vincentkong.com

Vermont 2009

Last weekend I decided to take advantage of the first Family Day long weekend, and went on a ski trip (I actually snowboard) to Vermont, doing 2 full days at Sugarbush and Stowe respectively.  Although, the snow conditions weren’t that great as much of the snow were man-made; riding down the mountains was still remarkable because there was still plenty of nature and scenery to admire.  Yet, at the end of the 2 days I realize that my days of snowboarding is coming closer to an end.  I realize this because:

• falling has become very painful, even with wearing full gear
• reaching over to strap my bindings requires a lot of effort
• I no longer enjoy the speed that you gain with snowboarding
• I found going down a green trail more pleasant than going down a blue one

Hopefully, I still have a few more years left in me as I still have a couple of more places I want to try out before I actually hang up my boots.

Last weekend I went with a bunch of friends to Whiteface for our first ski/snowboard trip. Since we didn’t do any ski/snowboarding at all in 2007 we weren’t sure if going down a 4000 ft mountain would be a smart thing to do without any preparation on the much smaller Ontario hills.

We managed to make it through the weekend without any broken bones, only a very sore body. Hopefully, this won’t be our only ski/snowboard trip for this year.

Pictures of our trip can be found at my gallery website: Whiteface – Winter 2008.

Videos:

• Elton skiing
• Kat snowboarding
• Linda and Valerie skiing
• Valerie skiing
• Valerie snowboarding 1
• Valerie snowboarding 2

During my vacation I found hard not to buy things, and I ended up getting a lot of stuff which I probably won’t use often. These includes stuff like key chains, cellphone straps, and just toys. However, my prize purchase was a new Fujitsu FMV-BIBLO LOOX U50X/V mini laptop or UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC). I later found out it was also available in the US and referred to as the Lifebook U810.

I have posted some of our toys in my gallery.

It’s been two weeks since I came back from my vacation in Asia. It and took almost the same amount of time for me to recover from jetlag. My impression for each place I visited:

• Tokyo and Hokkaido is my over all favourite place. The food is great and the people are extremely friendly and polite.
• Kuala Lumpur is more developed than I antipicated and Ipoh is where all my mosquito bites came from.
• Hong Kong has transformed itself to a retail and trading industry.
• Shen Zhen is a growing city, but its people still have a lot of growing to do.

The photos of my vacation have been posted in my gallery.