Moving out of Deception Point

shifting

2010-11-07T16:22:00.001+08:00

moving on the wordpress, moving back to be accurate.

thecoffeedrinker.wordpress :D

Sober

2010-10-25T00:33:00.001+08:00

A night of reliving good old songs by one of my favorite artists.

Can you please, remind me how you feel?
This emptiness is real, I can't bear the thought of it.
and please, remind me how to smile, I lost track after awhile.
Is happiness so hard to get?

I didn't know, that time could move so slow,
when you've got nowhere to go, the silence is so deafening.
Waking up, on the wrong side of your mind.
How could I have been so blind, to see I'm losing everything?

Oh, Sooner or later, we gotta stop this elevator.
You go your way and I'll go mine, I'm sure that I'll be fine.

Now is it me, or is this over?
As I got sober, I watched you fade away.
Is it me, or is this ending?
As I was pretending, I watched you fade away.
Sober, as I got sober.
As I got sober, I watched you fade, I watched you fade.

Skin

2010-10-16T13:39:00.002+08:00

Possibly one of the most touching songs i've ever heard. If you watched My Sister's Keeper, you'd probably be able to relate better to this video.

A song about a girl with cancer, who was afraid of her battle with cancer.. and when she eventually met her true love, her fear subsided.

Sara Beth is scared to death
To hear what the doctor will say
She hasn't been well, since the day that she fell
And the bruise it just won't go away

So she sits and she waits with her mother and dad
And flips through an old magazine
Till the nurse with the smile stands at the door
And says, Will you please come with me??

Sara Beth is scared to death
Cause the doctor just told her the news
Between the red cells and white, something's not right
But we're gonna take care of you

Six chances in ten, it won't come back again
With the therapy we're gonna try
It's just been approved, it's the strongest there is
And I think we caught it in time
And Sara Beth closes her eyes

And she dreams she's dancing
Around and around without any cares
And her very first love is holding her close
And a soft wind is blowing her hair

Sara Beth is scared to death
As she sits holding her mom
Cause it would be a mistake for someone to take
A girl with no hair to the prom

For just this morning, right there on her pillow
Was the cruelest of any surprise
And she cried when she gathered it all in her hands
The proof that she couldn't deny
And Sara Beth closes her eyes

And she dreams she's dancing
Around and around without any cares
And her very first love was holding her close
And a soft wind is blowing her hair

It's quarter to seven, that boy's at the door
And her daddy ushers him in
And when he takes off his cap
They all start to cry
Cause this morning where his hair had been
Softly she touches just skin

And they go dancing
Around and around without any cares
And her very first true love is holding her close
And for a moment she isn't scared

Favorite shows

2010-10-12T08:13:00.001+08:00

Shows that make my week:D

Dexter

Greys

When can i see you again

2010-10-11T17:45:00.002+08:00

One of my good old friends just shared something with me recently. And this song suddenly reminded me of whatever she's experiencing.

I hope you will get over the phase soon.

This song's for you.

When can my heart beat again
When does the pain ever end
When do the tears stop from running over
When does “you'll get over it” begin
I hear what you're saying
But I swear that it's not making sense
So when can I see you

When does my "someday" begin
When I'll find someone again
And what if I still am not truly over
What am I supposed to do then, babe...
Do you see what I'm saying
Even if, if it's not making sense
So when can I see you

When can I see you again
When can my heart beat again
When can I see you again
And when can I breathe once again
And when can I see you... again

brewing pains

2010-10-11T17:41:00.001+08:00

This is tough.

I'm giving up.

Do people recognize and appreciate the effort that you put in?

Online assessments tests are a chore!

2010-10-09T15:06:00.000+08:00

Preparing for online assessments + having a flu = $^@&!*%*!

I hate preparing for such tests; it makes me wonder if there's really a big problem with my English (albeit being an English tutor) such that i cannot differentiate true, false or cannot say after reading the assigned passage.

Damn!

Birds migrate, why don't we?

2010-09-30T22:18:00.004+08:00

I want to migrate to a small town.

Something like this..

The Biggest Loser

2010-09-26T02:41:00.003+08:00

I just watched the Biggest Loser (Asia). The caucasian dude lost 15kg in a week. Seriously, why am i gaining all these muscle mass instead after working out.

Doodles and scribbles

2010-09-26T00:23:00.006+08:00

In the midst of preparing for an IT presentation, I doodled some flowcharts on Paint although it's supposed to be done on Powerpoint. But I found my artwork rather interesting, so I'm going to post it up here. Haha.

I recall that my handwriting was actually pretty neat till when I was in sec 3 or so. Do you recall those days when the teacher would photocopy those good essays and circulate it around the level? That was the time when my handwriting took a drastic change. I saw this handwriting that looked like doodles yet at the same time it was really neat in its own way. Since then, i've slowly tweaked my handwriting to fit that bill. However, I've gotta admit that i've to factor in the laziness part, that's why my doodles look more like scribbles now.

Yes, there's a difference between those two.

A friend in need is a friend indeed

2010-09-22T23:11:00.000+08:00

Sleeporexic

2010-09-22T00:34:00.003+08:00

I don't want to be sleeporexic.

Sleeporexic
- anorexic in the sleeping aspect

I've been surviving on 4-6 hours of sleep per day recently, a vast difference from my sleeping patterns the previous weeks.

On a happier note, I'm exuberant about certain incidents today and I had a long talk with an entrepreneur tonight. He worked in several continents prior to his current work, Europe, Australia, Asia, you name it. Starting from scratch, he never believed in working for people so he independently started out his career with businesses of all sorts in a bid to raise capital and simultaneously seek interest in whatever he does. After the initial years, he settled down in China and finally carved a name for himself to date.

I feel so proud of his achievements and I'm glad to say that that entrepreneur is my dad. Nope, it's not Father's Day but it's rare to have long talks with my dad considering the fact that I only see him around in Singapore 25% of the time.

Okay, I will consider sleeping soon. I hate the feeling of lying on the bed, with your eyes wide open, feeling like your mind is in an active state despite being awake for more than 20hours in the day.

Goodnight world.

American VS British (sexier) accent

2010-09-15T11:46:00.002+08:00

HAHA this dude is funny. Lyn should take a look at this video.

What comes around goes around

2010-09-14T22:26:00.002+08:00

I'm typing this as I'm closing my eyes.

What appears in my mind at this moment are the following list of words:

IASB

IFRS

GAAP

FASB

IAS

SAS

Fair Value Accounting

Historical Cost

Arthur Andersen

Enron

World Com

Okay I can still verbally puke out a lot more accounting terminologies that I've been staring at for the past few days. To prepare for a short essay and a presentation on friday really requires lots of reading oh man.

Knock you down

2010-09-12T00:11:00.001+08:00

Happy Someday?

2010-09-11T21:50:00.002+08:00

Damn, I was supposed to listen to my itunes play list and do my work attentively. But the lyrics of the songs that are playing are just god damn right about my life. I can't help but divert my attention to itunes and blogging.

But hey, check the lyrics out. See if it's applicable to you.

Though, I hope not.

It's just another old Sunday

a few more hours 'til it's Monday
The weekend's almost over
I feel myself gettin' older
It's becoming more and more apparent
I'm turning out like my parents
I hate going to bed early
But I gotta go work for a man who doesn't know my name
Makes me wear a uniform so everybody looks the same
But I can't be late
I've got those credit card bills I gotta pay

Hey hey hey, I'm gonna be happy someday

Then finally it's Friday
I'm thinkin' life's goin' my way
But there's nothing to do
Guess I'll hang out with my friends and I know
We'll end up at a show
Where they'll drink away the dreams they gave up long ago
But I can't complain, 'cause I've been right there doin' the same

Someday I'll be happy
will someone tell me when will that be?
Somewhere I lost track of what's right
and now I'm stuck on the sidelines
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
not gonna take it any longer
It's time to take back control of my life

Someday I'll have everything
I'll get paid money just to sing
A new car, and a big house
a few kids running around
I'm gonna marry my girlfriend
and fall in love all over again
Someday I'll have it all

When i look to the sky

2010-09-11T21:30:00.004+08:00

Whether I am up or down or in or out or just plane overhead

Instead it just feels like it is impossible to fly

Cause when I look to the sky something tells me you're here with me
And you make everything alright
And when I feel like I'm lost something tells me you're here with me
And I can always find my way when you are here

Listening to songs usually triggers reactions and emotions that causes me to blog more. While listening to this song, I was looking at the lyrics on the screen and my gaze start to drift from the laptop screen to the photo frame that was beside my laptop. I was looking at the TUP photo that was made about 9 months ago and there were many snippets of our lives since we graduated from college. Amidst the photos, something then caught my attention which made me realised the importance of the lyrics.. My good friend is leaving on a jet plane in a week's time. And living in a society like this, I realised that it is indeed hard for you to find a friend, and even harder when it comes to having a good friend.

To the friend who will eventually read this at some time or another, you will be missed.

Meet Virginia

2010-09-11T21:21:00.005+08:00

Well she wants to live her life
Then she thinks about her life
Pulls her hair back, as she screams
"I don't really wanna live this life", no, no, no

She only drinks coffee at midnight
But the moment is not right
And the time is quite, unusual

Well, she wants to be the queen
Then she thinks about her scene
Well, she wants to live her life
Then she thinks about her life

I was drinking coffee while hearing this song and the lyrics caught my attention. I'm still a little afraid that my old town white coffee will keep me awake till late tonight, considering the fact that I only caught 5hours of sleep this morning.. but work on hand is piling up, so I better hang on.

Crossroads

2010-09-09T23:53:00.003+08:00

Totally applicable to my life right now.

This is the point in my life, where I decide an avenue to kickstart my career. Where will it be?

King of everything

2010-09-09T01:22:00.001+08:00

Keep drinking coffee, stare me down across the table
While I look outside
So many things I’d say if only I were able
But I just keep quiet and count the cars that pass by

You’ve got opinions, man
We’re all entitled to ‘em, but I never asked
So let me thank you for your time, and try not to waste anymore of mine
And get out of here fast

I hate to break it to you babe, but I’m not drowning
There’s no one here to save

All my life I’ve tried to make everybody happy
While I just hurt and hide
Waiting for someone to tell me it’s my turn to decide

Who cares if you disagree?
You are not me
Who made you king of anything?
So you dare tell me who to be?
Who died and made you king of anything?

Shadow

2010-09-09T00:54:00.002+08:00

I'm living in the shadow of someone else's dream

On the contrary, it's not my parents dream that I'm living in. It's like more of me conforming to societal pressures, what the mainstream undergraduates are doing now. Should we adhere to the path that has already been laid out for us, and in my case, as an accounting undergraduate, a secure big 4 career route? Or is there a special calling for me, to take the road less travelled (like what jia has been saying the whole day).

“I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

When would I arrive at the stage? 1 year, 3 years, 10 years or maybe just a lifetime of sitting, waiting and hoping something would happen. Some things will never happen if you keep talking about it to your friends, waiting and expecting a gift to drop from heaven instead of putting your words into action. I participated in a female entrepreneurship event today and interacted quite a fair bit with one of the entrepreneurs who actually converted her passion into a livelihood. I'm filled with respect as to how she managed to do that.

All of us are dreamers, but how many amidst the crowd fulfill their dreams?

I've been pondering about this for quite some time now.. Starting a business isn't easy for sure. Besides the capital, financial projections, there's tons of networking to do as well. You need an extensive database of clients, suppliers etc. Where? As a young budding entrepreneur, you can't have all these at once. It takes time.. years of experience to build a wealth of knowledge.

I want, to set up and own a business in the future. To be useful and contribute in whatever way I do best to the society. There's so many 'wants' on my list right now. And sadly, I feel limited in the ways whereby I can achieve these aims. I don't want to just be yet another average business student who talks about her dreams and ends up venting her frustration on her blog. I want to be someone in the future. Right now, the path carved out for me, is perhaps to complete my studies and graduate with decent honors. I need to work for a few years, to build some experience and then maybe, I can think of starting out on my own..

I feel a little lost right now, to live in a shadow or to expose myself to a myriad of possibilities of failures and successes.. Maybe, maybe I shouldn't think so much as of now, and just take up my responsibilities as a student and do a good job. But students these days, they don't just study, they juggle with tons of tasks at one go.

This is Gen Y for you. The birth of the new, young and competitive batch of individuals.

Frankly speaking, I just poured whatever's on my mind into this small box on Blogger. As to what I was trying to say, I really ain't sure. As to where my studies and degree can bring me to, I'm not sure as well. There's plenty of opportunities awaiting in the near future.. it just depends on how you're going to deal with them.

Signing off,

with a very confused state of mind.

Originals

2010-09-06T23:49:00.002+08:00

There's usually quite a couple of good youtube singers who do great covers.. but when they come up with their own singles, I'm not enticed to continue listening to those original songs. However, this guy, Joseph Vincent, is a rarity;) Listen to him and you'll know what I mean. If you like this, do check up the dozens of covers he did on youtube.

What's wrong

2010-09-06T23:48:00.001+08:00

It's been hard trying to get myself to sleep these days..

Teenage Dream & Just the way you are - Acapella Cover - Katy Perry - Bru...

2010-09-06T01:18:00.000+08:00

His version of Teenage dream is way better than that of Katy's!

A past time

2010-09-04T21:03:00.002+08:00

Tumblr, is like my daily dosage of photo therapy.

thechubber.tumblr.com

Please don't stop the rain

2010-09-04T20:29:00.007+08:00

The perfect song that goes with a rainy day and a cup of hot coffee.

I love his raspy vocals.

Please don't stop the rain

I don't know where I crossed the line
Was it something that I said or didn't say this time?

And I don't know if it's me or you
But I can see the skies are changing
No longer shades of blue
I don't know which way it's gonna go

If it's going to be a rainy day
There's nothing we can do to make it change
We can pray for sunny weather
But that won't stop the rain

convo with the american dude

2010-09-04T17:16:00.001+08:00

peck says:

Vegas!

chubs says:

haha

ure gg ?

peck says:

we re there already

chubs says:

cool

peck says:

just came back haha the rest of the guys at a strip club

I didn't bring the right attire dammnn

peck says:

yea just now they were distributing condoms hahahah

Funny little world

2010-09-04T17:12:00.002+08:00

The words at the navigation bar originates from this song.

Funny little world

And I don't know for sure where this is going
Still I hope for more and more
'Cause who would know that you would treat me like a boy
And I treat you like a girl in this funny little world

Back from the long blogspot hiatus

2010-09-04T17:03:00.001+08:00

I'm back.

Shifted

2010-07-27T15:42:00.000+08:00

Find me at tumblr.

Jogging into the next phase

2010-06-18T21:38:00.003+08:00

I'm pretty amazed by how far I ran today, considering the fact that I was more inclined to just slack at home and watch the telly. This week at work has been pretty taxing on the mind and eyes, and that leaves me with minimal energy to motivate myself to exercise after work. Nevertheless, since training ended quite early today, I finally psyched myself to run at ECP. Had a bad feeling that my stamina has been decreasing exponentially these days, even with the running, probably cos I havent been doing cross training to strengthen the other muscles in the body. But fortunately, I had sufficient energy today to run from Bayshore till East Coast Macs!! Quite a considerable distance and when I Gmapped it, it was actually freaking 8.3km!! Hahahaha, feeling mildly accomplished.

10k at the end of the year, I can conquer you!!:D

Internship into the 2nd week

2010-06-16T23:37:00.001+08:00

Usually when I don’t post entries, it probably means that I’m having a good vacation of enjoying life. Working isn’t exactly synonymous with the latter, but somehow or other, it’s been a pretty enjoyable work week for me, as of now. This week, as compared to the last, involved more work to be done, more learning from the seniors and most importantly, there’s been much more meaningful interaction as compared to the previous engagement. I would also have to thank the seniors that I’ve been working with in the previous engagement, since they illustrated the fact that interns are hired to do very simple tasks like vouching really easy records or scanning stuff, and most of the time (probably 85%), I’d be googling/facebooking away as you would have noted from my busy fb activity last week. This week around, I’ve no internet access at the client’s, and I’m not complaining! The seniors, whom I initially thought were kind of unfriendly, one in particular, turns out to be really nice, patient and in short, really great mentors! They’ve been guiding me one step at a time, teaching me different types of audit stuff that I’ve to do, and educating me on the underlying reason of conducting such tests on the audit. What really touched me was that they bother to take out the time, to flip through some past year records, compare it with the current year’s and go through the steps with me, one at a time. Plus, they frequently ask me if I have any questions for them, and feel free to ask and such stuff. I mean, despite it sounding pretty simple, it’s kind of heartwarming to feel educated by such nice seniors, and that makes the job a million times (seriously) better. So, if you were to ask me the question – Do you want to be an auditor?

My reply. Why not?

The Irony

2010-06-09T11:29:00.001+08:00

Source: http://climateprogress.org

It's ironic how BP is telling customers that they are responsible for spills. Hmm..

Food for thought

2010-06-09T11:06:00.002+08:00

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The world's first interview with former Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, since the violent protests in Bangkok.

Mr Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006 and is currently living in exile and in hiding from Thai authorities who have issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of terrorism in connection with the anti-government protests by his Red Shirt supporters over the last two months.

The Thai foreign ministry has reportedly asked Interpol to arrest him and deport him back to Bangkok.

Well tonight Mr Thaksin agreed to speak to Lateline and joined us, just a short time ago, by phone.

Thaksin Shinawatra thanks for joining us.

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA, FORMER THAI PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, thank you for inviting me.

TONY JONES: Are you prepared to go back to Thailand and face up to the terrorism charges that have been levelled against you?

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: Well, first of all let me express my sympathy of the arrests of the Australian that went on the stage after the Red Shirts and been arrested.

Through the loyalty, our un-loyal, emergency decree, which is, I very sympathise him. But anyway, the, whether going back or no is not the matter of an urgency.

The urgency is that how can we see Thailand having a reconciliation, real reconciliation. If I, if anything, if the confrontation still going on, is not good for the country. We want to see reconciliation because the Government always said about reconciliation but the way they use the iron fist approach, they are not using velvet glove approach that is mean that they are more confrontation than reconciliation.

TONY JONES: But Mr Thaksin these are very serious charges, terrorism charges, they carry the death penalty. Are you worried that Interpol

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: Yes...

TONY JONES: will track you down and arrest you...

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: No, I, I...

TONY JONES: and deport you to back to Bangkok to face a court?

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: I can assure this is very, purely politically motivated case, allegation. It is not really a, it has no grounds. In my mind I always advocate to the peaceful protest and I always supporting my people that we, Thailand, needs reconciliation. I always saying that and I always be, have been passion on reconciliation.

I never, never supporting any violence and everybody that know me, and all the countries here they know well that is no one, nowhere that the former prime minister will become terrorist to hurt their own country. No way.

TONY JONES: The allegations against you are, very specifically, that you orchestrated the recent unrest, that you secretly funded and possibly, directed, the operations or that subordinates acting on your behalf did all of those things.

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: Well if the process is gone to rule of law this allegation cannot be found because of the, there is no evidence at all, it's just the allegations, well from one sided and now, today, the court accept my lawyers petition to cancel the arrest for review.

TONY JONES: Are you concerned that Interpol, having being asked by the Thai Foreign Ministry to arrest you, will really do that.

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: Definitely they will do. But Interpol have their own criteria to judge, that is, is to not be politically motivated. This is clearly politically motivated and there is no ground. You know some of the time that Thai Government has asked Interpol to issue the Interpol arrest warrant to me and Interpol always found out that the information that the Thai Government give is unreliable and is politically motivated.

TONY JONES: At least one army general who supported you among the Red Shirts was shot dead during the unrest. Do you still have close supporters and followers in the military?

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: You know because the military are very disciplined, you know, they, what they are, they just follow what the boss says but, anyway, many are not agree with the way the army has been used to kill their own people.

What you have to concern is the life of the innocent people 88 of people dying and 108, 1,080, 1,800 of injured so that is, you have to have investigation on that. And the investigation must be fair, fair. And now 300 innocent protestor has been detained under the emergency decree. So, so..

TONY JONES: Do you reject, do you reject the violence that was done in your name, as well...

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: No way, we are...

TONY JONES: the violence done by the military

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: We never, we never, engage in violence. If you look at the way, if you look at the way the military suppression, they use tanks, they use snipers, they hit the general by snipers, they hit the many people by snipers. Even at the temples on the last day before they go back home, there be massacre in the temple. That is what the international should concern.

TONY JONES: Amongst the peaceful Red Shirt demonstrators there was a hard-core of armed militants. The same men who evidently set fire to dozens of buildings in Bangkok...

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: No... I think..

TONY JONES: and the other places after the army moved in to break up the demonstration. Who were these men? Who do you say they were?

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: If you look at it, you know, why, the Red Shirts burn the central, why not other sites, the central, if you look at many analysis in Thailand you will understand better that the Red Shirts, they are not sophisticated enough to burn the whole building down.

They may angry to create fires, here and there a small fires, but not the big fires. The big fire is, must be the work of professional. Is not be a Red Shirt definitely and it must be well planned ahead. I can assure you, as an ex-police I can assure you that this is a well planned and professionally done is not really, I can say is that it's a set up, it's a set up.

Even the weapons that they come on display, brand new weapons they not allow anyone to touch it. Actually the weapons never been used. How can the Red Shirts having that weapons and no one hurt on the military side {laughs}.

TONY JONES: Well, so you understand that the allegation will be that they were able to buy weapons because you supplied them with large sums of money in order to fund this Red Shirt rebellion. That will be the allegation against you.

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: No way, how, how can, where can you buy the weapons? They are not military. How can you buy? And then, ah, if they have weapons why they have surrendered so easy? Why they don't, they don't shoot with the military? Why there is not military casualty on the military side? So I think you have to be very reasonable to understand the situation.

TONY JONES: Is the red shirt rebellion over now, is it finished, or do you believe it will flare up again?

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA: I don't know, I don't know. You, they, they, they'd been buried now, they been hunting everywhere in Thailand. So they are in difficulty, they have been hunting. This is the way the Government call reconciliation. OK. Thank you very much, thank you.

TONY JONES: Thaksin Shinawatra we will have to leave you there we, it sounds like you've gone anyway.

Thank you very much for joining us.

Post exchange life: Part 1

2010-06-08T16:51:00.002+08:00

A few updates since I came back to this sunny island located slightly north of the equator.

I finally met up with my friends! It's kinda funny to just hang around 4 people throughout my exchange semester but nonetheless, it's been a real good trip with them. We explored 27 cities in total, covered at least 10 states together and drove for more than 5000miles for our final road trip. Will definitely update about my awesome US road trip that lasted 3 weeks when the photos are uploaded (reminds Royston).

Anyway, back to my point – meeting up with friends. Finally saw TUP again (w/o the baba) at Hardrock to celebrate Jerrold’s big 21st. Sorry the photos can’t be uploaded at the moment cos there’s something wrong with my laptop reader. And we stayed over at Dawn’s (like old times) and gossip/drink/play drinking game throughout the night. Feels good cos it reminded me of the youthful days back in VJ when we spent the night at Dawn’s cosy apartment.

Another update is that I’m finally NOT running at the gym. Started to train myself the day after I came back from US., Decided that if I were to train at the gym, I’d probably not want to run at ECP. And the thing is.. I finally mustered the courage to sign up for a 10km stan chart run. Not that it’s a long distance or whatsoever but I’m really not cut out for perseverance and long distances haha. So this will be my first attempt to break that barrier.

Ergo, I’m trying out new distances all the time when I run at East coast. It started from 3.2km on Wednesday to 3.6km on Thursday, followed with 4.5km on a Sunday and finally 5.2km yesterday after work despite the fact that my toes were aching after walking to and fro work in my new pair of heels. Never worn such high heels for such a long period of time, yet. This will be a good chance to practice definitely haha.

Working’s more or less, like what other interns say – boring. I get to be exposed to the life of an auditor but the lack of certain technical knowledge makes it difficult to do more than the basic. So we interns usually end up doing admin work or what you usually term it as – sai gang. Nevertheless, I mean it’s a good way to experience what life after graduation would be at one of the big4.

Alright, shall update more (if I’m not exhausted by boredom) when I reach home. Doesn’t feel exactly too good to type away furiously when my seniors are working their asses off hahaha.

Bye.

Day 18: Leaving LA for Yosemite

2010-05-26T11:14:00.002+08:00

Hey guys! I'm still alive haha. Haven't been providing real updates for the past week cos I suddenly feel a little tired to do so! Will definitely update once I get the photos back in Singapore. Anyway, short update. I just LA today and as a matter of fact, LA, a city which I initially thought was synonymous with glamour and fame, isn't actually what you think it is. It's much dirtier than Singapore, messier, more honkings from impatient drivers and really bad traffic jams that take up to hours haha. And now I'm at the inn near the Yosemite entrance. Time flies. My road trip is coming to an end after Yosemite and San Fran. Ahh!

Time to get geared up for busy Singapore lifestyle again. Am I ready?

Maybe.

Day 10: Grand Canyon, Arizona

2010-05-18T13:03:00.001+08:00

So here I am, halfway through my 22 day road trip and I just spent 1.5 days visiting one of the world’s 7 natural wonders – Grand Canyon. Like what royston mentioned, on first sight, grand canyon is like WHOA WHOA WHOA! Subsequently, as we realised that the views look pretty much the same, meaning rocks with similar patterns of erosion and looking at random trees sprouting out from the canyon, we got a little bored of it. Unbelievable isn’t it. It’s a natural wonder, but I figured that it’s brother, the Bryce Canyon, looks much better haha.

Anyway, that boredom might have stemmed from our overdose of natural wonders for the past 10 days. We’ve been to many state parks, seen many species of wildlife (such as the Elk, bison, deers etc), saw geysers in action at Yellowstone and caught the sunset for 3 consecutive days at Antelope Island (Salt Lake), Phoenix and Grand Canyon. After this episode of nature sightseeing, we’re finally advancing into reality from tomorrow onwards. Our remaining 10 days or so will cover big cities like Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego, LA etc. I can’t believe we’re setting off for Vegas tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it cos of the splendor of the Vegas strip as well as the busting night life over there. On the other hand, I feel kinda sad that we’re not touring that many nature sights – in fact we’re just left with Yosemite for our road trip. And personally, I’m definitely more of a nature person than anything else.

Just a random point to bring across, I met two very nice old caucasians over the past couple of days. So it seems like bringing a smile to someone can really brighten up his or her day and even yours. Haha, i’m speaking from personal experience cos when we flew from Salt Lake to Phoenix 2 days ago, I accidentally drop my bottle of facial mosturizer on the airplane. Thankfully it’s probably only 1/5 filled and that I was planning to dispose it at the end of the trip. Anyway, a flight stewardess picked up my mosturizer and apparently, I’ve no idea why she didn’t return it to me..might be because she didn’t know who was sitting at that seat or something. So when we alighted the plane and when I was at the airport itself, we actually saw her using my mosturizer HAPPILY. Haha she seemed delighted with what she found and applied the mosturizer on her hand. Plus, she even shared it with her friend and they both started smelling their hands hahaha.

And yes, speaking of that flight, I met this girl from Montana who was flying from her hometown to Miami. Goodness, it actually takes 12 hours or so to fly that distance cos she had 4 flights in total in order to fly from the northern tip of the States to the southern tip hahaha. Something really cool was that I found out that she lived in a valley. Like how awesome is that idea. I’ve been embracing that idea ever since this road trip cos I’ve seen a million houses that are located at very scenic points yet they are not too populated – like in a valley haha. Imagine facing snow capped mountains when you wake up every morning. Seriously, who wouldn’t want that?

Alright, I gotta go do my laundry. Vegas tomorrow, goodnight guys!

Day 6: Yellowstone and Salt Lake City

2010-05-14T15:24:00.001+08:00

Time flies. I’m nearing the end of my northbound trip. We’ve finally left the land of geysers – Yellowstone National Park, which is by far in my opinion, the best national park I’ve seen. We arrived at Salt Lake after a 5 hour drive southbound to the state of Utah and tomorrow we’ll be visiting the Great Salt Lake (wow) haha and Antelope Island. Took a gazillion photos at Yellowstone and the photos are all so scenic and captivating that I can’t wait to upload them!

Anyway, we visited one of the famous choirs at Salt Lake this evening. Hearing the choir makes me feel like singing all over again, haha which reminds me that I’d be taking a choir elective next sem most probably. I absolutely adore the days here because sun rises at 6+am and it sets at 845pm. So 845pm here is kind of like a 620pm in Singapore.. which is freaking awesomeee!:D

Longer hours in the day means more stuff to do before the sun sets.

Alright, I gotta head to bed. We’ll be flying off to Phoenix the following morning and I probably won’t have the time to blog tomorrow night.

Loving every single moment of my trip despite of the extreme fatigue that is about to put me in a deep sleep.

Goodnight!

Day 4: Devils Tower, SD & Yellowstone National Park, WY

2010-05-12T13:28:00.001+08:00

4 days of travelling and here I am, at the Alpine Lodge near the entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Right now, I’m at the border of Montana and Wyoming haha pretty cool isn’t it?

The map below shows the route that we have taken during our road trip. We’ve covered over a thousand miles (recalls: Vanessa Carlton’s song) and we’re still going strong! Today mainly consisted of travelling on the go since we have to cover quite a distance. If you look at the map below, we have covered Point C to E and that took us about 11 hours.

After setting off from Mount Rushmore this morning, we headed towards Devils Tower which was about a 2hour drive away. The formation of the Devils Tower is spectacular and its beauty can’t exactly be captured in the pictures.

After taking enough photos with the first national monument that was established by President Theodore Roosevelt, we embarked on the 9 hour long ride to Yellowstone. As the South and Eastern entrances are all closed, we had to take a detour and enter via the North Eastern entrance. The scenery enroute to Yellowstone from South Dakota was simply breathtaking. While travelling on the car, we experienced almost the four seasons. It started off with gloomy skies initially, which later turned into vibrant blue skies with clouds dotting the horizon. Thereafter we drove into the Big Horn National Park and soon found ourselves at an elevation of 8347ft, which is nearly 2500m, and according to royston that’s like 1/4 of Mount Everest’s altitude.

At such an altitude, the snow was inevitable. We had to reduce the speed of travelling and ensure that we don’t skid off the edges of the cliffs while driving up the winding long slopes with occasional sharp turns. After travelling for about an hour or two, we left the national park and saw some pretty amazing scenery of which no photos could possibly do justice to it. The countless red rocks, possibly sedimentary rocks due to its pattern of weathering, and numerous valleys that were towering us left us speechless. Once we were back to grounds of lower elevation, we soon encountered more blue skies and green meadows. Nevertheless, as US is renowned for its well preserved state parks/national forests, we had another encounter with more snow capped mountains at the Gallatin National Park.

We didn’t expect to see that much snow, or actually snow in the first place, since it’s already May. Oh well, the wonders of Mother Nature.

By the time we reached Yellowstone National Park North Eastern entrance, it was around 830pm. We figured that we should grab dinner at the nearest city, Cooke City, because there’s no food to be found in the park by the time we reach our inn at 11pm. Thankfully, we stopped by the small city (which consist of about 10-15 log cabins haha) and Jason got his dinner. He also heard from the park ranger that the road that we’re supposed to take is closed by the time we reach the place. In the end, we’re now stranded, or rather, staying somewhere else that’s outside the Yellowstone entrance so that we wont freeze to death in the middle of the night when we can’t find our lodge or any other accommodation.

By the way, I got the photos in my recent post from googling images. Those aren’t mine cos there’s some problem with my laptop’s card reader. Will upload them when I return to Singapore I reckon. Haha, that’s a long way to go yet at the same time for the 5 travellers who are state hopping, 2 weeks ain’t much.

Haha and we took lots of retarded videos/photos during our long car ride to Yellowstone. You might be able to find some of them on Youtube when we get back to Singapore hahaha.

Okay, enough of updates for now! Do await my photos. I’m pretty sure they’ll sweep you off your feet!

Till then, hasta la vista!

Day 3: Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

2010-05-11T14:15:00.001+08:00

And finally, I’ve completed 3 out of the 4 things that I wanted to do if I ever get to embark on my American dream – which is to visit the Empire State (did that in my first NYC trip), Seattle Space Needle (did that in spring break), Mount Rushmore (completed that today) and last but not least, the Golden Gate Bridge which I will be visiting in another 1.5 weeks time.

There are four faces of the US Presidents carved on the granite mountain of Mt Rushmore. They are namely George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

The following are the main reasons why the respective presidents are engraved on the mountain.

1. George Washington was the founder of the United States of America.

2. Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the states by acquiring Louisiana.

3. Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery and united the citizens.

4. Theodore Roosevelt developed the country economically.

Unfortunately, the weather today wasn’t exactly in our favour. As Travis’ song goes, ‘why does it always rain on me?’, the exact phrase can be applied to our day. It pretty much rained most of the time and snowed at night. Worse still, the fog actually clouded the carved faces of the four presidents at regular intervals.. so it was rather difficult to capture nice photos. Nevertheless, we still spent a whole afternoon at the area haha.

Anyway, tomorrow will probably be the longest drive ever for us in the States. We will be travelling from Mount Rushmore to Devils Tower..

which will take us 2.5 hours, and then head to Old Faithful Geyser at Yellowstone National Park..

which will take us another 10.5 hours.

Road trip of a lifetime.

Ok, I gotta shower. Another early day tomorrow!

Till then,

Hasta Luego.

day 2: Custer, South dakota

2010-05-10T13:11:00.001+08:00

Hello all! Here i am, updating from Days inn at Custer. We drove from Denver up north to custer, which took about 6.5 hours or so. There was really some amazing scenery en route to South Dakota, the tye of stuff which makes you feel so small when you see those vast expanse of lands with houses that are spread out in an isolated pattern. Not forgetting the occasional cows, horses, goats that we saw along the way as well. Thank goodness we managed to stop by a gas station along the way, otherwise running out of petrol on such American roads can really make you feel helpless. That’s how you have to hitch a ride from strangers haha.

We reached Custer at about 4pm and visited the State Park. Unfortunately, I think i lost my connector for my wide angle lens (damn), but its okay i’ll buy it when I return to Singapore. Hopefully i can find it! Anyway, we saw some pretty amazing scenery at Custer State Park.

Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park

Obviously the weather wasn’t as good as this so it was more overcast when we were there today. Nevertheless, as the dslr photographer royston loo commented, it’s more rare to get overcast skies than sunny ones.. so await our picturesque photos!

More reflection lake photos!

View along the Needles Highway scenic drive. Lyn was the driver. Imagine four passengers scared out of their wits in the car.

The Needles Eye. A granite formation that was about 30 to 40 feet high.

Alright! I shan’t blog too much in detail because I’ll update more when I get my photos!:D

My shoulder blade hurts from dragging the luggage that weighs about 23 kg throughout the trip, despite the fact that it’s only a mere 2 days. I really need to toughen up man. Anyway, the capsicum plaster, something that resembles salonpas, that i got from Jason, is burning into my skin now. I will survive the night and recover as a healthy person with strong shoulders tomorrow haha.

Mount Rushmore and the 4 president faces tomorrow! But it’s gonna rain, damn!

Till then, goodnight!

1st Day in Colorado

2010-05-09T13:24:00.001+08:00

Hey guys, I'm finally at Denver, Colorado. We were supposed to take the 9am flight this morning, but due to a series of unfortunate events such as delayed customs/missed trains etc. we MISSED our FIRST flight. Haha, what a great start to the trip!

Anyway, I was really damn shagged once night fell over here in Denver. There's a time zone difference of 2 hours for Atlanta and Denver, so when it was 8pm here, it was already 10pm in Atlanta. Plus, we didnt get enough sleep the night before cos we're all so busy packing for our luggages for our road trip and back to Singapore in 3 weeks time. Sigh!

I'm finally now settled on the bed of Red Lion, Denver. Probably sleeping sometime soon since my day will start at probably 530am tomorrow. Yes, I'm the earliest waker out of the 5 here. The funny thing is that since there's 5 of us, one of us gotta wake up the earliest to shower, followed by the second and so on. Haha, i wonder how long can my waking up the earliest last for the whole road trip. Will update again!:)

Anyway, we'll be driving up towards Mt Rushmore tomorrow. But before rushmore, we'll stop by at Custer state park..

Haha hopefully we’ll see such animals there tomorrow! And catch the awesome sunset at the state park!

Will blog about more details when I get my photos after the trip haha:D

Till then, see you.

Time to say goodbye

2010-05-07T01:47:00.005+08:00

Exams are finally over. And the best part about it was that I finally managed to accomplish one of my two aims which I wanted to do in the States - to pass the most important/difficult accounting core ever. I was on the verge of failing initially, like a few marks away from the passing grade. And that threw me off my track for a couple of days. I kinda regretted skipping most of the lessons, not doing my tests properly and so on. I suppose the last time I felt that way was way back in primary school or something. Life in the states really makes me feel disoriented sometimes. From the rigid orderly way I do stuff back home, I feel that this really makes me loosen up a whole lot. I'm just afraid that I might not be able to be accustomed to the Singapore education system again.

The past few weeks have been great. We spent our last three weeks in Atlanta. It's possible for us to spend one whole afternoon on grocery shopping and eating lobsters. Haha, the time we take to travel to and fro to the Asian grocery supermarket is about 2 hours. How amazing is that when we have stuff like NTUC or Giant all around in Singapore. Besides feasting happily in the weekends, we've been cooking much better stuff these days. From the chicken macaroni that was soaked in chicken stock soup, to pork that was cooked with the custom made paste that we brought over from Singapore and finally to many occasions of sumptuous chicken/pork (of which i'm still not entirely a fan of), steamed prawns soaked in rice wine and dipped with dark soy sauce, green bean soup for dessert, barley which has a weird taste, ben and jerry/starbucks icecream feasts and finally to many wonderful renditions of veggies that I've cooked. The most number of times I've cooked in my life. I'm quite prepared to return to Singapore to work in the kitchen, for now. Haha.

And the past couple of weeks have been pretty awesome with the tons of movies that I've watched. I probably chalked up about 32 movies in the past 2.5 weeks. Trying to enjoy whatever remaining time that I have in the very 'in-my-comfort-zone' land. As I'm typing now, I'm also lying on my bed, with my pillow pressed against my back and stuffing my legs into the comforter so it feels more warm and fuzzy. That's how awesome life is over here. Plus, I grow fat too. The not so awesome part.

Today was my last day visiting the school, Georgia Tech, for school related purposes - exam. Might still be heading down one last time tomorrow but yep, I still can't imagine how quick time flies. The whole journey has been kinda like a rollercoaster ride, cliche i know, but true. Ups and downs. Times when I want to return home to the safest place in the world, mentally and literally (crime rate here isn't all that good). Times when I miss my family or friends and just wanna hang out with them. Times when I feel sick and the first place I think of is home. Those were the times, that occurred sporadically throughout my five months here. And now, it's almost, yes almost time to return home. I still have three weeks to tour a myriad of places, of which I'm really thankful of.

Last but not least, the friends that I've made here have been a wonderful bunch. Besides my travelling experiences, my housemates are really the people who define my exchange life. It's incomplete if I were to leave out any. Beginning from our first grocery shopping trip to Walmart where we went oohs and aahs cos Walmart seemed like it finally jumped out from our marketing textbook into reality. And the times where we brought a camera wherever we go cos we were still new to the area and stuff and snap like twenty dozens of photos a day. Not forgetting the nights where we spent hours in the kitchen cooking, and the weekly friday nights dedicated to watching xing guang and i'll somehow fall asleep when I hear hokkien songs. To the millions of road trips that we've had to Savannah, Hartwell, Orlando, North Georgic etc. Finally, finally we have reached this point in time where it's our final biggest trip ever (for any of us I suppose) - 22 days road trip to explore the North and West of the States.

Will I miss my life here? Those who know me well would know that that's for sure. I'm usually a sentimental person who dwells back on the past haha sad but true. But now, I'm just telling myself. Three words to sum up everything about life - It goes on. We just have to keep looking forward and relish those experiences that we have had.

Now, I'll probably end this entry. It feels weird typing such a long wordy entry cos I've been blogging solely about my travelling adventures for the past few months. This is also probably the last time, that i'll blog in Atlanta (sadly but yes) and I might blog about Seattle hopefully later if I've the time. It's been a great trip and thanks for reading my blog haha. Don't worry. I'll continue to update but yes, the next time is probably in Singapore. Or maybe sometime during my road trip when i have the energy to do so since pretty much most of the inns have free wifi. 22 days of road trip. It sounds a little long and tiring. But I'm rather sure that I will have the most kickass time of my life the next time I see this entry.

Till then,

Hasta la vista!

Tres Cero Seis

2010-05-05T06:24:00.003+08:00

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

Washington Day 1 – Mt. Rainier

2010-04-30T05:07:00.001+08:00

Despite the end of a very eventful, once in a lifetime kind of trip at Alaska, we were still pretty excited to visit the state of Washington.

Fun fact: There’s a difference between the state of Washington and Washington D.C.. The latter, with all the government/parliament buildings, is the capital of the United States whereas the former is located on the North-western coast of the States.

In a bid to save money on accommodation, I decided to book a flight in the middle of the night – 2am to 6am or so. Haha, that wasn’t exactly the best choice, but still liveable. We fell asleep on the chairs at the airport and waited till it was 10am before we embarked on our next mini road trip to Mt Rainier!

Along the 2 hour drive to Mt Rainier, we saw some pretty amazing sceneries.

Deforestation. Where is the love?

Towering pine trees.

We stayed at the Gateway inn for a night. Its location is ideal as the inn is just located right outside the entrance of Mt. Rainier. The inn only consisted of around 9 log cabins, so it’s gonna be pretty crowded during summer i suppose. Surprisingly, we were probably one out of 2 customers that day. And there is certainly a reason for that!

We had lunch at the inn before setting off to explore Mt Rainier!

Before driving up the mountain, we asked the inn keeper about the temperatures. He told us that it varies a lot, somewhat like the four seasons. Seems pretty unbelievable but when we actually drove up the mountain – which took a whooping 45 minutes due to the winding and steep slopes, we can certainly see the drastic changes in weather.

This was taken when we were at the top of the mountain. Everywhere around us was just filled with snow – knee deep.

Some of the nice sceneries along the drive down.

This was probably taken when we were 2/3 our way down the mountain. No more falling snow or ice on the roads as they turned into slight and sometimes stronger drizzles. That explain my wet brown coat. Oh, the lack of customers can also be attributed to the weather. Mt. Rainier would probably be stunning in summer or when it doesn’t rain!

We spotted a Bambi lookalike when we were at the bottom of the slope. (Yuting alert!)

Haha, this is probably one of the last few shots in our huge winter coats! The trees in this part of the forest are so freaking high that when you actually lift your head and look up at the sky, you can’t see the top of the tree, and only a tweeny bit of the sky.

PS: Look at lyn the dua kim jio. She looks like Confucius (due to the posture) scratching his butt.

Daily Trivia: Spot Royston and I.

After playing and camwhoring for a day in the aesthetically pleasing national park, we went for dinner at this amazing restaurant. It’s kind of like those road side cool restaurant/bar where you can chill out for the night. The restaurant owner looks like this cool middle aged rocker, and she actually manages the business by herself! Heard from her that 2million people visit Mt Rainier a year, that’s quite a lot for a national park that is a 2hour drive away from Seattle, isn’t it?

Had a superb soft serve ice cream before leaving the restaurant and I almost died of cold that night haha. Hurried back to the inn and the log cabin is indeed a genuine one. The cabin is dimly lit inside and when night falls, we are supposed to light our own fire using the dry wood that the inn keeper provided us with. And this was the main source of heat and light that night.

Cheers to the stay in the log cabin!:)

Welcome to Mt Rainier National Park! Haha. Do visit it in summer:D

World's shortest man

2010-04-27T09:51:00.003+08:00

The world's shortest man is Mr He Ping Ping, (omg reminds me of chng hu hu) who stands at 74cm. Okay, according to Guinness World Records, he is the world's shortest man who can walk. He was featured in the 10th episode of Amazing Race Season 16 and sadly, he only lived up to an age of 21. OMG, that's near my age.

And I'm loving the cowboys more and more as they press on in the race! Who say country boys can't survive in cities, especially global cities like Shanghai! Haha!

Whitewater Rafting at Ocoee River, Tennessee

2010-04-25T11:40:00.001+08:00

After doing a fair bit of travelling for the past four months, I realised that my housemates have had many remarkable first time experiences here in the USA.

Today, marks one of the most memorable day, of my first experience - whitewater rafting. It wasn't exactly a suitable day for rafting since it had been raining cats and dogs since I woke up. Yes, the rain drops that splattered on my window made me think that someone was in my room and so I woke up in shock. Despite the torrential rain and the gloominess that filled the day, we were all still feeling somewhat excited for the whitewater rafting trip. Especially so for me, since it was my first.

The air was cold and unforgiving. It reminded me of that particular day when we went snorkeling at Key Largo, probably in the Atlantic Ocean, where the waters were at a temperature of 16 degrees, and our shivers were further accentuated with howling winds. The same goes for today's whitewater rafting experience, we were clad in life jackets and had to endure the stinging cold when the water gushed into our raft. Though I'm still not a fan of chilly weathers despite 4 months in Atlanta, I must say that the experience of rafting was so superb that I forgot about cold it actually was.

Holding the paddle with both hands; paddling forward with the other four friends on the raft; enjoying the various rapids and swirls that caused our raft to take crazy turns here and there and last but not least, taking a panoramic view of the stunning gorge that was surrounded with lush green trees was a dream come true. The only pity was that I didn't get to take any photos today which would have allowed me to paint a clearer picture. But well, I visited the website of the organizer - High Country Adventures, who had awesome raft guides by the way, and they included some amazing photos!

I love the freedom and travelling without worries experience here. Sadly, the next big trip to look forward to would also be our final trip in the States..

To those reading my blog….

2010-04-20T06:09:00.001+08:00

Is there someone from Fairbanks, AK reading my blog? Haha, if you’re the one, can you leave a message on my tagboard!:D

Alaska Day 6 – En route to Seward

2010-04-20T05:24:00.001+08:00

It snowed rather heavily the previous night. Definitely not a piece of good news for drivers! Another lesson to learn from staying in a country that experiences snow would be that you wouldn’t want snow especially if you’re driving the next day! Mainly because the snow might become ice and the road conditions would be too slippery for cars.

It was my turn to drive that morning, and the road conditions are definitely bad for driving, especially since we had to tread through snow to get to our car at the carpark. Plus, in a bid to save on car expenses, we got ourselves an Economy car – the smallest car of all sizes of rental vehicles. A Chevrolet Aveo definitely isn’t a good vehicle on such roads. Check out the size of our tiny wheels!

And compare it to the SUVs that whizzed past us easily when driving.

We experienced some difficulty driving to this renowned breakfast place at the Alyeska Resort since there were some icy slopes involved amidst the drive. What scared us the most was our engine breaking down while on the slope. Recalls in previous entry : our Toyota broke down at a junction in Fairbanks.

We finally reached the Bake shop after travelling at 20mph on the snowy roads.

And we tried the most unbelievably mouth-watering cinnamon bun ever, at the Bake Shop. No wonder there’s like a gazillion reviews of it on trip advisor. The crust of the bun was crispy and warm, which blended perfectly well with the slightly chilled butter. The cinnamon bun, coupled with the little specks of almond nuts, tasted heavenly!

We also tried the sourdough pancakes, which weren’t cheap, and what was funny was that they tasted like mian jian kueh (not sure of its exact name) but I’m referring to those white coloured kuehs in triangular shapes that you can find in Singapore. Totally spoilt the appetite of Royston after I said that hahaha.

After breakfast, we decided to head for our next destination..which was initially to visit a Wildlife Conservatory. When we reached the carpark to get the car, it started snowing again and we spotted this huge patch of untouched snow which was perfect for snowman building! As such, we figured that since none of us had built a snowman and our snowman building experience failed in Fairbanks (cos the snow was too wet over there), this was our perfect chance to build a snowman!

It took us about 1 hour to build the snowman.. starting from excavating snow to shaping the balls of snow and eventually finding necessary accessories to provide our snowman with features!

And finally, say hello to Sherman the Snowman!

How did the name Sherman come about? We wanted to call it Sharon (xue ren) but since ours was a snowman and not a snow woman, we figured Sherman would be a better name!

Camwhoring with our prized possession!

More photos!:D The background is damn pretty as well.. and this was just the carpark of the resort hahaha.

After the photoshots, we waved goodbye to Sherman and continued with our journey to Seward.

As Royston mentioned during the car ride,

‘We’re not going forward,

we’re not going backward,

but we’re going to..

SEWARD!’

Our super awesome Chevy Aveo was so cool that firstly, it did not have a freaking CD player. Can you imagine how old the car is?! Secondly, our only source of entertainment – the radio, did not manage to receive any reception when we were driving from Alyeska to Seward. So we were practically driving without any music for about 3 hours or so. As such, we had to create radiostations like Chubbo FM and Royston FM since he was the V com and yours truly was the driver. Haha, one interesting thing while hopping onto the same vehicle as me would be that I seldom sleep in the car, and I will definitely try to ensure that all passengers are awake as well! For one, I know that aunty nancy and uncle loo hates me for that, especially when I sit with them at the back of the car HAHA.

Finally, we reached the little quaint town of Seward,which is like a fishing town. First thing we did was to hunt for food and the pulled pork bun is definitely something I’ll miss from the States. We ate so much during the trip that my face is officially the roundest and whitest when I’m in Alaska. I believe that it’s not as round now haha.

Spotting a woman walking her dogs is definitely something unusual in this town, for it’s so quiet and tourist-less. In winter only, i reckon.

Very picturesque scenery. Unfortunately, the sky was devoured by grey hovering clouds..

Nevertheless, that will not dampen our mood to take more photos!:)

Spent about 3 hours at the little quaint town of Seward, and it took us another 4 hours to get back to Anchorage. Haha, I initially expected much more from Seward but I think the weather and season weren’t in our favour.. oh well!

We tried the best restaurant in Anchorage, which served pizza that reminded me of Vinnie Van Go Go at Savannah!

And that dinner, officially marked the end of our Alaska trip!

Alaska Day 5 – Skiing at Alyeska, Girdwood

2010-04-20T04:25:00.001+08:00

Alas, the day to ski finally arrived. We initially wanted to ski at North Carolina during February, but due to some mishaps here and there, we postponed the skiing trip to the Alyeska Resort, where Olympic skiers train!

It’s quite an atas hotel as you can see from the interior. There’s like probably thousands of rooms in that hotel so I’m assuming that there’s really lots of people who specially visit this area to ski! When we were taking the train from Anchorage to Fairbanks, we met this rich Californian real estate agent who went helicopter skiing at the resort. Helicopter skiing refers to taking a helicopter to a hill top and skiing down from the top of the hill to the bottom. SOUNDS COOL RIGHT. That kinda scared me a little when I heard the rich dude talking about it cos holy moly, it’s my first time skiing and I’m not exactly good at balancing besides riding a bike. That dude helicopter skied 3 days in a row and I reckoned he spent about a thousand bucks or more on that.

What’s with the rich Americans!? Haha the more awesome part was that, he was going to Canada to ski in like the next few days or something. Why are they so rich and free??!

There’s this very cool chairlift that brings you up to a certain part of the slope so that you can ski your way down. Apparently, only Jason managed to take the chairlift cos Royst and I both shared a common fear of heights.

What about legowoman? Oh wait, do you know who’s legowoman? She’s the one clad in the yellow banana jacket with a black helmet. Hahaha looks like the legoman that you’ve been playing in your primary school days right! Anyway, legowoman figured that she wasn’t good with balancing and skiing so you can see her feeling very depressed, standing at the corner of the slopes watching us ski. Haha poor legowoman. Let’s go cycling next time to improve your balancing skills!

Despite being bad at certain sports, like windsurfing, I found out that I’m still coping well with skiing although I had difficulty balancing in the beginning and the guys were laughing at me. Then, I realised that I had difficulties balancing due to my very fat shin haha cos those fat shins were hindering the bending of my knees which was essential to balance while skiing. Nonetheless, I managed to conquer a very gentle slope with cones, somewhat like a skiing obstacle.

By the first half an hour of skiing (I only skied for 3 hours), I was perspiring like a cow. Totally reminded me of walking under the scorching hot sun in Singapore. But then again, I was in freaking Alaska where everywhere was white. Can’t believe my perspiration glands were still so active in such a weather.

To reward ourselves for our awesome skiing experience, we went to an atas restaurant to eat!

Haha, cool setting in the restaurant. One thing to note is that Cajun chicken in the States is totally different from Cajun chicken in Singapore/Botak Jones haha. Totally miss the cajun spice back in Singapore and that mashed potato with cheese, together with the spicy fries, at Botak Jones!

Alaska Day 4 – Fairbanks, AK

2010-04-18T05:54:00.001+08:00

University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks

Before coming to this museum, I’ve read online reviews as well as hearsay that this museum is really awesome and it’s a must see if you’re visiting Fairbanks. I’m not exactly a museum fan, meaning I usually don’t have the patience to slowly understand the history behind stuff and enjoying looking at the artefacts in usual museum. However, the University of Alaska Museum is really in a league of its own!

We probably spent 2-3hours walking around and snapping photos of wildlife Arctic specimens and reading the history of Alaska. Would have spent more time if we were not rushing to the Santa Claus House.

A time machine i think.

Tons of stuff to check out at the museum for a reasonable entry fee of 10 bucks.

We were so bored of not taking photos at the museum such that when we visited the Art Gallery above the museum, we ended up taking random photos that concerned the colours we were wearing that day! Haha.

Now you see me, now you don’t.

Santa Claus House, North Pole

After the museum, we headed off to the Santa Claus House! It’s located at the North Pole! Haha there’s such a place located in Fairbanks!

We initially expected it to really look like the house of Santa, like the Mickey and Minnie House you see in Disneyworld. Unfortunately, it was just a gift shop of some sort, and I spotted some Santa letters/letters to Santa which I thought was rather interesting.

After exploring the shop and figuring out that the only stuff that I can afford from such pricey gift shops are postcards, we decided to head towards the open area beside the shop to take photos! There were many little benches around, i guess they’re for people to hang around when summer arrives. And when we were taking photos during that time, there was this crane lookalike that was trying to remove the snow on the ground. So we had to ensure that it didn’t get into any of our shots. How tiring!

The Eskimo had to sacrifice herself to be the statue that everybody loves in order for more great photos. Check out the middle photo! The eskimo statue comes alive! The caption for the third photo should be: Please do not abuse the Eskimo Statue.

Run reindeer run!

The real Santa reindeer that was just beside the Santa Claus House. I feel a little sad for the 2 reindeers though, since they gotta be caged there without freedom and no one visiting them.

We returned to the inn before evening since we were supposed to have our dinner that was prepared by the inn keeper. And I suppose we were really too free there, haha so we decided that more photos should be taken to commemorate our wonderful stay at the Northern Sky Lodge!:D

Sid was damn ‘obedient’, he was furiously biting on to the slide even though no one told her to fetch the slide for us. Haha, no wonder there were so many cracks on it!

I think I can come up with movie posters from my photos with Sid. Hahaha!

Did you realise that in the photo below, Jason is sitting on Sid! OMG right. So mean to the dog, although I’m still not an animal lover after this episode.

And that’s the 20 year old Japanese we met who was travelling by herself. The lao peh peh at the back, is really knowledgeable and super good with photography and video editing. He even made videos and posted them to Youtube to advocate for global warming. Really, when you reach his age in the future, will you be able to do such stuff? I’m totally impressed. He even taught Royston a few techniques for taking photographs of the aurora, unfortunately there was none to be sighted!);

When i came out of the room in the middle of that night, I realised that the girl was also camping for the auroras. Dont be fooled by her age, she also has a DSLR and a super pro looking tripod. Haha, and tons of Japanese like to visit this lodge because it’s good for aurora viewing and some japanese customers really visit Alaska to see the Northern Lights. I’m just wow-ed by their passion and their availability of time and money! Talking to them makes me feel like visiting Japan as well. Ah, after bangkok and Macau!

And this marks the end of our Fairbanks journey. Heading to Girdwood, Alyeska and Seward next!

Stay tuned!:)

Alaska Day 3 – World Ice Art Championships

2010-04-18T05:00:00.002+08:00

After mushing, we decided to head towards the Dog Sledding Championships. However, once again, we spent too much time taking photos and attacking each other with snow.

We even stopped by this scenic photo taking spot on the highway (yeah, they allow cars to stop at random spots along the highway with a good view such that you can capture amazing photo shots).

Thereafter, we missed the 1pm opening of the championships and ended up getting stranded at an isolated area of Fairbanks. The path that we were travelling on was filled with ice and sand, the most lethal combination for any car. We ended up with a very noisy car engine and our travelling speed was diminishing exponentially until..

we got stuck in the middle of a junction with a dead engine. Thankfully, there was a super helpful guy around who offered to help us tow our car to the side of the road! One of our luckiest moments with the car incidents that we’ve been through!

After waiting for 1 hour for Payless to give us another car, we went for the World Ice Art Championships!

Some of the sculptures were unfortunately melting so you might see an ice sculpture of a man without a hand or something. The weather in Fairbanks was considered rather hot this year, which is an anomaly. Is this global warming sending us a signal?

House mates taking a photo in front of a house!:D

The eskimo and her snow rover. Hahaha.

That’s another side of my friend (you never know which is the real one). She looks like mian bao chao ren in that photo and it kinda reminds me of JigSaw from the movie, Saw. Hahaha well done!

We walked along an ice maze, which is quite cool haha and there’s a little igloo or something in the middle for more opportunities for photo taking!

The dua kim jio (big banana), eskimo, tibetan priest and japanese soldier.

The telephone series.

P.S: Check out what dua kim jio is doing with the telephone.

More photos!

After spending about 2-3 hours camwhoring in the cold, we felt rather cold and decided to have a cup of hot chocolate in the rest area. Superb!

The rest area had this map on a noticeboard and it’s kinda like the tripadvisor map on facebook. It allows you to place a pin on the map if you’re from that country. Definitely, Singaporeans had already visited the Ice Art Championships before us. But guess what?! Even some dudes from South Pole and isolated areas of Greenland have visited this place as well. Applause x 3. I like this idea of the map pinning, will do such a thing if I own a cafeteria for backpackers next time.

OH and the best part about Alaskan days is that.. they have freaking freaking LONG days! The sun probably rises at 6-7am and it actually sets after 8pm. Which means that at 730pm, it’s still super bright outside and you might mistake it for an afternoon 3 pm or something. Then again, that’s the reason why Alaska is known as the Land of the Midnight Sun during summer, simply because it’s 24hours daylight! Haha, my blog very enriching right.

When night finally fell, which was what we’ve been waiting for, the temperatures fell even more and the lights were up! Check out those amazing sculptures below!

We visited this area (for kids) and played with the slides. Reminds me of the slide I played in Luna Park at Melbourne (recalls: Shuwei did not dare to conquer the highest slide, or did you.. I can’t remember haha I only remember you walking down the stairs with the slide). (Further recalls: I went up with weeba and I almost wanted to give up when I saw how steep the slope was).

Headed back to the B&B thereafter and I drove back this time round. That twilight zone (read previous entry) scene has been awarded a little portion of my memory box:D

Alaska Day 3 – Fairbanks, AK

2010-04-16T22:11:00.004+08:00

The previous night, we stayed up trying to catch the aurora borealis, which was actually the main aim of our Alaskan trip. Heard from the train conductor that there’s been occurrences of the northern lights for the past 3 days, so that got us really hyped up! We probably stayed awake till 2am and subsequently heard from another Japanese at the inn that there might not be any aurora occurrence. Speaking of Japanese, there are many of them in Alaska, equipped with chunky DLSRs, awaiting the aurora. We met a Japanese girl, about 20 years old, travelling ALONE from Japan to Alaska. Haha, kudos to her cos I think it’s really brave of her to do so especially when she knew minimal English (discovered that fact when we were communicating lol).

Anyway, since I didn’t manage to capture any Aurora, here’s what I got from my G11. The area outside the inn, where I snap this shot, was actually PITCH DARK and freezing, probably –20 degrees i guesstimate. It was so dark that when you stick out your fingers, you wouldnt know if they’re still there. Thank god for shutter speed and aperture. Haha, I maxed out my shutter speed, 30 seconds i think to get this shot. Check out the starry sky and towering pine trees. Loved the whole outlook of Fairbanks actually. Cloudless sky, brilliant sky gradients and tonnes of stars at night (royston saw a shooting star and he wished for GPA 5.0 instead of an aurora.. dang!)

Day 3 – Dog Mushing

The next morning, we got up early at 9am for breakfast and our highlight of the trip – Dog Mushing.

What’s that? The first thing that would probably pop in your head would be a scene of us sitting on a sled, with those huskies acting like santa’s reindeers, ferrying us from one place to another.

No! That’s dog sledding, not dog mushing. Haha and the former usually cost much less than the latter. We got ourselves a really good deal from the inn keeper (albeit the mushing only covered 4-5miles or so) cos she charged us 55 USD for the mushing instead of the usual 200+USD, although the more expensive option would allow us to mush for a much longer time. But its the experience that counts and especially applicable to us, the poor students hailing from USA.

Isn’t the lodge pretty? Haha, too bad I didnt take a shot of the lodge with aurora in the background. Imagine the same house, with a night sky as the background, and an abundance of aurora sweeping across the whole sky.. It’s seriously the best picture any photographer would hope for. If I return to Alaska, I’ll definitely choose Northern Sky Lodge once again. Since it’s located about the distance of Singapore (East to West) away from the city centre, means its far from city lights! Perfect for aurora viewing:)

Jason and I were the first two to head for dog mushing! Oh yes, I almost forgot to explain what’s mushing haha. Let me give you a stark comparison between mushing and sledding so you can see the difference clearly.

Sledding – sitting on the sled with the huskies ferrying you around

Mushing – Huskies give you the speed you need to travel while you stand on the sled (picture below) and control the direction and speed of travelling.. the whole experience was like riding a motorcycle cos you’d have to stand in superbly cool positions when you meet bends in the roads and stuff. The brakes for the sled are located beneath your feet so apply huge amounts of pressure when you have to stop your sled. Directional changes can be made by shifting your weight from one side to another, as I said, it’s like riding a motorbike in the arcade (since I haven’t rode a real bike).

And that’s me, the alaskan eskimo lookalike, returning from my rewarding but short mushing experience!:D

That’s our inn keeper, Pascale, who actually was surprisingly quite cold and not too friendly.. Haha but I guess that’s because she isn’t American.. We were thinking that she might be a Russian or something from her name and build. But she’s a really strong woman, she singlehandedly chained the huskies and arranged for 3 consecutive dog mushings that morning. Nevertheless, her inn customers pay her really well to do such stuff hehe.

The picture below shows the banana mushing, after going down a rather steep slope (which is the fastest part of the whole mushing). The funny thing was that she shrieked rather loudly when she went down the slope and I saw the inn keeper, who was leading the way with her cool snow mobile, continuously beckoning her to accelerate. Haha, and another tip to learn is that if you braked too much, your huskies will be tired and they will end up turning around to stare at you, when they are running, to give you a ‘What’s your problem’ look! Haha, i’m not kidding cos that’s what happened to Royston lol.

When I was heading off for the mushing.. I was freaking scared actually.

1. I hate animals, not to mention huge dogs like huskies. I remember shunning them in the bayshore park lift. Yes, there’s 2 huskies in bayshore, since when could huskies survive the hot and humid temperatures in sunny Singapore.

2. I didn’t know what speed to expect travelling at cos the huskies were full of energy, by that I mean that they were jumping up and down so energetically that they could move my sled even though it was already anchored to the ground.

3. I feared for my life. HAHA.

Nonetheless, the brave me remained calm and the whole ride was pretty smooth, except for the fact that at a particular point in the mushing, nearing the end actually, as my huskies were suffering from fatigue, they couldnt run as fast as the ferocious looking black huskies (that belonged to Jason’s sled). Thereafter, as my sled slowed down, I could hear erratic panting sounds from the black huskies right behind me. Haha, that was a good motivation for me to accelerate my sled although I had some trouble doing that lol.

After mushing, we proceeded to snow ball fights and creating snow angels since we didn’t have that chance in Atlanta haha. Did many taupoks as well since it was damn fun till the point where the snow enters your butt or inside your clothes hahaha.

We saw a trampoline at the side and decided to play with it. The gymnast (most of you should know who) mocked me when I was on it. GUESS WHAT!? I did a better job than her, as u can see from the photo hahahaha.

Most important part of the whole mushing – I TOUCHED DOGS for the first time in my life. Haha, I think i’ve a phobia of them actually. Must be some dark hidden child phobia. Then again, I was using my gloves to touch them the whole time so i’m not too sure if that constitutes touching lol. Below depicts the 3 stages of me getting close to the dog, with the biggest picture being the most successful!

Our inn keeper kept a golden retriever called Sid. She was really quite obedient and that changed my perception of dogs, a little bit, to the positive side. The same doesn’t go for cats though, I still think that dogs are much better than cats.

Alright, I’ll stop here for now. Gotta go do some grocery shopping and eat good food at Little Malaysia (they serve the best gu-lu-yok I’ve ever eaten) later. Hope I dont get tempted to cut my hair again.

Amazing race 16

2010-04-16T02:30:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I started watching Amazing Race season 16! Chanced upon it cos Royston showed me a Youtube video of Amazing Race in Singapore! W-O-W. Finally, our flyer’s included in this amazing series:)

The new contestants are.. definitely not as fun to watch as compared to last season’s winners – Meghan and Cheyne! They were recently engaged in a helicopter (i think)! Coolio elementary school sweethearts!

The only fun and smart contestants this time round are the cowboys from Oklahoma!

None of the couples can match up to M&C unfortunately.

Before I lose steam, let me get down to planning for the North and West coast trip! My US journey is ending… ):

Alaska Day 1 & 2 – Anchorage & Alaska Railroad Experience

2010-04-16T01:09:00.006+08:00

Spring break a.k.a recess week in NTU was well spent in Alaska and Seattle!

Day 1 – Atlanta to Alaska

We took a close to 12 hour (including stopovers) flight from Atlanta to Alaska. Almost missed a connecting flight from NYC to Minneapolis in the middle (as usual). Haha, but this time round it was the plane’s fault so we managed to catch the connecting flight in the end!

Flew over millions of snowcapped mountains, which kinda remind me of the Swiss Alps I flew across in a small plane as well.

Check out the cool Alaskan Airlines airplanes. Love those eskimo faces:) Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see any and the most remotely eskimo lookalike would be yours truly.

Reached Anchorage around 8pm or so and headed off to the streets to get dinner. Despite Anchorage being Alaska’s capital, I gotta say that the streets are really, really empty! Then again, it’s probably because there’s less than a million inhabitants in Alaska.

Went to Gumbo House for dinner. They were famous for their Jambalaya, which is actually a dish of Spanish and French influence. To me, it looked pretty much like baby food with stock and rice mashed together, and surprisingly it tasted quite good (must be due to the cheese flakes and tomato based sauce).

The Gumbo House was brightly decorated, and it looked cosy. Then again, I wouldn’t decorate my house in such a bright colour. Would you?

And that day, was the only day I did real time updates from Alaska hahaha. Despite Days Inn being a so-so motel/inn, its internet connection is really one of the best amongst all the hotels/hostels we’ve stayed in US. Since the other wifi connections were pretty much slow/non-existent, I couldn’t update in real time);

Day 2 – Taking the Alaska Railroad from Anchorage to Fairbanks!

The train ride was supposed to be 12 hours, but i think we managed to reach Fairbanks in approximately 10-11hours. It would be better to visit in Summer because you could actually do a 8hour drive up to Fairbanks (the 2nd most populated state in Alaska, behind Anchorage). But you might just miss out on the picturesque scenery that awaits along the train tracks.

Reach the Alaska Railroad corporation with all our barangs, and took the 8am train.

To our surprise, we got really awesome 1st class seats haha. The other seats were aligned in such a way that they looked like coach seats, whereas ours was like a 2 v 2 seating (look at picture below), which was what we had in mind actually haha. Once the train started moving off, you could see everyone whipping out their cameras (mostly DSLRs) and they started snapping pictures ferociously.. The trend lasted about 2-3 hours until we all got tired and started to chillpill at our seats.

The train conductor was really nice! Besides explaining to us about various sights that we have spotted along the way, he even made an exception for us (1st time ever) and allowed us to stop halfway at Mount McKinley – the HIGHEST mountain peak in North America!

That’s how it looks like in summer!

And this is Mt McKinely in winter!

The foursome.

Talked about a random million things under the sun during the super long train ride. The conversation lasted for a couple hours until my friend (with a neck problem, as identified by a drunk lady of Romanian and Alaskan roots) fell asleep and killed our conversation.

Alas, we finally reached Fairbanks and that marked the end of our awesome train experience!

Headed to the Fairbanks International Airport to collect our rental car, which was a old Toyota (probably 10 years of age) that was repainted till it looked as new as my Altis in Singapore! The sky showed a brilliant blue gradient in the evening when we walked to our car and this is just the start of the cloudless Alaskan days.

By the time we had our dinner, it was nearing 10pm. And the only food option available were fast food restaurants which were quite empty as well. (recalls: Alaska population’s < 1million). We chanced upon our all time favorite A&W which was combined with KFC and for the very first time, we had Kentucky GRILLED chicken also known as KGC hahaha. Surprisingly, they served yummylicious biscuits (winning Popeye’s) as well!

After the rewarding dinner, we drove down to our B&B – Northern Sky Lodge. The drive from the city centre to Ester (where our lodge was located) is the distance of the whole Singapore from East to West. HAHAHA. And we did this routine for 3 days in a row. The drive only took us about 30minutes or so cos they were simply long and winding roads with minimal cars in sight! This was probably one of the most memorable drives I’ve had in the States by far. It kinda reminded me of the scene in Twilight Zone, where the whole road is pitch dark and there were towering pine trees dotting both sides of the road. And there is a small Toyota with brightly lit headlights travelling in the middle of the night. Totally love the driving experience there!:D

When we reached our B&B, we were quite taken aback by HOW NICE THE WHOLE ROOM LOOKED! HAHA, ok it wasn’t there cheap staying there as well though. But the stay was really worthwhile (albeit not catching the aurora – one of life’s biggest regrets). We looked at the photos of previous customers who stayed at the inn and just 2 years ago, where the aurora activity was quite high.. the photos literally swept us off our feet! They were so unreal that I couldnt believe how lucky they were in capturing those awesome aurora shots.

2 reasons why I will return to Alaska in the future.

1. I need to see Alaska in summer (despite the flocks of tourists) simply because it will be so much more vibrant! Good for the eyes and my camera:D

2. I will pick a lucky year with super high sun spot activity, ergo sky high aurora activity, so I can probably bring a DSLR (in the future) to capture breathtaking aurora shots!

Who’s game for this?;D

Miami Day 4 – Coopertown Airboats & Burberry!

2010-04-03T23:04:00.001+08:00

Hahahaha what a long break from my final day in Miami. Anyway, I decided to finish blogging about Miami before my readers start getting bored.

We visited Coopertown Airboats in Miami! It’s like sitting on a boat that is propelled by a huge fan (ergo the name airboat) at the back, and swishing through swamps at high speed, searching for alligators!

Saw this nice vintage car outside the airboats area and check out the cool car plate.

This is the airboat (although u cant see the boat haha) but yes, the captain at the back is sitting on the huge fan and he uses that stick to steer direction, i think.

We stopped at a couple of places to attempt to spot alligators and check out the glades in the Everglades National Park! Yeah, it was named Everglades cos the founders realised that the glades were almost never ending so that’s a pretty cool name. During one of the photo spots, I saw this cowboy lookalike and immediately snapped a photo of him. Haha, got the feel yes?

Here’s some of the wildlife spotted during the trip. And can you believe it? The huge alligators eat the smaller, younger alligators too. Yikes.

After our 30min airboat tour, we alighted at the farm and saw those humongous looking alligators.

Freaking huge. Can u imagine if one of those swallow a human, and the human doesnt get digested immediately, so it’s like putting a dead corpse in one of those ugly fat shit. Haha the alligator was sleeping, thankfully.

The captain and gang.

Thereafter, the camwhores discovered a nice bridge directly opposite the farm. And so, it happened once more. The wooden plank where I was sitting on was like tilted to one side, and it looked mildly unstable haha, so my position ended up awkward.

That’s all for our Cooper airboats tour!

After the enriching morning tour at the Everglades, we headed down to the Burberry farm! Check out the girl next door’s expression when she takes photo on sunny days. Hahaha.

Burberry farm – awesome strawberry farm which produces other types of fruits like dragonfruit, lychee etc.

The workers there, average age approximately 55 or so, all look like they hopped out of the enid blyton storybook.

Check out the strawberry sundae!

We ordered the sundae, yogurt and milkshake haha. I’ve never been such a huge strawberry & yogurt fan until I got here.

Sipping milkshake, enjoying the cold sundae under the warm Miami sun at the strawberry farm.. just makes you feel like washing out those memories of hardcore mugging back in NTU. (haha) Good luck to those whose exams are nearing!

Finally, our last destination in Miami was pieducks pizza restaurant.

The pizzas here in the States are really twenty times better those in Singapore. I might miss them (since I usually don’t eat pizzas back in Singapore).

And our basket of strawberries that we gobbled up at the Fort Lauderdale airport while waiting for our flight back to Atlanta!

Okay, await for my Alaskan updates haha. I’m still waiting for Mr Loo to upload photos so I can start recalling events! And I’m going to the Great Smoky Mountains for a short camping trip. The true blue American experience whereby you cook spaghetti for dinner and bacons+eggs for breakfast, all outdoor. Here I come.

Another great workout

2010-04-01T02:56:00.003+08:00

As the title suggests, I just had a fabulous time at the gym again today! I ran 4.4miles and cycled for the same distance as well! That's 7.08km how awesome!:D

And so, i finally got down to ordering my ipod touch from Amazon! Hope everything goes well (cross my fingers)! Can't wait for it to come the day after tomorrow, so i'll be able to record my mileage to nike+, great motivation to run!

Finally, i have some personal time again. Done with tests/homeworks(close to zilch) and just one sucky presentation that has been postponed to next monday!

Whoopee:D

Short quick update!

2010-03-31T07:16:00.004+08:00

So there has been a lack of updates hahahaha. Sorry about it!

Let me just give you a quick update about my new life here.

I'm finally starting to exercise, and utilizing the CRC (Campus Recreational Centre) in Georgia Tech! Amazing! It's the grounds of the 1996 Olympics, haha imagine the size of it.

Yep, yesterday, the five of us went down to the CRC specially (since there was a extended day of our spring break lol) and we hit the treadmills + played basketball for over an hour. Imagine me and basketball. I only recall myself getting hit right in the face by the ball when I was much younger. No other fond memories of that sport thereafter.

And so, our sporty adventure has commenced since yesterday. Will be hitting the treadmill more often and badminton awaits this Friday! Finally:D

Off i go, time to cook!

Dang, there's still a test on intangibles (i didnt attend a lesson on it) and a presentation, which has been postponed for the longest time, tomorrow!

Alaska Day 1 - Anchorage

2010-03-20T14:39:00.002+08:00

Hello! I'm in Anchorage now. Thankfully Days Inn has free wi-fi connection so I'm able to give a real time update as I'm travelling on the go! Woohoo!:D

Ok, our flight journey started at 8:40 a.m. at Atlanta. As there was a slight delay in the taking off and some congestion when the plane was landing at Laguardia, NYC, we ALMOST missed our connecting flight to Minnesota. And the steward on the plane was even calling out for our last names, and fortunately, we didn't miss the 2nd flight. Cos if we were to miss that connecting flight, our whole alaska schedule would be pushed back and we'd miss the very awesome train ride that's happening tomorrow!

So after our 2nd flight, we reached Minnesota which is apparently a very ulu and gloomy place. To illustrate the above factors, when we flew past the city, I only saw THREE high rise buildings in the middle of nowhere HAHA. I really wonder why the flight to Minnesota was so crowded, probably cos everyone's just catching a transit there.

And finally, we took our 3rd flight and arrived at Alaska at around 6:45p.m. Then, it dawned upon me that we've actually taken a 12 hour long flight! WOW. From singapore, I think if you take such a flight, you'd probably reach egypt or something. Haha, but that 12 hours include transit and stuff.

Yep, so i'm finally here, safe and sound. Oh yes, Delta's awesome! They provide complimentary cookies/peanuts/pretzels and cans of drinks on board!!:D Makes me feel happy especially during long flights! So, remember to choose Delta next time ok!

Um, ok back to Anchorage, the city doesn't look very happening. But that's probably because we didn't go to explore downtown since there isn't much time. We headed to this restaurant called Gumbo House and had some Southern food. Haha, how interesting. Come all the way to the North to eat Southern food. Well, the restaurant looks pretty homely.

Ugh, im trying to upload some photos but somehow my toshiba can't read my SD card. Ok, will update tomorrow again!:D

Gotta sleep early tonight again. Btw, I just received the email. School notified me that I got into KPMG. Thanks for the well wishes!

Pre Alaskan Thoughts

2010-03-19T11:48:00.002+08:00

I suddenly miss talking to my two annoying sisters, who give me weird and retarded sounding names, and eating zi char with them.

Haha i think i miss singapore's food suddenly.

Damn, I've got to wake up at 6am tomorrow. Time out!

Miami Day 3 – Snorkelling in the Atlantic Ocean!

2010-03-19T09:06:00.001+08:00

What an exciting day! We drove down to Key Largo (instead of Key West cos it’s too far away) and went snorkelling.. somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!

Previously, I’ve snorkelled thrice. When I was much younger, I went to Tioman to snorkel.

After my first year in university, I went together with this great bunch of people, 6 shots!, to snorkel at Koh Samed!:D (miss you guys!)

After another boring semester in NTU, the travel trio (shuwei absent in photo) went to Redang for yet another snorkelling trip!

And since I figured I’ve snorkelled thrice before, the upcoming snorkel trip wouldn’t be much of a difference. Hell no! I was wrong to think that way.

Differences between snorkelling in countries that do not experience seasonal changes and countries that do

1. The water temperature is MUCH colder in Key Largo. I think it was about 16 degrees celsius that afternoon. Contrast it to the warm Koh Samed waters in Thailand, what a huge difference! It’s like snorkelling in air conditioned water if you were wondering the extent of the coldness.

2. While snorkelling, I could usually adjust my goggles properly, make sure it isn’t that foggy and continue to enjoy the beautiful corals and sea creatures deep within. As for snorkelling in the Atlantic ocean, the first thing that happened to me when I got off the boat was a HUGE wave. Like, since when did people snorkel in choppy waters?! Haha, I was still telling the rest of the gang on the boat that the waters are usually quite calm when it comes to snorkelling, so that you wouldn’t drift away and stuff. But when the boat started to stop, I realised they were kinda dumping us in the middle of NOWHERE (literally), and all that we could see was just vast amounts of deep blue sea. And after snorkelling for probably half an hour, my body started to feel cold and I had to use my life vest to act as a wind breaker in the waters. Brr.

3. Usually, when you come up from the swimming pool, due to the winds and effects of evaporation, you’d usually feel quite cold. Like probably a small shiver, as you start wrapping yourself up in a warm, comfortable towel. Here in Key Largo, you don’t get a SMALL shiver. Instead, once you come up on board, your whole body SHIVERS LIKE MAD. It’s called an UNCONTROLLABLE SHIVER. It was so bad to the extent that I didn’t need the OSIM massager. I wanted to curb my shiver by resting my butt on the side of the boat, but once I did so, my whole butt started shivering like mad and I couldn’t rest properly on the boat. Yes, it’s THAT cold.

Ok, before I start to bore you with my chilly experience, here are some photos. We went to this super luxurious place, that houses many yachts and boats. Place for the rich, once again. Felt good to be travelling out of the ‘harbour’ that contained those luxury boats.

We had to buy wet suits. Oh yes, this is certainly a new thing to me. Since when do you see snorkellers wearing wet suits unless they were going to scuba dive or something.

Girls in wet suits!

Before heading down to the waters, check out lyn’s face once again.

I certainly do have to congratulate Nancy Teo in this entry.

Firstly, she doesn’t know how to swim.

Secondly, she hasn’t snorkelled before (that applies to the rest in the group as well).

Thirdly, despite the first two reasons, she took the risk and went snorkelling with us in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Thanks for trusting us HAHA.

The strong winds after we came up from the two snorkelling spots.

All cold and happy after spending a couple of hours snorkelling!

At night, we went to the Cuban restaurant that the waiter in Joe’s Stone Crab introduced. It was pretty crowded but I didn’t think highly of the food there. I could probably attribute that to the fact that chicken thigh was served instead of chicken breast. Haha, so no review and nice pictures for the restaurant.

Alright, I’m back to packing for my Alaska trip. It seems a little too fast that I’ll be heading to Alaska tomorrow. I mean, I’ve planned for this trip eons ago.. and suddenly the real deal is here. SPRING BREAK, HERE I COME!

P/S: Will be bringing my laptop with me. So there should be real time update about my Alaska trip. Do check in if you have the time!

Miami day 2 (part II) – Downtown Miami & Joe’s Stonecrab

2010-03-18T00:45:00.001+08:00

After spending the day at the beach, we decided to explore Downtown Miami.

Check out the highways. Much nicer than what you see if you were to compare this to ECP that leads to Changi Airports. Besides the palm trees that line both sides of the roads, you get a superb picturesque view of the skyline and luxurious cruises and yachts. Credit of the above photo goes to Royston btw haha.

Once again, we chanced upon a Disney store (reminds me of the disney store we went to in NYC as well).

Nemo is like the best cartoon I’ve watched by far. In addition to the award winning graphics, I kinda like the geographic touch to the cartoon.

Shirts like this were commonly seen at the push carts in the touristy area. (shown below)

One thing you should know about such areas, since we can’t buy stuff from there as they were mostly overpriced, photos are the next best alternative.

The night scene at the harbour.

Check out the number of boats there. Although I still prefer the scenery and skyline at Sydney’s Harbor.

We went for dinner at this very atas restaurant called Joe’s Stone Crab. When we arrived at the restaurant, we found out that all the customers were neatly dressed for the occasion (in suits, dresses etc.) and there was a never ending queue that stretched out of the huge restaurant. Plus, we were informed to wait for almost an hour before our turn arrived. Check out the stone crabs below!

When we looked at the menu, we wanted to share a medium-sized crab so that we won’t appear to be too pathetic. And guess what! The waiter recommended us to get a Med-sized crab each. Haha, note the difference! So we ordered a large crab and shared instead, not too rich afterall.

Dont you think that those paper bibs reminds you of what you see in Jumbo! Heh heh. Check out nancy’s expression. She’s slowly evolving into lyn. (and shes in my room now making a hell lot of noise)

Ok, that’s all for the 2nd day! I just checked my webmail and realised that I’m on the KIV list for KP’s internship. This is slightly worrying due to the chances of 2nd disappointment. Thankfully I have nice friends who are there to listen to my grumbles! You know who you are:D

Alright, off i go. Packing for Alaska should commence soon and I’ve been trying to get myself to jog but recently, the motivation is almost zilch:x

Miami Day 2 (Part I) – South Beach!

2010-03-17T23:01:00.001+08:00

After spending the night in Miami, we came to two conclusions.

1. The people in Miami dress really nicely, especially when night falls.

2. Despite the cold at night (read my previous entry), it’s common to see the ladies clad in skimpy clothes queuing outside one of the many clubs that dotted the streets.

The 2nd morning, we were wondering if it’s a good idea to wear our shorts and tank tops since we haven’t seen anyone wearing shorts that morning. Nevertheless, after our wonderful complimentary breakfast at South Beach Hostel (i absolutely love toasted white sesame bagels), we headed down to South Beach which was only 2 streets away.

This is the path leading to the beach! Isn’t it amazing, it’s as if we were walking to paradise land. Coupled with the awesome sun, the shimmering blue Miami waters was just too good to be true.

Q: What happens when 5 NBS students who have been sun-deprived for the past 3 months visit such a beach?

A: They camwhore! Let me show u our camwhore series (starting from the worst).

This is a friend of mine who constantly thinks that she’s a buddha. Notwithstanding the ultra lightning fast shutter speed of Royston’s EOS 500D, a good shot couldn’t be captured. Doesn’t the picture gives you a very good idea about her jumpshot airtime?

Thereafter, she went crazy when she saw birds.

Caption (upper picture)

Lyn: Hey hey, can i have you for dinner (her appetite ballooned after arriving at the states)?

Just when she decided to stretch out her hands to grab the poor seagull,

Caption (lower picture)

Bird: AGH! NO WAY! YOU MONSTER!

And poof, the poor gull flew away.

Alright, let me continue my entry with the better photos.

Beach series #1

It’s meant to look like we were passing the volleyball from one person to another, if u were to take a closer look.

The 5 NBS Students who are having a kickass awesome time in the States.

Here comes our volleyball series shots. Haha! Jasper said that a lot of effort was put in to these photos, hahaha no doubt about that!

Caption (left)

Chub: Nancy, 接招！

Caption (middle)

Royston attempts to do a vball slamdunk shot.

Jason: Dont think that you’re the only one who can do seh shots. I can do my werewolf-evolution jump shot as well! (Check out his legs)

Caption (right)

Jason: Don’t try. You can’t even touch the ball. (Haha look at the distance between the ball and her hands)

Lyn: Who say I cannot! Even if I cannot, I can use my head to hit the ball! (Look at photo below where she showcases her headbutt ability)

Caption: Headbutting a volleyball doesn’t come naturally for everyone.

And here’s our series of individual shots! Haha kudos to Jason for being the assistant who continuously tosses the ball high up in the air in order to produce such shots.

Got Channel 8 Beach Ball Babes feel? HAHAHA. On 2nd thought, imagine the 2 guys taking such a photo HAHAHAHA. Damn, we should have forced them to do that.

Met some angmohs who wanted to take photo with us after they saw us posing and our tripod which was located a distance away.

Angmoh: Do you guys want to take some photos together?

(We heard as – Do you need us to help you take some photos? – yeah, they are usually quite helpful)

Us (shakes head vigorously): No no, it’s okay, we can do it ourselves!

Angmoh: You dont want to take a photo together?

Us: OH! Photo? Together? Okay, sure!

This is a very painful shot for the 2 guys lol sorry about that. We probably took 10 shots before getting a successful one!

Doodling on the sand. GIP 2010!

How could I possibly miss out TUP!

The guys back in NTU! How’s life in HUMID HOT SINGAPORE?

Due to lyn’s persistence and recommendation, we walked a fair 20 minutes down the Miami beach to reach 12th street. The flag explains everything so i need not explain. Haha, while royston and jason were taking that photo, 2 black males approached us.

Blacks (snicker): Do you understand what the flag means?

Girls: Yeah!

Blacks: Want to party tonight?

Girls (thinking HAHA): Nah, it’s okay!

I’m pretty sure that they just wanted to party with that two beach ‘hunks’ clad in yellow and green in the photo above.

Many fat seagulls were spotted on the beach.

Once again, to showcase the awesomeness of my powershot, here’s a series of artyfarty photos!

The shades that I bought here. Finally found one that suits me.

Looks like one of those posters you buy in a shop.

Footprints in the sand.

Emo bird.

Haha that’s all, shan’t flood my entry with more of those pics. The difficult thing about having a dslr or a powershot, I guess, would be when it comes to filtering the photos that you want. Take Royston for example, he takes 1000+ shots everytime we go on a road trip. But he has to painstakingly filter and upload probably a third or a quarter of those photos.

ISNT THIS PHOTO AMAZING. I love the flag behind us haha. Oh, americans are damn patriotic about their country. You see the flag (which mildly reminds me of Malaysia’s flag sometimes lol) at almost every street here.

After our wonderful morning at the beach, we went to grab a bite at one of the beachside restaurants. Check out that Mango Chutney Chicken!

We came a long way when it comes to eating in the States. I can still clearly recall that we were trying to scrimp and save on food when we first arrived and during our NYC tour. As long as the food was above 5 bucks, we would have to frown and do a little mathematical calculation in our heads, basically its like 5USDx1.4=7SGD! Ah, then we would think twice about ordering food. Nowadays, hell no! We spend probably 10 bucks or thereabout on our meals. What happened to not splurging? Hahaha.

Such convertibles and Harley Davidson gangs were aplenty in the Miami streets! This is what i call, lifestyle of the RICH and the famous.

Miami Day 1

2010-03-17T09:21:00.001+08:00

Due to popular demand, I have decided to make my blog a little more appealing. Hopefully you have spotted the difference! Either that, or you haven’t been visiting my blog for the past few months haha. Okay, and due to piao’s demand, my entries will be shortened as well! Since it’s a chore to blog and read really long entries.

I shall finally embark on my Miami entry! When we headed off to the airport for our Miami trip, i was definitely not looking forward to the trip at all. Why’s that so? I had an auditing and strategic management test that day, and despite the rumour that exchange students do not study in the states (which is unfortunately true), it’s still kind of taxing to have 2 tests in a day especially when you have been skipping lessons or not paying attention in class lol.

Notwithstanding the fatigue, I had to rush home from school and settle some last minute packing before lugging my crabby (thanks to 51 girls) backpack to Atlanta Hartsfield Airport (the world’s busiest airport, so they say). In addition to the lethargy, the flight to Miami was delayed. Thankfully, my flight partner – Nancy Teo, was energetic enough to chat with me. Did I mention that I hate to sleep in flights, unless they are really long or something.

Before we knew it, we arrived in the real Sunshine State – FLORIDA!:D

After checking in at the South Beach Hostel (which is a really cool place albeit being slightly pricey), we went off for some good italian pizza!

The restaurant’s called Fratelli la Bufala, and frankly speaking, I’ve no idea what that means. But who cares as long as the pizza is kickass.

Check out the pizza’s crust! It looks like that cos the pizza’s is made using a brick oven. And it’s probably the first time I had such fine pizza. I can’t remember what happened to my taste buds when I went to Italy in J1.

Despite the awesome pizza, I still can’t forget my favorite pizza at Vinnie Van Go-go!

Haha, ok all that food blogging is making me slightly hungry. Nope! I will not be tempted by food cos lyn and I shared this 1.3 pound grilled chicken breast for our late lunch. And now, we’re all so full that we decided not to make dinner. Let’s hope that the monstrous appetite guy in the family doesn’t complain when he gets back.

Ok, let’s get back to the post dinner event. We headed down to one of the famous bars in town for a drink (despite the lethargy as I woke up at 6am that morning)!

Had a good chat (htht to a certain extent) and some crazy talk. Shan’t break the code of conduct and explicitly talk about it here haha. And as usual, the girl who can’t hold her liquor well turned slightly red after the drink.

When I walked another 10 streets back to the hostel that night, I swear it was so freaking cold with just 2 layers. I could feel my heart shivering within me. What a horrible feeling. Let’s hope that I’ll be sufficiently clothe in Alaska to avoid such situations!

An arty farty shot taken with the powershot G11!

As we stayed in a 8 bed dorm that night, I realised that it’s kinda troublesome to not have your own room, in the sense that if you return late you might just wake others up and vice versa. Thank goodness, we had our own room for the other 2 nights!:D

Okay,I shall blog about the remaining days later!

Time for cereal now!

P/S: My technical communications professor has H1N1, so there goes my preparation for the presentation tomorrow. ZZZ.

Quick update

2010-03-16T06:17:00.002+08:00

Ah! I have an accounting test tomorrow and instead of studying, I've strategically used up the past 5 hours designing the presentation slides, editing the proposal and searching for a new blog skin. So much for time management.

As the title suggests, I will make this a short, sweet entry unlike my previous ones. Haha thanks piao for your suggestion. I've been wanting to change my skin for a really long time as well.

A shoutout to all avid readers of my blog (if there are any haha):

I WILL BE GOING TO ALASKA FROM THIS FRIDAY (3/19) TO NEXT SUNDAY (3/28)!

Haha, do anticipate our upcoming photos for I'm sure they will be a blast!

Alright, let me end off the entry with some exciting stuff.

1. Daylight Saving Time started on Sunday at 2a.m. It means that the time here in Atlanta, GA is shifted one hour ahead, meaning that we are now in sync with Singapore's timing numerically. (i.e. 2p.m. in Singapore = 2a.m. in Atlanta)

2. The five nbs kids went to take a photoshoot (free, of course!) that was organised by the GT photography club. Haha, hopefully they will turn out nice!

3. I went for a haircut (finally) and I hope you'll be able to see the difference in my hair hahaha.

Okay, I shall scoot off to study for my test. Bye!

NBA, Flying Biscuit, Stone Mountain, Medieval Times and Lake Hartwell!

2010-03-11T03:36:00.002+08:00

Once again, my entry is a litle outdated as I’m busying myself with work and some other stuff. As usual, time seems to be slipping through my fingers, in less than 3 months’ time, i’ll be back to sunny singapore. Despite my complaints about the chilly weather here, I’m not ready for Singapore. Ay!

Anyway, let me just do a quick update over here about the places I’ve been too in the past couple of weeks!

We rented a car over the weekend and decided to visit the attractions that Georgia has to offer.

First off, we started with one of the famous restaurants in town – Flying Biscuit.

Biscuit, here in the states, refers to the type of small bun that you can find in Popeye! And that’s why Popeye’s is famous for its chicken and biscuit:D Back in Singapore, I’m already an avid lover of biscuits and the biscuit that i’ve tried in flying biscuit is just the best that I’ve ever eaten. It’s soft in the inside and a little crunchy crispy on the outside. You’re supposed to dip it in with that ‘eggtart’ lookalike that’s on my plate in the picture. That ‘eggtart’ lookalike (as coined by chow) is called grits and that’s like a famous southern dish.

And that’s us at the flying biscuit! The queue was really long, and we felt damn bad for making Jessey to queue up in the cold for 45 minutes so we gave her a treat!

After our heavy brunch at the Flying Biscuit, we went off to Stone Mountain! It’s supposed to resemble what you would see at Mount Rushmore! (hoho one of my must visit attractions in the States) Stone Mountain has been dubbed as “the largest exposed piece of granite in the world” and three figures of the Confederate States of America have been carved there.

Stone Mountain offered many trails including the walk up trail to the summit as well as a trail that brings you around the perimeter of the mountain. We saw many joggers taking the latter, sigh, if only there were such scenic routes in Singapore... I realised that such nature trails usually attract lots of joggers, like the one in New Zealand. Notwithstanding the cold and gradient of the routes, joggers will usually gear up and go for the challenge.

The walk up trail (1 mile) to the summit wasn’t as easy as I expected. Certain parts were rather steep, but such trails never fail to remind me of the life threatening hike that I did in Vietnam with my sister. (shit, just realised i dont have the vietnam photos on my fb)

The tough part of the hike was that the higher you are, the stronger are the winds. I estimated that the winds were possibly 20-25mph when we were up there, so your hair was practically in your face while you slowly climbed up, attempting to shield yourself from the cold. I wouldnt exactly say that the view from the summit was spectacular. I’m more for the scenery that were along the way as we could see the effects of erosion on the granite and the skyline which was a little blurrish due to the fog.

There were exquisite carvings on the rock while hiking up to the summit.

Despite the crowd of 8, we managed to take quite a couple of pretty photos during the hike. Haha, royston’s amazing tripod is definitely the highlight of our US trip!

How could I possibly not take a jump shot there? Although i realised that the group didnt take any jump shots mainly due to the cold as we progressed up the mountain haha.

Halfway during the climb.

See what i mean by scenic?

After spending three to four hours at Stone Mountain, we went off for the highlight of the day!

*drumroll…

MEDIEVAL TIMES!

I’m guessing that most of you reading wouldn’t have any idea what the hell that is, except for the fact that it sounds a little ancient and gothic. Ok, so basically Medieval Times is like a dinner drama kind of event. Let me use pictures to illustrate to you what’s the hoo-ha over this dinner!

The entrance. There were three shows on the day we visited, but as you can see, it’s still pretty populated with guests at every show!

They have 9 locations in the States and there’s also more in Spain (i think that’s where it originated). Once you enter the tournament/dinner area, this is what you will see. There’s 8 different sections in the audience section in the theatre. Like for example, in the picture below, you will be able to see the red and yellow audience section,

this means that they will be rooting for the red and yellow knight who will look something like..

Yep! That’s the red/yellow knight! Haha, we were supporting the red knight that night (it rhymes!) and lyn is a loyal supporter due to his looks lol. If you observe a little closer, did you realise that the horse is cloaked in some uniform? Haha.

And this is how the eating/viewing area looks like.

Before we went in, lyn had already updated us that we were not supposed to eat with the aid of any utensils throughout the show. So it kinda fits the theme of medieval times nicely! Reminds me of the flintstones actually. When we took our seats, we saw the four course menu.

Their mugs and bowls were also designed in a way that suited the culture during the Medieval Times, so despite the price, I must say that this is really a new experience! And check out the roasted chicken, although as many of you should know by now, i’m not a fan of proteins, but i gotta admit that i’m really starting to like chicken without condiments more during my stay in the states!

And that’s the friendly waitress for the night! Haha, i think it’s really difficult to earn the pay while working in Medieval Times. Her voice was almost half gone when she had to scream at the top of her lungs to introduce us the culture (i.e. cheering) during the show. So while eating and watching, we had to cheer for our Red knight during the tournament, it’s kinda like soccer if you need an analogy.

Us with our crowns!

Some snippets of the show!

This was the fight between the green and red knight. The green knight was everyone’s nemesis during the tournament, so once he charged out with his horse to the battle area, everyone BOOed him for sure (except for the green section). And the show is like a medieval version of WWE, cos everything’s preplanned and you would see the knights doing life threatening actions such as rolling off the horse and doing stunts like the one you see below.

After the 1.5hour long tournament/dinner, we went out to take a photo with the red knight! Haha, i think his face reminds me of the characters that you would see on runescape (if any of you have played that mmorpg before).

So that summed up our very eventful Saturday!:D

Before we rented the car for the weekend, I was thinking of what we should do with the car on Sunday, for Saturday was already packed with events and we needed to do something else which gotta be equally exciting as Saturday. As Georgia isn’t exactly the most exciting State, the list of activities to do/sightsee was really limited. After spending hours reading about attractions, I decided to opt for the unbeaten path once again. I’ve seen on one of the blogs that there’s this lake, called Lake Hartwell, located on the borders of Georgia and South Carolina. So, i decided to raise the idea of a picnic-like lunch on Sunday at the Lake. The bad news was that the Lake isn’t exactly popular and the information about it online was really limited, so we decided to just take risk and try our luck!:D

So, on the way to the lake (a 2 hour drive there), while I was driving, my vehicle commander (v-com) a.k.a Royston, came across HIS town!

So we specially made a detour (slight one) to stop at the Town of Royston.

And we also chanced upon this scenic path during our stop! After camwhoring for a little, we zoomed off to Lake Hartwell!

I gotta say that the Lake is AMAZING. And by the chance of Lady luck or fate, the road brought us to this nice little area. It’s like a loading area for boats and that was just what we wanted! A perfect picnic area for the 7 of us (too bad nancy decided to stay home that day!) that was undisturbed by anyone else! We parked the car at the area which you can see. And haha let me introduce to you the red chevrolet minivan that you see in the picture. It seats 7 people, and really functions damn well as a family car! All the doors, including boot, are automated with the click of the car keys! Haha, for once you dont have to slam the door and whenever we wanted to hop on the car, the driver just had to click the buttons on the keys.. and the Magic begins – the doors start sliding open and you can just hop on immediately! Really like those cars you see in the advertisement.

So that was the area for the car, but we got ourselves an even better deal! On the right of the area in the above picture, this is what was awaiting us!

That’s royston in the middle with his signature pose haha. But ok, after walking down that little path with railings at the side, you get to this wonderful floating wood area. Haha, we were still contemplating what would happen to us if that plank of wood actually drifted away!

And that plank of wood became our perfect picnic area. See what i mean by lady luck and unbeaten path?

More photos to illustrate our beaming joy!

Haha okay enough of stupid camwhoring photos. We never seem to run out ideas, do we? After that awesome picnic at the lake, we went off for this BUFFET at golden corral. I wouldn’t really recommend that area actually, and I was really FULL that night so i’m not really interested in blogging about it hahaha.

Okay before I leave out one of the highlights that the school planned for us, let me blog about the NBA game that we caught like more than 2 weeks ago? Haha.

It was a game between Atlanta Hawks and Dallas Mavericks! And the game was held at Phillips Arena, this huge indoor stadium lookalike.

Before the game, there was a number of mascots around and Chick-fil-a (a fast food chain here) is the main sponsor! No wonder it’s so popular with the locals despite its average menu.

A glimpse into the stadium!

The Hawks Mascot! Damn cute, he did different dances like MJ’s moonwalking and check out his brief which states NOISE. Meaning the audience must make NOISE! Haha.

Cool effects while introducing the players!

There were many breaks during the game like after the first, second, third quarter and half time and so on. During these breaks, the audience will never feel bored as there were many programmes lined up for us! Like there’s some stupid price-is-right kind of game, cheerleading, kiss cam (lyn’s fav) or really fat sumolike people doing some dance!

During the halftime, we were intially seated as we were too lazy to move about. But when Tian Lai returned to his seats (and he had to bypass us), he informed us of the FREE atlanta hawks shirts that was being given out at the other end of the stadium. Like Duh, our singaporean instincts flooded our minds and we chionged out to get them! HAHAHA. TADA, these are our freebie shirts, which are XL. I hope you can see that they are XL!

The game between Hawks and Mavs was actually pretty exciting. We were leading after the first quarter; tied during the second; Mavs led during the third and at the end of the 4th quarter, we tied at 99-99! But guess what, we lost in the end. Despite an additional five minutes, Hawks failed to score a single goal! What was really sad about such games is that, once the time is running out and the opponent is leading by quite a bit, the audience will just LEAVE. And so, when there was probably 1minute left with Mavs leading by 8 points or so, 50% of the audience just started leaving. I thought that that was kinda rude but i think Jason said something like that’s the same for soccer as well.

What i found interesting and hilarious about the game is that the Home Ground usually have the advantage. Haha, the commentator would definitely show no mercy to the opponents like when Mavericks players had to shoot the ball into the basket because of some foul, they will usually screen the following picture on their huge screen. SCREAMMMMM! (to distract the opponent so they will lose focus and not score properly) Haha but i think that the players are all quite professional and none seemed to be affected by these little dirty tricks.

And that’s D-Fence!

Quite innovative yes? Haha, another eye-opening experience for me!

Okay, my next entry shall be dedicated to my awesome Miami trip over the PAST weekend. Haha, not so outdated finally. Just waiting for royston and his photos to be uploaded:D

Ok, lots of work to complete, off I go!

phone interview D:

2010-03-09T10:44:00.002+08:00

i screwed up my interview.

Phase 2, here i come.

The panic

2010-03-09T09:25:00.002+08:00

There's a million thoughts running through my head right now; but they're all not issues related to the phone interview that will be happening in another 35minutes.

Savannah

2010-03-03T07:25:00.006+08:00

Once again, after a long hiatus, I’m back with my Savannah update!

Before I begin, let me first introduce the history of this picturesque city (just in case you haven’t read my previous entry).

Savannah’s the city where Forrest Gump and The Last Song are filmed. The former is actually filmed mainly in Forsyth Park and the latter on Tybee Island. The climate of Savannah is sunny yet cooling as it is a coastal city, thereby enjoying the maritime climate. The weather’s definitely a gazillion times better than Atlanta (ps: it just snowed today, again). And I heard from one of the locals on the bus that Savannah used to be the capital of Georgia, instead of Atlanta. But I reckon they shifted the capital due to advancement, and Savannah, the quaint historic town couldn’t provide sufficient room for high rise skyscrapers.

Alright! Enough of some background information. Now let me start officially on the adventurous, eventful road trip of the 4 NBS year 2 students! I think our photos can be enticing to the point such that many will scramble to apply to Georgia Tech next year haha.

We set off for Savannah on a Friday morning, packing sandwiches and snacks along the way to last us through our 4.5 hour drive to Savannah. Actually, if we weren’t on a budget, the U.S. highways have lots of dining options to choose from at almost every exit. We arrived at Savannah at around 2pm or so and checked into our cheap inn – Savannah Relax Inn. It cost us about 17 USD a night, really cheap considering the fact that the hotels in downtown usually charge twice the price or more. The only drawback, besides the fact that it mildly resembled the inn in Vacancy (starring Kate Beckinsale), is that the inn is around a 15 minutes drive away from the city – where the 21 squares are located. Basically, the 21 squares span across the whole downtown.

Each square introduces a different character who’s famous in the city. However, due to a rush in schedule, we didn’t manage to exactly explore the squares thoroughly. Here are some of the street photos.

Shops like the one you see above are common in Savannah. The whole atmosphere is generally very laidback and suitable for retirement imo haha.

Snapshot of a carplate. Check out the peach in the middle! I think that’s because Georgia’s famous for peaches and pecans. Unfortunately, due to my duration of stay here, I won’t be able to visit a peach farm since the harvest period is in June.

I tried to mimick the poster in Forrest Gump, but i’ve failed terribly as usual cos I forgot Tom Hanks’ pose in the poster.

Speaking of Tom Hanks, this is the Forsyth Park where Forrest Gump was filmed like more than a decade ago! And Forsyth Park remains as one of the famous attractions here in Savannah!

Forsyth Park

The weather was so good that we could just wear a layer (instead of 2-3) and Royston even wore bermudas. Nonetheless, he regretted his choice when night fell haha.

This reminds of the shot that I took with TUP at the marina barrage.

Yep, don’t be fooled by the photo. I can’t swing for goodness sake. Thanks to nancy who pushed me quite a couple of times before I managed to get some airtime.

The park was slightly crowded that day as it was a Friday, or maybe people in Savannah generally don’t work the usual 9-5? Haha, we saw people walking their dogs or jogging in the park. There’s also some kids playing frisbee and just chilling out with their guitars and stuff. Really really envious of such a lifestyle. The houses are located in such a way that it feels like you can just walk your dog after work or go for a jog before heading out to one of the restaurants for dinner.

Giant trees like the one above dotted the whole park. Feels good if I have a guitar and attempt to play and sing at the same time (haha, ok note to self: my guitar skills are far from that).

That is my crazy friend, who likes to shut her eyes or stick out her tongue when she takes photos.

Check out that beautiful rainbow behind us! It wasn’t even raining, but by some lucky refraction of light and with the water, the rainbow just appeared!

See! The park’s such a pretty place that wedding photos are also taken here. Saw the group of Asian bridesmaid and couple at the park!

After camwhoring for about 3 hours or so, we headed downtown via the free CAT shuttle. The whole bus was filled with blacks and initially I thought they looked quite unfriendly and intimidating until one of them spoke to me. Found out that she was from NYC and chatted a little bit. After she left, we met a few more interesting characters on the bus. Like the bus driver impatiently chased away one of the passengers as he was smoking and he had been sitting the bus (on loop service) for a round already. The way that she scolded that dude was just.. you won’t see such stuff in Singapore haha.

Thereafter, we headed back to our inn to put on additional layers of clothes as the night weather probably dropped back to 5 degrees or so. And thanks to Tripadvisor’s recommendation (I’m heavily dependent on it for my U.S. travel trips), we found ourselves a very worthwhile dinner!

Vinnie Van Go-Go’s

It’s a pizzeria/pub. You get to choose your own toppings while they make it straight away so it’s piping hot! And the pizza is HUGE, as you can see from the photos below. The cheese is also… i can only say that they don’t scrimp on their cheese servings. Plus, it’s only about 5-6bucks per person including tips for 3 giant slices of pizza. Yes, just in case you were wondering, it’s their culture to give tips here for almost every meal. The tip is supposed to be 15% of the meal fyi.

After that super filling meal, we headed back to the inn and got a good rest in order to prepare ourselves for the even more fun filled day that was coming up!

We decided to save money for breakfast the next day, so we drove to krispy kreme to devour those melt-in-your-mouth original glazed donuts (which is unrivalled in singapore despite tons of donut chains). Then, we headed down to another attraction that took our breath away!

Skidaway Park

That’s right! Even the name of the park doesn’t sound that charming but such un-touristy areas are really the way to go when you really want to take nice photos! The park’s beauty fitted the name, Savannah. It really looks like a savannah grassland, like those you see in Africa. Only thing is that there’s no wild gazelles or animals for that matter running around.

Doesn’t it remind you of the forests in twilight! Haha remember to check out our video, which i will upload soon on facebook!

All geared up for our photoshoot!

Final shot of our teletubby series. Catch the action on facebook cos it’s quite retarded if i were to upload the 4 pictures here.

Nancy’s idea. And think about it, yes the park is that deserted to do such photoshoots! Haha, we only met a lady on the way. The funny thing is that we both set off at about the same time, and approximately one hour later, she walked back and saw us taking photos (since it was a loop trail). At that point in time, we were barely halfway through the trail cos we were busy taking photos hahaha.

Don’t be envious. The weather was really awesome at that time!

Introducing to you: the very ai pai zhao nbs students!

The Kia that we rented for our trip. Much more fuel efficient that this super cool Chevrolet minivan (which has automated doors and boot) that we rented the previous weekend.

Yes, that’s Skidaway park. Undoubtedly the most back-to-nature park that I’ve came across. After our 4 hour long trip, we decided to skip the Bonaventure cemetery (which is supposed to be another highlight in Savannah) and headed to Tybee Island for lunch. The map that the inn keeper gave us didn’t exactly give me the idea that Tybee was actually like a half an hour drive away from downtown. I’m too used to Singapore maps damn.

Tybee Island

Had a yummy buffalo chicken burger at the Sundae Cafe. The restaurants there usually operate from 11-3 for lunch and 5 for dinner. We reached the sundae cafe at 3pm on the dot, thank goodness they allowed the starving souls to have their lunch there!

Then, we rushed down to Tybee Island lighthouse and museum as the attractions close at 5pm. The museum’s just a stone throw away from the light house and basically there wasn’t anything much in the museum. Haha, maybe i’m just not a fan of understanding the history of a particular place cos it usually involves wars and stuff. Unlike geography, which is much more interactive and ongoing hoho.

So, no pictures of the museum here in my entry! Except for ..

The view that was taken from the 2nd level of the museum!

I choose to believe that the 7 bucks I paid for admission into both the museum and lighthouse is much more worth it than the CNN tour i had in Atlanta. Haha, okay they are actually good for different purposes, i’m just not so into the education purpose part (CNN). And if you happen to catch The Last Song, this lighthouse will definitely be very, very familiar for this is where the show was filmed!!

I’m starting to like my powershot more and more. Tell me, which other camera will give you such a perfect shot?

There’s 176 stairs in the lighthouse. It’s spiral in nature so it makes me dizzy after a while. Thankfully, for every 25 steps that you climb, there’s a window area whereby you can rest and catch your breath!

By the time we reached the top, it was partially exhausting and this is how we looked like (ignore lyn, she’s trying her best to smile despite being the most tired of the lot HAHA).

When we finally reached the top and walked to the platform to enjoy the breathtaking scenery of the coast, I had to put on that fish eye/wide angle lens to maximize enjoyment! Check out our hair! That should be enough evidence for the strong winds right on the top of the lighthouse.

Decided to take one last shot before we went down the long flight of stairs again!

After the lighthouse, we drove down to the beach. Found a parking lot and chanced upon a homemade icecream shop as well! Figured out that we couldn’t let go off such an opportunity to indulge in life’s pleasure and eat ice cream while walking to the beach! The girls had the Savannah Mud (must try cos they blend different type of chocolates and nuts together, i think) and royston had his toasted coconut ice cream.

The following picture of the beach reminds me of the houses by the coast that you see in Dexter (i’m talking about the serial not the cartoon).

Wanted to visit the beach in the evening so that we could be in time for sun set. Unfortunately, the sun was setting on the other side of the island!):

Before leaving the pavilion and pier, we saw this huge telescope and a guy operating it. We overheard that the moon could be seen through this mega gadget so we also queued up behind the ladder. While queueing, i heard a lady asking the man (in green) operating the telescope, “Can you see the flag from this telescope?” By flag, she meant the U.S. flag that Armstrong placed on the moon. At that moment, i was like “siao ah, you think the flag so big ah, from this telescope can see already tsk.”

And guess what?! When i cringed my face and used my left eye to look through the telescope while standing on the ladder, I found out that you can really see the MOON. Like we saw a part of it; and it resembled cheese cos of the craters that look like holes.

The man also told us that we could see Saturn if we were back at the pier at 9:30pm. Unfortunately, we were going for dinner at the Crab Shack which is apparently a highly recommended place that is very touristy. The next time, please do not trust inn keepers and brochures. Just trust trip advisor (since i’ve been full of praises of our previous eating areas). Despite tripadvisor’s low rating of the Crab Shack, we decided to be tourists and tried out the food there.

I must say that the place is aesthetically pleasing! It’s just worth visiting for the whole atmosphere that you will be dining in. Let the photos do the talking.

See? No photos of the food, cos I think that it’s overpriced and definitely not worth the ratings it enjoys on the brochures. The crab was really pathetic, and we kept comparing it to the Jumbo/No signboard chilli crab hahaha.

When I drove out of that area to go back to the inn that night, the whole place was really pitch dark. We just had to rely on the car lights to navigate to the main roads. And that is why Americans turn on their high beam throughout the day (although I think it’s a waste to do so in the day).

With that, I’ve officially finished introducing my very very exciting Savannah Roadtrip. The company was great and chillax!:D Hopefully, all future trips will turn out like this!

Before I sign off, I’ve finally bought my Alaska coat (i’m wearing it now haha you might think i’m crazy due to the sheer thickness of it but i’m just trying to make my money worthwhile) and my Alaskan boots! Thankfully Wal-mart sells awesome WATERPROOF boots at 20bucks! Considered really cheap and there’s no other substitutes cos the other alternative is rainboots which are disgustingly brightly colored! If not, they look like Phua Chu Kang boots or fishmonger boots haha.

Tada!

Does it remind you of the boots of Kristen Stewart in twilight?

Haha I wanted this initially until Lyn told me it was hideous (but it’s more comfy though its 10bucks more expensive).

Okay, I need to run. Haven’t studied much for my 2 tests this Thursday (before I head off to Miami) and i need to go and cook!

P/S: My technical writing legacy will be passed on! Haha, got back an assignment for that module and the teacher left a comment asking me to send her my soft copy for future reference. Regardless if its a good/bad thing, its still something that I haven't achieved in Singapore hahaha.

savannah!

2010-02-19T20:15:00.002+08:00

Will be off to SUNNY Savannah for a short weekend road trip!

Where's Savannah?

It's a coastal city located in South Georgia, right above Florida!

What's the hype about Savannah?

Oh, it's where they filmed Forrest Gump and The Last Song!:D

Yay, sunny sunny weather, cant wait!

Imagine me and you.

2010-02-11T07:43:00.002+08:00

I haven’t been blogging as promised. Haha but finally i’m back and let me attempt to recall what happened in the past 2 weeks.

First of all, check out the matching lunchboxes that lyn and I have. We are the sad asian nerds who bring tupperware lunch to school simply because its too expensive to eat lunch everyday in school. So, we brought our tupperware to the student centre and microwave it there! Guess what! There are people who do that too; we are not alone. However, on closer look, you’d realised those who do so are asians as well. I kinda feel like I can sit at a table in the foodcourt-like area and there’s a notice that says, “Asian Freaks only”.

Ah well, this is the life of an exchange student. Don’t expect too much! On a brighter note, our cooking skills are improving slowly. I’ll talk more about it later!

2 weeks ago (yes, that was damn long!), we went to the Canton House for our morning dimsum brunch. I think we were too excited once we saw those trays of steaming dim sum being pushed around, so without hesitation, we jumped at the chance of grabbing plates of siew mai, za xia juan etc. once those trays zoomed passed us. And before we knew it, there were like a dozen plates right in front of us. Alright, we forgot about the cost haha. But then again, the dimsum was really quite good that I didn’t mind paying abit more for our fabulous breakfast. Anyway, dimsum in Singapore isn’t that cheap either, haha yes, you’re right. We are living in self denial again by constantly consoling ourselves once we start spending slightly more.

Thereafter, we headed to Farmer’s Market at Buford Highway! The bus driver gave us the wrong information so we ended up walking 5 traffic lights in order to reach the place. And please note that the distance of 5 traffic lights in the States isn’t as short as what you see in Singapore where traffic lights are lined up neatly at a short interval of a couple hundred of metres or so.

Due to the wrong bus ride, (we didnt even have to take a bus ride in the first place) we had to walked back to the place where we took the bus and walk down in the opposite direction to reach Farmer’s Market. Haha, and it was freezing that day, just check out our flushing faces to imagine the cold. Anyway, walking here isn’t a chore for me, haha I kinda like walking without perspiring.

The next day, we headed down to Mary Macs for brunch as well:D It’s apparently a very homely friendly nice restaurant that serves good southern food. I had a turkey and 2 sweetening ttm side dishes. Royston’s officially my food sharing partner. Being the non-beef eaters, we have to scrimp and share food in order to dine out at regular intervals. (jia, you can try that too haha)

We saw the Fox theatre in Atlanta as well. Looks nice, certainly not as breathtaking as catching a broadway in NYC, but good enough for a small city. Haha, ok atlanta isn’t that small either. It houses the CNN Headquarters and World of Coke!:D

A surprise party, or rather phototaking session, with the shopping king – Lucy/Royston Loo!

He bought himself new lens for his DSLR on Amazon and spent another hundred over bucks on shopping at Lenox. It feels like he’s celebrating his 21st HAHA. And we bought him all the fattening food since he has a sweeter tooth than me haha talking about 99%. (inside joke)

And before I continue, I must say within the past 2 weeks we managed to find the remaining survivors of the SAMA (Singapore and Malaysia Association)! Haha, all thanks to royston who managed to find jessey on fb. And they’ve been really nice to us, chauffeuring us around and introducing us places to hang out and stuff. We’re just lucky, lucky and really LUCKY!:D

Headed down to Mediterranean Grill during one of the nights. Not too expensive pita and tasted quite nice:)

The laziness to cook everyday, coupled with some interesting stories, led us to more pizza yesterday night (sorry, not in chrono order). Haha, domino’s pizza is really quite cool. You can customize your own pizza (damn marketing), and add ingredients to it and see how it looks like. LOL. Then, what’s even cooler is illustrated in the picture below. You can actually track your order. They inform you of the name of the staff who’s prepping your order, putting it into the oven and sending over etc. Plus, they let you know when you can actually receive it.. so Singapore should really learn from this!

And I really adore their advertisements here. For a moment, I thought it was Papa John’s pamphlet but on closer look, hey, that’s domino’s pizza ad!

During one of the weekdays, lyn and I were so hungry. We cooked ourselves this really huge plate of spaghetti. I didn’t know it was considered huge until the da wei wang – Mr Jason Chiong huli exclaimed at our portion and said that it was similar to his. Oh man! My appetite!!):

And this is Jessey, who has been bringing us around for like Krispy Kreme drive through, steamboat and recommending good food places! Last Friday, before heading over to Wen Eu’s awesome house for steamboat, we went for a supposedly quick bite which ended up making me full for the next couple of hours. 5 bucks for this huge bowl of wanton noodles is really a good bet here!

After shopping at Farmer’s Market (this time round with a car with courtesy of Jessey and Wen Eu), we brought the steamboat ingredients to this awesome awesome ideal home that everyone hopes for. Hahahaha, it’s like a townhome and it has this cosy fireplace, not the traditional stone type, but good enough to satisfy my dream home craving lol.

All of us, the noobs, camwhored with it. Haha.

And this is Wen Eu’s nikon DSLR with chris’s lens i think. I suddenly feel that my powershot is really miniature in size.

The Canon & Nikon war.

Attempting to look natural. I think we are getting better at this:D

Check out the feast! There was so much food and in contrast to our first steamboat at our pathetic small house, whereby we had to constantly queue up for servings at the stove cos we don’t have the steamboat equipment, this is just HEAVENLY! I regretted having my quickbite (wanton noodles) cos I was rather full before the steamboat started): And yes, this is our CNY celebration! Haha, this sunday there’s another steamboat awaiting us, yummy!

The kitchen is god-like, so nancy and I ended up washing dishes happily. Plus, the knife was so sharp, it could practically cut anything in the way haha. Unlike the blunt knife at our house, which we bought from Daiso at 2 bucks lol, whereby even if you accidentally cut your hand, it wouldn’t bleed. ZZ.

That night, we played Bang cos Wen Eu just bought it from Amazon. And it’s a really a strategy kinda game whereby each one of us play different characters in the game. As the Sheriff, I think i did a pretty good job by surviving at the end due to help from Chiong who was the Vice. And, my ability to survive allowed the game to last for at least 1.5 hours HAHA. It was just one round omg. We reached our house at around 1 am and wanted to continue playing Bang, but Wen Eu forgot to bring the game over so we ended up doing lame stuff like using Vic’s mac to take those retarded shots that are spamming facebook profile pictures (i.e. Let’s take a photo with the Eiffel Tower!) L-O-L.

Then, after a while, we figured that shouldnt rob us of our time so we played drinking games. Drink plain water. HAHA, which imo, is a good thing cos we had sze chuan steamboat earlier on and we all needed more water to lubricate our throats. Indeed, the next morning, I was full of pee which forced me to wake up early.

And it was finally time to tour Atlanta! We visited CNN HQ first! Check out the fish eye shot by the powerful g11.

Got seh not.

Haha, the CNN tour was $11 due to student rate. And it was really more like an informative session cos we were on the verge of spacing out halfway during the tour. After CNN, we headed down to World of Coke! This is where the fun part begins as you can see from our photos later. However, due to the shortage of time, we had to rush through the stuff in the museum. A bit wasted, but nonetheless, still very worth our $15!

Outside the World of coke. I thought that the building in the middle resembled the Empire State bdg in NYC.

Why was our $15 worth it? Haha we could try 59 flavors of Coke-related drinks that were distributed all across the world like the drinks that Coke sells in Japan, Nigeria, France etc. Some tasted really weird like the flavor, Beverly. At first, I was just busy gulping down shots of those gasy drinks until I started burping like free and decided to cut down on my sugar intake lol.

The very cute and real Coke polar bear! He could even blink and open/close mouth!

The House of Six and boy next street.

Haha, looks very futuristic. Dedicated to gan baba.

So many coke bottles exhibition in the museum. Picture perfect:D

The helpful Coke staff helped us with this shot. I messed around with the colors so it has the lomo effect.

Haha, we really had the whole ‘sugar rush’ thing going on after our flavor tasting as you can see from our photos.

After visiting Coke, we headed down to FOX Bar-B-Q where they serve awesome pulled pork which is even more tender than chicken! Nice!!:D

I better eat more of such stuff here, cos they’ll never serve such yummylicious food back in Singapore! And my appetite for meat is growing hahaha.

My food sharing partner! Pulled pork and grilled chicken for the night!

The girls!

After Fox, we headed down to a small cafe to support Vik! He resembles the John Mayer style when it comes to singing and the guitar, so no wonder we’re going for a John mayer concert not Nickelback's haha.

Once again, not in chrono order, this was our dinner 2 nights ago! Mr Chiong stepped up to the challenge and made the family breaded fried chicken! Tasted really good haha and now he’s more into the cooking! Good! Means more good food for us since he’s a total foodie.

Last Sunday, we finally visited iHop and had the 4.99 buffet! I had.. 4.5 PANCAKES. I’m terribly appalled about my appetite lol but since its a buffet, just eat more right? I cannot imagine my face size when i return to singapore);

Check out the blueberry syrup on the pancakes. YUM! I bet if sann/kass were here, they would have gobbled down at least twice my portion. Oh wait, maybe my appetite is already on par with theirs. And if jia was here, she would be so damn excited about it at the start and order like 5 pancakes. Halfway through eating, she will start to self declare her eating break and give the very ‘i dont want to eat anymore’ expression.

YUM!

Okay, I started blogging when there was light shining through the blinds into my room. Now, it’s all dark and only the area surrounding the laptop is lighted. It’s dark again and I havent done my readings. I’ve been procrastinating for the longest time! OMG.

Haha, okay, I shall go prepare dinner (shit, procrastinating abt work agn). Spaghetti, here I come. I’m going to be a good cook when i return home. This is what I learn from exchange HAHA.

So you went away

2010-02-09T11:36:00.003+08:00

I'm not lazy to blog or something. It's just that, I dont have all the pictures with me right now.. so when I blog, the story isn't complete. Haha, I gotta get the pictures up first and I'll blog. Maybe tomorrow. I'm tired again.

My sleeping hours returned to the usual singapore style i.e. sleep at 2am for the past few nights. Met a couple of new friends here and we went over for steamboat and stuff. Sounds kinda incoherent now but oh well, I'm tired. Shall attempt waking up early again tomorrow to get some stuff done. I can't lose steam now!

And I got a pleasant surprise this morning. NTU doesn't seem that boring after all haha.

Goodnight!

Wal-Mart & Lenox!

2010-01-26T09:24:00.001+08:00

Hello again! I’m finally done (imo) with my Wal-Mart Case which I have been harping all day long.

On Sunday, the house of six and boy next street went down to Wal-Mart for more grocery shopping and a shopping trip at Lenox Mall! But it was a bad choice to stay out in Atlanta late. By late, I just mean after evening. Haha, it’s way too cold and dark and there’s not many people in sight, unlike nyc sigh!

We took a cab back in the end, after I couldnt resist the strong winds that were blowing all the sleepyheads because Royston the mega shopper once again spent over a hundred bucks just within like 2 hours or so at Lenox. How amazing is that.

Anyway, I got off with a good buy. I’ve been looking around for a jacket for the longest time and I finally got it at a good price of $30! Yay! 50% discount:D

Then when we came home, Lyn showed me a white A&F jacket. Was mildly tempted to swap this burgundy one for that white jacket, but it seems that i’ve too many white jackets/hoodies.. so I decided to stick by my choice!

This is my lunch today! Woohoo. I’m never a food photographer until I realised that it was kinda fun to decorate your own food and snap a photo of it. Haha inspired by Jasper. And so he picked the best photo for me out of my 3 shots, which are all on facebook! Haha, this is damn boliao but fun. Oh, and I found something that will make me really full. By really full, I mean not snacking for 4 hours straight. DO YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IS THAT HERE IN USA?! Hahaha, i was totally impressed with my self determination.

Lunch consisted of

1. Bagel (Blueberry flavored)

2. One slice of cheese

3. One slice of ham

4. Four pieces of lettuce

5. Some cheese spread

HAHA. Dont say its very fattening because.. if i dont eat that filling bagel, I will end up eating a hell lot more chips and cookies and chocolates!

Oh, and I finally couldn’t drink the original can of coffee powder I bought. It was meant for the brewing type, but I obviously didnt know so I bought it and whenever I made a cup of coffee, the top and bottom layer was filled with coffee residue. Disgusting! So, during my Wal-Mart trip, I finally faced reality and admit to being a coffee addict. And yes! I got myself a can of nescafe coffee (instant)! WOO:D

The weather recently, albeit warmer in terms of Fahrenheit, became foggy and windier. I went for a short run just now around my neighborhood and the winds were totally slapping my face when I was running up the steep slopes. Almost died from that run. But well, there’s an improvement today! The first time I ran, last wk, I only covered 1.6km in like 10minutes. Haha, what a loser. Couldn’t adapt to running in the cold yet.

And today, I covered 3km in 20minutes. Still quite a loser but at least i finally managed to do some exercise. All thanks to coffee cos I drank it in the afternoon. Whoopee, i think my 2 cups of coffee per day habit is reverting. Oh yes and oh man! I’m an addict!D:

Check out the fog! Imagine if you are in the higher levels in that building. It will look like genting man! Hahaha.

And on Saturday, before grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, we had this yummylicious extravagant meal at Canton House! Had too much fried dim sum though until I became really full thereafter, not to mention fat. Ugh! Haha, but worth it, the food there was really great:D

On the MARTA! First time taking a bus. The bus/train ride here is 2USD per trip but transfers are free:D

Okay, time to do some research on the north carolina ski-ing trip. Should be heading there this weekend before winter ends!

Catch up with you guys again soon:D