asia trip - winter 2013 part 11

I have been anxious about hitting the storage limit with the thousands of photos I posted in my blog. I have checked my Google account many time to no avail. Are the photos that I uploaded stored in my Picasa account or in my Goggle storage. I had a hard time telling if Picasa and Google storage (now called Google Drive) one and the same.

asia trip - winter 2013 part 10

more photos from bangkok

more home made sausages - part 2

Home cooks that constantly pursue new skills deserve a lot of praise. There are a lot going against the amateurs. Buying ingredient in small quantity cost a fortune and most of the time you get sub par quality ingredients. Stuck with toy-like equipment handicaps you. Making small batches is very labor intensive and exhausting. A lot of popular and wildly successful restaurants and chefs gained their fame from a very small repertoire. Many foodie home cooks are extremely resourceful and can cook with great depth and breadth.

asia trip - winter 2013 part 9

The flight from Macau to Bangkok took about 2 hours. Air Asia has the best rate as long as you don't care for the free drinks other airline give you. Their young crew run a very tight ship in each flight. Meals are pre-order so there is no waste.

The down side of flying Air Asia is it uses the older Don Mueang International Airport. Getting from Don Mueang to where your hotel in Bangkok requires going though the worst of Bangkok traffic jam that flows with the brisk pace of molasses.

asia trip - winter 2013 part 8

Still more photos of the old part of town in Macau.

asia trip - winter 2013 part 7

Off to Macau 澳門 I went departing Hong Kong. I was pondering where to go after Macau. I originally was thinking about Taiwan instead of going back to Thailand. I have been to Taipei in my business travel. I didn't feel that I had explore the city and that was my wanting to return. However I am aware food in Taiwan tends to be quite blend to my taste and I have been reevaluating going there. While I was in Hong Kong I checked in with a travel agency for a self tour package which including visiting Taipei as well as so other places of the island nation. I struck up a conversation with the clerk and he too commented that the Chinese food there looks good when you watch on youtube, but is too blend to his taste. That was enough to put a nail to the not visiting Taiwan coffin for me. I made travel arrangements to go to Bangkok after Macau. This including booking the flight, hotel, and exchanging enough Thai baht (you get better rate once you arrive and exchange with USD) until I checked into the hotel.

airline serving cart as furniture

No sooner than I wrote about digging the airline serving cart I saw in Hong Kong yesterday, using airline carts as furniture was featured in Deutsche Welle's Euromaxx program on the same day!

asia trip - winter 2013 part 6

This is a continuation of the series of posts on my recent trip to Asia.

more home made sausages - part 1

A few days ago I ventured into sausage making for the first time. I have been sitting on the fence about trying cured meat for the fear of indulging into a diet of too much red meat. What pushed me over the fence is the general poor quality of these products available in my town. Invested in a sausage stuffer I did when I seized on the opportunity of an open box on Amazon. Cannot beat a discount on already discounted item and free shipping. I made 2.5 lb of andouille. The result of my first attempt exceeded my expectation.

asia trip - winter 2013 part 5

In case you wonder why my posts have so many photos. To me my blog posts are substitute of online photo albums like flickr. I had used flickr briefly a couple of years ago but find it very unsatisfying. I also ran into size limit within a week unless I pony up and pay. Then I decided to start my blog using blogger and the rest is history. With thousands of photos I uploaded I have yet to reach my free (albeit I pay google with my priceless privacy) account limit.
With blogger I can selectively upload photos, write comments and contents of the post faster than I can rename each photo. When I first started using blogger, the browser based authoring tool would keel over if I try to upload more than 8 photos at a time. The tool has gone though a lot of enhancement since. Today I tried 120 photos in one shot and it suck them up without crash and burn. I was impressed how far the tool has come along.

asia trip - winter 2013 part 4

asia trip - winter 2013 part 3

This is my first overseas trip that I travel without my Thinkpad laptop and my Canon 7D DSLR. My Thinkpad had recently been infested with malware and the Canon 7D died due to a power delivery failure. While I spent a lot of time ridding the malware(s), I just do not trust the computer to use for my financial transaction without completely re-installing the OS from scratch. I brought with me my iPad, my new iPhone gold 5s, and an unlocked iPhone 4s. While I missed my Canon DSLR and a notebook computer travelling nearly 6-7 pounds of weight saving in my backpack is very liberating. I never leave them in the hotel so that meant the weight I carry on my back all day long. I do miss the great latitude of the zoom lens and decent DSLR instead of using the iPhone to take pictures. All the photos in the trip were taken with my 4s as it was the phone that I used with pre-paid sim cards.

asia trip - winter 2013 part 2

I have written a few posts on Lin Heung Lau 蓮香樓 and Lin Heung Kui 蓮香居. They are my usual place to go for morning tea (dim sum) whenever I visit Hong Kong.

asia trip - winter 2013 part 1

I generally have very low expectation when it comes to food in airports. I would avoid them if I can. On the day of my departure from Portland International Airport (PDX), I have a rare late morning flight. I used my United miles to book an Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong. I prefer Air Canada over United because the flight has better service.

home made andouille sausage

I have been itching to try my hands on preserved meat for some time. However I have been reluctant to begin for the fear of indulging in a diet of cured meat; well too much meat for the matter. What push me eventually is the want for good quality products that are hard to obtain locally here in Portland, Oregon. I few months ago I acquired this sausage stuffing machine from Amazon. I have done a bit of research. Even for home cook that make sausage occasionally you want to invest in a good quality stuffer with solid construction. A cheap one will simply fall apart after a few use. This one has metal gears as well as mostly stainless steel construction.

brunnhilde's sewer vent final configuration

Ever since I acquired Brunnhilde the smell of the sewer odor had always been an on-going problem. I have done a lot of investigation and learnt a lot. There is not one single cause for the odor, but rather many potential causes. Of all however there is a glaring problem caused by the poorly chosen location and the design of the vent port. I had written many posts during the investigation. Recently I designed a vent port using a common household plumbing fitting. I have done quite a bit of field testing since and am satisfied with the result. What remain is to add the final touches to make the installation final.

shady boy sunshade for brunnhilde - part 3

Sometimes with a DIY project I underestimate the actually time, planning, and labor that goes into what seemingly a relative simple task. The installation of the Shady Boy sunshade is a good example. When I set out to swap out the Fiamma F45i awning that Westfalia provisioned on Brunnhilde with the Shady Boy I thought it would be a simple cakewalk. Just fabricate an adapter for the Shady Boy and it is done.

shady boy sunshade for brunnhilde - part 2

I spent a few hours yesterday making significant progress on the Shady Boy sunshade for Brunnhilde. I like the naughty and sinister connotation of the name Wolfgang chosen for this sunshade. I'd never met him but spoke to him on the phone when I purchased the sunshade nearly 2 decades ago.

shady boy sunshade for brunnhilde

I started the rough installation design of the Shady Boy sunshade which replaces the Fiamma F45i awning two days ago. The length of the Shady Boy sunshade (I think sunshade is a better term for the minimalistic Shady Boy) is much shorter than the Fiamma F45i it replaces. The case length does not span the distance of the two mounting points Westfalia provided for the Fiamma awning. This calls for a custom aluminum V-shape channel that serves as an adapter plate. It will span the two mounting points and the Shady Boy in turn be mounted onto.

eat, drink, no play, and sleep - aug 2013

What do you do when you are literally crippled? Watch a lot of TV and movies and eat. That was what I thought but I get a bit restless. Breaking my foot give me a taste what it is like to have movement challenge. While mine is relatively minor kind of immobility I realize how much difficulties it brings to daily chores.