Ice John's World

I cannot believe that it has been almost a month since I post last entry! This blog has become monthly event now! :) I have been very busy on traveling for both fun and work. I went back to Asia to visit my parents. It was great to spend some time with my family again. We even went to ride the Maokong Gondola. It was a long ride since the total length of the gondola line was 4.03 km (2.504 miles). The whole line had 4 stations and it was like a shape of number "7". So that means there were a spot that the gondola had to do a 90 degree sharp turn. It had been reported that the gondola system had some problems since its opening in 2007 but our ride went smoothly and was quite enjoyable. We enjoyed the view and the sunny weather.

It was also very nice to spend the Mid-autumn festival with them. It has been a long time since I went home during that time of the year. The weather was just too hot and humid for me. It was sunny and around 95'F degrees (35'C) and almost 90% humidity all the time. I could not stop sweating even just walked for 5 minutes outdoor. The good thing was that I got to eat lots of delicious moon cakes with all the nice interesting new flavors and I gained several pounds! :) Oh, and I saw these beanie babies machines all over main shopping centers back home. People were really into them and kept trying their luck but very few got anything. :) And it surely is a big weather change when I come back to Wisconsin, US since the temperature changes from 95 degree to 45 degree (35'C to 8'C). Fall is definitely here now. Yawn! And wish my jet lag goes away soon!

I have been in Florida since this past Superbowl Sunday night for work. Thought I could escape the snow storm on the north but all I got here so far was cold or rainy days. It was pouring rain all day long yesterday and finally the sun comes out today. But it is very brisky, windy and the temperture is just 30 degrees (-1'C). Guess I should not complain because at least I do not have to shovel 14 inches (36 cm)of snow!

It is another working trip down to Florida. The weather down here is just wonderful, sunny, 70 degree (20'C). Since I missed all the autumn colors on the north, I decied to take some time off on this past weekend to visit the local famous Kanapaha Botanical Gardens before the crazy Florida Gators vs Arkansas football game. One of its signature plants is this giant Victoria water lilies. Look at the size of the leaves and you would know why Amazon people used to put kids on the top of it! The most amzing thing is that they actually grow the water lily as annual from seeds every year in that garden!

Kanapaha Botanical Gardens is a 62 acre facility developed and operated by the North Florida Botanical Society, a non-profit educational organization. It is comprised of 24 major collections including Florida's largest public display of bamboos and the largest herb garden in the Southeast of USA. My favorite parts of this garden are water garden, herb garden, bamboo garden and rock garden, of course. If you look closer in the picture on the left, you will find out that it is not a falled trunk but a bending flower stalk due to the heavy flower heads! It was surely good that I visited thos garden on this past Saturday because I ended of working the whole day on this past Sunday. After all, it is a work trip.

Travel time for work again! Hello, Cleveland, Ohio! Got to Cleveland this afternoon and picked up my rental car at Hertz. They gave me a HHR, not a bad car at all. I was surprised how cloudy it was here. Aw, well, at least, it was not cold!

It has been a while since my last post due to my trip back to Asia. I have flown thousands of miles in the past 3 weeks back and forth between US and Asia. And all the hassle in Asian airports for the H1N1 passengers check made the trip even longer to reach almost 35 hours each way. On my way to Asia, it took almost 2 hours after my flight landed at Tokyo-Narita airport to have the fully medical staff on board and take the body temperature of all 300 something passengers. The same process was repeated when I waited at Tokyo for the flight back to US. the same airplane was from US and needed to deplane all the passengers from US first so we could board and head back to US. For the same reason, the flight was delayed 2 hours or so and we completely missed the connection flight when we finally got to Minneapolis. I saw these interesting battery powered toys at the Tokyo airport as shown in the picture. Their head will slowly swing around and sing music.

The real strange thing is that it seems that the rest of the world are treating this H1N1 like the death plague but nobody seems to care back to US. Anyway, it is quite a different scenery to come back to Wisconsin after spending 2 weeks overseas. All the trees have leaves and there are flowers blooming everywhere. Of course, that just means the bad allergy is back and big time of sneezing. There are even lots of new geese hatched and walk around the parking lots. They are really cute until they start to grow up and poop everywhere.It looks that lots of people had a great Memorial Day at Chicago. Too bad that I was adjusting the jet lag and could not go to meet some LJ bloggers that I have communicated on line for a while. Aw, well, maybe next time!