Yes, this is the next generation of my old phone, the Nokia E61i. The E71 is slimmer, smaller and a lot faster than the E61i. I contemplated long and hard about this over the iPhone and concluded that I did not want/need to pay the extra $40 per month. Though I did end up getting the $20 data plan.
This phone is replacing my old phone (obviously) and my iPod Nano (4GB). The good thing about these Nokia phones is that they take up to 8GB microSD. My biggest complaint about this phone is the 2.5mm audio jack. I will need to pick up an adapter to fit regular size 3.5mm headphones.
It's been a year since we officially launched TickerHound! It's been a year of sleepless nights, antisocial weekends and caffeine induced coding sessions. It was/still is a hell of a ride and I love (almost) every single moment of it. This is by no means the end - far from it! Like Wayne said: "we're just getting started!"
Here are some memories, lessons, highlights:
Outsourced Indian firm: getting the project back from them with most of the code - a couple thousand lines or so - in ONE file. We had to take it apart and pretty much redo the whole thing from the ground up.
The Crash: the site crashed 15 minutes into the launch. We should have cached like I suggested; I should have stepped up and made us cache. We've gone a LONG way since then. We're now on an auto-scaling architecture at RightScale, leveraging Amazon Web Services (EC2/S3/SQS).
Workspace: our apartments to Starbucks to SunShine Suites. Upgrades at SunShine: the small dark cubicle space (4th floor) to the slightly bigger, brighter but noisier and smellier cubicle space (6th floor) and finally to the nice 3 cubicle space by the window.
Hired Help: I want to thank everyone who's pitched in and contributed. Good or bad, we wouldn't be here without you.
Lou: Our third official hire. With him on board, we took TickerHound to the next level. The first time Lou was meeting us, he was late. He was late because he missed the bus. He missed the bus because he passed out on top of a sugar silo in Montreal the night before.
TickerHound Members: we definitely wouldn't be here without you. You ARE TickerHound. Thank You!
Software: I no longer get laughed at by the tech community for using DreamWeaver. I'm usually using Eclipse and sometimes VI.
Hardware: I still get laughed at for having my variety of gadgets: curved keyboard, logitech revolution mice, laptop coolers, headphones, monitors. At the center of it all: my MacBook Pro - still trucking!
Wayne: Thanks for fishing me out of the menial 9-5 job (no disrespect to my last job, nine to five business casual is just not my thing). It's the most fun I've had working. There's no other way to do it. "It's your world squirrel - I'm just trying to get a nut"
TickerHound (Wayne, Lou and me) are in South Florida for two weeks to do meetings.
We got a pimping condo: big kitchen, hot tub, hd flat screen, high speed internet... the works. The TickerHound mobile (rental car)... not so much. It's a Dodge Magnum (I didn't want to drive the Celine Dion car; Pacifica).
I'm not really complaining considering I took this picture when it was about 20 degrees in New York (yes, I did check the weather, just so I can rub it in my friends' faces)
Dinner impossible night: I had to make food for 5 people but only had enough material for 3. Starter: Almond Crusted Goat Cheese on Salad of Arugula. Main: Rigatoni with Meat Sauce
Used everything on hand. Added an appetizer and used white bread crumbs and cheap wine to stretch the sauce.
Lou and I grabbed our cameras and drove down to South Beach for a day trip.
Seriously, the following conversation occured right before me seeing that... Me: This beach is frickin empty! Where are the topless chicks? Lou: I don't know what they're doing over there but we should be part of that action.
One more with boobies
Obligatory shot of palm tree and coconuts
This guy loves the water.
We sat at a cafe type thing along Ocean Ave. and sucked down giant fruity frozen drinks while waiting Chris to drive down for dinner.
We had dinner at Nemo (sorry, didn't bring the camera with me so no pictures). Nemo had one of the best Chilean Sea Bass I've ever had: crisp on the outside, perfectly cooked all over, great sauce. After dinner Chris took us to The Florida Room in the basement of the Delano hotel to check out the live band. The Fox Brothers Band was playing some wicked latin jazz.
We woke up and met with Mr. Chen around 8AM. He took us to the tour company and bought us tickets to the a tour of the Great Wall at Ba Da Ling - just in time to get on the bus. As the bus was chugging along, we decided to read our tour book. The book warns about side trips to locations such as medicine shops and jade factories. Simon wakes me up as the bus is pulling into a parking lot. Shocked that I had slept for the whole 3 hours, I asked if we’re there already. I soon find out that we are only about an hour and a half into the trip. As we’re getting off the bus, I asked the tour guide what this was. She answers enthusiastically: jade factory and lunch.
// pictures to come After a short tour of the jade factory and the jade shop, we were directed to the eating area in this fairly big complex. We sat down next to some of our fellow Great Wall tourists to have a family style meal. This was the worst meal ever. I was reluctant to eat a couple of the dishes as I did not even think about popping a squat anytime soon.
The next stop was the Ming tombs. After seeing the tombs in Egypt, the Ming tombs weren’t too impressive. To be fair though, China only dug up 1 of 13 tombs.
Two more hours on the bus brought us to the Great Wall at Ba Da Ling. There are many entrances to enjoy the Great Wall. Ba Da Ling is the most touristy. Dan and Sindy went to Simatai, a more remote spot along the wall. There is a giant Hollywood styled sign with the Olympics logo and slogan smack middle of the most visable spot. I have mixed feelings about the sign: it effectively ruins all and any shot around it but it also makes me damn proud to be Chinese.
I’m glad we didn’t go to Simatai. Simatai meant 4 hours of hiking through steep and rough inclines and stairs where as Ba Da Ling was only about 1 and a half. Some of the inclines were probably around 30 degrees.
The Great Wall surely is great. It stretches on and on and on along with the mountains. I did way too much walking the past few days to hike any more than the 1 and half hours. We made through about 3 towers before we had to get back to the bus. Of course, my bad knee gets busted on the way down. Simon took a video of me walking down some stairs with much difficulty as an old man whizzes by me. It got bad enough that I had to hold on to Simon's shoulder to make it pass the stairs by the vendors past the entrance to the wall. The same calm bus driver who took us to the Great Wall drove like a maniac back to Beijing. It was so bad that I woke up to a bunch of people puking on the outskirts of Beijing. Strange enough it didn’t smell.
The bus arrived back to the tour company about 20 minutes early. When I called Mr. Chen, he was already waiting at the KFC across the street. The restaurant where we’re having our dinner wasn’t too far away, so we started walking through the busy Beijing street in the middle of rush hour. Mr. Chen took us to the Quanjude located on Chienmen Street. Quanjude is the oldest Beijing duck restaurant in Beijing. Chienmen (front gate) street was just redone to reflect its former glory. It was so new that 90% of the store fronts are vacant.
Mr. Chen came to Quanjude an hour before we arrived to get a ticket for seats so we wouldn’t have to wait. The hospitality is indescribable. Mr. Chen informs us that another friend of my dad’s is joining us for dinner: Manager Wong (yes, that was how she was introduced and that was what I called her). Manager Wong came with two of her nieces. One of them had the jellyfish hair cut that Lori told us about. Manager Wong is also from Fuzhou. Simon and her briefly conversed in their dialect.
We had a feast: everything duck from skin to offal as well as a few other kinds of animals.
The coolest part was the restaurant gave us a card telling us the number of the duck they served us: 1.15 billion + 360,948
After dinner, Manager Wong and Mr. Chen took us to a massage spa where we were treated to 3 hours of foot and full body massage. As it turns out, the owner of the spa was also a friend of my dad's (go figure).
We took a bunch of slow shutter pictures in front of the Forbidden City on the way back to the hotel. At 11PM: Tiananmen square is closed/fenced off, the underground tunnel to cross the street is filled with the slumbering homeless and the sidewalk in front of the Forbidden City is empty save a few Liberation Army guards and policemen.
A good way to end our last night in Beijing I suppose.
Everyday at sunrise, there’s a flag raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square. Thinking back, Simon and I really should have joined Dan and Sindy on the Great Wall tour on day 3 – they went to a more remote part of the wall and we would have gotten up at the same time anyway. We got to Tiananmen Square at about 6:45AM, 20 minutes before sunrise, and were already too late. There was already a mass of people standing waiting for the flag to rise. We were about 7 rows of people (and growing) behind. 5 minutes before sun rise, a column of the People’s Liberation Army marched out from the Forbidden City.
Flag-raising Ceremony on Tiananmen Square from Simon Tung on Vimeo. At the exact time of sun rise, the national anthem started playing and the flag started rising. It was a little anticlimactic as I thought people around us would burst into song when the anthem started playing. After a round of pictures around Tiananmen Square, we headed into the Forbidden City. The Odwalla bar we had didn’t quite hold us over so we went to the fast food joint right outside the first gate. We had some congee that ate like watered down grits and some steamed pork buns. The Forbidden City ticket office doesn’t open till 8:30. We watched the troops practice marching till then.
The Forbidden City is palace after palace. The ones towards the front have been better restored than the ones in the back. We finished walking after about 2.5 hours and headed back to the hotel. On the way back, we discovered a supermarket in the basement of the hotel building. We shopped around and picked up some freshly made dumplings for lunch.
After a short rested we decided to check out the home of Prince Gong and the Hutongs in the area called Houhai. Once we got to Houhai, we were offered rides on the tricycles. We talked the price down to 70 from 180, giving up the ticket to the house of Prince Gong. Our “tour guide” took us into the Hutongs.
Our first stop: traditional courtyard house in a Hutong. We also made another stop to check out the outside of the Bell Tower – from the outside. Houhai is an area where the converted Hutongs into a bar and shopping area.
We went back after the tricycle tour to pick up some souvenirs. Found some opium pipes, the haggling game begins: the price tag says 380, I asked how much in Mandarin, he told me 125. I got it down to buying 4 for 250. On the way out, they wanted me to buy more stuff and offered a carved mask for 300. I didn’t really want to get it so I told them a ridiculous price of 50. They ended up it giving it to me for 50 on the way out.
Our time in Beijing has passed by pretty quickly and the food opportunities are dwindling. There was one more meal I needed to squeeze in as a favor for Wayne: hotpot. There’s a sauce for hotpot in Beijing called majiang that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. I had to try it in Beijing so maybe we can duplicate it. It is now 3:45PM. I talked Simon into making hotpot a snack as we hopped into a cab and headed to HaiDiLao (海底捞), a restaurant recommended for hotpot (food blog post to come).
Hot Pot in Beijing from Simon Tung on Vimeo. I most definitely over ordered: ½ spicy Sizhuan ½ medicinal broth, variety of meats, variety of vegetables. The waiter told me the majiang sauce was made of sesame paste and peanut butter though I am sure there was more ingredients in there. I forgot to order the fresh hand made noodle.
After our “snack” we grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel to change and clean up before meeting up with a bunch of friends for Beijing duck dinner. Of course, we hit traffic. It was so bad that the taxi driver suggested that we get off and took the subway.
We were about 15 minutes late. Lori, Diana, Sindy, Dan and their friend from the hostel (whose name I forgot) were already there. Lori asked the waitress to give us a demo on how to eat the duck. The duck was mindblowingly amazing: the skin – crispy, the fat and meat – juicy, flavorful. It makes me sad that I can’t get it back home. Oh yea, the pine fish was pretty good too. We had a dinner conversation about how I hardly take pictures of people. I forgot to take pictures of people during dinner. We called it an early night as we have to wake up pretty early the next day for the Great Wall expedition.
