Okay, so I'm back at home.  Things I have learned:
- Vancouver is hella boring, especially when compared to Europe and Asia.
- Vancouver people are stuck-up, compared to the rest of the world.  Sure enough, I am not imagining this!
- The HK people I talked to are right.  Vancouver is a nice place to retire, but Asia is the place to be if you want a dynamic lifestyle.
- Beer here is EXPENSIVE ><

So now the question is whether I want to remain in Vancouver, or immigrate to Guangzhou and begin a brand new future.  Kind of a scary prospect, now I know how my parents felt when they dropped everything in Hong Kong and started a new life in Vancouver from scratch.  *sigh*

Let's see what else has happened.

I got a new cell phone.  Yeah, normally I don't care about these things, but Fido decided not to give me back my old plan (even after being with them for 3 years ).  Okay, they would, but they wanted another $10/mo.  That would push my plan to about $53/month when it was all said and done.  So I talked to my buddy at Bell and he hooked me up with a corporate plan, and now have more features AND minutes, for only $29/mo.  The reason why I held off all this time was that it was only recently that Canada got the ability to port numbers between carriers (I did not want to lose my number).  I took the cheapest phone they had (as usual ), which is the Samsung SPH-M500.  Wow, this thing is not "cheap" at all.  Bluetooth, MicroSD slot, built in MP3, dual displays... next to the baozi in China, this is the best $ I've spent in a long time.   The best part is that this thing is smaller than my 6-year old Sony Ericsson T200, one of the reasons I never bothered upgrading (and dealt with the hordes of people making fun of me over the years) was that very few phones could fit better in my pocket.  The Samsung is actually smaller in all dimensions.  Yikes.  I  Samsung.  (they also made my MP3 player)

I installed a CD changer in my car.  Yes, after 3 years, I am no longer stuck with only a tape deck.  Yes I did have a car tape adapter hooked up to my mp3 player for those long drives, but the sound never quite came out right (left channel was too soft, no bass etc).  Wow, the same songs on a CD come alive now.  Saved $1000 (what the dealer wanted to charge; I got the parts for $200USD, labour was free ) too.  Awesome!  Anybody for some Thai music?  This. stuff. is. actually. better. than. Chinese. music.  Yeah, Thailand out of all places, wtf haha.

Over the weekend I saw 2 movies: Life Free or Die Hard (they call it Die Hard 4.0 in Asia), and Ocean's 13.  So, let's do the reviews.

DH4 is crazy.  Non-stop action.  Somehow Lt. McClane pulls off this entire movie without saying the f-word once.  The plot is pretty good, though sometimes you have to feel bad for the villian and why he made the decision to pull off his plot...  And some of the stunts are pretty original.  Realism is questionable sometimes, but wow.  As an added bonus, Maggie Q is hot

The verdict: Theatre.  Plenty of explosions.  SilverCity recommended.

Ocean's 13 is another keeper.  Not as much drama as Ocean's 11 (I never saw 12 by the way) as it was obvious this movie was not tied to an older movie or a book.  The plan this time is pretty crazy, but it actually looks doable.  I think the hotel (where the movie takes place) is fictional though.

I love that Chinese acrobat guy, especially when he's yelling in Mandarin (and of course there are no subtitles)

The verdict: Theatre/Rental.  Good clean fun for everyone.  It's worth the movie ticket/rental fee.