We’re in Taipei, Taiwan for a 3 hour layover on our way back home. What an amazing trip. There was so much to see and do that I never had time to update the blog, but plan to post more pix and video once we’re back.
I hear there was/is snow in Seattle – that’s going to be a brutal re-entry!
- brendon
After a long, long, long travel day, we arrived in the craziest, most intense city I’ve ever been in. Actually, the trip over was pretty easy as we took the red eye and were able to sleep most of the way. That and the personal digital players make the time go by quickly. Nothing like watching helicopters and planes get blown up in Die Hard 4 and Transformers to soothe any flying jitters you may have!
Anyways, back to Bangkok. You have to have some serious stones to drive in this town. The yellow lines are merely a suggestion, and one that no one seems to take seriously. Two lanes can actually fit four (two cars, a scooter and a tuk tuk), and the center lane is a quick way to duck around pesky traffic jams, on-coming traffic be damned. Tuk tuk’s are basically three wheeled open air go carts with a bench in the back.
Half the vehicles on the road are tuk tuk’s and scooters, and between them zig zagging in and out of traffic, and pedestrians sprinting to get across the street, you feel like you’re participating in a live action version of Frogger. It’s nuts, and you can only pray to the lucky buddha that you’ll get to your destination intact. So far so good!
We saw a lot of amazing live music this summer, but hands down the best show for me was Roger Waters in Vancouver in June. Former front man for Pink Floyd, he was playing a three hour show, with the second half featuring a start to finish live version of their classic album, Dark Side of the Moon.
The tickets were an early bday gift from my dad, and we were meeting him and Joan at the show. My dad was the one who actually turned me on to Pink Floyd, I remember looking at the album cover for the Wall when he would play it, probably cause it was animated and had some weird looking characters.
We took off after work and arrived 30 minutes into the show (the drive took about three hours, the border gods — aka Canadian customs — were not in our favor) and found our seats, about three rows from the top of GM Place. We found out about the show late and were lucky to get tickets at all, and there was huge video screen behind the stage so even the nosebleed seats had a decent view.
As so often happens with my dad, sometimes things just sort of work out. As he and Joan were walking to their seats, an usher asked them if they would like to trade their tickets for almost front row seats. Of course, they thought it was a scam and too good to be true, but it was for real. Apparently they wanted the seats up front to be full for when the video cameras swept across the audience, and for whatever reason these were extra tickets. So during the intermission we moved up front and it was amazing! You can see below how close we were – here’s some video we shot with Gloria’s camera.
- brendon
Comfortably Numb
Another Brick in the Wall
We decided to give this cyber diary thing a go, hopefully you’ll find it interesting and a way to keep up with what’s going on in our busy lives. Now all we need to do is find time to actually update it!
- brendon
 | Val Vogt on Bangkok: first impression… |
 | ardentdays on Roger Waters in Vancouver |
