血淚教訓

本人剛在美國的大奇蹟日成功把之前贏的和自己的本金都輸掉了。現在感覺有點像大時代裏面的丁蟹。所以特地把大時代裏的葉天的教訓放出來免得其他人步我的后塵。


股市原意，乃让集资搜资有其地，社会向荣，人皆有赚。惜人性贪婪，耗尽心思，巧取豪夺，乐土成炼狱，血雨腥风，杀戳不息，无数人荡产倾家输性命，胜者则丧良知人格。余於股坛数十载，未尝见一真正鸁者，智者应知此乃一处永无赢家之战。取胜唯一法∶“及早离去”四字而矣

中秋节大开杀界.

So I drove to my parents on Sunday. The normal 3 hour drive (one way) that I am so used to that I can do it with my eyes closed. Coco would like to focus on her studies so she didn't come with me, instead the Polish guy who is renting my room wants to come along to see the beautiful view of Hemsedal.

During the first half of the trip we saw quite a lot of birds on the road and I have to step on the brake a few times to avoid hitting them (I have killed 2 birds with my car before). So finally I got through the birds and a short while later I saw a cat crossing the road, the cat was quick so nothing happened (I have killed a squirrel before). So we keep on driving and the car in front of me all of a sudden turn the car to the opposite side. Just as I was wondering what was going on, I saw a lamb in the middle of the road, looking lost. He first look at the car who passed him, and then look at me, with no intention of getting out of the way. I slowed down the car and drove by and on the mirror I saw the lamb was seeing us off.

So after 3 hours I am almost home. The whole trip I was talking to the Polish guy about different things, mostly about politics. Just when I was engaging in a heated argument about how Democracy sucks, he pointed ahead and said: "a deer!" and I had to step on the break again to avoid hitting it. The deer start walking off and I step on the gas again to drive past it, only to see a second deer right in front of my car and despite me turning away from the deer, I can't avoid but hit it at the back leg. The impact was small, but still enough to send the deer flying off the road. I was in shock, thus without stopping to check the injury to the deer I continue driving.

It was less than 200 meters away from home this happened, and the deer was unfortunately a little too tall for the bumper. So I hit it with the lamps and they were pushed inward, breaking a tube causing the window washing fluid to be spilled. The cost of damage is yet to be determined, but it's going to cost me....

Erik's traveller magazine, part 3

Venice, Italy
(click on the images to view it in full size)





The train ride to Venice is about 6 hours. We stopped by a small town called Villach in between. Just in time for me to grab a small lunch. I couldn't eat too much because I was too excited to see Venice. Since we only got half a day in Venice, it makes planning very important and I had been doing that all morning.



We arrived at Venice Mestre (not the Venice central station) at 1:30pm and as we walked from the train station to the hotel, we noticed most of the shops are closed and it all seems so strange since it is Friday. When I saw the opening hours of the stores everything becomes clear to me. They all take a 2 hour break in the middle of the day. I have heard about that before, but it is just so weird when you see it. The area seems dead but yet it is in the middle of the day.



So we settled down in our hotel and are now feeling the hunger, we got a pizza from a small place next to the hotel (one of the few places that is actually open, an not to my surprise, it is owned by a Chinese family). So we stuffed ourselves and got some valuable information from the waitress and head out to the city of Venice. There are 3 ways to get there, by bus, by train or by boat (walking is out of the question). We decided to hop on the bus and tour the area while we are in it.







Our plan is to get a basic tour of Venice by hopping on the boat (which is basically a bus) through the Grand Canal in the middle and end up in the San Marco Plaza at the end of it. Unfortunately we got on the wrong direction and toured the outside of Venice instead. We still arrived at San Marco Plaza at the end, so it was good. Once we got there, it was everything I had imagined. Nice buildings, Gondola everywhere and music playing with people enjoying a nice coffee. After some picture taking we sat down on one of the cafe and enjoy the music and the environment. If anybody wants to get a feel of Europe, this is it. We sat there for half an hour hearing one song after another (sadly, I don't know any of the songs) and we were knock back to reality when the bill comes. 10 euro for the 0.2 liter coke and 15 euro for an ice coffee. Well, it was worth it.





After that we decided to walk around the city and tour the city at our own pace. We walked by many small canals and souvenier shops. Venice is very different from many cities due to its structure (built on water, boat as the main transportation). Although I have to say the smell by the canals isn't exactly the greatest. Due to the time limit we didn't get to visit some buildings on the outer islands nor the museums. By the time we noticed it was already 6pm and we decided to try out the Gondola tours. Multiple travel websites suggest us to bargain for the price, but then I realize that they have a price set already. They all open the mouth by saying 100 euro, but if I bargain, they would go down to 80 euros and not a dime less. I think that is good since that would limit the unhealthy price competitions. So at the end we hopped on a Gondola by the Rialto bridge.

pictures.....













Since the sun begins to go down we decide to visit San Marco plaza once more to check out the view at sunset and we took some more pictures. When it is almost dark, we go for dinner. We remembered a lot of restaurants by the Grand Canal at the Rialto bridge so we hopped on one of those "busses" to go there.





We wanted a seat by the canal, but as it turns out the tables by there are all for four people or more so it was a bit disappointing, but it was okay. The food was good and damn expensive (150 euro tip incl.). We met a couple who seems to be 40 to 50 years old. The husband was from Germany while the wife was from Los Angeles and because we went to the same univesity we enjoyed a nice, long conversation after the meal and since the husband is a photographer he offered to take a picture of us. We had a great time and we left when it is getting late.







So we took the "bus" back to the bus station and took the bus back to Venice Mestre. Since the bus offered no information about the stations and we had no map of the bus line, we had to ask someone when we were suppose to get off and we ended up getting off a station too early, but my experience with city navigation got us back to the hotel safely :) Tomorrow is another day and another place of our journey...

Erik's traveller magazine, part 2

Salzburg + Halstatt, Austria
(click on the images to view it in full size)





Salzburg is consider one of the bigger cities in Austria, but it's far smaller when compared to Munich. The city is famous for being the birthplace of Wolfgang Mozart, so you will see many chocolates and souveniers made with his face on it. There is also a castle sitting on top of the mountain that can get a 360 degrees panoramic overview of the city.



We arrived at the trainstation at 7pm so we had just enough time to locate the hotel, check-in, take a breath and go out to find dinner. The city is beautiful at night with the lights casted on the walls of the castle. The city is somewhat divided into 2 by a small river that runs in the middle of the city with quite a few bridges connecting both sides. Coco said that fish is the thing to eat here so I located a restaurant that is still open and just grabbed a fish dish. On the way back I was whining the whole way claiming that all the souvenier shops are closed and that I couldn't do any shopping. (The fact is we still got a whole day in Salzburg for that).



The next morning we got up to catch the train to Halstatt. It is an extremely beautiful town that is located by the lake. A place that isn't widely known to the tourists around the world yet, except the Koreans and the local Austrians. Why Koreans? Because it was featured in one of the Korean drama and that is also why Coco wants to go there.





The train dropped us off at Halstatt station and we had to take a boat ride to cross the lake to the town. During the whole 3 hours we were there we did nothing but just take pictures like crazy and had a wonderful lunch by the lake. By afternoon we start seeing buses of tourists arriving, mainly Austrians and Koreans and we know it is time for us to leave. So we spent about 5 hours in the train while only get about 3 hours in Halstatt. It's worth it if you ask me.







Without taking a rest we head directly for the Castle after we come back. We took the bus to get to the bottom but Coco wouldn't spend the time waiting in line for the tram to take us up, so we decided to walk up. What a mistake that was! After the hike for the Swan Castle, now this. The worst is that the road is slippery with sand on concrete. So we made it up eventually and walked around, did the castle tour and took some very nice pictures from the top. We also saw a supersize music box. I heard how it sound in the walkie talkie we got from them, but I am more interested at how it works mechanically.

We ended up having dinner at another random restaurant by the street and I had some nice sausages. The coke we got was small, just 0.2 liter. No wonder I don't see many fat people running around.

Pictures.....