Kuan Yee Han’s Blog

I visited the beautiful Lake Tahoe during Thanksgiving. It is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains of the United States. It is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevada. The lake is known for the clarity of its water and the panorama of surrounding mountains on all sides. The area surrounding the lake is also referred to as Lake Tahoe, or simply Tahoe. It is home to a number of ski resorts, summer outdoor recreation, and tourist attractions.

Visit the official site here

During ski season, thousands of people from all over Nevada and California, including Las Vegas, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, flock to the slopes for some of the best skiing in the world. Lake Tahoe, in addition to its panoramic beauty, is well known for its blizzards. I went to Lake Tahoe for Thanksgiving with a group of UC Berkeley students. Unfortunately, the snow season this year was a bit late (Is it due to global warming? Maybe). So, we were hoping for the real snow fall but none came. Our consolation was that we have artificial snow to snowboard.

Some of the major ski areas in Tahoe include:

- Heavenly Mountain Resort: the largest ski area in California and Nevada, located near Stateline, Nevada
- Squaw Valley: the second largest ski area, known for its hosting of the 1960 Winter Olympics, located near Tahoe City
- Northstar at Tahoe: a popular north shore ski area (This was the place that we went to. Spent about $66 for the snowboard full rental as well as the gondola ride)

It was my first time snowboarding. Luckily there were some friends who taught us how to snowboard. First timer should take lessons otherwise you’ll keep falling and hurting your butt. Nevertheless, it was a great experience and I’ll snowboard again. Maybe skiing next time.

Besides snow sports, Lake Tahoe offers a spectacular view. Emerald Bay is one of the best place for sight seeing. There are other places like King’s Beach (I didn’t go to this one).

In one of the mornings, I joined a group of people to watch sunrise. It wasn’t a good idea though. The temperature was -7 C but it felt like -15 C because of the strong wind. My friend’s tripod was nearly blown down. Guess what, three layes of clothes including thermal wear didn’t help much. Ten people went to watch sunrise but we only had a car to ferry people around. Other car owners were still sleeping because we left at around 5.45am. I was one of the first to reach and last to leave. Brrr… It’s not a good idea unless you have cars to sit in to block the wind. The sunrise view in the photo below. Worth it to be out in the cold for almost two hours?

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I feel that this is a ground breaking innovation by Amazon. You can now read your books without having to get hold of the hard copy and better still, it’ll be much cheaper and easier. There are a lot of innovation on creating electronic papers and books but this product from Amazon is definitely something great. Kindle is designed to provide an exceptional reading experience. Thanks to electronic paper, a revolutionary new display technology, reading Kindle’s screen is as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper—and nothing like the strain and glare of a computer screen. Kindle is also easy on the fingertips. It never becomes hot and is designed for ambidextrous use so both “lefties” and “righties” can read comfortably at any angle for long periods of time.

For those book lovers, this product would be a good buy as you don’t have to carry your books around. At 10.3 ounces, Kindle also has long battery life. It seems like it’s a timely gift for Christmas. I would hope to have one but I’m a bit ‘cheapskate’ and I wouldn’t keep buying books from Kindle Store. I’ll just borrow from my friends or from the library.

Some of the Product Highlights:
* Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
* Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.
* Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
* More than 88,000 books available, including 100 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers.
* New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
* Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
* Holds over 200 titles.
* Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
* No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments—we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.
* Includes free wireless access to the planet’s most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.
* Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.

However, I’m not sure if this will change the behavior of reading. Definitely the environmental groups will be supportive of Kindle. But some people just like the feel of holding the physical book right in front of you. Will this be the tipping point? Anyway, I’m wondering if Google is coming out with the G-book?

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Halloween in the US is very different from what I have experienced all the while. I mean I never really celebrate Halloween back home. 31 October is just like any other day. No costume, no trick-or-treat, nothing particular. But it’s all different here. People are rushing to buy costumes and some even spent hundreds of dollars for their costumes and make ups. Hoping to see this culture from where I come from? I guess not for the next 10 years.

On Halloween day, while we were in our house, there were kids came knocking on our door for Trick-or-treat. And guess what? We didn’t prepare any candies or chocolates. At first we gave them the biscuit packets that we had. But there were more kids came knocking. There was once when there were about 15 kids outside our doorstep! Here are some cute ones. I simply adore this little girl in lion costume. She is so sweet. =) I suppose you’ll agree too, wouldn’t you?

Our household also dress up in all sort of costumes. Check out the photos below. Can you figure out what costume I’m in?

We went to San Francisco to celebrate Halloween. We went to Ruby Skye. This year, there was no major celebration in Castro Street because there were some people who got shot last year. To prevent the violence from happening again, the city authorities canceled the celebration. Nevertheless, the action didn’t dampened the spirit of Halloween. There were still a lot people dressing up. In fact, there were people who dressed up in their costumes to work and to school. You’ll see different people in costumes driving around too.

It was an interesting experience and when you are with the crowd, not wearing a costume will definitely make you look ‘weird’.

I was indulged in the Halloween spirit when I went to one of the supermarket here for some groceries shopping. Then I chanced upon the Halloween segment. There were costumes, decorations, toys, candies, etc. That was like two weeks before Halloween but all the costumes are 70% gone. I started to search for some costume stores online, hoping to see something affordable and nice. Here are the few online stores that I visited.

Party City Store
Party America Store
Spirit Halloween Store

Or you can purchase from Amazon.

The prices are about the same for the three stores. Some may be cheaper than the other so you’ll have to figure out yourself. I wanted to get one but I didn’t get any in the end. I went to the store on the day before Halloween so most of the nice costumes are long gone. So, if you plan to get a costume, you should get it earlier. If not, get it after the Halloween. Some stores give up to 50% off for the costumes. Invest now for next year’s event.

What an eventful Happy Halloween!

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