Jennifer L | Blue Wave Studio

I’ve learned a lot about personal wealth, especially in the past 21 months.  I decided to start this site to share what I’ve learned and about my experiences.

While in Hong Kong, we had booked a tour to the Guangdong Province with a final destination in Shunde for the weekend.  It was perfect timing because we had planned to visit family there afterwards, except that on the morning of our planned departure, a typhoon bound for Hong Kong shut down all transportation by water including the boat ride to our first tour stop. Our entire tour was cancelled thanks to the typhoon level having escalated from 3 to 8 (out of 10).

The rain and winds were pounding the windows of the flat where I was staying and I couldn’t help but think about the triple storm that hit the Bay Area earlier this year. I tried to stay away from the windows, just in case.

Later in the day, along with my cousin whose work was cancelled thanks to the typhoon, we ventured out on the streets for food.  The once busy Nathan Road was empty without the double decker buses, the hoards of people walking the streets, and the open shops.

I flew to Hong Kong on the Cathay Pacific flight I booked several months earlier on a 747-400 with new seats that were introduced last month, which included individual entertainment screens (no charge) that had plenty of options to keep you preoccupied including video games and seats that reclined in its own shell, plus a push out coat hanger.

According to Cathay’s site, the entertainment on-demand features:

9″ widescreen TV with StudioCX – featuring a rotating library of 100 movies, 350 TV shows, 888 music CDs, 22 radio channels, and entertainment programmes in nine languages.

Though I found the user interface for the entertainment awkward.

Though slightly more uncomfortable compared to the older seats, the new seat design was great because if the person in front of you reclined, the wouldn’t encroach upon your space because the seats slide forward and down. Unfortunately, the front pocket was practically nonexistent (see above), though my friend seems to think they’ve relocated it behind the calf area.  I’ll have to check on my long-haul flight back.

Anyhow, when I arrived at the airport in Hong Kong, there were only 7 days, 13 hours, 36 minutes, and 13 seconds left until the Beijing 2008 Olympics Games.  On the right, is the photo I took last December.  Quite a bit of time has passed.

The other day I was asked if I had a calculator. I had trouble coming up with an answer because I usually pull up the calculator on my computer… who uses a real calculator these days for small calculations? I searched through my stuff and lo and behold, I did have a calculator from high school:

I got the TI-85 because I was impressed one day by its predecessor, the TI-82′s infrared features. My friend had turned on the TV in the classroom one day with his introducing the potential for mischief and confusing and startling the high school teacher.

I thought I was so geekalicious in whipping out this fine specimen until I popped in some batteries and nothing on the screen appeared. I thought it needed a new backup battery or it was no longer working.

Then the guy who wanted the calculator said… “Remember, when you put in new batteries, you need to turn the contrast up by pressing the 2nd button and the up arrow?” and then he showed me.

Now that was super geekalicious.

Last weekend, I said goodbye to a friend.

I knew her from high school and she was only 29. Another friend had called me and told me the news and I was in shock. Everyone was in shock. I had just spoken with her at our high school reunion last December and now, none of us would have the opportunity to speak to her again. It’s the “never” that just hits you, a permanence and certainty that rings loudly in a silent room.

In the last year and a half, I’ve noticed an increasing number of people passing away. I don’t know if they are becoming more obvious because of my own experience of sudden, unexpected loss, or perhaps it’s just a normal progression of growing older and others around who are growing even older, or maybe it’s something else. I thought it gets easier especially having been through it and in some ways it does, but in other ways it doesn’t. You still struggle to try to say the right things and attempt not to offend and perhaps are overly cautious and sensitive to the situation because it’s better to err on the careful side.

What I have noticed, however, is that those who don’t know the person well don’t quite have that concern for tact and this increases by the degree of their dis-connection to the person.
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Not too long ago I flew to Seattle for a short 30 hour trip to visit the University of Washington campus. I noticed that the Seattle Airport (or SeaTac rather), actually had bathroom stalls in the baggage claim area in which the door opened outward (away from the toilet). Finally, someone had the common sense to think about how difficult it is to use a stall with luggage when the door opens inward into the stall.

But then I returned back to the airport and noticed that the stalls in a bathroom in the terminal have doors that open inward. Perhaps they were thinking that travelers would have fewer items to carry in the terminal vs. the baggage claim area.

But why not just make them all open outward?

I had never been to a hockey game before, but thanks to eBay (my first time on eBay, believe it or not), I scored tickets to the last weekend Sharks game which was sold out. The game was much quieter than I expected – the players gliding across the ice and flicking the small rubber puck around. I thought it was amusing that when a player commits a penalty, they are confined to a clear “box” called the penalty box, like being grounded or wearing a dunce cap facing the corner of a wall. Also, during the game, some guy nearby yelled, “Hit somebody!” Apparently, fighting between players is a common occurrence and the referees will stop and allow them to fight before calling the penalties. And these are grown adults?!

Ever since I knew I was going to the Beijing Olympics this August, I have been researching travel options. I had no idea it was going to be such an ordeal for 5.5 months looking into options like side trips and land tours and then deciding against them. In the end, I got a sweet cheap airfare deal. I paid $1307 a person for a better itinerary than what was being quoted for $1818 to over $2100 by most travel agents (over 28% in savings!). I realized that the trick was… knowing what to look for.

I’ve shared annoyances about looking for Olympics airfare a few times. I contacted no fewer than ten travel agents.

My preferred itinerary: Flexible departure from SF, fixed dates for Beijing (my friends had already booked hotel rooms for the entire group), return to SF as soon as possible after Beijing (work beckons).

I found out about the All Asia Pass ($1099 for Hong Kong plus two other cities, $500 summer surcharge, $300 Beijing surcharge, not including taxes) and considered that, only almost every travel agent I found doesn’t book that pass despite Cathay stating that travel agent can book it (you can’t book it yourself). It turns out that the process for travel agents is so complicated that they don’t do it, or like STA Travel, they charge a processing fee for it. I’m now convinced that it’s just a marketing ploy for Cathay Pacific which makes me dislike them even more; a travel agent was in disbelief about how difficult it was to find someone who would book the Pass.

I booked my tickets through Cathay Pacific’s website (still can’t beat their airfares despite disliking them) and did the following to reduce my costs:

• Avoided flying Friday, Saturday, or Sunday which adds on a weekend surcharge
• Planned for one stopover in Hong Kong instead of two. Cathy’s hub is in Hong Kong so one stopover (stay longer than 24 hours) doesn’t add to the price of the fare, although two stopovers do.
• Went through all the acceptable combinations for flights and observed the difference in pricing based on the fare class showing on the itinerary confirmation page. I then kept the selections for the cheaper fare classes. (Restricted Economy (M) seems to be one of the lowest fares)

I ended up with an even better itinerary than the quotes I received; the travel agent I was going to go with priced out an itinerary that had me returning back to Hong Kong after midnight which meant dealing with either a 14 hour layover, or trying to get into Kowloon late at night (spending $35-$45 USD for a taxi instead of the $4.25 USD for public transportation). I learned from the agent that in general full flights might open up on Sundays because many travel agents don’t work on Sundays and seats can only be held for 24 hours.

I’ve spent countless hours on this and at some point as I was contacting travel agents (mainly emailing) I was thinking if I would’ve saved time and money if I followed Ramit’s advice on outsourcing inspired by Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek. In any case, I realized that travel agents don’t really have the best deals and to my surprise some didn’t even respond to my email request for a quote. And some couldn’t even deal with slight complexities like comparing quotes for a trip with and without a side visit to another destination. Admittedly, I am trying to travel during the Olympics and the tickets are in high demand, but I had expected that this is what travel agents are for. In the end, if you’re willing to put in just a little more time and effort into it, you can cut out the middle person and get a great deal. In other words, do it yo’self.
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