Hello everyone,
So, lots more has happened since my last post. My UK move continues to be adventurous.
After a fair bit of searching, I finally found a place in London. It was vastly more difficult than expected because the good places get snatched up so quickly. Basically, if you're not there within about 24 hours of the place first being posted on a rental website, it's probably already rented (especially if it's half decent). This made it extra tricky for me to look for a place in London while I was living with Julie in Oxford.
Eventually, I just started commuting into London daily and surfing the internet from coffee shops in London constantly watching the housing websites for something new. It was crazy but I finally found something which is pretty good. The best thing about this place is that I only had to commit to a 3 month contract. This allows me to discover London and try to find out where the best neighborhoods are. Since being here, I have found that the neighborhoods vary quite a bit. One person described London as a collection of little cities (neighborhoods) all crammed into on big city. Some of the neighborhoods can be vastly different from others. Right now, I am living in a middle class area that is very culturally diverse; Caucasians are the minority by far. It's actually quite friendly and everyone seems to know each other and have fun together but it is missing some key things that I enjoy like good food & parks.
The house itself is pretty nice. I am sharing it with 2 very quite flat mates who I almost never see. My room is a fairly good size and the kitchen and bathroom are nice and new. The biggest problem is that there is no living room and a pretty pathetic dining room. This means I spend basically all my time in my room which does start to get old.
I imagine we will move to a new place once our 3 month lease is up here. I've already seen some nicer areas that I think would suit us much better. I'd like to be a little closer to work & have access to a nice park where I can relax and play soccer. We are contemplating renting a 2 bedroom place and the subletting 1 of the rooms out. We'll see.
My new job is going well. It's been fairly overwhelming with new information. Unfortunately, the skills I acquired at Microsoft on the Mac team are not very relevant to this new job. I am doing quite a bit of programming. At Microsoft, I probably only spent about 10% of my time programming but here I'm spending closer to 60%. This is good though, I really want to learn some new skills and I enjoy programming. However, it's pretty tough on my brain. Leaving work each day is like leaving an 9 hour exam. I am thinking hard all day long and it's exhausting on my brain.
The company itself is cool. It's fun to work all day on a product and then go home and watch a movie from the site (enjoying the fruits of your labor). The people here work crazy hard though. I'd say at Microsoft most people were only working at about 60% capacity. Here they're working constantly all day. They work long hours too - usually about 9 hour days.
One cool thing about working for a small company like this is that everyone knows each other. This means you can get away with some things that wouldn't be tolerated in a bigger company. I won't go into too many details but the jokes that are told and the pranks that are pulled would absolutely not be acceptable most places. I love it though! Ask me in person some time about the things I've seen :)
I'm headed back to Canada this xmas and I absolutely can't wait! It's been far too long since I've seen my family & friends and I desperately need this.
I'm headed out to Oxford this weekend to see Julie. I'm writing this blog while siting on the train with my laptop. The trains are great here! They have electrical outlets. I can even get internet now while riding on the train because I can share the internet that I get from my mobile phone to my laptop.
So far I'm really enjoying my new life in the UK. There are tons of things to see and do here. I think if anything, I'm really not making the most of it yet. Once I get into the groove I think it's going to be amazing!
Anyhow, I'm almost at Oxford now. I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend for my brain.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
October Update
Hello,
So much happened since my last blog post, so here goes.
Julie spent 1 month in Dresden, Germany learning German. She is doing very well now and she can carry on full conversations now. I am very proud of her.
While Julie was in Germany, I was aggressively working with London recruiters to find a job. Apparently my skills are in high demand because I’ve been turning away recruiters left and right because there are just too many of them to work with. At first I was only working with 2 recruiters and I wasn’t getting enough interviews but once I started working with about 6 then the interviews started pouring in. With all interviews, I did the first round over the telephone and if they still liked me I might fly over to London for a face to face.
In the end, I visited London twice for 4 face to face interviews.
The first trip to London was interesting. There were 2 interviews lined up for the first trip. I didn’t want it to be too rushed so I flew over the night before and stayed in a hotel so that I could be fresh in the morning. Unfortunately my head was too focused on the interviews that I ended up showing up to the airport only 30 mins before my flight and the gate had closed. So I had to buy a new ticket for the next flight (not a good start). When I got to my hotel in London I just sat on the bed with my laptop and studied for several hours for the interviews. I made a detailed itinerary for the next day describing which trains & tube lines I needed to get on so that I didn’t have to figure that stuff out on the day of the interviews.
My first face to face interview was with a financial investment company working with FOREX (Foreign currency exchange) investment software & services. The building was incredibly sexy and modern. Everyone wore suits. I was dressed up well but I wasn’t wearing a jacket. The interview itself was with a stern Russian man who was clearly brilliant technically. I think he was probably a nice guy but he did not show any positive emotions on his face or in his tone. He asked me a lot of technical questions that were way beyond my level. I think he was interested in watching HOW I struggled with questions that I didn’t know the exact answer. He was clearly interested in watching me talk the answer out. When I finished the interview it was quite difficult to gauge how well I did because I really only correctly answered about 50% of the questions.
I then got on another train and headed to my next interview. This company specialized in online banking and was looking to get into the mobile phone banking market. The building was not nearly as sexy as the first one. They had way too many people crammed into a small building. People were even working full time in meeting rooms. The interview started with a bit of chatting and then the technical questions started coming. I nailed all of the technical questions this time. The role I was interviewing for here was a technical test lead as well as a customer facing contact. I really got along well with all 3 people who were interviewing me (especially the test lead).
I left London without any issues. The next day I got a call back from the mobile phone banking company. They said the loved me but didn’t think I was suitable for the “customer facing” part of the role. However, they wanted me to work there and said they were going to try to create a new position just for me. They had to get sign off from a manager who was on vacation. A few days later, the manager came back from vacation and said they didn’t have the budget to create a new position so therefore I didn’t get the job.
One week later, the FOREX company called me back. The recruiter told me that I pretty much had the job in the bag but HR wanted to have me in again for one last HR type interview to see if I was a nice guy who would fit into the company. All I had to do was dress nicely and act nice and I’d be in! I booked a flight over again and setup the interview for the morning. This time I was just going to fly over and fly back all in the same day.
However, just after I booked that flight, I got a call back from another company who I’d already telephone interviewed with and they wanted to do a face to face as well. I slotted them in for an interview just after the FOREX interview.
I made another itinerary for my day (this time I was determine not to have any transportation screw ups). I flew over early in the morning. My interview with the FOREX company was first at 11am and it was going to be tight just to make it there from the airport. I paid extra to take the express train into the city. I decided a taxi would be quicker & less prone for getting lost. This turned out to be a mistake because traffic was terrible – I should have taken the tube. The taxi driver was hilarious because she was dedicated to getting me there on time and pulling some crazy driving maneuvers. I ended up being 10 minutes late but it was ok because I called them early and let them know I would be a touch late. The FOREX company was understanding about me being late. The interview was easy HR type questions with 3 different people. I got to go out into the cubicle floors which was quite interesting. It reminded me very much of a stock trading floor. Some people had 6 monitors and their desks with tickers and graphs running all over the screens. There were no cubical walls whatsoever. Again, even the software guys were wearing black pants, shirts, and ties. The working floor where I would work looked a lot like this:
I left and headed over to my next interview (this time I took the tube). I had a bit of time to relax and study a bit more. This company works on streaming movies & TV over the internet (much like Netflix), but they wanted to get into the mobile phone & tablet space. The company was a startup with only about 20 people but it was part owned by a huge corporation. Everyone I interviewed with was super nice, young, and fun. The interview was typical but fun. The technical questions I did pretty well on but my code had a bug in it that I struggled to fix. I took me almost 10 minutes to fix the bug in my code which was a bit stressful with people watching over your shoulder. I finished with the first 2 interviewers and as one of them left, the other guys turns to me and says “you’re doing really well”.
In the end I got both jobs and I had an interesting decision to make. The FOREX job paid a nice chunk more. However, the online streaming job seemed much more interesting, had a better group of people (based on quick first impressions), was working on more interesting technology (like phones & tablets), and was a small startup where I could really make a big difference. When I first went into the job search I had made up my mind that I would always choose more money between 2 jobs but this seemed different. This online streaming job had a lot of things going for it that were interesting to me. This was a tough decision and I lost many hours of sleep trying to figure it out. In the end, I chose the online streaming company and turned down more money from the FOREX company. I have a good feeling it will work out :)
----
At Microsoft, your bonus is tied to an annual performance review. I was expecting to do fairly well this year and therefore expecting a decent sized bonus before I left for UK. However, I ended up getting quite a bad review. I am almost certain that it has a lot to do with the fact that I was leaving Microsoft and there was no incentive to give me a good review and keep my morale high. Your manager has to fight for you against other managers in review sessions and if you get a good review it means someone else doesn’t. There is little incentive for my manager to fight hard for me if I am leaving the company. That’s my theory anyways. I talked to my colleagues afterwards and they agreed I was rated too low (but maybe they were just being nice). Anyhow, I can’t help feeling quite sour towards Microsoft after I feel they screwed me out of at least 1000 euros. Regardless, I didn’t burn any bridges and I was still courteous right to the end. I gave a nice leaving speech that everyone seemed to enjoy. We had two nice leaving drinks nights that were both a ton of fun.
On October 1st, we packed everything we had into about 10 boxes/bags and headed down to the ferry to Hollyhead, UK. I was very nervous that the ferry company would turn us away with the insane amount of bags that we had. I had called ahead before hand and they said it was ok. In the end there was no problems getting our bags into the ferry. However, at Hollyhead, our rental car was far smaller than expected. We had to do some creative packing to get all of our bags into the small car but we somehow managed! We drove our little car from Hollyhead port to Oxford.
The first few days living in Oxford have been good. Julie’s new flatmates are nice. Julie has the attic room which is fairly spacious and has its own on-suite bathroom. We’ve got the house setup nicely and now we are starting to get other things setup like internet, banking, mobile phones, etc. So far oxford seems like a nice little city and I think we will be happy here.
I got Julie a nice new laptop that I hope will last her most of her school career. Its very thin & light but still has a nice size screen.
I’ve got to start looking for my own place in London soon. I will probably live somewhere near Paddington station because there is good transportation (by either bus or train) from oxford. If you book the train more than 24 hours in advance you can get really good deals between oxford & Paddington. I was in that neighborhood today and it looks really nice. Mostly just houses and shops (no offices). I’m hoping to postpone getting a place as long as I can because I’m living for free right now with Julie in Oxford and I don’t want to waste money having 2 places until I start my job on October 17th.
That's all for now.
--Ben
Sunday, 7 August 2011
After a major wrinkle we are nearly back on track
It's been an emotional trip since my last update. The guidelines for our visa documentation said we should apply 3 months before you plan on permanently relocating to the UK. So on the dot, 3 months before we planned to go, we submitted our Visa applications and brought in all of our official documents into the Dublin UK embassy. We provided just about every official document we had (passports, birth certs, marriage certs, bank & investment statements, etc). As we were in the embassy office, I was worried that we didn't prove our finances well enough and didn't use official enough documents for our finances. Regardless of this worry, we submitted our documents, they took our finger prints, took our photos and sent us off to wait for the decision. We paid around 750 pounds to make our applications.
One week later, we got a knock on the door from the postman. Our visas had been rejected! Our visas are only possible because my Grandfather is Scottish. The rejection letter stated that we had not provided long form birth certificates to prove the family line between me, my mother, and my grandfather . We had only provided the wallet sized short form birth certificates which don't state who your parents are. When I went back to the official UK checklist of documents required it simply stated "full birth certificates". I had no idea that Ontario even provided long form birth certificates. My Mom also didn't know that she had access to a long form birth certificate for herself either.
As we kept reading the rejection letter we noticed there was an appeals process which sounded good. We could quickly get the long form birth certs for both myself and my mother and then submit for the appeal. However as we kept reading the information about the appeals process we realized that it would take between 3-6 months to happen. Julie's school started in 3 months from then! It was impossible for us to wait 6 months for an answer.
The was a very stressful period. I had never even heard of "Long form birth certificates" in Ontario. School at Oxford was coming up soon and couldn't be postponed.
The appeals process seemed unworkable because of the massive amount of time it took. The only other option we knew about at the time was to use Julie's Oxford acceptance to get a student visa and then I would latch onto that and work with that. However, with the student visa they kick you out of the country as soon as school is over. That option wasn't ideal because if we were enjoying life in the UK we wouldn't be able to stay.
I took the next day off work to try to find a way out of this mess. We asked the internet to see if people had advice for us. We were also going to start calling lawyers to see what our options were. Luckily the internet came through with the answers we needed. The best solution seemed to be to just avoid the appeals process and pay the 750 pounds again to apply again. If we went the student visa route, it would have been impossible to convert that to an Ancestry visa until the student visa expired. Aren't immigration rules fun?
We decided to pay again and apply again. I couldn't help but feel a bit extorted by the UK government. They were using their power over us to extort more money out of us. Anyhow, we rush ordered new Long form birth certificates from Manitoba (Mom) and Ontario (me). Both of these came in amazingly fast (Go Canada!). One week later we had both long form birth certificates.
However, I still had an uneasy feeling that while we may have been rejected the first time because of not enough proof of family line... We still may have been rejected for other reasons (like insufficient finances). I was still worried that we didn't prove we had enough money. I was worried if we apply a second time they may reject us this time on financial reasons. We do have lots of money but how much is enough? It's really not clear. Should I get an appraisal on our house in Canada to show how much equity we have there? How far do I take this? How much documentation do they need? Is my documentation "official" enough? Will they think it's fake even when it's not? Is there anything else I can provide that might hep my case? These were the questions that ran through my mind for weeks!
I didn't get the appraisal on the house, but I did add many new documents to the second submission. We paid again, got our finger prints and photos take again, then waited...
One week later, we got the visas!
I actually received an email days before saying that they were approved but I was feeling so burned from the first rejection that I wasn't happy until they were in my very own hands. Now they are :)
We are both feeling much better now. We are now moving on to other final tasks. The big one for me is to get a job in the UK (ideally before leaving Ireland). Getting a job is now my top priority. I am using 2 recruiters in London now and have already had a few interviews. I think it took about 24 interviews before I got my current job at Microsoft so I will be patient and expect that I won't be a good fit for most companies. I do know there are many companies who would love me to work there... I just need to find them. The mac team at Microsoft is happy with me so I'm sure others will be too. That being said, I have already had 2 interviews and I didn't get the spot for either of them. I hope to fail my way to success! The good thing is lots of places are hiring and I am confident in my many talents. I just need to find a good match.
Also, we are starting to sell off our possessions so that we can fit it into planes and/or ferries when we move. We are also throwing out anything we don't need. It feels nice to be able to slim our lives down to a few suitcases.
Julie is working hard to try to find a place in Oxford city. She didn't get a place in the campus dorms but things are looking good that she will get a place with flatmates in a house off campus. Right now, I'm not too worried about finding a place in London. I'll get the job first and then worry about a house. In London, at any given moment there are 100's of places I could move into so I can take my time with that.
At the end of August, Julie will be off to Germany to do a month of intensive German language training. Depending on our finances and how big my bonus is from Microsoft this year, I may join her for the last week (not to study though).
We plan to take the ferry to the UK permanently on October 1st. We will then rent a car and drive it to Oxford with all of our stuff. We need to take the ferry rather than the plane because Julie has about 100 pounds of books that she wants. I'm happy enough with this though. It will be nice to drive across the UK before settling down in Oxford.
Anyhow, after a few extremely stressful weeks where the fate of our futures rested with an immigration officer, I think our lives are finally back on stable grounds and moving forwards nicely again.
One week later, we got a knock on the door from the postman. Our visas had been rejected! Our visas are only possible because my Grandfather is Scottish. The rejection letter stated that we had not provided long form birth certificates to prove the family line between me, my mother, and my grandfather . We had only provided the wallet sized short form birth certificates which don't state who your parents are. When I went back to the official UK checklist of documents required it simply stated "full birth certificates". I had no idea that Ontario even provided long form birth certificates. My Mom also didn't know that she had access to a long form birth certificate for herself either.
As we kept reading the rejection letter we noticed there was an appeals process which sounded good. We could quickly get the long form birth certs for both myself and my mother and then submit for the appeal. However as we kept reading the information about the appeals process we realized that it would take between 3-6 months to happen. Julie's school started in 3 months from then! It was impossible for us to wait 6 months for an answer.
The was a very stressful period. I had never even heard of "Long form birth certificates" in Ontario. School at Oxford was coming up soon and couldn't be postponed.
The appeals process seemed unworkable because of the massive amount of time it took. The only other option we knew about at the time was to use Julie's Oxford acceptance to get a student visa and then I would latch onto that and work with that. However, with the student visa they kick you out of the country as soon as school is over. That option wasn't ideal because if we were enjoying life in the UK we wouldn't be able to stay.
I took the next day off work to try to find a way out of this mess. We asked the internet to see if people had advice for us. We were also going to start calling lawyers to see what our options were. Luckily the internet came through with the answers we needed. The best solution seemed to be to just avoid the appeals process and pay the 750 pounds again to apply again. If we went the student visa route, it would have been impossible to convert that to an Ancestry visa until the student visa expired. Aren't immigration rules fun?
We decided to pay again and apply again. I couldn't help but feel a bit extorted by the UK government. They were using their power over us to extort more money out of us. Anyhow, we rush ordered new Long form birth certificates from Manitoba (Mom) and Ontario (me). Both of these came in amazingly fast (Go Canada!). One week later we had both long form birth certificates.
However, I still had an uneasy feeling that while we may have been rejected the first time because of not enough proof of family line... We still may have been rejected for other reasons (like insufficient finances). I was still worried that we didn't prove we had enough money. I was worried if we apply a second time they may reject us this time on financial reasons. We do have lots of money but how much is enough? It's really not clear. Should I get an appraisal on our house in Canada to show how much equity we have there? How far do I take this? How much documentation do they need? Is my documentation "official" enough? Will they think it's fake even when it's not? Is there anything else I can provide that might hep my case? These were the questions that ran through my mind for weeks!
I didn't get the appraisal on the house, but I did add many new documents to the second submission. We paid again, got our finger prints and photos take again, then waited...
One week later, we got the visas!
I actually received an email days before saying that they were approved but I was feeling so burned from the first rejection that I wasn't happy until they were in my very own hands. Now they are :)
We are both feeling much better now. We are now moving on to other final tasks. The big one for me is to get a job in the UK (ideally before leaving Ireland). Getting a job is now my top priority. I am using 2 recruiters in London now and have already had a few interviews. I think it took about 24 interviews before I got my current job at Microsoft so I will be patient and expect that I won't be a good fit for most companies. I do know there are many companies who would love me to work there... I just need to find them. The mac team at Microsoft is happy with me so I'm sure others will be too. That being said, I have already had 2 interviews and I didn't get the spot for either of them. I hope to fail my way to success! The good thing is lots of places are hiring and I am confident in my many talents. I just need to find a good match.
Also, we are starting to sell off our possessions so that we can fit it into planes and/or ferries when we move. We are also throwing out anything we don't need. It feels nice to be able to slim our lives down to a few suitcases.
Julie is working hard to try to find a place in Oxford city. She didn't get a place in the campus dorms but things are looking good that she will get a place with flatmates in a house off campus. Right now, I'm not too worried about finding a place in London. I'll get the job first and then worry about a house. In London, at any given moment there are 100's of places I could move into so I can take my time with that.
At the end of August, Julie will be off to Germany to do a month of intensive German language training. Depending on our finances and how big my bonus is from Microsoft this year, I may join her for the last week (not to study though).
We plan to take the ferry to the UK permanently on October 1st. We will then rent a car and drive it to Oxford with all of our stuff. We need to take the ferry rather than the plane because Julie has about 100 pounds of books that she wants. I'm happy enough with this though. It will be nice to drive across the UK before settling down in Oxford.
Anyhow, after a few extremely stressful weeks where the fate of our futures rested with an immigration officer, I think our lives are finally back on stable grounds and moving forwards nicely again.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
June update
Hi Everyone,
All is still well in Dublin. Julie is back after 2 long months away in Canada and I'm happy about that.
I had a nice trip to Porto, Portugal. It was a bit boring all by myself though. Sometimes it's nice to be by yourself if you are trying to get some good thinking done, but I didn't have 3 days worth of stuff the think about. It was a beautiful city and the weather was perfect. I posted all the pictures on Facebook here. I didn't do a whole lot mostly just wandered around the city. The vegetarian options were terrible though so I spent far too much time looking at menus and not enough time eating. I ended up eating at a lot of overpriced hotel restaurants because they often had at least 1 vegetarian option. I spent a lot of time along the river side enjoying the weather, watching people, and drinking local beers. The view was just so pretty it kept me entertained for hours just looking at it:
While in Canada, Julie was able to secure a large zero interest loan for her studies from her native band. This was very important because international tuition at Oxford is pretty expensive. We are very grateful for the money from Julie's band. Julie has a former classmate who was accepted to Cambridge who has nearly exhausted all scholarship opportunities and may have to turn down the offer purely for financial reasons. I was looking at an interesting chart by the US department of labor and education still pays off. I'm not too worried about any long term debt burden from this.
I have made a few more apps since my last post. I made an Italian app and a Spanish app. Right now I'm only making about 10$ a week but the windows phone market is still small relative to android and iPhone. I really do think the market will change because windows phone is just a better product than both of those. So hopefully once the market share increases, so will my revenue. I have also started to port my apps over to Android. I am starting with German and I am about 75% through developing my first android app. The android development software is not nearly as good as the windows phone software. However, there is a much larger support community for android so any time I hit any snags, I can often quickly find the answer online. In the end, I have actually flew through development largely because I have not run into any tough problems that someone else on the internet hasn't already had :).
I really want to get an android app done here soon so that I can put it on my resume. It really makes your CV stand out nicely and I think will be an interesting conversation piece during the interviews. I have been holding back a bit in applying for jobs because the move was so far away. My plan is to start aggressively searching for jobs starting early July. I am actually very confident in my chances of getting a job quickly. The software market is one of the hottest industries right now and my resume is very strong. I was reading than in the USA and Ireland the unemployment rate for software people is half that of the respective national unemployment. Just for fun I sent me resume to about 20 positions and got 5 responses back and many voice mails and emails back.
We are going in for our visa appointment on Thursday. I think I have all the documentation ready to go and I really hope it all goes smoothly. I have been reading about the process and I think it will but I am still nervous because they hold so much power over me. Wish me luck!
I have been doing a bit of website work for max and making some extra cash from it. He is looking to make an android app for his business. I am going to help him with that android work. Should be interesting.
The summer here in Dublin has been pretty grey. Lots of overcast days and rain. Everyone, including myself, are not too happy about it. Luckily we just had a nice warm weekend which was a nice change. I hope we get more of that. The length of the days is just amazing though. It really didn't get pitch black today until about 11. Last night we went out for drinks at about 9pm and it was still very bright out.
We are still very excited about the move to the UK. It does create a ton of extra work that needs to be done like selling a bunch of stuff, getting visas, finding a new place before we go, etc. It looks like renting a car from Dublin and then dropping it off in the UK will be too expensive so we will likely take the ferry instead as a foot passenger. This means that we need to get all of our belongings into just a few suitcases. We did this 3 years ago so theoretically it's possible, but we have also acquired lots of new stuff since then :)
Anyhow, it's getting late and I think that's about all I have.
Cya
All is still well in Dublin. Julie is back after 2 long months away in Canada and I'm happy about that.
I had a nice trip to Porto, Portugal. It was a bit boring all by myself though. Sometimes it's nice to be by yourself if you are trying to get some good thinking done, but I didn't have 3 days worth of stuff the think about. It was a beautiful city and the weather was perfect. I posted all the pictures on Facebook here. I didn't do a whole lot mostly just wandered around the city. The vegetarian options were terrible though so I spent far too much time looking at menus and not enough time eating. I ended up eating at a lot of overpriced hotel restaurants because they often had at least 1 vegetarian option. I spent a lot of time along the river side enjoying the weather, watching people, and drinking local beers. The view was just so pretty it kept me entertained for hours just looking at it:
While in Canada, Julie was able to secure a large zero interest loan for her studies from her native band. This was very important because international tuition at Oxford is pretty expensive. We are very grateful for the money from Julie's band. Julie has a former classmate who was accepted to Cambridge who has nearly exhausted all scholarship opportunities and may have to turn down the offer purely for financial reasons. I was looking at an interesting chart by the US department of labor and education still pays off. I'm not too worried about any long term debt burden from this.
I have made a few more apps since my last post. I made an Italian app and a Spanish app. Right now I'm only making about 10$ a week but the windows phone market is still small relative to android and iPhone. I really do think the market will change because windows phone is just a better product than both of those. So hopefully once the market share increases, so will my revenue. I have also started to port my apps over to Android. I am starting with German and I am about 75% through developing my first android app. The android development software is not nearly as good as the windows phone software. However, there is a much larger support community for android so any time I hit any snags, I can often quickly find the answer online. In the end, I have actually flew through development largely because I have not run into any tough problems that someone else on the internet hasn't already had :).
I really want to get an android app done here soon so that I can put it on my resume. It really makes your CV stand out nicely and I think will be an interesting conversation piece during the interviews. I have been holding back a bit in applying for jobs because the move was so far away. My plan is to start aggressively searching for jobs starting early July. I am actually very confident in my chances of getting a job quickly. The software market is one of the hottest industries right now and my resume is very strong. I was reading than in the USA and Ireland the unemployment rate for software people is half that of the respective national unemployment. Just for fun I sent me resume to about 20 positions and got 5 responses back and many voice mails and emails back.
We are going in for our visa appointment on Thursday. I think I have all the documentation ready to go and I really hope it all goes smoothly. I have been reading about the process and I think it will but I am still nervous because they hold so much power over me. Wish me luck!
I have been doing a bit of website work for max and making some extra cash from it. He is looking to make an android app for his business. I am going to help him with that android work. Should be interesting.
The summer here in Dublin has been pretty grey. Lots of overcast days and rain. Everyone, including myself, are not too happy about it. Luckily we just had a nice warm weekend which was a nice change. I hope we get more of that. The length of the days is just amazing though. It really didn't get pitch black today until about 11. Last night we went out for drinks at about 9pm and it was still very bright out.
We are still very excited about the move to the UK. It does create a ton of extra work that needs to be done like selling a bunch of stuff, getting visas, finding a new place before we go, etc. It looks like renting a car from Dublin and then dropping it off in the UK will be too expensive so we will likely take the ferry instead as a foot passenger. This means that we need to get all of our belongings into just a few suitcases. We did this 3 years ago so theoretically it's possible, but we have also acquired lots of new stuff since then :)
Anyhow, it's getting late and I think that's about all I have.
Cya
Sunday, 10 April 2011
March Update
Hello,
It's a crazy nice day in Dublin today, so I am typing this blog from Merrian park on a bench. Everything is in full bloom and the sun worshipers are out. Here is a pic of where I am sitting. One amazing thing about Dublin is that there are no mosquitoes and very few other annoying bugs. It really makes sitting here so much better :). Another thing I like about Ireland is that the laws are much more lax on drinking alcohol in public. There is a group of people in front on me enjoying a picnic complete with sandwiches and wine. I feel like in Canada, that might land you an $80 fine.
Progress continues to be made on the legal end of my move to the UK. I finally received my grandparents marriage certificate in the mail from the Manitoba Government. This was the last document I needed in order to get my UK working visa. So, I imagine I will apply for this visa around 3 months before we expect to go. Currently, we are thinking of going in Mid-September because I have stocks and bonus money coming around that time and I would like to have that money.
I would really like to live in London when we get there. I've never really lived in a big city and I want to experience it sometime in my life. I think this may be the best chance I get to live that experience. So, the plan would be to have a place in Oxford and a place in London. The prices for these 2 places is going to have to be cheap because our family budget really cant afford to do this, so I expect we will have to go back to living with flat mates. (Note, they don't use the word room-mate here because that would imply you are living in the same room; Housemate is acceptable as well). There is a good bus called the Oxford-Tube that goes direct between London city and Oxford city. It's a coach style bus with free Wifi on board and it takes about 1.5 hours each way. I expect Julie & I will commute back and forth on this bus several times a week but we will be apart a few days a week as well. It is required that Julie live close to campus for the first year.
I've got job alerts that come in my email every day about jobs that might interest me in London. There are lots of jobs out there. I even have recruiters calling my phone the odd time trying to sell me on certain jobs. So, I don't think it will be too hard finding something. There is also a huge financial software industry in London. Much of it is centered around investment banking. I am debating whether or not to join this sector or not. On the one hand, the money is about 15-20% better, but on the other hand I really don't think these investment bankers are doing anything positive in society, especially when it comes to things like high frequency trading software which buys and sells stocks in fractions of a second. The dream right now would be to work at Microsoft in London. Microsoft has a small office in london which does a bit of software development. They also have a large office in Reading which I would be much more likely to get in but I don't think I want to live in Reading nor commute from London. The other option is that I could do contracting work which might not require me to go into an office very often but might give me less stability (but possibly more financial potential). I was talking to a guy on Friday night who hires iphone developers on contract. He says good developers working for him are making 100 euros per hour! There is lots to think about and lots of things still to investigate.
Right now Julie is in Canada staying with her parents. She is getting in lots of quality time with her family before her grueling Ph.D.. She is even going out to California to see her brother for 1 week. One main objective while there is to try to convince her native band to completely fund her Ph.D. at Oxford. Right now, they will contribute about 50% which is a good start but still leaves us on the hook for a substantial amount more. She will be making a presentation to Chief and Council soon to ask for more money. Yesterday she had a great chat with an old German lady who lived in Germany during the entire WWII. She was 9 years old in 1939. Julie said that chat was amazing and quite emotional for the both of them.
I have been working hard on the weekends these days on Windows phone apps. My first app was called "I speak German" which was a small quiz game to help you learn 1000 basic nouns in German. I think there were actually quite a few Germans who were downloading as well to learn the same nouns in English. Here is a link to the app. When the app was free it was getting about 20 downloads per day. However, when I started charing $0.99 for it, my downloads dropped to about 2 per day. The German app was targeted at English people trying to learn German. However, I also made another app called "Yo Hablo Ingleas" which is targeted at Spanish people trying to learning English. I hired a Spanish person to translate all my 1000 nouns into spanish and all the text in my app to Spanish. This time, I also recorded my own voice saying each and every noun so that the spanish person can listen to how the word is pronounced as well. I put that app out on Friday for $1.99 and we will see how well it does. If I could make $2000/year per app, then I might just be able to make 25 apps and live off the income. Unfortunately, now making only about $700/year per app it may not be worth my time. We will see. I may also need to market my apps better which could be a possibility of increasing my revenues.
Over the easter weekend, we are moving desks at work, so they have given us a 4 day weekend while the movers move our stuff. So I've planned myself a little weekend trip to Porto, Portugal. It's a very old little town on the ocean that is famous for wine. I will be taking a day trip away from the coast and into the famous wine region! I'm super excited about this trip. The prices of everything in Porto are supposed to be very cheap. I have actually considered Portugal as a possible place to retire one day. Its got everything - safe, cheap, all the amenities, and close to all the best parts of Europe. We'll see if this opinion is strengthened or weakened when I visit :)
Max has offered me a little website work which I am looking forward to. He doesn't have time time these days and his employees seem to be untrustworthy and unreliable. Hopefully this work goes well. It's using some technologies I am not too familiar with so there will be a bit of learning involved which is always good.
Anyhow, I think that's about it. Cya
It's a crazy nice day in Dublin today, so I am typing this blog from Merrian park on a bench. Everything is in full bloom and the sun worshipers are out. Here is a pic of where I am sitting. One amazing thing about Dublin is that there are no mosquitoes and very few other annoying bugs. It really makes sitting here so much better :). Another thing I like about Ireland is that the laws are much more lax on drinking alcohol in public. There is a group of people in front on me enjoying a picnic complete with sandwiches and wine. I feel like in Canada, that might land you an $80 fine.
Progress continues to be made on the legal end of my move to the UK. I finally received my grandparents marriage certificate in the mail from the Manitoba Government. This was the last document I needed in order to get my UK working visa. So, I imagine I will apply for this visa around 3 months before we expect to go. Currently, we are thinking of going in Mid-September because I have stocks and bonus money coming around that time and I would like to have that money.
I would really like to live in London when we get there. I've never really lived in a big city and I want to experience it sometime in my life. I think this may be the best chance I get to live that experience. So, the plan would be to have a place in Oxford and a place in London. The prices for these 2 places is going to have to be cheap because our family budget really cant afford to do this, so I expect we will have to go back to living with flat mates. (Note, they don't use the word room-mate here because that would imply you are living in the same room; Housemate is acceptable as well). There is a good bus called the Oxford-Tube that goes direct between London city and Oxford city. It's a coach style bus with free Wifi on board and it takes about 1.5 hours each way. I expect Julie & I will commute back and forth on this bus several times a week but we will be apart a few days a week as well. It is required that Julie live close to campus for the first year.
I've got job alerts that come in my email every day about jobs that might interest me in London. There are lots of jobs out there. I even have recruiters calling my phone the odd time trying to sell me on certain jobs. So, I don't think it will be too hard finding something. There is also a huge financial software industry in London. Much of it is centered around investment banking. I am debating whether or not to join this sector or not. On the one hand, the money is about 15-20% better, but on the other hand I really don't think these investment bankers are doing anything positive in society, especially when it comes to things like high frequency trading software which buys and sells stocks in fractions of a second. The dream right now would be to work at Microsoft in London. Microsoft has a small office in london which does a bit of software development. They also have a large office in Reading which I would be much more likely to get in but I don't think I want to live in Reading nor commute from London. The other option is that I could do contracting work which might not require me to go into an office very often but might give me less stability (but possibly more financial potential). I was talking to a guy on Friday night who hires iphone developers on contract. He says good developers working for him are making 100 euros per hour! There is lots to think about and lots of things still to investigate.
Right now Julie is in Canada staying with her parents. She is getting in lots of quality time with her family before her grueling Ph.D.. She is even going out to California to see her brother for 1 week. One main objective while there is to try to convince her native band to completely fund her Ph.D. at Oxford. Right now, they will contribute about 50% which is a good start but still leaves us on the hook for a substantial amount more. She will be making a presentation to Chief and Council soon to ask for more money. Yesterday she had a great chat with an old German lady who lived in Germany during the entire WWII. She was 9 years old in 1939. Julie said that chat was amazing and quite emotional for the both of them.
I have been working hard on the weekends these days on Windows phone apps. My first app was called "I speak German" which was a small quiz game to help you learn 1000 basic nouns in German. I think there were actually quite a few Germans who were downloading as well to learn the same nouns in English. Here is a link to the app. When the app was free it was getting about 20 downloads per day. However, when I started charing $0.99 for it, my downloads dropped to about 2 per day. The German app was targeted at English people trying to learn German. However, I also made another app called "Yo Hablo Ingleas" which is targeted at Spanish people trying to learning English. I hired a Spanish person to translate all my 1000 nouns into spanish and all the text in my app to Spanish. This time, I also recorded my own voice saying each and every noun so that the spanish person can listen to how the word is pronounced as well. I put that app out on Friday for $1.99 and we will see how well it does. If I could make $2000/year per app, then I might just be able to make 25 apps and live off the income. Unfortunately, now making only about $700/year per app it may not be worth my time. We will see. I may also need to market my apps better which could be a possibility of increasing my revenues.
Over the easter weekend, we are moving desks at work, so they have given us a 4 day weekend while the movers move our stuff. So I've planned myself a little weekend trip to Porto, Portugal. It's a very old little town on the ocean that is famous for wine. I will be taking a day trip away from the coast and into the famous wine region! I'm super excited about this trip. The prices of everything in Porto are supposed to be very cheap. I have actually considered Portugal as a possible place to retire one day. Its got everything - safe, cheap, all the amenities, and close to all the best parts of Europe. We'll see if this opinion is strengthened or weakened when I visit :)
Max has offered me a little website work which I am looking forward to. He doesn't have time time these days and his employees seem to be untrustworthy and unreliable. Hopefully this work goes well. It's using some technologies I am not too familiar with so there will be a bit of learning involved which is always good.
Anyhow, I think that's about it. Cya
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Taiwan trip 2011
Hello Everyone,
After Thailand we met back up with Tom in Taiwan. We arrived by plane and followed Tom's directions to take a bus to Tainan. When we got on the bus there was actually only one seat left for the both of us but a local actually gave up his seat for me. The guy ended up having a child on his lap for the 4 hour bus trip. So, it was a pretty friendly first impression!
Lots of neat things happened in Taiwan, so I think I will do this blog in point form also (and in no order).
* Stinky tofu is a traditional dish in Taiwan. It looks and tastes like deep fried tofu. However, it is fermented and as a result it smells like something between shit and rotten meat. Julie & I both tried some. It tasted all right but the smell is such a turn off. Taiwanese people don't think it's weird, but they think that eating stinky western cheese is weird! Different strokes for different folks.
* We also had flavored desert tofu. This was amazing. I would eat this often. It's a very soft tofu flavored with things like strawberry and/or chocolate. Some of it was very similar to pudding and others were more similar to a snow cone.
* Tea & fruit juice seems to be also very popular in Taiwan. We had tea nearly every day. There are entire restaurants dedicated to tea and they have dozens of different tea's to choose from. At one place, I had this amazing fruit tea where they put actual chunks of orange and other fruits in the cup. The flavor from that fruit tea was so powerful & fresh. The hot tea water really pulled all the taste out of the fruit in the cup. They have cool take away cups that they seal for you on the spot with plastic. You could easily hold this cup upside down after they seal it.
* We decided to take a surfing trip to the south in Kenting. Tom has a friend who has an old van loaded with 2 surf boards. One of the boards was a short nimble board and the other was a long board (ideal for beginners). When I first saw the van I really wasn't particularly confident it could travel hundreds of kilometers but Tom was enthusiastically confident in its worth.
The van performed amazingly both there and back.
* The night before surfing we examined the beach in the dark and the waves looked quite good. That night I had visions in bed of me flawlessly executing on a surf board on my very first attempt. The next morning I was very confident I would excel at surfing. We went down to the beach and saw that most surfers were concentrated in a small area. We didn't want to interfere with them so we chose a different section of the ocean. I took this massive board into the water and started to paddle out. For nearly half an hour I could not even get out to where I needed to be. The waves kept beating me and pushing me back to shore. The massive surf board I was holding was far more awkward than I had anticipated. After 30 minutes, I was exausted and came back to shore. I didn't even make it out far enough to catch a wave at that point. I felt extremely defeated. I gave the board to Julie who tried her luck with the ocean. While standing on the beach I had a better vantage point. I saw exactly the problem from the beach. The place I entered originally had many frequent waves but there were other places along the beach that had less frequent waves that would give you more time to paddle out between waves. I noticed that surfers would walk up and down the beach before getting into the water. They were looking for good places to enter. Next time I got the board back, I was able to quickly find a good place to enter and quickly get out far enough into the water. Then I had a whole different set of problems - catching a wave. Anyhow, long story short, I tried many times unsuccessfully to catch a wave and I left the beach slightly disappointed with myself. I think that my high initial expectations may have ruined my first surfing experience.
* Kenting was a very beautiful seaside town. I really love some of the pictures we got there:
* I was very impressed with Tom's Chinese. He seems to understand people and people seem to understand him. We didn't have any problems with language when we were around Tom.
* We went to a few vegetarian restaurants in Taiwan. All of them were amazing. The one pictured below offered a hotpot where the meal comes out with a flame underneath and cooks in front of you. They give you a large tray of uncooked vegetables and you can add the ones you want to your dish.
* Tom has a temple right next door to him!
* We used scooters to get around in most of Tainan. Tom has his own and we borrowed his roommate's scooter as well. It's really enjoyable having the freedom to just scoot around town. Traffic for scooters is quite good and it seems like no where is more than 20 minutes away (often more like 5).
* Tom & I decided one day to go for a hot towel shave. We walked by one place where we saw a man getting one so we figured we'd stop by and get one ourselves. The atmosphere in the barber shop was not what you might expect. The barber was watching the stock channel intensely while listening to the radio at the same time. The shop was basically a converted garage that still looked very much like a garage. The barber did not even seem interested in our business. Tom went first. When Tom was finished he didn't seem too happy but recommended I do it regardless. The shave was good & bad. It was good because he got very close and it only cost me 1 euro. It was bad because the barber was more interested in giving the closest possible shave than how my sensitive skin would feel afterward. He often went over and over the same spot if he wasn't happy with it. This left us both only partially happy with the ordeal. Here is a picture of his shop:
* We went to a hot spring one night near Kenting. Tom says that often each hot spring will be famous for various oils and/or minerals in the water which are believed to have therapeutic properties. This particular spring was a co-ed place with many indoor bath tubs which were at different temperatures depending on your threshold. It also had a bunch of water jets and falls all throughout it for extra entertainment. It was very relaxing and I was ready for bed after it. Here are a few videos of the place.
* Taipei 101 is the tallest building in Taiwan. We went to the top of it and it only took 30 seconds in the elevator (worlds fastest elevator). My ears popped on the way up and the way down.
The building itself is pretty amazing. I recommend reading the Wikipedia article about it. It has a huge 660 ton damper at the top of it which helps keep it stable during typhoon winds by moving in the opposite direction of the building sway. Here is a picture of me being silly with the damper:
And here is a picture of the the building itself.
* We spent a lot of time with Tom's friends, most of which are English teachers. I enjoyed seeing how Tom lives, works, and plays. He has a good group of friends. We also went to see some of his students at the English school. Most of the kids are typical kids, laughing, playing, causing trouble, and generally not doing 100% of what they are told.
* I was somewhat surprised by how much lawlessness I saw in Taiwan. Many of the English teachers were working entirely under the table and had no working visas. Many of the drivers will come up a red light, look for police, then drive through the light. Many people drove scooters without a drivers license. Somehow though, the city seems to run perfectly.
* In Taipei, we visited this cool "silk market" where the sold lots of traditional Chinese clothing. Julie bought a red dress here.
* Tom insisted that we try Betel nut which is a nut that if you chew it gives you a mild sensation much like that of taking a single shot of alcohol. The nut is perfectly legal in Taiwan and its pretty much only consumed there as well. It has a red coloring inside and if you chew it enough your mouth goes red. It's fairly common to see taxi drivers & truck drivers with very red mouths.
I think I'll leave it at that.
All of the pictures from the trip can be found here.
Cya
After Thailand we met back up with Tom in Taiwan. We arrived by plane and followed Tom's directions to take a bus to Tainan. When we got on the bus there was actually only one seat left for the both of us but a local actually gave up his seat for me. The guy ended up having a child on his lap for the 4 hour bus trip. So, it was a pretty friendly first impression!
Lots of neat things happened in Taiwan, so I think I will do this blog in point form also (and in no order).
* Stinky tofu is a traditional dish in Taiwan. It looks and tastes like deep fried tofu. However, it is fermented and as a result it smells like something between shit and rotten meat. Julie & I both tried some. It tasted all right but the smell is such a turn off. Taiwanese people don't think it's weird, but they think that eating stinky western cheese is weird! Different strokes for different folks.
* We also had flavored desert tofu. This was amazing. I would eat this often. It's a very soft tofu flavored with things like strawberry and/or chocolate. Some of it was very similar to pudding and others were more similar to a snow cone.
* Tea & fruit juice seems to be also very popular in Taiwan. We had tea nearly every day. There are entire restaurants dedicated to tea and they have dozens of different tea's to choose from. At one place, I had this amazing fruit tea where they put actual chunks of orange and other fruits in the cup. The flavor from that fruit tea was so powerful & fresh. The hot tea water really pulled all the taste out of the fruit in the cup. They have cool take away cups that they seal for you on the spot with plastic. You could easily hold this cup upside down after they seal it.
* We decided to take a surfing trip to the south in Kenting. Tom has a friend who has an old van loaded with 2 surf boards. One of the boards was a short nimble board and the other was a long board (ideal for beginners). When I first saw the van I really wasn't particularly confident it could travel hundreds of kilometers but Tom was enthusiastically confident in its worth.
The van performed amazingly both there and back.
* The night before surfing we examined the beach in the dark and the waves looked quite good. That night I had visions in bed of me flawlessly executing on a surf board on my very first attempt. The next morning I was very confident I would excel at surfing. We went down to the beach and saw that most surfers were concentrated in a small area. We didn't want to interfere with them so we chose a different section of the ocean. I took this massive board into the water and started to paddle out. For nearly half an hour I could not even get out to where I needed to be. The waves kept beating me and pushing me back to shore. The massive surf board I was holding was far more awkward than I had anticipated. After 30 minutes, I was exausted and came back to shore. I didn't even make it out far enough to catch a wave at that point. I felt extremely defeated. I gave the board to Julie who tried her luck with the ocean. While standing on the beach I had a better vantage point. I saw exactly the problem from the beach. The place I entered originally had many frequent waves but there were other places along the beach that had less frequent waves that would give you more time to paddle out between waves. I noticed that surfers would walk up and down the beach before getting into the water. They were looking for good places to enter. Next time I got the board back, I was able to quickly find a good place to enter and quickly get out far enough into the water. Then I had a whole different set of problems - catching a wave. Anyhow, long story short, I tried many times unsuccessfully to catch a wave and I left the beach slightly disappointed with myself. I think that my high initial expectations may have ruined my first surfing experience.
* Kenting was a very beautiful seaside town. I really love some of the pictures we got there:
* I was very impressed with Tom's Chinese. He seems to understand people and people seem to understand him. We didn't have any problems with language when we were around Tom.
* We went to a few vegetarian restaurants in Taiwan. All of them were amazing. The one pictured below offered a hotpot where the meal comes out with a flame underneath and cooks in front of you. They give you a large tray of uncooked vegetables and you can add the ones you want to your dish.
* Tom has a temple right next door to him!
* We used scooters to get around in most of Tainan. Tom has his own and we borrowed his roommate's scooter as well. It's really enjoyable having the freedom to just scoot around town. Traffic for scooters is quite good and it seems like no where is more than 20 minutes away (often more like 5).
* Tom & I decided one day to go for a hot towel shave. We walked by one place where we saw a man getting one so we figured we'd stop by and get one ourselves. The atmosphere in the barber shop was not what you might expect. The barber was watching the stock channel intensely while listening to the radio at the same time. The shop was basically a converted garage that still looked very much like a garage. The barber did not even seem interested in our business. Tom went first. When Tom was finished he didn't seem too happy but recommended I do it regardless. The shave was good & bad. It was good because he got very close and it only cost me 1 euro. It was bad because the barber was more interested in giving the closest possible shave than how my sensitive skin would feel afterward. He often went over and over the same spot if he wasn't happy with it. This left us both only partially happy with the ordeal. Here is a picture of his shop:
* We went to a hot spring one night near Kenting. Tom says that often each hot spring will be famous for various oils and/or minerals in the water which are believed to have therapeutic properties. This particular spring was a co-ed place with many indoor bath tubs which were at different temperatures depending on your threshold. It also had a bunch of water jets and falls all throughout it for extra entertainment. It was very relaxing and I was ready for bed after it. Here are a few videos of the place.
* Taipei 101 is the tallest building in Taiwan. We went to the top of it and it only took 30 seconds in the elevator (worlds fastest elevator). My ears popped on the way up and the way down.
The building itself is pretty amazing. I recommend reading the Wikipedia article about it. It has a huge 660 ton damper at the top of it which helps keep it stable during typhoon winds by moving in the opposite direction of the building sway. Here is a picture of me being silly with the damper:
And here is a picture of the the building itself.
* We spent a lot of time with Tom's friends, most of which are English teachers. I enjoyed seeing how Tom lives, works, and plays. He has a good group of friends. We also went to see some of his students at the English school. Most of the kids are typical kids, laughing, playing, causing trouble, and generally not doing 100% of what they are told.
* I was somewhat surprised by how much lawlessness I saw in Taiwan. Many of the English teachers were working entirely under the table and had no working visas. Many of the drivers will come up a red light, look for police, then drive through the light. Many people drove scooters without a drivers license. Somehow though, the city seems to run perfectly.
* In Taipei, we visited this cool "silk market" where the sold lots of traditional Chinese clothing. Julie bought a red dress here.
* Tom insisted that we try Betel nut which is a nut that if you chew it gives you a mild sensation much like that of taking a single shot of alcohol. The nut is perfectly legal in Taiwan and its pretty much only consumed there as well. It has a red coloring inside and if you chew it enough your mouth goes red. It's fairly common to see taxi drivers & truck drivers with very red mouths.
I think I'll leave it at that.
All of the pictures from the trip can be found here.
Cya
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Thailand adventures
Hello,
Before I get to Thailand, the big news is that Julie got accepted to Oxford university under prof Stargardt. Prof Stargardt wrote a book that was very infulentual to Julie's earlier thesis called Witnesses of war. So we will be moving to England! There are still 1001 details to work out which will all come in due time. I will post these details as I figure them out.
Bangkok
Koh Phi Phi
Patong
Pictures of the trip can all be found here:
Thailand part 1
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=270324&id=502577840&l=5f33a3bf47
Thailand part 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=270351&id=502577840&l=28842c5311
Before I get to Thailand, the big news is that Julie got accepted to Oxford university under prof Stargardt. Prof Stargardt wrote a book that was very infulentual to Julie's earlier thesis called Witnesses of war. So we will be moving to England! There are still 1001 details to work out which will all come in due time. I will post these details as I figure them out.
Thailand has been a crazy adventure and there were so many interesting things all independent of eachother so I think I will do this blog mostly in bullet form.
Bangkok
- Traffic on the streets for cars was ridiculous! For motorbikes it's not so bad because they can weave through traffic. They are starting to put in skytrain lines which are amazing but there just aren't enough lines to cover the city.
- Many things were ridiculously cheap. I got a delicious pad Thai from a street vendor for 70 cents. The 1 hour taxi from the airport was about 4 euros. We both got 30 minute foot massages that totaled to 4 euros!
- Originally we scheduled to spend 2 days at the start of our trip and then 3 more days at the end of our trip in Bangkok. However, the traffic in that city is just too bad to make it enjoyable. We cancelled our last 3 days in bangkok and opted for 3 more beach days in Phuket.
- I got a barber shop, straight razor, shave for the first time in my life for 2 euros! It's an interesting experience to have a foreigner who doesn's speak any English have a 6 inch blade to your throat. The end result was a good shave but not quite the "smooth as a baby's ass" I was going for.
Phuket
- We got a fantastic hotel in Kata beach area for an amazing price. Tom got one just down the road.
- Met up with Tom and Sayana! Tom had a scooter and eventually got a hotel just down the road from us.
- I went parasailing on the beach. It was a bit more expensive than everything else but still only about $25 CAD. It was still very worth it though. You can't see it from this video, but there is a small Thai man up there with me and he is not strapped in at all. He is holding the ropes behind me controlling our flight and landing.
- Kata beach was beautiful and not too crowded. It had all the amenities you could possibly want (food, shopping, pharmacies, etc). It even has things you wouldn't expect like botox and teeth whitening services.
- Tom and I went on an adventure without our sandals. We were walking on rocks and gravel. We eventually got very far away from that start and decided to head back but our feet were very sore from walking on all the rocks along the way. We decided to make our own shoes out of broken coconuts and vines. After many failed techniques we discovered the best vines and best wrapping techniques. It was key to have several wrapping points including around the middle of your foot, your ankle, and your big toe. The shoes were actually not bad and they saved our feet from the tough gravel for the rest of the walk home. When we were making the shoes, Tom & I couldn't help but wonder "What would Mark Davis do?". I'm sure Mark could have made even better shoes.
- On my first day I applied 30 sunscreen once. I did not reapply and as a result, I got burned on my shoulders and feet. The next day I stayed out of the sun and wore a tshirt. It wasn't too bad though. I didn't burn again for the rest of the trip.
- I specifically chose Kata beach because it was supposedly the best beach for waves. However, there we no waves while we were there. The biggest waves come in the summer time. So we didn't get to try surfing like I wanted to :(
- We all went on an elephant trek which was amazing! They even let you ride bare back on the elephants neck. At the end you can buy sliced pineapples to feed to the elephants. This was a highlight of my trip. I love elephants! We later played with a small elephant on the streets (captured in the video below).
Koh Phi Phi
- After 5 days in Phuket, we got on a ferry to Koh Phi Phi. This is the island made famous by the movie "The beach". When we got close to the island on the ferry, the view looked like this. I was hoping to see these sheer rock faces sometime on my trip, but I had no idea I would see them nearly every day! (click image to see larger).
- We stayed 1 night in Koh Phi Phi in a terrible hotel with thousands of ants and probably bed bugs. I accidentally left two food items in the room only to come back to thousands of ants crawling all over them. I suffered many bug bites from this trip but many of them were probably due to sleeping 1 night in this room.
- The 4 of us rented two kayaks to explore the island by water. This idea seemed great at first but after a few kilometers of paddling combined with 30 degree heat, my arm muscles nearly collapsed while in the middle of the ocean. We went to one section of the water that was famous for coral and tropical fish. I brought a tube of crackers to feed this fish. Once I got into the water, the crackers turned into more like a tube of cookie dough. I would squeeze the tube out a bit and the fish would come from all over to eat the soggy crackers. Here is a video of this.
- After a bit of snorkelling with the fish, we went to the closest shore (near the corals). This shoreline had no hotels so it was much more natural. It also had small wild monkeys. Unfortunately these monkeys were very used to taking things from humans. Anyone who left things on the beach risked having their things stolen by monkeys. Here is a picture of a monkey trying to drink someone's suntan lotion. The owner of that suntan lotion tried to rush the monkey and take it back, but then many other monkeys agressivly turned the situation around and started chasing the girl. Eventually a man started kicking beach sand at the monkeys and they dropped the suntan lotion and ran away. BAD monkeys!
- Koh Phi Phi is known as the young, party island of Thailand. They are famous for their "Thai buckets" which are basically a small bucket that comes with a full bottle of booze, a coke, and some straws.
- When the sun went down, the bars along the beach started setting up quick assemble dance floors on the sand and turned the music up loud. Many of the bars offered fire shows where performers would spin staffs that were lit on fire. They often threw the lit staffs spinning into the air and then caught them. It was hard to capture on camera, but it looked something like this. The show was pretty amazing. The safety rules were pretty lax because the audience was quite close to the performers and the performers often dropped their fire. Someone else on youtube uploaded this video which might be more descriptive.
- The party on the sandy beach after the fire show was good too. If you were on a tight budget, you could easily just bring your own beer to the beach and no one would say a thing.
- After the crazyness and bugs of Koh Phi Phi we took a longtail boat for about 1 hour to a nearly deserted island called "Koh Jum". This was very off the beaten track and there were probably only a few hundred inhabitants on this island. The beaches weren't as nice but the atmosphere was perfect!
- We each stayed in reasonably priced bungalows. The were quite basic (no AC, no hot water), but they were clean and had mosquito nets to keep the bugs out (the net is raised in the picture below).
- I was quite worried that we would be lured there by inexpensive rooms but then burned by very expensive food from the hotel restaurant... but that was not the case. The restaurant food was amazing and reasonably priced.
- Julie & I would often sit down by the water with a freshly blended fruit smoothy. It felt like paradise. I think the hotel tried very hard to give you the "paradise island" feel. They put little flowers on the top of your drink every time, they set out hammocks, etc. I appreciated their efforts!
- There were small monkeys on this island too but they were much better behaved. The hotel had signs up saying not to feed the monkeys and I think this made all the difference.
- On the first day we took a trip into the "town" on the island. There is really just one road so its impossible to get lost but the road is several kilometers long. We walked for the first few kilometers then my sandals broke. We needed to find a taxi of some kind into town or back because I didn't fancy walking 2 kms on gravel back. We found a small village who helped us get a taxi. While we waited for the taxi, we watched the locals live out their lives. It must be an incredibly simple live (relative to mine) they seemed to live. We got the taxi into town and I found some new sandals. Tom and I joined a soccer practice game with some locals. The pitch they played on was very bumpy and as a result I tweaked my ankle slightly. After that we went further into town, had dinner, and then watched the local Chinese new year festivities which included some basic fireworks and some singing and dancing. At this point, it was dark and we took a taxi home. This taxi was just a motorcycle with a sidecar on it. The sidecar had a bench big enough for 3 and so Tom sat on the motorcycle seat behind the driver. We had 5 people on this tiny motorcycle. The driver insisted we get a flashlight because the last section of road before our hotel was washed out and he couldn't take us that far. We argued that we could manage without one but he insisted. So we bought one. It's a damn good thing we got that light because I'm sure we would not have made it back without it. The last 500 meters of road that we had to walk was about as pitch black as pitch black gets. Not to mention the road had huge ruts that we would have tripped over every step.
- The next few days were just a whole lot of nothing. Laying in hammocks and reading.
- One night after playing some cards and jenga, we went down to the beach while it was dark with some flashlights. There were thousands of crabs all over this beach... it was pretty incredible. Also, there was some kind of "firefly" like algae that was washing up on the shore. It would wash up, stay bright for about 4 seconds and then fade to black. It was hard to capture on camera but the best picture we got was this. It also appeared in your footsteps in the sand. When you walked along the beach you could look back and see the sand where you stepped lit up by this algae. It was very cool!
- The trip back from Koh Jum was an interesting experience. You need to understand that "everything always works out in Thailand". So we buy our tickets to get from A to B and are given very few instructions on what to do. First we get in the hotels own longboat who drives straight out into the ocean for about 1 km and then just stops. Three more longboats come out and stop right beside us. We all just sit there in the middle of the ocean with our luggage wondering what were are doing. Then a small ferry comes and everyone walks across the longboats with their luggage and boards this ferry (in the middle of the ocean). This best picture I have is this:
- From the ferry they take us to the mainland with no instruction. There are Thai people offering taxi services all over the place and you are not sure which one you are supposed to take. Then someone shows up 30 minutes after you land holding up a sign with your last name on it. Then they take you to another area with hundreds of tourists and dozens of vans. Somehow you get in the right van and the organized chaos continues. These transfers continued to happen 2 more times before we reached our destination. The Thai people know exactly what is going on but the tourists have no idea. You just need to accept that it will all work out (even if they drop you off in the middle of a field with goats). It always worked out despite a fair bit of stress on our part.
- At this point, Tom & Sayana went on to the airport to go back to Taiwan... and Julie and I stayed in Patong for 4 more days.
Patong
- Julie and I proceded to Patong which is quite close to Kata beach. Patong is more known for a bit more nightlife, drinking, and prostitution.
- We got to our hotel after a very long ferry & van ride only to find the hotel we reserved had a problem with our reservation and we had no room. Luckily it was the hotels fault and they felt very bad about it. They put us up in one of their sister hotels that actually turned out to be a much nicer place! This was very good because we desperately wanted a clean room with no bugs! We got it, the new room was clean with AC and we were happy.
- We rented a scooter every day we were there. it was only about 4 euros per day. I got pretty good at driving the scooter near the end. One day the police was pulling everyone over to check for drivers licenses. I only have an expired Canadian license, so I showed him that. The officer looked at it for about 1/2 second and then waved us on. Phew!
- Julie & I went bowling and watched a movie. The movie theater had an option to pay more to get a couch. We opted for the couch and it was cool!
- On the last day of our trip, we did a cooking class. We made green curry, tom yum soup, and tom kha soup. Everything turned out amazing.
- I think in the whole trip, we must have got about 7 massages. All but 1 were foot massages and one was a thai oil massage. The full body massages aren't always that relaxing because they are really pressing very hard, so we tended to opt for the more relaxing foot massages.
Pictures of the trip can all be found here:
Thailand part 1
http://www.facebook.com/album.
Thailand part 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.
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