Comic-Con 2007

Last weekend I went North to San Francisco. This weekend I went south to San Diego for the biggest gathering of nerds on the planet. Comic-Con International 2007. It was a crazy 3 days.


Malachi is pretty excited!


Inside the San Diego Convention Center


6000 people gathered to hear about the new Get Smart movie from Warner Bros. If you look carefully you can see Steve Carrell and The Rock on the screens (click to enlarge).


Little Keiko in a large room.


LOTS of people and video monitors.


Lots of Legos!


Stormtroopers and Fett!


A small sample of the LucasArts display case.
Monkey Island, Grim Fandango and a ton of Awards.


At the Jim Henson Company presentation we got to see previews of new shows and a sample of a Muppet Improv show.


And finally Ray Harryhausen in person. (He's on the right)
The father of Special Effects is still going strong at 85! We got to watch 20 Million Miles to Earth while he (and some others) did live commentary.

Paul

Pictures from SFrisco

Last weekend I went with

and

to visit

in SFrisco.

Those were some trippy pictures.
These are some less trippy trip pictures.

You can click on them to see them up close.


Some girls on a bus.


We found a green screen.


One of the pillars in some famous park or something.


Lesson #43 in being cool. Stand like this.


A yellow house.


As you can see we are standing here.


I know we're cold but lets go that way.


Some other famous building with a Café-Bar in it.


We're on a Pier


At the SFMOMA there was an awesome light projection installation...


...but my camera was on manual focus and I didn't find out until later.


a pretty flower (in focus).


The drive home, complete with semi.

yeah!

Paul

Balboa Island Pictures

Paul

A Chinese Whirlwind: Part 3

The next day we got up early and drove 2.5 hours to a part of the Great Wall of China called Simetai. It was worth the drive for a couple of reasons. The first is that, being far away from the city means that there were no crowds and it was less touristy. The second is that the location we visited was the highest point on the Great Wall. We were met at Simetai by the pastor of my parents church in Thailand and his family. Their eldest son works with the British government in Beijing and speaks Chinese. He had also been to this place a few times and knew his way around. This allowed us to relax because we didn't have to worry about any of the details and we could just enjoy ourselves. Which we did.

Pictures anyone?


There it is


We got to ride this cable car about 2/3 of the way up.


On the wall


Out the window of a turret.
It's amazing how the wall just keeps winding off into the distant mountains.


A cranny in the turret


Steven up high


Steven enjoying the wind and wall


Anime Snapshot


A family on the wall

The next morning we got up really early and got a taxi back to the airport. From there we all flew to Bangkok and parted ways. I flew back to LAX through Taipei and my family flew straight back to Chiang Mai. So ended the Chinese Whirlwind and my trip to Asia.

Paul

A Chinese Whirlwind: Part 2

The next morning we took a taxi to Tianamen Square and walked up through the Forbidden City. This sounds simple enough but took a long time and was very taxing on our feet. It was, however, amazing and worth the trip. So... lots of pictures...


Tianamen Square


The entrance to the Forbidden City


About to enter, Mao is looming.


Walking in (I really liked the lighting in this archway.)


Panorama of the second entrance. David's head is on the right.


Closer to the walls


An idea of the scale


Now we are inside (and we found the Starbucks)


Forbidden rooftops


Further towards the north of the walk we came to the gardens


Boys, Dragon, Goldfish


Pretty


And now we come out the north end and look back across the moat (not pictured) to see the wall that surrounds the city. If there was someone standing over by the trees then you would have a better idea of how huge the wall is. The small tree is about 20 feet tall.


One of my favorite parts of the day was seeing a bunch of men in the park standing around playing various games. These guys were playing Go, but some others were playing cards, chess, and dominoes. There was also lots silence followed by loud spurts of arguing and yelling about various rules and strategies. It was great.

Get ready for part 3!

Paul