新奥尔良

Big Easy, 美酒,佳肴,喧闹的波旁街,优雅的建筑,静处一隅的花园区,死一般静寂的圣路易斯公墓,这些,都还不是新奥尔良的全部。

犹如饮一盅百年的佳酿,你需要慢慢去品味,你还需要时间,去细想它种种的妙味。

如果你去过美国很多的城市,为它们来去匆匆的人群和似曾相识的食物而倍感单调,你一定要去新奥尔良。

如果你所去的目的不外乎是几顿新奇的美味,和法式西(班牙)式的建筑,新奥尔良难免会让你失望。但你若是敞开心扉让新奥尔良去浸润,就像微雨轻洒在油纸上,你会发现,你竟会慢慢消融在这座城市里。

阳光下的新奥尔良固然有她的艳丽,可我觉得阴霾下、细雨中的BIG EASY却是美妙无比。撑一把伞,走在也许有些破旧的街道上,最好是在花园区长长的街巷里,有百年的古橡树从街道两旁伸出枝来,是天然的绿色走廊。缀以南方特有的Spanish Moth,古树有如在烟幕中,神秘而忧伤。当你沉静在这刹那的伤感中时,远处教堂的钟声,有时是游船上汽笛的乐音,会慢慢地把你唤回现实。

 这就是新奥尔良,一切似乎都充满矛盾,却又彼此消融。当你正为一根电线竿上被各种广告钉得千疮百孔不堪入目而蹙眉时,眼前却突然一亮,嵌花的金属阳台围栏上,各色盆载花卉争奇斗艳,垂下的藤蔓在风中优雅摇曳。当你厌倦于波旁街的攘攘人流时,花园区为你准备了清寂,或者干脆向西北走走,墓区的独特风景,悬棺,还有精致与颓败的墓冢之交相杂陈,也许更让人流连。

在入住的Royal街假日酒店旁,坐在驾驶座等人。旁边,街对面,是一个新奥尔良的流浪汉。在新奥尔良,我遇到过好多个这样的流浪汉,但这么近距离地观察他们,却是第一次。他就这么悠闲地抽着烟,啜着旁边的可乐,眼神悠然凝望远方的天空,时而又回过头来看着街道上熙来攘往的人群。我把他作为新奥尔良的一道风景,但显然,我也是他欣赏中的一道风景中的一个。因为有几次,我们有过眼光的交接,我们彼此都没有惊讶,也没有有意的回避。他的目光是悠然从容的,那是一种取舍之后、大智慧中孕育的从容不迫,让我相信,流浪,是一种生活方式。我们这些为俗利奔波的游客,何曾有过如此悠然的时光,享受身心的静谧?

Nokia N900

Ended up buying it and try to see if I can integrate it with Google contacts, voice and maps. I am also trying to buy a data only plan to play with it.

I’d appreciate any inputs you might have on the above topics.

BTW, when you bought stuff from dell.com(small business), did Dell charge you a tax when you bought your N900 there online? I was surprised they did charge tax this time… They did not do this before ( a friend of mine confirmed this but he bought studd from Dell about a year ago; Dell.com used to have legal issues regarding taxes collection for online orders), neither does Amazon.com.

Sent an email to Dell, they automate the response saying they collect taxes for all states. In receipt it was noted as IVR??? What’s that?

By the way, talking about the shopping experience online with dell.com. Surprisedly they only give you one chance to view the receipt, once you passed that page, you have nowhere to find a complete receipt! It took minutes, not seconds, for online order to show up in order history. You HAVE TO add your email again to ask them to notify you if they start shipping your phone.(I was a registered user with email address as log in. Did you hear me, Dell.com?)

They did not automatically sent you an email right after the order. I have to manually input my email address to send the order confirmation page to my email address.

All in all, I like Amazon way better. I bought lots of stuff from Amazon.com and took for granted that I can always get my complete receipt any time, and that I should get a confirmation email the minute I placed the order. But all those do not happen at dell.com.

Just a surprise to me as dell.com only deal with online orders. They have to do something to keep up with other e-commerce web sites.

Puppet show: the last dragon on earth

That is a great show. We watched the show in the first floor. Rather than the scene is the who stage as in second floor theater, this is a show with smaller stage but all the performance is centered in the middle of the area. There are rodded, stringed and shaded puppets and the show is all in side the castle area.

We also enjoyed the workshop to build a rodded dragon puppet with a string too. The museum is full of saseme street puppets create Jim Henson and his team.

Per performer Bluegrass from Vermont, Atlanta’s center for puppet arts are the only puppet center in the states. We are so lucky to have it here in Atlanta so kids can enjoy the great puppet shows in Atlanta.

To day I noticed that in iddition to member reserved seats in tows 1-4, row 5 is reserved for a kids birthday. What a good idea!

Disney day 4

Hollywood studio

Thursday thanksgiving 11/25/2009

Pixar place toys story : got fastpass and standby lines . We played twice and all enjoyed it. My best score is 74300 points.

Got to see parades twice twice.

Golden corral is really busy but we got the turkey anyway for the thanksgiving!

Disney day 3

Wednesday 11/24

Animal kingdom

It rains pretty hard in the morning, but not that bad in the afternoon.

Soaked in the rain in kali rapids boat ride, they took my umbrella away because they think that is unsafe in the ride.

The animal themed parade is fun ( lasts about twenty minutes.)