Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Bangkok, part 1

Pro tip: if you’re flying to Thailand from the San Francisco Bay Area, try not to do it all at once. Because there are zero direct flights to Bangkok from SFO, so a layover is involved. No matter your chosen layover point - be it Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or Hong Kong - you’re spending a cumulative 18 hours in the air before you touch the ground at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Arduous would be the apt word to describe that journey, especially if you’re a poor boy like me and can’t comfortably afford beyond an economy class ticket.

The smarter way to get to Thailand is stay at least a few days at the layover point. This avoids spending an entire day on the road and in the air. I should have traveled around Seoul - my layover en route to Thailand - for a week before then moving on to Bangkok. Given my propensity for the Korean language and affinity with Korean cuisine, it’s baffling as I type this that I didn’t spend any time at all in Korea. What a waste!

I think I was too focused on getting to Bangkok as quickly as possible. If not for my good friend getting married in Thailand, I had no plans to travel this summer (not in this economy). Honestly, I wouldn’t have otherwise visited Thailand at all. Southeast Asia - outside of Singapore - doesn’t hold any allure for me. Unlike some avid travelers, checking-off destinations for the sake of accumulation is not what I am about. I may never step foot on continental Europe, and that’s okay.

Therefore my thinking was to get in and out of Thailand as quickly and as cheaply as possible. I stayed five full days in Bangkok, just long enough to attend the marital festivities, and getting rested to endure yet another travel day back home.

Please don’t emulate me - enjoy Thailand fully! It takes at least that five days to acclimatize to the muggy hot weather. Be sure to take advantage of your layover destination and do some sightseeing there as well. 18 hours in the air in succession - plus all the waiting at the airports - will drain the life out of you.

And another one

As much as I enjoy going to Asia for vacation, one thing that always suck is the absurdly long airplane rides. Supposedly, the way to do it for us plebs is to swap credit card points for business class seats. However I do not spend the way my friends do - what points are you talking about? At least the Asian airlines (non Chinese division) have reasonably decent seating room in economy. Never book a Boeing 777/787 (or Airbus 350) that has a 3-4-3 seating arrangement in coach (looking at you, United). 3-3-3 is where it is at.

Actually, maybe avoid Boeing planes in general until they can figure out exactly what is going on.

So while I am excited to head to Thailand at the beginning of June for a friend’s wedding, what I am definitely not looking forward to is the 20 hours of plane ride to take me from San Francisco to Bangkok (with a stop in Incheon, South Korea in between). After having only returned from Guangzhou (China, a 15 hour flight) last month, I’m not exactly enthusiastic about yet another long flight in a few months’ time.

I have zero doubts Bangkok will be a fantastic time. It just sucks that I lose practically two whole days in the sky just to get there and back. Airlines really need to bring back the Concorde - airplanes faster than the speed of sound. Granted, what makes me think that I can afford to pay for such speed - because you know airlines would charge a lot more for it - when I can’t even afford business class (credit card points or straight cash).

I shall be happy once I am there. But not a moment before!

Mad MAX: loose bolts

What is going on, Boeing? I can’t believe I am reading about issues with the 737 MAX again. This time, it’s the MAX 9 model: an entire side panel of the plane just blowing out in mid-air. That is some scary stuff. Thank heavens no one died this time.

Because the 737 MAX 8 debacle back in 2019 was supremely deadly. Two such planes stalled in the sky, and plunged everyone onboard to their deaths. You’d think Boeing would have thoroughly learned from those tragedies. Apparently not, I guess! The same generation of 737 is now back in the news, and the entire world fleet of MAX 9 planes are currently grounded.

Perhaps the MAX 10 will finally be the sweet spot!

Or more likely, Boeing will have to rebrand the 737 entirely. The MAX designation is forever tainted with horror and engineering incompetence. (Fool me twice, shame on me.) Heck, maybe even the 737 numbers might require changing. Next time you get on a domestic flight and see the 737 MAX designation on the safety pamphlet: wouldn’t you get slightly nervous? I certainly would. I want to be sure the airplane has got the sufficient amount of phalanges before takeoff.

Good news for me: the planes I am taking to China next month is made by AirBus.

As a person with immense fear of heights, a plane plunging into the ground (mechanical fault or otherwise) is one of my mortal nightmares. I understand that flying is statically super safe, and that I would be in way more danger driving a car on the road. But the emotional brain still sends those nervous signals nevertheless, every time I get on an airplane. I’m the guy who claps when it lands safely.

Go back to where I came from

If things continue to go well, I reckon I can go back to China later this year. My home country seems to have finally given up the COVID zero dream. Citizens are allowed to move about the country freely, travelers from abroad need only a negative test, no more quarantining. All of this just in time for the massive Lunar New Year festivities (it’s this weekend).

Of course, a complete reversal of the previously harsh restrictions means COVID is running rampant in China. So much so the country is not even bothering with releasing numbers. They are essentially going through the waves we already saw here in the States and the rest of the world. The sad part is, the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) that we received are banned in China. They’ve only got the far least effective (effectively ineffective) home-grown Sinovac vaccine. Needless amount of the citizenry will be severely sick (or die) because of this.

This is why I have no short-term plans to visit China (after three long years away) to see family. I think it’s better let COVID run its course and reach a sort of equilibrium. Besides, my mother tells me those of us on the old 10-year tourist visa are still not yet allowed into the country. With the requirement that Chinese tourists coming into the United States must test negative (a logical move, honestly), China will certainly reciprocate in kind, if not even more restrictive, to U.S. travelers.

My father is scheduled to retire in July. The hope is that he will be able to return to China to live for a few months starting in autumn. I will then join him towards the end of December, my usual timeframe to go back home, back before the pandemic started.

Imagine that - I’m now old enough to have both parents retire completely. The seasons of our lives can seemingly change so suddenly.

Le Mans 2023 or bust

The annual 24 hours of Le Mans endurance race is this weekend. I wish I was in France right now to attend in person. Barring anything too dramatic, the winner of the race will likely be a Toyota. The top P1 class just isn't that competitive. Next year, entry from Peugeot, Ferrari, and Porsche will flip the excitement level to the other end of the spectrum. That’s the one to look forward to.

So let me put in on paper now: I aim to attend the 2023 running of Le Mans. Getting time off from work shouldn't be a problem, since the summer months are significantly less busy on a university campus. The main barrier will likely be cost. Travel cost right now is insanely high, and if the trend doesn't come back down. an international trip to France might be prohibitively expensive.

For shits and giggles, I looked at flights to Seoul, South Korea for early August (this year). Prices are at least twice as much compared to the last time I flew there back in 2017. Two thousand dollars for an economy roundtrip is rather high. Even flying on off-peak days won't really save significantly over the weekend days. Probably a confluence of high demand, high fuel cost, and overall inflation.

I am definitely not going to fly anywhere this summer, and likely the rest of 2022. I have to hope that things will return to a true normal next year. In the meantime, there's much saving to do in preparation.

Back from vacation

Greetings, comrades! I have returned from a two weeks vacation hiatus, and it feels wonderful. The travel was wonderful as well, details of which I will write about in the upcoming days, perhaps weeks.

Indeed it’s the first bit of traveling I’ve done since the beginning of the pandemic. As cliche as it goes, you truly don’t know how good things are until it’s taken away from you. I love traveling, but never was one to be sentimental about it. The euphoria I got as I stepped onto the train in Emeryville, en route to Los Angeles, was a welcomed surprise. The challenge and excitement of heading off to a new adventure has returned, and it’s been far too long since I’ve last had it.

Let’s not go a year and half before I travel again. Go get vaccinated if you haven’t already. And I pray the rest of the world will be able to catch up soon enough. I yearn for the shores of the Asian continent. Hopefully by Thanksgiving week I can either go to South Korea, or Taiwan.

For this trip, we elected to take the train as much as possible. Flying is fast and all, and I’m sure it’s plenty safe vis a vis the coronavirus, but the lack of space and being stuck inside a metal tube in the sky with hundreds of other souls just isn’t all that enticing. The leisure pace and space of an Amtrak train is the way to go for those of us in zero hurry to get to our destination. 14 hours to get from San Francisco to Los Angeles is quite a time-consuming affair, though that’s nothing an iPad full of books can’t solve. Or an iPhone full of music.

The views along the way are quite nice as well. It’s a shame the train network here in America isn’t as intensive and fast compared to Europe and Asia. I for one would choose it over flying if both methods are able to get me to the same destination. Principally because I’ve a fear of heights, and planes have always caused me anxiety.

Trains are cheaper than flying, too.

No travel for the wicked

Needless to say, there won’t be any traveling happening for me personally for the rest this year, if not into the next. It’s a sad thing to say really because a part of what I enjoy most is traveling abroad and visiting places I’ve never been; last Summer’s trip to Japan was in many ways a high watermark in my life. Unfortunately due to the current circumstances, being stuck in a metal tube many thousands of feet in the air is probably not the smartest thing to do.

For the past five Januaries, I’ve flew back home to China to visit family, and I’ve already resigned to that fact that the streak is over: I won’t be making the same trip this year. Even though it would be right at the end of December as usual, it’s hard to predict what sort of normalcy the world will return to by that time. Never mind the dangers of being clustered together with hundreds of people inside an airplane: I don’t want to return to a hometown that’s still dealing with the affects from the coronavirus. As much as I wish to see family members, if Guangzhou is lacking its typical vibrancy, it would be a wasted trip.

I think this would have been the year I finally make it over to Europe, perhaps a trip surrounding the legendary Le Mans 24 hours race, or the 24 hours of Nurburgring (both races have been rescheduled from their usual July slot to September). That’s obviously out the window now, but being that I never been to Europe, there’s an absence of longing for and fondness that I carry for my beloved continent of Asia. The “old continent” can will have to wait a bit longer.

Had it not been Europe, I would have probably gone back to South Korea this year for the second time since the trip in 2017. With another two years of Korean language learning under my belt, I was ready to experience the Korean culture fully and unreservedly. More importantly, there’s the numerous variety of Korean food I’ve been missing since the last trip, dishes that I simply cannot find here back in the States. There would’ve been lots of eating going on, but alas there will be no beginning-of-Summer trip in 2020.

To quote the Terminator: “I’ll be back”.