travel blog

A special gift!

2008-01-08T01:22:00.000+08:00

just to share with all.. this funny and a little bit bo liao video that a friend did for me. his name is Jurgen and he's austrian!

it's basically just a photo collage la.. of random pictures which some that i've never seen before until i saw the video! haha... but well, it's a small gift for my birthday which i do appreciate alot! :)

离开芬兰

2007-12-24T11:18:00.000+08:00

本来很久前就想写要离开的感想，但却一直没机会。现在走了，反而更有心情把感触写出来。唉。

说真的，离别真的是一件很痛苦的事。上次离开美国时已经很辛苦，这次也不例外。反而觉得这次更难受。我以为我会很坚强，可以走得很潇洒，可是原来我错了。我太高估自己的能力了。我以为经过了一次经验，现在会更坚强，更懂事，更能控制自己的心情。可是，原来我始终都是那么感情用事。我无法控制我的泪水。

离别时看到一群好友一起来送我，道别，真是觉得很难过。这四个月来大家培养的友谊就这么到一个段落了。将来就算再见面，也觉得不如从前了。上次在美国认识的朋友不是新加坡就是美国人。新加坡很容易再见面，而美国人呢；我觉得多数都是口是心非的。可是现在，大家都是从不同的国家来的，要碰面很难,要大家再一次一起碰面就难上加难。

在这四个月里我们从陌生人逐渐演变成好友。每天见面，吃饭,玩耍。一群交流生离乡背井，没有家里人的陪伴，也只有互相依靠。久而久之，大家就似乎变成自己的家人了。相处久了，就发现到很多对方生活上的优缺点。人的个性也似乎整个被拆穿了。在生活上的综综小小习惯和喜好，都全让人家认识到，看清楚了。虽然听起来很恐怖，不过老实说，我觉得大家都相处得挺愉快的。

出国交流我想真的学到了很多东西。不只是对人对事，也对自己也更进一步的了解。发现到自己一个也可以生存，独立。发现到自己是华人，而华文始终是我的根。发现到和其他亚洲人共同的一个地方，就是华文。发现到华文能让我和他们连接起来，让我感觉有归属感。发现和华人一起再次点燃我曾几何时对华文的热诚和爱。发现到新加坡的教育制度真的很棒，明白了李光耀先生的远见；双语精通真的很重要。以前总是崇洋媚外，可是去了那儿却交了一群亚洲的好朋友。对新加坡人来说结识老外一定不会是语言的问题，毕竟我们应该是亚洲人里面英文程度最好的。我反而觉得很多欧洲人的英文程度还真的蛮差的。不知怎么解释，当时总觉得跟亚洲朋友在一起的感觉比较真实，比较舒服。洋人大部分都是酒肉朋友，更不要说他们多多少少都会把你视为“亚洲人”啊。虽然我也交了几个外国好朋友，但对我来说，亚洲朋友始终是我在那儿最要好的朋友。我很庆幸，因为自己虽然是唯一一个新加坡人，但却交到了很多好朋友。认识到了很重视我，很了解我，接受我的好朋友。我真的很感动。大家认识的时间不长，但相处的时间却很多。有了他们，让我孤苦伶仃的唯一一个新加坡人，一点都不感到寂寞。如果不是有了他们，我想我在那儿的日子一定很难熬。我真的真得很希望，虽然我们各分东西，但是这几个月曾经拥有过的美好回忆，会让我们继续的让友情永仪。

现在回到了新加坡，也算让这几个月的欧洲之旅画上了一个圆满的句号。我真得很高兴去了这次的交流，更高兴的是认识到的朋友。现在必须回到残酷的现实生活，继续回去好好念书。但是人生必竟不能总是停留在一个位置。人必须向前走。现在的我需要勇敢的往前走，继续人生的另一个旅程了。我要加油！！你们也是！：）

Suomelina Island Excursion Trip, 13th Oct 2007

2007-12-09T19:58:00.000+08:00

i apologize for the lack of updates because i've been so lazy.. and busy. haha. so many photos that it's impossible for me to blog everything! anyway, our finnish class had an excursion to suomelina island a few weeks back. it's one of the islands in finland where people visit.

the teacher talked about lotsa historical stuff to us... about russians and how finland used to be and blah blah. but honestly, erm i didn't pay much attention because i wasn't that interested. but i must say that the island's quite pretty and i managed to take some nice pictures. :) so i shall not say much and just let the pictures do most of the talking.

on our way there in the ferry.

at the island...

the class listening attentively to the teacher.

then we walked into some underground kinda thing...

alex and anders.
looked at some sculpture...

then some old shipyard... they built the ship here and they somehow it's connected to the water and it's able to open up the doors and let it sail out. something like that lar.

dennis with his balloon. haha.

group picture!!!

last group shot at the ferry terminal before we left!

so that's about it for the pretty suomelina island! :) hope you all enjoyed the nice sceneries!

First real snow in Helsinki!

2007-11-14T04:22:00.000+08:00

The first time it started falling snow this year in Helsinki was in October.

Then on and off, there came snow, and it melted. Yesterday was snowing too but it melted on the ground and was wet and disgusting.

But today, the snow finally stayed... and accumulated on the ground! It was all white and it finally felt like it really snowed!! It just made me so happy today!! because of the snow! That's what i'm here for! and to top it off, I finally got a pair of winter boots from dinsko today. 35 euros for a pair that covers up to 3/4 of my small thigh. not that expensive they say... but that's because it's from the kids section! hahaha. :)

For those reading in hot and humid, but nevertheless still lovely Singapore; here's a video that I have to share. Don't get too jealous! =p

Cottage Weekend, 29th-30th Sept 2007

2007-10-31T04:45:00.001+08:00

i know this is such a long overdue post... but... i've just been lazy and busy!

anyway, one of finland's culture is where finnish people go for cottage weekends! it's normally more for in the summer i heard but we went during fall. they drive all the way into some part of finland that is outside of the city area and stay in the cottage for a few days just to relax and enjoy. there's plenty of ground outside these cottages and probably a lake nearby too.

anyway, we went for cottage weekend and took a bus ride of about an hour or two to get there.

me with my big bag... i thought it looks perfectly fine for me because i used it to travel for 3 weeks before i came. but my friends here all enjoy laughing at it because they think it's so huge and disproportionate as compared to my size and height. they always say that i hide a guy inside... haha. and well, wanted a shot of me with my bag!
on the way there...

stopping halfway for toilet, rest, water and food.

finally reached the cottage! too lazy for words so i shall just let the pictures do the work.

we went to the lake....

had games in the afternoon...

the group i was in for the games session.

and at night we had this international dinner where everyone had to prepare a dish from their home country... it was quite amazing... alot of food on the table!! yummy!

then at night there was sauna but i didn't go for it because... it was the first day of the month!!! unfortunately. sighs. but the people seem to have had alot of fun because they would run out of the sauna and jump into the icy cold lake. apparently it's some finnish culture... and it seems so fun that one should try... but i didn't had the chance so well.

overall, it wasn't that fun a weekend and a little disappointing i would say. the countryside was nice but i thought the cottage would be much cosier. but still, it was nice to learn and be part of finnish culture! :)

my clique!!! :)

2007-10-17T08:05:00.001+08:00

i apologize for the lack of updates... actually i still have alot to write about and post lotsa pictures too but i've just been too lazy and busy recently. i will do them soon... i hope!

anyway, i finally kinda have a clique after 1 month plus here!! well.. it's kinda.. more like my gang of people that stay here in Ida which is where i live. we are like the german-mandarin speaking clique. cuz we only either speak german/mandarin and english. haha!

here is part of my clique.. there's still kinda like 2 more people in it... this austrian and another taiwanese guy, but they weren't in this picture. anyway i know these people better... like we hang out more often. still getting to know the little austrian boy. haha.

lewis (taipei, taiwan), dennis (hamburg, germany), alex (cologne, germany), me, kelly (hongkong), vicky (hongkong)

i love group shots!! :) and this picture is nice... there's the 2 hongkong girls, one taiwan guy, and the other two are germans.

i'm so glad that my efforts into picking up cantonese from hongkong dramas has not gone down the drain! it's so much easier for me to understand and communicate with the hk girls! and like because the taiwanese don't understand cantonese, the three of us often communicate in cantonese and talk about small jokes and secrets between us. it's alot of fun... to just have stuff you wanna be said between girls! :) and the taiwanese speak their taiwanese too which i understand because i'm hokkien! but they don't really speak that because most of the time they are just comfortable with mandarin. but i must be so ashamed to admit that my hokkien has really worsened by quite a fair bit because a recent attempt trying to exhibit my ability in the dialect ended up with many bits and pieces of cantonese coming out in my sentences. so embarrassing.

anyway i would still say that we are starting to get to know each other more... like at least i'm trying to get to know the austrian guy more... the rest i'm quite shou already... but still, getting more shou la.

that's about it la.. my life is quite routine now... seeing these people everyday... and well, going to school, cooking, buying groceries, playing, talking, laughing... haha. i have exams next week... sighs. i'm so dead. two 100% exams!! i really hope i pass because the prof is known for failing half the class, without closing one eye for exchange students so i'm quite dead because both papers are from the same prof... sighs. I HOPE I PASS!!! PLEASE!!!!

Dumpling Dinner + Chicken Rice Dinner

2007-10-02T18:45:00.000+08:00

Dumpling Dinner - 25th Sept 2007

tuesday was mid autumn festival and my few asian chinese friends and i decided to get together for dinner!! basically we are a clique of taiwan, hongkong and singapore people!! =) no china though. haha.

so we were gonna make... 馄饨面!!! which is called wanton i think? like wanton mee in singapore.. just that it's a little bit different without the char siew and vegetables. it's the more... chinese type of wanton noodles i think.

anyhow, we bought the ingredients we could lay our hands on.. to make our dumplings!!!

the layer of skin needed to wrap it...
mixing, stirring the bowl of minced pork, chopped onions, carrots, mushrooms. it takes alot of force, really.
our pot of soup!!! YUMMY!!! it was really nice... and smells really good.
us learning how to make it from wei-in!!
my virgin wanton!!!
having fun wrapping them.
don't they look fantabulous?
me with the made but uncooked dumplings!
lewis and i.
all ready to eat my bowl of wanton noodles!!!
a sample of it.
for once i get to eat noodles in a bowl with chopsticks and a chinese spoon!!!! and not with western plate, fork and spoon!! i brought the chopsticks and bought the spoon and bowl.
dinner time!! :)

Chicken Rice Dinner - 28th Sept 2007

Apparently, Singapore's Hainanese Chicken Rice (see the irony?) seems to be rather famous and popular among other asians. my taiwanese friends just love chicken rice and have been bugging me to make them since they realized that i bought the prepack over! i must admit that chicken rice is probably one of the best and one of my favourites among all the Singapore food. but... i've never tried making it before.

so we finally found a time when everyone could make it to get together for... a chicken rice feast!!

all the secrets needed to make the wonders for the chicken rice!! my prepacked chicken rice ingredients!! all i had to get was just rice and chicken.
preparing to cook the chicken...
dale reading the instructions on how to cook it...
cooking the chicken!!!
boiling the pot of chicken... oily....
the guys waiting for dinner!!!
look at the poker cards with chinese character... brought by a GERMAN!!! :)
our additional pork bone soup with carrots and onions.
looks good??
cooking the most important part... the RICE!!! following the instructions carefully!!
look at all the oil to make it delicious...
vicky slicing the cucumbers.
alex tasting chinese soup.
yay the chicken!!!
8 of us! :)
our table of our chicken rice feast.
non-singaporeans eating singapore food.
germans eating singapore food. it was their virgin chicken rice! YUMMY!!!
kelly and dale.
lewis, vicky and wei-in.
chicken rice maniac.
only singaporean (as always) at the table of singapore food! and with errr... alot of bones. haha.
dennis and his cucumber eye mask. haha!
the guys doing the dishes!
that was about it for food! it's fun to cook together and eat with so many people!! :) i wished i could get more singapore food here but the asian shops are so limited... and not to mention expensive!!

and i'm so sure i'll return back to singapore with my culinary skills improving by leaps and bounds. :)

Linnamaki Park, 16th Sept

2007-09-24T06:25:00.000+08:00

we found out from buying helsinki postcards that there's actually an amusement park in helsinki. i asked a finnish friend and he said that the park wasn't bad and wouldn't be too bad to go take a look.

it was the last weekend that the park was opened since it was gonna close for summer. so we decided to go visit it. i went with the two hongkong girls plus alex, my german friend that i knew from my tutor group and also stays in the same block as me.

entrance was free but it would cost 5 euros per ride. unless we pay 30 euros for unlimited number of rides. so anyway, we decided to go walk around and decide if the 30 euros is worth it.

us at the park!

the entrance.

pooh bear! big pooh bear!
pictures of the park...

me and the big huge ferris wheel.. it's much bigger than the one at ocean park.

so anyway... apparently asians stand out very obviously here. so this swedish girl from the tv station approached us. she wanted to interview us for a short interview. asking us why we came here and what we think of the park. she interviewed me and alex... but unfortunately, alex's part got cut off and it didn't appear on tv! :( boo. but i appeared for like.. 10seconds on the local television channel! it's this swedish channel here for the minorities of swedish people here.

the link to the video is here!
http://arenan.yle.fi/toista?id=822069
just scroll to the last few minutes... i'm just right at the end of the part about the amusement park.. well, the whole video is incomprehensible to people who don't understand swedish.. except the part that i spoke! haha. it's quite amazing.. i got onto national tv 2 weeks after i'm in helsinki!! woah.

us with the swedish girl who approached us.

anyhow, alex decided to spend 5 euros to try one of the rides. it was this big building and has this indoor rollercoaster. we couldn't see how it was like but he believed that it should be good. so i went along with him to take the ride.

we took the back row because... i'm supposedly the expert who said so! haha.. nah but honestly, according to my experience from being a ride operator at anaconda, the back seats of rollercoasters are the best!
the area inside the ride...
so anyway, it was just like pitch black when we rode through... and honestly, i must say it wasn't good. like i've tried much better indoor roller coasters man. those that i took in orlando which weren't supposed that great were actually more fun. this was just.. boring. no dips, no surprises, no excitement. just... not scary at all. we both agreed it was worth only probably like what... 2 euros?

more pictures of the park...

this was one of the cooler rides i thought.. but i didn't take it because it wasn't going as far as i'd expected. didn't seem that fun.

so all in all,we didn't spend much time there left because i guess it just wasn't exciting enough for us. PKD is much more exciting than this man... and like i said in my interview, the stuff here is more for kids i think. well, saved me 30 euros which was good. but honestly, i really wanna go back to US for the amusement parks!!! i wanna go to cedarpoint in ohio some day!! :)

two weeks in helsinki + Sitsi Party

2007-09-17T03:14:00.000+08:00

it's been two weeks since i've been at helsinki, finland and i must say i'm starting to settle down and all. things are getting rather routine... getting to know people better and well, adapting to living by myself and improving my cooking skills with every time that i cook. haha.

anyway, it's amazing how i've survived for two weeks by myself. i mean like being the only singaporean. i guess it's often how you are not in your own comfort zone that you start to appreciate home and country. i never felt that way in US because i guess i did not had to adapt very much, having all my singapore people around me all the time, and the fact that English is everywhere there, there wasn't much of a big problem except that we had an advantage over the americans because we can speak mandarin.

but over here, i have yet to meet a single singaporean since i've landed in this country! in fact, my last physical + social + verbal contact with native singaporeans was with the maastricht people that i travelled with in holland. i've been out of touch with my own native singlish in my daily life for 17 days and i'm still surviving! haha. i miss my singaporean language! it's like the chinese people here all have their own people to talk their own language to... taiwanese in their taiwanese accented mandarin, hongkongers in their cantonese, and china people in their accented mandarin. only poor me singaporean has to speak to taiwanese and china people with my singaporean accented mandarin, and to the hongkongers with my half bucket cantonese mixed with mandarin and english. hahaha! no more singlish like kiasu, sian, pang sai, lao sai. nobody understands these here. and nobody talks with their la, leh, hor, meh inside their sentences. *sobs* but of cuz, there's still the webcam to talk to singapore people... but still, it's just different when it's not part of your daily life anymore because it's just something that has always been in you.

and well, i really start to appreciate the efforts and the education that i've gone through at home. i really appreciate the fact that we are mostly so proficient in both English and Chinese. it really helps alot in terms of communication. and although sometimes the accent is different, it takes a bit of adapting to be able to understand. in fact, i think that some of the europeans do not have such a good command of the English language. and well, my 10 years of studying so hard for my chinese in primary and secondary school did not come to waste. i think it has definitely served me well when conversing with the Chinese people. also, Chinese and English are two vastly different languages in terms of their sounds, words, tones etc. whereas many european languages are similar so it's much easier for them to master it since they are all still made up of the few alphabets. i'm so so glad we were taught all these since we were young because honestly, English is the language to communicate with the rest of the world. and Mandarin, as a Chinese, it is ultimately our roots and the window to open us up to the largest population in the world... CHINA!!!! that makes up almost 20% of the world's population!! it's amazing how china people are really just everywhere around the world! you'll always see them. i honestly think lee kuan yew is just AMAZING in terms of his foresight and all that he has planned for us. and so i really appreciate being a native singaporean all my life. i love my country!!! hahaha. okay, sometimes only.

anyway, enough of my thoughts and feelings. Last Friday morning i went to attend this talk by the CEO of PwC. his name is samuel dipiazza. and since as an accounting student, i figured it was natural that i should attend it. and i am so glad i did. at first i thought it was only like the CEO of the finnish PwC that was there.. but actually, he's like the biggest on top... being the CEO of the HQ of PwC in US!!! woah. he was talking about emerging markets, changes in the accounting profession and attracting talent. and i must say, he was such a good speaker! i was attracted to all that he said and i paid alot of attention! he is so knowlegeable and interesting when he speaks!!! it's so amazing i think. and well, during the Q&A session, i managed to ask him a question too!! woah so honoured!! haha. honestly, he must be one of the smartest and most intelligent american i've seen so far!! he was really good. motivational speaker i think... think he's probably a great leader in leading the whole PwC man. the way he said it was like... auditing is THE THING man. haha! but i must say, because of his visions and beliefs, is probably the reason why PwC has turned out to be the best amongst the big 4. i finally understand why.

then at night we had Sitsi Party for all the exchange students. it's this traditional party in the scandinavian countries. people get together in long tables, singing, laughing, eating, drinking and just having fun! i had alot of fun and entertainment and it was a pity it ended quite fast i thought.

on the bus to the party!

this is my papa, anders from denmark. he's korean by blood but was adopted by a danish family so he's just danish.
my mama, wei-in from taiwan. she's from a denmark school together with anders and they are a couple. well actually, i started to acknowledge wei-in as my mama cuz she teaches us how to cook.. then anders became my papa too because both of them just gives me such a family feeling. haha.
then during the party, they will bang on the table and call each nationality up... it goes like... "we want *** on the table!" *bang bang* then it just repeats. so then all the people from the same country would stand up and either sing a song or bottoms up. germans were the first because they were the majority! like so majority man.

then next were the french!

the tutors at the front.
me with hanna... from my tutor group. both of us were the only girls in our whole group during the first day of orientation! ha it was quite strange. she's a finnish but wen to holland to study. so she's now on exchange back in her home country. she told me she wanted to go to singapore but exchange actually but the time didn't fit because of her summer internship. haha. how sweet is that. she's been to singapore and she likes it!
this french guy that i learnt some french from.. haha he's quite a good teacher i would say. but i just realized... err i never knew his name! haha.. not yet.
anu.. one of my tutors!
danish people on the table!
swedish people on the table! only two of them.. one's from my tutor group and the other is my roommate carin!

daniel... from my tutor group!
3 guys. haha.
timo.. the swedish guy in my tutor group.
alex, another german from my tutor group! he stays in the same block as me... so we kinda hang out more often sometimes!
all the different flags on the wall.. but.. NO SINGAPORE!! haha.
all our party stuff.
dale from taiwan! he stays in the same building as me too!
and so well, they called all the nationalities and i was all along just so sure that Singapore would never be mentioned. simply because it's so small and insignificant that people would remember! i was so sure i wouldn't have to stand up to perform so i didn't really prepare anything. then towards the end, they asked which nationalities that have not been called. and of course, my german friend markus and another finnish tutor i was talking to who were sitting opposite me started shouting SINGAPORE! plus all the other people who knew me that were sitting in other tables all just added in to.

and so i stood up. this only poor lonely singaporean who stood up ALL BY HERSELF.

and because i could hardly remember the lyrics of our national anthem... i just sang one verse of my favourite community singing songs in primary school, Singapore Town! i just love that song. and well, after i ended everyone started screaming and cheering for me. the only girl who sang up and sang such a nice song about her country. or so they said it was nice. i figured because the song itself was nice, plus i sang it well, plus it was in English which everybody understood so they liked it. haha.

this must be one of the BRAVEST thing i've ever done in my life honestly! i don't even know how i managed to do it! all by myself! but i must say, it was alot of fun!!! i would do it again. haha.

finnish on the tables!

everyone on the tables!

the chinese people... errr.. from the more developed countries? haha. lewis, dale, kelly, vicky and me. (taiwan, taiwan, hongkong, hongkong, singapore)
me with the 3 hongkong girls!
candid shot.
me outside the KY building.
me and vicky at the bus stop... way to go home!

overall, i would say it was a pretty fun and entertaining night. i had 2 shots, 1 beer and 1 cider and i thought that would allow me to have a good night's sleep. but unexpectedly, i couldn't sleep when i got back! which was really bad, having to turn and toss in bed. i wonder why too.

that's it for now! :)

First week @ Helsinki

2007-09-14T01:54:00.000+08:00

i took a 2 hour train in holland to reach amsterdam airport so as to fly to helsinki. it was my first time doing all these by myself and in a foreign land. it was really scary! but well, there's always a first time for everything! the train ride was okay, thanks to Jo's uncle for helping me map out everything well.

but then, problems always occur during travelling... and so when i was checking in... the girl didn't allow me to bring in this bag pack (which i hand carried for my flight from Singapore), and so i had to check it in! and so, all in all i had an excess baggage of 15 kg! the baggage allowance was only a freaking 20 kg!!! anyhow, i paid for 10 kg in the end which cost me freaking 50 euros! i was so so so upset! it just totally ruined my day!

me with my excess baggage payment receipt!
so well, what an unhappy incident for my first time flying with finnair.. bad impression left.

anyhow, the tutors from the school picked me up from the airport to my accommodation area... the first day was like really really lonely because i knew no one and so i ended up eating my cup noodles in my room. how sad was that.

the second day was a Sunday and i went out to the city centre with these other 4 girls. three of them stay in the apartment above mine and one of them is my roommate, carin. all the shops were closed on Sundays and it was so boring so we just walked around.

pictures at helsinki city centre...
me, catherine (Canada), maria (Mexico), denise (Czech republic)

they have like really dark clouds but a very blue sky behind.
the famous cathedral/church of helsinki. their iconic place. not sure what it's called though.

nice flowers.
stockmann area...
first nokia shop i see in helsinki.
and well, contrary to Finland being "nokialand", their nokia phones are like NOT CHEAP at all. it's so much cheaper in Asia! omg. this finnish guy told me that the only thing about nokia and finland is that the CEO is finnish... haha other than that their phones are mostly made in Asia and that is where they probably made most of their money. i thought that the people here would carry like the newest models of nokias and be like so tech-savvy in terms of mobile phones. however, i was wrong! apparently people here change their phones like once in 3-4 years. unlike in asia, or at least singapore where people mostly change their phones in like 1-2 years. so imagine the amount of difference it would make for the profits of the mobile phone company! anyway, i saw some people use my old model of handphones... and i was just totally shocked. those types of phones are like.. extinct.. okay, more like endangered species in Singapore. it's hard to see people carrying those models!

anyhow, there was this small chinese restaurant near my housing area. i made friends with these 2 hongkong girls who were picked up from the airport together with me. so we decided to go try out the food there! our first chinese meal in helsinki!

Thursday was orientation day called Mursujaiset. it was a long day that started at like 8 am in the morning. we were told to meet in school and this was what we were entertained with early in the morning. this band playing really loud music inside the building.
then we had breakfast and was given a vodka shot early in the morning. the breakfast was okay... though i wouldn't say fantastic. anyway we were made to wear this garbage bag thing for the whole day. it looked like we were gonna go do corrective work order or something.

kelly(hk), vicky(hk), me and wei-in (taiwan).
us with lewis (taiwan).
me with daniel (switzerland) from my tutor group. he's a really nice guy.
us with the two china girls, jessie and michelle from tsinghua university!
the back of the garbage bag.
me with the garbage bag. yay!
we were told to bring a toothbrush... to scrub this statue apparently. i forgot to bring mine... and luckily i didn't!
me and markus (germany) from my tutor group. he's the first german i met out of the many many germans that are present in this batch of exchange students. they are seriously the majority population amongst us all... like almost 10% i believe.
maria (mexico), carin my roomate (sweden) and me!
we had to go around with our tutor groups to different stations to play games. it was quite fun honestly... but very cold though. we get to know each other better and well.. build team spirit! :)

my tutor group.. the two in green overalls are our tutors anu and katsu.
back: anu, daniel (switzerland), filip (denmark), alex (germany), me
front: katsu, jessie (china), timor (sweden), markus (germany).
the cheapest stuff around here are probably bread, milk, yoghurt and pasta!! here's the first dinner that me and kelly cooked! it's a fusion of east and west with spaghetti noodles and chicken stock soup with some chicken wings!

we went to ikea on saturday because there were free buses. unlike the ones in singapore where they have like blue buildings with yellow words, the one here that i went to had a white background instead. it looked weird and it really wasn't nice... haha but still, inside was nice and relative the same as the one in singapore. but as always, it's good to shop at ikea! :)

their meatballs! all in finnish though.
here's some shots of my room... it's nice having your own personal room! i totally love the privacy and not having to put up with another person! haha. my set of bedsheets were from ikea! i got it from the kids area... haha but who cares, its 9.95 euros for the whole set!
my very handy ikea laundry bag!

okay, that's it for now. will upload more next time! :)

12th-17th Aug: Florence, Italy

2007-09-10T03:08:00.001+08:00

so after we were done with the last few sights of Rome in the first half of the day, we finally made our way to Florence (Firenze). it was about 2 hours by train away.

Day 1

retarded shots in the train.

we reached the central station and walked quite a bit of distance before we finally reached our hostel. it was quite far from the central station... but the hostel's really small and cosy. the people there were nice too. it just felt like a big family kinda thing with alot of rooms.

though unfortunately, we had 2 pretty unfriendly and i would say, racist roommates. shall not elaborate further but it's just some of the stuff you get to learn when travelling. it was kinda late when we reached and it just sorta ended the first day.

Day 2
we decided to go see the leaning tower of Pisa! the place is slightly out of Florence city so we had to take a short train ride there.

shots in the train again.

the area we passed by when walking from the station to the Pisa.

it's green day!

and finally... the leaning tower of PISA!!!!!!!!!!!
holding it to make sure it doesn't fall... yeah right...
me with pisa!
us!
the view from the other side... doesn't look so leaning right.
jojo and i!
some building near the pisa.
another one.

the video we took at Pisa!

Day 3
we decided to go to this factory outlet mall at tuscany which was near Florence city. it was called The Mall. they sell really high end brand stuff like gucci, YSL, fendi, etc etc.

we had to take a bus from there... we bought the tickets and was waiting for it when.. it never came and we were told that it was cancelled... so we had to refund our tickets. angry!!

picture at the bus station... we were trying to take the background where the queue of the bus was mostly made up of.... ASIANS!! haha. as usual. they looked like mostly rich koreans and china people..
anyway, we took a train instead and changed to a taxi to get there. at the train station of tuscany... the view's pretty nice there. like a small area outside of the city. quiet and pretty.

gucci!
we spent like almost the whole day there... us with our shopping!
haha. the place was pretty good i must say... but not my level of purchasing power. haha. i still prefer the outlets in US!!! i just LOVE shopping at the factory outlets in US.

Day 4
this must be one of the most tiring days! due to some err... hiccups, we were accomodation-less for one night. hence, we decided to stay at Florence for an additional night. however, the hostel that we were at was full, so we had to move to another one. moving is something that is not really very fun. so in the morning, we packed our stuff to move over to the other hostel. it looked okay on the map ya know, but we ended our walking for one hour in the morning from the first hostel to the other... all with our more than 10 kg of bags each. it was.... very very tiring. good morning exercise. haha.

anyhow, the day was dedicated to the ufizzi and academia. it was known that both had super long queues. so we queued for one and paid like 3 euros for the other one to get a queue.

the 4 hour queue at ufizzi...
qiqi, this chinese girl we met at the hostel! she's been travelling alone for like a month when we saw her. very brave i must say!
anyhow.. not much pictures at ufizzi and academia because all i can say it was just disappointing disappointing and disappointing. photos weren't allowed inside... and well, they were basically almost the same stuff. pictures, sculptures... all those arty farty stuff which... i would say we don't appreciate. it was such a waste of time (and money of course) queuing up and all!

we walked past the duomo and decided to take some pictures outside...

the building is really magnificent and nice.. i can't imagine how they built it in the past!!
so after an extremely tiring day, we decided to... treat ourselves to a good meal! this restaurant had this picture of like pasta, wine and fruits for 9 euros! we were thrilled! and so we sat down and decided, this was gonna be... THE meal of the day!

posing with our wine...

the view from where we sat.

our food.

so anyway.. here it came. after we finished our pasta, i was gonna ask for the fruits from the waiter. and to our very very huge surprise, the fruits was NOT part of the 9 euros. it was an extra cost! meaning... the picture that was present in the menu... the 9 euros only meant the tiny small serving of pasta! and guess what, our wine that we though was inside... was freaking 9 euros each!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i could have sued them for misrepresentation??!!

so we were very angry.. but what could we do??!! we made sure we finished every drop of our wine! and ended up... errr... a little bit rather dizzy after that. haha.
our 18 euro, 36sgd dinner. VERY EXPENSIVE.
after dinner, we collected our bags and finally moved to our other hostel. it was an apartment style for five of us... just exactly like a house! it was nice... though we didn't manage to take any pictures. it was a really short stay there. but it was just beside the duomo... so near! we could see the duomo from the window!!!

Day 5
last day in florence and we decided to enter the duomo since it was so near. but little did we expect... the long climb up... all the way to the top of the duomo.

the interior of the top part of the duomo.. just amazing. i wonder how did the people manage to climb all the way to the top to paint these!
finally reached the top! i figured the climb was like more than 10 storeys high. it was very tiring! here's the bird's eye view of.. FLORENCE!

3 of us. :)

on our way down... more pictures of paintings inside the duomo.

the chapel downstairs...
this ended our 5 day 4 night florence trip... and venice, the city of water was next!
overall, i would say i quite like florence even though it was mostly the arty farty stuff. there were stuff that was nice i must say... but as usual, everything is expensive in italy and all the museums were freaking expensive. no discount for students at all... which really really sucks. but still, travelling... despite tiring, was still fun with my 2 darlings. :)

10th-13th August: Rome, Italy

2007-09-02T02:05:00.000+08:00

my apologies to those who have been waiting and checking my website out.. but i took so many photos that it's really very time consuming to arrange everything and blog it all out. just uploading those photos took a very long time... because blogger is not very photoblogging-friendly.

anyway here it goes.. our 4 days 3 nights trip in Rome! :)

Day 1
we had to take a train to Eindhoven train station in holland. then transfer to a bus to go to the airport. the five of us at the bus terminal...
inside the bus...
at Eindhoven airport
photo whoring in the airport's toilet
our flight was delayed... so free time=bridge time!! we all love bridge!! :)
on ryan air... it wasn't that fantastic actually, except that there was this guy on the same plane who looked quite cute... like michael scofield kind. haha.
their safety instructions are written on the seats itself! first time i've seen it!
we reached rome airport and had to take a airport transfer bus to reach the central.
ROMA... here we come!
we walked alot alot before we finally checked into our hostel. the place that we were supposed to move into was supposedly like 3 blocks away from what was stated on hostelworld and where we checked in. and according to the guy... it was supposed to be "a short walk" away. but of cuz, it wasn't that short, especially with all that we were carrying. and honestly, the roads of Rome are definitely NOT for rolling baggages. it was really bad. plus their lifts are almost non-existent.. staircase is the way to go for your bags man!!

so after a rather long and tiring walk, we finally reached our 6 bed dorm hostel!

the 5 of us inside our hostel building.
the front door of our hostel building. its kinda nice cuz its really huge and looks quite ancient.
posing along the streets of Rome.
Rome, rome...

vandalism!
evening sights of Rome...

my first gelare ice cream in italy! it was only 1.70 euros and really huge! peppermint and chocolate. yummy!
so we walked around and after a rather long walk.. we went to the famous trevi fountain! it was really really crowded!! but it was still beautiful.. the place from the airplane hk drama serial, 冲上云霄! i was really looking forward to it!

me at trevi!

that kinda ended the night and the next day was time for Vatican city!

Day 2
here we are, vaticani!
just look at the queue.

it would have taken us like 4 hours if we were to queue to get in.. so anyway, because we had very limited time and alot of things to see in Rome, we decided to join this Vatican City tour which cost us 35 euros each (discount price for student) for entrance (no queue) and a guided tour. actually i was a bit relucant because this meant more than 70sgd! but it was really good to have a guide and i was of cuz more than happy to skip the disgusting queue!

ticket in hand!
some very famous sculpture by michael angelo i think.. but this is a replicate because the fake one is too precious to be put out!
the duomo.. (or dome?) that the Pope stays.
inside vatican city...

as usual, look at the queue.

st peter's basilica. it was magnificent! so huge and nice... i just can't imagine how did people from the past manage to build it!! it's something that people wow at when they see it.. one of the must visit i think.

the originial very precious sculpture.
we ended out tour and walked around to take pictures of the other side of the vatican city.

then we continued to walk down to this castle thing. it was built in the past and there was supposedly this secret passageway underground that the Pope could run to in times of need. how unimaginable how people of the past could do that! anyway we didn't enter the castle because it was expensive (of cuz) so we just walked around and took pictures outside it.

we could see vatican city from the castle!
the full view of the whole castle!
more streets of Rome...

i see this car everywhere in Europe actually and i must say it was love at first sight when i saw it in Rome. i wished i could buy it back to Singapore to drive!! its called smartone i think... or something alone that line. it's really cute... and an additional bonus is.. it's a mercedez benz! haha.. or at least from the same company.
we walked further along to see... more ruins.
there was this other cute vehicle too... a bus! a small one to be exact. haha. it looks more than a van.. but well, its a small bus! its cute, aint it.
we continued walking to this other place.. the church with a hole on top. haha.

the hole inside the church!

more pictures of Rome...
then we headed to the spagna which is also one of the well known spots to see. it consists of alot of steps.. and the flowers there were supposed very beautiful.
anyway it was just crowded crowded and crowded.

so we sat along the steps (just like everyone else) because there wasn't much to do. found a good looking guy and we took a snapshot of him. haha.
anyhow, this almost concluded the day and we were very hungry! so we decided to have some pasta (which is the first course in the italian meal) for dinner! we had some really bad experiences on pizzas and decided we should get some good pastas instead since the ones in the restaurants cost as much as those in Singapore. we went to this restaurant near our hostel.

at the restaurant... it was quite nice.

me with my salmon pasta! it was yummy.. but because it was al dente, i thought it was a bit too hard for my liking.
Day 3
We decided to go visit the villas today and we had to take a train and change to a bus before we could go. it was kinda far from the city centre itself.

at the train station... i don't really like the trains because the stations itself are in really bad states... the escalators give out loud creaking sounds it feels as though its gonna stop any moment. plus its really dirty and all.. just really bad as compared to those in Singapore.
anyway, we first visited this villa adriano i think.. or was it the second one. i can't remember the names but this one was the one with the ruins. it used to be some villa of a king and so it was huge. the ruins were nice and it was slightly different from the usual kinda ruins that we saw... it was 12 euros which was expensive but well...
an overview of the whole villa

nice waters inside there....
the four girls...
me!! haha.
the ruins...

5 of us...

we felt a little bored after a while and it wasn't that crowded a place and i must say it was quite relaxing... so we started taking retarded shots. haha.
superman+smu jump shot.
shot taken at lunch...
then we went to another villa.. which was known for its beautiful garden. it costs like 9 or 11 euros.. can't remember.
it was... really really beautiful.

it was such a hot day.. but standing infront of this fountain was really cooling.
and so we stayed and slacked there for a while.

what can i say? a picture speaks a thousand words. the place is so beautiful!

anyway, we still had time and decided to move on to.. the colosseum! haha. one of the new 7 wonders of the world! the ticket wasl ike 13 euros i think. rather expensive, as always.

presenting.. the colosseum!

the inside...

a macro shot of the breaks in it... how did they manage to build this in the past man!
picture of... our feet... standing on the colosseum ground..??!!

me @ colosseum! yeah!

a short video that we took...

the outside...

*muacks*

Day 4
The entrance ticket to colosseum consisted of the palentino too, which was just beside it. it's...more ruins again as usual and we decided to visit it before we leave Rome
the water was clean and nice...!

it was overall... a very tiring walk... up, down and around... i don't know much about the story since we weren't on a guided tour but yeah.. just sightseeing.

so anyway, we continued walking since it was the last day in Rome and we should not waste more time...

some building which i don't know what though.. haha.

and then we went to visit this pyramid which had some rich man buried underneath. it was supposedly built for him pleasures during the ancient times... quite disappointing when we saw it though.

so anyway, that concluded our Rome trip and we made our way to Florence. Overall, Rome was definitely one of the most tiring amongst the whole trip. i guess it was because Rome had the most stuff to see and since it was our first stop, we had more energy and rushed around everywhere. we woke up at like 7am almost everyday! the hostel was also the worst because the beds were really bad.. plus all the noise... it just made everything much worst because we couldn't rest well at night and we were just so tired.

but still, Rome was still beautiful even though everywhere was so touristy and so crowded. it's a good place to visit but definitely not for living! yay! i've finally been to... Rome, 罗马! :)

Singapore-London-Amsterdam

2007-08-09T22:01:00.000+08:00

my final stop was amsterdam and i flew 13+ hours on BA to london heathrow airport, then transferred to a 45 mins flight to amsterdam.

i specifically told my friends that it wasn't needed to send me off... but yet in the end these 3 came... (and still say how come i got no friends, only them to send me off... )
lye lye, zq, me and cyn! thanks for coming. i really appreciate it. sorry didn't had much time to talk to you all.
my family! :)
my fifth uncle and auntie. my two little cousins were running around so didn't manage to get them in the photo too... thanks for coming... and the ang pow! i really appreciate it. xie xie! :)

the baggage incident during check in was pretty traumatizing... which just made things so much more ma fan and troublesome!! but thanks to all who helped. :) i couldn't have done it myself.

anyway.. the BA flight to london was SUPER filled with angmohs. we were like the minority. i walked into the plane and felt like... i wasn't in singapore. i felt like i was in the midst of those british shows with caucasians speaking with british accent all around me! there was probably like 85% of caucasians!!

i slept through most of the time cuz the inflight entertainment was really quite lousy la... but the seats were suitable for sleeping! haha. there was alot of turbulence and it kept going up and down... like a rollercoaster ride! but the flight was much better (and shorter) than my flight to US last year... i guess because i didn't cry as badly this time... so it didn't make me feel so unwell. hehes. and well, it's my 2nd time away for so far away (and long) so i guess i was abit more prepared? well, too early to say. haha.

the four of them.
shihui and i.
cake and andrew... the couple at london airport when transiting.
inside london heathrow... terminal 4. and frankly, the airport really wasn't that great. changi airport is nicer. haha.
tired!!!
sian look.
the airport! we walked out to board the transit plane... and london's freaking... COLD! omg. 20+ degrees. just didn't expect it man.
we finally reached amsterdam and had to go purchase the train tickets to get to joanna's uncle's place. look at all our luggage!!!
the train station had mostly lotsa alphabetically words that i did not understand.
we had to take the train from schipol at the airport to nijmegen station. it was about 18 euros per person. expensive!!!
the graffiti along the way. it's very nice actually.
inside the train.
the three of them.
me and cake.
look outside! they had lotsa lotsa plantations!
look... there's cows!!

anyway, we took about 3 hours to reach the place from the airport!! and changing trains was really horrendous because the train and the platform is NOT on even ground. plus there were still steps to get to the seats in the train as it was double decked. so most of the time we just stood around. it was so difficult la.. not travel friendly at all. my large baggage was so heavy and honestly, i couldn't lift it up and down the train! poor andrew had to help us to it all the time cuz he was the only guy and i bet he's so tired from it.

anyway, we met jo's uncle at the train station together with his wife and brother-in-law. they fetched us back to their place and this is a picture taken from their front door. it's the view infront of their house. it's raining and the weather is really kinda cold.. just not prepared for it. i thought it was gonna be hot here! anyway, they are so super nice people and i really like them. so hospitable! so glad we got to meet them! :)

okay, that's it for now and i'll try to blog again!

heading to europe...

2007-08-08T11:25:00.000+08:00

i've given up. for now. it's been a year. haha. and i have not finished blogging on new york and taipei. i was still planning on my hongkong trip too a few weeks back. but i guess not. at least not for now.

i'm leaving singapore tonight... 7 flights i'm taking before i reach helsinki, that's alot. much more than the flights i took in US. no terrorist attacks i hope. :)

i'll be going to netherlands, italy, greece, slovakia before i head to finland.

my packing's been really bad. very slow and my baggage is like exploding. doesn't help that my baggage limit is lesser than when i flew to US. sighs. i hate to pack!

so i guess i'll update this blog again when i reach helsinki. i hope everything goes well! =) 5 months away from home!

Disney Magic Kingdom, 25th July 2006

2007-06-15T22:43:00.000+08:00

exams over and i've finally decided to do up my next post on magic kingdom! the last post for orlando, florida! woahoo.

anyway, we went to magic kingdom on our 4th day at orlando, on 25th July. and honestly, it was already supper tiring on the last day because i was sleeping an average of 5 hours for the past few days. but well, i think magic kingdom was something that we were all looking forward to, especially after hearing so much about disneyworld!

so here we go to magic kingdom, disneyworld!

tickets!
grassy mickey behind us!
the monorail to magic kingdom!

nice pretty monorail!

on the way there.. we see magic kingdom nearing!

beautiful disneyworld.

on the monorail train. we've reached the magic kingdom station!
here we are!
at the entrance. there's this mini train station there too but we didn't take it.
Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse!

the castle! :)
us with the castle!
mickey and minnie!
me with mickey!
us with minnie!

chip and dale.

anyway, we spent so much time to queue just to take pictures with mickey and minnie... woah it was so freaking crowded! so we spent some time walking around and... we were hungry so we went into one of the cafeteria to find food!

our lunch! all disney themed... the cup, serviette, and packaging of the fries! nice. :)

then we went to watch the show at the disney castle where they had all the different disney princesses... singing and dancing al together. it was nice.
then we continued walking around...

pretty maigc kingdom.
some ride that i can't remember what. it was kinda kiddy though.

some rides that we went to...

then we went to the small small world ride... where we had to sit in this small boat thing and float one round through and they'll keep playing the small small world song. the queue was FREAKING long. but then again, all the rides had long queues.

us on the... boat.. ship? whatever.

all the stuff inside...
nearing the end.. they had goodbye in so many different languages! woah.
look at the looooonnnnggg queue.
after the ride.

some random photo with a nice tree inside magic kingdom. nice house. don't know whose house is this.. can't remember. haha.
us with the house.
the backview of the castle... and me? haha.
me with cynthia and the back of the castle.

then it was parade time!
firs out is mickey!
i'm not sure who are these.. haha.
pinocchio!
snow white and.. her dwarfs! so colorful.

i dont know what their names are... err.
piglet!
tigger!
POOH! :)
the evil witch with her castle and her poison apple!

donald duck!! so cute! i wish i could hug him!
pluto!
goofy and minnie!
beauty and the beast! no beast here though...
cinderella! i think this round ball thing is really nice with both of them inside! but realistically, i hope they don't suffocate or die of heat inside man. with the amount of stuff they have to wear.. plus the hot sun and being trapped inside the round ball... must be tough!

all the disney princesses for the ending part of the parade.
the carousel... look at the amount of people!
we went to ride the pirates of the carribean-themed ride.

queuing queuing.. very long queue!!

inside during the ride.. it was similar to small small world.. sitting on the boat thingy and going one round.
johnny depp!
i looooovvvveeee captain jack sparrow!!!! love the show!

then we moved on to find little mermaid!
it was an other long queue to take pictures!
us with the little mermaid! she wasn't really that nice though.. but i pity her because she had to keep smiling all day and take pictures with people.
inside the mermaid area.
then we moved on to more mickey related stuff!

minnie's house!!!!!!!! omg, isn't it AWESOME.

and this is mickey's house!!! it's so nice.. and so mickey!
the mickey's toontown fair. lotsa mickey related stuff. very very pretty and nice. :)
then it was getting dark and we went to watch the fireworks at night.. i didn't watch much because i was busy shopping inside the souvenir shop! this picture's really nice though.. with the castle and the fireworks. we went to watch the night parade too but the pictures didn't come out nice.

anyhow, this was more or less the end of our disneyworld journey. and honestly, it was nice but super tiring. my friend told me that if you've been to disneyworld, it's enough. it's supposedly the best and the biggest! haha and to me, i'm not too big a disney fan. i like it... but i prefer rollercoaster amusement parks. so well, getting old and such stuff don't appeal as much to me anyway. i'm looking forward to ocean park at hongkong in about a month's time! =)

all in all, disney was nice... but expensive. super croweded and most of the time was spent queuing and queuing. i don't think i'll visit another disney again unless another opportunity arises... where maybe i'm richer and can afford the tickets. haha. it's enough to be there once, even without trying all the rides! maybe 10 or 20 years down the road, i'll visit another one again? but for now, probably not. haha.

that's it for the travelling of my orlando florida journey. next up's new york! :)

US tax refund!

2007-05-11T22:48:00.000+08:00

after a long long long wait.... i finally received it!! on 10th May! it was.. A LONG WAIT!

my US tax refund cheque from US treasury!!!

presenting...

the envelope!! haha.. i thought the envelope was quite nice lar.. like it still says like USA there. anyway apparently the cheque went to US embassy before they sent it out so it's a local mail. not an airflown one all the way from US.

and... da dang!

the long awaited cheque!! soooo pretty.... i wished i could frame it up or laminate it or something. haha sounds dumb? but i wouldn't because this cheque is worth a few hundred bucks!!! all my hard work at pkd. i still paid 16usd to US okay for taxes! =(

anyway.. i heard the bank charge is like $20 because this is a US issued cheque. hmms. so its unlike the normal ones. US cheques so pretty hor.. unlike the singapore ones so boring! and the exchange rate for banks is much lower oso.. sighs. so gonna incur quite a bit of losses to cash this back.. but well, at least still got some money la!

YAY!!! it's finally here! :)

Disney- Epcot and MGM Studios, 24th July 2006

2007-05-06T00:43:00.000+08:00

yay i'm back again. decided to blog again since i promised myself i am going to finish blogging on my US trip before i go for exchange in europe from July-Dec! yay~! and then i'll continue bloggin on this site of course! it's more than a year since i last left singapore for US... and i'm still stuck without being able to finish blogging. i suck man! haha.

anyway, we spent the next days days at orlando, florida visiting 3 out of 4 parks of disneyworld! the only one we left out was animal kingdom because we couldn't visit all and we decided to forsake animal kingdom because... we weren't too keen on animals. haha.

so for the first day, we went to visit Epcot and Disney-MGM studios! Epcot is kinda like a xiao ren guo. they have like miniature buildings of different famous buildings around the world... and also like different types of buildings from different cultures and countries. frankly i wasn't too keen but we just went ahead because the rest of them were interested. MGM was kinda like universal studios where they had rides and very high tech stuff.

here are the pictures~! it's less than universal because i was kinda tired of posting so many pictures and i did selectively. plus i guess we didn't go with mingshun and yanping so we had less photos taken. we were so tired when we were at MGM that frankly, we didn't take as many photos. haha. here it goes!

the big ball of epcot waving hello to us!

at the entrance going in!
our tickets~! so pretty and colourful.
inside.. so pretty and clean.. their greenery.. unless pkd. haha.

more pictures of how it looks inside...

pictures of the different types of buildings! here it's like the british themed kinda feeling.
and inside the telephone booth!

standing along... "a street of england"...? haha look at the skies!
so then it started to rain.. and quite heavily.
while we were inside a building/shop kinda place taking pictures with pooh, tigger and eeyore. unfortunately piglet wasn't there. =(
and to not waste time since the tickets were so expensive, time was precious and there was so many things to see, we decided to invest in a disney poncho so as to continue our journey ahead!
mickey!

posing in the rain with our ponchos.
with the lamp post.
this is supposed to be a french themed building.
raining... rain got less heavy...

nice european buildings.

water water after the rain.

err.. dont know what is this building lehs. haha.
japanese themed~!
nice nice.
and then we were hungry...
so we went in to eat some japanese food~! haha not fantastic but okay la... it's a bit similar to yoshinoya fast food kinda japanese food.

america themed~!
the american adventure.
and then we took picture with a character~! not sure who is he and what's his name but he looks familiar. haha.
er i don't know what's this.. where's it look like? haha.

more water. haha.
so pretty the buildings. this picture is quite nice. hehe.
chinese themed~~! yay.
looks abit like the palace in those kinda ancient dramas. and they sell chinese food inside too.
pretty water plus greenery.

as we were walking along there was this small band playing along the lake. it was nice.
what are these two brown stuff called? argh i forgot again.
egypt pyramid.

ferry station where we could take a ferry.
we went to see the parade show of disney stars on motor cars.

what's this dog called? is he goofy?
toy story~!
aladdin and the lamp. what is the girl called? is it jasmine?
ariel.. little mermaid! i like the car!
the muppets!

OMG~! power rangers!! i remember the red one was called jason.. and they kept changing after that so i'm not too sure if there was some other names for red ranger too.
I LOVE POWER RANGERS~~!!!
a dwarf. only. too costly to have 7 of them i guess. but this one's cute
snow white!and finally, mickey and minnie!

the big iconic hat of epcot.
cynthia's great idea! i'm wearing the hat! haha.
next we took the ferry to MGM studios... to watch beauty and the beast musical show!
it was really really nice with all the singing, acting and dancing.
the finale. very niceeeeee.
we went on to the rides but we didn't take so many pictures because honestly, we were so tired.can somebody tell what idiotic movement ami trying to do? haha.
we went for the mermaid.. ride.. or was it a show? i think it was a show. it was really nice tooo.
okay, this confirms its a show because it was a real life cum animation kinda show.

we took this while queuing... i'm not sure why is the poster in chinese though. i think it was part of the reason why we took this photo. haha.

this was a indoor rollercoaster ride.. similar to anaconda's kinda train but it was indoor so really dark and scary. they had like glow in the dark stuff where it felt as though we were going through expressways. it's very smooth and nice. if the mummy returns was the best ride in universal studios, hollywood towers' the best in MGM studios. it was a verrryyy loooonnnggg queue as usual but it's REALLY GOOD. the effects, excitement and all. we heard many people screaming before we entered so we were kinda scared. but it was a good ride.

bored while queuing inside hollywood towers.

we had to enter this service escalator which would bring us through the whole ride. there were like different lift elevators. one elevator could take in say.. about 10-15 people i think. i think the concept is so different cuz it's so amazing that all we had to do was to sit inside and it brought us through the whole ride. never seen a ride like this. plus the effects and thrill and all. it was... THUMBS UP.

anyhow, we didn't take much pictures in MGM because we didn't had much time left. i remembered i ate this ice cream which was quite nice.. and a very very huge turkey leg~! should have taken a picture of it. it was humongous. like a very huge chicken drumstick. haha.

anyway, we ended the day with this show (kinda like the musical fountain kind at sentosa) where they had all the characters involved.. singing, dancing on the boats... there was like fire and all.

the finale picture with all the characters on the boat.. (ship?) waving good bye. haha. we met up with alot of other singaporeans at the show.. it was such a coincidence.. nice... =)

anyhow, we were extremely tired, as usual after the whole day. will blog about the last day in orlando at magic kingdom the next time.

anyway, i think i'm just really so a not disney person. haha. i don't know alot of disney characters! so ashamed! and i think that's also why i told yicui i would probably skip disneyland at paris. haha. sooo not a disney person. :)

Universal Studios~~!! 22nd-23rd July 2006

2007-02-23T20:33:00.000+08:00

finally!! 6 months after i'm back in singapore, i've finally come up with my first post on florida! haha. this post would be about our 2 days spent at universal. we went to both of their parks; universal studios and island of adventures. :) be prepared for 100 over photos of universal, orlando!

the hotel (very cheap and lao pok one) that we were staying was outside disney/universal. it did not provide shuttle services to the theme parks... and so what we did was to walk over to the one opposite our hotel (very discreetly) and well, got their bus schedule to take the free shuttle to the parks!

it ferried us all the way straight to universal and we stopped at the bus bay.

inside the bus. this way to universal theme parks! :)
the place which we alighted and made our way to the park.
up the escalator and to this common area... we are nearing!
on the escalators.. it was kinda like those at changi airports where they have this long stretch of road to bring you to your destination. the common area where they had alot of shops there and a cineplex too! wow.
welcome to universal orlando resort! hooray!
one step nearer to the main entrance of the park!
the resort area outside the park. hard rock cafe.
pretty pretty. they have this small river kinda thing in the middle.
pretty trees, skis, buildings, water. boats. :) pretty day!
we see a familiar logo!

don't you just always see this on tv?? ore more like in movie theatres?? haha.
universal studios, orlando!
so the first park we headed to was island of adventure.. or was it islands of adventures or island of adventures?? hmm.
at the entrance posing with out tickets!
the online ticket that we bought. we had to print it there. we got it for a deal for 79 bucks only! we could have used it for 4 days but we didn't had enough time so 2 days was all we could afford. haha.

through the main entrance... "the adventure lives on... "
pretty pretty interior.
ain't the theme just so nice. you feel like you are inside the story?
and further in..
then we reached our first ride!

roller coaster ride named after the movie the hulk!
it was like anaconda.. but bigger and more magnificient! they could sit 4 in a row, which was like twice of anaconda! amazing. but i remembered we spent a really VERY LONG time queuing for it! annoying.
then we continued walking on.. theme of cartoons!
don't the buildings have the 3D effects?
ohh.. adn we took a picture with.. err don't know what's the name of this character. don't really watch much cartoons. haha.

and then with these 2 gals from.. some cartoon. haha. this was taken on the first day.
we took another one when we saw them on the second day too! cuz we realized they were 2 different people! haha. so these characters don't work everyday eh. not pro enough eh.
and then with... can someone tell me who this character is?? haha. im deprived of my childhood cartoons. lol.
me me in the park.
they had those characters driving in in these mega motor vehicles kinda thing. like some kinda chingay parade?? haha.

so they would stop and take pictures with us.. and wave and smile at people.. some of them also try to scare us. haha. after they are done, they would all get back into their vehicles and move off together again! lol. a bit bo liao la.
SPIDERMAN!! haha i know this character! we were gonna go ride spiderman! it was a LONG queue too.
in the spiderman gift shop. i am spiderman!! hahaha.
inside the queuing area. they had lotsa nice things surrounding us while we queue. i guess it's part of the theme of the movie... not too sure but it was nice... and AIR CONDITIONED! haha. beats PKD hands down! duh.
we all took a pic each with the fake computer desk as we moved down the queue. haha

it's our turn soon! put on ur black glasses so you can see the effects!
then we moved on.. to another theme. it was some comic themed like area. very pretty and colorful!
see liao make people feel so happy hor. don't you feel like you are in one of the story books you've read when you were a little kid? we took this ride though.. it was actually just a very normal flume ride but it was the theme, design and color that made all the difference.
then we move on to.. JURASSIC PARK! i loved the movie when i was young.
the stuff from the movie!

we hoped on the ride separately by joining the single rider queue. it was much faster though we were all separated. this was inside when we were on the ride.
is this a rhinoceros? haha. it's a dinosaur.
big dinosaur.
fat dinosaur.
out of the water dinosaur!! whoops.

part of the movie.. the area where the human beings were!
moving closer...
and be careful cuz there's a raptor kept inside there!!
posing with another car after we were done with the ride.
bye bye jurassic park area.

and then we walked.. and took another picture with some kinda bird thingy.
the area outside had similar theme. those ancient ancient kinda theme.
nice nice hor.
even their trash cans matches the theme of the area! hrms.. no such thing in kd man.
and their atm too! cute right.

there was a resturant there too.. this was their menu placed right outisde the mall of their restaurant. goes with the theme too!
*roar roar* this reminds me of some movie but i don't know what.
then we went to ride this coaster ride of 2 dragons. it was from some movie too i guess.
we took this.. can't remember. while queuing or on our way there? haha. we just took it cuz it had the kinda extended wooden bridge from the castle kinda thing like you see in movies and story books.
queuing queuing...

and posing with stuff the put up for us. haha.
i can't even remember if this was part of this ride or of another. should be this one. haha. it was a REALLY LONG queue too.
jsut before we were gonna board the coaster.
dragon coaster ride! it had two dragons and so it was actually two colored tracks and two completely different rides. anyhow, we just choose one cuz we did not had enough time to queue for both! this was similar to volcano in kd except that it had a theme and somehow... it felt more fun cuz the whole ride was much longer than the one at kd.
more pictures with the ancientic theme!

yicui's favourite photo!
me me along the streets of this theme!
then we moved on to.. kiddy themed area!
we could see our first ride from here.
don't the skies look beautiful? they just look.. different from those here. the sky is more blue and the clouds more white. i think it's the bluer clouds that makes the sky look prettier.

pretty kiddy land.
i'm in kiddy land!
and the bins look kiddy too.
pretty and colorful kiddy stuff.
kiddy buildings.

even the caroseussel looks so differently from the normal boring horsey kind.
it's colorful and have different animals for you to ride on.
the place we were gonna find food!
i've heard of the cat in the hat.
inside the restaurant/cafe that we had lunch. the food wasn't that cheap.. but we were really hungry and thirsty!! they even had this small colorful train kinda thing that went through the top part of the restaurant... we took a picture but it came out quite badly. it's kinda like the ones at genting highlands. so while you eat, you look up and you can see people having fun and moving in the small traijns through the restaurant.

the whole place had the theme of kiddy land too so it was very nice and very colorful. it makes people feel happy and good.

the bridge linking the ancient area to kiddy area. we even bought a goose drink from the kiddy area.. it was really cute. it's actually just cold flavoured syrup water la. but when you are so hot and thirsty.. it all tastes heavenly.
we went one round and back to square one. near the entrance and near our first ride.
and more pictures..

walking down to the exit/entrance
does this picture look repeated?
goodbye island of adventure.

we were out at the city walk way again! is this yao ming? haha don't think so right... just a NBA shop.
the we went straight into universal studios and the first thing that greeted us was the universal studios store selling all your souvenirs!
nickelodeon! they have this character in the kiddy part of kd too! so cynthia has fond memories and feelings in particular here!

inside universal studios... a building. haha.

lots and lots of people.
a character walking around in high stilts. i thought only the chinese do that.. haha so angmohs do that too!

i love the skies and the trees.
shrek! =)

the big palm of shrek!

then we continued walking around and saw big white balls on the waters. haha.

MIB there.

more big white balls on the water.

posing.

then we went to watch fear factor live!! oohh.. my favourite! i've always liked watching this show!

a short video of the starting part that mingshun took.

photos from the show.

video of a stunt done live!! eeww.

well, overall it was a little disappointing cuz it's definitely not as good as those on tv. it was just.. kinda fake la. and like they made it for the sake of it. little boring.

then we took this.. at some queue. can't remember which ride.
we went to ride mummy returns!!
queuing!

it was the best ride i had at universal!!
then we continued walking around as the sun began to set.
on the streets with another theme!
pretty eh.
me and cui.
it started to get darker...
white balls again.
the nightview looks pretty good right.
yups of cuz.
here's the rental station that they had around the whole park. it was for people to put their bags while they go ride. it's free for like first hour.
it's super cool cuz you use your thumbprints to lock and unlock it!
click on to get a largr view of what the screens wrote.
anyway it was almost time to go off so we headed back down to the souvenir store to buy some stuff and exited out of the park.
night view...

and so this spelt the end of 2 days at universal studios! we didn't take pictures for every ride that we took la.. but overall, i would say it's a great experience! i like the parts when they had all the effects in the rides which makes you feel like as though you are inside the movie! i wonder how the universal at IR in Singapore would be like when it opens next time! :) hopefully it would be better though it might be hard because of the lack of space here.

tag me if you finally manage to reach the end of this post. haha... not sure if anyone still comes by and read anymore... but it sure took me a VERY LONG time to come out with this post of more than 100 photos so i hope you enjoyed it. :)

WAT Roadshow

2006-10-27T14:25:00.000+08:00

sorry for the lack of updates.. been so tired up with school.. and yeah i know i'm not done with my travelling stuff. kinda slow though. haha. but i'm just SO lazy. sorry. i will do them some day. definitely...

anyhows, went for the WAT roadshow on saturday and took a picture with Aaron, the HR person from PKD.

he was the one who interviewed us last year too... and this year he's back again too! and both times he's here alone.. poor thing. but he gets to fly for free so.. i would think it's nice.

don't really know him that well cuz never had to deal much with him back then. but the way he dressed and his built reminds me of roger~! haha miss my dear dear area manager man. haiz. he looks uglier in the picture though...

anyhows, i was on my feet all day and talking non stop repeating the same stuff to different groups of people for more than 10 times. haha. but i would say it was still fun.. though very tiring.

went for lee hom's concert after that and i must say it was good. :) nice nice. i loveee his accent...! cool. i like it!

in the lift

2006-10-14T02:43:00.000+08:00

i met an american today.

in one of the lifts at ritz carlton hotel when i went for sheena's 21st birthday celebrations. she booked a room there and had a small and cosy birthday gathering there.

ritz carlton hotel is such a nice place. classy, cosy and all. haha.

anyway, zhuzhu and i were on our way up to the room when coincidentally, we were in the same lift as this angmoh.

"how're you doing?" he asked immediately when the lift door shut.

american. i thought to myself at that instance. haha.

i guess zhuzhu didn't know how to react at that point of time. but after my short 3 months in US, it almost came naturally to me to reply back in the way i should.

"good. how about you?" i answered.
"are you a tourist here?" i went on, trying to maintain the conversation.

and so we chatted briefly from the 3rd to the 8th floor. haha. and he told me he's from san francisco. gotcha. i knew he was american. i could tell when he started speaking. he's stopping by here for business. wow. rich huh... stopping by for business and staying in a 6 star hotel. woah.

he asked where we were from and i told him we were locals. and he was like, "what are you doing in a hotel?" pretty fast thinker. good question. i didn't think about that. it didn't make sense for well, a local to seemingly go to a 6 star hotel room?! and well, so i just said we were visiting a friend. i hope he didn't think we were going to provide extra services huh. we were dressed prim and properly.

and then the lift door opened and we stepped out. he ended the conversation telling us that he's not a gay because alot of people say that he looks like one. and i'm like.. okay... a bit no link.

and so my short encounter with an american today ended in a few tens of seconds. maybe he really thought that we didn't seem decent... and so emphasized the point that he wasn't gay. ha i've no idea man. maybe he was just trying to be funny...

and oh the catch is... we both agree that he's good looking! hahaha.

my blog

2006-10-05T11:36:00.000+08:00

i was just talking to dave on msn... and he told me many interesting comments about my blog which i was pretty surprised.

haha i'm glad my efforts had some kinda recognition... i could share my insights and people appreciate my posts. but... how come nobody enjoys tagging me??

he said that reading my blog makes him feel very gian to go to US. haha i wonder if it's so for the rest? especially those who have never been there. i guess i do portray a very happy and wonderful life there.. but well, it is true that it was pretty good. haha. at least much better than life in singapore. i was just trying to share all my experience.. and well i must say i'm pretty hardworking in doing that. haha. not many people who go for this program would bother putting in so much effort to make this and all.

i think pkd should consider paying me for all the "advertising" that i've done for them man. seriously. and well, CIEE and speedwing too. for all the "advertising" for this program! haha. well i did this site more for sharing my experiences with my friends... and well, so that i won't forget all that i've experienced and felt then... but now it seems that quite a few people have been coming here to visit through google's blogsearch. and inevitably, it helps create more awareness and all for the program, plus encourage people to join i guess?? haha i don't know.

but at least it seems that because of my influence, some of my friends are interested to join this program! whose credit?? mine! lols. okay not really, but i guess all the people that i've met for this trip has credit too... as don said before, it's them who made what my experience it really was. boohoo... and dave wants to go to US to see jesse... hahaha so funny. now alot of people know him through my blog and began to get curious about him. haha. he's just a very typical american kid.

and because a picture speaks a thousand words... he says now my blog has millions of words. lols. funny a not ah.

still alive

2006-10-02T18:58:00.001+08:00

sorry for the lack of posts... i've just been tired and busy. it really takes alot of effort to come out with one post with alot of pictures... and well i still have alot... but i don't have the time and patience to sort through them slowly and post it up.. heh so yups i'm sorry. i'll do them when i have more time. i'm just up to my neck these days with tuition, work, midterms and projects. sighs... yeah.. the time has come.

anyhow, i realize there's been alot of people who's been coming to my blog recently through blog searches in google/technorati. i would think most of them are interested in the WAT program... well it's cool to have people come visit yeah... especially since they are starting to recruit people for WAT 2007. :) which i guess is the reason why most people are trying to find out more information about it.

anyhows, i have a short video of PKD which i got from youtube. i thought it was a nice video though... except a few parts which doesn't quite link.. but well, i would still give credit to the person who made it. it's still a pretty cool video... so yeah.. gives people a visual view of the park which i worked at.

on the other hand, don (one of my american friends from PKD) has been so sweet. it's so fun talking to him online because i get to know alot more stuff about their culture and all, despite the fact that i'm back. and i believe it helps... well in many ways. he said he'll provide me free lodging and food if i were to go back to virginia again... and bring me around to the nicer places of VA... it was really sweet. how nice... but it really doesn't make economical sense for me to go all the way back... but it'll be so nice to meet up again... oh wells. sometimes i feel like just need to go into reclusion into some uluated countryside of US and be cut off from the whole world. how nice. probably i'll go over to VA when that day comes and live with all the trees and grasses for a month or two. haha. till then... i think i'd better mug my ass off first.

21st July 2006.... VA-ORL... downtown disney night

2006-09-21T06:57:00.000+08:00

sorry for the lack of photos for my travelling... i feel so ashamed to blog this 2 months after the day itself! haha. been busy with 2 mini presentations this week and well.. with work, tuition and school work is just getting busier with projects and projects. sighs!

anyhows, i think all my memories and feelings that i've experienced are more or less starting to fade away already with all the stress from school.. which is really bad. haha. but i'll try my best to recall all that i've experienced and felt then.

we left virginia from richmond airport to head for orlando, florida on the 21st july, the next day after our last day of work. i couldn't remember much except that i was super exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally. it was so hard for me to leave because i knew i was gonna leave the place for good. all the memories, all the good times... all the people. i just couldn't put down. sighs. i just didn't wanna go. but i knew i had no choice. i had to. nothing is forever in life. i just need to learn how to let go..

and so we were back in richmond airport again.. 2 months and 21 days later. we were ready (physically) to board our airtran domestic flight for our 1+hr flight to orlando.

our gate to board...
inside the waiting area...
the 10 of us on the same flight to orlando... part of the aircraft we were on... and part of richmond airport

the wing of the aircraft... last sights of virginia...

and here we go...up in the air... and bye bye virginia...

i remembered i cried so badly when the plane took off... i just couldn't control my tears. sighs. the feeling was so different from when i landed there almost 3 months ago. i just didn't know those few weeks made such a big difference to my life.. i just never knew that when i arrived there.
us on board...
there wasn't like a proper meal on board since it was only a short/budget kinda flight...but we had light snacks and drinks.
their own house brand pretzels!
this is so cute!
and then we flew for about an hour plus and finally reached the state of florida!
touching down soon....
and here is orlando airport!
we have finally reached safely... and hundreds of miles away from virginia...
air tran plane...
we are at orlando aiport~!
just stepped out of the plane.. inside the boarding/alighting area.
we had to take a skytrain kinda thing to get out and collect our luggage... it's starting to rain!
inside the train...
and then we reached the other side of the airport.. it's part of a hotel too! wow.
hello mickey! i can just feel disney from inside the aiport!
6 of us were in the same hotel.. and so we shared a cab to travel down to our hotel. it was pretty far.. about a 45 mins drive away. florida is much cleaner, brighter, and nicer than virginia. it looks similar to singapore.. i guess it's nice because it's a tourist attraction which welcomes million of visitors from all over the world every year, unlike virginia.

it looks similar to virginia.. but feels different. i guess virginia will always have a special place in my heart after spending almost 3 months of my life there. i still like virginia more because of what it means to me.

anyhows, it was about late afternoon when we finally reached the hotel. no pictures of it unfortunately.. it's too ugly. haha. we went for the cheapest accomodation so it really wasn't anything fantastic... but it was acceptable and err.. live-able. haha.

we rested for a while and decided to head down to... downtown disney where it's supposed more happening at night. it's this place that has lotsa shops and like disney stuff... people go there and club and have fun at night.

downtown disney!
the river/lake/water so pretty!
picture with a big pineaple...? like our durian like that. haha.
the sun's so.... brriiiggghhhhttt!!
i see a disney bus!

shots of downtown disney...
us with the waters again...!

and then our stomachs growling... well actually it already did when we reached the airport but we spent so much time snapping and snapping when we reached downtown disney... haha so well.. we finally decided it was really time for dinner!

but we still couldn't kick the habit of snapping and snapping even though we have already reached the doorstep of the place that we were gonna have dinner at.
vertical M
horizontal M
we love Macdonalds! haha actually we don't.. we were just fascinated with the BIG M. lol.
inside the fastfood restaurant... a macdonald tree made up of cups and... straws?? haha.
we were so hungry we bought BIG MACS!!! but it seriously wasn't that big at all. the ones in singapore are bigger lor... SUPER SIZE ME!! hahaha... frankly the macs in US really ain't that fantastic. i only like wendys there. singapore's macs tastes better!

after dinner we continued to walk around and we came to... LEGO stuff!they are all made of LEGO~!
a dragon in the water made of lego!

then we moved on to all the shops which had all the themes of... DISNEY!

me and a big mickey face!
cinderella princess...
i love tigger and pooh!
and i love mickey and miney too!

inside the shops... so preeetttyyyyy!!!
all the disney shops... with different characters... some of the shots turned out not as nice because the sun was setting and well.. it wasn't as easy to capture the nice ones because of the lighting...
inside the shops... all the nice figurines...
the five disney princesses...

do you recognize all 5 of them? from top left... belle from beauty and the beast... cinderella... aurora from sleeping beauty... ariel little mermaid... and snow white!

pretty pretty pictures of the interior of the shops...

the seven dwarfs... so pretty!
three little pigs.
mickey and minnie.
donald and daisy!
why is tigger up there?
resting and waiting for the rest... so tired...
we were trying to mimick the poses of the 6 characters on top... haha... can you tell?
oops... i'm sorry i got into your picture.
who's there posing with us?
then we went to planet hollywood, orlando! not to eat.. but just to take a look
inside planet hollywood, orlando...
we ended off with planet hollywood where i wanted to buy a tshirt but i didn't in the end cuz it was too expensive. kinda regretted it cuz i should have asked for kids size which was smaller and cheaper. i knew of their kids size from the NY outlet... but i didn't ask when i was at orlando then.. wasted.

finally...! it was time to go back to the hotel to rest and recharge for the next day! it would be a full day ahead at universal requiring ALOT of energy!

i was so tired that i must say i didn't enjoy much. but downtown disney was really pretty. i wished i was in a better state when i was there then.

Work and Travel USA Summer 2007

2006-09-19T23:06:00.000+08:00

i got an email from speedwing the other day and..... WOAHOO!!! i'm selected as one of the helpers for the WAT road show this year!! hahaha. happy. it was hard because our PKD people were all so enthusiastic in signing up... and they would probably only take like 3-4 people from each employer... but there was probably 10 over of us who signed up the other day so... it was quite unlikely to get selected but i still did. haha i guess it was because i sent some pictures to them... and the fact that i was so vocal and enthusiastic during the feedback session.

but i must say that they've made the right choice in choosing me because i'm so enthusiastic over this!! hahahaha! i think i can be their like poster girl or something... and give testimonials and all. lolz. serious... no kidding man! haha. and now i've been talking all about my experiences in this program in my entire blog! and now i'm gonna help publicize the roadshow event... haha... free publicity for them okay... they can like save on the flyers printed etc etc... all the costs involved in advertising!

anyhows, they will be having talks at the three universities so here are the details:

1) Singapore Management University
Date: Friday, 29 Sep 2006
Venue: Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Seminar Room (SR) 2.1.
Time: 3.30pm

2) Nanyang Technological University
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006
Venue: LCK Lecture Theatre (MLT), South Spine, Basement 1
Time: 6.30pm

3) National University of Singapore
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006
Venue: Alumni House, Saffron Hall
Time: 6.30pm

and if you are really interested, you have to come down for the roadshow that i'll be working at! haha... the representatives from various employers would be there. so lotsa americans. haha how exciting. and i get to like earn 60 bucks from working there... from 8am-6pm. lolz. not alot but that's not the point of me wanting to work there... it's because i think it's gonna be fun.

oh and before you go down, you can view various information about the different employers from http://www.ciee.org/hiring07/speedwing where there's one photo of me under Paramount Kings Dominion~! hahaha. and from there you could choose one and log on to http://www.speedwing.org to register before you come down. i personally am okay with PKD although the americans hate it. my trip was fun so... it's up to each individual. i think no matter where you go there's always pros and cons so it's best to ask around and see which one fulfils your needs the most. i deficited about SGD$3000... so basically what i earned was only almost enough to cover for my program fees, air tickets and lodging. and well, nobody broke even so yeah... you could if you don't go travelling at all... but it defeats the whole purpose la. and so wells, i think i'm the pretty average but it all depends on each individual. and well, do be prepared to do lotsa administrative stuff before you go... but i guess it's the same for any program as long as you are planning a trip overseas for some period of time.

here are the details as below:
Work and Travel USA Summer 2007 Roadshow
Venue: Orchard Hotel
Date: 21st October 2006 (Deepavali holiday!)
Time: 8am-6pm

do come earlier to get your queue number for the interview with the employers! otherwise you are just gonna waste your time waiting away till... very very long. haha. remember to register before you come down and say hello to me too!)

Things about US

2006-09-15T08:44:00.000+08:00

10++ things i like about US:
1) everything, everywhere is in ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH!! yay~!
2) aeropostale, american eagle, hollister, abercrombie
3) at least half of the people are fatter and bigger than me
4) everything you need to know can be found on the internet
5) cheap groceries
6) Wendys, krispy kreme
7) their culture... everybody is so open and friendly
8) cheeseburgers are SO TASTY
9) Wal-mart
10) premium outlets
11) cheap chocolates, candies, potato chip, ice cream (junk foods)
12) their tv programs + movies
13) sun tan lotion is SO CHEAP
14) Americans

10 things i dislike about US:
1) people spit
2) dirty and filthy
3) asians are like aliens to them
4) "oh Singapore.... is that part of china??? or central america??" like duh! NO!
5) chinese food sux
6) no chilli and too much sugar
7) fruits and veggies (healthy food) are EXPENSIVE
8) their spending habits.. their wastage... the way they kill the earth
9) no chinese shows
10) Americans

well all in all, i would think that my likes definitely outweigh my dislikes. in many times in life, you always need to give up something for another. which is so there too. in listing down my top 10 likes, i realized i had more than that which i really liked. i think i should start a like list becaues i'm sure there's more just that i cant think of them now. so yeaps, my conclusion is that i like US and... i'll definitely be back again... just that i don't know when. :)

i've got mail~!

2006-09-14T14:01:00.000+08:00

i got a reply from willie's email today...

click on it to get an enlarged view of it.

it wasn't anything much.. but i thought it was really sweet because it shows how much we are appreciated.

but of cuz, it's impossible for us to come back now. its crazy. i wonder if we'll even have singaporeans have the chance to go back again next year man! i sure hope so.. haha.

but it was nice la...

or maybe i think i should just never ever take what americans say seriously. haha because that's the way they've always been. they talk too well.

Sept 11th... 5 years on... 1 month after

2006-09-11T23:19:00.000+08:00

today is sept 11th and it's been 5 years since the significant 911 event at new york. it seems to feel slightly different for me this year because i've been to new york this year and also to the site of ground zero. i still remember how i was having my sec 4 prelim exams 5 years ago. we all talked about it the next day in school before the exam paper. i guess it's been sad for americans... and i think terrorism affects the whole world but not only to the world power US. just hope for world peace yeah. and since now i have american friends, of cuz i would hope that US would be safe and good. :)

anyhows, it's also been 1 month since i've back in my home island Singapore. well, i've adapted pretty quickly back to the life here... i have to anyway. but... i still miss US, still miss WAT... still miss the life there, the people i've known. sighs. i still wanna be back again.. but next summer seems hard... i don't have so much time... nor money. i seriously wouldn't mind going back if i can just break even comfortably. like just break even, not even profiting. i liked my life there... and i know alot of the other singaporeans too... we all just miss the times that till now we still meet up like almost every week. just for little things whether it's dinner, movie or play. i think everyone of us just needs a breather from the stressful school life.. and meeting up together just reminds us of the happy times then... according to qingyi's msn nick: WAT peeps--> if only everyday was a party. how true man.

we met up the other day on saturday too to go to speedwing (the agency for this program) office for feedback and to collect our certificate!

HOORAY! this is mine! hehe. i've successfully completed the program.. and safely back in singapore in one piece... a few thousand bucks poorer.. but with lotsa memories. :)

and this kinda reminds me of another certificate that i've gotten too... so i went to dig it out to take a photo of it...

haha.. my associate of the week cert!! lol. it refuses to rotate no matter how i tried so i just gave up. well alot of us got the associate of the week every week... so we kinda figured everyone should get one eventually before we leave.. but apparently it wasn't so. so i guess i should treasure this more. i think i should thank jesse for this so THANK YOU JESSE!! =) it's not of much use but well... at least a momento.

anyway, we kinda like badmouthed about PKD to the agency... and it seems quite mean of us. cuz the person told us that they might probably just remove pkd as one of the employers for this program next summer, especially since we were the first batch. they weren't the perfect employer.. but yet all of us had fun... so... i don't know. they had their good points too. so hopefully they'll still be part of the program next year... but then again, i'm so hurt cuz someone appreciates turks more than singaporeans so... we might as well not be back since we are not appreciated. sobs. i'm sure other employers like cedarpoint, seaworld, yellowstone, grandcanyon etc appreciate us much more.

i wanna go back for WAT again...!!! ahhh... maybe i'll go back in 2008 cuz i'll be graduating then... and work for the whole summer to help break even... then slowly come back again and look for job. hmms.. don't know... will see how again.. it's so farrrrr away... makes more sense to plan for next year first. i know this doesn't add much value to my resume.. but i don't care because i just wanna have fun.

*****
on another note... i changed my msn picture recently and here it is...

and then i started having people msn-ing me things like...
"whose baby is that?? is that yours??"
"i didn't know you were married! or were you not?"
"this baby looks so fair and white.. is it a mix-blood??"
"but it has only been a few month since you've been to US!"
"oh i didn't know you had a baby with ***** in US!"

errr... thanks but i don't think i have the ability to give birth to a child now. at least not financially. although i must admit that the white kids i see in US are so much more adorable than asian ones! they are.... SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!! if only i can give birth to one with blonde hair.. lol too bad i can't because i don't have that kinda genes.

anyways, this new born little baby is my cousin's new darling. his name is keegan. born on 20th aug 2006! ain't he so cute? i just love little babies man. i haven't carried a baby in like the longest time!! many many years... finally a new member in our family after like 10+ years! YAY! :)

My American colleagues @ work

2006-09-05T23:39:00.000+08:00

okay, this post is gonna consolidate all the photos that i have taken with my colleagues at work. all the americans that i have gotten to know through my trip here. okay, not all of them.. since i didn't take with all.. but just those whom i've worked with.

3 of my favourite americans whom i always work with... everybody knows jesse now so i shall not talk about him anymore. haha. i have run out of pictures of him to post anyway.

i'll start off with an exemption here.. a SINGAPOREAN!

weiying is my fellow singaporean at my ride! basically there was only 2 of us to survive and live and die and fend for ourselves when we started out initially, being ostracized by all those americans. i started one week earlier than her and for the weekend that i was there, i was fending for myself in the cold May, shivering and wet in the freezing cold rain. poor me.

she's one year younger than me and is studying chinese in NTU. WOW! i need to learn more chinese from her to polish up my "depreciating" chinese. haha. chinese is one of my assets and i need to revalue it and improve it so that it can depreciate less. lol. talking rubbish.

taken in the dorm.. anyway i think we are like fated to meet because i've already met her once at US embassy in Singapore when we had to go for the interview for our visa. i knew she was going to PKD too when i overheard her interview process. so i kinda like remembered her but i didn't think it would be so coincidental that she would end up in the same ride as me!

taken back in singapore! at our bbq gathering. i know my face looks like a ghost. i got too tanned and apparently my foundation was too fair for my skin. boh bian. anyway i really appreciate weiying alot because we used to always have late night talks at the dorm about everything that happened during the day. it was lotsa fun because she was always the one listening to me. oops! she gets tickled by little things and starts laughing about stuff. i really appreciated her because she was there for me on one particular night that i was crying so badly when we were walking back to the dorm. she didn't say much but just being there meant so much for me at that point of time. sighs too bad we are not in the same school.. and NTU's like in the uluated part of Singapore that i don't go to. haha. at least we both live in the west though. i missed the times we had together.. it was really memorable. sighs.

Next up are all Americans!
This is roger and the first picture we took together. i still remember how it was like. it was so embarrassing. haha. but roger's probably the 2nd american that i've taken the most number of pictures with, after jesse. he seems to like taking photos though.

this was the 4th and most successful attempt at this shot... because he was the one holding the camera... yes because my arms are short and my skills are poor.

oh yes, roger is my area manager and is... *gasps* the same age as me! haha. he's worked at the park for 6 years! he's a nice chap but can be pretty scary at work sometimes... he seems to enjoy popping out from nowhere in the middle of the day to "spot check" on people. haha. but off work, he's a really nice and fun guy.. abeit a little flirtatious. haha.

but too bad i guess i didn't had much of a chance to really get to know him much better... because i was going to leave soon when i started to know him better. but anyhow, he's definitely one of my favourites at PKD. he tickles me whenever he tries to mimick us speaking mandarin.. it's really funny and i still have a video of it. haha. i miss roger too man.

this is mese, a scrambler lover! haha.. ok she used to be one. she's my favourite black girl. my first impression of her was so good because she was the first "blue shirt" to take the initiative to come and talk to me... during one of the cold and wet weekends when i was left to fend for myself. sighs.

she's really friendly and a sensitive girl too... she always says nice and encouraging stuff... so now you see one of her...

and da dang! there's two now! haha. the other one is mese's twin, nese. she works at italian job, the ride just beside her. her sis's a really nice and sweet girl too... i took a picture with her before too.. just that i can't find it. it's probably with someone's camera whom i don't even know who.

next's justin! justin is a 17 year old little boy who's still in high school. the very first picture i took with him was ruined by me and i regret it because pictures taken at different times are just different.
justin's such a nice boy because he always helps out at work.. err.. helping out to do stuff people don't want to do. haha. someone's friend once commented jokingly about how it seems like i will like him and somebody else will like me, resulting in a triangular relationship. it was really funny when i heard it.

this is ben! ben has a funny last name farmer. haha. anyway ben is another 17 year old little boy who loves the beach and sports. this is the first picture we took together when we didn't know each other that well. xueying thinks that he's quite cute.. and better looking than roger. ha but i just don't see him in that way. he's my good friend.

this is how the anaconda exit area looks like... i like ben because he amazes me with his level of intelligence and maturity for his age. he chats with me about stuff that other americans don't. and well, he just really surprises me with the maturity he exhibits and the stuff he says about little things. he always tells me little things about his gf and how he wanted me to meet her that time. it was just a small action but i felt it was really sweet.

i had alot of fun with ben although he doesnt come to work that much. i remember the times we had at scrambler when it was pouring so heavily that we just spent half the time chatting away about anything under the sun. it just made time felt like it flew past. how we got into trouble with roger once... haha. he speaks with a pretty strong accent but well, we still managed to communicate pretty well i guess. nice american boy. :)

don is my neighbouring supervisor from my neighbouring ride, volcano. he's the sweetest american boy i know and i regret not getting to chance to know him better earlier. we didn't manage to take much pictures together either. he's the only one who i didn't had a very good first impression of.. but i like him after i got to know him better. he's only a 18 year old young little boy. and he's a very enthusiatic fireman who loves firefighting. :) nice countryside boy.
but too bad i only found out how sweet he was on my last day of work when he made me cry. it was just a very small action of his part but it made me so touched. he's the kinda sensitive and sweet kinda guy whom i believe would make a very good boyfriend. haha. i look like an indian in between the both of them!

this is willie my ex-lead. i've mentioned him before! i didn't get to say a proper goodbye to him when i left though.. he's only 19 years old and he's my favourite black guy. :) he's a nice kid too... and he sent yicui an email the other day and asked about me too... i thought it was really sweet. hehe. he's a very huggy person who hugs me everytime he sees me. haha.

this is erica from my neighbouring ride too! from don's ride volcano. i got to know her cuz she came over to anaconda quite a bit previously when we were short handed. she's really friendly and talks alot. i look so fat beside her! ok that's because she's thin. haha. she's probably one of my favourite white girls. :)

megan is the supervisor from my another neighbouring ride, italian job! she's really one of the nicest supervisors i've known. i only got to know when i went over to cross train one day... and well never went back again. haha but i really like her too! she's so nice... because she remembers little stuff that we have chatted about before... and she gave me so many checklists in a day! lol. she's 1 year younger than me!

this is brandon from italian job too! i got to know him at the same time i got to know megan.. when i went over to cross train. he's nice and goofy.. and i had fun with him when i was over there. he likes to poke and tickle me. haha. i still remember how he shocked me when he said i should marry him and stay in virginia so that i don't have to go. gosh! then he went on and on.. it was sweet but err... i hardly know him well. i'll rather marry jesse or roger or willie... haha talking rubbish.

this is mike from my ride. 16 year old young boy. he talks and plays around alot... can be fun... but annoying at times. but he's nice and he's the kind who's very loyal to his friends. he's the yo yo yo what's up kinda black. haha.. ya know what i mean.

this is kim my other supervisor. she doesn't work very often... mostly during weekends or whenever jesse is off. which explains why i don't know her very well... and well it's partly because of her that jesse had to work so much that i face him almost all the time... which was good in a way for me. haha. she's okay with me.. i'm just not close to her. but she's like one of the few americans who've been out of US before and to asia.. she was telling me about her trip to japan last year or something. at least less suagu.

this is demonte another of my area manager. hmms i don't really know him well either cuz he's kinda like "part-time" for our area. he belongs to another area actually. but he just comes about at times. he's okay... didn't get much of a chance to know him either.

this is jen from my ride.. 18 years old! she's okay at times... but er not so at other times. haha.

this is derya.. one of the turkish internationals! i like derya because she's such a nice girl.. we didn't get much of a chance to know each other too because the turkish came in to take over us so we didn't had much chance to work together. i still remember how she helped me to pass some stuff to some of the americans the next day after i left... i went to find her at her dorm room at like 2am in the morning on my last night. i really appreciated that.

this is oz.. one of the turkish too! haha i don't know him very well enough but most of the turkish are nice people.

this is ibo, another turkish! he is funny and cheeky because he plays along with me and we talk about silly stuff. haha most of the turkish are nice people.. just that i found it hard to talk to them because their command of the English is not as good.

yeaps.. basically that's about it... i think i probably look younger than most of the people that i've taken photos with... hmms americans tend to look older and more mature than asians... and well also because i look young. but seriously, if you get to know them they really behave like people their age though. haha. most of them seem to think i'm like 17 or something. yeah right. but then again, my malay neighbour the other day that i was talking too thought i was like 16. it shocked him when i said i was already in my 3rd year in uni. hahaha. i'm so youthful looking! lol.

Aladdins Night out! 14th July 2006

2006-09-03T19:18:00.000+08:00

we all went out to aladdins for dinner that night... and well it was supposed to be some kinda small gathering between some people but well.. haha things kinda turned out alittle different from what i had expected but it was still nice. it's this hookah restaurant near our dorm that serves good pizzas/strambolis. hookah is where you can like smoke fruity flavoured stuff through water pipes. pretty cool. but then, anything that is smoking related is deemed to be bad by all of us. haha.

us us...

us us again with the guys..

us us us again with roger when he came!

me with my favourite americans.

together with mingshun...! he's one of us because he used to always come to anaconda when we were shorthanded.. haha.

then jesse and roger came to our dorm to visit... and they spent like 2 hours in my room... haha and we all just took lots and lots of photos. they almost died. haha but it was fun! we all should have spent more time chatting though... it would have been better.. but oh wells, we somehow just couldn't stop snapping when we started. haha. so these 2 poor little boys ended up leaving at like 3+am in the morning. but then again, this was a once in a lifetime chance and experience for us to hang out and have fun outside of work!

snap 1...

2...

and finally a proper one at 3.

thanks to roger for this idiotic pose.

i think i suck at taking pictures like this. i just can't seem to fit both heads properly and proportionately inside the picture frame. because the last decent one was taken by roger instead. haha.

ahh i realized i missed out one picture of me and jesse in my blog.. so here it is!

jesses and mes...

jesse heads and my heads... haha.

roger, me, jesse. manager, line worker, supervisor.

congo people~!

yay we are all from congo~! haha.

err.. intruders from kidszville and grove. haha.. ehh.. PKD people!

singaporeans~! :)

overall, it was a pretty fun night and i enjoyed it. it's stuff that don't happen everyday. thanks to both boys for visiting! =)