boo and poo’s land

My friend in Germany and I are organizing a 8-day tour to Beijing, China and Pyongyang, North Korea.  Yes, you read me correctly ~ North Korea! Since my friend has organized this tour to North Korea a few times for Germans, he has a wonderful rapport with North Korea embassy in Berlin!

See the details below:

In Pyongyang, the 5-day trip includes visiting Korean Arc De Triumph, Juche Tower, and Panmunjom (border between S. and N. Korea). We will visit deaf beautician / barbers’ shop as well as view a cultural dance performed by deaf youth team.

In Beijing, the 3-day trip includes a visit to the Great Wall of China, Tiananmen Place, and Forbidden City. We will be able to greet deaf local people there.

Tour includes:
Round trip flight between North Korea and Beijing
Accommodation in North Korea and Beijing
Tourist attractions fees
Full Board (International and Korean)
Transfer between hotel and airport in Beijing and Pyongyang
North Korea Visa Fee
English speaking local guides
American Sign Language interpreters

Tour do NOT include:
Round trip flight between Beijing and your home
Double Entry Chinese Visa
Tips for guides and drivers

Tour price: US$1924 per person

Date: August 9 - 17, 2010

Deadline for applying this tour: June 5th, 2010

For more detailed itinerary, more information, or have concerns, please e-mail Gabe at gamma888 at yahoo.com.

Spread the word around to your globetrotting buddies, would ya???

At this moment, I’m in Bishop, CA having woken up early while friends are still asleep.  It’s been years where my head’s feeling occupied and I just have the urge to type away. So blog, here I come!

While I’ve been behind in my blog, apparently I would assume that many of you have been tracking me on Facebook and Twitter.  But, I’ve decided to post an entry about my 2009 tidbits.

I would have to say that 2009 has been very productive year for me as I’m working as a full time teacher instead of substitute teacher as well as being a pupil once again at a graduate school to pursue Bilingual Education.  I have a wonderful darling who’s been with me throughout the year and I’m quite lucky to have her in my life.  Even though we’ve been together for over 12 years, it feels like as if we’re still hopping together through a fairy’s tale, embracing new chapters.

As I’m in Bishop right now for a mini bouldering trip, I’ve started to discern that this area is my meditating spot for my busy life. It gives me time to reflect which I rarely do.  My darling has taught me extensively about reflection.  To start with 2009, we were in Japan celebrating New Year’s with friends. I recalled that we discussed in the past about trying to celebrate every New Year’s in a different location other than being in home.  But I get the feeling that we’ll be staying home this time just simply because it’s time to relax and get prepared for work and classes.

As many of you know that I love to hop around in the world, with addition of Japan, I’ve added more carbon footprint by going to China (twice) and North Korea.  While I’ve gone to China just mainly to see friends and art exhibitions, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was definitely the highlight trip of the 2009.  Not too many Americans get to fly to this secluded country as it’s open for any American traveler in two months only.   While I won’t elaborate much in this blog, I can fairly say that it was an unique privilege to be able to mingle with the deaf locals there just because we WEREN’T allowed to mingle with any locals throughout the tour.  As any traveler isn’t allowed to travel independently in DPRK, I found it pretty restrictive to be in a group tour yet I felt lucky to get a glimpse of DPRK’s occurrences behind the invisible doors.  Even, a student asked me right after showing my slideshow of my experience in DPRK to World History sophomore classes if my stories are actually fictitious!  RIght now, I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be leading a group tour to DPRK in August 2010.   So if you’re interested, feel free to contact me for more information as it’s OPEN to anyone who can speak/listen/read English as well as American Sign Language.

(Feel free to see my photos that I snapped while in North Korea: ALBUM)

While teaching my students, I feel grateful that I’ve learned so much this past decade working as a visual designer that many students are actually learning what I’ve learned about a huge dose of real world. They seem to love the challenges that I bring to them which is something I hope that they will learn how to embrace them instead of pedaling back in their future lives.  I hope that I can make a huge impact toward my students in the future where they’d be able to lead and experience better than I do.

To close off this blog, I’d like to wish you a wonderful 2010 even though it’s just a time to make us in reality check. If you don’t follow time, everything will be in blur yet if you reflect, you’d be able to appreciate much more like in a slo-mo action.  ;-)

I just received news from the school where we taught in Madagascar.  One of Susie’s students finally passed an exam thus she was the first deaf student in Madagascar to get a diploma thus plowing out the barriers needed to get into an university.  While it may be an exciting news, she’d be facing more challenges - universities without interpreters and unexplored world.  The school has asked me for some advice about the universities with deaf program in the USA.  Susie and I agreed that we’d help her to cover some flight cost if she decides to enroll at an university in the USA.  It is our wish that she excel in the university and then head back to her native homeland to strut her deaf empowerment along to the Malagasy deaf community!

i just received this message from our friend, dimby, who’s facing a new political instability right now in his homeland and frankly, he’s quite tired of this… i’m proud to see that dimby has improved his English since we last met him almost 1.5 years ago… he pretty much would like to study abroad here and try to escape from the political mess there.

anyway, here’s what he had to say about the current situation in madagascar:

“Yesterday, Ministry of Health, vice ministry of health, vice education, water, agruculture, tourist and forests, and public work, also leave because the military of CAPSAT forced them. May be Capsat kidnapped 6 peoples ( The highest military graduated and four generals, The pastor president of church of Jesus Chirst in Madagascar,..) friends of Ravalomanana. TV Tf1 and Radio RFI from says Ravaloamanana give the power to the highest military in Madagascar but Andry and CAPSAT are angry. Ravalomanana thinks to leave because he hope peaceful in Madagascar. Yesterday, CAPSAT in Palace of President of Madagascar in Antaninarenina, they weren’t war none blood or dead. Andry visit it yesterday. Embassy the USA, represent of UN, Africa Union etc met. Andry and friends were also there. Ravalomanana letter saying he gave the power to the highest graduated in Madagascar was read but Andry said he is not okay cause the people says Andry is leader in Madagascar. UN, Bank of world, Europe Union etc says, if Andry is leader and CAPSAT in Madagascar, they do not fund Madagascar.Today, Justice say Andry is President of Madagascar now to 24 months.”

i just hope that Andry will get his senses knocked out once he realizes how difficult is it to be a President of a country that hasn’t flourished lately. Ravalomanana has been very smart to step down for the sake of safety of the public. but it’s going to be another LONG road ahead for the country just because this chao has given the country a step back. it’s going to be interesting to see how Andry will handle this country and he’s only 34 years and used to be a DJ!!! he’d need to change the current law which a malagasy president needs to be at least 40 years old to run the country…

little more than 3 months have passed and there’s no update on this blog…  i wonder why…

*clouds hovering around above my head*

well, after more than 5 years of blogging, i think i’ve reached at this point where i’d generally get sick of blogging.  is it pointless to blog when there are so many people blogging and everyone catching up with each other’s blogs?  i feel that i’d rather meet someone to have a long, engaging chat with instead of spending some time on the blog.

after all, i’m sure that some of you read my facebook status (which i do update occasionally) which would be generally good enough to keep you updated of my life.

but why in the heck am i typing this while taking a dump?  i have no idea…

i guess that’s what you get what you read here!

but in the meantime, please do try to check out one of my new favorite artists, matthew palladino, who definitely has original ideas to keep you entertained (or perhaps to some people disgusted).  here are some of his pieces:

You can find more his works at:
http://www.dumbstersf.com/

it has been a month and half since i last posted… here’s what i’ve done in the past 6 weeks:

- sub-teaching an english class at a high school

- laying down my personal goals for the future

- stay rooted to home instead of globe-trotting (*wifey and me patting my back*)

- get a nice screen print done by david choe of obama (see the image below)

what will i do for the next 6 weeks:

- sub-teaching other classes

- bouldering and camping in bishop (anyone want to join us there during gobble week?)

- scouting grad schools

- ditching my web design career (yep, you read it correctly here!)

- vote! (and you should, too, otherwise you’re dayum hopeless!)

we just got back home yesterday all the way from shanghai… we were there to attend our friend’s beautiful chinese wedding banquet, but we stayed there for a week to explore shanghai.  it was my third trip to shanghai and it seems like i’m making a trip to shanghai for every decade (1989, 1999, and now 2008) and i can safely type that shanghai has transformed from a small city to a huge metropolis.  i recalled on my first visit to shanghai, there weren’t that many tall buildings.  the tallest building i recalled was a hotel and there were many two-story hu tongs along the streets.  flash forward to almost 20 years later, many modern buildings have replaced the old houses.  8 new subway lines running with 3 remaining lines left! i think there was only 2 lines back in 1999.  to make more room for the people to live in shanghai, there are many apartment complexes around which definitely looked like a lego city.  too many cookie cutter styles around that i’m little worried that shanghai may not have its own identity at all in the future.  the only signatures that shanghai have is the bund along the river as well as the yu garden, but then shanghai is rapidly changing and finding its own identity, it’ll probably take some time itself to be more attractive in a few years before the world expo takes place there in 2010.   hopefully, i’ll be able to see the completed shanghai in another decade! 

Two years ago, I purchased a nice original print, “Get Acquainted by a Faile Girl” by this artist, Faile, for only $275.  It was a huge print, 38″ by 24″.  It had been stored in the basement for a while since my wife wasn’t so fond of this print.  She was concerned that we’d get a few oldies visit our home with my parents, so not quite an appropriate print to hang out in our home for a while.  Check out this print:

Fast forward to now… just recently, I had to part this print out as I need to finance a purchase for an original art piece by Bruno 9Li.  I’ve placed this print in E-bay recently, and in almost two years, the price has appreciated exceedingly more than I could have imagined.  Count to the final seconds, a bidder has won this auction with a staggering bid of $5001 for this print!   So, this print was quite a nice investment in exchange for this Bruno 9li’s original painting that I’ve been eying toward.  Here’s the painting:

See Bruno 9li’s painting

Finally, our painting has found a new home in our dining room which will probably be a nice conversation starter since the painting is somewhat huge… at least 56″ by 24!

So, while I find stocks to be boring, I go for art ’stocks’ here where I love to research on artists’ background as well as their works and having art in our home does keep me entertained often on the contrary to those stock certificates!

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080613/153276/

now, if the us politicians can sway their eyes into producing new innovations for the future instead of depending on petroleum.  imagine how much US history would have changed…

now sorting the pictures for a slide show someday soon…