Issue with Wiring Money

This post is all a complaint one. Skip it if you don't like to hear me whine.

Got a phone call from Canadian immigration office saying that I put down wrong account number when I wired the process fee. They need me to pick up the form or have someone go over to pick it up, go to the bank, have the account number corrected and bank stamped, and send it back to the immigration office. The lady kept reminding me to get it stamped by bank employees, or I may have to take the office run few more times.

So I went and picked up the form myself, ran (you know this is exaggeration..) to the bank. The gentleman was very nice to check for me and confirm the wiring was successful. But they cannot change the account and stamp for me.

FACT 1: The account number on my form is wrong.
FACT 2: The account number my bank used to wire is per my writing, so is wrong.
FACT 3: The wiring was successful to the correct account.

So how can this possible? Anyway the gentleman said since the wiring was successful, I can just tell the immigration office the fact, because the wiring information the bank stores includes my name, so it is easy to recognize. They cannot change the account number and stamp for me, because they have to key in exactly what the customer writes down on the form. They have no authority to change the account on my behalf. That makes sense, so I tried to call the immigration office to find out if the gentleman's proposal works.

The recording is done in English, French, and Chinese. Very friendly. I chose Chinese of course, the third option, using my expensive cell phone calling plan. The recording was also very nice to warn me to have a pen and paper ready, as I may need to write down some useful information. Then the recording went on and on to explain for which case, which website to refer to, for what query, which email address send a letter to. It went on like FOREVER, and finally it hanged up. I did not get to talk to anyway. They do NOT take calls. All the immigration offices all have their nose point at the high sky. Fxxx (censored).

So I turned to the gentleman and said, if the account is wrong, how can this wiring go through? Can you double check and confirm it is my name, and the recipient is Canadian immigration office? After a short check, yes, name and recipient are confirmed correct. The he started to call the recipient bank (HSBC). After a LONG while, he came back and said, oh, maybe the Canadian immigration office is one of their major customers, so their employee who did the wiring knew the account is wrong, so he/she made the correction for you and completed the wiring. If you'd like to have further information, you can call this number, or if you'd like to have a proof of the wiring, you can go to their office at this address, which is so far away from my office and my home.

I was annoyed at that point. I said,

I wrote down wrong account number. That's fine. It is my mistake. You keyed in as per my writing, so it is not your fault. But, HSBC should also key in the wrong number, confirmed it did not work, and informed you of this error. This way, I can just come downstairs to the bank from my office, and correct it. It saved me trips to the immigration office, and time! If someone should contact HSBC, it will be YOUR bank, not mine. If HSBC does not have a proper SOP (standard operation procedure) to respond, how can your bank trust HSBC? You should even escalate this to their manager. I am not going to their office to get any proof. If this problem is not solved, I want to have my money back, and YOUR bank is my contact window.

The gentleman at this point asked for his manager for help. The lady was nice to explain and contact HSBC again. After a long while, again, she said that HSBC is able to make a printscreen of my wiring information, and fax it over to us and to the immigration office. The person even called the accounting of the immigration office and explained the situation, and asked the accounting to inform the lady who processes my application. The person confirmed it is fine.

I was not sure what else I could ask for. The lady of my bank was very nice to say that if I still need to have any questions answered, feel free to go to them.

The employee of HSBC does not follow their SOP to input information, if they have one. He/she may think he/she is doing me a favor, but in fact, he/she is causing my so much trouble, and my bank, and I am complaining about HSBC right here.

Er.. Are you following?

As Cold As 17C

It was been quite cold this week. We had typhoon this week (yeah, at the end of November) and cold front. Temperature dropped to 17C this morning. Well, it was 18C when I got up at 4:30am. My nose gets congested right after I got out of the bed to go to the bathroom (old age?), and was congested the whole time till finally I gave up and got up at 6. I felt like daydreaming the whole time in the morning and was not sure if my brain could actually control my body completely or if the alien was controlling part of it. A quick doze in my cubical solves part of the problem. Gonna take a Melatonin tonight, and hope that would help me get enough sleep.

Pumpkin Pie

Was hungry for a piece of pumpkin pie about 2 months ago. Found some in Starbucks, but it was not what I was looking for. Last Saturday cousin asked me to go to his company's product promotion, and I saw pumpkin pie at the buffet.

That was a very nice slice of pie, exactly what I was dreaming of.

Immigration Form

Finished the immigration form and sent it out
today. Have been toying with idea of doing it for a long time, but never actually did it. Not until few weeks ago when chatting with J, and he had just submitted his application. It would be nice to have company. At least feel like having company. What am I gonna do in Canada alone? It will end up being another impulse spending.

Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving time. Some colleagues in US take the whole week off. Many take off early for their vacation today. Everybody has a plan, either with his family, or with friends. For me, Thanksgiving means turkey and cranberry sauce. Have not had any of them since I came back in 2003. I guess as time goes by, turkey and cranberry sauce becomes more and more delicious in my memory, just because I really miss them. Stuffing is good, but for really for my liking. Turkey sandwiches were always good if we had some leftover. In fact, I may not like it again if I get to have some now, as my preference for food may have changed over time, so I am not gonna try to get some even, but it is the family life I missed so much.

Passport Missing

I was filling out an immigration form, and need the expiration date of the passport. I looked into the drawer where I store all the foreign currency and passport, and it was not there! Dunno what I did, but the last time I used it was when I went to China for customer audit back in August or September (gosh, I don't remember). I had to use passport to leave Taiwan, and China passport to enter China. Now the China passport is there but Taiwan passport is gone.

Had a quick check with the travel agent today. I will need to file a report at the police station, and then fill out application form. The lead time will be one week. Glad that I found this issue ahead of time, and not the last minute when I had to apply for Thailand visa. The restriction on the plane ticket is no change permitted...

Anticipation

The annual trip to Thailand is pretty much finalized. This is the first time for me to take 2 whole weeks off and actually will be on the road for 15 days. 3.5 days in Chiang Mai, 2.5 days in Pattaya, 3.5 days in Bangkok with MM, and the rest of the days in Bangkok alone. Original simple idea to go outside of Bangkok evolves into lengthy vacations. Plane tickets and hotels are all confirmed ok. The remaining task will be to get visa and exchange currency, and hit the road.

This is the first luxurious trip in every respect. Not sure if I'm gonna have another one like this, but trip plan is there and I'm gonna enjoy it.

Wulai Hot Spring

Hot spring trip to Wulai. We made a wise decision to take Friday afternoon off. Not sure if we actually beat the crowd, but it was quiet and peaceful in the men's public pool. No flight for a reclining chair, no chitchat in the background. I got to choose whichever corner I wanna stay in the pool, grab a chair and actualy have a powerful nap for 20 minutes. We scheduled to stay in the hot spring for 1.5 hours, and it ended up being too short, but we then got to see the sunset of the little town, the greenish color of the creek, the falling leaves from the tree, and how those little ugly buildings turned into prince charming after all the lights were on.

Amazing dinner back at the hot spring place. Scallops were great; shrimps and soup made me speechless. The only complaint is that the rice was not up to the standard. It was like "what the hxll is that". We left for Taipei after dinner and shot to Red Building for a drink. Live music there at the Bear Village. Love the singer, who has a soft gentle sweet voice. We were just talking about Amei's music at Wulai when we heard people play her music, and here at the Red Building, the singer was singing exactly the same song. Lovely coincidence for the night. Need to go to Bear Village next time to express my support.

New Frontrow

This is new feature of Frontrow. CD covers fly in and fly out while you cannot make up your mind if you are going to listen to music by playlist, or by album. It is beautiful if you get CD covers with high resolution. One problem is, I watch the cover flow, and decide, oh this is the album I want to listen to, but there is no way I can choose that album directly from this screen. There is something wrong with it.

Vinegar

Love this vinegar, but it is hard to get it. Mom got some for us before, but she asked the noodle street vendor to sell her some. It's getting harder and harder to get it. Wondering why, because it really gives some depth to the soup, instead of just simply sour flavor. MM said she can get it from Lugang. Ironically, this bottle is made in Taipei, but I cannot find it anywhere here.

11/11: MM sent me this picture, which shows the name of the vinegar better, thus I updated it.

WoW, Wizard of Oz

This is one of my favorite encounters in WoW. It is the opera house event. Depending on the luck, we may play either Wizard of Oz, Big Bad Wolf, or Romulo and Julianne, and , we won't know it until the announcement is made. Beautiful stage design, beautiful curtain, it does feel like we are making the show. I love the audience too.

WoW, Al'al of the Eye, Tempest Keep

My first time to go to this dungeon. Saw this phoenix, and thought it looks beautiful.

Efficiency

I ordered an external hard drive to back up personal data at home on Sunday. This morning one meeting was canceled, so I am at the office early. Had a quick check on the order status, and it was shipped and delivered to the company reception.

I am not sure if PCHome has a policy to deliver within 24 hours, but that will be my impression when I look at this order. I ordered at 7:42pm November 4th, and it says it will be delivered by 7:42pm November 5th at the latest. In between, they showed when the operator picked up the merchandise, then it was packed, and when it was shipped. They showed impressive efficiency.

When Firefox can, but Safari can't

I don't want to mention Internet Explorer even. Here are some sites when Firefox can render successfully, but Safari cannot:

1) Google documents
2) Yahoo new mail
3) Hotmail

Most advanced browser? Maybe it's time to use Firefox as the default, instead of having to remember which website fits which browser.

WoW Video, Curator of Karazhan

WoW Mac version has recording capability. When I tried it the first time in late September, the frame rate was like 5 frame per second. Far from satisfaction. Today somehow I decided to try it again, but the result was amazing. it was very smooth. My old iMac was good enough to have ok frame rate while it compressed video into mpeg format. I am not sure if WoW updated its recording engine, or Leopard should have the credit.

Apple Froze, OMG!

Apple froze while I was working on the Stardust post. Hm.. this OS is supposed to be the most advanced one, secured and just everything. But I just installed it 24 hours ago, and now it hanged on me. Not very good.

Blogger saves at a certain interval automatically, so I did not have to type the whole thing again. Need to give Google credit for it. In fact, I have tried Google Docs with MM, and we can work on a spreadsheet at the same time online, and Google Docs saves snapshot of different versions also automatically. It is a nice and cool feature. I love it.

Stardust

Pretty interesting movie. Story is kind of weak, but 2 hours pass pretty quickly. The whole story line is well arranged to give you you some exciting moments, and then followed by some romantic and slow clips. The princes appeared very aggressive wanting to get the throne, but it turned out all are killed and become ghosts and outsiders to see the 'show'. Pirate captain showed as violent and fierce, but turned out to a drag queen. These are quite kuso, and give something extra in this supposedly romantic and finding-true-love story. Robert de Niro is very good as the captain. Michelle Pfeiffer is also excellent as the witch. The shot when she regains her beauty and confidence was very impressive.

Yummy Nachos

MM and I tried Chilli's today. I opened the menu, and saw artichoke dip with nachos, and knew right away this is what I am gonna order. Have been hungry for nachos for quite a while, but had never found anything similar to what I had in California. Had been to several restaurant that sells Mexican food, or even Mexican restaurants, but the nachos there were either very thin, or stale, or flavored, and were simply different. Today, this is the same. It tastes like the very first thrill I had in Oakland. MM was very generous to let me have most of her share of dip and nachos. Hm hm good. Need to go back there again soon.

Airport Express

Bought an airport express from Yahoo Auction for nearly 50% off. Was very excited to get, but it turned out to be a pain in the to set it up. Original idea is to use the original wireless network, but add this airport express to stream my iTune music to the speaker. But once Airport Express joins the existing network, it cannot be found anymore by either computer, wireless router, or just anything. I was very upset about it. Apple makes good products, but just not everything is perfect. Apple's keyboard sucks also.