Our trip to New York was great! We went for three nights and three and a half days. It was me, Anna, Carlos, Martin, and Veronique. New Zealand, Ukraine, Spain, and Germany (x2) :D We had a tight schedule, so we mostly just saw the greatest things in Manhattan.
Overall feeling of New York. It is a very diverse city. There is a lot of old and historical architecture mixed with the huge skyscrapers. There are a lot of parks, even in downtown. I was very surprised by the amount of trees and generally green and space around there. It's a contrast to San Francisco downtown for sure. It is also much bigger than San Francisco and much cleaner than I expected. If only they maintained the subways properly/better and got the homeless people who trade in souveneers on every corner....
I liked the subway, because we could get to anywhere we wanted in a reasonable time. It's a very comprehensible system of tracks. We bought a seven day pass that got us free access to all subways and regular buses in NY. It saved us a lot of money!
We took an overnight flight on Friday and arrived in NY at around 7. We dropped off our bags at the hotel in Brooklyn. We had to leave them in the lobby but the receptionist told us it's ok, but he "is not liable for anything". The hotel itself was much better than expected. Everything was neat, tidy, and new. We were also just a few meters from the subway.
Day one, Saturday. All day it rained so we decided to make it a day of museums. We saw the Metropolitan museum and the National Museum of Natural History. We tried going to the Guggenheim, but it was closed at 6 pm. We also did not get to see the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). For most of us it was enough of museums for that day and the rest of the trip. Luckily the next two and a half days were sunny (but cold, around 10 degrees celsius and down to 3 at night! it was warmer on Tuesday though..).
Day two, Sunday. Walked through Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan downtown, wall street, Twin Towers memorial. Staten Island ferry. China town. Little Italy. Musical Chicago on Broadway. World's best cheesecake. Search for clubs, bars, and roof bars was unsuccessful.
Day three, Monday. After a late night we left the hotel only at 9.30 in the morning. The first destination was the Empire State Buildig. It opened at 10, but when we arrived at 10.30 the lines everywhere, outside, inside to the tickets, inside to the lifts were huge. We spent around one hour in those lines. It wasn't that long. The view from the 86th floor is awesome. It is an open space viewing area. See photos. After that we set out to see the Grand Central train station.
Day four, Tuesday. Central park. Ice skating rink. Nice barbeque place in Times Square.
Our flight was at 18.00. After the barbeque we set out at 16.00. Unluckily for us the subway wasn't functioning well so at 17.20 we were at the point from where it would have taken us at leat 50 minutes more to get to the airport. We got out of the subway and took a taxi, which took only 15 minutes. We were at the airport 15 min before the flight and were in sitting inside the plane five minutes before take off! It was a lucky break for us, very lucky.
In the news on the plane we saw that one hour later there was a breach in security at the JFK airport, where we flew from. Someone was discovered to be walking inside who did not go through the security check. Two terminals with almost 2000 people was evacuated and 18 flights were cancelled or delayed for at least 2 hours. While in we were in the air, there was also a 5.6 earthquake in San Jose. People said it was relatively a big one --- you could definitely feel the shaking! So, it was crazy day, but everything turned our way and we made it home!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
Scenic train trip to Denver, Colorado
The trip was AWESOME!
I didn't get into too much detail here. Pictures speak louder than words...
Our trip took place over the the Labour long weekend, Saturday 1 September to Monday 3 September. It was six of us --- me, Anna, Ben, Carlos, Brendan, and Tina.
On Saturday at 4.30 in the morning we set out to Oakland (close to SF), where the train station is, in a rental car. The train was leaving at 7.10, but we decided to have an extra hour just in case (it's around 1 hour drive from where we live).
We arrived but the garage gate was locked -- the still grid was down, and we wondered how we would drop off the car. There was a guy in the same situation there already and he already called up security. They came shortly and opened the gate for us. The train station was only a few meters away so it was no hassle to walk over there.
The train trip itself was great. We traveled in a sleeping car with two person cabins, which was great! There was a dining carriage, where we had food three times a day (included in the price too ;)). Past the dining carriage there was also a scenic carriage with non-tinted windows which were on the roof also. Basically we didn't move that much, ate a lot of American food (I think there is a cheesecake shot in the photos), and slept (but not that well, at least on my part).
We arrived into Denver around 21.30. Walked a couple of miles to our motel and decided to go out to the downtown (city center) for beer in a bar. It wasn't too bad, but I was pretty tired and was glad to return to the motel room. Ben and Carlos stayed to check out another club and came back an hour later.
The next day we walked around and rode around on Denver's free mall bus (no cars are allowed in the very heart of the centre). There was some kind of food festival going on. So we checked it out. I tried some deep fried alligator meet, but it tasted like chicken to me. I was a bit disappointed with it, to be honest :( Basically the rest, just have a look at the photos. The weather was great, so we lucked out on that front for sure---both on the train and in Denver.
Most places, such as museums were closed (it was a Monday and a holiday after all).
One more thing worth mentioning is that on the way back in from the plane we saw a huge fire, or a lot of smoke to be more precise. The whole bay area (SF to SJ) was suffering from the smoke particles for over a week later. Apparently 100s of acres of land burnt somewhere a few 10s of miles south of my work. In the mornings I could see that everything was blue and you could smell it... not that great for your lungs I would think. When I was leaving work on one of the days the sun was out, but it was red-brown... that's how thick the atmosphere was... It's all fine now though. Here is the story in the local news.
I didn't get into too much detail here. Pictures speak louder than words...
Our trip took place over the the Labour long weekend, Saturday 1 September to Monday 3 September. It was six of us --- me, Anna, Ben, Carlos, Brendan, and Tina.
On Saturday at 4.30 in the morning we set out to Oakland (close to SF), where the train station is, in a rental car. The train was leaving at 7.10, but we decided to have an extra hour just in case (it's around 1 hour drive from where we live).
We arrived but the garage gate was locked -- the still grid was down, and we wondered how we would drop off the car. There was a guy in the same situation there already and he already called up security. They came shortly and opened the gate for us. The train station was only a few meters away so it was no hassle to walk over there.
The train trip itself was great. We traveled in a sleeping car with two person cabins, which was great! There was a dining carriage, where we had food three times a day (included in the price too ;)). Past the dining carriage there was also a scenic carriage with non-tinted windows which were on the roof also. Basically we didn't move that much, ate a lot of American food (I think there is a cheesecake shot in the photos), and slept (but not that well, at least on my part).
We arrived into Denver around 21.30. Walked a couple of miles to our motel and decided to go out to the downtown (city center) for beer in a bar. It wasn't too bad, but I was pretty tired and was glad to return to the motel room. Ben and Carlos stayed to check out another club and came back an hour later.
The next day we walked around and rode around on Denver's free mall bus (no cars are allowed in the very heart of the centre). There was some kind of food festival going on. So we checked it out. I tried some deep fried alligator meet, but it tasted like chicken to me. I was a bit disappointed with it, to be honest :( Basically the rest, just have a look at the photos. The weather was great, so we lucked out on that front for sure---both on the train and in Denver.
Most places, such as museums were closed (it was a Monday and a holiday after all).
One more thing worth mentioning is that on the way back in from the plane we saw a huge fire, or a lot of smoke to be more precise. The whole bay area (SF to SJ) was suffering from the smoke particles for over a week later. Apparently 100s of acres of land burnt somewhere a few 10s of miles south of my work. In the mornings I could see that everything was blue and you could smell it... not that great for your lungs I would think. When I was leaving work on one of the days the sun was out, but it was red-brown... that's how thick the atmosphere was... It's all fine now though. Here is the story in the local news.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Trip to Los Angeles 26-28 May, 2007
I won't go into too much detail, only as much as time permits. A lot of things you can see from my general pictures on flickr. I have added some previous photos from San Francisco, Bay to Breakers, and modified/added more to Santa Cruz beach party photos. So check out everything. It might take a while, but you can skip whatever you want, or just sit back and watch the slideshow :) This particular trip is in this collection. Also there's some description on almost every set and the titles of some photos are commenting on what's happening. Unfortunately flickr does not allow to upload videos. So I'm still using my webshots account for that. The videos, all from day two of the trip are here. This includes the exclusive video of Torsten flipping his hair at the Whisky a Go Go club. (I got the camera only several days ago, so I didn't find the option to change video quality. The vids are 320x240 15fps. Now I found the option and from now on I'll be taking high quality 640x480 30 fps video clips).
Ok, here it goes. For this trip we hired a car as is the custom here. Peace of mind if anything breaks and the size of the car needs to be large for such a long trip and four people. It was me, Ben, Carlos, and Torsten. As usual the rental car agency gave us a bit of a headache. It was amusing how incompetent they were. All it was, they were not applying the IBM corporate rate for the car so it was almost twice as expensive (even though I've booked everything over the phone four days in advance). Anyway, instead of our planned 1600 leaving time, we set out around 1730. The drivers were Ben and me, everyone else could not be added as a secondary driver due to them being under 25. Anyway, it took us eight hours to get to our Motel as we got into a nasty traffic jam just outside San Jose. I slept or at least tried to sleep most of that trip in the back.
I don't know what I was thinking, maybe because Torsten smokes, but I booked a smoking room at the motel.... Somehow we got to sleep, but only because it was nearly two in the morning. Everything smelt like smoke. I changed the room as soon as I woke up the next morning.
Day 1
Day one was Hollywood boulevard with the Walk of fame. Then Beverly Hills, followed by us trying to see the Hollywood sign from a mountain opposite it, but the smog was too thick. Lastly we tried to go out to bars/clubs in Santa Monica beach.
Hollywood boulevard was a let down. The area looks like it hasn't been touched since at least 1970s. It's literally the Ghetto. Walk of fame was better, at least someone cleans the paving stones. A lot of famous and surprising people got a star there (see photos).
Beverly Hills was everything we expected including the fact that we saw trees instead of celebrity houses. Saw a white long hummer limo outside Playboy Mansion. Someone even told us there was a party there that night. Somehow I don't think old Hue had us on the VIP list though...
Looked for a couple of hours how to get to the mountain that overlooks the Hollywood sign. In the end we were too late (around 1830) and the smog became too thick.
In between Beverly Hills and going out we went to some area of Sunset (I think) boulevard that was actually a gay area ( you can see the gay cruises ad on photos). We ate at some Italian grill place and noticed a lot guys holding each others hands and other "unusual" activities. Only then we realised where we were... Oh well, a new experience :)
Santa Monica beach proved nothing new in terms of night life. Same old stuff... bars shut very early, some at 1 (if you remember in California the law prohibits sale of alcohol past 1.30 in the morning). We wondered into one bar after waiting for about 20 minutes at least. Nothing spectacular. Wasn't even worth a picture.
Day 2
Downtown LA was great, followed by the Community Center which held the 30 years to Star wars celebration. We finished our day with going to Malibu beach. At night we went out to some clubs on Sunset Blvd.
Downtown LA has magnificent architecture. I think it is far better than San Francisco. There are so many different style buildings and so many abstract art compositions. I don't think I've ever seen this kind of thing in such a large scale. If you are in LA, definitely check out the downtown (but only before 4 pm -- it becomes dangerous after that :)) Other dangerous parts of LA is Eastern and Southern LA.. the guides and the policeman, whom we asked for directions, all said to avoid these...
Star wars celebration was on that day (Sunday, 27 May 2007). We saw some dressed up fans, but not that many. You needed to go inside the Community Center to see everything. The entrance fee was $45 per person so we decided against it :O
Malibu beach was so so. It wasn't that warm and it wasn't very spectacular. Saw some surfers, some girls, the pier. Afterwards we went to the university that's located very near the beach, overlooking the harbour. Very cool to study here for sure!
In the evening we first decided to have the real American experience dinner at International House of Pancakes (IHOP). Of course, we all ate far too much. There is a picture of Carlos showing how full he is... Went out to first Whisky (a) Go Go club where there was live music (I have a short video, see link at the beginning). The club is one of the most famous ones. A few celebrities came there for a whisky -- there is a celebrity wall, which didn't come out on the photo. Saddle Ranch was our last stop. It was fun watching people fall off the mechanical bull. I've never seen that live before (see videos again). All in all not a bad night. There was an idea to go to a crowded strip club (as they are open later than bars). But decided to leave it until I/we get to Las Vegas :D
Day 3
Queen Mary ship and Russian submarine inside, followed by Venice-Muscle beach where a body building competition was going on.
Queen Mary is a ship built shortly after Titanic. It is bigger than Titanic. We didn't go inside as it was expensive in terms of money and time. Russian submarine, called Scorpion, was fun. It was build in the 1970s. It's a small diesel submarine that magically could hold over 70 crew members inside!
Muscle beach was great fun. First the beach is great, very wide --- basically Bay Watch kind of beach. Not that many people as the water was still about 16 degrees. The bodybuilding competition was the best thing. Even though I couldn't actually see much (or take many pics) it was cool. Got some free stuff, bought a muscle beach t-shirt. The best thing was (as I discovered a little later) that Ms Fittness America signed me a couple of her pictures :) And no, she's not a deep voiced mutated female bodybuilder. She looks like a (very very nice looking) model. You can check her out here. Anyway, the Californian atmosphere was finally present!
Journey back was uneventful. A large drink of coke at McDonald's and another stop in the middle of nowhere, that's all there was to it.
Ok, here it goes. For this trip we hired a car as is the custom here. Peace of mind if anything breaks and the size of the car needs to be large for such a long trip and four people. It was me, Ben, Carlos, and Torsten. As usual the rental car agency gave us a bit of a headache. It was amusing how incompetent they were. All it was, they were not applying the IBM corporate rate for the car so it was almost twice as expensive (even though I've booked everything over the phone four days in advance). Anyway, instead of our planned 1600 leaving time, we set out around 1730. The drivers were Ben and me, everyone else could not be added as a secondary driver due to them being under 25. Anyway, it took us eight hours to get to our Motel as we got into a nasty traffic jam just outside San Jose. I slept or at least tried to sleep most of that trip in the back.
I don't know what I was thinking, maybe because Torsten smokes, but I booked a smoking room at the motel.... Somehow we got to sleep, but only because it was nearly two in the morning. Everything smelt like smoke. I changed the room as soon as I woke up the next morning.
Day 1
Day one was Hollywood boulevard with the Walk of fame. Then Beverly Hills, followed by us trying to see the Hollywood sign from a mountain opposite it, but the smog was too thick. Lastly we tried to go out to bars/clubs in Santa Monica beach.
Hollywood boulevard was a let down. The area looks like it hasn't been touched since at least 1970s. It's literally the Ghetto. Walk of fame was better, at least someone cleans the paving stones. A lot of famous and surprising people got a star there (see photos).
Beverly Hills was everything we expected including the fact that we saw trees instead of celebrity houses. Saw a white long hummer limo outside Playboy Mansion. Someone even told us there was a party there that night. Somehow I don't think old Hue had us on the VIP list though...
Looked for a couple of hours how to get to the mountain that overlooks the Hollywood sign. In the end we were too late (around 1830) and the smog became too thick.
In between Beverly Hills and going out we went to some area of Sunset (I think) boulevard that was actually a gay area ( you can see the gay cruises ad on photos). We ate at some Italian grill place and noticed a lot guys holding each others hands and other "unusual" activities. Only then we realised where we were... Oh well, a new experience :)
Santa Monica beach proved nothing new in terms of night life. Same old stuff... bars shut very early, some at 1 (if you remember in California the law prohibits sale of alcohol past 1.30 in the morning). We wondered into one bar after waiting for about 20 minutes at least. Nothing spectacular. Wasn't even worth a picture.
Day 2
Downtown LA was great, followed by the Community Center which held the 30 years to Star wars celebration. We finished our day with going to Malibu beach. At night we went out to some clubs on Sunset Blvd.
Downtown LA has magnificent architecture. I think it is far better than San Francisco. There are so many different style buildings and so many abstract art compositions. I don't think I've ever seen this kind of thing in such a large scale. If you are in LA, definitely check out the downtown (but only before 4 pm -- it becomes dangerous after that :)) Other dangerous parts of LA is Eastern and Southern LA.. the guides and the policeman, whom we asked for directions, all said to avoid these...
Star wars celebration was on that day (Sunday, 27 May 2007). We saw some dressed up fans, but not that many. You needed to go inside the Community Center to see everything. The entrance fee was $45 per person so we decided against it :O
Malibu beach was so so. It wasn't that warm and it wasn't very spectacular. Saw some surfers, some girls, the pier. Afterwards we went to the university that's located very near the beach, overlooking the harbour. Very cool to study here for sure!
In the evening we first decided to have the real American experience dinner at International House of Pancakes (IHOP). Of course, we all ate far too much. There is a picture of Carlos showing how full he is... Went out to first Whisky (a) Go Go club where there was live music (I have a short video, see link at the beginning). The club is one of the most famous ones. A few celebrities came there for a whisky -- there is a celebrity wall, which didn't come out on the photo. Saddle Ranch was our last stop. It was fun watching people fall off the mechanical bull. I've never seen that live before (see videos again). All in all not a bad night. There was an idea to go to a crowded strip club (as they are open later than bars). But decided to leave it until I/we get to Las Vegas :D
Day 3
Queen Mary ship and Russian submarine inside, followed by Venice-Muscle beach where a body building competition was going on.
Queen Mary is a ship built shortly after Titanic. It is bigger than Titanic. We didn't go inside as it was expensive in terms of money and time. Russian submarine, called Scorpion, was fun. It was build in the 1970s. It's a small diesel submarine that magically could hold over 70 crew members inside!
Muscle beach was great fun. First the beach is great, very wide --- basically Bay Watch kind of beach. Not that many people as the water was still about 16 degrees. The bodybuilding competition was the best thing. Even though I couldn't actually see much (or take many pics) it was cool. Got some free stuff, bought a muscle beach t-shirt. The best thing was (as I discovered a little later) that Ms Fittness America signed me a couple of her pictures :) And no, she's not a deep voiced mutated female bodybuilder. She looks like a (very very nice looking) model. You can check her out here. Anyway, the Californian atmosphere was finally present!
Journey back was uneventful. A large drink of coke at McDonald's and another stop in the middle of nowhere, that's all there was to it.
Friday, May 25, 2007
More Santa Cruz BBQ photos (I'm in it this time)
Here is where I got the photos from (Kristie, flatmate, took them): http://good-times.webshots.com/album/559122855BpzLPj
I got the best pics out of there and posted them on my webshots
(Soon I'll start using Flickr instead of webshots)
Check out these, done by Sebastian
Santa Cruz beach party
http://flickr.com/photos/student_yeah/sets/72157600237401228/
Bay to Breakers in SF
http://flickr.com/photos/student_yeah/sets/72157600236700559/
I got the best pics out of there and posted them on my webshots
(Soon I'll start using Flickr instead of webshots)
Check out these, done by Sebastian
Santa Cruz beach party
http://flickr.com/photos/student_yeah/sets/72157600237401228/
Bay to Breakers in SF
http://flickr.com/photos/student_yeah/sets/72157600236700559/
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
More pics from Santa cruz beach party and Bay to Breakers Masquarade
Pictures from Timo... Have a look. I'm on several of them... somewhere
Mount Hamilton http://www.flickr.com/photos/timopfahl/sets/72157600231655700/
Wasn't there that time, but cool pics
Santa Cruz http://www.flickr.com/photos/timopfahl/sets/72157600233752070/
Had barbeque, played volleyball, and had a bonfire with some guitar songs (I tried to sing some but failed miserably, of course. Luckily Daniela could actually sing...). Got kicked out at 2200 --- always the case.
Bay to Breakers http://www.flickr.com/photos/timopfahl/sets/72157600237375470/
This was Sunday, 20 May. Meant to be a run at 8 am, but it evolved into this dress up drinking carnival. Awesome atmosphere.. music pumping on the streets of San Francisco... 7 miles of this walk.
Mount Hamilton http://www.flickr.com/photos
Wasn't there that time, but cool pics
Santa Cruz http://www.flickr.com/photos
Had barbeque, played volleyball, and had a bonfire with some guitar songs (I tried to sing some but failed miserably, of course. Luckily Daniela could actually sing...). Got kicked out at 2200 --- always the case.
Bay to Breakers http://www.flickr.com/photos
This was Sunday, 20 May. Meant to be a run at 8 am, but it evolved into this dress up drinking carnival. Awesome atmosphere.. music pumping on the streets of San Francisco... 7 miles of this walk.
Some test photos from new camera
Here is the new album http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/559160546FtwsOD?vhost=entertainment
This is photos of our house, my car, frosty, Wednesday soccer. I'm just starting so some photos didn't come out as good.
As usual, you can see all my public photos here:
http://community.webshots.com/user/koudrin?vhost=community
This is photos of our house, my car, frosty, Wednesday soccer. I'm just starting so some photos didn't come out as good.
As usual, you can see all my public photos here:
http://community.webshots.com/user/koudrin?vhost=community
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Trip to Monterey/Pebble beach/Carmel
Hired a car for the day so it is big enough for five people and for safety/peace of mind. Was a fun trip. Here are some photos (done by Markus, whose 2.5 week visit ended this Monday, 7 May and he is gone back to Dublin, Ireland --- he works there, but he is German) http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/558988712hkXRyv
Again, all my public photos can be seen here http://community.webshots.com/user/alex_koudrin
Maybe will add some more to this, but not very likely. Enjoy the photos! By the way, I think the camera was in some weird mode, so photos look grainy and washed out. But still, it gives you and idea.
Here is more or less our itinerary.
Again, all my public photos can be seen here http://community.webshots.com/user/alex_koudrin
Maybe will add some more to this, but not very likely. Enjoy the photos! By the way, I think the camera was in some weird mode, so photos look grainy and washed out. But still, it gives you and idea.
Here is more or less our itinerary.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Cinco De Mayo BBQ
Saturday had a barbeque at our house. Here are some photos, http://picasaweb.google.com/tim.bezold/TanzInDenMai
http://picasaweb.google.com/stefanknz/CincoDeMayoBBQ
http://picasaweb.google.com
Sunday, April 1, 2007
New house and moving in
Moving out of Alla's place was not a big deal. Well, almost...
All I had was my baggage, but I did acquire one piece of furniture --- a queen mattress that Alla agreed to sell me for $50. While not free, the mattress is nearly new and it is posturepedic so it's very comfortable and good for back/posture. Transportation of such 20 mm thick, spring construction mattress was a puzzle until Jono and Alla (separately) told me the way to do it. "Put it on the roof of your car" they said. OK. So I got Brendan and Tina to help me with man power and their car, which is a four door sedan so it has a larger roof top. Borrowed a thin rope that Blayne luckily had. After wrestling with the rope trying to untie the knots we started tying it to the roof. Not exactly straight forward, but I think we did secure it in such a way that it wouldn't (shouldn't?) slide forward or backward. I drove the car, tried to be slow and smooth. But the wind! Yes, the wind was at times lifting the mattress at the front. We all had at least one arm holding it through the open windows. At several points I thought that we were either going to lose the mattress or lose traction with the road and become a flying carpet! We made it of course --- 2-3 miles is not that long of a drive, although it did seem a little longer than usual with the mattress about to take off from your roof...
My room is slightly smaller (I approximate it to be 3.5 x 3.5 m) than at the first place, but it's large enough for me. The great thing is that I inherited a table, for which I bought some "Ikea" kit set of draws, from the previous owner of the room. He also left me a table lamp, nice computer chair with arm rests, and a little shelf to go in the closet to put shoes/clothes in it. The house is pretty well insulated. I saw a lot of roof insulation in the garage and there are double glazed windows everywhere. As soon as you open my window that looks onto the neighbouring property, you can hear their pool motor distinctly. So double glazing is pretty great for noise dampening. Personally I always wanted to own an energy efficient/quite/dry super comfortable house. This one comes close on some accounts.
There is a cat in the house. I have written something about it before so I might repeat myself. The cat was adopted from a cat shelter about half a year ago by all the flatmates. The colour is white. The noise is semi continuous loud and nagging. The name, Frosty. He meows particularly in the morning. So alarm becomes almost obsolete with this cat around. I think the reason he meows so much is that there was some traumatising experiences prior to adoption. Perhaps on the streets or in the animal shelter itself. So now he cries until you pat him and generally be near him. Sometimes you even have to stand near him while he eats. In the evenings he would often lie near you in peace. Generally attention seeking cat is how I would sum him up. We did let him out a couple of times, but he is usually confined to the home. That could be another reason for his outcries --- he is all alone during the day when we are out. Oh, and he's a little fat so he is on relatively strict diet now --- dry cat food small bowl portion in the morning and evening only. I think what happened was he was very thin when they adopted him and probably over fed him slightly.
Hooray, there is finally TV. Here, at least for now, they have cable TV with quite a few channels. I think 200 but a lot of them are not included in the package, so perhaps only 100 channels. No Fox news and not sure about Fox and comedy central. But there's still a lot of comedy series that you can watch and the other day I watched the end of one of my favourite Jacki Chan movies. But for now I haven't been watching TV really. No time. Still, it's good that I have the option to watch when I come home. In the previous flat TV reception didn't exist at all.
For a whole week we didn't have Internet in the house. They previously had DSL, but nobody was using the land line. So when Christian moved out they turned off old Internet and signed up for Cable. After a series of problems and us trying to get it going in turn we finally got it going. Personally I'd give myself a little medal for getting it online when everybody else gave up. There were two things to get online, cable modem --- so the Internet itself, and the wireless router that we connected to the modem to enable all of us to use Internet wirelessly... Anyway, that's all sorted now. In the busy times, the speed test results (you can test your own Internet connection on www.speedtest.net) are ~1.2 Mbps down, ~350 Kbps up, ~100 ms ping time in < 50 mile radius. So it's not super fast, but it's fast enough to stream any online videos and that's what German guys do all the time. They watch German news broadcasts, or at least one of them does. For reference at IBM I get ~15 Mbps up and down with only 15 ms latency! See http://www.speedtest.net/result/114037800.png
As a consequence of not having a telephone land line I now HAVE to use Skype. So get skype on your PC and we can talk. My skype id is alex.koudrin I can use skypeout to call regular phones, but it costs me 3.9 cents for connection setup and 2.1 cents/minute for each call. Additionally the quality to phones is generally lower. But for those who don't have regular or good internet that's the only option and it's not really that expensive really.
All I had was my baggage, but I did acquire one piece of furniture --- a queen mattress that Alla agreed to sell me for $50. While not free, the mattress is nearly new and it is posturepedic so it's very comfortable and good for back/posture. Transportation of such 20 mm thick, spring construction mattress was a puzzle until Jono and Alla (separately) told me the way to do it. "Put it on the roof of your car" they said. OK. So I got Brendan and Tina to help me with man power and their car, which is a four door sedan so it has a larger roof top. Borrowed a thin rope that Blayne luckily had. After wrestling with the rope trying to untie the knots we started tying it to the roof. Not exactly straight forward, but I think we did secure it in such a way that it wouldn't (shouldn't?) slide forward or backward. I drove the car, tried to be slow and smooth. But the wind! Yes, the wind was at times lifting the mattress at the front. We all had at least one arm holding it through the open windows. At several points I thought that we were either going to lose the mattress or lose traction with the road and become a flying carpet! We made it of course --- 2-3 miles is not that long of a drive, although it did seem a little longer than usual with the mattress about to take off from your roof...
My room is slightly smaller (I approximate it to be 3.5 x 3.5 m) than at the first place, but it's large enough for me. The great thing is that I inherited a table, for which I bought some "Ikea" kit set of draws, from the previous owner of the room. He also left me a table lamp, nice computer chair with arm rests, and a little shelf to go in the closet to put shoes/clothes in it. The house is pretty well insulated. I saw a lot of roof insulation in the garage and there are double glazed windows everywhere. As soon as you open my window that looks onto the neighbouring property, you can hear their pool motor distinctly. So double glazing is pretty great for noise dampening. Personally I always wanted to own an energy efficient/quite/dry super comfortable house. This one comes close on some accounts.
There is a cat in the house. I have written something about it before so I might repeat myself. The cat was adopted from a cat shelter about half a year ago by all the flatmates. The colour is white. The noise is semi continuous loud and nagging. The name, Frosty. He meows particularly in the morning. So alarm becomes almost obsolete with this cat around. I think the reason he meows so much is that there was some traumatising experiences prior to adoption. Perhaps on the streets or in the animal shelter itself. So now he cries until you pat him and generally be near him. Sometimes you even have to stand near him while he eats. In the evenings he would often lie near you in peace. Generally attention seeking cat is how I would sum him up. We did let him out a couple of times, but he is usually confined to the home. That could be another reason for his outcries --- he is all alone during the day when we are out. Oh, and he's a little fat so he is on relatively strict diet now --- dry cat food small bowl portion in the morning and evening only. I think what happened was he was very thin when they adopted him and probably over fed him slightly.
Hooray, there is finally TV. Here, at least for now, they have cable TV with quite a few channels. I think 200 but a lot of them are not included in the package, so perhaps only 100 channels. No Fox news and not sure about Fox and comedy central. But there's still a lot of comedy series that you can watch and the other day I watched the end of one of my favourite Jacki Chan movies. But for now I haven't been watching TV really. No time. Still, it's good that I have the option to watch when I come home. In the previous flat TV reception didn't exist at all.
For a whole week we didn't have Internet in the house. They previously had DSL, but nobody was using the land line. So when Christian moved out they turned off old Internet and signed up for Cable. After a series of problems and us trying to get it going in turn we finally got it going. Personally I'd give myself a little medal for getting it online when everybody else gave up. There were two things to get online, cable modem --- so the Internet itself, and the wireless router that we connected to the modem to enable all of us to use Internet wirelessly... Anyway, that's all sorted now. In the busy times, the speed test results (you can test your own Internet connection on www.speedtest.net) are ~1.2 Mbps down, ~350 Kbps up, ~100 ms ping time in < 50 mile radius. So it's not super fast, but it's fast enough to stream any online videos and that's what German guys do all the time. They watch German news broadcasts, or at least one of them does. For reference at IBM I get ~15 Mbps up and down with only 15 ms latency! See http://www.speedtest.net/result/114037800.png
As a consequence of not having a telephone land line I now HAVE to use Skype. So get skype on your PC and we can talk. My skype id is alex.koudrin I can use skypeout to call regular phones, but it costs me 3.9 cents for connection setup and 2.1 cents/minute for each call. Additionally the quality to phones is generally lower. But for those who don't have regular or good internet that's the only option and it's not really that expensive really.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Birthday at a Steakhouse
From the beginning I wanted to try an American steak at an appropriate location. My birthday seemed like a good excuse to make my dream a reality. Upon some investigation I chose Black Angus Steakhouse to have my celebration dinner. I certainly didn't regret my choice of the venue. It was a genuine American steak house. The place was similar to a ski lodge or a hut. Everything made of wood, sloping roof, wooden floors. Colours --- a dark finish. The layout was that there was a bar type counter in the middle and on the sides there were these semi private booths with three walls about a meter and a half in height with glass pannels spanning the top 30 cm. The atmosphere was a mixed one. On the one hand I was conscious of the ranch --- cowboy pictures everywhere on the walls. On the other hand I felt like I'd go outside and jump onto some dog sleds in one of Jack London's stories set in Alaska/South Pole...
The three of us --- Brendan, Tina, and I --- were shown to a table and some freshly baked round bun was brought to us with some souce. We then promptly ordered a sampler dish as an appetizer. I can't remember the names of these things now, but there was some vegetable stuff deep fried, chicken also deep fried, prawns, and a strange potato shell --- potato with most of its inside mass removed. Tasted quite good. To complete the American experience Brendan and I decided to order the Prime Rib Steak, a whole pound (454 grams raw weight) as our main dish. Suffice to say that we got pretty full after the total time of about two hours in the steakhouse. The meat was great, I ordered mine medium, and it was as soft as jelly! Note to self is to order steak medium well done to make it a little more chewy. On the side there was a large dish of salad, mash potato with garlic (surprisingly tasty!), and some boiled vegetables. The size of the steak was impressive, but not overwhelming --- nothing that I couldn't handle. It was probably the size of a good portion of steak... and twice as thick, about 2 cm! For the sauces to go with the steak I had mild horse radish and ranch sauce. Brendan ordered full strength horse radish and that thing was the most spicy thing I've ever had in my life! I put literally a drop of that radish on a tiny bit (less than 0.5 cm cube) of broccoli. Immediately I turned all crab red and my eyes started to water. That sauce gave me a whole new meaning to spicy. The spice in Wassabi, at least one that I've tried in the past, fails miserably in comparison to this horse radish. I won't attempt that stunt again in the future...
I mentioned to the waitress that it was my birthday so we got to choose one free desert. I chose a chocolate cake slice, which we each had a third of. I don't eat desert normally, but it was a special day in a special place so I made an exception :) The waitress also took a couple of polaroid pictures of us --- old school photography, but still cool. If we get hold of a scanner I'll post those pictures up later.
Overall impression of the place exceeded all my expectations. I was really impressed by the atmosphere, quality of the food, and the service. Not bad, for a reasonable $100 (including tip and tax) for the three of us. We were the last customers out of the place at around 11.40 and the place shut at 11 officially I think :D
Mission birthday celebration dinner --- accomplished. Over and out.
The three of us --- Brendan, Tina, and I --- were shown to a table and some freshly baked round bun was brought to us with some souce. We then promptly ordered a sampler dish as an appetizer. I can't remember the names of these things now, but there was some vegetable stuff deep fried, chicken also deep fried, prawns, and a strange potato shell --- potato with most of its inside mass removed. Tasted quite good. To complete the American experience Brendan and I decided to order the Prime Rib Steak, a whole pound (454 grams raw weight) as our main dish. Suffice to say that we got pretty full after the total time of about two hours in the steakhouse. The meat was great, I ordered mine medium, and it was as soft as jelly! Note to self is to order steak medium well done to make it a little more chewy. On the side there was a large dish of salad, mash potato with garlic (surprisingly tasty!), and some boiled vegetables. The size of the steak was impressive, but not overwhelming --- nothing that I couldn't handle. It was probably the size of a good portion of steak... and twice as thick, about 2 cm! For the sauces to go with the steak I had mild horse radish and ranch sauce. Brendan ordered full strength horse radish and that thing was the most spicy thing I've ever had in my life! I put literally a drop of that radish on a tiny bit (less than 0.5 cm cube) of broccoli. Immediately I turned all crab red and my eyes started to water. That sauce gave me a whole new meaning to spicy. The spice in Wassabi, at least one that I've tried in the past, fails miserably in comparison to this horse radish. I won't attempt that stunt again in the future...
I mentioned to the waitress that it was my birthday so we got to choose one free desert. I chose a chocolate cake slice, which we each had a third of. I don't eat desert normally, but it was a special day in a special place so I made an exception :) The waitress also took a couple of polaroid pictures of us --- old school photography, but still cool. If we get hold of a scanner I'll post those pictures up later.
Overall impression of the place exceeded all my expectations. I was really impressed by the atmosphere, quality of the food, and the service. Not bad, for a reasonable $100 (including tip and tax) for the three of us. We were the last customers out of the place at around 11.40 and the place shut at 11 officially I think :D
Mission birthday celebration dinner --- accomplished. Over and out.
Monday, March 12, 2007
First Trip to San Francisco --- Golden Gate Bridge and Fishermen's Wharf
This trip is now included in all my posted photos.
On Sunday we set out for our trip to San Francisco --- first one for me. The original plan was to go to the San Fran zoo, but that will probably happen another time. In terms if people, it was me, Brendan, and Tina. Before we left we stopped for lunch at the Oakridge mall. I had some Japanese chicken teriyaky and shrimp with steamed rice. I was relatively impressed by the size and quality of the meal. Not a bad value --- unlike IBM kitchen.... After fueling (or some might call it stuffing) our stomachs we set out for our trip at around 1.30 in the afternoon.
The trip didn't start as smoothly as might be expected. Once we were driving along the 280 highway we heard strange flopping sounds coming from the road or tyres. I became suspicious thinking one of our tyres might be flat and that steering is a bit strange because of it. We pulled over, after some search for an exit (never a close offramp when you need it!) we ended up very close to San Jose downtown. All tyres were perfectly fine to my relief. The sound was simply the not-so-smooth road surface coming in contact with our tyres at 70+ mi/hr. Yes, the roads here aren't the smooth NZ (or just Wellington?) motorways. Our transport was now proven to be relatively crash safe, but getting back on route took a little time... Now, it could have been me turning into random streets or it could've been our designated map reader misreading the map in the wrong direction... Either way, we ended up having to do a U-turn after driving for about 15 minutes in one direction and thankfully were back on the 280 highway heading north to our destination, San Fran.
Driving on highway is nice... five lanes each way, everyone is doing 75-80 mi/hr (=130+ km/hr). Feels fast, especially in small car. I didn't make a note of the time it took us to get to San Fran, but I think it's under one hour. However, it took us a lot longer to get to the Golden Gate Park as traffic was pretty slow -- it wasn't a highway anymore. And I don't think there is a highway that goes through San Fran, all of them morph into normal streets while in San Fran down town. It was pretty hot that day too --- over 25 degrees celsius. But in the car it was nice and cool --- the air conditioner, our new found friend in California heat, kept us from boiling over. As it turned out the A/C is always operational --- another thing to fix in the car.
Before we got to the G.G. Park we saw some guy dressed only in his thongs holding a sign advertising car wash. I think he may need to work on his advertising campaign a just a little bit more to have any kind of hope for customers.
The G.G. Park is huge, but I still needed to parallel park (my first time in this country) as it seemed all of San Francisco decided to spend their Sunday here. There was nothing really outstanding about the park. It was big, it had a lot of tall pine trees. It had some large open areas where people were half naked playing frizbee and others walking their dogs. A group of "hippie-musicians" were randomly drumming something in the middle. You think Wellingtonians are relaxed about their attitudes and clothing style? Well people here behaved like you would on a beach --- super relaxed. We got drinks/water from the nearest McDonalds (which charged 28 cents for a non-water refill!) and headed for Botanic Gardens --- still inside the G.G. Park. The gardens were ok, nothing flash. Ironically, we decided to walk around the New Zealand and Australian part (as well as some others). Squirrels were here too (they are around apartments and outside my IBM site). We walked around for a while and I think photos speak for themselves...
Slightly disoriented after the walk we finally managed to find my car. It was time to see what I came here to see, the Golden Gate Bridge. Ok, it's big, but the size wasn't shocking. To be honest I expected bigger. I also forgot that it's actually red in colour, not yellow or gold as the name might suggest. As most people do we drove through it ending up on the opposite side with a view of San Fran.. As an aside a lookout here is called vista point, and that's where we stopped. Struggling for, but luckily finding, a car park, we walked under the bridge first, crossing the road. You can see the construction beams and feel just how much the bridge actually shakes as the cars drive on it (3 lanes each way). After that we walked for about 80 meters on the bridge and stopped when we got to the place where we were actually above water. A lot of photos were taken, as everywhere else --- Tina is a keen photographer, a lot of the time taking photos while we don't notice --- which is great! But I do delete some of the more awkward ones, especially of myself (as some of you know my facial features do show most bizarre expressions at times :)).
The Bridge was followed by another hunt for car parks, this time on San Francisco waterfront. All hope was gone, but a small gap between cars appeared and we tried to squeez in there (this time parallel park was easier as it was on the left on one way street). Luckily the car behind us moved back to give us enough room and even told us to turn the tyres away from the curb as it was a hill sloping backwards (you get fined for that pretty quickly). It's strange, but that particular side of the street didn't have any parking meters. Everywhere else there were parking meters and even then the limit is 60 or in some places only 30 minutes. Parking buildings were expensive, for example, $5/hr or $12/hr, but later discovered there was a whole day parking for $10/day. Most of these were full anyway... After finding such a lucky spot we carefully read all the signs about parking, there were two or three. All the hours and days didn't apply to us and we didn't have our engine on (that was punishable by some ridiculous fine, from memory, $1000).
The time was around 6.30 and we decided to walk around the waterfront before we got food. There are a LOT of tourist shops and entertainment as well as endless amount of people. And this was Sunday evening in the first weeks of spring! I think the photos here are self explanatory too. The guy who painted live for some techno music was cool. He uses only spray paint to paint his art! We saw him do one right there. Brendan says he saw him on YouTube --- that's how famous this guy is!
For food we went to Fishermen's Wharf, where all the sea food is sold. Brendan tried a whole crab, I just had a crab sandwich. I don't like to wrestle with my food for hours. I did try a little though. As for taste I didn't think crab is that different to shrimp. I guess all sea food tastes similar. By the way, the crab was $9.95/lb and Brendan had an average one, which set him back around $15. I wasn't too impressed with the prices, but I ought to have anticipated a little better what "cheap" sea food really means here. My sandwich cost me $6.00...
The night time drive back through San Fran was great. A lot of illumination on the streets, bridges, and buildings. Once we got on the highway, but still in San Fran, it was cool because we were above the city as the highway is elevated tens of meters above ground. It felt a little freaky as you couldn't see the sides of the road. One wrong move and we could be flying many stories down... I did manage to keep us safely on the ground.
It's getting late now. I think I've told you most of what's happened that day.
On Sunday we set out for our trip to San Francisco --- first one for me. The original plan was to go to the San Fran zoo, but that will probably happen another time. In terms if people, it was me, Brendan, and Tina. Before we left we stopped for lunch at the Oakridge mall. I had some Japanese chicken teriyaky and shrimp with steamed rice. I was relatively impressed by the size and quality of the meal. Not a bad value --- unlike IBM kitchen.... After fueling (or some might call it stuffing) our stomachs we set out for our trip at around 1.30 in the afternoon.
The trip didn't start as smoothly as might be expected. Once we were driving along the 280 highway we heard strange flopping sounds coming from the road or tyres. I became suspicious thinking one of our tyres might be flat and that steering is a bit strange because of it. We pulled over, after some search for an exit (never a close offramp when you need it!) we ended up very close to San Jose downtown. All tyres were perfectly fine to my relief. The sound was simply the not-so-smooth road surface coming in contact with our tyres at 70+ mi/hr. Yes, the roads here aren't the smooth NZ (or just Wellington?) motorways. Our transport was now proven to be relatively crash safe, but getting back on route took a little time... Now, it could have been me turning into random streets or it could've been our designated map reader misreading the map in the wrong direction... Either way, we ended up having to do a U-turn after driving for about 15 minutes in one direction and thankfully were back on the 280 highway heading north to our destination, San Fran.
Driving on highway is nice... five lanes each way, everyone is doing 75-80 mi/hr (=130+ km/hr). Feels fast, especially in small car. I didn't make a note of the time it took us to get to San Fran, but I think it's under one hour. However, it took us a lot longer to get to the Golden Gate Park as traffic was pretty slow -- it wasn't a highway anymore. And I don't think there is a highway that goes through San Fran, all of them morph into normal streets while in San Fran down town. It was pretty hot that day too --- over 25 degrees celsius. But in the car it was nice and cool --- the air conditioner, our new found friend in California heat, kept us from boiling over. As it turned out the A/C is always operational --- another thing to fix in the car.
Before we got to the G.G. Park we saw some guy dressed only in his thongs holding a sign advertising car wash. I think he may need to work on his advertising campaign a just a little bit more to have any kind of hope for customers.
The G.G. Park is huge, but I still needed to parallel park (my first time in this country) as it seemed all of San Francisco decided to spend their Sunday here. There was nothing really outstanding about the park. It was big, it had a lot of tall pine trees. It had some large open areas where people were half naked playing frizbee and others walking their dogs. A group of "hippie-musicians" were randomly drumming something in the middle. You think Wellingtonians are relaxed about their attitudes and clothing style? Well people here behaved like you would on a beach --- super relaxed. We got drinks/water from the nearest McDonalds (which charged 28 cents for a non-water refill!) and headed for Botanic Gardens --- still inside the G.G. Park. The gardens were ok, nothing flash. Ironically, we decided to walk around the New Zealand and Australian part (as well as some others). Squirrels were here too (they are around apartments and outside my IBM site). We walked around for a while and I think photos speak for themselves...
Slightly disoriented after the walk we finally managed to find my car. It was time to see what I came here to see, the Golden Gate Bridge. Ok, it's big, but the size wasn't shocking. To be honest I expected bigger. I also forgot that it's actually red in colour, not yellow or gold as the name might suggest. As most people do we drove through it ending up on the opposite side with a view of San Fran.. As an aside a lookout here is called vista point, and that's where we stopped. Struggling for, but luckily finding, a car park, we walked under the bridge first, crossing the road. You can see the construction beams and feel just how much the bridge actually shakes as the cars drive on it (3 lanes each way). After that we walked for about 80 meters on the bridge and stopped when we got to the place where we were actually above water. A lot of photos were taken, as everywhere else --- Tina is a keen photographer, a lot of the time taking photos while we don't notice --- which is great! But I do delete some of the more awkward ones, especially of myself (as some of you know my facial features do show most bizarre expressions at times :)).
The Bridge was followed by another hunt for car parks, this time on San Francisco waterfront. All hope was gone, but a small gap between cars appeared and we tried to squeez in there (this time parallel park was easier as it was on the left on one way street). Luckily the car behind us moved back to give us enough room and even told us to turn the tyres away from the curb as it was a hill sloping backwards (you get fined for that pretty quickly). It's strange, but that particular side of the street didn't have any parking meters. Everywhere else there were parking meters and even then the limit is 60 or in some places only 30 minutes. Parking buildings were expensive, for example, $5/hr or $12/hr, but later discovered there was a whole day parking for $10/day. Most of these were full anyway... After finding such a lucky spot we carefully read all the signs about parking, there were two or three. All the hours and days didn't apply to us and we didn't have our engine on (that was punishable by some ridiculous fine, from memory, $1000).
The time was around 6.30 and we decided to walk around the waterfront before we got food. There are a LOT of tourist shops and entertainment as well as endless amount of people. And this was Sunday evening in the first weeks of spring! I think the photos here are self explanatory too. The guy who painted live for some techno music was cool. He uses only spray paint to paint his art! We saw him do one right there. Brendan says he saw him on YouTube --- that's how famous this guy is!
For food we went to Fishermen's Wharf, where all the sea food is sold. Brendan tried a whole crab, I just had a crab sandwich. I don't like to wrestle with my food for hours. I did try a little though. As for taste I didn't think crab is that different to shrimp. I guess all sea food tastes similar. By the way, the crab was $9.95/lb and Brendan had an average one, which set him back around $15. I wasn't too impressed with the prices, but I ought to have anticipated a little better what "cheap" sea food really means here. My sandwich cost me $6.00...
The night time drive back through San Fran was great. A lot of illumination on the streets, bridges, and buildings. Once we got on the highway, but still in San Fran, it was cool because we were above the city as the highway is elevated tens of meters above ground. It felt a little freaky as you couldn't see the sides of the road. One wrong move and we could be flying many stories down... I did manage to keep us safely on the ground.
It's getting late now. I think I've told you most of what's happened that day.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Day light savings early this year
Today we set the clocks forward one hour three weeks earlier than usual. Daylight saving will also end one week later than normal in autumn. Read the San Jose news article for more detail. To see exactly what time it is anywhere you can search google or go to www.timeanddata.com: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=283 and Auckland Time. The website tells you the current time, date, and daylight saving dates. By looking at that, NZ time will go back to winter time on the 18 March. So for a week, the time difference is 20 hours instead of the usual 21 hours, or as I prefer it, 4 hours ahead of NZ and one day back. So right now it is 11 a.m. on Sunday and it is 7 a.m. on a Monday in NZ.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Flea Market
I went to a nearby flea market today around 9.30. It took me only 10-15 minutes to walk there. To get into the market you first have to stand in line to get a ticket pass. The ticket costs around 50 cents on Thursday, 75 cents on Friday, $1.25 Saturday and Sunday I think. But it was worth it. Originally I was only going to have a look, but I ended up buying fruit and vegetables for next week. I think I spent about 10-15 dollars on food, but that was much better than the supermarket although I need to do a bit more shopping to get a feel for exactly how much cheaper things cost at the flea market.
The market itself is HUGE. At least compared to the one in Porirua and probably twice the size of Malahovka's market. At least how it was in '96. The food part of the market is probably at least four times the market in Porirua. The rest of the market is new and second hand items, ranging from tools, watches, and socks. The atmosphere is very Mexican. The sellers are dominated by Mexicans and Chineese. The buyers seem to be mostly Mexicans. The day was (and still is) great --- sunny, no wind, and feels like pushing 20+ degrees now. I was getting really hot on the way back --- one because it was sunny and warm; two, I was wearing hoodie as it was chilly in the morning; and three, I was carrying my back pack with some 10+ kgs of fresh food! I ended up walking around the isles for over one and a half hours! That's how big the market was. I got back around 11.30.
I think from now on I will do my fresh food shopping at the flea market. And because I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, flea market constitutes for over 80% of my weekly shopping. The rest, such as chicken breast, beef, fish, and rice, takes very little effort to get from the supermarket or CostCo (a.k.a. MoreWilsons). As you can probably tell I'm very happy with my find.
The only other thing I need to find for a good price and variety is herbal teas, as I like to drink a lot of them. At the supermarket a box of only 20 bags costs $4.00, which would get at least twice as much and many more varieties in NZ.
The market itself is HUGE. At least compared to the one in Porirua and probably twice the size of Malahovka's market. At least how it was in '96. The food part of the market is probably at least four times the market in Porirua. The rest of the market is new and second hand items, ranging from tools, watches, and socks. The atmosphere is very Mexican. The sellers are dominated by Mexicans and Chineese. The buyers seem to be mostly Mexicans. The day was (and still is) great --- sunny, no wind, and feels like pushing 20+ degrees now. I was getting really hot on the way back --- one because it was sunny and warm; two, I was wearing hoodie as it was chilly in the morning; and three, I was carrying my back pack with some 10+ kgs of fresh food! I ended up walking around the isles for over one and a half hours! That's how big the market was. I got back around 11.30.
I think from now on I will do my fresh food shopping at the flea market. And because I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, flea market constitutes for over 80% of my weekly shopping. The rest, such as chicken breast, beef, fish, and rice, takes very little effort to get from the supermarket or CostCo (a.k.a. MoreWilsons). As you can probably tell I'm very happy with my find.
The only other thing I need to find for a good price and variety is herbal teas, as I like to drink a lot of them. At the supermarket a box of only 20 bags costs $4.00, which would get at least twice as much and many more varieties in NZ.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Weird toilets with too much water
The one thing I forgot to mention right at the beginning of my experiences was that toilet bowls here are of different design than what I've seen in NZ (or Russia for that matter). The seem to have a lot more water so it feels like you are "doing your business" in pond, at first anyway. Flushing is also different, especially in IBM buildings. Once the flush is initiated, the water seems to be sucked in and then refilled from the reservoir. The reservoir still looks the same as in NZ.
On a somewhat different note, the wash basin is blocked not by a separate plug that is usually attached by a metal chain so it doesn't get lost. Instead, on the water tap itself there is a metal rod that is connected to a metal plug that is permanently in the basin. When you want to block the drain you pull the rod up, which moves the plug down to block the drain. Pulling the rod down opens the drain. This is true for a bath as well.
Shower, has only one knob that goes from cold to hot, just like the one I had at home. But water turns hot much faster...
On a somewhat different note, the wash basin is blocked not by a separate plug that is usually attached by a metal chain so it doesn't get lost. Instead, on the water tap itself there is a metal rod that is connected to a metal plug that is permanently in the basin. When you want to block the drain you pull the rod up, which moves the plug down to block the drain. Pulling the rod down opens the drain. This is true for a bath as well.
Shower, has only one knob that goes from cold to hot, just like the one I had at home. But water turns hot much faster...
Preliminary San Jose downtown photos on webshots
Follow this link to Brendan M's San Jose downtown photos which are there just to give you an idea of San Jose. I borrowed the photos from Brendan&Tina so there's almost no me, but there's the views... Or go to all my public albums. So far there is only the one above, but will upload more later.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Bowling
Alla invited me and some local interns and friends to go bowling. According to Alla they used to go regularly, but lately people have split up into groups and don't do as many things together. The bowling alley, called 300 San Jose, is around six to seven minute drive from Alla's place. I picked up Stefan on the way and we got to the place around 9.10 p.m. The alley has been recently refurbished. On the wall there was a series of large projector screens that were at least three meters in diagonal. If you follow the wall of these three or four screens you hit the bar, which is perpendicular to that wall. This just means that you don't have to go there just to bowl, you can watch sports on huge screens and have a drink.
As an aside, in California it's the law that all bars and night clubs must shut at 1.30 a.m. At times this is the time people GET to the clubs in NZ.
Anyway, the bowling itself is pretty similar to everywhere else. First, if you didn't have spare shoes you hired special bowling shoes. Then, you get a ball that has a suitable weight and the correctly sized finger holes. This step was new to me as the only other time I've played the balls were already there and I didn't get to chose my own ball.
We split up into four teams and played two games in those teams, after which we all headed home as it was close to 11. I did better than the first time I ever played, but nothing outstanding. 112 in the first game and 109 in the second, but I did win both times :) By the end my thumb was getting a little red and sore from the friction from the hole. Others were experiencing that too. I guess you just have to get use to it.
One other thing, the touch screens for every team was cool. You could control some things from there, such as input names and correct the scores. The one in Wellington, I think we had to ask the operators to input that data. Having said that, the team right beside us had their lane "break down" and the assistant had to fix it. Because that happened in Wellington also (AND we had to reset the whole game and start again), I was still impressed with the quality of the whole thing.
Pricing. Shoe hire is $5/person, games are $3.50 after 9 p.m. which is not bad I thought.
As an aside, in California it's the law that all bars and night clubs must shut at 1.30 a.m. At times this is the time people GET to the clubs in NZ.
Anyway, the bowling itself is pretty similar to everywhere else. First, if you didn't have spare shoes you hired special bowling shoes. Then, you get a ball that has a suitable weight and the correctly sized finger holes. This step was new to me as the only other time I've played the balls were already there and I didn't get to chose my own ball.
We split up into four teams and played two games in those teams, after which we all headed home as it was close to 11. I did better than the first time I ever played, but nothing outstanding. 112 in the first game and 109 in the second, but I did win both times :) By the end my thumb was getting a little red and sore from the friction from the hole. Others were experiencing that too. I guess you just have to get use to it.
One other thing, the touch screens for every team was cool. You could control some things from there, such as input names and correct the scores. The one in Wellington, I think we had to ask the operators to input that data. Having said that, the team right beside us had their lane "break down" and the assistant had to fix it. Because that happened in Wellington also (AND we had to reset the whole game and start again), I was still impressed with the quality of the whole thing.
Pricing. Shoe hire is $5/person, games are $3.50 after 9 p.m. which is not bad I thought.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Internet and general utilities bills
Internet at the apartment I was first living at is cable, 6 Mbps download and some people say an unofficial cap of 200 GB/month, cost is $33/month. However, they seem to have problems as the service seems slow at times. Here at Alla's place it's DSL. Just did a speed test at http://www.speedtest.net/ it is 2489 kb/s down, 429 kb/s up, latency 45 ms, server San Jose CA, distance <50 mi. The cost is $32/month.
Electricity for one person is $45.
Phone line is about $20/month.
As I said rent is $630 without utilities and later it will be $500/month. But I'm not sure how long that will last either as we are moving out of that house in June, because the lease runs out.
Electricity for one person is $45.
Phone line is about $20/month.
As I said rent is $630 without utilities and later it will be $500/month. But I'm not sure how long that will last either as we are moving out of that house in June, because the lease runs out.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Dollar Tree and Sushi house
Sunday was a slow day. I day woke up around 10 and did some updates on this blog. Then Alla woke up around 12 and told me where I can get my shower curtain three traffic lights away from our place at the shop called Dollar Tree. Guess what? Everything costs a dollar there! Man, I should have gone to that shop first thing before I bought stuff from supermarket. It's like our 2 Dollar Shop, but has much more and it's much bigger. A lot of stuff there is cheaper than at Walmart apparently. I did get my shower curtain and rings (sold separately here for some reason) and about 15 other things, such as pliers, screwdrivers, hand soap. I spent over an hour in that shop! It's really great, finally I found a lot of cheap stuff. Granted some things aren't good quality, but if you are getting a screwdriver made of metal and rubber handle, not that much can go wrong. I'm sure that place would've been heaven for my Mum too :) The shop sells food too, about 1/5 of the store is food. Mostly junk food, but there were some jars of pickles and olives (same size as NZ) and they were only a dollar... Anyway, that made my day.
On the way to Brendan's I visited a hardware store and bought a matching screw to screw in my front number plate. Finally! Before I got some screws from Walmart, but they were too small. So this time I unscrewed on of the screws from the back and found the ones matching it exactly in the hardware store. That means no more driving with the plate inside the cabin behind my windshield.
After this shopping spree I headed to Brendan's and hung out there for a while. It turned out they wanted to have an easy and relaxing day, which was fine with me as I wasn't feeling my best. By about 4 in the afternoon my stomach reminded me to feed it, so I had some Oatmeal ("Quick Oats", which is still raw, but somehow "Quaker Oats" is even less processed, which is what I got from CostCo... a whole nine pounds of it :D). As soon as I finished my bowl, it turned out that Stefan's roommate was having a little celebration as she got a raise at work so we headed to her place first and then Sushi Boat. By the way, the promotion is really a "side motion", because Onnita (that's her name) used to have an office job at an electrical company and now she's going to get paid more for being outside performing maintenance on electric lines. So basically she'll be climbing those road poles... Apparently that's what she wanted -- "I always wanted a job working outside, I hate working at a desk" was what she said. Part of it is true I guess. As she also put it "You come home feeling like you've done an honest day's job", which I can relate to. I don't know too much about her... She is, I think at least partly, Native American (Indean). She is 23. She drinks when emotions get the best of her (according to Stefan). She smokes too. However, she's not a bad person. Touch character, no bullshit (her desk job is taking complaints, so I'm sure she acquired some of that toughness there or through personal experiences). I recon she's cool -- speaks her mind that's for sure.
At their flat Onnita's Mum and brother were present. By the way her Mum is a clothes designer and likes Stefan and how he dresses. Stefan is the styly one of us... In the flat they have a cat, which is really cool -- doesn't fear anyone and lets everyone pat her. Onnita also has a very small, but very energetic and very white dog. She jumps up and down on her two paws it's fun.
All of us then went out to Sushi Boat. It was a reasonably big actual restaurant where they served us with menus and everything. The portions were american size so half of it people took home. I had barbecued eel and tampura and something else I can't remember. That was a pretty good experience. I'll write more about it when I'm not falling asleep like right now....
Tomorrow (Wednesday) I might be going bowling with Alla and some of her friends. Should be fun :)
On the way to Brendan's I visited a hardware store and bought a matching screw to screw in my front number plate. Finally! Before I got some screws from Walmart, but they were too small. So this time I unscrewed on of the screws from the back and found the ones matching it exactly in the hardware store. That means no more driving with the plate inside the cabin behind my windshield.
After this shopping spree I headed to Brendan's and hung out there for a while. It turned out they wanted to have an easy and relaxing day, which was fine with me as I wasn't feeling my best. By about 4 in the afternoon my stomach reminded me to feed it, so I had some Oatmeal ("Quick Oats", which is still raw, but somehow "Quaker Oats" is even less processed, which is what I got from CostCo... a whole nine pounds of it :D). As soon as I finished my bowl, it turned out that Stefan's roommate was having a little celebration as she got a raise at work so we headed to her place first and then Sushi Boat. By the way, the promotion is really a "side motion", because Onnita (that's her name) used to have an office job at an electrical company and now she's going to get paid more for being outside performing maintenance on electric lines. So basically she'll be climbing those road poles... Apparently that's what she wanted -- "I always wanted a job working outside, I hate working at a desk" was what she said. Part of it is true I guess. As she also put it "You come home feeling like you've done an honest day's job", which I can relate to. I don't know too much about her... She is, I think at least partly, Native American (Indean). She is 23. She drinks when emotions get the best of her (according to Stefan). She smokes too. However, she's not a bad person. Touch character, no bullshit (her desk job is taking complaints, so I'm sure she acquired some of that toughness there or through personal experiences). I recon she's cool -- speaks her mind that's for sure.
At their flat Onnita's Mum and brother were present. By the way her Mum is a clothes designer and likes Stefan and how he dresses. Stefan is the styly one of us... In the flat they have a cat, which is really cool -- doesn't fear anyone and lets everyone pat her. Onnita also has a very small, but very energetic and very white dog. She jumps up and down on her two paws it's fun.
All of us then went out to Sushi Boat. It was a reasonably big actual restaurant where they served us with menus and everything. The portions were american size so half of it people took home. I had barbecued eel and tampura and something else I can't remember. That was a pretty good experience. I'll write more about it when I'm not falling asleep like right now....
Tomorrow (Wednesday) I might be going bowling with Alla and some of her friends. Should be fun :)
Shopping and a little of San Jose downtown
On Saturday I woke up late, around 11, as I was up until 3.30 due to a long Uno game, long conversation, and unpacking my bags. I then went to get Brendan and Christina and we went to a shopping center nearby. Before I left I did laundry and it's pretty cool with the drier, as we never had one in NZ. Everything comes out really dry and there's no need to hang things on the line (which doesn't exist in an apartment of course). There is also a dishwasher, but I don't think I'll use it. Clean as you go is my policy. I also made a list of bathroom accessories to get --- cleaning and essentials, including a shower curtain! Apparently the apartment comes with no shower curtains and the old room occupant evidently took hers with her. I had to take a shower the night before with the shower head pointing towards the wall. Somehow I managed to get some water on myself and outside the bathtub too :) Alla's advice was to get the shower curtain from the "Dollar Store".
It was a great sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, just a little mist on the horizon. It was very warm, I wore a t-shirt all day. When we had lunch Brendan was showing the drink they got. The size of the cup was exactly a large by NZ standards. Here this was a small! The food was fine --- I got a Mexican wrap with no cheese, and chips exchanged for rice --- it was quite filling. In terms of prices for takeaways and food it seems that it's either the same dollar for dollar or slightly cheaper. If you converted to $NZ everything would be more expensive. It's true, there are some cheaper products, but in general it's about dollar for dollar in supermarkets and takeaways. Fruit is relatively expensive this year because they had a big frost earlier this year. It's still cheap enough. Petrol here was about $US3/gallon when I filled up the other day. That's 79 cents, which ex.com tells me is about $NZ 1.15. If you buy electronics online things are looking up, most PC parts are at times half the price that in NZ. Cell Phones are cheaper, especially on Ebay. I think I'll buy an unlocked phone that can be used with any network and buy a prepaid SIM card. This way if I want to switch networks or bring the phone back to NZ I can. If you buy a locked phone it only works with that provider network, although I think you can pay to have it unlocked.
Anyway, after we had lunch we went around the mall and drove around. The extension of the shopping center is several blocks of continuous shops... If you want to see it on google maps, it's on Blossom Hill Rd, just search for "westfield oakridge, San Jose". After all that the time was around 3 pm and we decided to head to the San Jose downtown. On the way there was some highway experience lane changes that extended for four lanes at a time to get to the correct exit. I also had a couple of close calls when I was changing lanes --- people seemed to accelerate when I tried once. And there was the situation when two cars try to change to the same lane from opposite sides --- luckily I always check my blind spots so all collisions were avoided.
Downtown San Jose is relatively plain, although I don't know what I expected --- it's San Francisco that's supposed to have all the excitement. Parking was hard to find. In the end we parked near the library, but still had to pay AND there was a 30 minute limit even on Saturday. I think parking is free on Sunday though, just like Wellington. Roads are reasonably wide and streets are square. No need to say that it's absolutely flat. When I get a camera in April sometime I'll take pictures and describe things in more detail.
We got to Brendan&Christina's place around 6 pm and I got home around 8. Alla went to some masquerade party with her brother, also Alex (CAIIIA). We all speak in English though as I don't think their Russian is very good. As an aside, the night before one of Alla's friends mentioned that Russian Jewish people, that's Alla's family, and other Russians (me?) look different. That really put the finger on it --- before I was asking myself if she looked Russian or Ukrainian, but was coming up blank on both counts. Now I can see it --- the facial feature and typical wide and close eyebrows.
Finally I had the place to myself that night... Had dinner, some oatmeal with egg white, carrot, radish, and cucumber --- finally I can eat what I wanted. I didn't do much, but sat with the laptop and updated this blog and browsed the web in general. No TV in the house, so I watched a couple of five minute clips on YouTube, but decided that wasn't really me. I didn't miss TV at all this week. I haven't watched a single thing, not even Prison Break! By the way Prison Break and all the popular series Blayne downloads each week and watches most of it I think. Apparently there is no problem with downloading series, but downloading movies is "dodgy here" as Blayne put it. For now I haven't decided if I'll need a monitor or a whole new PC, after all I will have TV in a month... My work laptop serves me well for the time being.
It was a great sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, just a little mist on the horizon. It was very warm, I wore a t-shirt all day. When we had lunch Brendan was showing the drink they got. The size of the cup was exactly a large by NZ standards. Here this was a small! The food was fine --- I got a Mexican wrap with no cheese, and chips exchanged for rice --- it was quite filling. In terms of prices for takeaways and food it seems that it's either the same dollar for dollar or slightly cheaper. If you converted to $NZ everything would be more expensive. It's true, there are some cheaper products, but in general it's about dollar for dollar in supermarkets and takeaways. Fruit is relatively expensive this year because they had a big frost earlier this year. It's still cheap enough. Petrol here was about $US3/gallon when I filled up the other day. That's 79 cents, which ex.com tells me is about $NZ 1.15. If you buy electronics online things are looking up, most PC parts are at times half the price that in NZ. Cell Phones are cheaper, especially on Ebay. I think I'll buy an unlocked phone that can be used with any network and buy a prepaid SIM card. This way if I want to switch networks or bring the phone back to NZ I can. If you buy a locked phone it only works with that provider network, although I think you can pay to have it unlocked.
Anyway, after we had lunch we went around the mall and drove around. The extension of the shopping center is several blocks of continuous shops... If you want to see it on google maps, it's on Blossom Hill Rd, just search for "westfield oakridge, San Jose". After all that the time was around 3 pm and we decided to head to the San Jose downtown. On the way there was some highway experience lane changes that extended for four lanes at a time to get to the correct exit. I also had a couple of close calls when I was changing lanes --- people seemed to accelerate when I tried once. And there was the situation when two cars try to change to the same lane from opposite sides --- luckily I always check my blind spots so all collisions were avoided.
Downtown San Jose is relatively plain, although I don't know what I expected --- it's San Francisco that's supposed to have all the excitement. Parking was hard to find. In the end we parked near the library, but still had to pay AND there was a 30 minute limit even on Saturday. I think parking is free on Sunday though, just like Wellington. Roads are reasonably wide and streets are square. No need to say that it's absolutely flat. When I get a camera in April sometime I'll take pictures and describe things in more detail.
We got to Brendan&Christina's place around 6 pm and I got home around 8. Alla went to some masquerade party with her brother, also Alex (CAIIIA). We all speak in English though as I don't think their Russian is very good. As an aside, the night before one of Alla's friends mentioned that Russian Jewish people, that's Alla's family, and other Russians (me?) look different. That really put the finger on it --- before I was asking myself if she looked Russian or Ukrainian, but was coming up blank on both counts. Now I can see it --- the facial feature and typical wide and close eyebrows.
Finally I had the place to myself that night... Had dinner, some oatmeal with egg white, carrot, radish, and cucumber --- finally I can eat what I wanted. I didn't do much, but sat with the laptop and updated this blog and browsed the web in general. No TV in the house, so I watched a couple of five minute clips on YouTube, but decided that wasn't really me. I didn't miss TV at all this week. I haven't watched a single thing, not even Prison Break! By the way Prison Break and all the popular series Blayne downloads each week and watches most of it I think. Apparently there is no problem with downloading series, but downloading movies is "dodgy here" as Blayne put it. For now I haven't decided if I'll need a monitor or a whole new PC, after all I will have TV in a month... My work laptop serves me well for the time being.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Bought car
The next morning Edgar, who sold me the car, brought the car to my place and we headed to the bank first. I borrowed some money from the guys I'm staying with as I didn't want to transfer so much from NZ Visa. Next, we went to the DMV to sign the papers for the car including registration and number plates (we were driving without number plates this whole time and I didn't even notice!). The last thing was to go to the dealer and input the code for the stereo because it's antitheft --- once the power is out for more than five minutes, it needs a special code to work. Edgar promised me that the dealer does this for free. When we got there they demanded $110, $100 to take out the stereo and get the serial number and $10 to look up the code. Edgar was very practical and onto it, "they charge that much because they think people don't know how to take the stereo out themselves". Parked inside the dealership, in the space of two minutes he took the panel off and the two screws that were holding the stereo. Five minutes later we were driving to where Edgar wanted to be dropped off, listening to the stereo (CD/radio with front and rear speakers, factory installed and producing not a bad sound --- not as good as I had in NZ in the Toyota, but probably close to the sound in my parents' car). From there I drove to work, on the way I discovered that after around 65-70 mi/hr it starts to vibrate very very slightly. This means that the wheel alignment is not 100%, but I don't think it's a problem. If I find a cheap mechanic I might get the alignment done later. Also, when I drove later at night I noticed that the front lights are completely misaligned --- the left one hardly shines on the road and when I'm driving I can see the light reaching four or five meters high when I'm ten meters away from that object! I definitely need to do something about the lights as I can't see very well at night. When I test drove it I thought it was weird --- why can't I see the road very well, and I know the lights are functioning, I've checked them all before I got in! I asked Edgar and he said he could see the light... I'll do something about it soon --- wouldn't want to drive out of town with a problem with illumination.
In terms of mechanics and prices it is, I guess, like everywhere else (I've been told so far) --- most expensive are the dealership mechanics, then there are chain mechanic shops, and then come the unofficial amateur mechanics that work from home garage and are only known by word of mouth. I'll see if I can track down one of these guys and probably should get a quote in a couple of chain shops on wheel and front light beam alignment.
Other than that the car drives fine. I drove around with Brendan (one of the two other new interns that came with me) and his fiance Christina and there seems to be reasonably enough space in the back seat. I like the car. It is smaller than what I had in NZ, but still a manual. It's maneuverable easy to drive and park. It's also not conspicuous so less likely to attract car thieves and police, while still looking respectable.
So, I got the car, but it's not insured and driving without insurance is one risky and two illegal in U.S. So the same day I asked around and looked at several options for insurance. In the end, a company called Mercury Insurance, was the best one --- recommended by many interns and generally IBMers. Part of it is because Mercury recognises prior driving experience in another country and it also gives discount to engineers, so all IBMers get discount. Also I think it's just generally very cheap. In the end it was $180 for six months, for liability (same as NZ third party) only of course --- which is the minimum legal requirement. This might seem high, but to give you an idea, I'll give you a couple of other quotes. AAA told me I needed to pay $760/6 months and another "cheap" company said $420/6 months. So I feel pretty good about it.
To get insured I had to come into their office. I decided to do it first thing, 9.00 am the very next day. The lady I spoke to on the phone on the previous day was alone in the office (I had to wait for her outside to arrive though). Everything went very well in a nice relaxed atmosphere.
To get to the insurance office I decided to take lightrail. One track each way this rail system is always outside, never underground. It often goes in the middle of the highway and goes through the downtown (centre) of San Jose. The carriages look like trams, so really this is tramway. To pay you have to buy tickets at the automatic box, which I think excepts notes, but definitely coins. According to the locals they don't usually check the passes at all, except weekends. However, this is irrelevant for me because IBM gives every employee a special sticker on their ID card that lets us take buses and light rail in San Jose area (but not San Francisco or any other, nor trains that go to San Francisco). I thought that was pretty good of IBM. But now that I have the car I don't think I'll use my pass all that much... Maybe to go to San Jose downtown once in a while, but to work I'll definitely drive, even though I "could" get there for free via a bus and then IBM shuttle. Car is just so much faster and more convenient. Also traffic here doesn't seem to be a problem. There are many big highways, well planned out --- apparently the city is relatively new so the road capacity is enough. You can get anywhere in San Jose within the space of less than 20 minutes because of this comprehensive highway system --- on a highway you can go much faster because of higher speed and no lights. Highways also seem to be usually four to five lanes wide with the outermost one or two lanes being the exit lanes. If you look on Google Maps at San Jose you can see just how comprehensive the freeways are.
In terms of mechanics and prices it is, I guess, like everywhere else (I've been told so far) --- most expensive are the dealership mechanics, then there are chain mechanic shops, and then come the unofficial amateur mechanics that work from home garage and are only known by word of mouth. I'll see if I can track down one of these guys and probably should get a quote in a couple of chain shops on wheel and front light beam alignment.
Other than that the car drives fine. I drove around with Brendan (one of the two other new interns that came with me) and his fiance Christina and there seems to be reasonably enough space in the back seat. I like the car. It is smaller than what I had in NZ, but still a manual. It's maneuverable easy to drive and park. It's also not conspicuous so less likely to attract car thieves and police, while still looking respectable.
So, I got the car, but it's not insured and driving without insurance is one risky and two illegal in U.S. So the same day I asked around and looked at several options for insurance. In the end, a company called Mercury Insurance, was the best one --- recommended by many interns and generally IBMers. Part of it is because Mercury recognises prior driving experience in another country and it also gives discount to engineers, so all IBMers get discount. Also I think it's just generally very cheap. In the end it was $180 for six months, for liability (same as NZ third party) only of course --- which is the minimum legal requirement. This might seem high, but to give you an idea, I'll give you a couple of other quotes. AAA told me I needed to pay $760/6 months and another "cheap" company said $420/6 months. So I feel pretty good about it.
To get insured I had to come into their office. I decided to do it first thing, 9.00 am the very next day. The lady I spoke to on the phone on the previous day was alone in the office (I had to wait for her outside to arrive though). Everything went very well in a nice relaxed atmosphere.
To get to the insurance office I decided to take lightrail. One track each way this rail system is always outside, never underground. It often goes in the middle of the highway and goes through the downtown (centre) of San Jose. The carriages look like trams, so really this is tramway. To pay you have to buy tickets at the automatic box, which I think excepts notes, but definitely coins. According to the locals they don't usually check the passes at all, except weekends. However, this is irrelevant for me because IBM gives every employee a special sticker on their ID card that lets us take buses and light rail in San Jose area (but not San Francisco or any other, nor trains that go to San Francisco). I thought that was pretty good of IBM. But now that I have the car I don't think I'll use my pass all that much... Maybe to go to San Jose downtown once in a while, but to work I'll definitely drive, even though I "could" get there for free via a bus and then IBM shuttle. Car is just so much faster and more convenient. Also traffic here doesn't seem to be a problem. There are many big highways, well planned out --- apparently the city is relatively new so the road capacity is enough. You can get anywhere in San Jose within the space of less than 20 minutes because of this comprehensive highway system --- on a highway you can go much faster because of higher speed and no lights. Highways also seem to be usually four to five lanes wide with the outermost one or two lanes being the exit lanes. If you look on Google Maps at San Jose you can see just how comprehensive the freeways are.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Went for drive by myself Arranged car
This was the day I drove the guys' car without anyone in it. The car is automatic and I drove it before. The main thing now was to know where I'm going. I went to see a couple of places. The first one, really close, I couldn't see straight away because I couldn't get the keys out of the ignition! So after trying half a dozen times, each time fearing to break the key off, I had to turn around and go back home. Once I was back the key came right out and by that time I had to go see the next place. I later found out from the guys that the key won't come out when the car is not in park and that sometimes it doesn't quite get into park --- which probably what happened to me.
The next place gave me great hopes because it was close to work and it seemed a nice place from the advertisement. When I got there it turned out to be a house of a divorced man in his late thirties or early forties. He had two medium sized, loud barking dogs --- and I don't like big loud dogs and think even small quite dogs are inconvenient. On top of that he said he would have his two children --- both seemed to be under five years of age. The house had a very spacious lounge and there was a TV room. However, what would be my room was reasonably large but was very dark because it had only a single small window. It also wasn't connected to the house central heating system like all other rooms were as it was a late addition to the house. In any case, I made my decision as soon as I saw the two barking dogs racing towards me when I stepped foot into the house :)
The last room I went to see I couldn't find. I drove around for a while and even got onto a freeway by accident but could not locate the entrance to that block of houses. As it later turned out (I called the guy) I had to take a specific highway and take one of the exits from there. I was going to see it the next day, but something else turned up... It appeared now that I would be able to replace one of the German interns who's leaving in three weeks. More on that in another post.
At the end of my drive I actually hadn't reached one of the destinations at all, that was a car. When I got home disappointed from seeing only one place I rang the car guy and he was willing to come to me! So around at 9.30 pm I met him outside. It was a Colombian guy, Edgar, and his wife, both in their fifties. Edgar didn't speak English that great, but his wife seemed completely oblivious to what I was saying. The car itself was a 2000 Mitsubishi Mirage De Coupe (2 door) 1.6 Liter engine with a manual transmission and 105000 miles on the odometer, which is low over here. I had a look at the car, it seemed clean and I asked several questions about the car. Edgar didn't know much about car service history, because he only recently acquired the car. I proceeded to drive my first manual on the right. We didn't crash... I even drove it on the highway. In the end I made a deal for $2400 with the guy, because based on all the cars listed on the search page I use it was a very good value. I did take a risk on not knowing the car history, but I figured that the car is not very old and has low mileage.... It did have a blown back light which Edgar changed while I was getting the money for a deposit from our apartment. More about the car later...
The next place gave me great hopes because it was close to work and it seemed a nice place from the advertisement. When I got there it turned out to be a house of a divorced man in his late thirties or early forties. He had two medium sized, loud barking dogs --- and I don't like big loud dogs and think even small quite dogs are inconvenient. On top of that he said he would have his two children --- both seemed to be under five years of age. The house had a very spacious lounge and there was a TV room. However, what would be my room was reasonably large but was very dark because it had only a single small window. It also wasn't connected to the house central heating system like all other rooms were as it was a late addition to the house. In any case, I made my decision as soon as I saw the two barking dogs racing towards me when I stepped foot into the house :)
The last room I went to see I couldn't find. I drove around for a while and even got onto a freeway by accident but could not locate the entrance to that block of houses. As it later turned out (I called the guy) I had to take a specific highway and take one of the exits from there. I was going to see it the next day, but something else turned up... It appeared now that I would be able to replace one of the German interns who's leaving in three weeks. More on that in another post.
At the end of my drive I actually hadn't reached one of the destinations at all, that was a car. When I got home disappointed from seeing only one place I rang the car guy and he was willing to come to me! So around at 9.30 pm I met him outside. It was a Colombian guy, Edgar, and his wife, both in their fifties. Edgar didn't speak English that great, but his wife seemed completely oblivious to what I was saying. The car itself was a 2000 Mitsubishi Mirage De Coupe (2 door) 1.6 Liter engine with a manual transmission and 105000 miles on the odometer, which is low over here. I had a look at the car, it seemed clean and I asked several questions about the car. Edgar didn't know much about car service history, because he only recently acquired the car. I proceeded to drive my first manual on the right. We didn't crash... I even drove it on the highway. In the end I made a deal for $2400 with the guy, because based on all the cars listed on the search page I use it was a very good value. I did take a risk on not knowing the car history, but I figured that the car is not very old and has low mileage.... It did have a blown back light which Edgar changed while I was getting the money for a deposit from our apartment. More about the car later...
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Day 2 at work and pass written driving test
Woke up early at 7 am and walked to DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) to take my test. Local DMV is about 25 minutes walk from my temporary home. I couldn't find the place, because I foolishly thought I didn't need to check it's location on google maps, but trust my friends to tell me where it is... Finally, after going back and forth a couple of times and asking an innocent bystander where the devil this mysterious DMV was, I found this hangar type building. Inside was the help receptionist who everyone had to see first then fill out the appropriate forms and then she would give you a machine produced ticket with number. After sitting there for about half hour waiting for my cue I was finally called up to one of 16 windows. The guy checked my vision by me looking at a panel with ridiculously large letters, which I could easily see from twice the distance. Here was my worry of failing the eye test set to rest. After checking my documentation I was redirected to my final window where they took my photo and gave me the test to do. By the way if you'd like to see the difference between the NZ and US road rules see
http://www.dmv.org/ca-california/practice-tests.php
I did all these and the flash animation one. I also had previous test from other interns. I still got several questions that I wasn't sure about... Ironically I got all the doubtful ones correct and got one wrong by accident -- not reading the question and answer properly. Anyway, 35/36 is fine, you are allowed to get six wrong. Driving test will need to be done within the next three months, but I won't worry about that now. It's only 15 minutes long and according to people who sat it, quite easy.
After I finished with the DMV it was 10 am. I decided to go back and apply for my Social Security Number, which is very important in U.S. The local Social Security Office is located about 7 minute walk from my temp place --- same place as the mini shopping center I wrote about earlier, with "Rite Aid" as the drug store. It's hard without showing this on the map, but I will get around to labeling things that I've talked about here on Google Earth and sending bookmarks sometime in future.
Getting back to SSO. Once I entered the door a security guard requested to search my bag and told me to press a button on a ticket issuing machine. These machines seem to be the way to go around here! I guess the amount of people using the services requires an orderly and efficient way to service everybody. By the way I noticed later when the he went outside, that the guard carried a medium revolver in a holster on his belt! After applying for SSN I learnt that it may take as long as six weeks to receive the card with the number! Oh well.. out of my control. Just like you have to pay security deposits on many things if you don't have credit history here in US --- and that's anyone who's never been to US and had a credit card here! We thought it was strange that they wouldn't verify that you had credit history in another country even you did have a Visa or even American Express! I guess it would be very expensive to verify reliably.
Anyway, the rest of the day I spent at work. Very light again, maybe tomorrow I'll actually start reading about the products I'm supposed to be testing later....
Tonight I'll have a look at this room. Properly flatting on my own will be a new experience and especially with a girl. I hope she isn't as weird as some think she may be... It's pretty funny that she suggested to pick me up --- weird already or simply a good samaritan? Tonight will tell.
Although... Stefan, who is the other new intern, got a room with a girl who has a problem with alcohol, but she hid it very well. It's not really bad, she apparently drinks only when emotions get the better of her. She is ok, 23 years old, drives us around sometimes... well me just once on Sunday. Anyway... this is just an example something to watch out for...
I need dinner now... rice and chicken are good!
http://www.dmv.org/ca-california/practice-tests.php
I did all these and the flash animation one. I also had previous test from other interns. I still got several questions that I wasn't sure about... Ironically I got all the doubtful ones correct and got one wrong by accident -- not reading the question and answer properly. Anyway, 35/36 is fine, you are allowed to get six wrong. Driving test will need to be done within the next three months, but I won't worry about that now. It's only 15 minutes long and according to people who sat it, quite easy.
After I finished with the DMV it was 10 am. I decided to go back and apply for my Social Security Number, which is very important in U.S. The local Social Security Office is located about 7 minute walk from my temp place --- same place as the mini shopping center I wrote about earlier, with "Rite Aid" as the drug store. It's hard without showing this on the map, but I will get around to labeling things that I've talked about here on Google Earth and sending bookmarks sometime in future.
Getting back to SSO. Once I entered the door a security guard requested to search my bag and told me to press a button on a ticket issuing machine. These machines seem to be the way to go around here! I guess the amount of people using the services requires an orderly and efficient way to service everybody. By the way I noticed later when the he went outside, that the guard carried a medium revolver in a holster on his belt! After applying for SSN I learnt that it may take as long as six weeks to receive the card with the number! Oh well.. out of my control. Just like you have to pay security deposits on many things if you don't have credit history here in US --- and that's anyone who's never been to US and had a credit card here! We thought it was strange that they wouldn't verify that you had credit history in another country even you did have a Visa or even American Express! I guess it would be very expensive to verify reliably.
Anyway, the rest of the day I spent at work. Very light again, maybe tomorrow I'll actually start reading about the products I'm supposed to be testing later....
Tonight I'll have a look at this room. Properly flatting on my own will be a new experience and especially with a girl. I hope she isn't as weird as some think she may be... It's pretty funny that she suggested to pick me up --- weird already or simply a good samaritan? Tonight will tell.
Although... Stefan, who is the other new intern, got a room with a girl who has a problem with alcohol, but she hid it very well. It's not really bad, she apparently drinks only when emotions get the better of her. She is ok, 23 years old, drives us around sometimes... well me just once on Sunday. Anyway... this is just an example something to watch out for...
I need dinner now... rice and chicken are good!
Monday, February 26, 2007
If a tree falls in a forest
If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound if there is nobody there to hear it?
Some have suggested that "America, on the basis of my limited experience, is the most spiritually bankrupt nation in the world." I couldn't say yes or no just yet to that. I will come back to this a little later.
Some have suggested that "America, on the basis of my limited experience, is the most spiritually bankrupt nation in the world." I couldn't say yes or no just yet to that. I will come back to this a little later.
First day at IBM
First day at work... Not knowing what to expect...
Today, Monday 26 Feb, was the worst day weather wise so far -- it rained constantly and it was around 8 deg. Cels. I first had to go fill out some paper work at another IBM location from where I'm based. Jono dropped me off around 8.45 am and I signed in at this museum-like large area -- high ceiling, wall sized windows and dinosaurs almost expected around the corner... It was still amusing talking to American (native) receptionist (look and the accent). The guy who took me through my paperwork was pleasant and efficient just the right amount. I could tell (and know) he has done this many, many times before. After filling out and signing a dozen forms I headed to my work location (555 Bailey Avenue, you can see it on google maps/earth). I'll send out GoogleEarth bookmarks to everyone later when I know where I'll live and also I don't have GoogleEarth here at the moment.
SVL (Sillicon Valley Lab) is quite a large facility consisting of a number of buildings arranged in a rough circle with space inside -- a little similar to the Pentagon, with Cafeteria located roughly in the middle to the side... The buildings are four stories high, with the first floor being underground from which it's possible to access all buildings without going outside.
Before the dotcom bubble there used to be 3000 employees, however a lot of workers lost their jobs after the burst in 2000 so now there is around 2000. Plenty of parking space and, of course, access only using access card or through reception. That's pretty standard everywhere now, so that wasn't that different. Once my manager got me at the reception he took to me to get the photo security swipe card done. There is a special security office -- you could tell that security is taken seriously here.
I didn't expect IBM to give me laptop, but they did as that is the main work machine that you can take home. This means I won't have to buy a PC -- at least initially. Admittedly it's not the latest model, but it does the job and reasonably small. Now comes the odd part, the other equipment. The keyboard is about 15 years old and the two button mouse looked about 20 and the first one didn't even work! The second mouse did have something close to a scrollwheel -- it was similar to a light switch -- pressing up would scroll up and down would scroll down. It works, for now, but I did request a proper scrollwheel mouse. The monitors are these 10-15 years old 20-21" IBM CRT monitors. Luckily I got 21" and even though the colours are a little faded it seems to work fine with 1280x1024 at 90HZ so it's big enough and doesn't heart the eyes. Eventually I might do what Jono has done -- he bought a 19" LCD for work -- you can get them here for just over $US100.
IBM's explanation is that they want to save money so they rotate and keep using all equipment until it completely folds. It was ironic to me, but hey, they are paying me good money so not all is bad.
The office I share with a guy from our team, Steve. He worked as a tester for something like five years. Initially I was concerned that I was going to be testing for my 18 months here. I talked with my manager and conveyed to him that really my ultimate aim, at least at this time is to be a product developer. He explained that IBM wants interns to start at that level to get to know what's involved and how to use the applications and get a solid start. After sometime I can move around to an area I'm more interested in. IBM doesn't want to trap interns in working somewhere they don't for the whole term, but it does want exposure. Anyway, I've asked an pretty much everyone did several months of some kind of testing. Also, in what's involved I might be writing a testing tool in java so that could be fun. It's a nice easy start anyway. The manger told me to take a couple of weeks to just get myself familiar with all the products and how they work because the testing team that I'm in is systems integration, which means they care about how all these product fit together, rather than testing functionality of an individual products/applications.
So in the end, I'm ok, I just made clear to everyone what I wanted to do in the end and I think that was a really good idea. Always say what you really (think) want to do earlier rather than later -- that's my motto.
In the end I did no actual work... I did carry two monitors on a trolley (they call them carts here, trolley means a tram/train/bus) . Swapped a dead monitor for a good one from one of our team members. The other monitor was for me. [This is not very story-like... oh well no time to organise thoughts]
In terms of internal communication IBM uses their proprietary internal messenger, called Sametime. Everyone uses it a lot, rather than mail because it's very easy to post logs etc into it and it's instant messaging so easier than talking over the phone or bringing the whole machine/PC to someone else to help you.
Oh yes, the facility is something like 20-30 years old and still has the old set out of having offices instead of open plan. So it works well for me as it's quiet, warm (thermostat is set to 70F = 21C). I sit in a corner office so I face the window and there is generally a lot of natural light as opposed to some of the offices situated closer to the center of the building. Shelves and draws seem to be the same age as the facility and have the grey colour of early 1980's. But I got used to that quickly.
That's pretty much it for that part.
Had dinner today, pretty much the same as yesterday -- chicken breast and white rice. I bought the chicken breast from Costco, which is similar to MoreWilson's. So I got about 16 chicken breasts, they are packed in convenient packs of two in a plastic belt so when you freeze all 16 you can tear away two at a time very easily. No need to sort it! However, the store (never shop always store) needs a card which you need to pay $50. Obviously, we used someone's card when we did shopping on Sunday... I skipped that experience (maybe I'll post Sunday ... or not). Supermarkets and shops... there are many many different labels and none of them are the same as in NZ. But hopefully I can find one or two places where I can stock up on my supplies.
Tomorrow after work I should be looking at a flat. We'll see, as it sounds ok but the girl, Alla, seems odd to some people. She works at IBM only in the other facility and Stefan (intern who's arrived about three weeks before me) gave me her contact. Her room mate will be moving out on Wednesday... Aparantly there is no couch as Alla got rid of her couch because her roommate had her own furniture and now it wont be there. I'll live without a couch, but eventually I'd need something. Apparently it's possible to get almost free or completely free stuff, but the problem will be picking it up. The truck may cost as much as $60... we'll see. The room could be unsuitable so this is wondering into the clouds again too much...
Today, Monday 26 Feb, was the worst day weather wise so far -- it rained constantly and it was around 8 deg. Cels. I first had to go fill out some paper work at another IBM location from where I'm based. Jono dropped me off around 8.45 am and I signed in at this museum-like large area -- high ceiling, wall sized windows and dinosaurs almost expected around the corner... It was still amusing talking to American (native) receptionist (look and the accent). The guy who took me through my paperwork was pleasant and efficient just the right amount. I could tell (and know) he has done this many, many times before. After filling out and signing a dozen forms I headed to my work location (555 Bailey Avenue, you can see it on google maps/earth). I'll send out GoogleEarth bookmarks to everyone later when I know where I'll live and also I don't have GoogleEarth here at the moment.
SVL (Sillicon Valley Lab) is quite a large facility consisting of a number of buildings arranged in a rough circle with space inside -- a little similar to the Pentagon, with Cafeteria located roughly in the middle to the side... The buildings are four stories high, with the first floor being underground from which it's possible to access all buildings without going outside.
Before the dotcom bubble there used to be 3000 employees, however a lot of workers lost their jobs after the burst in 2000 so now there is around 2000. Plenty of parking space and, of course, access only using access card or through reception. That's pretty standard everywhere now, so that wasn't that different. Once my manager got me at the reception he took to me to get the photo security swipe card done. There is a special security office -- you could tell that security is taken seriously here.
I didn't expect IBM to give me laptop, but they did as that is the main work machine that you can take home. This means I won't have to buy a PC -- at least initially. Admittedly it's not the latest model, but it does the job and reasonably small. Now comes the odd part, the other equipment. The keyboard is about 15 years old and the two button mouse looked about 20 and the first one didn't even work! The second mouse did have something close to a scrollwheel -- it was similar to a light switch -- pressing up would scroll up and down would scroll down. It works, for now, but I did request a proper scrollwheel mouse. The monitors are these 10-15 years old 20-21" IBM CRT monitors. Luckily I got 21" and even though the colours are a little faded it seems to work fine with 1280x1024 at 90HZ so it's big enough and doesn't heart the eyes. Eventually I might do what Jono has done -- he bought a 19" LCD for work -- you can get them here for just over $US100.
IBM's explanation is that they want to save money so they rotate and keep using all equipment until it completely folds. It was ironic to me, but hey, they are paying me good money so not all is bad.
The office I share with a guy from our team, Steve. He worked as a tester for something like five years. Initially I was concerned that I was going to be testing for my 18 months here. I talked with my manager and conveyed to him that really my ultimate aim, at least at this time is to be a product developer. He explained that IBM wants interns to start at that level to get to know what's involved and how to use the applications and get a solid start. After sometime I can move around to an area I'm more interested in. IBM doesn't want to trap interns in working somewhere they don't for the whole term, but it does want exposure. Anyway, I've asked an pretty much everyone did several months of some kind of testing. Also, in what's involved I might be writing a testing tool in java so that could be fun. It's a nice easy start anyway. The manger told me to take a couple of weeks to just get myself familiar with all the products and how they work because the testing team that I'm in is systems integration, which means they care about how all these product fit together, rather than testing functionality of an individual products/applications.
So in the end, I'm ok, I just made clear to everyone what I wanted to do in the end and I think that was a really good idea. Always say what you really (think) want to do earlier rather than later -- that's my motto.
In the end I did no actual work... I did carry two monitors on a trolley (they call them carts here, trolley means a tram/train/bus) . Swapped a dead monitor for a good one from one of our team members. The other monitor was for me. [This is not very story-like... oh well no time to organise thoughts]
In terms of internal communication IBM uses their proprietary internal messenger, called Sametime. Everyone uses it a lot, rather than mail because it's very easy to post logs etc into it and it's instant messaging so easier than talking over the phone or bringing the whole machine/PC to someone else to help you.
Oh yes, the facility is something like 20-30 years old and still has the old set out of having offices instead of open plan. So it works well for me as it's quiet, warm (thermostat is set to 70F = 21C). I sit in a corner office so I face the window and there is generally a lot of natural light as opposed to some of the offices situated closer to the center of the building. Shelves and draws seem to be the same age as the facility and have the grey colour of early 1980's. But I got used to that quickly.
That's pretty much it for that part.
Had dinner today, pretty much the same as yesterday -- chicken breast and white rice. I bought the chicken breast from Costco, which is similar to MoreWilson's. So I got about 16 chicken breasts, they are packed in convenient packs of two in a plastic belt so when you freeze all 16 you can tear away two at a time very easily. No need to sort it! However, the store (never shop always store) needs a card which you need to pay $50. Obviously, we used someone's card when we did shopping on Sunday... I skipped that experience (maybe I'll post Sunday ... or not). Supermarkets and shops... there are many many different labels and none of them are the same as in NZ. But hopefully I can find one or two places where I can stock up on my supplies.
Tomorrow after work I should be looking at a flat. We'll see, as it sounds ok but the girl, Alla, seems odd to some people. She works at IBM only in the other facility and Stefan (intern who's arrived about three weeks before me) gave me her contact. Her room mate will be moving out on Wednesday... Aparantly there is no couch as Alla got rid of her couch because her roommate had her own furniture and now it wont be there. I'll live without a couch, but eventually I'd need something. Apparently it's possible to get almost free or completely free stuff, but the problem will be picking it up. The truck may cost as much as $60... we'll see. The room could be unsuitable so this is wondering into the clouds again too much...
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Car drive
I drove an automatic 1994 Sable, Murcury owned by the three guys living in the flat. It's a reasonably powerful american car. First I drove to the Bank of America branch close by to get an account. Driving for those five minutes was relatively easy -- no highways and traffic lights all the way. Staying tight to the left once in the lane wasn't as hard as I thought. I still seem to leave a little more space on the left though.
I went for a much longer and eventful drive later, around 7 pm to have a look at one room and a car. First highway (aka Motorway in NZ) experience. Five lanes each way with one or often two most outer lanes being exit lanes. Exits/offramps are to each major road, which means on everage less than half a mile so no problem with getting out of the highway. Speed restriction is usually 65 mph, but 10 mph over is considered fine. A lot of people drive faster. Driving after this second time seems more natural. The main problem now is to know where I am and where to go as there are more places to go to and a lot more space to cover. Not like in Wellington, where if you get lost and drive you'll arrive somewhere familiar pretty soon. Here you can drive for many hours and get lost in the web of major highways and streets. That's why I bought a road atlas...
The room that I looked at turned out to be in a Vietnamese family house. Nice, but will be my plan B as I don't want to live in around a family.
The car I think I'll buy. It's TOYOTA '93 Tercel for $1500. It's automatic and low power, only 1.5L and has three not four auto gears. Time is of the essence and I do want an economical Japanese car for under $2000. After extensive car search on the web nothing much was coming
up. I test drove it and asked as many questions as I could and looked at as many things as I could. Everything was fine. The minuses are that it's relatively noisy on the highway due to it having only three gears, but nothing alarming. Also it doesn't have central locking and it's leaking oil, but the seller will fix it before I buy. I think I need to get a permit to buy the car, which means I have to sit the written theory test. After that I get a temporary permit and need to sit the practical test within the three months.
Just remembered. We went to a supermarket yesterday and the toothpaste was huge! It was 180 grams instead of the regular 110 grams. I'll have to take a photo of it some time and show the difference.
Today has gone much more quickly than yesterday, because I did so much more.
Called parents on the pnone card Jono lent me. The quality was unbelievably good, better than my home one! It costs nothing too, something around 3 cents/minute.
Apartment and generally the complex is really quiet AND these guys don't own a TV. Blayne, one of the flatmates just downloads everything, but only he and Duncan watch. Jono and his wife Ingrid don't seem to watch anything except for an odd movie or two a week. It's different, but it makes me write this instead of spending mindless hours watching the screen change pictures! To add to the relative silence is the fact that Blayne and Duncan (and his girlfriend) are away as I mentioned earlier I think.
Just to tell you about the taxing. It's 7.5% and it's not added on anywhere so you have to calculate it in your head. I haven't had to pay tips, but apparently it's only compulsory in restaurants. Everywhere else you don't have to, but the general going rate is 10-15%.
Feel tired... Will think of more to say later and take photos in a month or so.
Small piece of trivia: electric switches flick up to turn on and down to turn off -- the opposite way to NZ.
I went for a much longer and eventful drive later, around 7 pm to have a look at one room and a car. First highway (aka Motorway in NZ) experience. Five lanes each way with one or often two most outer lanes being exit lanes. Exits/offramps are to each major road, which means on everage less than half a mile so no problem with getting out of the highway. Speed restriction is usually 65 mph, but 10 mph over is considered fine. A lot of people drive faster. Driving after this second time seems more natural. The main problem now is to know where I am and where to go as there are more places to go to and a lot more space to cover. Not like in Wellington, where if you get lost and drive you'll arrive somewhere familiar pretty soon. Here you can drive for many hours and get lost in the web of major highways and streets. That's why I bought a road atlas...
The room that I looked at turned out to be in a Vietnamese family house. Nice, but will be my plan B as I don't want to live in around a family.
The car I think I'll buy. It's TOYOTA '93 Tercel for $1500. It's automatic and low power, only 1.5L and has three not four auto gears. Time is of the essence and I do want an economical Japanese car for under $2000. After extensive car search on the web nothing much was coming
up. I test drove it and asked as many questions as I could and looked at as many things as I could. Everything was fine. The minuses are that it's relatively noisy on the highway due to it having only three gears, but nothing alarming. Also it doesn't have central locking and it's leaking oil, but the seller will fix it before I buy. I think I need to get a permit to buy the car, which means I have to sit the written theory test. After that I get a temporary permit and need to sit the practical test within the three months.
Just remembered. We went to a supermarket yesterday and the toothpaste was huge! It was 180 grams instead of the regular 110 grams. I'll have to take a photo of it some time and show the difference.
Today has gone much more quickly than yesterday, because I did so much more.
Called parents on the pnone card Jono lent me. The quality was unbelievably good, better than my home one! It costs nothing too, something around 3 cents/minute.
Apartment and generally the complex is really quiet AND these guys don't own a TV. Blayne, one of the flatmates just downloads everything, but only he and Duncan watch. Jono and his wife Ingrid don't seem to watch anything except for an odd movie or two a week. It's different, but it makes me write this instead of spending mindless hours watching the screen change pictures! To add to the relative silence is the fact that Blayne and Duncan (and his girlfriend) are away as I mentioned earlier I think.
Just to tell you about the taxing. It's 7.5% and it's not added on anywhere so you have to calculate it in your head. I haven't had to pay tips, but apparently it's only compulsory in restaurants. Everywhere else you don't have to, but the general going rate is 10-15%.
Feel tired... Will think of more to say later and take photos in a month or so.
Small piece of trivia: electric switches flick up to turn on and down to turn off -- the opposite way to NZ.
First day in San Jose
Arrived 30 min early. Passport control was fine, except had to stand in line three times as I had to fill out a form. Customs was strange as there was none -- I just picked up my bags and was shown to the exit! So far nothing seems to be missing.
Jono, a friend from Victoria Uni who is here a year with two others, picked me up from the airport. He agreed to "look after me" and others took on the other two arrivals, Brendan (with his fiance Kristina) and Stefan. Right now Jono's flat is half empty as the other two flatmates are skiing in Canada for the weekend. Good for me as I get to stay in one of their rooms and get my own bathroom :D
I walked around the neighbourhood. Roads are multilane, everything is really spaced out. Mostly San Jose is a residential city, especially Palm Valley apartments neighbourhood. I walked to some shops -- mini supermarket and some others. Lots and lots of takeaway food outlets congregated together. Probably around ten. And those kinds of little shopping centers are here every 2-3 kms. Othere than that there's not much to see. Definitely need a car to get around this place.
Cars aren't too different. There are more Japaneese cars here than any other state so maybe that's why.
The apartment complex feels expensive, at least on the outside. Palm trees everywhere. The day was sunny and relatively warm so it didn't feel too different to the summer I left. Grass is dark green and looks almost plastic or artificial, because it's so perfect. Once I buy a camera I'll take some photos.
Generally the environment doesn't feel too different. Still there are hills similar to tawa, except much larger distances and a lot more flat ground in between. Vegetation is different -- palm trees in places, but it's not that different -- it's not a rainforest or anything.
Emotionally, only the first night, lying in bed, I realised finally that I'm by myself. Similar feeling to when we first moved to NZ, but somehow feels even further away. I guess it's the first time I'm really on my own. Anyway, it doesn't feel so bad now -- morning of day two.
Things to do are find a flat and get a car. But I may need to wait for the relocation money to be paid to purchase a car.
Well I have to go now. Probably will be my first drive today. I should be ok...
Jono, a friend from Victoria Uni who is here a year with two others, picked me up from the airport. He agreed to "look after me" and others took on the other two arrivals, Brendan (with his fiance Kristina) and Stefan. Right now Jono's flat is half empty as the other two flatmates are skiing in Canada for the weekend. Good for me as I get to stay in one of their rooms and get my own bathroom :D
I walked around the neighbourhood. Roads are multilane, everything is really spaced out. Mostly San Jose is a residential city, especially Palm Valley apartments neighbourhood. I walked to some shops -- mini supermarket and some others. Lots and lots of takeaway food outlets congregated together. Probably around ten. And those kinds of little shopping centers are here every 2-3 kms. Othere than that there's not much to see. Definitely need a car to get around this place.
Cars aren't too different. There are more Japaneese cars here than any other state so maybe that's why.
The apartment complex feels expensive, at least on the outside. Palm trees everywhere. The day was sunny and relatively warm so it didn't feel too different to the summer I left. Grass is dark green and looks almost plastic or artificial, because it's so perfect. Once I buy a camera I'll take some photos.
Generally the environment doesn't feel too different. Still there are hills similar to tawa, except much larger distances and a lot more flat ground in between. Vegetation is different -- palm trees in places, but it's not that different -- it's not a rainforest or anything.
Emotionally, only the first night, lying in bed, I realised finally that I'm by myself. Similar feeling to when we first moved to NZ, but somehow feels even further away. I guess it's the first time I'm really on my own. Anyway, it doesn't feel so bad now -- morning of day two.
Things to do are find a flat and get a car. But I may need to wait for the relocation money to be paid to purchase a car.
Well I have to go now. Probably will be my first drive today. I should be ok...
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