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.
Tour of Tian Tan, Food at Three Guizhou Men, Hutong Almond Tofu
We were both massively hung over from the night before. After attempting to get up several times, we finally managed to leave the hotel around 1PM. Lunch was at a restaurant we randomly picked (well, not so random, this one had the most locals eating in it) across the street from the hotel. We had bokchoy with mushrooms and a beef and tomato casserole. The original plan was to go to the underground city that the communists built during the war but a quick call to Sindy changed that. Sindy and Dan had been at the Forbidden City for the last few hours and were heading to Tian Tan (Temple of heavenly peace) after some food. We decided to meet them at Tian Tan instead of the underground city as it was more historical (and touristy). After a 15 minute cab ride, we arrived at the Tian Tan complex south east of the city center.
Tian Tan was where emperors came to pray. It’s a large complex that stretches a couple of football fields.
The main points were the alter, the small round temple and the large round temple. There are gardens surrounding the giant path ways leading to each. It took us about 2 hours to reach the main attraction, the large round temple, from the entrance.
The sun was setting and Tian Tan was closing shortly after we reached the end. Dan and Sindy never made it as they couldn’t catch a cab by Tiananmen Square after lunch.
On our way back to the entrance, we were greeted by what seems to be tenors singing songs from the cultural revolution era. It was groups of people congregated in the park leading to the entrance.
They were just hanging out in the park on a Sunday afternoon singing songs, playing chess, kicking hacky sacks and playing badminton. By the entrance we met a girl from California who suggested that we check out the “pearl market” across the street. The “pearl market” was more like a giant department store/flea market with different floors selling different stuff: 1st floor: electronics, 2nd floor: clothing and shoes, 3rd floor: jewelry, basement: pearl. The setup is stalls and counters after stalls and counters selling similar things. I picked up a LED flash light after some hard bargaining.
Lori made reservations for us to eat at a minority food restaurant called Three Guizhou Men. It’s a pretty classy restaurant decorated by a lot of modern Chinese art pieces (this place was opened by an artist). Sindy and Dan brought their friend Rich (who works in Beijing). The food here was amazing. The most memorable dishes was the spare ribs (spicy and falling off the bones. pictured above) and the quail soup (flavorfully clean, perfect for an unexpectly cold Beijing night).
For dessert, Lori took us to Alba Café located in an area where they converted Hutongs into boutique shops (similar to Houhai but less touristy). The café was housed in a converted Hutong. We sat at the attic area upstairs which only fits a table of about 6 (so we had the whole upstairs to ourselves).
The almond tofu here was amazing: very dense, lots of almond flavor.
The VIP Treatment My dad had arranged his friend Mr. Chen to take care of us in Beijing. I didn’t expected a crazy VIP style treatment. He had a sign with my name in both Chinese and English when we came out of the terminal. He then took us outside to a parked Mercedes with a driver waiting. Too bad all our luggage didn’t fit. Mr. Chen ended up taking Dan to her hostel in a taxi and the driver took us to our hotel to check in. After we settled in a bit, Mr. Chen came up, gave us some items from my dad (a burner phone, some cash and a bunch of tourist info) and took us to dinner. The place he wanted to take us to, Quanjede – oldest Peking duck place in Beijing, was way too packed and had a 40 minutes wait. We opted for a rain check and went to Korean barbeque across the street. The Korean BBQ was unlike any I’ve seen back in the states The meat is grilled over a giant pot of red hot coal. Mr. Chen asked us if we drank and ordered a bottle of baijiu. Simon thought it was beer (ha!) This brand, Er guo tou, was what Mr. Chen and my dad drank when they first met 16 years ago. It was 102 proof (56% alcohol). It is definitely not a sipping drink. I find it pretty good if you take a swig and breath out the minty burning sensation. Dad told me that the way that business men drink in China is that you toast and take a shot with everyone there individually (so if there are 13 people, you'd be drinking 12 shots in your round plus 12 more for everyone who toasts you). The loser (first to get drunk) pays for everything (dinner, drinks, whatever they do afterwards). He claimed that he has never had to pay for dinner, etc.
Carepackage FAIL After dinner, we went back to the hotel and rested a bit before heading out to Sanlitun to meet up with Barbara. Barbara and her friends were having dinner at The Opposite House (this is also where Diana works). We gave Dan and Sindy a call to let them know, grabbed Barbara’s carepackage from her mom (it’s a suitcase of magazines and random stuff you can’t get in China like Frosted Flakes) and jumped into a cab. When we got there, we got out of the cab, went around to the trunk to grab the suitcase but as soon as both side doors slammed, the cab driver jetted – with the carepackage in the trunk. I ran after the cab but about 3 blocks later, the baijiu made a reappearance and I left a part of myself by a tree on Sanlitun. With no other option, we walked to The Opposite House with our heads down to let Barbara know the bad news. She was quite disappointed and shocked. We met a couple of her expat friends. Simon had a Brooklyn Lager at the bar. Dan and Sindy stopped by and went out to grab food. Diana stopped by to say hi and went back to work (she manages one of the restaurants there). Barbara: we'll try our hardest to make this up to you when we get back stateside.
Broken Key and Outback Steakhouse Barbara had another friend from out town who is staying with her. She got a call from him when we’re about to head to another bar, telling her that they couldn’t open her door. Since she lived in the area, we decided to walk back to help them. For most of the 15 minute walk, Barbara and her friend Manny argued how long the walk is. Barbara insisted it was 5 minutes and Manny 20. When we got back to her place, she opened the door with no effort. She then grabs his duplicate key to show him how it’s done. She stuck the key in, turn and the key snapped. We tried tweezing the stuck part out with no avail. The security guard at her complex was no help. Diane (one of Barbara’s friends) ended up calling the Police and got a referral for a locksmith. They came within 30 minutes with a cop; they called the police separately to make sure everything’s legit. The locksmiths ended up replacing the barrel. This must be one of the worst night Barbara’s had for a while. Not wanting to end the night on a gloom note, we went out to an expat bar in Sanlitun called Tun. The place was filled with expats and was blasting 90s rock – awesome. We met the owner Chad, a nice fellow from the states who decided that he liked China better. After downing giant pails of delicious mojitos, we headed to another place. Barbara wanted to show us what the club scene is like in Beijing and took us to Vic’s (next to the workers’ stadium). Vic’s is housed in a U shaped building with a Outback Steakhouse in the middle. The club is huge, with many sections playing different kinds of music (American). The feel is just like any other club I’ve been to. We ended the night eating Chinese burritos I bought from a street vendor in our cab on the way back to the hotel.
