HAPPY NEW YEAR

Just wanted to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! All the best in 2010 from us, Gio & Michelle!!!

SO ANGRY..... (updated...)

So it's 6:55pm on December 29th right now and at this moment I should be boarding a plane to BALI with my wife and friend for a fun filled week of sun, fun and ringing in the New year in Indonesia.

But I am at home, not on the plane. Why?

Turns out my Canadian Passport expires... IN SIX MONTHS... so they wont let me on the plane.

Yes, that's right, it is valid... for another 165 days or so but in Singapore, that means it's invalid. If it's less than six months to go on your passport, they won't let you fly.

Crazy.

So Michelle and Chad are off to Bali (against their wishes mind you, they wanted to stay but I wouldn't let them - no point in three vacations being ruined instead of one - the need of the many outweigh the need of the few or the one) to meet a bunch of our friends while I deal with the Canadian Consulate tomorrow morning.

Hopefully I will be there in 24-48 hours to ring in the new year with my wife and friends, otherwise this will be one lonely New Years Eve.

Will keep you posted.

DEC 30th UPDATE: So I went to the High Commission of Canada in Singapore this morning. According to the nice lady who helped me, a "Emergency Rush Passport" takes 4-5 Business Days (it takes under 24 hours if we were in Canada) and since I would have been back from my Bali trip before the 4-5 Business Days had come and gone, my Bali Vacation is not happening. No Vacation, No Refund, No Passport. Shitty end to the year for me and it will be a lonely start to the new one since virtually all my Sing friends are either in Taiwan or Bali or home for the holidays. Ah well, as they said in the BATMAN BEGINS... "why do we fall? So we might learn to pick ourselves up". The new passport has been applied for and paid for and hopefully will arrive in 15 business days or so. Live & Learn!

MERRY XMAS FROM SINGAPORE

Well, it's our first christmas away from home and it's safe to say, it's a unique experience. CHRISTMAS IN SINGAPORE is warm & muggy but still festive. Nothing closes but everywhere plays Christmas music while everyone wishes you "a Merry Christmas". Despite wearing shorts and flip flops, you can't help but feel just a little of that ol' Holiday Spirit.

For Christmas Eve, we went for a great potluck Dinner at Aamir & Denise's place. There were about 12 of us and the food was fantastic, Aamir made Turkey & Homemade Egg Nog, Michelle busted out her incredible Lime Shortbread Cookies and I introduced Singapore to my Maple-Dijon Ham (six Christmases in a row now) and we all passed out on the couch thanks to a massive food coma, it was a nice way to spend the evening. The next day, we opened presents (Michelle got perfume, I got Scotch Glasses & a Boba Fett Bobblehead), we ate Blueberry French Toast, skyped with the families and watched some Love Actually (Michelle's favorite Xmas Movie). We then got ready and headed for a giant Xmas Day Feast at Heather & Roman's. There were about 20 people there and the star of the show was Heather's fantastic Bacon-wrapped Turkey. After dinner I read "the Night Before Christmas" for the kids and then we were all visited by a barefoot, red wine drinking, Australian Santa Claus who handed out presents to everyone. It was surreal.

We miss our friends, we miss our family and we miss our dogs but Christmas in Singapore was a very cool experience and we are lucky to have made some great, new friends to help us ring in the holidays in our new hometown! Pics from the Holidays HERE!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

MT. FUJI AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON ME!

With only a few days notice from work, I was headed to SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009 in JAPAN and boy am I glad I went, Japan is awesome!

Siggraph is a technical conference and it's the first one I've ever been to, according to repeat attendees this was a small one but still cool. 3-D Technology seems to be all the rage and Motion Capture has taken a large leap forwards since my Mainframe days (remember kids, I was the mocap actor for Kingpin!) but a lot of the lectures were in Japanese without translation so that was a bust. On the plus side, I had coffee with THE creator of Pokemon, had a studio tour of Bandai-Nameco and hung out in the Audio Department with the Soul Calibur team. We attended one "event party" thrown by Polygon Pictures which made Bobby and I laugh. Why? Well as the two Canadians there, there was a point where we both had cans of beer, standing next to a river in the freezing cold and we thought, man, it's like partying back home. All in all, I wish the translation possibilities were better so I could have ingested more information but Siggraph was still a cool experience.

Japan on the other hand was even cooler. It was my first time in the land of the Rising Sun and despite the cold weather (0 degrees most days - a big change from 33 in Singapore), we tried to see as much of Tokyo and Yokohama (where Siggraph was) as possible. The subway system is a ridiculous maze of anarchy that somehow makes sense once you eventually figure it out, the streets are always busy, every restaurant seems packed all the time, the food good, the sights amazing and I can sum it all up in one word: EXPENSIVE!

Man is Japan expensive. just to step into a taxi is $8CDN, a subway ride costs between $2 & $6CDN and you have to subway everywhere. Most meals start at about $20CDN and that's without booze, which by the way, also start at about the same price. Unless you go local and that's what we tried to do most of the time. We tried to eat at little Yakitori stalls which serve Chicken, Pork, Veggies and organ meat on sticks grilled over a little BBQ. Very tasty and cheap (full meal of 6 sticks plus a beer for $17CDN). I guess you could eat at McDonalds if you wanted but you don't come to Japan for McDonalds BUT if you feel like a fast food burger, try a MOS Burger. Think of it as a Japanese McDonalds with uniquely Japanese fast food!

Despite the prices, it is still an awesome place to see with so much to do. All the sections of Tokyo are cool and different with crazy big stores, small underground bars, quaint little restaurants and blinking lights everywhere. From the busy intersections of Shibuya, to the quint hang-outs in Shimo-kitazawa, to the technical monstrosity of Akihabara, to the kooky shops of Harajuku. Tokyo truly is the basis for Los Angeles in Blade Runner. Sometimes I would get weird looks from the older Japanese people as to why I was in certain areas or whatnot but the younger generation of people were quite warm and welcoming. All in all an awesome experience and one I can't wait to have again but with Michelle along for the ride.

Here's a link to all the Japan PICS from last week!

CATCHING UP ON PIX

We just realized that it's been a long time since we've done a PHOTO UPDATE, so here are some links for you to enjoy:

• General pics from SEPTEMBER '09
• Some of our adventures from OCTOBER '09
• Remember, remember, it's time for NOVEMBER '09!
• BARB & BRETT have moved to Singapore!!!
• Who doesn't love HOT WINGS!!!
• A few more selfies from CORSIWORLD!
• FOOD! FOOD! Glorious food!

THE LAS DINNER & DANCE

We attended the official work Christmas Holiday party known as the D&D (Dinner & Dance) which was a great event held at the Indochine Waterfront at Boat Quay. The majority of staff and their partners dressed to the nines and a good time was had by all. Here's one of the "official photographer" pics from the event (doesn't Michelle look great?)... fantastic way to start this warm Holiday Season!!!

HELLO HO CHI MINH

I have to admit, I had no real knowledge of VIETNAM other than the things I've learned from television (China Beach) and movies (Apocalypse Now, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Chuck Norris Vs. Everything) so when Michelle first suggested going to there, I said "no". Honestly it wasn't very high on my list, I had no desire, even when it's only 2 hours away it still didn't excite me. I asked a few people at work about it and everyone spoke very highly about it but when Wayne mentioned that Ho Chi Minh City has one of the 10 best Hamburgers in the world located there, I started to get interested. We found an extremely good flight and hotel rate so finally I said, "what the hell" and with our friends BARB & BRETT, we chose to visit HO CHI MINH CITY.

First off, Ho Chi Minh is pure chaos, there's 10 million people there and 8 million scooters. Nobody seems to follow any type of road rules and somehow it works: people drive, people ride and people walk without following any sort of laws or structure and it all works. The ride to the Hotel from the Airport took over an hour (it was during Rush hour), for the record, the ride to the airport from the hotel on Sunday afternoon took 20 minutes.

We stayed in District 1 which was an awesome central location, we saw some of the classic sights like the Jade Pagoda, the Reunification Hall, the Rex Hotel, Ben Thanh Market and the eerie Cu Chi Tunnels, they were all cool! The Market was massive and filled with some of the most aggressive sales people I have ever come across. (You buy t-shirt!!!). The Tunnels were a bit spooky as was the cab ride there when the cabbie stated, "oh yeah, this area, VC and America fight everyday, many battles"... hmm, now its a farm and a coffee shop. The Rex Hotel was cool but what made it even better was the Vietnamese Flamenco Band that sung "Hotel California"... what a trip.

Like I said Ho Chi Minh is crazy, it's alive, vibrant, filled with dilapidated buildings and there is construction everywhere. The people are extremely friendly and the food is dynamite, we ate Pho twice and had two great Vietnamese dinners which were out of this world. As for the "world famous" Burger joint? We found it!

Black Cat Burger is somewhat of a legend on this side of the world. In 2006, CNN stated that it was "one of the ten best hamburgers in the world," pretty heavy praise. Some of my co-workers have eaten there and they all concur that it truly is a great Hamburger, so we ofcourse had to try it... three times. I can honestly say that it was a great Hamburger, I had one called the Blues Brother which came with Blue Cheese and Bacon and I loved it. Michelle had a BBQ Burger on Rye which was also excellent. The breakfasts were also tasty, as was the Soft-Shell Crab Spicy Sandwich but I must admit that the Fish Sandwich was a little bland. Overall, I loved it and I don't know if it was the "best" burger I have ever eaten but it definitely was one of the better ones.

So all in all, I am happy I went to Vietnam and got to visit a uniquely crazy city like Ho Chi Minh, next year we will check out Hanoi but for now, you can see the pics from our weekend HERE!