Series of Amazing Journey

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2011-10-31T20:27:00.003+08:00

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West Coast trip - Day 4 [Yosemite National Park]

2007-04-20T23:20:00.000+08:00

West Coast trip - Day 3 [San Francisco]

2007-04-19T21:41:00.000+08:00

China Town

Around 8.30 o'clock in the morning, we departed from Crowne hotel for breakfast at Chinatown. FYI, San Franciso's Chinatown is the largest Chinatowns in the States. It is also the oldest Chinatown. Trust me, it is muchhhhh larger than Los Angeles' Chinatown. For breakfast, the tour guide brought us to dim sum restaurant. Because of the "limited" budget, me and Sebastian decided to have breakfast somewhere else. We ended up at bakery shop and bought Charsiew bun and egg tart. Yummyy!!!

3 for 10 bucks

Chinatown, located in downtown San Francisco, has a lot of smaller side streets and alleyways which gives an authentic characteristic. We tried to find the famous Dragon gate on the corner of Bush Street and Grant Avenue, but we almost got lost. Luckily, we did found our bus on time.

Typical Chinatown street

Love this picture!! So pretty ... and well composed ... Hahaha

colorful butterflies

Lombard Street

Next was Lombard Street, the crookedest [most winding] street in the United States. What does this mean? The steep, hilly street was created with sharp curves to switchback down the one-way hill past beautiful Victorian mansions. The street is paved with bricks and is an amazing site to see!

The famous Lombard street view from Leavenworth Street

The houses beside the street are really someone houses. Someone really live there! Yeah in fact, I saw one of the owner shaping his garden.

Me and the Lombard street

We climbed up to Hyde street and took couple pictures. The Powell-Hyde cable car stops at the top of the block.

The unique Powell-Hyde cable car

Alcatraz island (top left background), Lombard St from top

Palace of Fine Arts
The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District is a building originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. It is now popular as a favorite wedding location for brides and grooms throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. When we went there, we saw a bunch of primary students running around. Probably there were having study tour.

Palace of Fine Arts - in front of Colonnades

The park @ Palace of Fine Arts

Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County as part of US Highway 101 and California State Highway 1.

The bridge has six total lanes of vehicle traffic, and walkways on both sides of the bridge. On an average day there are 100,000 vehicles crossing the bridge. Amazing!

According to the tour guide, the Golden Gate Bridge is a "popular" site for suicide. In 2006 itself, there were 34 confirmed bridge jump suicides, excluding various unwitnessed deaths that appeared to be suicides but could not be confirmed.

Me posing on the south side of the bridge

Pier 39 & Bay Cruise
Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction. The Pier is located at the edge of the Fisherman's Wharf district which is pretty close to both North Beach and Chinatown.

Hard Rock Cafe @ Pier 39

Giant crab in front of the Aquarium of the bay at Fisherman's Wharf

We reached there at 2 pm and hurried to queue for the bay cruise tour which started at 2.30 pm. Therefore, we had no time for a proper lunch. We grabbed $5 hotdog, finished it within 5 mins and ran for the ferry.

Sebastian, hotdog, and bay cruise ticket

A very crowded queue for the bay cruise tour

Luckily we were able to find a good spot to take pictures. Sebastian said that I should take as many pictures as possible since we paid $21 for this tour. No problem Sebastian!

Pier 39 - taken from ferry boat

The ferry brought us to see Angel Island, Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, and the might Alcatraz island. Along the way, we saw several sea gulfs tailing our boat and the captain warned us that they might come to disturb people.

From top left: sea gulf, SF from San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, Me and Sebastian

Golden Gate Bridge from the water surface

Alcatraz was well known as a military and federal prison until 1963, when it became a national recreation area. During its 29 years of operation, there were no prisoners had ever successfully escaped. 34 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, 2 men trying twice; 7 were shot and killed, 2 drowned, 5 were unaccounted for, and the rest were recaptured. Only 2 prisoners made it off the island but were returned, one in 1945 and one in 1962.

The Alcatraz island

Sea lions at nearby Pier 39

At the end of the tour, we still have time to wander around the pier and took a bunch of pictures. The pier was really really crowded. A lot of Asian tourists there! There was a funny sign about "No Thongs" hung at one of the restaurants there. The one who dares to wear only thongs in this windy and cool weather must be crazy!

Pier 39 - The crowd and street performer

The Twin Peaks

The Twin Peaks are the second highest hills in San Francisco after Mount Davidson. The peaks are around 900 feet above the surface. From the peak, San Francisco looks very small, foggy and dense. The tour guide shorten the time to spend here since he said he was cold. I told him that it is nothing compared with Ohio...

San Francisco view from Twin Peaks

We departed from the peaks for Castro street which is a gay village, and later on headed toward City Hall.

City Hall

City Hall is our last stop of today city tour. To me every city hall in States look almost the same: the dome-kind architecture. Therefore I didn't take much pictures here.

City Hall - outside and inside the building

Nite in San Francisco

It was raining quite heavily when we went off from City Hall. And it made me hungry!! The tour guide decided to bring us back to china town for dinner. We ended up eating nasi lemak at Singapore Restaurant there. Look at my dinner below! It did not taste as nice as the outlook ... pretty disappointed.

Nasi Lemak

Before we headed back to our hotel, the tour guide made a quick stop for those who wanted to take picture of Bay Bridge at night.

Bay bridge at nite

We arrived at hotel by 10.30 pm and that's it for today. Next day: beautiful Yosemite Park! Stay tune.

West Coast trip - Day 2 [Solvang Market and Hearst Castle]

2007-04-18T23:24:00.000+08:00

In the morning, we waited at hotel lobby for a "correct" tour guide since at that time, there were at least 2 different tour groups picking up their clients. Luckily, we were able to find our tour guide and departed at 9.30am. The bus that we took, brought us to another meeting point where we switched to other bus. From this point, we were separated from xinen's parents and therefore the journey began...

Our destination for a day was: Solvang Market and Hearst Castle.

Solvang Market, Solvang

Solvang market entrance

The trip to Solvang took about 3 hours. We reached there by noon and had our lunch at Viking Garden Restaurant. The restaurant has Viking decorations like its name. We had western-chicken rice for $8 which was served in small portion. But it tasted quite ok.

Lunch at Viking Garden Restaurant

FYI, Solvang is a little Danish replica village. The windmills, quiet streets, horse drawn carriages, wineries, Danish bakeries, authentic Danish costumes worn by some shop keepers, Danish atmosphere and architecture are how the city looks like.

The giant windmill in Danish architecture

The shops at Solvang

Nice Oreo Fudge that I bought!!

On the way to Hearst Castle - Ostrich farm

Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle was is located near San Simeon, California, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. William Randolph Hearst, is the man behind Hearst Castle. He is an important figure from the 20th century whose influence extended to publishing, politics, Hollywood, the art world and everyday American life. By the mid-1920s he had a nation-wide string of 28 newspapers. Cool right?

By the way, we reached the castle at 2 o'clock, and took 2.40pm tour.

The Hearst Castle from a distance

The castle itself is five miles (eight kilometers) inland on a hill. The guide brought us touring around the park and its main building. Look how huge and interesting the Hearst Castle is!

Hearst Castle - Neptune Pool and Casa Grande

In front of the Casa Grande

Casa Grande or the main house has 5 rooms on the ground floor: the Assembly Room which is the largest of the four sitting rooms, the Refectory which is the huge dining room, the Morning Room which is a magnificent sitting room filled with Spanish antiques and Flemish tapestries, the Billiard Room which is a game room, and the Theater which is the largest room in Casa Grande.

The Dining Room where only those invited can eat with Hearst

The dining room decoration and the statue in Hearst's Theater

The tour ended 1hr 30mins later at the indoor pool. It was a great tour. Awesome mansion!!

The indoor pool, modeled after Roman baths, with gold mosaic tiles

From the castle, the bus drove us to Crowne Hotel, Oakland South - Union City. It is located at the east bay of San Fransisco. We had our dinner at Burger King on the way to hotel. Not feeling to eat chinese food at that time =)

On the way to Oakland

That's all for today! Next entry will be about San Fransisco ... wohooo!!

West Coast trip - Day 1 [Hollywood - China Town]

2007-04-17T23:58:00.000+08:00

Today we began our trip to West Coast. After a-month preparing the itineraries and booking the tickets etc ... (thanks Sebastian), we were ready for West Coast. We woke up at 3 am to catch 6 AM flight to Los Angeles. Special thanks to our friend Ching Yuh who was willingly sacrifice his time to sent us to the airport!

The flight to Los Angeles took about 7 hours plus an-hour delay in Chicago. Yah ... it was not a direct flight. Luckily, I had an access to the Red Carpet Lounge since I have a Krisflyer Gold membership card. Look how convenience it was in the lounge ... Hehe!!!

At the Red Carpet Lounge, Chicago

Around 3 pm Pacific Time (LA has 3 hrs time diff), we reached the City of Angel, Los Angeles. After the tour guide picked us up at the airport and brought us to hotel for rest. But we did not want to waste our time doing nothing on the first day. So after settling our luggage, we rushed to Hollywood. We reached at Hollywood/Highland Station after almost an-hour bus + Metro subway ride. Pretty tiring but exciting!!

Hollywood/Highland Station

Our first destination was Mc Donald! Yup ... I was verrry hungry at that time.

Pplz said the McDonald's on Hollywood Boulevard are the most expensive exterior of any McDonald's restaurant in the world. It looks pretty clumsy to me. But it does have a few minor extras inside, though: a large skylight to let in sunshine and a few Hollywood stars pictures.

Mc Donald - Hollywood Boulevard

Xinen's parents were with us. We actually planned our trip with them, so that they can help us translating chinese to english since we were taking Chinese tour (yah ... the tour guide speaks chinese as a main language). But, turned out the tour guide changed our schedule, and therefore we were on different tour. I'll explain about the tour later. But now, let's look at Hollywood first!

The Hollywood Sign from Hollywood & Highland Center

Hollywood & Highland center

El Capitan Walt Disney Theater across Hollywood and Highland Center

Hollywood Boulevard is a such crowded place. The sidewalk along this road and Vine Street is so called Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has more than 2,000 five-pointed stars featuring the names of celebrities honored by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce along the road.

Hollywood Walk of Fame

We went to Kodak Theater complex, but didn't have an access to the theater. FYI, Kodak Theater is the home of the annual Academy Awards Ceremonies ("The Oscars"). And for American Idols fans, it is well known as a place where the final two competition is held.

Kodak Theater

Next is the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater, the worldwide-famous movie theater located at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard whereas nearly 200 Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints, and autographs printed in the cement of the theater's forecourt.

Grauman's Chinese Theater

Picture with Mr. Schwarzenegger's fingerprint and footprint

In front of theater, there were a lot of movie characters walking around and offered if we wanna take picture with them. I did not know that we should give them tips. When they asked, we gave them a dollar.

Picture with Yoda Starwars

We walked along Hollywood Blvd until Hollywood/Vine subway station. Along the way I saw people selling Star Maps for only $5, live band, skateboarder, Green-leaves tree.

The uniqueness of Hollywood Blvd

Capitol Record

We therefore contd our journey to China Town, which was nothing much there since all stores closed after 5.30pm. So disappointed!

LA China Town

We headed back to our hotel after "tapao-ing" our dinner at cheap kopitiam. We can't find any taxis in China Town, therefore we took Metro train back to Union Station. Remember when Jack Bauer (24 Season 6) intercepted the bomb carried by Fayed follower at Union Station? Haha ... 24 freaks!

The waiting room at the Los Angeles Union Station.

We reached our hotel around 7 pm and had our rest. Waiting eagerly for the real tour tomorrow!

White Easter

2007-04-08T11:58:00.000+08:00

Happy easter everyone! Easter is always specially for me. Three years ago I was baptized back in Singapore. Now, I saw people getting baptized. How wonderful Lord called each of us. St Clare Church has 3 people this year, and I heard from Alvin, St. Mary of the Angels in Singapore has 100+ people. Praise you Lord...

K, back in Cleveland. Today is around 27F (-2.8C). Lake effect snow (Erie) brought us 4-6 inches of snow as the Easter gift. No white Christmas back in December, but we have white Easter. Haha ... April Snow is unusual!

Saturday morning - Outside balcony

I reached the church by 6.30 pm for choir rehearsal. In the vigil celebration, we have timpani, bells, piano, organ, and trumpet as the instruments. Cool right? Yup, It looks like orchestra!

Church of St. Clare - Parking lot covered by snow

Church of St. Clare - the Altar

The service started at 8 pm with no light. Then the priest brought the easter candle and lighted up parishioner's candles. Exsultet therefore, intoned by the deacon. The reading that struck me today is about Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea. I recalled what I learnt during RCIA couple years ago. It doesn't matter whether it is Egyptian or any other tyrant, it is just a symbolic for a sin. Moses brought Israelite from Red Sea means brought us out from sin, cleanse us from sin! The same thing about Paul Theology about "die and rising from the death". John 3 and Roman 6! Hehe I still remember the chapters.

The Baptismal font

Congratz for those who are baptized! May the Lord guide you to be light of the world. Be faithful, be strong and always remember that you are not alone.

People cleaning their cars @ the parking lot

Oooh no, I thought the snow would probably stop after mass, but I was wrong. I needed to brush the snow and scrap the ice. The road was so slippery. But, I managed to take couple pictures hehe.

Once again, happy easter everyone. Let's spread the joy and peace to the world!
K... I need to sleep now.

The Warmness of Kentucky

2007-03-24T23:30:00.000+08:00

The itinerary for this weekend has been fixed. Kentucky is our next State to conquer. Eleven of us were in the trip. We woke up super early this time and departed at 4 o'clock in the morning. It took around 6 hrs to reach our first destination, Lexington.

Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington

We reached Kentucky Horse Park by 10:30 am and spent 3 hours there. We saw horses, barns, horse show, gift shop as expected. It was fun, although a little bit regret that I skipped the horseback riding.

Group picture & the horse rider

The horse show - Parade of Breeds

Interestingly, they have park memorial which is the gravesites of numerous great horses. Cool right?

Horses buried at WALNUT HALL STUD CEMETERY

We had chances to take pictures with horses.

We saw people taking test for the horse riding. Perhaps, they have some sort of license ... hmmmm

Horse riding test

We had our lunch at Cracker Barrel and headed toward Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort.

Kentucky Capitol, Frankfort

We spent an hour there and had our photo session. It looks like Spring there. Flowers blooming, sunny weather ... what else!!

Dun really get what Ameek tried to do

Funny and nice pictures

Me of course...

At Floral Clock: Family picture?? or ... Stupid pose??

After this, we spent another hour at Vietnam memorial war, had our dinner, played go-kart, and drove to our hotel in Cave City, KY

Mammoth Cave
On Sunday, we spent our day at Mammoth Cave, the most elongated cave system known in the world. We bought 2 tours for a day : the New Entrance (Frozen Niagara) tour and Historic tour. See our cool pictures!

Experience Mammoth Cave!

After the 2nd tour ended at 3 pm, we decided to spent the rest of our day having lunch in KFC BUFFET =) Only $6.99 you can enjoy as many chicken as possible. I only eat 6 chickens and I gave up.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Buffet for lunch

After spending an hour+ for lunch we headed back to Cleveland. I drove for 2 hours before Ameek took over. She drove amazingly fast (above 90 mph) such that we arrived within 5 1/2 hours. Good job all drivers!

St Patrick's Day @ West Virginia

2007-03-17T23:56:00.000+08:00

It was less than a week before the spring officially announced, yet the snow was everywhere. Perhaps it was a bad idea to travel in extreme weather, but STILL six of us managed to reach West Virginia within 6 hours. We gathered at lobby by 8 o'clock and waited half an hour for unreachable Kevin. I called him couple times and no one picked up the phone. Sorry buddy, we left you behind!

Look ... what a wonderful scene...

The journey was not easy at all. We traveled along mountainous and snowy roads, and the petrol drained so fast. But KS and Xinen are a good driver. They drove along the way to our destination: Seneca Rocks.

Maryland state?? Oooo nooo

After few hours drive, we were shocked by the sign: "Welcome to Maryland". Hey, we the minutes, we supposed to be in West Virginia. Not Maryland. We decided to stop for a while to check whether we were heading to correct direction. KS parked at MacDonald, and therefore we had our lunch there. MacDonald again... Did I mention that we had our breakfast at MacDonald?

MacDonald for lunch

Turn out, we were indeed heading to a correct way. After GPS-ing for local attraction, we found Seneca Rocks! Yippeee ... One hour plus to go! To make sure we had enough petrol, we pumped our cars.

See how HAPPY Sebastian was at the petrol station

One hour later, we stopped again .. to ... TAKE PICTURES. What else? Hehe. The open space at the road side was AMAZING. Regardless how cold it was and how shaky our legs (and my tripod) were, we managed to take nice pictures.

See how nice it is?

We finally reached Seneca Rocks around 4.30 pm. The first thing we did was to check out the visitor center. But, unfortunately, it was CLOSE. Ooooh nooo ... End up, we just went to the local shop and took pictures with Seneca Rocks as a background. I brought my camera remote along with me, so ... we played with it until we agreed to move on before getting dark.

Local Gift Shop - Local people and local bear =)

Us, Seneca Rocks, and my lovely remote =)

Series of Jumping Poses

Time to go back! Actually, we were a bit upset 'cos we drove so far only for few pictures of Seneca Rocks (1.5GB consider few?). But, when we drove back, we saw Blackwater Falls sign. So we gave it a try. The scene was AWESOME. If you ever watched "The world of Narnia", you will probably understand how cool the place is.

The place was closed, but the adventure continued ...

Cool picture ... love it so much

KS and Erwin ... the red color blend well with the snow

W V for West Virginia - except for KS =)

Since I love this place so much, I decided to change my blog header! Blackwater Falls, I'll never forget!

Blackwater Falls - Panoramic view merged with Photoshop

It was getting dark and therefore we hurried to ... find a place for dinner. We stopped at the nearby restaurant. And since today is a St. Patrick's Day, we ordered a mug of GREEN BEER. Actually, it is only beer with green coloring. Nothing special. As for dinner, we shared plenty of chicken wings (chesapeake, honey BBQ, and garlic flavour) and fried mushroom. The chicken wings are nice!

The 'famous' Green Beer

We finished our dinner at 9 pm. Outside the restaurant, there was heavy snow. Me and Kelvin took turn to drive and arrived safely by 2 a.m. Overall, the trip is fun and interesting, especially the Narnia thing.

Weekend at Detroit

2007-03-10T22:12:00.000+08:00

Detroit, Michigan here we come... Our friendly travel agent, Xinen, once again planned our itinerary. Well done! Since Detroit is just 3 hours from Cleveland, we gathered at the lobby at 8 am. This time, Scott, our US colleague joined us to the MotorCity. The weather was nice. Oooh, Thanks God it's Spring! Wohooo, 80 F (almost the same as Singapore's).

IMAX at Henry Ford Museum

After couple stops at MacDonald and petrol station, we arrived at Henry Ford Museum by noon. Wikipedia mentioned Henry Ford museum as the nation's "largest" indoor-outdoor history museum complex. We kinda hungry back then, therefore we went for lunch at the museum's Michigan Cafe. The food was ok, standard western style (actually, I thought Sebastian would make a stop at the nearest Arby's but I was wrong hehe ...) .

By the end of the time, NONE of us went into the indoor museum to see the cars. "Cheappooo ... hehe". Instead, we ended up watching Deep Sea 3D IMAX movie =__=

IMAX at Henry Ford Museum - My lunch at the Michigan Cafe

Eastern Market

Cos the IMAX movie started at 5.40 pm, we went out to ... EASTERN market. Yup, a market. It looks like PASAR MALAM in Singapore.

Posing outside eastern market

As you can see from the pictures below, the market was crowded. In fact, some of us bought groceries here, including me hehe (garlic, carrots, a box of grapes, peaches). Cheaper and fresher ... !!

The market situation -- courtesy of XLEE

A box of grapes for 10 bucks. Good job, Erwin!!

Poultry & Meat and Honey - Fresh from the cars by XLEE

The eastern market ...

General Motor Headquarters

After eastern market, we went to GM HQ to see car show. Hehe ... it's free. Therefore we spent couple hours there.

KS and XLEE as my models

Me & the car at GM World -- Me & 3D Glasses at IMAX

GreekTown - New Parthenon Restaurant

After watching the movie, we were looking a place for dinner. Hungry ... oooh no traffic-jam. Finally, we stopped at Greektown but no luck ... every places were fully packed. Dinner time, cold, long queues ... After wandering from places to places we decided to have our dinner at Greek Resto called New Parthenon. We waited for 30 mins long.

XLEE, Sbass, Erwin, CY waiting 'patiently' outside the restaurant

"We want to order menus which come with flame" quoted someone in the resto. The waitress replied "Saganaki Opa and Flamed Greek Sausage are come with flame". Saganaki Opa sounds like Japanese food, but it's not. It is kasseri cheese fried in olive oil and served as appetizer.

'Flammable' cheese and sausages

Spot the differences!

Look at KS! He was doing same poses for all pictures. So funny ...

Erwin and Sbass -- taken by Xinen

Scott - Children ... dun try this at home. Eating money is not good!

My Souvlaki - A small shish kebob, served with rice and vegetable ... yummy

Chin Yong and Miss Wang

That's all for today. Another weekend ended ... means ... back to office on Monday. What next for the following weekend? Stay tune!

Xinen Bdae Eve

2007-03-08T10:44:00.000+08:00

Today is Xinen bdae. "Hey guys what should be a proper gift for her?" I said to others near office pantry during lunch time. Hmmm ... A&F gift card. Deal! So Kevin and I went off earlier to Beachwood Mall for Abercrombie gift card. I bet Xinen knew this gonna happen since she asked "Where you guys going?" and Kevin answered "Buying men clothes blah3x ..." Lame excused hahaha ...

The girls and their silly pose

For the cake and candle, we bought a nice Chocolate Ice Cream Cake from GiantEagle. Better than our home-made cake! Peace peace ...
The plan continued by gathering everyone in my place and asked her to come up to watch Death Note 2 - The Last Name (even though I didn't have one yet). Sorry Xinen hehe ...

Then as usual, we sang a bdae song, cut the cake lalala, and took a ton of pictures. Yup, with my new IR Remote Control, we can let the camera take our foolish poses. We did really have fun with the remote that night. Good job remote!

Series of our group pictures

Once again, happe bdae Xinen. Hope you enjoy your gift card!

Back to Cleveland

2007-02-25T23:05:00.000+08:00

After 2 weeks staying in Jakarta, it is again time to depart. Back to Cleveland means a-day-flight. Yeah, 24 hours flight would drive you crazy! A day before I had my luggage filled with food (Chinese new year cookies), new clothes, medicine, MILO, etc etc. At Soekarno-Hatta Airport, there were long queues! Yeah, I met a lot of NTU graduated friends there. My cousin was there too. Same flight. Haha. This time, my flight with SIA was fantastic. Since I am now a Krisflyer Golden member, people treated me better than ever. My luggage now is a Raffles Class Priority. Cool yah!

Transit 6-8 hours in Changi was not a good idea. I only spent a little time to sleep since my "neighbours" were too noisy. I waited until the United counter was opened and until Sebastian arrived. It was around 5 AM. The five-hour-flight to Hongkong departed at 7.55 AM. This is the best part. The United personal upgraded my seat to Business class for free. Erwin had the ticket upgraded as well. Lucky us! Star Alliance Gold membership rocks!!

Look how comfortable we were at the business class cabin!

Being business class passenger, we were treated well. Haha so happy. "Mr Liong, can we ..." "Mr Che-mer-leng, oops do I pronounce correctly?" Yeah, my name is kinda hard for them to pronounce. Erwin's name is easier. But, I did enjoy this flight. If only, they upgraded our seat on Hongkong-Chicago trip.... Yeah keep dreaming!

This awesome picture taken from the business-class seat +)

The flight to Chicago was a total disaster. Economy class seat, 18 hours flight ... tired!! Lucky time went fast (hmmm not really lor ...). But anyway, we arrived safely at Chicago. The immigration took us more than half an hour. Chicago was really crowded since a lot of flights were delayed b'cos of the bad weather. Yah, almost forgot about snow and cold weather after staying couple weeks in Asia.

The real problem came after this. I saw at my flight schedule, and realised I should fly earlier than my colleagues. Ooooh no ... I ran from terminal 1 to 5, tried sooo hard to get into the next flight. The customer service queue was sooo long that I could not manage to catch the next flight. Hmm ... I was alone there while Sebas and Erwin flew away to Cleveland. Poor me...

The next flight was at 5 pm and there were more than hundred peoples on the waiting-list. Oooh crap... How about me???? The problem was United canceled the-three-pm flight. After waiting for 2 hours, I talked to the customer service to let me in to the five-pm-flight. "Ok ... I'll put you in the waiting list." I replied "I have waited blah3x ... hours ...." "If I told you I have Star Alliance Gold membership, would it help?" He replied "Yes, it does". Then finally, I managed to fly on time and reached Cleveland by 7.30 pm. Thanks for my colleagues for being passion waiting for me hihi!! You guys rocks!

Oooo no ... other problem came again. My luggage was not there. I spoke to the United representative that my luggage would be at cleveland for another few hours and she said they will deliver to my address in the following day. Hiuhhhh ... Now, I can relieve ...

Back to Jakarta on CNY Trip

2007-02-16T23:36:00.000+08:00

Hurray, back to Jakarta! Finally, after a year and half!!
Guess what? I returned in a correct time. No more flood, no more electricity breakdown ... Being spoilt kid. Hmmm, what else missing? While staying couple days in my relative HDB, I managed to have "Shio bak peng" a.k.a roasted-pork rice, "Wanton mie" a.k.a wanton noodle. That's just the beginning.

An eve of New Year is the time to gather with my family for BIG dinner. My mum prepared the menu from the morning. Noodle (compulsory), Fish (nian nian you yu), Breaded Pork-shrimp-Fill (Dimsum style yummy), "Bak Keng" (Hookien delicacy), Spicy vegetarian Rendang (Indonesian delicacy), and Ham-Shrimp roll are the menu. Taste awesome! We had a good evening, except my sister was in Australia. She was not able to return 'cos she was working on her PR status there. May be next time we'll meet.

Chinese New Year Eve - The Big Dinner with my family

On the first day of new year, we were staying at home while waiting for my relatives from both father and mother sides to come. That's because my father is the oldest son. As a tradition of Chinese new year, wearing red is a must.

My cousin family from mother side - Red red ...

I love the picture above. Nice shoot everyone!! My father side aunt and uncle came the following hours later. Here are the pictures!

Uncle, Aunt, and their families

The second day was our turn to visit others. In the morning, we went to my aunt and uncles houses. Even though there was no more flood threat, the water level was still high. It was almost at the same level as the street.

Picture of the houses along river bank. Perhaps creek, not river

Chinese New year is always unique with its cookies. Pineapple tarts, "kacang" (various peanuts), "lapis legit" (layered cake -yummy), and other kueh-kueh. I brought some of my mother-made cookies back to Cleveland and my friends finished 5 boxes within few days. Chin Yong said "How if I setup a store in Singapore and let your mother cookies sold" Haha, thanks Chin Yong, my mother took it as compliment.

After visiting my relatives, we headed towards Taman Anggrek mall (one of my favourite malls in Jakarta). This year is amazing. They even shown Chinese "wayang" (opera) in the public. My big sister wanted to take picture with the actors but she didn't manage to do so. Poor sister ... hehe =)

Chinese wayang Opera at Taman Anggrek mall

Dinner was the main reason we went to the mall. I told them, I wanted to go for Dimsum. Haha, I was delicious!!! In-expensive (compared to Singapore and US currency)!! Huang Ting is the name of the restaurant (thanks for the recommendation my friends!).

I did enjoy my time in Jakarta. Besides, Chinese new year gathering, I managed to meet some of olddddd friends. Having lunch, dinner, buying DVDs, attending Catholic seminar by Bo Sanchez, getting new clothes from my sister, hearing the priest singing Chinese song during sunday mass cum chinese new year mass are amazing. Thanks God for these opportunities!!

Snowboarding @ Boston Mills

2007-01-20T23:36:00.000+08:00

It is getting colder this week. That means it is a SNOWBOARDING time! Look how excited we are at Boston Mills. It's my first time to snowboard ... but I do survived!

Ultimate Ski and Snowboard-ing warriors

Canada Trip [Dec 29, 2006 - Jan 1, 2007]

2006-12-31T23:18:00.000+08:00

Day 1 @ Montreal

>> Montreal - China Town <<

>> Montreal - Bio Dome <<

Day 2 @ Montreal

>> Montreal - Snowy Morning <<

>> Montreal - Insectarium <<

>> Montreal at night <<

Day 3 @ Montreal

>> Montreal - Botanic Garden <<

>> Montreal - Notre Dame de Montreal <<

>> New Year eve at Mount Royal <<

>> Casino de Montreal <<

Day 4 @ Ottawa

>> Ottawa - Capitol Building <<

>> Ottawa - New Year Buffet Lunch <<

Christmas in Cleveland

2006-12-27T23:28:00.000+08:00

Xmas Eve @ St Claire Church
Christmas is a special day 'cos it is a Jesus birthday. Happe bdae! This year is different for me. Far from my home town (and it is not "white xmas" .. yeah no snow, but it was raining)!
After having several choir practices in the church lately, we were ready to perform on the Xmas Eve. We sang very great together with the congregation. The bells rang beautifully and blended well with the choir. Hihi. Nice job guys! I made this xmas card for the choir of St Claire.

On a Xmas Day
No one except me, Sebastian, and Kevin were in Cleveland on the Christmas day. Today we celebrate xmas together with Lynette family. She is one of test team managers. We brought Godiva chocolate as a gift. We reached the place at 2 pm. Most of the time, I played with the kids while waiting for the family dinner. They are gorgeous and very active. Haha... Kevin said I'm so good with kids.
Anyway, the food was great! My favourite is the roasted beef. Thanks Lynette for the invitation. Nice to celebrate xmas with you.

Xmas lighting at Nela Park
Two-day after Xmas, the office is still "empty". So quite! Suddenly, Ameek with her classic laugh came. "Hey, you are back!" I said. "How about going out tonight for xmas lighting?" I contd. Deal! Me, Kevin, Sebastian, and Ameek went out to Nela Park. The park was full with xmas decoration. Thanks for GE Electronics for the design.

Ooo xmas tree Ooo xmas tree

Rudolf, Santa, lalalala ...

The four of us... hey who took the pic? My tripod of course

It was so cold outside. We hurried our journey to downtown for another xmas lighting. The public square was sparkling, but we didn;t have enough time there since we needed to rush back. Why? We gonna watch "Night in Museum". Pretty fun, entertaining, though it was a bit boring in the beginning part.

Merry xmas guys!!

Xmas Party

2006-12-17T22:25:00.000+08:00

Before Xiong Sheng and Andrian return to Singapore, we should have a xmas party! Moreover, some of us will be away for vacation on Christmas period. So we decided to have a potluck dinner.

Today Menu!!

Today menu:
- Indo Curry + Nasi Lemak -> me and Sebastian
- Beehon, Popcorn, Fruit -> Kok Song and Chin Yong
- Pork Rib, Har Gao (Chinese Dumpling) and snacks -> Ying Lun and Xin en
- Veggie, Cake -> Wang Jiao and Ameek
- Grill Chicken Leg -> Xiong Shen and Kevin
- Drinks -> Erwin
- Snacks -> Ching Yuh
- Prata -> Raju

The party started at 5.30 pm; ended at 9 pm. We all have fun!! Here some pics of the party.

Hurry, grab it while you can!

See, all guys gathered around the food

Kevin - "What is that??" Ameek - "Of course cake!"

Guess what movie is this?

White Elephant - Give eXchange

Classical Group Picture

Florida day 7 - Last day

2006-11-28T12:29:00.000+08:00

The days in Florida ran pretty fast, and we were now heading back to Orlando. It took around 4 hours to reach the airport. Oooopsss, we forgot to pump the petrol! Hiyaa, it took additional 30 minutes to find a petrol station and gas up our car.

We had our lunch at the airport food court. The chinese food that I ordered was standard and expensive (as usual). While waiting for the plane to depart at 4 pm, we went to several gift shops such as Disney, Universal, Seaworld, etc. I bought Disney thingy for my cousins.

We arrived at Cleveland Hopkins airport around 9.30 pm after one hour transit at Memphis. Kok Song and Ching Yong were really unlucky with Hertz car rental as they accidentally rented our cars. After going through some administrative procedures, we were given new cars. Guess what? We reached our apartment at 11+

Thanks God, we arrived safely. Days in Florida were amazing, relaxing, and fun(except last 2 days hehe). Back to Cleveland means Back to work again. Hehe.

Florida day 6

2006-11-27T23:14:00.000+08:00

Key Largo
Not much excitement today. Key Largo, the northernmost island of the Florida Keys island is a good place to scuba diving and sports-fishing. But we won't do those extreme things. We gonna snorkeling.

We arrived at the Key Largo before 10 o'clock, bought our lunch at Wendy's, and waited at the place where the boat departed. Together with other couples, we boarded at noon, and headed to a deep sea. And since we were on the boat, I didn't bring my lovely camera. But we bought the underwater camera which was rarely used. Hehe.

Once the boat stopped in the middle of the sea, we wore the snorkeling gear and jumped into the sea. But ... I didn't make it. Suddenly, I felt sea-sick and passed out. Wuahaha ... I just laid on the boat for at least an hour. Horrible!!! Arrggh ...

But anyway, I didn't miss too much. Chin Yong said he saw few fishes and took few pics of them. Kok Song and Sebastian puked after snorkeling, while Erwin and Ching yuh survived through out the trip. Well, I didn't enjoy this 3-hour trip at all. Hehe too bad.

Key West
It was 4 pm and we continued our journey to Key West. While Erwin drove, almost all of us slept, including me. Ooh, I felt sick since I was too hungry! When we arrived at the downtown Key West, It was around 8 pm. We missed sunset!!!

We tried to find a good yet cheap restaurant for dinner. At the end of the time, we were seated at some seafood restaurant. I ordered seafood platter combo and was not able to finish it since they put wasabi on it. Arrrgh, horrible horrible. I should sing " You have a bad day ... lalala ..."

Florida Day 5 - Everglades, Viscaya, and Miami Beach

2006-11-26T23:23:00.000+08:00

Everglades
Today morning we went to Gator Park @ Everglades. We gonna see Alligators! Interesting yach!!

We reached everglades at 10 am. A lot of heavy-biker gathered there for some reasons. I dunno. Hehe. Anyway, we boarded the air boat together with a group of ~10 people. The tour guide was the one who ran the engine. We wished to see a bunch of alligators swimming in the swamp, but unfortunately they were to shy to show their faces =/. Hmmm, at least we saw one small gator. Take a look at my pics!

Everglades - Gator Air boat Tour

Viscaya
Continuing our journey, we visited Viscaya museum and garden at South Miami. The museum consists of Villa Vizcaya, its grounds, and the collections. The gardens were extremely beautiful.

Amazing view of Viscaya Gardens

Viscaya mansion was designed by the famous architect F. Burrall Hoffman. This Italian-style mansion contains 34 rooms decorated with 16-19th century furnishings and decorations. Amazziiing!!! Unfortunately we were not allowed to take a picture while touring inside this huge mansion.

Miami Beach
We had our lunch at Clevelander, Miami Beach. Yeah ... the road along beach was crowded with pplz. I guess it was a lunch time. We chose Clevelander 'cos it sounded familiar to us. Haha. While we were waiting for our lunch, there was a babe riding a cool bike in front of us. A guys sitting besides us started shouting wo0h0o!! Hehe... Was fun being there.

Pictures of Miami Beach

We spent at the beach for several hours. There was a beach party at that time. Not sure what kind of party it was. Along the beach, there were 2 cute and attractive Japanese girls. Hmmm, but they were accompanied with 2 big angmo guys. Hehe, forget about it guys!

Miami Beach - Courtesy of Sebastian

That's all for today!

Florida Day 4 - Kennedy Space Center and Go Orlando

2006-11-25T23:38:00.000+08:00

Kennedy Space Center
Today is a Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Go Orlando day. To reach this complex, we drove about two hours. FYI, Kennedy Space Center is the NASA space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) located between Miami and Jacksonville, Florida. We arrived at KSC Visitor Complex at 10 am.

Rocket Garden @ KSC

There was a story behind the picture above. Ching Yong once asked a Mexican lady to take our picture with these rockets as a background. But I wasn't sure whether the lady didn't understand English or didn't understand how to use digital camera. As a result, the picture above was taken. Yeah, only the rockets, none of us was in the picture. Wuahaha ... so lame.

We started our day there by waiting for the bus which will eventually bring us to several places.

[KSC] Pictures taken while waiting for the bus

On the bus, we were guided by the driver about the complex. Basically, we were touring around the grounds of Launch complex 39, and the Apollo-Saturn V Center.

Vehicle Assembly Building

First stop was The observation gantry which provides clear views of both launch pads and all of Kennedy Space Center property.

Launch Complex 39B with Discovery shuttle from the observation gantry

Next, the bus brought us to Apollo-Saturn V Center which is a large museum features a restored Saturn V launch vehicle and other space related exhibits, including an Apollo capsule. Two theaters allow us to take parts of the Apollo launching and landing program.

Inside the firing room during Apollo launch simulation

Saturn V launch vehicle ... huge yah

We spent there until 4.30 pm and continued our short trip to nearby Astronaut Hall of Fame. It looks like a science center to me.

Go Orlando Card
We reached back to Orlando 2 hours later (around 7pm) and stopped at Titanic - The experience. Basically, it is a place with over than 200 artifacts and historic treasures of famous Titanic ship which sank in 1912 because of collision with an iceberg.

The ticket to the Titanic

Group picture in front of the iceberg and basement of Titanic

The grand staircase

The grand staircase was so cool. It looks the same as the one shown in the movie.

First class Parlor

Oooh I knew this place! It was a place where Jack Dawson drew a picture of naked Rose DeWitt Bukater. Hehe, I remember =)

Our next destinations were Wonderworks and Ripley Believe it or not.

Wonderworks and Ripley Believe it or not

The flight simulation at the Wonderworks made me wanna puke. Arrgh, pity on me!
At the end of the day, we spent our night at the arcade center nearby our hotel playing Go Kart and Arcade machines.

We then continued our trip to Miami. We reached there by 6 o'clock in the morning. Ooooh tired!! We slept for a while before continuing our day in Miami.

Florida Trip day 3 - Seaworld

2006-11-24T23:57:00.000+08:00

Another morning in Florida, hurray! I woke up pretty early this morning and ppl were still on the bed sleeping. "Hey, wake up guys!! It's Seaworld day," I said.
We reached there before 9 am, and the place is so peaceful (not as crowded as Disney).

Chin yong and the map

Where should we go first?? Chin Yong, Erwin, and Ching Yuh stared at Seaworld map and started planning our day.

Both disney and Seaworld are full of Xmas decoration. Look how big the xmas tree and mistletoe.

[Orlando, Seaworld] Huge Mistletoe

[Orlando, Seaworld] Xmas tree at the entrance gate

Penguin Encountered
A bunch of penguins were there playing around (behind the glass of course). Nothing except penguins here.

Sea Lion & Otter Stadium
This stadium was full of pplz. The show is about Pirates and his missing treasure. There was a funny clown before the show started. He kept making fun the late audiences. Good show!!

Sea Lion and Otter Show

Believe - Shamu show
This stadium is at least 3x times bigger than Sea Lion stadium. We hardly to get a good spot when we reached there. FYI, this show is the center attraction of Seaworld.

Shamu - Believe show

"Believe" features a video of a boy inspired by an orca who grows up to be a Shamu trainer. He then chooses a young audience member asking of his desired occupation and gives him a carved Shamu necklace so that the child can "Believe".

The show was quite disappointed since the Shamu didn't co-operate well with the trainer instruction.

Nautilus Theater - Odyssea
Odyssea is a non-traditional circus that combines high-flying acrobatic performances, delightful comedy, whimsical costumes, dramatic music and fantastic special effects within a spectacular set themed as an underwater fantasy world.

Few of us slept almost entire show. Well, maybe we are not into acrobatic thingy.

Odyssea @ Nautilus Theater

Shark Encountered
After having hotdog (again) for lunch, we went to Shark Encountered where we saw various underwater life. The place was fully packed. Personally, not really enjoy it. Too many pplz lar.

Shark Encountered

Whale and Dolphin Theater - Blue Horizon
This show was entertaining. The dolphins, parrots, whales and the trainers were amazing. I called it the best show of the day.

Blue Horizon show

After the show, we split 'cos Sebastian, Erwin, Ching Yuh, and Kok Song wanted to ride Kraken rollercoaster, but Ching Yong chose to stay away from it. And as for me, I went back to car park to get my telephoto lens.

While searching for the others, I went to several places such as: Dolphin Cove, Manatee Rescue, and Alligators Lair. Check out some of my cool pictures.

Dolphins, Alligators and Manatees

Pets Ahoy!
We met at 5 pm for Pets Ahoy show. The show featured cats and dogs, birds, and even a pig. Almost of these fabulous stars were rescued from animal shelters.

We could hear beautiful Christmas carol for a far while queuing for Pets Ahoy. Nice!

Christmas Carol performance

The show started around 5.15 pm and the place was fully packed. We seated at the different spot. Sitting next to me is a young boy. He asked me if I am a photographer. Hihi my big lens looked cool yah ... Anyway, the next 25 minutes was fun and touching. The pets were very talented!!

Another Believe - Shamu show
This show was much better than the previous shamu show. The music, lighting and the ambience blended well with the show.

Surf on top of shamu ... so cool!

Believe it!

The fountain show ended our day in Seaworld.

[Part 2] Florida Trip day 2 - DisneyWorld

2006-11-23T23:24:00.000+08:00

Frontier Land

We continued our journey to Splash Mountain after having lunch. Splash Mountain is an attraction that is based on the 1946 Disney film Song of the South. We rode the boat which brought us to the top of the "mountain" and ended with a finale of a steep drop into a Briar Patch (that is why it's called SPLASH).

Next: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. To dry out our clothes, we went to this ride which kinda crowded and the queue was around an hour. This indoor-outdoor roller coaster was pretty mild compared to (again) Millennium, Cedar Point. I guess there is no ride scarier than one in Cedar Point.

Pictures of the ride taken from Liberty Belle Riverboat

Adventure Land
Jungle Cruise was our next destination. This classic boat ride with a funny tour guide brought us to the jungle areas of the world, such as those found near the Amazon River and Asia. Pretty fun being there!!

Jungle Cruise tour boat

Well, we almost rode all the rides by that time, so we decided to take a picture with at least one of Disney Characters. And aladdin was just in front of us. The queue was full of kids and we were there. Fun hah?

Princess and Aladdin

The group picture was taken by my camera. And because stupid Windows Camera Wizard doesn't recognize picture in RAW format, I lost all my RAW format pics while downloading it to Erwin's laptop. Arrrggghhh!!

Liberty Square
While waiting for the fireworks (which will be held at night), we spent a while boarding Liberty Belle Riverboat. The ride was around 30 mins.

Waiting for the boat to board

At 5.30 pm, everyone gathered before Cinderella Castle for some dance performance. Goofy, Donald, Mickey, Minnie, PeterPan, Captain Hook, etc were there.

Yeah .. go Donald .. go Goofy .. go dance!!

Dinner Time
For our dinner, we have our own Thanksgiving Turkey Legs!! Yippee!! Look how big it is! I could not even finish it.

My $5 turkey legs .. Happe Thanksgiving!!

Remember... Dreams Come True
While waiting for the fireworks at 9 pm, me and Chin Yong went back to our car to get my camera gear. Tripod, extra Compact Flash, battery plus my big Canon L-Series lens. Others went again to musical theater, played carrousel, etc. It took almost 45 minutes to reach back Cinderella Castle (kinda tired by now). But I have enough time to setup my camera. Here the pictures of the fireworks

Cinderella Castle at Night

Remember... Dreams Come True Fireworks!! Awesome isn't it?

Spectral Magic Parade
The last show of the day was Spectral Magic Parade. The road was full of Disney characters which accompanied by wonderful lighting.

Taken while waiting for the parade ... Love this pic!

The sparkling parade ended our day in Magical Kingdom

[Part 1] Florida Trip day 2 - DisneyWorld

2006-11-23T22:30:00.000+08:00

Happe thanksgiving, guys!!! FYI, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November to give thanks, traditionally to God, for the things one has at the end of the harvest season.

Disney - Magical Kingdom Entrance

Ticket and map to Magical Kingdom (hey nice shoot CY!!)

OK, contd on the trip. Today is Magical Kingdom - Disneyworld day. Hurray ... !! Although we are quite adult-enough, we still wanna go to Disneyworld. Yes, indeed when we arrived there at 8 o'clock, this place has been "bombarded" by people from various ages. Once the gates were opened, we ran to catch the Ferry Boat which brought us to TomorrowLand entrance.

Chip&Dale and Cinderella Castle

Tommorow Land
We went to 4 places in this section. First, Stitch's Great Escape!

Entrance to Stitch's Great Escape!

It is a seated presentation with Audio-Animatronics about becoming a guard for the Galactic Federation. Via cool teleport room, the Galatic prisoners are transferred, including the great Stitch. He manage to escape and cause a chaos; attacking us with canon laser, spit us with chili-hotdog smell. Interesting but not as fun as other rides.

Next is one of Disney's famous ride: Space Mountain. It is a indoor rollercoaster with a outer-space scenery. Fast, dark, and cool.

Me and Chin Yong - to Space Mountain

Comparing to Millenium ride @ Cedar Point, Space Mountain is totally less scary, yet it's fun and enjoyable. I hardly opened my eyes while riding Millenium, but I opened my eyes for this ride. Cool!!

Tomorrowland Indy Speedway is our next destination. This Nascar-GoKarting race is not as fast as you think. Yeah ... it's Disney not a NASCAR stadium, as expected.

See how slow the ride was ... I could even take Kok Song's pic while riding the car

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger rocks!! At the outerspace, we boarded Omnimover space vehicle with two laser pistols and a joystick attached to it and started shooting any target to accumulate points. Hihi ... While pplz busy shooting with their guns, I got my camera ready for sure.

Look how fun issit shooting at the outerspace

Fantasy Land
Well, we contd our journey to Fantasy Land, but we skipped almost all attractions there since it's kinda childish. Yeah you know: Alice in wonderland, Dumbo, Small world, Winnie the Pooh, etc.

Fantasy land

Look how cool the word "Thx God" message formed in the blue sky

We decided to go into Mickey's PhilharMagic theatre to watch 3-D movie featuring Donald and Mickey.

Handsome looking guys with 3-D glasses wuaahaha

I loveeee this show a lot. Donald and mickey and their orchestra look alive. Amazing!! In fact, some of us went to this place twice later today.

Camera can't capture 3D animated images wuahaha ...

The funny thing was when looking at pplz grabbing the scattered "food", flying music notes or touching Donald 'cos the 3D effects made the objects appear closer to the audience eyes.

Liberty Square
Before having hotdog as lunch, we went to Haunted Mansion. Sound spooky hah?

The entrance of Haunted Mansion

Make a Dream Come True Parade
We spent our lunch along the road to Cinderella castle while waiting for all Disney characters to show up at "Make a Dream Come True" Parade.

Classic - Modern Mickey

Tigger, Alice, and Eeyore

Alladin and friends

Peter Pan, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast, The Mermaid

Donald and Chip&Dale

Cool picture taken at the end of the parade

to be contd ...

Florida Trip Day 1

2006-11-22T23:13:00.000+08:00

Today, again ... woke up pretty early in the morning as we are approaching our Florida trip. Yipee!! This trip, I will be travelling with Sebastian, Erwin, Kok Song, Chin Yong, and Ching Yuh. We arrived at the airport around 5 after having some problem with Hertz rental car as we can't have our car park at there garage for 6 days. Well, problem solved after she called the manager.

The plane boarded on time at 6.30. While transiting at Detroit airport, I took some pictures of us, including Kok Song's new SLR-Like Camera. Good camera, although a little bit slower than mine. Hehe.

Detroit airport - 8 to 9 AM

After sleeping for several hours on the plane, we finally reached Orlando, Florida by noon. Hurray!! It looks like Singapore. The trees are always green. The weather are pretty hot (around 70F). Once we got our luggages, we went to the Alamo car rental and got our Grand Caravan plus GPS! A huge car which is good for us.

Ready to GO!! First destination -> LUNCH!! Yeah .. freakin hungry! Four dollars all you can eat pizza is not bad, Considering we are at Florida! After that, We were rushing to get our Orlando Go card and head to hotel for a while before going to Arabian Night show for dinner.

Go Orlando Card and Arabian Night show

Arabian Night
Arabian Night is a dinner show that bring fairtale to life on horseback. Today show is about a arabian princess waiting for the prince to come back on the christmas day. Yeah ... xmas yaah. Isn't it to early? The horses are very well groom, smart, and the show is amazing. 2 thumbs up for the show!

Arabian Night - the horses, princess, santa, cowboy, prince, etc

After the show ended, we went back to the hotel for a while. Realize it is too early to end the day, we went to the arcade center nearby. Some of us playing go kart, some playing the arcade machine, and erwin passed out because he drank too much at the dinner time. Poor Erwin huhu...

Anyway it is an enjoyable day. Orlando, love you!!

Incredible Hulk - Universal Studio [Left]
Journey back to Quality Suites Hotel [Right]

A day before Florida Trip

2006-11-21T21:00:00.000+08:00

Today, I woke up early for DRIVING test. After intensive maneuverability and driving practices, I make up my mind that I'm going to pass the test.

Chat log (PC -> me, OF -> officer)
OF: "I would ask you to sound the horn, followed by turning on your left and right signal"
PC: "Yes, maam. Tooot... [sound of horn], click ... click "
OF: "Good ... very good. Now go forward, steer to the left of the point marker."

(the track looks like ...)

PC: (well this should be easy ... I have practice this thousand times ^_^)
OF: "Now straighten your car and back through the box and come to a stop with your front bumper even with the two rear markers and parallel with the course."
PC: "OK... (getting nervous ... ooo no almost hit the box marker)"
PC: "Maam, can I repeat? (Heart beats a little bit faster)"
OF: "Hmm ok... "
PC: "Thanks..."

Well, I told it would be easy... Wuahaha, anyway I passed the first test. Now the second test i.e. Road test.

OF: "Good, now go to the road, turn left, right, ..."
PC: "Feeling cold, officer ... I could turn the AC off"
OF: "Nahh ... just drive"
...
OF: "Remember your speed..."
OF: "What is that? Watch out .. squirrel"
OF: "Ok... park in front of the license office and get your LICENSE"

Wuahhhhh ....... Jumping like crazy ... naah just kidding

Yup, it took about 10 mins to get my license. Pretty fast, almost no queue in the morning. Total deduction score: 8 from 1st test, 15 from 2nd test. Yeah, quite critical, 2 more points to fail. Huahaha... Thx officer.

Now I'm offically a driver. Yeah ... I feel good ...