Visiting British Columbia Day 2: Exploring Victoria

We started off from the place we stayed and walked to Beacon Hill Park close by. 

At the south side of Beacon Hill Park, we continued to explore the trail along the cost called Dallas Road Waterfront trail. The vista points on the trail have stunning views. 

Starting from south point of Dallas Road Waterfront trail, we walked to the harbor and piers. Around harbor there are a lot of beautiful classic Victorian mansions.  

Tour De Victoria was happening on the day we were visiting. It looks a fun event. 

 Stroking around the downtown area.

At the late afternoon we had high tea at Empress hotel. It is worthwhile trying! The pier looks grand too at night. Don't miss it. 

Visiting British Columbia Day 1: Taking seaplane to Victoria

Flew from San Jose to Seattle.
Flew from Seattle to Victoria by Sea plane. It was a great experience.  Overlook of islands, mountains, harbor, and the ocean from the seaplane is grand.

We arrived Victoria at late afternoon. When we visited Butchart gardens, it was turning dark. I wish we had more day time to explore it as it is really pretty. The fireworks that only happens during summer season is great and beautiful too. Don't miss it if you come during summer and check out the time at the website.

Half moon bay day trip

Devil's slide is the must see. I love Devil’s slide trail. It is a short coastal hiking trail with great view of pacific ocean. In spring, there are a lot of wild flowers that makes the trail much prettier.

If you are a strenuous hiker, you can visit trails at McNee Ranch State park. It has gorgeous view of pacific ocean too. If the timing is right, one can see the whale migration that usually happens around January.

Overview from McNee Ranch State Park

Monster chef is a great place for Japanese food. I like the sashimi and sushi rolls there. It is a pity that it is not open for lunch on weekdays.

Monster Chef
The alternative is Gerkin’s Sandwitch close by or restaurants at the pier. The pier is across street of monster chef. Don't forget to buy live crabs and live fish at the pier.

Gerkin's Sandwich place

If you has more time, you can drive down to pigeon point light house. It is a scenic route. The pigeon point hostel is a cheap and fun place to stay overnight. Don’t miss watching the sunset.

The alternative plan could be:

visit pigeon point lighthouse first.

have lunch/picnic  at norms market: the artichoke bread is really good. Usually we will bring home some too.

drive down to visit devil’s slide

visit pier and have dinner at monster chef. 

Best to avoid crowd to visit Devil’s slide in earlier mornings or on 
weekdays.

Pros and cons between options and RSUs.

Living at Sillicon Valley a lot of people work for startups. From time to time, I run into people who are confused by the differences between RSUs and options and don't understand the conditions in which  one is better than the other.

For RSUs, one needs to pay income tax on it according to the share price on the date they are granted, For example if one is granted 100 shares on Jan 1, 2015 and the share price is $10, one needs to pay income tax for 100*10. The 1000 is considered as income. From now on, it just works as any individual stock. The cost basis is 1000, depending when one sells, one pays long term or short term capital gains or has losses if the price drops lower than $10 per share.

For options, one can choose to exercise it or not on the granted day. One only pays income taxes when one exercises it. Note that Incentive Stock Options (ISOs), and Non-qualified Stock Options (NSOs) have different tax treatment under the alternative minimum tax (AMT) regime. Discussion of the differing treatments under AMT are beyond the scope of this blog post.

Pros for RSU: it is guaranteed money if one sells right away when granted. In this way, it just works as a bonus.
Cons for RSU: one may lose money on it if one doesn't sell it right away and the value drops to lower than the taxes one has paid.

Pros for stock options: one never really loses money on it in most cases, but may not be worth any penny either if the stock price doesn't increase.

At the first glance one always pay the income taxes on both RSU and options, but why do people working for startups prefer to have options than RSU?

One can do earlier exercise for options and end to paying long term capital gains instead of income taxes upon selling appreciated stock. Most startups offer the earlier exercise policy for options for earlier employees. Earlier exercise means the employee can buy the options at the strike price when he starts to work. In this way, as long as one holds the stocks over a year, one ends up to pay long term capital gains instead of income taxes.

For most highly paid engineers, the income tax rate for the part over $411k is around 35%, but the long term capital gains tax rate is around 25%.  The after tax value of $4M in RSUs is  $2.4M (with a maximum tax rate of 39%), with earlier exercised options one ends up with 3M. The difference is substantial here. Note that in California state income taxes applies as well.


Acknowledged the information to An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups. A great book for people who likes to work for Startups!

Visiting Cancun

It was kind of last minute booking. As Piaw used to tell me it is cheap in Cancun, so I got the cheap flight first. However the hotel stay was very hard to get around Christmas and New Year time and the rate of the hotel is almost doubled comparing to other time. After trying to call a few hotels, I gave up. I just used bookit.com and made a reservation at Regina Vacation Club for the first 4 days including the new year eve. I bought a  JW Marriott package from Costco for another 4 days.  The website information at bookit.com is quite confusing. I thought I had bought the all-inclusive package. But when I checked in at the hotel, people there told me the package I bought was just for room no meals. Such a disappointment as I paid almost the doubled rate as JW Marriott to stay at Regina. Luckily I didn't book the whole stay there and saved some money.   

Raintrees Regina Vacation Club

It is a great place for diving, especially to get diving certified. The wind is strong, so we didn't do much swimming in the sea as Bowen still doesn't know how to swim. We swam in the swimming pool most of the time. 

Beaches around Hotel Zone

Beach at JW Marriott

At JW Marriott

Swimming pool overlook the beach at Hardrock Hotel

We went to Xcaret park for a day. It was a great trip for small kids. The underground river swimming was fun. Bowen enjoyed it a lot and I loved it too.  

Big Turtle at Xcaret Park

Character in the night show at Xcaret Park

Character in the night show at Xcaret Park

 My mom and I went to Chichen Iza for a day. It was a long day as it is a long drive from the hotel zone to there. When we got there, it was around noon. It is one of the great monuments for Maya culture. It is really sad that no any books or written materials  are left that record the history of the Maya culture. We can just get little information about Maya culture. 
  

Another unique thing one can do here is diving/swimming in Cenote. The water is a little cool in Cenote, but it is really fresh and clean. Try it when you get there. The spa at JW Marriot is really great. Usually one can get one free spa for two day stay, use it.  

Underground water swimming at Xcaret

I don't have plans to come back again though it is a nice place to relax and explore the beach. Maybe one day I was so into diving, I may consider to come back to do those exotic diving.  

Some tips and highlights: 
Prepare some Mexican pesos and one dollar bills in advance to pay tours and food. Dollar bills are easy to pay bus tickets and tips. Some hotels like JW Marriot give a reasonable exchange rate, but most of places don't. Or bring a credit card with good rate and low transaction fees. 

Book direct flight if it is feasible as it saves time and the hassle to do custom at the transition.

If you plan to visit those theme parks or visit Cozumel, stay 2 or 3 days around Playa Del Carmen, as it is closer to both theme parks and the island of Cozumel.  The downtown of Playa Del Carmen is a very nice place to dine or walk around too. It is worthwhile spending a few days at the Hotel zone area. It has the specular beaches. The location around JW Marriot and Hardrock is great.  One can easily take bus to other places around here.  It is easy to visit Isla Mujeres Island too.  

The View from the room of JW Marriott

Overlook the beach and the resort at JW Marriott

The tour to Chichen Iza can cost from $50 to $100, I don't see the big differences between them. Talk to a few agencies to get a better rate. Usually the agencies at downtown or shopping mall can give better rate for most of tours, like at La Isla shopping mall at hotel zone area or downtown of  Playa Del Carmen. To visit Xcaret it is better to reserve taxi or take private tour instead of going with a big crowd as the pickup may take much longer time and one doesn't have enough time to play at the park. 

To save money and avoid crowd, visit in Nov or Feb. Book the hotels in advance as good deals are gone fast. Imperior has very reasonable price and convenient too as it has branches both at Hotel zone and Playa Del Carmen. If you want to go to a more luxury resort, Hard rock is a good choice. You can drop me an email, I can give you the member access rate. Most hotels give credits or free spa for the stay, it is nice to use those credits to get diving certified.  

Sleeping bed at Mextreme Restaurant

Decoration hats at Mextreme Restaurant

Coconut, pine apple virgin drink at Mextreme

Delicious Tacos

Try the local authentic Mexican food, tacos are really good there.  We went to Mextreme and Pericos, both of them are great! The people are so nice and warm there. At Mextreme, my son fell asleep, they even provide a bed for my son to sleep.  

Decipher the Ancient Myth

While playing with my App, Nutrition Tracker, I gradually understand some old Chinese sayings, like "the more fish one has, the bigger one's brain is". Omega 3 is the required nutrition to have a healthy brain. The critical part in Omega 3 is DHA that is hard to be synthesized by human body. The natural food that contains high DHA is mostly fish. Although Salmon has been more popular than cod. According to the USAD food nutirion database and the calculation from Nutrition Tracker, for an adult, if one has 8 ounces of cooked salmon weekly, one doesn't need to take any supplement for Omega 3 at all. In another words, if one has two or three big meals with fish weekly, one will have enough Omega 3 to have a healthy brain. This amazingly explains the old Chinese myth I didn't understand before. This is a great book about how to cook fish: Fish: Fish: Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking.