Charlene and Craig's wedding

Charlene and Craig got married on Dec 27th. Congratulations! Here are the beautiful bride and handsome groom. :-)

As the bridesmaid, basically my job is to take care and company my good friend Charlene. :-)

I arrived Charlene's apartment at 6:00AM. Charlene's family was all awake already. 8:00AM Craig's family arrived to escort the bride to his family. After some traditional procedures, we arrived Hwa Young for the wedding ceremony.

The place was well decorated, and few staffs took care of the procedures and the bride. Therefore I didn't have lots things to do, except of chatting with Charlene and some friends when they visited. Since the bride was arranged in another room before the relatives and friends arrived, Charlene was curious about the place of the ceremony. Taking my camera, I went to take few photos to show her.

Both Charlene and Craig like photographing. Charlene must want to take few photos by herself. Craig got some chance to take few photos by himself. Thanks Craig for the photo of me.

My friends, wish you love and happiness forever! :-)

2008 ING Taipei Marathon

There were 120,000 people joining 2008 ING Taipei Marathon. Shelby, my younger brother, is one of the members in the core team responsible for this event. As usual, I am proud of him! :-)

Check out the screen in the photo. It took more than 20 minutes to have all the runners to pass through the starting line.

Wen-Jun and I participated in the 3km fun run. I was surprised that it's quite short. Anyway, it was fun to run with so many people. Some people came with families, some people joined with friends, some people run with their dogs, and etc. People cheered up for strangers. One guy run backward for 42km... one old man finished 42km... everyone used his/her own position to participate. Some are professional, while the others are not. However, as long as people try their best, I think the positions are all beautiful!

Where the Hell is Matt?

This is the title of the video about Matt-Harding, a young man showing in the VISA commercials. He danced in a simple style in front of various landmarks and streets around the world, sometimes by himself and sometimes with locals. Because of him, the video spreads a comfortable feeling with pure, consistency, and happiness.

This diffusion reminds me of the movie "Pay It Forward". A simple idea could change the world. Although if I remember correctly, the idea "pay it forward" started from the reality "the world sucks". At the end of the movie, the kid was dead because of executing what he believed. However, his courage and spirit changed and affected the world already.

New ASML building

Recently, not only I am preparing to move to a new apartment, but also my company just moved to a new building.

This is the building we used to work in. It's a nice building as well, but not belong to ASML.

In Dec 2008, we moved to the new building.

By the way, because Christmas is coming, we got a present from the company, as usual. This year the present is a beautiful gift box with a chocolate cake, some chocolate cookies, and chocolate from Black as Chocolate. Merry Christmas! :-)

Christian the Lion

It's an unusual story for sure... :-)
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U&feature=related

new apartment progress

After one year, finally my new apartment, 遠雄未來家, is almost ready. I am busy in checking the quality and preparing the interior design.

2008 July

2008 Dec

So... the ocean is really close!

Linkou, the village I live at now in Taipei county, is actually on the top of a hill. Although the time I moved to Linkou is already one and half years ago, I didn't really have lots time to explore and get to know this village. Today, following the sign to Bali village, I ride my scooter "down" the hill and reached the ocean. It took less than 30 minutes.

Although my poor old scooter might get retired soon, she still completed the mission! Good girl!

The boats at this little port are all painted with faces.

Today it's quite windy, but still many people enjoyed fishing over there. The local village atmosphere was kind of surprising me. Sometimes I feel like a foreigner even in my own country. People could recognize that you are not local easily.

Smiley face in the sky

Yesterday there was a smiley face in the sky! The eyes were the Venus and Jupiter, while the first quarter of the moon presented as the mouth.

(Copied from a forwarded e-mail)

Maybe the smile did bring luck, today the government announced to have one more day off, Jan 2nd, during the New Year. ha ha~

Pei-yin's wedding and gathering with Peggy and Sophie

Going back to my home town, Tainan, I joined Pei-yin's wedding at Tayih Landis Hotel on Nov 30th. Congratulation, Pei-yin! It was fun to meet the old friends from senior high school after so many years as well. How many? well... maybe over ten years?... It was a pity that I missed Yen-lin's wedding when I was in the Netherlands. Now finally I didn't miss this one. :-)
In the evening, I had another rare gathering with Peggy and Sophie, my friends from the elementary school. Due to some personal reason, Peggy came back to Taiwan from US for one week. Sophie just came back to Taiwan from UK and flies for business all the time, but this weekend she came back to Tainan as well. I just came back from the Netherlands two weeks ago, and arranged to came back home this weekend. What a coincidence! You could imagine how great talk we had. By the way, I found Domo from Internet, and it is a fairly nice and easy restaurant for spaghetti.

Cape NO. 7

CAPE NO. 7 is a Taiwanese comedic film with neither professional actors nor strong promotional campaign. It is very popular that even my five-year-old nephew could recognize the actors, the songs, and the plot about the movie. The plot consists the stories of two generations, from 1940s to 2000s, and three languages, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese. The story is simple and the roles are local, but it expresses both the esoteric and the ordinary possibilities of lives.

A more than sixty-year ago story came alive when a struggling young man came back to the small village from Taipei. Seven love letters were brought to the grandmother from Japan after her beloved passed away. The director only shot from the sight of the grandmother's back, making it even more deep. Meanwhile the young man found out his way. No matter what our dreams are, about career, love, anything, or everything, it's never too late to pursue them. Have dreams, and make them come true. The sales man in the film shows that earnest is the key. Everyone is small in the world. However with correct attitude and hard working, people would be touched and want to help. It reminded me of the conversation in El Alquimista, "when you really thirst for something, the whole world would help you to get it."

I like the song 國境之南(South of The Border).

[ 國境之南 ] by 范逸臣

詞：嚴云農　曲：曾志豪

如果海會說話　如果風愛上砂
如果　有些想念遺忘在漫長的長假
我會聆聽浪花　讓風吹過頭髮
任記憶裡的愛情在時間潮汐裡喧嘩
非得等春天遠了夏天才近了
我是在回首時終於懂得（也許天氣永遠會那麼熱）
當陽光再次回到那　飄著雨的國境之南
我會試著把那一年的故事　再接下去說完
當陽光再次離開那　太晴朗的國境之南
妳會不會把妳曾帶走的愛　在告別前用微笑全歸還
海很藍　星光燦爛　我仍空著我的臂彎
天很寬　在我獨自唱歌的夜晚
請原諒我的愛　訴說的太緩慢

Cursory Translation of the lyrics of [ South of The Border ] (copied from this site)

If the sea could murmur

The wind fall in love with sands

If my missing were left alone in a long vacation

I would listen to waves whisper

Let the breeze gently swim through my hair

And let the love in my memory be roaring in tides of time

Only when spring goes away will summer be on its way

I wouldn't come to realize until I recalled the past days

When the sunshine once again returns to that drizzling south of the border

I will try to finish the unfinished story of that year

When the sunshine once again parts from that sunny south of the border

Will you give back the love you've taken by wearing a smile before leaving

Ocean is deep blue, and stars are shinning through

I've been still keeping my arms empty

Sky is far from sight, in my lonely singing night

Please forgive me, for conveying my love too slowly