we finally locate it. Rather than the street number going along the street, the street number go around the square instead. Therefore, we have to go around the square to locate the right hotel. This is definitely very confusing and I do not enjoy it at all.
We arrived to the hostel at 630. We went out to supermarket to buy some food because there is kitchen in this place. There is also free internet in the hostel. There is only one computer, but it is not as bad as the situation in Vienna, where one computer has to share with more than 20 people. According to the host, there are only 9 people and as of right now, we rarely see other people yet. So we can use the computer freely.
The Czech keyboard is even more confusing then the German or Spanish keyboard. Not only is the y and z are reversed, the numeric are in weird position too. Usually, when I type 1234567890, I would get the numbers. However, in the Czech keyboard, I have to hold the shift key in order to have these number. Without the shift key, I would only have the +ìšèøžýáíé when I type the 1234567890. Also, I still cannot find the bracket or the star or the at sign or the question marks and so on. I will have to cut and paste from other places if I need to use these keys.

July 08, 2005(Friday)

We had free breakfast in the hotel. Since this is free, we ate as much as we can. However, I am a bit full from last night dinner. Regardless, we made lots of egg and bacon sandwiches for us to eat during lunch time. We fully took advantage of this free breakfast.
We went out to visit, to places like Dolni Hrad, Honi Hrad and Zamecka Zahrada. This is a castle with garden. We took lots of picture. Afterward, we wanted to watch the knight show advertised in the street. However, we cannot find it. Is it because of the rainy weather, or because we were in the wrong places. Therefore, we ended up walking around the Mestsky Park instead. We also wanted to visit the Torture Museum but then the entrance fee is a bit expensive 2 Cdn per person for the relatively short tour that worth only 15mins. Therefore, we returned to the hotel and I taught Carmen how to play international chess. I have not played chess for more than 13 years and this is the first time that Carmen played chess. She definitely did a good job as a beginner.
We went out to a pretty good hotel to have a Czech style dinner which cost cheap. At the same time, there is a group of Japanese tourist eating good food from this restaurant. They got huge respect from the waitress while we got none. At last, we went to bookstore and read the Da Vinci book for 15 mins until the bookstore close at 9pm.

July 07, 2005(Thursday)

We checked out in the morning. Afterward, we took a train from Vienna to Linz for two hours and then cross the border to Czech Republic, first to a town Ceske Budejovice and then transit to our destination Cesky Krumlov. We arrived there at about 7pm. I slept most of the time in the train. The hotel that we are staying is called the Hotel Vitka.
We went out to look for a place to eat. We ended up eating in a Chinese place again, because this is cheaper and it will fill our stomach. We walked around the places for a little while and then returned to hotel at about 10pm.
This Cesky Krumlov is a small town filled with Medieval Age building. We think that we will be able to walk through the whole place within a small amount of time.

July 06, 2005(Wednesday)

We went to the town center again, visiting places like Stadtpark, Karlsplaty. We also went to the bookstore so that I can continue my time to read the book "Da Vinci Code" for about 1.5 hours. We also listened to the street musicians to play some music too.
At night, we listened to the Wiener Mozart Orchestra (The German of the place Vienna is Wien). This is a 31 people orchestra (including the conductor) plus two singers (one male and one female), all dressed in the Mozart period clothes. The ticket prices are 72 Euro, 60 Euro or 35 Euro. However, the sales told us on Monday that there are student tickets available for 19 Euro. When we checked with the sales today, he told us that it does not matter whether you are a student or not. It only matters whether you are lucky enough to have sales that have the student ticket or not. Obviously this is a sales technique but we don't care. This is the second time that I listen to an orchestra or classic music concert. My parents brought me to a classical concert when I was about 7 years old in HK. They hope that, by introducing an orchestra to me when I just started to learn violin, I would be very interested in music. This technique failed on the surface because I was very bored at that time. I almost slept though the entire time. However, consider that not many youth musician continue their quest for practicing music daily, that first concert did plant a seed in my heart.
This Mozart concert was ok. Even though we only purchased the 19 Euro cheap tickets, we moved to a better seat after the concert started. They played some classic tunes mainly from Mozart and from Strauss (another composer). What better place to listen to a concert, other than Vienna? However, we are even more amazed at the street musicians. We get to listen to them playing for free!

July 05, 2005(Tuesday)

We went to the UNO city in the morning. We thought that the UN stands for the United Nation. However, there is nothing much to see. However, there is an Austria center in that place and there are four computers with internet in that center! We had problem finding internet access for the last few days and now there is free internet access! Therefore Carmen and I spent about 1.5 hours checking email and so on. Afterward, we walked around the Donaupark nearby. There should have a famous "Blue Donau river" nearby. The composer Strauss made a song from this river. However, we were disappointed with the river because it looks so normal to us and it is not blue at all (probably because it was raining at that time)
We went to the downtown afterward to check out the Donaukanal (I guess this is the Canal of the Donau river). Once again, it is just like a big drain with some water there. Nothing special. It rained at that time and we don’t have the motivation to check out different places. Therefore, we went to the bookstore and be bookworm instead. At first, I read about an hour of Japanese comic (but in German). Afterward, Carmen recommended me to read the famous book "Da Vinci Code". I am a bit reluctant to read it at first because it is such a thick book without any picture. However, I felt in love with this book afterward and read for about 2.5 hours for the first 104 pages! This is the first time after high school that I read any English non-religious novel! And it is also the first time that I read any English non-religious book that is not school related!
We went back to the hostel to cook dinner. By buying food and cook dinner in the hostel, it decreased the cost per meal from about US $6 per person to US $2 per person! However, not every places that we will go to have kitchen though.

July 04, 2005(Monday)

Since there is a private fridge in our room and a public kitchen, we decided to cook food for the next several days in Vienna in order to save some cost. We went out to buy grocery in the morning. In the afternoon, in order to compensate our extremely hungriness last night, we went to a Chinese restaurant nearby to have a buffet lunch. We ate so much that we are very full.
We took a train to the town center. We went to some ancient building (lots of them in Europe) like Friedrich-Schmidt Platz and big cathedral (also lots of them in Europe) like Stephansplatz (this is the center of the town center). After being in different places in Europe, we are pretty much used to and saturated with these ancient nice building.
Since we are in Vienna, we expected to see a lot of street musician. However, in the afternoon, we only managed to see some street hip hop brake dancer. We have seen these kinds of performers before in New York. In fact, even their script sounds the same. They performed well and they established a rule that if they did a good job, people should pay tips. There were lots of people watching them and clapped hard. However, when it came to the time to pay money, the crowd (including us, of course) immediately disappeared. Out of the 100+ people watching, only 3 or 4 people paid them money. I felt really bad for them.
We went to Volksgarten and I had an afternoon nap there. In fact, I slept a lot in the Europe trip, even to my standard. I am now sleeping about 9 hours at night and another 1 hour afternoon nap everyday. And when I am taking the train, I am even sleeping 12 hours a day! I have slept in different garden. When the weather is nice, it is an excellent feeling to sleep under the shade, with trees around and wind blowing gently. I will be the type of man that when I get old, I will always go to the park and sleep.
After the late afternoon nap, it is about 6pm. We went back to the town center and there are some street musicians finally. Once again, we saw some group playing triangle shape guitar with only three (or may be four) strings. We have seen two groups of people playing this kind of instrument in Salzburg and we saw two groups in Vienna. The groups usually have three or four people. Two playing the small size triangle-shape guitar (similar to the function of violin in a quartet). And one playing a huge triangle shape guitar (similar to double base in a quartet). One playing a "hand wind piano" (direct translation for Chinese. In English, I don't really know what it called. It is a small size piano carrying on your lap. And you have to open and close it in order to make a sound). On the other hand, we have only seen one group of people playing the "normal instrument" (violin, flute, oboe, cello, double base) in Munich and that's all. I thought that there will have more to it.
Some of the street musicians are REALLY good. I saw one that played the triangle shape guitar so fast and so well. I am very amazed at his talent! Some times there are people gathering around watching them playing and clapping hand for them. However, when it comes to giving them money, not many of them give money. Of course, we have not yet given any money, even though I enjoyed them playing a lot and watched them play for a long time. They sometimes look at us and me with a look that they are begging us to give money. Or they would just look at us as if they don't care whether we will give them money or not but they will keep on performing. One day in the future, if my kids decided to go to be a full time musician or artist, I will give him or her Europe trip experience. I will ask them to go to Europe. Of course the kid would be delighted. However, the kid should look at these musicians. They are good and talented but their income is low. This is the lesson and a decision that my kid should make.
We were thinking whether we should go to concert hall to listen to a concert in Vienna. However, after we have made up our mind and returned to the ticket person on the street, he has gone home. Therefore, we went back to the hostel. Originally we wanted to find internet cafe, but we cannot find one nearby. The hostel has free internet access; but with just one computer sharing among the whole building, we decided not to waste time. Carmen cooked dinner. I have not tasted something so nice for two months already!
We also saw several good people today. The hostel staffs are not good. However, some street people are nice to us. When we went to the drug store this morning, we asked for the direction and she gladly explained to us. In addition, when we went to the supermarket to buy meat, the staff was also very good and explained to us which is beef and which is pork. Lastly, when we were looking at the map in the city center, someone came to ask whether we need some help or not! We were very delighted with these people! (But still, no one is nice enough to pay good money to the street performers)

July 03, 2005(Sunday)

There was no hot water in the shower last night again. Actually this is the second time in a row. The previous night people in front of me have hot water. However, when it was my turn, the hot water is all gone. However, I can still survive with the temperature. However, last night, there was absolutely no hot water. The temperature is really cold! But there is nothing much that we can do, other than hoping that hot water will be available later!
We took a 4 hours train from Salzburg to Graz, a small city located in Austria. In Graz, we walked from the train station to the old town. We visited a 16-th century armor storage place located in Landeszeughaus. This is the place that stores the weapons during 16th century! I wonder what kind of person or soldier I am if I were born in that period of time! We also walked to the mountain and visited the Bell Tower. There is lots of nice view about the city. Along the river in Murinsel, there is also a restaurant floating on the river and it has a lot of "cyber" feeling.
The Graz visit is only an afternoon-visit. Therefore, we put our luggage into the train station's lockers. I put Carmen's backpack and the "pull" luggage inside the locker. The locker is small so we have to squeeze the luggage inside the locker. When we took the luggage out, the locker's lock is stuck. Therefore, we have to ask the information desk for help. We therefore missed the direct train from Graz to Vienna. We have to take the next train, which is an indirect one and is only an hour later. During that train, the seats are almost all full. Therefore, Carmen and I have to sit in different cubicles. We arrived to Vienna at 6:30pm.
We are staying in a youth hostel in Vienna for the next 4 nights. This is a school's dorm during regular time but turned to a hostel during summer. Therefore, the room is relatively nice: we have a double bed room and a private washroom. There is also a kitchen but we have to share it with the whole building. We arrived there at 8pm. However, we have not yet had dinner yet. In fact, we did not eat much today. Therefore I was starving at that time. We went out immediately to find food. However, there is no cheap restaurant near by. After about an hour walk, we returned to the hotel with our empty stomach. We were glad that we got some bread and salad from Graz train station so that is our dinner!

July 02, 2005(Saturday)

The weather today is a bit better. We walked around in the city again. Also, we were very cost conscious so we did not eat too much in the last few days. Therefore we went to a Chinese restaurant and ate a well deserved buffet. It costs 6.9 Euro per person (about 10.4 Cdn) per person. It tastes ok from the perspective of a buffet. However, without telling us in the advertisement, they compulsively required us to purchase a drink per person. We ended up buying a large one (cost 2 Euro) that two of us share. We felt a bit cheated about how they do business this way.
We went to the Mirabellgarten with lots of nice flowers and baroque statue. This may be part of the scene from the movie "Sounds of Music"! (Actually, the movie is shooting in different area of Salzburg)
We went to the Augustinergasse road in the evening because there is a large beer garden and beer factory there. This used to be a monastery. They can now hold more than 2000 people to drink beer at once.

July 01, 2005(Friday)

Today is not a good day for outdoor tour because it is raining the whole time. However, we still went out for the whole day. We went to Festung Hohensalzburg, a castle located on top of the mountain. We also went to Monchsberg, which is the mountain's name. And then we returned back to the old towns and check the places again. We were a bit cold but we are not wet. Due to the weather's issue, we cannot take a lot of picture. In addition, most of the washrooms in Europe are paid washroom. I always need to go to washroom frequently. However, I can always find a way to crack into some washroom without having to pay. For example, I will go to hotel or restaurant and pretended to be a guest looking around. Moreover, there are a lot of cars that is standard. Usually in Vancouver, there is only 30% of the cars are standard and the ratio is higher (about 50%) in UBC. On the other hand, the ratio of standard car in Europe is about 95%! Almost everyone drives standard car!