Have you wonder why a highway is designed like this? Let's say you are driving from a large city A to a large city B. Between them is a mid size city K. Now city A and B are major economic center and travel destinations. City K is none of that. It is yet another non-descript city. Everyone seems to heading to city B. There seems little reason for anyone to stop in city K.

The traffic on the highway was free flowing. Yet as you approach city K, local traffic starts to fill up the highways. the It gets to a point when everything comes to a crawl. You curse at the traffic. Then you wonder why must the intercity highway go through city K at all? Why doesn't it just bypass it so that travelers between A and B can have a smoother trip?

I have wondered about this for a long time. Now I have a theory. Roads are built for people. Where there are more people traveling, more investment will be made to build roads. This should make pretty good sense.

Now which kind of traffic have higher volume? Intercity traffic between A and B or local traffic in K? Despite your intuition that everyone seems to travel between A and B, there are actually more local traffic in city K. This is demonstrated by the fact that traffic is free flowing between A and B but clogged within city K. Therefore more funding will be allocated to build roads for residents of city K and not a bypass. Since intercity travelers are the minority, they will not be better off than the local residents of city K.

2010.07.10 [travel, engineering] - comments

Shenzhen is a major Chinese city adjacent to Hong Kong. It is a vibrant economic power house, home to the Shenzhen stock exchange and many top-tier technology firms. With 9 million residents, its population has surpassed Hong Kong despite its short history of about 30 years only.

Although I grew up next door in Hong Kong, somehow I have never visited Shenzhen (besides using it as a jump off point to other parts of China). Yesterday I have an opportunity to take a dip into the city. It was an unplanned trip. I know nothing about the layout of the city. I have not even bother to purchase a map since it is only going to be a few hours. Instead I just trust my instinct. I jumped on the metro and managed to emerge in the heart of the central business district.

Shenzhen Business District

Upscale Shopping Mall

It was more than 10 years since my last visit to China. During the time the economic and urban development of China has make huge stride. I want to witness the extend of development myself. If a cityscape of glass-clad office towers and upscale shopping mall is an indicator, Shenzhen has surely joined the rank of world class cities. The Central City Shopping mall is as good as any great mall in the world. Satisfied with what I saw, I decided to move on.

According to the map in the metro station, there is a large garden outside of the mall. I set off to explore it. The garden is separated from the mall by a wide boulevard. In order to access it, it seems I have to get on an elevated walkway. But how do I access the walkway?? This has become an unexpected challenge for me. I walk in and out and around the mall before I finally found the unobvious access to the rooftop garden.

Central Park

The park is an oasis in the large city. It is well manicured with stylish fixtures that any city will be proud of. It is also a great refuge for birds and a delightful place to hear their chirping. There is only one issue though. The park is eerily devoid of people. I mean this is a prime real estate in the center of a metropolitan. Where is everybody? New York's Central Park it is not, all I can see is just a sea of green. Perhaps no one is as foolish as me to go outdoor under midday's summer heat. But I suspect this is not the only problem. Perhaps the park's access difficulty has challenged not only me but also the locals.

Shenzhen Cultural Center

I went out to see the soaring architecture of the Shenzhen Cultural Center on the other side of the park. I figure the building is too far for me to walk to. So my goal is to find a vintage point to take a good picture. This require a long walk through some confusing pathway in an empty park. But the walk just keep getting longer without going anywhere. Many times I have considered to give up my pursuit. This will be a slap in my face since I pride myself in my wayfinding skill. When I finally reached the edge of the park, I found a boulevard and the cultural center in a distant. Nice architecture. But there seems no way for me to continue the walk. It is not even an inviting landscape for a pedestrian. I just took my picture and then walked back.

By now I have spent a fair amount of time walking under the sun. I need to return to civilization to grab my lunch. But there are more long trek before I have finally reached a shopping center and its food court. I finally got a sense of Shenzhen's cityscape. It is a new city done in grand scale, wide boulevards, monument buildings and huge parks. But it is not a livable city that I enjoy.

Las Vegaseque Sheraton Hotel

You can tell I was getting cranky. The lousy Chinese fast food I have had did not help either. I rushed back to the Hong Kong side to end this short trip.

2010.06.30 [travel, urban planning] - comments

I am off to a vacation to Perú shortly. I was hit by flu in the last few days. So my preparation is somewhat interrupted. I hope the trip will be smooth from now on.

2009.10.31 [travel, personal] - comments

Last Saturday I have joined WalkSF in their annual Peak to Peak Walk. We gathered the starting point at West Portal. It was sunny when I took off from the east side. Who would have expected it was actually drizzling in West Portal! We headed out to the wood in Mount Davidson and then Twin Peaks and over a series of hills in San Francisco. When we have arrived on Twin Peaks, we were right at the edge of the morning fog. The scenery change from instance to instance. One moment we saw the Sutro Tower floating in the air, a moment later it was hidden by fog. I find such scenery magical. I have also visited the beautiful campus of USF for the first time. The walk ended in Coit tower where we have a small picnic.

I was also using this walk as a training opportunity for my upcoming trekking trip in Peru. I carried a backpack with 20 pounds weight the entire day. I don't know if this is a significant factor, but I was really tired at the end of the day.

2009.10.27 [travel, San Francisco] - comments

I have spent this evening travelling in the ancient city of Angkor. Unfortunately I am not able to set foot in this land yet. Instead I have visited Angkor virtually using Google Earth from my home. It is a small pity that I wasn't going there personally. But what an incredible experience does Google Earth provide! The aerial image gives me so much intelligence on this distance land that even travelling on the ground cannot achieve. He go here.

All this was prompted by an article on the collapsed of Angkor on the current issue of National Geographic. I launched Google Earth to find an image of modern day Angkor to compare with the illustration of a historical map. The glory of the 13th century city is still clearly visible from the satellite.

The square at the center is the site of the ancient capital Angkor Thom, now filled with dense jungle in dark green color. The surrounding area are fields with little population. Siem Reap to the south is the only population center today. The most striking features on the map are several large rectangles. I have labeled three of them, the West Baray, East Baray and North Baray. They are actually enormous reservoir built in ancient time. The largest one West Baray measures 2 x 8 km. Today they are mostly filled up. There are still water in the west side of West Baray. Otherwise they are filled will fields. There are even roads and houses built within the Baray. National Geographic has suggested the failure of this water system during a mega-drought period is one reason for the decline of Angkor.

You can also find clusters of blue dots on the image. They point to pictures uploaded by users. These are actually enormously useful information. First of all you cannot fully understand the area by looking at the aerial picture alone. The user pictures give you detail ground level view and help you to understand some geographic features spotted from the sky. Secondly it tells you where tourists are going! An area with a dense cluster of blue dots are picture worthy places. This is an instant travel guide constructed automatically!

Since Google Earth has come out a few years ago, it has helped me so much in learning about places and geography. It is a really revolutionary tools!

2009.07.03 [travel, geography] - comments

We had a nice walk in the Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland this Sunday. The park is just a narrow strip of land fronting the bay amid the busy Oakland container port. But this strip of land and the marshland has the best location. It has great open feel and the bay view is exceptional. This area used to be used by industrial and militarily before it was turned into a park just a few years ago. Now it has become a little known gem in the East Bay.

It is perhaps the best place to see the Port of Oakland in operation. However, when we were there, there were no loading and unloading activities. There was not even a ship docked at a berth on this side of the port. All I saw was many giant cranes standing. I am aware that global shipping activities are way down this year. But why were there no ships? Perhaps it is just because it was a Sunday in the Easter weekend?

2009.04.14 [travel] - comments

I have a lot of fun with this Travel Map application. It allows you to mark on a map all the place you have travelled to. I have diligently checked off every town I have visited whether it is big or small. It ended up with just over 200 places so far! Well the number is really a little be inflated because I have check off dozens of small communities within two hours drive from my home in California. Still it is a fun exercise.

I did made some serious effort to recall many small towns I have been to. I flipped though some old journals and researched for some places on the Internet. Part of the fun is it helped me to revisit some happy memories in the past.

2007.11.01 [travel] - comments

Just came back from a vacation from St Lucia. The sun and water is great. But it is a little crazy for me to bring my toddler son to the Caribbean island on a 14 hours trips over a total of 5 legs of flight. In anycase he did well on the plane and was asleep most of the time. We have a good time on the beach and going to boat tours. Our trip pictures are now online!

2007.10.12 [travel] - comments

When I am planning for travelling, especially to some more exotic destinations, the discussion is often steered toward the question - Is it safe? The underlying concern is the place maybe crime infested or perhaps an active target of terrorism. To the more experienced travellers this is often rejected as an undue concern. The standard rebuff is New York and LA has a higher crime rate than that of the destination. [more...]

2007.09.20 [travel] - comments

About 150 km to the west of Guangzhou is a rural community known as the village of Tung's clan. This is my ancestral homeland, the place where my father was born and raised. Although he has left for Hong Kong with a few brothers and sisters when he was young, they still maintain strong connection and return regularly to the village. On the other hand I am an urban boy born and raised in Hong Kong. I known very little about the village besides the occasional stories from my parents. I have only make one visit when I was small. I remember very little about the trip beside an impression that the village is a dirty place. [more...]

2007.09.03 [travel, SE Asia 96] - comments

Yunnan 云南

From the border town Hekou, I took an overnight train to Kunming, the capital city of the Yunnan province. Unfortunately the sleeper tickets have already sold out. So I have to sit tight in the hard seat coach for 16 hours. Fortunately this train was not crowded and it turned out to be not as tough as I expected. This section of railway is one of the most scenic routes people ever built. The train twisted slowly along the beautiful canyons, going through many bridges and tunnels in this mountainous terrain. I was marveled by the scenery until the night has fallen. [more...]

2007.03.04 [travel, SE Asia 96] - comments

My flight to Hong Kong arch over the Bering Strait and the wilderness of Russia. I caught some incredible view of arctic sea ice. Click the pictures to see larger images.

2007.01.25 [travel] - comments

Hué

After a long day's travel from Laos, my arrival in Hué was rather dismal. Feeling tired from the toil from a full day of traveling, I arrived in an unfamiliar place late at night but still have not found a place to stay. I was very hungry. The only food I had for the entire day was the small breakfast of Laos pork bun in the morning. Moreover I did not have any local currency in my pocket. A cyclo driver has picked me up. Helplessly, I let him circle the streets to find me an hotel. I was not very pleased with the gloomy guesthouse I ended up in. [more...]

2007.01.22 [travel, SE Asia 96] - comments

Vientiane

I have crossed the bridge into Laos with Matthew, whom I have met in Nong Khai. We have shared a room in Vientiane and traveled together. The capital of Laos is more like a provincial town. The city is uncrowded with only low rise buildings, small shops and quiet streets. Most of the city is small enough to reach by foot. Here you would not find any pushy vendors or persistent hagglers like those in Thailand. Instead you would find children playing on the street, sometimes greeting to passing by foreigners with "sawatdee". It is a far cry from other bustling cities in South East Asia. [more...]

2006.12.31 [travel, SE Asia 96] - comments

Krabi

From Penang I headed toward the beautiful beaches of Thailand. Among the numerous destinations I have chosen the less traveled Krabi. The trip by minibus took 8 hours. But it required a few hours of layover in the border city Hat Yai. [more...]

2006.12.30 [travel, SE Asia 96] - comments

Melaka

It was a long day traveling back from Sabah to Peninsular Malaysia. After 2 flights and 3 bus rides, I arrived in Melaka late in the evening. I did not have a hotel reservation by that time. But this was resolved quickly because the guesthouse people were gathering at the terminal snatching customers right off the bus. I was sent to a guesthouse that turned out to be a decent and clean place. [more...]

2006.12.29 [travel, SE Asia 96] - comments

Mountain Kinabalu

I always enjoy the view from airplane. The coast of Borneo is covered by dense forests with winding rivers run between. Roads, houses and farmland are rather scarce until we flew further north. It is a largely undeveloped wilderness. [more...]

2006.12.28 [travel, SE Asia 96] - comments

It was 5:30 in the morning when I left the house. Last night my landlord insisted to take me out for a farewell dinner. After that we had a long talk. I did not start packing until it was very late. After half a bottle of wine from last night and very little sleep, my mind was surprisingly fresh in the morning. [more...]

2006.12.27 [travel, SE Asia 96] - comments

I have posted my review for Lonely Planet's latest picture book "The Travel Book, A Journey Through Every Country In The World" on Amazon. I become the first reviewer!
 

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, ... and continues on to the last country Zimbabwe, Lonely Planet has put together an extraordinary travel book that brings us to every country in the world. Listed alphabetically from A-Z, each country occupies 2 pages with vivid pictures and some impression of the lands. Even tiny Pacific islands get the same amount of space as everybody else, regardless of their size and popularity in tourism. Using a more liberal concept of 'country', it brings the total number to 230.

In just one volume, it makes no attempt to be a comprehensive reference book. Instead there are many fun ways to use it. Flipping it to a random page to get some inspiration for your next travel destination (you will likely end up in some distant place rather hard to get to.) Cover the title and try to name the country by the pictures alone (a challenging game given the pictures are more focused on people and landscape than instantly recognizable landmarks.) Or just read it cover to cover as I have prepared to do.

This book evokes the same kind of exhilaration from travelling. I was joyous like a kid while walking away from the bookstore with this 3kg book.

2004.09.20 [travel, book] - comments

Just returned from vacation in Yucatn, México. We have a great time there enjoying music, antiquities, and sun and sea. Here are some of our pictures.

2003.11.28 [travel] - comments