I traveled to Hangzhou for vacation and I noticed that there are some aspects of the society that are neat.

1. The subway is clean
   • The subway does not have trash lying around
2. The maps / navigation apps in China have some cool features
   • One of the coolest features was the ability to tell you how long the light will stay red and green.
3. There are a ton of cameras
   • I believe this is for public safety purposes. I’m curious to know how the video and images are stored. Capturing all of this content every day would take a lot of storage space on the local, state, and country level. Even if the content is deleted after a week or two, the content would still need to be stored and be queriable in order for it to be useful.
4. The to-go / takeout culture is popular
   • I passed by a to-go bubble tea shop and the workers were working like crazy. All of them were busy fulfilling orders and the orders kept piling in. When I saw the television, they had like 45 orders fulfilled out of 115. When attempting to order online, the app said that the wait for a drink would be 90 minutes 😬. This job seemed like one of the eternal punishments in Greek mythology
5. The people are pretty sociable and like to play cards and mahjong
   • This may be a biased observation
6. It doesn’t seem like people are concerned about micro plastics
   • To me, I think that they prioritize the convenience of plastic over the health consequences
7. The cost of living is lower than the States and other cities in China, such as Shanghai
   • Food, transportation, movies, spa, haircuts, basically everything I saw was more affordable. However, this could also be biased due to the strength of the US dollar

I went to a foot spa before the end of the year. The foot spa was in an office / hotel type of building in China. The service was pretty good – got slippers and clothes to wear, got a reclining chair and movies to watch, got a person to massage my feet and back, and got some tasty fruit and snacks. I don’t usually go to spas so I am unfamiliar with the typical experience, but it seemed like a VIP movie theater. Like after the massage, we could stay until the place closed, which is at 1 AM. The masseuse was a bit too strong at times so I told them to put less strength. One of the back massaging techniques involved the masseuse sitting behind me and putting his feet on my lower back. I was instructed to lean back over his feet and then he would move his feet to rub my lower back. Not only was it uncomfortable to lean back over his feet, it was really ticklish and painful, so I asked them to stop after a few seconds. But other than that, I thought that the masseuse was good. My feet felt smoother and didn’t stink as much as before I went to the spa.

This past weekend, I was hanging out with some friends playing some card games. One of the people was really lucky at the games, so after dinner we decided to go and buy some lottery tickets. Most of us didn’t have cash, but I had some money, so I let them use it to buy some tickets. We bought the Powerball and Mega Millions since those had the highest payouts. For some reason, we had the belief that we would actually win and were imagining how we would split the money and whether we could retire off the lump sum. The energy and the excitement was high. The number drawing for Powerball just happened to be in a few hours, so we hung out until the drawing happened. I had my phone out so I could see the countdown to when the numbers would be drawn and eagerly waited for my life to change before my eyes.

At 11 pm, we tuned into the livestream and ended up not getting anything. Not a single number matched. What a letdown. Obviously most people do not win the lottery, but I really thought that this person had some super lucky powers. We’ll see if we win the Mega Millions tomorrow, but I do not have my hopes up. If we do win a prize, I think that I’d probably still work a job. Perhaps I’ll find something in a different field that I’ve been curious about. Or maybe I’ll keep the same job that I currently have. But, I don’t think that it would make sense for me to completely change my lifestyle if I won the lottery.

I am cat sitting my parents’ cat and one thing that I noticed was that he likes to jump on my bed when I am sleeping. It took him a couple days to get comfortable in my apartment, but now that he is comfortable, he’s walking around like he owns the place. Anyways when I go to sleep, he sometimes walks up to my head and steps on my pillow and pushes his body into my head. Then, he scratches my head with his paws and his mouth. After he’s satisfied, he walks away and uses his mouth to lick himself. I’m not sure why he is doing this, but I think it might be tasting some oil that’s in my hair or is trying to assert dominance.

Is my cat weird or does this happen to other people?

I walk to work pretty often and on my way to work, I pass by a Costco. Almost every time I go to work, I see a couple older ladies and gentleman swiping on their smartphones and chatting. I haven’t talked to them to see what all the fuss is about, but I can’t imagine that they are avid Pokémon Go players. I wonder what they could be doing?

I recently went to Germany and Austria for 9 days and it was a pretty good experience.

Germany

Flew into Munich, spent a day walking around one of the parks, and took the train to Salzburg, Austria.

One of the important mobile apps to get is the DB Navigator app. It allows you to buy tickets on your phone for the train and other public transportation. One ticket that we took advantage of was the Bayern Ticket, which allowed us to have unlimited travel for a day on all the regional trains and whatnot (although no one actually checked our tickets).

Salzburg, Austria

For traveling on the trains between cities in Austria, we used the OBB tickets app. For Salzburg, we got the 48 hour Salzburg pass, which allowed us to go to a bunch of different attractions for free / discounted rates, and enabled us to use the bus system. There were some places we weren’t able to visit since we didn’t rent a car, but the bus system was good for the most part – you just need to make sure you get to the stop at the right times.

We visited the top of a mountain, a salt mine, Mozart’s residence, a fortress, a river with a few bridges, and a bunch of restaurants. One thing that was neat about Austria was that they had some unique signs. Like some signs pointed out where people would be walking and kids playing and there was a sign that looked like a couple dancing.

St. Wolfgangsee, Austria

We took a couple busses to get from Salzburg to a lake area. We were able to buy the tickets on the bus, but there wasn’t that much room for luggage at the bottom of the bus. We were lucky that the luggage fit.

The lake area was pretty relaxing and the views were really wonderful. We did some biking, walking, canoeing, ferry boating, sliding, eating, and tramming. The tram up to the top of a mountain needed tickets and we were able to bundle those tickets with the ferry tickets. Not sure if that saved us any money, but I can’t imagine that it cost more. There was a giant slide nearby that we bought tickets to and that was fun. We were only able to slide down once since it started raining.

Vienna, Austria

Our last stop was in Vienna. We took a bus to a train station and took the train to Vienna. For traveling in Vienna, we downloaded the WienMobil app and got a 48 hour public transportation ticket. It was useful, although no one checked for our tickets. The busses, trams, and metro system were able to get us to the places we wanted to go. We took a bike tour and got a bunch of historical context about the country and the city. A lot of the historical sites are in the central parts of Vienna. We saw the Schonbrunn Palace, a bunch of churches, a Mozart concert, some funky looking apartments, some gardens, and some cafes.