It is with great embarrassment that I admit to having (almost?) fallen victim to a scam over the phone. Although my losses were limited at the end of the day, it was quite traumatic to realize that my senses were not as sharp as I had assumed. Wasting nearly two hours on a prime Saturday
Project Fireplace – A Cozy Cardboard Creation
After two years of forging weapons, I took my cardboard blacksmithing skills to make something cozier: a mini desktop fireplace. Inspiration Hong loves fire. Fireplaces and fire pits have always caught her eyes. She holds hotels and malls to high regard when they have particularly nice fire features, and often talks about wishing to have
Project Tiger Blade – 虎斷 Hu Duan
My first project of 2025 came from a relatively niche source material. The Inspiration When Phil and I visited Hong Kong in October, we had a blast roaming through Sino Centre in Mong Kok. While he shopped all over the place for Pokemon cards, I mainly lingered around the two used manhua book stores. It
2024 Year In Review
It felt like I had just written the 2023 year-end review, and bang! 2025 is almost upon us. Time flies when you’re having… fun? Travel The big international trips this year mostly fell under the “revisiting places to spend time with loved ones” umbrella. For spring break, we went back to Taiwan. In addition to
Project Concentric Circles – the Ultimate God of War Shield
Earlier this year, we replaced our two failing toilets with the fancy Japanese kind. The bathroom upgrade was life changing, and I was impressed by something else: the boxes that the toilets arrived in were made of double-layered corrugated cardboard! The discovery was like when a fictional wuxia blacksmith finds a special ore from outer
HK & Macau 2024 (9/9) – Play
I had never been a gambler. Phil, too, had changed quite a bit since the days when he’d drop $20 into a coin pushing machine at a random gas station. So when we sat down at a slot machine in Macau, it was mostly ceremonial. He pressed the buttons a few times, and was ready
HK & Macau 2024 (8/9) – Eat
We ate well in Hong Kong and Macau. Not counting egg tarts, most meals fell into three categories. Each had one restaurant that was so good that we visited twice. Here is a summary. Cha Chan Tang Hong Kong is a global city with as many options as can be found anywhere else, but Phil
HK & Macau 2024 (7/9) – Shop
Goldfish Street Because we just ate around the corner and needed to walk it off, we took a stroll down the famous Goldfish Street in Mong Kok. While fish did occupy most of the street, people looking for non-aquatic pets could also find plenty of options here. Although we had no business shopping here, it
HK & Macau 2024 (6/9) – Watch
People watch is a big part of most travels. Usually it refers to observing local people go about their daily business, but sometimes it can be fun to watch other tourists, too. Social Media like Instagram and Tiktok (or Xiaohongshu and Douyin in this case) have the tendency to send hoards of unrelated travelers to
HK & Macau 2024 (5/9) – See
Hong Kong has far more skyscrapers than any other city in the world, and is physically adjacent to Shenzhen, which leads the third place by another 30%+. It’s crazy how dense the tall buildings are in this part of the world. Naturally, sightseeing in Hong Kong consisted quite a bit of appreciation for its urban