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 hanging out with my parents on their home turf, we also visited my aunt in Puli and Hong’s aunt in Kaohsiung, both first in a long time.
During summer vacation, we spent two weeks in Korea and Japan. The first half was a mad dash through 4 cities (including LA), sleeping on six different beds in six days. The second half was dragging Mah and Bah through Kyoto and Tokyo.
In the fall, Phil and I went on a guys’ trip to Hong Kong and Macau. We both saw some friends and ate a regrettable number of egg tarts.
On the domestic front, Ariel’s family and Vic’s family both visited us during the early part of the year, allowing us to have some quality sibling/cousin time.
In mid-October, we went to LA for Steven’s wedding. This allowed us to catch up with a majority of family on my dad’s side, many of whom we hadn’t seen in years. On the side of this trip and before our flight to Korea, we also got to visit the aunt and uncle on my mom’s side.
For Thanksgiving, we stayed on Long Island with Vic. Later, on the last few days of the year after Christmas, we’ll be visiting Ariel in Boston for the first time.
Crafts
My cardboard blacksmithing churned out fewer but totally higher quality stuff than last year. There were Fei Xue, Xuan and Ting Sister Swords, and God of War Spartan Aspis. My demand for refinement increased over time, so every detail now took longer.
Shows & Games
We watched quite a few shows together as a family this year. It began with Avatar: the Last Airbender. 20 years after its initial release, Hong and I finally realized how this “kiddy show with an ugly bald kid” was in fact a masterpiece deserving the highest rating there is. It was so good that we went back to it soon and re-watched every episode in order.
We also saw Avatar: the Legend of Korra, The Dragon Prince: Mysteries of Aaravos, Spy x Family, Demon Slayer, and the 2024 remake of Ranma 1/2. Some of these were a lot better than the others, but all were enjoyable.
Without the kids, Hong and I saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Culinary Class Wars, and Arcane. All three of them can be nitpicked for problems but, man, all of them were so addicting!
On the more interactive side of entertainment, the game of the year for me is definitely Black Myth: Wukong. I had been waiting for two years for this game to come out, and it was just that good. I wrote a whole post about it and am nearly done with my second play through…
The other game was Overcooked. Vic and Brian got it for us a while back, but Hong and I never got into it. It wasn’t until the kids started playing – and figuring out the mechanics – that we joined back in. The ridiculous “kitchen” setups were still very difficult and often quite frustrating, but it was nice for the whole family to work together toward a common goal.
Identity Thefts
This year saw a series of spooky identity theft incidents:
- In early summer, a Mandarin speaker with a 479 area code (Bentonville, AR, Walmart’s corporate headquarter location) called asking for my feedback on both in-person and online shopping at Walmart. I explained repeatedly that I had not done either in a long time. He was terribly confused, seemingly having records of me being a major customer. It didn’t seem like a scam since he never tried asking for anything beyond an opinion. The phone number could have been spoofed but he matched my full name, phone number, and spoken language, so it couldn’t have been a mistake or coincidence
- In early August, someone allegedly from AT&T’s fraud and abuse department called semi-hostilely informing that the prepaid phone number that I registered in Shanghai Airport at the end of July was used for abuse (no detail given) and thus suspended. I explained that I hadn’t been in Shanghai or an AT&T customer in many years. I realized that my identity could have been fraudulently used but didn’t see how this should be my problem, if a phone company fails to properly background check a scammy customer. She gave a speech about how this derogatory remark could affect my future ability to open phone accounts in the future. I, not even fully convinced that she wasn’t a phishing person trying to socially engineer me, just focused on ending the conversation and getting off the phone
- In October, a UHC rep speaking Mandarin called about a claim that I had recently filed. Supposedly I had just opened some sort of traveler’s health insurance policy in August, paid the premium in full, and shortly after filed a claim for some procedure done in China. It was very similar to the AT&T call. I told him that their company had been scammed and they should deny the claim and freeze the policy. His manager (a Mandarin-speaking lady) got on the phone and explained how and why I should file a report with IdentityTheft.org. I asked for their number (based in Queens) and called them back to make sure they were legit people
- In December, Hong forwarded me a bunch of emails indicating that she had booked a hotel in Belgium through Hotels.com. Not only was the trip paid in full, a travel insurance policy was purchased alongside the reservation. Now, while she’s got a ton of travel-related accounts, Hotels.com was never among them. The credit card used for the purchase wasn’t one of ours, either. The eerie thing was that the name on the reservation was a combination of her real name and nickname, so this wasn’t some random person who happened to accidentally entered a wrong email address. I used the online chat feature to request the Hotels.com agent to handle the fraud case, alerted the hotel, and canceled the insurance policy
Compared to the time when I had 710,000 Cit Thankyou Points stolen (later reversed, plus some), none of these seemed like a huge deal since nothing tangible was taken from us. It wasn’t clear if any of the fraudsters had our personal information beyond phone number, email address, and name, though. Credit reports didn’t show anything suspicious, either. Nevertheless, the intrusion felt rather uncomfortable, and I was confronted with the reality that there was so little an identity theft victim could do. IdentityTheft.gov had detailed instructions for each type of incident, but everything was merely a band-aid solution like “call the insurance company to let them know this happened.”
Home
Around the end of last year, both our 13-year-old toilets were having troubles that I was unable to fix. Our plumber did some diagnosis and reported that one of them had some disintegrated internal parts and was beyond repair (I had no idea this was possible for a toilet); the other wasn’t as far gone, but would still cost several hundred bucks in parts and labor.
This incident became an opportunity for Hong to purchase the Japanese toilets with heated seats and butt-washing functions. They weren’t cheap, but she had wanted them for a while and we were at a juncture where we must get a replacement. I didn’t think I cared, but I was wrong. After getting used to these luxurious toilets, I now stay at 5-star hotels and judge them when they don’t have the “basic” comfort such as a warm toilet seat.
At the end of the year, I was in the mood to reorganize the house. The TV cabinet holding the children’s toys over the past decade was replaced with a larger cabinet. An old shoe rack holding stuff in the storage was turned into a floor-to-ceiling setup with a metal shelf on top of the changing table. While on a roll, I also redid the kids’ closet and mine.
Health & Fitness
2024 taught me more about the aging process: I started experiencing acid reflux, my A1c reached its record high at 6.1, among other fun stuff.
On the injury front, I fell running down a hill and scraped my knee. It didn’t seem so bad at first, but the wound remained tender until after 4 or 5 months. Later on, I twisted an ankle ice skating (because the rental skate was lopsided) and it is not back to normal yet. It’s not like these accidents were so novel, but the body just takes longer and longer to counteract them.
For my workout goals this year, I put running on the back burner in favor of lifting more weights. A few months in, I realized how I was no longer able to manage the speed or stamina from last year. That made sense on paper, but was a real uncomfortable feeling. I felt desperate to restore my abilities. However, with no race scheduled on the horizon, I also struggled to find enough motivation.
After a few months of wishy washy attitude, I finally put my foot down and… signed up for a full marathon next year. That was quite a mental hurdle to confront, but hey, I’m gonna ring in the new year with the most ambitious physical goal yet!
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