sunny

Sunny and I were elementary school classmates from grade three through grade six. He was a typical bouncy perky kid of his age, if a little more on the wild side, with a mother who's a bit on the over-worried side, that a well behaving, good grade earning kid like me became a "role model" she wanted her son to "hang out" with, in today's term, which he did, as he genuinely liked and admired me, even though he later confessed in our adult years that there were times he told his mother that he's with me just so she wouldn't worry when he's actually out somewhere else playing.

We went to different high schools and universities, but stayed in touch as occasions kept us to. One such occasion was when I asked him to be my courtesy door-knocker before I started dating my future wife who happened to go to the same department/university as he. He did it and would be forever claiming credit for the pivotal role he played in the successful union between me and my wife!

He came to the US about the same time I did, went back to Taiwan after finishing his study, then back to the US again a few years later and settled down not too far from where I lived in South Orange County. He told me he was doing well working for one of those up-and-coming furniture companies in Taiwan until he realized there were irreconcilable differences in business thinking between him and his boss/owner of the company that he decided to come to the USA to strike out on his own .

Strike out did he! From a humble home office with phones and fax machines pre internet times, he built a multi-million dollar business empire that owns factories and offices in China and Vietnam, Taiwan and US, in a short couple decades right in front of my eyes!
 
He's not your typical Fortune 500 slick talking CEO, but an old fashioned head-of-the-family boss that took care of his workers and they in return stayed loyal to him. The lady secretary he hired when he started his home office is still with the company, so are managers of the factories he took over decades ago.

Once he overheard a customer talking abusively to one of his employees and he grabbed the phone and told the customer if he continued to talk like that they didn't want their businesses.

He had a trademark sunny smile that lit up the room and charmed the people he met, and a pair of sparkling eyes that seemed to reveal where his artistic furniture design ideas and business smarts came from.

He spent almost half his time overseas, but we managed to stay in touch throughout the years: Winter mountain outing with his wife and kids when they were little, birthday/Christmas parties, golf rounds, country club dinners, or just some happy hour drinks at his office when he had long stay in Southern California.   

He was diagnosed with terminal stage brain cancer about five years ago. Though it came as a shock initially, with the extraordinary care of his super wife and top notch surgeon doctors, and their strong Christian faith, he made it through two major surgeries, various therapies and treatments, and had a miraculous recovery when doctors projected he had only three months to live after his second surgery more than four years ago.

He'd lived a healthy, functional life for the past four years. Even though in a wheelchair, he traveled to his factories in Vietnam for year-end celebration banquets, his son's graduation in San Francisco, and daughter's wedding in Italy.

He donated more money and sponsored more Christian ministries, including setting up summer camps in his factories in China and Vietnam for his employees and their families to spread the Gospel and be its witness.

I got to meet him more often, at the monthly women's ministry his wife organized and my wife helped out at his office in Irvine, and functional/fundraiser meetings for the ministry we both sponsored.

His smile was as sunny as ever, if not warmer and gentler, with an avuncular ring to it.

His cancer relapsed early this year, and he passed away just last week here in Taipei.

Farewell Sunny, my dear childhood friend forever... You've become the role model for many... See you on the other side.

an accident

I had been driving a Toyota Highlander for over 5 years. Happy with it, everything ran smooth and swell, and I kept it in great shape, as if I would keep it forever. I might as well do, except I met my childhood friend Sunny one day last month when he came back from his factories in China and Vietnam and asked me for a little get-together at his office.

“Sell me your car,” he practically yelled at me when he saw me and my Highlander. Why? “This car is ideal for my factory in Vietnam. It’s a 7-seater, in good shape, isn’t it?” he said. “I’ll pay you Kelley's Blue Book full price for it,” he added.

My first reaction was bewilderment and rejection: Why would I part with my good, old-but-still-shiny-looking, reliable SUV and replace it with… what? I have to admit, when it comes to cars, I am not one of those who always dream of or plan on what their next fancy one would be.

But a thought had snuck into my mind. Long story short, I started shopping for a new car after I confirmed with Sunny I would sell and he would buy my Highlander to export to Vietnam as he proposed, and finally landed my eyes on and purchased a BMW X3, a “German engineered” cross-over that brings back the driving sensation I used to have with a Mercedes I owned a few years ago. The funny twist of event was my Highlander ended up not sold to Sunny, because the Vietnamese government told us at the last minute that they won’t allow import of any cars older than 5 years (and mine was just 3 months over the edge), but traded in to the BMW dealer I bought my X3 from.

All is dandy and fun, nonetheless. I enjoy the handling and the bells and whistles that come with a new car, and my wife loves the look and the nice LED lights that automatically shine up before doors are opened.

Then a couple of weekends ago, we had a little party at our home with some friends of new and old, and we decided to go to the nearby beach for a stroll. I had in my new BMW full load of 4 ladies. Yakety merrily they chatted all the way, and just a couple of blocks before we reached our destination, on an ascending slope of the busy Pacific Coast Highway, the car gave up on me: All of a sudden I lost power, it couldn’t accelerate, and started slowing down. Within seconds all I could do was veer the car to the left-turn lane, where it stopped completely, and the navigation screen lit with the message “Drive train malfunction…”

My friend, who drove another car following me with another full load of people, called me from his cell, asking me what’s going on. I told him I had car trouble and asked him to drop off his passengers at the beach park ahead then come back to pick up mine. Then I pressed the “SOS” button on the headliner right above my driver seat, pretty James-Bond-movie like, and made an “Emergency Request” call, as the complimentary BMW road side assistance service is named.

The BMW operator got online right away and identified me and my vehicle and where I was, then instructed me to stay there for a tow truck to come in about 30 minutes.

A Good Samaritan on his bike approached me and asked if I could put the car in neutral gear so he could help push it out of the middle of the road. “Otherwise those cars are going to hit you from behind,” he said, pointing to the phalanx of vehicles whooshing by. Unfortunately the gear wouldn’t shift because it’s electronically locked dead already, so I thanked him and he left. A police patrol came minutes later, and after a few friendly chats with me, understanding what happened, he summoned another police car, whose officer had on his uniform inscribed “Community Service” and started putting those little red fiery torches on the road to block out the lane, potentially preventing cars from hitting me and my car…

I got a call the next day from the BMW dealership where my car was towed. “What was wrong with your car?” he asked. I told him it quit on me right in the middle of the road and the engine wouldn’t run and the transmission wouldn’t shift. “Well it’s running perfectly fine here now after I put a couple gallons of gas in its tank,” said the worker. I couldn't believe it. The car’s fuel was at its tank bottom yesterday, as its gauge indicated, I knew, and though I thought about refueling it in the morning I got side tracked and decided to do it later, as often the case. But could it be as simple a cause as that? Don’t the gauges usually lie when it tells you you have no gas in the tank when in fact you still have a good one or two gallons left to go for another 20, 30 miles or so?

I picked up my X3 and told my friend about this the next day. He laughed and postulated maybe it was indeed the case: that my car was running very low on fuel, and when it went on an uphill climb as happened that day, it had trouble siphoning up the fuel from the tank due to the tilt, therefore it died.

The above picture was taken by the young community service police officer who spread the safety torches on the road for me. I joked with him that if I post this photo on my Facebook or Twitter page, “it would be bad publicity for BMW,” and he laughed in total agreement with me. But no, BMW, I bear no ill will against you and am still in love with my new X3, and your emergency service is every bit you advertise it to be. Just hope I won't have to use it any more.

I have to apologize to those ladies in my car for the scare, though. But rest assured, I had already got my earful of condemnation from my wife, even for the yet to be 100% proven theory that the cause of this (unnecessary) accident was due to the negligence on my part!

a little trip

We drove north to the Bay Area to a high school friend of mine Michael's home the week before last, stayed there overnight, then went to visit another high school friend Joseph who was recuperating from a cancer surgery and a couple of chemo treatments since early this year. Joe was my best friend in high school who drew me to Christian faith in Taiwan. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just last August. Shocking news to us all and I'd wanted to visit him but could not until now. He looked even thinner than his usual thin self and was still adjusting his diet trying to gain back weight but seemed very well taken care of by his wife and hired help and in good spirit. We had long, vigorous conversations (wearing masks, at their yard outdoors) for the whole morning, before finally bidding farewell and wishing him a smooth recovery and left. 

We then drove northeast to a little rural town in inland California for a wedding. It was for the son of my best friend from elementary school Sunny who passed away almost three years ago. It was a lodge in the woods with a little pond, volleyball, mini-golf fields, pine trees and lawn, etc., a modest but relaxing environment. We stayed there for two nights, attending the pre-wedding rehearsal dinner the first night, then taking a stroll in the woods, attending the wedding ceremony and the reception dinner party the second day. It was a very happy occasion. We knew the young couple for some time (they'd dated for over seven years), but met the bride's family and friends for the first time. All very nice, folksy people. I was also impressed by the maturity the son had become and how blessed this marriage looked to be, and happy for Sunny who must be looking down in heaven smiling.

We then drove back to Michael's home in the Bay Area again, and had dinner with him and his wife and another college/high school friend in the area, Ching-Cheng. Ching-Cheng was one of the early achievers to the monumental "Grand-Pa" status ("做人成公") among our class, whose cap-headed picture at his grand child's birthday party inspired me to create and make "Come Spring Again" hats (回春帽) for all our classmates a few years ago. His knowledge broad-span and witticism entertained us as usual, but nothing soothed my ears more this time than hearing him say that new studies had found high cholesterol levels do not cause harm to Asian males...

Michael took us to a grand dim-sum restaurant for early lunch before we left town the next day. I so admired this "side-kick" friend of mine since high school and his wife who had hardily and beautifully raised an autistic son and a wonderful daughter Carol whose wedding I just witnessed last year in New York City. Carol and Andrew, their new son-in-law, had planned and booked a joint vacation for them and Andrew's parents for the coming months in Canada...  The start of a rewarding second half of their life they well deserve, I could tell.

Happy Summer!

rhine river cruise

We've been thinking about taking a river cruise through Europe for some time, so when a good friend couple suggested we join them for a "Romantic Rhine" river cruise that they had signed up for some months ago we practically jumped on it without much weighing and dawdling like we normally would.

From the Alps

The cruise started at a little town northwest of Zurich, so we took flight from LA to Zurich a couple days early to take time touring the city and the country before the cruise got started. 

Zurich is a nice little big town nestled between a lake, two rivers and some wooded hills north of the Alps, wearing the crowns of one of the busiest financial centers and wealthiest cities in the world underneath its calm and classy setting. 

We strolled down from our cozy little hotel nearby Zurich University campus to visit the old town district with canals and bridges, shops and cathedrals, and had our first taste of bratwurst and fries at a popular local eatery we found through the Yelp mobile app.

   

We also took a one-day excursion to another tourist town in central Switzerland, got cabled up to a mountain for a May snow surprise, then an equally surprising scenic lake ride back.

   

Through the Bourg, Bergs, and Heims

Other than our first stop Strasbourg, which is located on the French side of the German-France border, the rest of our ports of call all lay in German territory. 

Besides the usual cathedrals and town centers with lively crowds in each of these little and big towns we walked by, we also got to sit down and sip beers at the sunny romantic Heidelberg; watched how the world's first printing press was set and done at Gutenberg Museum in Mainz; awed by the grandiose monument celebrating German unification some 150 years ago at a majestic hill side park overlooking Rudesheim; and enjoyed a true Black Forest cherry cake and coffee at--where else--the true Black Forest in southwestern Germany.

   

On the Rhine

A river cruise ship is a miniature ocean cruise liner. Instead of hosting two or three thousand people, it holds only 110 guests in our case, for example. 

What it cannot provide--such as casino or lavish stage shows--it tries to make up with fine services and finer entertainment programs. All our meals were of high quality ingredients and exquisite design and all dinners were served with complimentary wines. There was usual light jazz piano music at the lounge at night for dancing and one particular evening a string trio performance by 3 young upwardly mobile East European musicians was so extraordinarily good and touching it counted as one of the high-lights of our trip.

To the Lowlands

Amsterdam is the end point of our cruise. We took a canal tour around the city, then a bike ride in the afternoon that wound through the beautiful, serene country side of Holland, which is literally just one corner turn away from this bike-crazed metropolis.

We spent one extra day finishing up our street tour and visiting a museum that hosts master pieces of Dutch Golden Age maestros such as Vermeer and Rembrandt, and had a nice dinner at a nice little park next to our hotel with great tasting Belgium beer.

   


Back to the New Land

From the old we flew back to the New Amsterdam (the original name of Manhattan) the next day. Off the plane, I found the skies sunny blue instead of gloomy gray, streets wide and straight where pedestrian right of way reigns, the Statue of Liberty holding her torch on the gleamy harbor... Neil Diamond's "Coming to America" buzzing in my head...

We spent the next two days touring New York City, just like we did with those German towns and Zurich and Amsterdam, strolling through parks, going to restaurants, visiting museums... Big Apple seems to have them all, old and new, glamour and substance... Frank Sinatra's song lyrics "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere" buzzing in my head...

   

The Memorables

Besides our good friend couple (Sean & Sophie), Gohan and Jiafen were the other couple we traveled with. We met, ate, toured, and laughed a lot every day. One thing worth noting was Gohan is a recovering lung cancer patient who's still undergoing chemo therapy, yet we didn't see him hampered physically or emotionally in any way, but jolly and energetic all the time.  

We shared our faith and "family feud" mostly light-hearted, occasionally serious, but always progressively enlightening and helpful to each other.

Then when in New York, we met Sean & Sophie's daughter Tiffany who was engaging happily with her exciting new job and life here with a loving boy friend beside; and Angie, a dear friend of ours who looked just as chipper and charming as we last saw her some 4 and a half years ago. 

These were precious moments we came to enjoy, as much as or even more than the mountains and monuments, lakes and rivers, castles and cathedrals that we saw all through the trip!

    

* For more photos and details of the trip, please go to 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10206900410573930.1073741830.1387569224&type=1&l=d0e74b4d5f

if you are going to san juan capistrano (again)

In memory of a couple of guys I used to hike with, and in celebration of the spotless driving record I have kept since, this is a re-run of a writing I did 3 years ago:

Go down south on Interstate 5, get off at Ortega Highway, turn inland for about 7 and a half miles, you will see the Caspers Wilderness Park. Drive in, park your car, enjoy a great hiking with sunny California blue skies and rocky chaparral hills.

On your way back on Ortega Highway, go past the I-5, the first traffic light you'll meet is at a street named Del Obispo. Make a hurried left turn, drive a couple hundred yards down the road, turn right into a Sizzler Restaurant, enjoy a hearty salad bar lunch for only $6.99, if you call the manager by his name and told him you had called him earlier and he agreed to give you and your pals that special discount. 

Two weeks later you receive a letter from some P.O. Box in North Hollywood. It's an official looking paper with 4 color pictures in the center: 1) A driver with a hiking cap that looks like me; 2) The back sight of car with a license plate that looks like mine; 3) A blue Highlander (that looks like mine) right behind the demarcation line of a traffic intersection, with a left-turn light shining red on the corner; 4) That blue Highlander turning left in the middle of the intersection, with that same left-turn light still shining red. The heading of the letter says: NOTICE OF VIOLATION--Automated Red Light Enforcement System.

And that will cost you $366; $423 if you choose to go to the traffic school to avoid the penalty point.

So, like my wife chastised me with glee: What's the hurry, man. Slow it down, brothers, especially when you are in San Juan Capistrano, near the intersection of Ortega Highway and Del Obispo Street (see Google map: http://bit.ly/w5jYqo).

San Francisco (the song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehn516SMBzI&feature=related)

If you're going to San Francisco 

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair 

If you're going to San Francisco 

You're gonna meet some gentle people there 

                         . . .

San Juan Capistrano (Ivan, I am still waiting for you to sing this for me)If you're going to San Juan Capistrano

Be prepared to part some money there

If you're going to San Juan Capistrano

You're gonna meet some hidden camera there 

Time moves ever so stealthily... whiff... another 3 years have just gone by...

While retrieving this old writing of mine, I did some fact checking and found:

* The Sizzler at San Juan Capistrano is no longer--it closed business some time ago

* The San Francisco online video is still there, but preceded/shadowed with advertisement now

* And who would have thought, we just bought a new house in the city of San Juan Capistrano a couple weeks ago!

shape & essence

A few words that got through to me this morning when reading Oswald Chambers':

"When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls. There are many things calling each of us today. Some of these calls will be answered, and others will not even be heard. The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not ours."

"The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God."

Not to dispute the "SHAPE" approach that emphasizes on finding the kind of ministry work that fits your personality, spiritual gifts, experiences, etc., but I think the above does catch the essence of what a calling should be.

I hope you guys all had had a wonderful Christmas-New Year season. I am glad to see the beautiful blue sky and sunny landscape of Southern California again after my 5-plus week getaway to Taiwan and China. Are we ready to meet again this Saturday? Same time--8:30 AM, same place--at my home backyard. To celebrate my own home coming, I'll cook the breakfast for you guys--my self-styled omelette. "Come hungry, leave happy", as they say in the commercial. Just tell me whether you are coming or not, and I'll prepare the eggs, the sausages, the coffee as usual, and set the grill burning...

one weekend -- sunday

A fellow man forwarded me an email a few weeks ago about Saddleback Church planning on launching a worship service at an assisted living facility near where I live. I gave it some thought and signed up to be a volunteer and started going there a couple Sundays ago when that ministry did get started.

Last Sunday was the second time we gathered. Still the same volunteering people: A couple, Darrin and Bettyanne, a lady, Laura, and I. Ray Massey, the Saddleback Church pastor in charge of assisted living ministry planting, was there too, to walk us through the whole thing again.

It was a club room with a nominal capacity of 40 or so that they gave us for the service, but with the TV table, aisles and walkways they put in only a dozen chairs and last week we had more than 20 people showed up, so we rearranged and added a few more seats, prepared the name badges, the hymn booklets, the talk sheets, and gave them out to the seniors who came in, one by one, some on wheel chairs and one even with a care-giver sitting next by. 

It was my turn this time to be the music man, or as Ray introduced me to the audience, "David is our organist today," and I wiggled my index finger to them, indicating this is how I operate my instrument (the CD player), and they all laughed.

The hymns were all "oldies but goodies" classical gospel delights such as Amazing Grace, In the Garden, Rock of Ages, etc., that I actually enjoyed singing myself. After 4 or 5 songs, we played a session of Pastor Rick's Purpose Driven Life teaching for about 20 minutes, then sang hymns again for another 5-10 minutes, and the service was over.

I sat next to an old gentleman during the teaching. His eyes were practically closed throughout the teaching, but then at the end of the service I chatted with him.

"Where were you from," he asked, after a couple of exchanges. "Taiwan," I said. "I'd been there," he said. "Yeah?!" I was surprised. "When did you go there?" I asked. "During the War," he said. "The Vietnam War?"  "Yes, and World War II." Now I was really surprised. "Can you guess how old I am now," he smiled and asked. "World War II in the mid 1940's, you were at your early 20's then I suppose, so you must be over 90's now," I said. He smiled again. 

He said he was in the Air Force working on reconnaissance, I told him there were some photos taken by a US service man stationed in Taiwan during the 1960's that recently got published that created some sensation among many there...

"Are you all together," he asked, meaning if me and Darrin and Bettyanne and Laura and Ray were of the same group. "Yes we are all from Saddleback Church," I said. "Will you be back next week?" he asked, now he's not that sleepy old man any more but a wide-eyed young lad again. "I certainly will," I said.

In our little after-service on-the-spot stand-up circle conference, Ray again iterated that we are not here to dictate what and how the service should be "given" or do it in any standoffish way, but to get to know and share with these people who are precious individuals each with great life stories to tell, and we are free to make changes or hold activities as we see fit to that end, a philosophy I told Ray I totally concur and like.

Darrin and Bettyanne were quite active in their church in New Jersey and Bettyanne had led youth group there before they moved to California. She volunteered and we elected her to be the official contact for the group. She's quite excited about this ministry already and shared with us a few ideas she had to encourage involvement and interaction with the seniors she saw here just in the past two Sundays. 

I chatted a little more with them on the way out. Bettyanne told me one lady she sat next to during the singing did not need the hymn booklet but sang all the lyrics flawlessly, and with tears in her eyes. I told them I like singing too and--knowing Darrin plays guitar--maybe we can practice harmonic singing some of these songs and present them to the audience for their enjoyment, and who knows maybe that'll motivate them to form a choir group of their own some day. They both liked the idea.     

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday when we stepped outside the center.

****************************************************

A friend of mine pointed out the reference I made of some photos taken by a US service man stationed in Taiwan during the 1960's were actually for and during the late 1950's. He attached a Power Point compilation of those photos for me which I found more complete than any I had seen before and even better it comes with comments and notes explaining how and where those photos were taken.

So I polish it up a little (got rid of the terrible sounding background music) and add some English translation to it, as correction and addendum to the blog. Hope you'll enjoy it: Taiwan 1957

a tripful

For the past several years we've been making trips to northern California (usually during late summer) almost yearly, visiting old college/high school buddies whose friendships I treasure and enjoy keeping.

We decided to move ahead our trip plan this year after receiving an invitation to the wedding of the daughter of one of our northern cronies that was set for last Sunday. 

The now seemingly routine drive north on Interstate-5 was smooth and took only about five and a half hours from Beverly Hills--where we stopped by for lunch and a side meeting--to my high school buddy Michael Lin's home in Saratoga, without the dreaded Friday evening traffic tie-up, before the sky even turned dark. 

After a pleasant late night catch up with Michael and his sweet gentle wife and a good sleep at their immaculate home, we went out the next morning to meet Sophie and Sean, a friend couple who also drove over from LA yesterday, to visit their dear friends Gohan and Jiafen, with whom we also got acquainted through the Rhine River cruise we went together two years ago.

Gohan has been fighting lung cancer for over 3 years, but is still as feisty and healthy a hunk as we first met him. He was surrounded these days by his son and daughters and grand kids who came over to celebrate his birthday, besides his super-strong super-loving super-woman wife Jiafen. We chatted and sang a few inspirational songs together as Sean and Gohan's son serenaded us with their violin and piano.

Then we left to meet JK and his wife for lunch. JK had been one of my best friends in junior high but we had not stayed in touch until about a year ago. He's been a successful and well-known lighting designer/artist in Taiwan but started his residency in northern California a couple years ago just to be with his two teen-age kids who are going to school here. He shared his life-after-high-school stories with me on how he dropped out of college after his mom's untimely death and went for his first job as a professional rock singer at restaurants after the military service and then to New York City to study design for 6 years before going back to Taiwan to start his own business... 

I was amazed by his resiliency and persistent love of rock music and soccer, which we both shared when we were teen-age kids but he's the one who has kept them going. He just finished publishing a CD of his own rock songs and plays soccer three times a week with macho amigos in his newly adopted resident city of San Jose, while continues to support a youth soccer league he founded sponsoring disadvantaged kids in Taiwan.

Back to Michael's house we met another high school best friend of mine, Joseph and his wife Peipei, both permanent members on my yearly must-see list. We went out to a Taiwanese shaved-ice place in Cupertino where Sophie and Sean came rejoining us for a late afternoon dessert chat time, then went back to Michael's for some delicious Chinese tamale, in commemoration of the Dragon Boat Festival that just went by last week. 

After dinner, Michael's autistic but musically gifted pianist son Jefferson, along with our troubadour violinist friend Sean who carries his beloved violin around when traveling, entertained us with impromptu music and songs for a melodial closure of the day.

Then came the wedding Sunday. It was my college friend Ching-Cheng's daughter and her med-school sweet heart tying knot on a sunny scenic hill not too far from the UC Berkeley campus. All proceeded swimmingly well, as a charming and jovial wedding should be, with the high light being Ching-Cheng's choking give-away speech and the father-daughter dance that must have touched many would-be fathers-of-the-bride's hearts.

  

I sat at a table designated for our common college friends Ching-Cheng invited. Some of them I just met a few months ago in Taiwan, some I haven't seen for years since the dot-com days when I was making trips here for my startup, and some for the first time since our graduation decades ago... Time truly flies!

The trip back to Orange County Monday was as smooth as going north, the only road hazard being the doze attack on straight-as-arrow I-5.

 

All counted, I've encountered 15 buddies and friends, oldies and goodies, fun and felicity during this short long trip. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, I say 10+ friendships are worth an 800-mile round trip a year! 

spain

Driving through the flatland of northern Spain, we stealthily reached a medieval town that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and checked into a palace converted hotel in the dusk, and woke up to a stunning, golden lighted farm scene right outside our window.  

From there we visited a modern Human Evolution Museum that hosts remains of the earliest hominids found in West Europe, and a sunny city with a grand 14th-century city gate and a World Heritage cathedral, that was also the headquarters of Generalissimo Franco's proto-government during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). 

Going north, deep in the Basque Country, we visited two coastal cities on the Biscay Bay. 

In Bilbao, we visited the Guggenheim Museum, which is probably more famous for its architectural design than its exhibits, and had a long lunch at a Michelin-starred restaurant right next to it. (The Basque Country is famous for its fine cuisine, there are a total of 33 Michelin stars, distributed across 23 restaurants in the Spanish Basque region alone).

In San Sebastian, we strolled through the posh modern shopping district to the rowdy old-town alleys and had tapas (called "pintxos" here) for dinner while watching people singing and dancing around on a happy Saturday evening.

For more photos and narratives:

https://www.facebook.com/cdwongx/posts/pfbid0E5AiLfjGDJ8StQUvrsnGUxtH6qvp3wFxvNVTexobNmqgWymoJNbEzpWVonHHtXKHl

where the rain stays mainly in the plain

We took a two-week vacation to Spain with a tour group recently. As a believer in "vacation is for fun, not work," I stayed away from studying the itinerary or reading the tour guides before we got on the plane (well, I printed out the guides for my wife and planned to read it on the trip only to find we lost it). We landed on Madrid, the geo-center of the country, then galloped through a few cities to its northwest,Toledo to its south, then further south to a few historical/cultural heavy-weights such as Cordoba, Granada, Seville, as well as a bull-fighting town, the Don Quixote country, a wine factory, and a couple Mediterranean coastal cities, then flew all the way to big town Barcelona in the northeast, before coming back to LA. All told, 13 cities in 13 days we whizzed through!

So how can I remember them all, like which cathedral sits in which city, or from what town did we buy those "local flavor" souvenir cookies, etc.?

Through "categorize and conquer," I am going to try:

Regions & History

From the outset, Spain looks like a fair size country occupying the lion's share of the Iberian peninsula in southwestern Europe, and with that powerful colonial empire it built in the early Age of Discovery, I imagine it be one contiguous, well integrated country at least. I was surprised to learn, then, the country is actually divided into 17 semi-independent, autonomous regions, each with its own political and cultural identity. So, Madrid and its neighboring country form one autonomy region, those cities to the northwest belong to another autonomy region (Castile-Leon), and Toledo and the central high-land that sports windmills for "Man of La Mancha" Don Quixote belong to yet another region (Castile-La Mancha), and those famed, Muslim influenced old towns in the south belong to the Andalusia country, while Barcelona, the big, modern metropolis in the northeast, is the capital of Catalonia which, like the Basque Country to the north (yet another autonomous region), is trying to break away from Spain for good to become a fully independent country of its own.

Historically, starting early 8th century, the southern half of Spain had been invaded and reigned by the Muslims from North Africa (the Moors), and it took the Catholic kings and queens from the north almost 800 years to "re-conquest" the south back to Christendom. As a matter of fact, modern day Spain owed its formation to the unification of two major kingdoms of the north in the year 1492, when King Ferdinand of Aragon married Queen Isabella of Castile and together kicked out the last remaining Moorish resistance in the south. It was also in this same year Queen Isabella sponsored Christopher Columbus for his exploration to New World, thus starting the great Spanish empire that dominated the world through 16th and 17th centuries.

Castles & Cathedrals

Castles are everywhere in Spain. Here is a castle nestling on a cliff, like one in a Disney movie where a princess is incarcerated on the high chilly tower waiting to be rescued; there is another that is a city all by itself, its watch towers looking exactly like the "castle" (rook) piece made for the chess game. And Toledo viewed from the mid-hill of the hotel we stayed was the most picture perfect, beautiful classy old city I've ever seen!

 

           

Cathedrals are everywhere, one grander, shinier, or older than the other. One thing unique about some of those in the south is they started as Christian churches, then got converted into Muslim mosques when the Moors came, then converted back to Catholic cathedrals after the re-conquest. That's property time-share at historic proportion, you may say.

Arts & Architectures

Museums and palaces are everywhere, each hoarding houseful of paintings and art works of its own. Back in the days when there was no print or mass media, and the worshiping mass were illiterate anyway, paintings and sculptures on the church walls and ceilings served as educational tools to tell the stories of Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, angels and demons, while those hanging in the palaces displayed the life and portraits of the rich and the royalties, with hardly any one smiling.

We also visited the modern art museums for Picasso and Dali, and architectures of Gaudi in Barcelona. I had not been a fan or enthusiast of modern art, but after seeing these works up close and personal and hearing their interpretations, those abstract "cubistic" drawings of Picasso's don't look that wacky to me any more, and the mishy-mashy, holographical pieces of Dali's do look quite innovative even today. And Gaudi was yet one other lucky guy who got to realize his artistic talent in the commercial world, whether it be a failed planned community in urban Barcelona, or the grand Church of Holy Family that is still under construction today.

                           

I also enjoyed the statues, fountains, arches, and grand old Romanesque buildings around Madrid and other cities. I remember on the first evening in Madrid, walking through downtown thoroughfares, seeing those majestic old buildings and statues lime-lighted against the lively crowds, the tall trees, and the wide roads, I felt buoyant and optimistic, and somehow got the sense how empire and artistic minds were inspired here...

                    

     

Tapas & Wines

The food in Spain is in general good. They have plenty of farm produce, great tasting pork, and fresh sea food from the surrounding Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans. Our tour package included all meals, that means typically full course big plates for lunches and dinners (that stored up fat in my body fast), but I was most impressed by those small plate dishes they call "tapas" that exemplified local specialties and were most delicious.

  

And they served wine with every meal. The Spanish wines we had were blended instead of vintage stock as we usually get in California, therefore tasted smoother and fruitier, to my liking. The wine factory we visited is in the city where the world's first Sherry wine was created--the city name Jerez was Anglicized to "Xeres," then "Sherry." No need to buy the wines there and lug them all the way home with you if you like them, though. I found out later that you can get them at local liquor stores such as Bevmo here in Southern California. 

Guides of All Feathers

The guides we met in Madrid were pretty grand-motherly and spoke with heavy accent; the one in Toledo was an energetic hearty-laughing woman who was a devoted Catholic but didn't mind making a joke about some dead cardinals buried underneath the cathedral she was showing us; the guide in Cordoba was a dark, heavy-build man who I suspected may have some Moorish blood in him who always started his session with "ladies and gentlemen"; the guide at Seville was a witty, articulate English speaker who's a seasoned world traveler himself; the guide in Ronda, the bull-fighting town, was a short, stodgy man with Frank Sinatra-ish smiles; the lady who took us around Alhambra palace in Granada spoke slowly but with a mesmerizing Euro-woman charm; and the young girl who guided us through the wine factory was so sweet and bubbly that I should have given her a hug at the end!

                                       

  

New is Old, Old is New

While meandering through one of those Mediterranean towns, seeing its up and down city streets lined with red roof and white wall buildings, back-dropped with bright sunny skies and calm blue ocean, it dawned on me "Doesn't this look just like San Clemente, the city where I live by, whose founding fathers set out to build a 'Spanish village by the sea' on Southern California coast?" And while strolling down downtown Barcelona, the tour guide told us one of the busiest streets here is called "Las Ramblas", which, surprise, is exactly the same name of the major roadway (a Freeway exit, actually) right next to my community! It's not a far-fetched idea that some early Spanish settlers to my city might have come from Barcelona area some 200 years or so ago then.

                                      

  

Have Friends, Will Travel

Our tour group was organized in Taiwan, for the alumni of the mountain climbing club of my college in Taiwan. As non-members, we tagged onto this group through our friends Ray & Jenny who are members and have been enjoying the outdoors ever since their college days, as well as most other members on this trip. I was quite impressed by the camaraderie and the inbred outdoorsmanship of these "mountain people" along the way. They always seemed able to find a little hill to climb or a new place to explore wherever we went, and some of them woke up early to do their daily jogging even during our busy traveling schedule. Doing outdoors surely is a worthy hobby to keep that'll keep you physically and mentally healthy for life, judging from what I saw in these people.

We also met people of various backgrounds: doctors, scholars, media workers, fund manager, art performer, etc. Talking to them and traveling with them expanded our life perspectives and struck up new friendships. As they say in the Chinese proverb: "Rather travel ten thousand miles of road than read ten thousand reams of book." (讀萬卷書不如行萬里路). We all should get out more!

And note it down, so when I look back in five or ten years, everything won't be just a blur!