OK, quite bye but not yet, cellphone

Finally, the plan about my cellphone is that I will get a Xoom 4g lte and switch my at&t server to Verizon for the network. At the same time, I am gonna choose the lowest data usage plan. Most of the time with my Xoom will be using WIFI.

Okey-dokey. A little bit of final hesitation before I make the purchase...

So long, cellphone!

After using Google voice for a couple of months, I made a decision. Bye, AT&T and other cellphone companies. At this point, there are enough free WIFI around. I am definitely not interested in 3G provided by MIFI because every server charges 50$ per month for 5GB of usage, over 5, 10$ per GB.

That means, I am going into a phase to merge with WIFI fully. It is interesting to think about all the empires of technology. Apple turned the market to its favor by iPod, iPhone, and all the other i-Gadgets. Google has unlimited online storage place for pretty much everything. Google's existence made the fee to Microsoft Office absolutely unnecessary. Because of the free space, Google is holding a huge deal of information. The power for good??? I wonder.

A few days ago, I read the news about facebook in Germany. The power of facial recognition is scary. Like what J and I talked about, witness protection? When I think about satellite image(a huge amount of data), can anyone really hide? Maybe we will never look up to the sky anymore. How about other cameras? We may be randomly tagged in pictures we are not aware of. It could be good to monitor the public figures. I, myself, probably don't like to be exposed that much...

Anyways, I so far like Google, still. I am sick of backing-up my documents. If there is an unlimited online space for me to store everything, sure, I will save everything there. Go for the traditional ways if we want privacy, save it in the brain!

Now, I am having a headache deciding which tablet or chromebook I want. I am definitely getting an Android or Google related thing because I want to use Google for everything. Acer's chromebook is to my liking, but the battery life isn't sweet. Other than chrome. Xoom and HTC both look pretty good to me. I've thought about getting an iPad but all the Apples need to sync with iTune and it's not really convenient to a PC user like me. I don't need huge storage place as long as I have online access or the possibility of adding it to a SD card.

Any suggestions?

Canada 2011~ 6 Hard work before the hot spring

              Well, J had to make me walk a lot more than I was used, too. So far, the technique of food(steak and ice cream) worked very well. He would constantly ask me if I need beef jerky and etc. And that was the picture of me eating a huge piece of meat viciously.

              After the second night in Jasper, I woke up with my face half swollen. My face was so ugly that I didn't even want to look at myself. The mosquitoes in Jasper really got me well. After J woke up, he was shocked, too. We both figured that it may be necessary to use a bug net.

       I was sure that on the way up, I must have freaked many people out by my bug net. There were also several people recognizing how this net works. People asked me whether this net is working or not. It worked pretty well. After I put the net on my face, I didn't record having any more bug bites. I was definitely slow on this trip. Hiking 6 or more hours a day everyday finally caught up. Every step was torturing. It was extra difficult when I saw people going to the hot spring in Pocahontas. J knew how to make me feel better. He put everything on his shoulder.

        On this day three, we've learned our routine. After getting to the point the trail ends on the map, we go for the summit. This day wasn't rainy but the temperature on the mountain varied so much by the clouds. You can see people dressing in any season on the mountain. We were all confused by how to adapt to the weather. After we conquered the summit, J started to take pictures from every angle. There was this family on the summit. The parents were telling me how the young girls dislike the hiking. I told them that I was on the same boat except the love to ice cream and steak kept me going. I helped them take a family picture and they took a picture for us as well.

         On the summit, there were a ton of chipmunks/squirrels!? That was one of them. They kept performing tricks and hoped for some free food.

          We must have spent a good hour on the summit. Finally I dragged J down and we prepared for the hot spring. There were people from all over the world. Hot spring is very popular in Asia. I heard all different dialects and languages from Asia there. I challenged J to go to the extremely cold pool right after the extremely hot one. It was very exhilarating. We both felt like our skin getting poked by needles everywhere. After the procedure twice, J finished himself after the cool pool and decided to just chill out. I enjoyed the hot spring once more and prepared to head out.

           While I was in women's locker room, I realized that there were girls who wore underwear in the pool instead of swimming suit. That was very interesting. I quickly showered, finally, after 3 days without any shower. I was sitting in the lobby waiting for J. Just at that moment, the guys next to me started to chat in Italian. They were teasing each other for jumping out so soon. Right in front of us came a few more Asian girls. Those Italian men started to guess where those girls are from. That was when I said Chinese in Italian. They were definitely all stuttering at that moment (realizing all their garbage talk fully understood by an Asian looking girl). We had a nice little chat in Italian and they told me that they were talking about how beautiful I am, blah blah blah, yeah right...

            I shared the story with J. And we head out to take some pictures of sheep. We drove back to Jasper for dinner, gas and some ice cream. I had some delicious steak, and J had a nice burger. We looked at their own brewery menu but J wasn't convinced to try any.

             We went back to the campsite and got fire for the night. It was beautiful.

Canada 2011~ 5 Maligne Lake

Our second day in Jasper was to visit Lake, Maligne. With the mountain guy, J, of course, climbing up is always the first step. Soon after I got into the mountain, my face was occupied by all kinds of bugs. The bug bites were on the edge of the hat.

There were a ton of marmots, chipmunks, and squirrels on the way. The weather wasn't very good. We could see clouds everywhere. People had been telling us that it had been raining days since they got in Canada. J knew how much I hate getting rained on. We wrapped myself in water proof stuff. On the way, he kept asking me how I am, and the answer was, "invincible"!

We climbed up once again to the end of the map, and once again, there was more to the summit. It was the interesting thing about how different J and I feel. I always wondered if it was because of the feeling of conquering another summit to keep J moving forward and fast. For me, the summits all look the same, and I don't need to tackle every single one of them. One summit in an area is good enough for my little mind.

Maligne was this long gorgeous lake. The guide in the information center told us that people usually take the boat to the center of the lake for one famous tourist shot! That was probably why we didn't do that. In general, neither J and I am crazy about getting crowded with people...

On the way back to the campsite, we saw a caribou(Later we learned that it may just be an elk), and a bear not very far from the campsite eating berries on the side of the road. We took a few pictures and drove back to our camp post. After cooking some deliciousness, J and I were ready to have a feast. In the middle of it, J spat the words quietly, "a bear"! We stood up and stared at the bear. It was just a living room away. He was so quiet eating the berries around. I would have not noticed the bear if Jared weren't there. The bear didn't care about us at all. It smoothed its way up and disappeared. J and I felt relieved and quickly finished our dinner. I told our neighbor about the bear encounter and she looked definitely worried.

Canada 2011~ 4 Wabasso Campsite

After the first hike on Mount Edith, we finally came to our campsite. In the national park area, everyone greets you in both English and French to find out which language you feel more comfortable with. The registration lady had a high and sweet tone in her voice. She told us about the bears people had seen in the campsite, "They are behaving themselves. They were just eating berries from places to places." After freaking out a little bit, we drove to our campsite.

The campsite was full of people all over the world. Surprisingly, we discovered many German campers in the park. Soon after we set up the tent, J started to work on our dinner. We had the curry pack and some instant noodles. After dinner, we had our little walk around the campsite. The river was milky white. It was chilly out. J was trying out his tripod with remote control for long exposure. The pictures came out blue and dreamy.