Rafting along Lehigh River

Brian, Travis and I had a day trip on Sunday to Pocono, Pennsylvania for a whitewater rafting along Lehigh River. I have done the whitewater rafting since a junior year in college. It is one of my favorite outdoor activities. For this Lehigh River trip, I sent an invite to a lot of friends, but I could only get Travis and Brian. The raft we rent from Pocono Whitewater had a capacity of 4-6 people. So, they teamed us up with the other two women, April and her daughter, Alicia. They are Americans who currently live in Belgium. April works for the NGO there and Alicia just graduated from the high school and will attend the Navy Academy in Annapolis this fall. They are originally from Alaska and here in the US for a summer vacation. They are very nice and friendly.

April, Travis and I had rafted before, while Alicia and Brian were newbies. I was assigned as a captain since I had the most experience, later on I switched with April for the captain position. The portion of Lehigh River we went to is normally considered Category II rapid which is easy, but the weekend we went to was on a dam release days, so we have much more water and rapid. The river was upgraded to Category III.

I have an experience with a Category IV before in Snake River in Cody, Wyoming, so Lehigh River was quite not extreme excitement for me, but it was still fun. It was a nice day for rafting, not too hot and humid. Alicia was really strong and good in rafting, even though it was her first time. Brian really like it and he said he would want to do it again. I plan to do it again in July in Upstate New York.

The scenic along a gorge of the river was beautiful. The green from the mountain sharply contrasted the light blue sky like a beautiful giant painting. Living in the city made me appreciate a nature more.

Me, Alicia, Travis and Brian

Nicky

Concert in The Park

Brian and I went to the Met Opera Concert in Prospect Park in Brooklyn last friday. The was an annual free summer concert. This year, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna led the Met chorus and orchestra for this special concert in the park. The difference of this year concert to the past years was that the past year concerts usually were concentrate on a single opera. The performers sang every things from the first to the last acts. This year they just picked one or two songs from different operas.

The program said that the concert consisted of two half. each had 6 songs. About a third of them were from Verdi such as Overture from La Forza del Destino, "Vedi, le fosche" (chorus) from Il Travatore, Overture from Nabucco, "Parigi, o cara" (duet) from La Traviata, "Va, pensiero" (chorus) from Nabucco. I was glad that the had one of my favorite duets, "Ah, talor del tuo pensiero... Verranno a te"  from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. My two favorites of the night must be "E lucevan le stelle" from Puccini's Tosca sung by Roberto Alagna and "Un bel di, vedremo" from Puccini's Madama Butterfly. They were other opera and composers that I have never heard of such as  Catalani's La Wally, but they were pleasant.

The concert did not end with 12 songs as it had said in the program. Theye are seven or eight more for the encore that lasted over an hour. Two or three of these were some famous modern Italian and Spanish pop songs. They also sung the world most popular Puccici's "Nessun dorma" from Turandot and Verdi's "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" from La Traviata.

We brought dinner, wine and champagne for our little picnic while listening to these great music. We took out some sushi, shumai and tempura from the nearby Japanese restaurant, Kiku, in Park Slope. Other audience look surprise when they saw us so well prepared.

The concert ended about a quarter before 11 PM and the Bank of America gave everyone away a free subway ride home. It was one of my memorable night.

Nicky

Kingda Ka

I went to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey with my sister, Ann, last week. It was her first time to Six Flags and she was really excited about it since she loves roller coaster as I do. We tried five roller coasters out of nine it has. The ones we tried were Batman, Nitro, Skull Mountain, Superman and the last but not the least "Kingda Ka". We did not go to Dark Knight (another Batman ride), The Scream Machine, Medusa and El Toro.

I was on Batman, Skull Mountain and Superman before, so they did not make me much excited. Nitro was pretty good. The one that impressed me the most was "Kingda Ka". It was the one and the only that made me "scream". I have not screamed on the roller coaster for as long as I could remember.

Kingda Ka is the world tallest and fastest roller coaster. The coaster is accelerated by magnetic accelerator from 0 to 128 mph in 3.5 second (about 1.85g force), then it go straight up 450 feet (about 40 story high) and comes vertically straight down.

Check out the video below:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GjtsiM5-7vI&feature=related

Here is the coaster eye view!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dI3Z64r5kmk

Not all Kingda Ka makes it to the top!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oNYzj6tw7XA

It was one the best roller coaster experience I ever have. Bravo to Six Flags and the designer of "Kingda Ka". You are the King of the World!

Nicky

Asanee & Wasan World Tour

My Thai friend from work gave me a ticket to Asanee and Wasan World Tour Concert at Terminal 5 (concert hall) in West Midtown. I like Asanee and Wasan since I was in Thailand, but my last time listening to their songs was probably 14 years ago! I consider them as Thai Bon Jovi. Their music is kind of rock/pop infilled with some life philosophy.

The World Tour covers 4 continents. They have a concert in Sydney in May, Los Angeles and New York this month, London in July and Laos in August. The tickets are free, but must be requested in advance. The tickets were scalped up to $100 for Sydney show and $50 for New York show.

The concert that I went to in New York has about 3,000 stand up audiences. The LA one was said to have over 7,000 setaed audiences. It was my first time being in a place with this many Thais outside of Thailand! Most people seems to be in their mid 20s to late 30s, with a small number of older folks. Wasan looked about the same as I remember, but Asanee looked much older. He has aged a lot and almost look like Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones. I like many of their songs, especially Wasan's ones. His love songs are always beautiful and easy listening.

The concert was fun. The audience, including me sang along almost every single songs. They put the words on the big screens like karaoke. Many people danced, but not me. I do not think I can dance to rock songs. One of the girl who danced next to me asked me to dance with her, but I told her I was shy :P Actually, I did not want to dance because I was tired from clubbing the night before and I did not want to come out to 3,000 Thais if they saw me dance!

At the end, there were two encore. It was a pleasant concert night. I wish I have more tickets, so I can invite Mr. O and Tae. I am not sure that they are fans of Asanee and Wasan though.

Nicky

Another IRS Letter

About two months ago, I received a bulk mail letter from the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) mentioning that my tax rebate check from the Government's Economic Stimulus Package is on it way. Then, yesterday (June 9), I got another letter about the tax rebate check. This time it said I will receive a check in the amount of $600 by June 13 or four day after receiving this  letter. What a waste of tax payers's money of preparing and mailing these stupid letters, especially the second letter that arrives only a few days before the rebate check. Why did the IRS just mail the check together with the letter, or they should not even mail the letter at all.

I will donate portion of this check to the Democratic Party for the coming election. I donated  money to the election campaign for the first time in 2004. I lived in the big bubble at that time hoping that Kerry would beat George Bush. I hope this time my investment will give a return.

About the coming election, it was funny that Brian who is one of those 18 millions Americans who support the former first lady of Arkansas, Washinngton and the second term US senator from New York has pledged to write her name "Hillary Clinton" on his voting ballot this November as a protest if Obama does not pick her as the vice president! It is a hard call for Obama not to pick her. She will be able to bring him lot of independent, blue collar White, Hispanic, Asian, senior, less than college educated, lefty to moderate, and upset Republican voters!

Nicky