I just got back from a trip to Okinawa aboard a cruise ship out of Keelung. Since Internet access on board was ludicrously expensive, I just blogged on my notebook to post later. I’ve got lots of photos and video clips to go through, but in the meantime, here’s the first entry:

Sunday

This morning I got up, packed some things in a bag, grabbed my camera and headed for the docks of Keelung. My destination was the Super Star Libra, out of Nassau, which would be departing for the Japanese island of Okinawa that afternoon.

The train was bitterly cold, air conditioned with extreme prejudice, and many of the stations on the way were unfamiliar to me after all the construction they’ve been doing down that way (Baifu Station? Where the hell did that come from?). The English announcements were read by a foreign dude, with the actual station names filled in by a Taiwanese woman, making it sound like the dude had decided to leave or fall asleep at an inopportune moment.

I’d just missed the subway, which meant I’d just missed the train, which meant I got to Keelung about half an hour later than I’d planned, but it didn’t matter. The Libra was still there, and the passenger hall was chock full of people, including, I might add, a very cute Japanese bear in a pink shirt. I located my company group, which had gathered together waiting for everyone to show up. They took our passports, filled out forms, returned out passports, and basically said that was it. “You’re all on your own now, have fun,” they told us. Perfect.

Since lunchtime had come and gone, and there weren’t going to be any shipboard meals until that night, I slipped out and had a bite to eat nearby, returning to find the end of the line slipping towards the immigration doors.

“Excuse me,” said one of the crew, a Filipino guy with a notepad. “Are you traveling alone?”

“I’m with my company,” I said, slightly confused. He shook his head.

“No, we were wondering if you, if you…” he trailed off and looked at his co-worker, a middle-aged woman.

“If you were traveling with a special someone,” she finished for him.

I stared.

“We’re looking for some people to invite to the Captain’s Table,” the man explained. I let my silence become slightly uncomfortable before answering.

“Sorry,” I said, and moved on to the doors, where I slipped past the crewmembers dressed as pirates posing with passengers for pictures. Later I also managed to sneak past the man in the penguin suit, also there for photographic purposes. Between guests he would take off the penguin head. He looked better without it.

There was the usual line confusion at immigration, the same hand motions and concerned looks. I’m used to it. I lingered on the gangway, taking pictures of crewmembers spraying the sides of the ship with hoses. Yes, all you Freud disciples out there, have at it.

The Libra is a big ship, at least bigger than the Gemini that we took for the movie shoot last time. It’s also older by a few years, and plays host to at most 3,500 passengers. Once on board, I found my cabin, put my things down, and looked out the porthole at Keelung Harbor. Damn, my own cabin! Verrry nice. One of the perks of not really knowing any of my co-workers, at least not well enough for them to want to sleep with me.

There was a lifeboat drill around 3pm, which I don’t seem to recall from my last two such voyages. Perhaps the fact that we’re actually going somewhere instead of floating around for a couple of days makes a difference.

The big ship cast off and moved slowly into the harbor, accompanied by a tug or two. I went up top, along with a lot of other people, to watch the city, with its docks and military bases and temples and concrete hillsides, slip by. The harbor pilot boat sidled up and showed us out of the harbor mouth, where the “Welcome to Keelung, the Republic of China” sign was covered by two cement boats. I was wondering if it was on purpose when I got a message on my phone.

It was Thumper. “Are u aboard star libra?” he texted. I texted back saying yes, we were just exiting the harbor. I figured he’d checked the website or something to find the name of the ship. But he texted back, saying, “Im here in keelung. Watched ur ship from burger king. Can see it stil from hilltop.”

Cool! I looked back at the receding grey mass of Keelung, where Thumper was on a hill watching us sail away. I grabbed a deck chair and sat near the less popular and nearly empty stern, watching the retreating coastline, some fishing boats and the jet-pierced clouds of the approaching sunset. For some reason, The Taiwan Song began playing in my head, and I laughed out loud in sheer joy.

Yes, dear readers, I LOL’d. Luckily my only audience was a group of girls playing a game where one stands by the railing and the others rush at her in a manner suggesting that they will push her overboard.

I sat and thought and enjoyed the scene until the sun had disappeared, and then went to the pool area, where the Taiwanese demographic sway had instilled not only Karaoke, but barbecued sausages as well. I got some grub, sat on the deck and counted how many times the staff tried to get me to sit in a chair.

Proper dinner came later, at a restaurant called Four Seasons. I got a table for two in the middle of the place, right next to the buffet, and it was just me and my book (Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman) for the duration of the meal. The food wasn’t bad, and I ate too much. Buffets are actually terrible things for people, like me, who grew up being told not to waste any food and finish your meal even though you were already full.

I took a nighttime stroll around the ship with my camera, looking for photos and finding a few. The wind was very strong near the bow; it was hard to stand up, much less take a steady shot in the dark. A couple of upper-level crewmembers jogged around deck 6. How do I know they were upper-level? For one thing, they were white. For another, they were jogging.

Now I’m back in my gently rocking cabin writing this. It constantly feels like the beginning of a small earthquake, when you’re wondering if it’s really an earthquake and not just your imagination, and you realize that it’s actual motion.

We arrive at Naha tomorrow afternoon, and we leave on Tuesday afternoon. I probably should have done more research on things to do there; I’ll probably just walk around a bit. It’s enough to just be in a new place for a while.

Apple’s announcement of its new line of iPods hasn’t made my quest for the perfect device any easier. Instead, it’s become more convoluted, as no single version of the iPod really meets all the criteria I have for a decent all-around device. Many people were looking forward to a multi-touch iPod, but the one Apple came up with has only 16Gb of space on it. My first thought was that 16Gb would hardly do, with the iPod Classic having ten times that amount in space. But then I thought, exactly how much music do I have on my ailing iRiver? I connected it only to find that after years of adding to it, I have a mere 7Gb of music on it’s 20Gb drive. And that’s my entire mp3 collection (how would cover flow work with no cover art? I wonder). But as that gorgeous widescreen demands videos, that only leave 9Gb for videos, which amounts to around 10 hours of video. So much for having entire runs of ones favorite TV shows on hand.

But then again, realistically, how much time would I spend watching videos? I tend to read books when I’m out and need a diversion. This may be because videos have never been available in such a format to me before, of course. But I certainly wouldn’t be watching them when I’m walking around, 0nly when I was trapped someplace like the subway or…well, the subway. Even on a real train I tend to spend my time looking out the window rather than wishing I had that one episode of “Seinfeld” where George does that thing.

I suppose I could wait for the iPhone to reach our golden shores, preferably in 16Gb or even (gasp) 32Gb form, but there’s no word on that, and the thing still lacks GPS and 3G connectivity.

When it comes down to it, there still just isn’t one device that covers all the bases. The iPod Touch has the web, music, some video, a (so I hear) semi-usable keyboard and great screen, but lacks a camera, GPS, HDD and phone capabilities. The iPod Classic has the space and does music and video, albeit on a smaller screen (do you really want to spend all that time peering at a 2.5-inch screen? Can’t be good for your eyes), but lacks everything else. The iPhone, with only 8Gb of memory, would be hard-pressed just to hold my music collection. Similarly the 8Gb Nokia N95, which has GPS and Internet, but no touchscreen or keyboard. I’m not listing devices like the Archos video player, the Creative Zen Vision and the HTC Shift that won’t fit in my pocket, btw.

So maybe my question should instead be: Which two devices offer the most complementary and comprehensive range of features? I’d say either the TyTN II and the iPod Classic, though this would mean sacrificing the widescreen videos, or the TyTN and the iPod Touch, which would mean going without all that HDD space. There’s also the issue of mixing and matching between the Windows OS and the Apple OS systems, which sounds complicated at best. And there’s the issue of the traditionally poor iPod sound quality, as well as having to deal with iTunes, which I’d rather not have to do. I far prefer the drag-and-drop simplicity of the iRiver. And frankly, the iRiver’s sound quality rocks. I’ve heard good things about Creative’s sound quality, but I’d have to hear it for myself to make sure. Creative’s offerings seem more like the last-generation of iPods, though. If I go that route, I might as well go for the 160Gb of iPod Classic goodness.

So phone-wise, the HTC TyTN II still has my vote for the phone side of things. On the media side, iRiver, which isn’t offering any equivalent player at the moment, is fresh out of new batteries for my discontinued H320, but I still might be able to find a resupplier if I want to pay for it and wait for other choices to become available. When the actual new iPods make it here, I’ll mosey on down to the store to cop a feel and see if I can’t come to some kind of conclusion on the matter.

20 things I must remember not to do when playing badminton with pug-nosed women:

1. Talk shit about other players

2. Feign boredom, yawn a lot and watch other games

3. Talk to the birdie as if it were a person

4. Talk to other players as if they weren’t

5. Wander off the court

6. Run into the net

7. Run into the netposts

8. Make other people pick up the birdie

9. Hit my foot with my racket

10. Hit other players with my racket

11. Hit anything but the birdie with my racket

12. Whistle or sing

13. Roll my eyes whenever opponents call an out ball.

14. Say things like “Merry Christmas, asshole, ’cause that last serve was a gift!”

15. Say about other players’ really good shots, “That was just too easy. I couldn’t be bothered.”

16. Throw my racket into the air and catch it

17. Throw my racket into the air and not catch it

18. Throw my racket into the air and accidentally hit someone else with it

19. Throw my racket into the air and intentionally hit someone else with it

20. Laugh maniacally

20 things I must remember not to do when playing badminton with pug-nosed women:

1. Talk shit about other players

2. Feign boredom, yawn a lot and watch other games

3. Talk to the birdie as if it were a person

4. Talk to other players as if they weren’t

5. Wander off the court

6. Run into the net

7. Run into the netposts

8. Make other people pick up the birdie

9. Hit my foot with my racket

10. Hit other players with my racket

11. Hit anything but the birdie with my racket

12. Whistle or sing

13. Roll my eyes whenever opponents call an out ball.

14. Say things like “Merry Christmas, asshole, ’cause that last serve was a gift!”

15. Say about other players’ really good shots, “That was just too easy. I couldn’t be bothered.”

16. Throw my racket into the air and catch it

17. Throw my racket into the air and not catch it

18. Throw my racket into the air and accidentally hit someone else with it

19. Throw my racket into the air and intentionally hit someone else with it

20. Laugh maniacally

Late again to CKS Hall for the morning session. Everyone was either engaged in tuishou or conversation, so I went over by the closed-up coffee shop to practice the form. It felt good today, and I needed the benefit as I’ve been feeling a bit low-energy lately. My hands felt…not heavy, but more substantial, full of Qi coming and going. Every move felt like falling into a shallow well, just natural, even inevitable. Of course I was still doing many things wrong, as Teacher Xu did not hesitate to point out after a while.

I brought out the sword and went through that form a couple of times. Better than usual, but still not good. The weight and heft of the new blade still throw me from time to time. I still believe that once I get used to it it will be of great benefit. At the very least it will build up my wrists.

I did some pushhands with a newer student surnamed Zhang. He’s really young, younger even than Teacher Xu’s son, and hasn’t even done his military service yet. He’s as tall as I am, and has at least the equal to my reach. I only got into trouble once, when he was bending my wrist in such a way that I might have injured myself if I hadn’t disengaged. He was so concentrated on pushing me that he left himself open to even the slightest push, but evading his efforts was a decent workout and stretched me up to and beyond my limited range of motion. I need to work on that.

A thunderstorm was rolling in as Teacher Xu and the other students left at around 1pm. I went through the sword form again, alone on the opera hall balcony, and then left for my weekly feast at Sababa. A good practice.

I’d forgotten just when I began studying with Teacher Xu, so I went back to my archives to find out. I did a search and found that I started in fall of 2002. Five years ago. My, how time flies.