Frivolity

Day 14: New York - Malaysia

2008-09-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

The most awaited day (or rather not?) has finally arrived in dull fashion. Our flight route back to Malaysia consists of transits at San Francisco, Tokyo (Narita), Singapore (Changi) and finally Malaysia (KLIA). By the time me and Dickson arrived at the JFK airport, it was already around 2am in the morning, and it was just unbearable that we immediately settled ourselves on our sweet spots for a good nap. Hours passed and soon I was awake, Dickson still sleeping, and Winson back from Boston, we woke Dickson up from his slumber before collecting our luggage from the storage facility. Before this, Winson also got a call from Damien that he was already waiting at our departure terminal (lol, we actually doubted whether he would have followed us back to Malaysia but guess we were wrong huh? ^^). And so we took the airport's shuttle service to our departure terminal but when we arrived, Damien could never be seen, and so we waited, waited, waited until it was 6am (an hour before our departure time) that we decided to check in and not wait for him. But as we were entering the check in queue, Damien appeared out of the blue to tell us that he had already checked in to his flight, which almost got me boiling (and I'm sure about the rest too). But nonetheless, we checked in to our flight and by the time we arrived at our departure terminal, it wasn't a long wait before we were able to board our plane.

Well, a 5 and a half hour flight ensued which I slept through almost the whole journey (till I didn't remember whether I had any beverages served by the airline or not). Nevertheless, time passed by pretty quickly when I was sleeping, and we arrived at the airport in San Francisco for a reboarding onto a bigger plane. It was just an hour between the time we touched down and reboarding again and by the time we found the terminal of our international departing flight, we were soon required to board the plane again.

The mother of all flights came, and again I slept for most parts of the flight besides during meal times and catching a movie (Narnia). 10 hours turned out not to be that long either and soon we were at the Narita airport. Besides spending much of my time surfing the net and getting myself a decent pair of headphones, there wasn't much else we could do till we board the next plane.

Another 6 hours which I spent doing the same thing (this time watching Kung Fu Panda) and we were at Changi. It was around 11pm that we arrived at Changi and immediately went looking for food after a short rest (it has been close to 7 hours since the last time we had food), and guess what we had? Wantan Mee!!! After our stomach filler, we found a spot where we could settle down and utilise the airport's free WIFI connection. Time passed by pretty quickly while we were busy on our computers and it wasn't long till we had to board the very last flight of our journey back to Malaysia.

A 45 minute flight took place and we were on Malaysian grounds again, the moment we step foot onto the airport grounds, you just can't imagine the feeling we had after an EVENTFUL SUMMER in the US.....

(a summary of this W&T trip to the US may or may not come, depending on whether I feel like writing it or not :))

Day 13: New York

2008-09-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

After close to 3 and a half months in the US, today would be the very last day of our summer adventure (not including the flight day tomorrow). As for today, it will only be between me and Dickson as Winson had planned to take a drive down to Boston. And like what we did in Miami, we wanted to save on the last night of our accommodation and spend our night at the airport. Our day started ealier than usual, it was only 8.30am when we were done with our checkouts (of course with the free breakfast in our stomachs too :)) and we utilised the free shuttle provided by the hotel to the airport. Our plan was to leave our luggage at the airport's luggage storing facility which would make sense since it's not possible to move around with our bulky luggage. After we were done with our luggage, we took the airport's shuttle service to the nearest subway station (Howard Beach Station).

The Howard Beach Station

From the subway station, we took a subway to Downtown Manhattan. Our first stop was at an electronic superstore which the Malaysian at the gift shop recommended (it was raining and we had n choice but to spend our time indoors). There were plenty of good deals there, including the camera pouch I got from Washington which were cheaper and lots more, I almost even got myself an iPod Touch (which was only USD 250, way cheaper then those sold at the Apple Store) but after much consideration, I didn't. After our window shopping session, we decided to have our lunch and once we were done, we settled our matters with the bank (closing our account and withdrawing our money) before proceeded to a subway station and took a subway to the station which was closest to the UN headquarters.

The UN Headquarters building

Flags of participating countries

What we were about to see in the UN building were all work/art related to peace. Below are a few pictures of the work/art.

A sculpture of a gun being tied up which resembles peace

Art done by children from around the world regarding peace

Potraits of all the previous and current Secretary Generals of UN

Next, we decided to cover the other half of the Central Park in Downtown and that's when the subway came to use again. Due to the rain earlier in the morning, the weather was pretty good with moderate amount of sun and cool breezes which was prefect for what we had in mind. Below are more pictures of the park.

A sculpture which looks very similar to the Washington Monument but way smaller

A sense of serenity

The main water reservoir of the park

The beauty of nature

A flower up close

A tree experiencing early fall

After the park, all we could do while waiting for nightfall (we wanted to visit the Brooklyn Bridge at night) was loitering around the city entering shops and malls randomly without a real sense of direction :p. I even managed to buy a pair of new shoes since the one I'm having now had gave way (it was a good deal anyways since it was so hard to find cheap things in NYC). It was already 8+ in the night when I'm done with my shoes, without wasting much time, we took a subway and headed towards the Brooklyn Bridge. While we were on the bridge (busy taking pictures), we met an Irish lady (in her 20's) by the name of Claire which at first came up to us to assist her in taking pictures. We then had a chat and since she and us shared the same objective, we then crossed the bridge stopping by along the way for more photos.

The Brooklyn Bridge at night

Me & Dickson by the Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan from the bridge

A part of Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn Bridge

By the end of the bridge, we got to learned that Claire had been traveling the whole of America which includes the southern parts alone for the past 2 months. Sometimes it just makes me wonder what's the point of living life if we work and work without seeing the world. We got to the nearest subway station at the Brooklyn end of the bridge to get back to Manhattan and that's when we decided that we should have dinner together with Ms. Claire. Back at Downtown Manhattan (42nd street) we hopped from restaurants to restaurants to find the best deal and we finally settled down in one which was called the Applebee's Grill and Bar just along Times Square.

Applebee's

After a fine meal (I had a steak with 2 sides), which we shared much about our culture during the meal and learned much about each other, we decided that it was appropriate that we should call it a day since it was already close to 1am in the morning.

A picture of 3 of us right outside the restaurant

We then headed to the subway station which was common to Ms Claire's line to her lodging and our line to the airport and that was where we part ways. And as usual, it was a really long ride (maybe the longest of all) to the subway station which we then hopped onto the airport's shuttle service back to the terminal which we had our luggage stored. But we were so tired that we didn't bother to collect our luggage, but we found our spots for a short nap before our agonising flight back.

Day 12: New York

2008-09-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

2 more days including today and we would be saying goodbye to the US already. As for today, we didn't had any plans to go out early but nevertheless, when we were done with our free breakfast, it was only around 9.45am. And if any of you guys realise, today was suppose to be the finals of the US Open, and so Winson suggested that we pay the Flushing Meadows (where the finals will be held) a visit (but the match wouldn't start until it's evening). It took us a few subway transits and around 30 minutes (which we went around asking for directions again) to reach there (the Willet Point Shea Stadium station). The grand tennis court itself wasn't really far from the station (as it was already within sight while we were in the train on the way to the station) and we had a walk around the area of the grand tennis court.

The grand tennis court in Flushing Meadows

The welcoming arch of the US open

Me & an enormous globe in Flushing Meadows which I don't really know what it symbolises

The Shea Stadium while we were on our way back to the subway station

After the 'US Open' adventure, we then took a subway ride to the Grand Central Terminal of New York City (which is the main station of NYC's subway system). The station really lived up to it's name as it looked grand and pretty inside.

The main lobby of the Grand Central Terminal

We exited the station at 42nd street as soon as we were satisfied with our picture taking and started to roam the streets again. Of course, we came across a few famous land marks of New York and here are a pictures of them.

The Grand Central Terminal with the Chrysler Building at it's backdrop

The Chrysler Building

The Rockefeller Building (which we wanted to go up but we didn't because the entrance pass would have cost us USD 20)

St Patrick Cathedral (a better view compared to the last one)

The World of Disney in New York

Abercrombie and Fitch in New York (which has 4 floors if I'm not wrong)

Trump Tower (Donald Trump again)

The biggest Apple Store in the world (the store was located underground)

Columbus Circle (outside Central Park) with a few coaches around it

I have no idea what building was this but it looked fascinating to me

After much walking, we had a stop at Mc Donald's for our lunch (a very late one). And as soon as we were done eating, we then continued on our roaming again. The next place that we headed to was the 7th Avenue of 42nd Street area and this time, it was Times Square under bright daylight. Below are a few pictures of the Times Square area.

The Times Square tower itself

After hundreds of pictures of the Times Square area (nah, just joking, but we still had a lot of pictures), we then continued towards the Empire State Building. It was just unbelievable that we could see this very famous building with our own eyes, and again, we wanted to go up the Empire State Building, but again, the USD 19 price was a deterrent and we felt that it just wasn't worth it.

The Empire State Building

Next was the Flatiron Building which just down the street. Along the way, we spotted shops selling 'I Love NY' T-shirts at a even lower price then we bought yesterday in Chinatown. Our sense of curiosity led us to drop by one of the shops and guess what, the guy selling the shirt was a Malaysian from Melaka! Of course, we had a chat with him and also got some stuff before we headed to the Flatiron Building.

The Flatiron Building

After the Flatiron Building, at first, we wanted to head to the Central Park again but due to some complications at the subway (which we entered the wrong subway station and our tickets cannot be used so soon again), we decided to cover further parts of the downtown are by foot. Below are a few pictures of interest.

The Korea Street in New York

The Empire State Building lighted up

Madison Square Garden

It was around 7.30pm that we decided to call it a day and return to our hotel because we needed pack our luggage as we will be checking out early from our hotel tomorrow. It was again a long subway journey back, and on our walk back to our hotel, we decided to drop by KFC (which happens to be the first time since we were in the US) to have our dinner. And soon after we were done satisfying out stomachs, we headed back to our hotel and did what we were suppose to do...

Day 11: New York

2008-09-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

It was 6am in the morning and I was already up to my usual morning chores and by the time all of us were done with our breakfast and ready to roll, it was already 7am. Without wasting much time, we headed to the subway station and hopped onto a train, and after one transit and a journey of around an hour, we were finally at the Whitehall Station (which was nearby Battery Park). We knew that we were going to be late in collecting our Monument entrance pass and we were praying hard that there will still be tickets available for the day, and luckily our prayers were answered and we managed to get hold of 3 monument passes. So we boarded the ferry which will take us to Liberty Island but not after going through much stringent security checks.

The ferry that we boarded

It didn’t take a very long time for the ferry ride to and soon we were on Liberty Island with the majestic Statue of Liberty standing tall on the island.

A view of Manhattan from the ferry

The Statue of Liberty

Soon after the ferry docked, we were able to set foot on the famous Liberty Island for the first time in our lives.

The entrance of Liberty Island welcoming us

The very first thing on our mind was to head straight for the statue itself, but before entering the statue, we were put through another stringent security check. In the pedestial of the statue, we were brought through along a corridor where the history of the statue was told. We learned much about the statue and her beginnings and the most important was that we got to know the true name of the statue to be ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ instead of the ‘Statue of Liberty’ which was more commonly used. At the end of the corridor was the elevator or stairs up to the observation deck which was at the top of the pedestial of the statue instead of the torch (which has been closed to the public). The view at the top of the pedestial itself was really magnificent, where below are a few pictures of the surrounding sceneries.

Ellis Island and Manhattan as the backdrop

Liberty Island and note the shadow of the statue

After we were done with the top of the pedestial, we headed for the lower parts of the pedestial for more pictures.

The Statue of Liberty close up

Once we were satisfied, we boarded another ferry which took us to Ellis Island. Ellis Island has always been famous for once being the biggest Immigration centre of the United States which served nearly 12 million immigrants into the US (but is now no more in use).

The Immigration Building on Ellis Island

We took a free tour of the Immigration building itself and we were told of the initials of the Island and how the building served the US as the biggest center of immigration.

The Great Hall of the Immigration Building which was used to house immigrants trying to enter the US last time

After a knowledgeable visit to Ellis Island, we headed back to the mainland and it was already close to 2pm. Dickson suggested that we look for the biggest Nathan’s (hotdog shop) in New York and after questioning a park ranger, we got to know that the Nathan’s Hotdog was situated in Coney Island itself. After a long subway ride, we had finally arrived at the Coney Island, and guess what, the subway we took wasn’t a subway anymore as the train has been travelling above ground after exiting the Manhattan Island.

The ‘subway’ station above ground

The street right outside of the station

To our delight, the Nathan’s hotdog shop was just across the street outside the station but to our horror, the shop was really crowded as the line could be seen stretching out onto the roads.

The Original Nathan’s (first in the world)

The hotdogs must have been really good to attract a crowd like this and after a painstaking half an hour wait, we have finally got our hotdogs, and indeed, it didn’t disappointed us as the dogs tasted just fine. You can call us crazy or something but right after our meal, we headed back towards Manhattan (we came all the way to Coney Island just for the dogs). Our next stop would be the Central Park in Manhattan, and after another long subway ride, we had arrived at 59th street which was just along the Central Park.

The Waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge which we spotted while in the train

59th Street

The entrance of the Central Park (the Park in the middle of Manhattan City)

The park was just beautiful with all the towering trees and lush greens with the fresh and cooling air around the park. Below are pictures of the park.

Before we could cover the whole park, the sun was already going down and we had no choice but to leave the park as it was getting dark. And so we decided that Chinatown would be our next destination for our dinner and T-shirt buying. And guess what, earlier, we had just came across a restaurant in Chinatown serving Malaysian Cuisine in a tourist booklet and we were just so eager to try it out. After a 10 minute search of the restaurant since we arrived at Chinatown, we have finally found the restaurant.

Jaya Malaysian Restaurant :)

It really feels like back home when we saw the food on the menu and even better with most of the waiter and waitresses are Malaysians. And guess what we had for dinner? NASI LEMAK! It was a delicious plate of Nasi Lemak indeed but a very expensive one (USD 5.50) too compared to those sold by ‘Mak Cik’ in Malaysia.

The plate of Nasi Lemak which I had

After we were done with our dinner, we went hunting for our ‘I Love NY’ shirts, and we found a shop which has the best prices and we got a bunch of them as souvenirs. Our little shopping was the last for the day and we headed to the nearest subway back to our hotel. But guess what, while waiting at the subway station, we met a few Malaysians, but they are not just Malaysians, but students of Nottingham University of Malaysia (who are participating in the W&T program as well) What a small world indeed, after not seeing any Malaysians for the past 3 months and suddenly seeing so many of them in a day. We had a short chat while waiting for our train to arrive and it wasn’t too long before we are on our way back to our hotel already.

Day 10: New York

2008-09-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

Time passed by so quickly that I didn't realised it was already the 10th day of us traveling until when wrote the topic for this post. Anyways, the original plan was for us to wake up at 6.30am, but it didn't materialised because all of us were just too tired. By the time we woke up, it was already 9am and we hurriedly got ourselves dressed up and head to the hotel's lobby for the free continental breakfast (did I mentioned that our hotel comes with free breakfast too?) that was provided (which ends at 9.30am). The moment we were done with our breakfast, we headed back to our room to complete our half done morning chores. Without wasting much time, we were out on the streets and walking towards the nearest subway station again. Another long subway ride awaits us, and this time, it would be the longest yet because we are suppose to arrive at the very last station of our subway line. As usual, I slept through most of the ride.

After a close to 45 minute subway ride, we have finally arrived at the World Trade Center station (curios that it's still called the WTC station even though it's already not there) and the end of the subway track could be seen.

The end of the subway track

The moment we exited the subway station, the first thing we saw was the Ground Zero itself (the very place where the WTC once stood). Below are 2 pictures of Ground Zero.

It was saddening to know that thousands of people died on that very place itself, hopefully never such thing of that scale would ever happen again. That area of Manhattan was also known as the Financial District promptly because of the businesses and economics which are situated there.

The Dow Jones Building (also the World Financial Center)

One of the streets of the Financial District

Close to the place was also the Battery Park (which most of you guys wouldn't know), which is the place where you can take a ferry to Liberty Island (still don't know?) where the Statue of Liberty stands :).

Battery Park

We were so excited about going to Ellis Island that we immediately bought the ferry tickets but we didn't realised that we are not allowed to enter the statue itself because they had ran out of tickets for it for the day (the tickets are free but given on a first come first serve basis). When we were aware of that, we wanted a refund on our ferry tickets but the lady at the counter told us to come back at 8am the next day and we might be given the entrance pass.

Statue of Liberty from Battery Park (at least I got a picture of it :p)

And so, we didn't spared much thoughts to that after that and continued our walk to the famous Wall Street (don't tell me you had never heard of it!).

The Wall Street itself

Me touching the bull's balls at Wall Street :p

Another part of Wall Street

The New York Stock Exchange building (back)

The New York Stock Exchange bulding (front)

The Trump Building (remember You're Fired? :))

After our inspiring walk at the Wall Street, we took a subway to the Brooklyn Bridge area to have a look at the famous bridge with our own eyes.

The Brooklyn Bridge (car passage)

The Brooklyn Bridge (human passage :p)

A view of Brooklyn from the bridge

A view of Manhattan from the bridge

The walk across the bridge wasn't a very long one, but half way past the bridge, it started to drizzle and we were caught with our pants down. We hurried quickly to the Brooklyn end of the bridge and found our refuge under the bridge itself.

The Brooklyn end of the bridge :)

And the rain just got heavier and we had no choice but to run all the way to the nearest subway station and we boarded a subway. Our next stop was at 5th Avenue of Manhattan (the rain haven't even subsided a bit) and we had no choice but to wander the streets from shade to shade. At first we wanted to look for the biggest Apple Store but we didn't had a slightest idea of which part of the street it was, (in fact which we later got to know that we were walking towards the wrong direction of the street) we just gave up and stopped by at a Mc Donald's to have our Tea.

A picture of rainy New York

The St. Patrick Cathedral at 5th Avenue

After we were done, we headed to the nearest subway station and while at the entrance, we saw the map of Manhattan and got to know where was the Apple store, and naturally we wanted to take a subway back to 5th Avenue (we were already far away from 5th Avenue and it was raining outside). After we boarded a subway train, we were told that certain parts of the tracks were closed due to a malfunctioning subway carriage. We tried different ways of getting to 5th Avenue (by transferring from line to line) but in the end, we just gave up (because it seems that we just can't get to 5th Avenue by subway at that time) and exited the subway station at 50th Street. It was still raining heavily but right outside the subway station was a shopping mall, we didn't hesitated and entered the mall right away.

The Mall that we entered at 50th street

The inside of the mall

A picture of outside taken from the inside of the mall

After loitering at the mall for close to an hour, we were ready to move again. This time back, we wanted to try our luck at the subway station to see that if there's a way for us to get to 5th Avenue, and apparently, we were lucky and the subway services were back to normal again. And so, we headed back to 5th Avenue and we ran in the rain just to get to the Apple store (I thought that we were crazy). At the store, we tried out the iPhones (I just wish that I could lay my hands on one) and iPods (the usual stuff we always do when we visit an Apple store). After we were done fiddling with those gadgets which we can only dream off, we decided to call it a day, and so again, we ran in the rain to the subway station at 5th Avenue and took a subway ride all the way back to the Jamaica-Van Wyck Station.

A part of 5th Avenue during the night

On the way back to our Hotel (it was still raining and that's the sign of Hurricane Hanna heading towards us but might later weaken to a Tropical Storm by the time it reaches NY), we dropped by Wendy's to get some burger for my dinner. By the time we got back to our hotel, it was already 9.30pm and we washed ourselves up and prepare ourselves for another hectic tomorrow.

Day 9: Washington DC - New York

2008-09-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

After a memorable 3 days at Washington DC, the day for us to leave for New York City has finally arrived. I was up earlier than the rest in the morning as I headed to Mc Donald's again for my breakfast. Once I was done with that, I proceeded to a camera shop to obtain a pouch for my camera (which I was eyeing since the day before). It was already close to 9am when I returned to the apartment, and by that time, all of them were ready to leave and so am I (I did my packing before I went out). So it was how we're going to the airport as how we came into the city, by subway and then a shuttle bus to the airport. By the time we checked in to our flight, it was already 11.30am (our flight was at 12.25pm) and we didn't waited long at the departure terminal before we could enter our airplane.

Again, I spent most of the flight time catching some precious sleep but before I could get enough of them, we had already arrived at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

Again, we left our airplane by stairs.

The arrival hall of JFK airport

Now the moment of truth, we were not able to find and reserve a hotel for our trip to New York, and it was only at the airport that we started asking around and making calls to hotels. But luckily, the airport has a service where u get to contact all the hotels within it's vicnity for free. And so we utilised that service and started making calls to all the available hotels on the directory. After nearly an hour of hunt for a hotel, we finally found one which has a pretty good rate and was nearby a subway station (we needed the subway because a hotel in Manhattan will cost a bomb and the subway was a means of transport for us to move around). The Hotel that we had decided upon was Super 8 Motel located in the Queens region near the airport and we got to the hotel by the hotel's free shuttle service from the airport. But there was something that all of us were really upset about, Damien at the very last minute told us that he won't be joining us as Anna will be coming to New York too, so it was only the 3 of us left (I won't want to discuss more about this). And so we arrived at the hotel and took a room for 4, for 4 nights, which will cost us USD 139.99 + tax a night, pretty reasonable considering that we are in New York.

A picture of our room

As usual, we took some time off to settle down and wash ourselves up and it was around 5pm, that we decided to roam the streets of NYC. We took a short walk to the nearest subway station (which was the Jamaica Van-Wyck Subway station).

Our hotel from the outside

The streets in front of our hotel

The entrance of the Jamaica-Van Wyck Subway station

At the subway station, we got ourselves a Metro Pass which will last us a week of unlimited subway rides (which cost USD 25). So, our destination was to the all-famous Chinatown of NYC, and after asking for some directions, we boarded the train which will take us to Canal Street, which was near Chinatown. It was a long 30-45 minutes trip (wasn't really sure of the time) and I slept through almost half of it before we arrived at the Canal Street Station. The moment we stepped out of the station, we were awed by the sight of the city itself, the very city that you always get to see on TV. Below are a few pictures of the streets nearby the subway station that we arrived at.

After a short walk, we had reached the Chinatown of NYC, and we realised that, when most of the billboards started to have Chinese characters on them. And the feeling was as if we were back in Malaysia, where the streets are littered (haha), and people selling stuff by the roads, and of course the noise of the crowd. Below are a few pictures of Chinatown NYC.

Little Italy, which we had a short walk but came back out into Chinatown

Our stomach again started to call when we saw rows after rows of shops selling Chinese food, and finally, we decided on a shop which we couldn't resist as we spotted them selling 'char siu' (BBQed pork). And so, we all had 'chicken rice style (like in Malaysia)' for our dinner.

This is my plate of char siu and duck meat rice (MMMM, delicious, after 3 months)

Once we were done with our dinner, we continued our journey. At first, we had this crazy idea of walking all the way to 42nd Street but it wasn't long before our feet yield to the distance of the walk. And so we decided to take a subway ride instead to the 42nd street. Below are some pictures of New York which has started to get dark.

After a 15 minutes subway ride, we had finally arrived at the 42nd street Times Square station. The moment when we stepped out of the station, we were stunned (I ran out of words to use already :P) by the sheer beauty of the sights and sounds of the 'City that never sleeps' at the 'crossroad of the world'. The place was magnificently litted up with colourful billboards and lights, and was filled with people. Below are a few pictures that you guys will definitely enjoy :)

The exit of the Subway into 42nd street

Me & Hard Rock Cafe of NYC :)

Hersey's store of NYC

The famous Broadway musical theater.

After hours of walking and picture taking, we've finally decided to call it a day, and so it was a long ride back to our hotel but with the knowledge that we've achieved a milestone...

Day 8: Washington DC

2008-09-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

The day started off with us having breakfast at Mc Donald's again, and by the time we were done, it was already 9am and we walked to the place where we boarded our tour bus yesterday. While waiting for the tour bus to arrive, it happened that we spotted the house where Lincoln died which was opened to the public and of course, we entered the house and got some pictures.

The house where Abraham Lincoln died

The room of the house

After our visit to the house which was already half an hour past 9, we decided not to wait for the bus anymore and went on foot to the National Archives instead. It wasn't a long walk before we arrive at the Archives which hasn't open it's doors to visitors yet (the archives opens at 10am and we were like 5 minutes early). Once the doors were opened, we just can't contain our excitement to view the Important Documents of the US (sad to say but we had not even seen the Malaysian ones), we were being put through a security check and soon we were in the walkways of the vault. The vault contains 3 documents, which are the Declaration of Independence, Constitution of USA and the Bill of Rights (unfortunately, all documents were pretty faded and no flash photography is allowed in the vault).

The Vault

The Declaration of Independence

The Constitution of USA

The Bill of Rights

After being awed by the documents in the archive, next up was the US Holocaust Memorial. The memorial is dedicated to the Jews (most of them) which are killed by the Germans during the World War II (which was the Holocaust). We learned much about how much the Jews were being discriminated around the world and I just wonder what they did to deserve such punishments. The exhibit that we went through was indeed an eye opener, and has led us to not discriminate any races no matter what skin color or status they hold.

The US Holocaust Memorial

The remembrance room of the memorial

A picture that I took after our experience at the Memorial

After we were done with the memorial, we crossed the street and paid the Smithsonian castle a visit. There wasn't anything interesting in the castle besides that it was the place where the Smithson guy (which sponsors most of the Museums in Washington DC) was buried.

The Smithsonian Castle

Right outside the Smithsonian Castle were 2 museums, one which was the The National Museum of African Arts and the other is the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery which exhibits Asian arts.

The National Museum of African Arts

The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

We entered the African Arts Museum for a short while but it didn't really caught our attention and so and we went on to the next available museum (we skipped the Asian Arts Gallery too). We actually had the National Air and Space Museum in our minds at first, but while on the way there, we entered the Hirshhorn Musuem and Sculpture Garden but the museum of contemporary arts didn't interest us at all too.

The Hirshhorn Musuem and Sculpture Garden

We then proceeded to the National Air and Space Museums and that too was a dissapointment, because we expected to see some real models of aeroplanes, but what we got were just replicas. Nevertheless, it has many exhibits and we learned quite some stuff about telescopes, Universe etc..

The National Air and Space Museum

The exhibits in the Museums

An exhibition of an aeroplane's cockpit.

It was already 5 plus hours since we took our breakfast and so that meant that we need food and so we stopped by a stall for a munch (as for me, I had the leftover apple pies from the Mc Donald's we had in the morning). After our break, we continued onto the Washington Monument but this time to take the tour up the Monument itself. And for this time, we got our tickets and didn't waited long before our turn came.

Me & the Monument :)

The elevator up the Monument.

Once we were up at the observation deck of the monument, we started taking pictures of the city of Washington DC (for your information, the Monument is also the tallest building in Washington DC). Below are pictures taken from the Monument.

The East view (spotted the Capitol?)

The North view (spotted the White House?)

The White House close up

The West view (spotted the Lincoln's Memorial?)

The South view (spotted the Jefferson's Memorial?)

During the east view at the observation deck, we've learned of the location of the Library of Congress and that we chose as our next destination. It looked like as if it was close to the monument, but it was a very long walk before we arrived at the Library. But all I could say was it was worth every single feet of the walk, because we are talking about the largest library in the world here, and the decorations inside the library was just magnificent (anyone of you remembered the movie National Treasure? And yes, we are at the very Library which was also shown in the movie).

The majestic Library of Congress

A view from the stairs on our way up to the viewing deck

Another view from the stairs up

The all-famous reading area (which we are not allowed to enter but observe from the observation deck)

It was already close to 6pm when we were done with the Library and we decided to call it a day since all museums would have been closed at that time. And so, we took a long walk back to our hotel, and of course we took some pictures along the way.

This is one group picture that would really depict our Work and Travel USA experience :)

While we were nearing our hotel, we happened to pass by a street market and it's the first of it's kind that we've seen since we arrived in the US.

The street market in the heart of Washington DC

And as usual, once back in our hotel, we took our bath and headed out for dinner. For today's dinner, we had a Chinese meal in a Chinese restaurant (named Szechuan house) in Chinatown (sorry, no picture of the food I ate since i didn't have my camera with me at that time). Right after our dinner, me and Dickson headed back to our apartment while Damien and Winson decided to stop by the book shop to do some reading. So this sums up our 3rd day and also the last (before we leave for New York tommorow) in historical Washington.

Day 7: Washington DC

2008-09-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned earlier, today would be an explosive day, and so our day begun with me waking up at 9 in the morning and did my usual morning chores (apparently, I got stuck on the toilet bowl longer than usual, maybe it was due to the chilli that I the night before :p). But anyways, all of us were ready by 10am and we were on the streets looking for food. Since we were all on a tight budget, Mc Donald's was the cheapest we could find and so Mc D it was. The moment we were done with our br-unch, we immediately went in search for a tour that will bring us around the city, and looks like we were in luck as we spotted a touring bus after walking across a few blocks. After enquiring for the price (which was a reasonable USD25 for a day's tour with unlimited rides), we hopped onto the tour bus and our adventure begins.

The tour bus that we took

What we had in mind was to complete one round of the tour first before we go on another round and stop at points of interests. So below are some pictures that I took during the tour.

The International Trade Center

The Old Post office

The Capitol from afar

The Union Station (which is the biggest of it's kind in the world)

Inside of the Union Station

Another picture of the inside of the Union Station (inspire by Roman architecture)

The National Botanic Garden

The National Museum of American Indian (and it's the Red Indians, not those from India :p)

The National Museum of African Art

The Washington Monument

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the place where they mint monies)

The Jefferson Memorial

The majestic Washington monument with a magnificent view (the best picture that I've taken so far :) )

The Lincoln Memorial

The World War II Memorial

The frontview of The WHITE HOUSE!!!

The Archives of the United States of America (remember National Treasure?)

The National Potrait Gallery

The oldest hotel in Washington (which was as old as Washington DC itself)

After a round of breathtaking tour (which lasted an hour plus) of the city of Washington DC, we were just amazed at the awe-inspiring architecture of the buildings of the city and as well as being able to see things that we usually see them only on TV. After we took our chance to catch our breath for a moment or two, we were back on the bus (but rather going on a tour again, we used the tour bus as a means of transport) and our first stop would be the Capitol building. For those who doesn't know, the Capitol is where Congress sessions are held (something like a parliament). There happened to be a free tour provided by the Capitol administration themselves, and we didn't hesitated to sign up for the tour at all (free stuff up for grabs, anyone? :)).

The Capitol Building up close

The Washington Monument from the Capitol Building

The Hall of Justice in the Capitol

The ceiling of the very dome of the Capitol

After we were done with the Capitol, we waited for our tour bus to arrive at the place they dropped us and it wasn't long before the bus arrived. We hopped onto the bus and our next stop would be the Lincoln Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial building

A statue of Abraham Lincoln himself

Since the Washington Memorial was just within sight from the Lincoln Memorial, we decided to take a short walk there. Along the way, we stopped by the World War II Memorial and got ourselves some pictures.

The World War II Memorial

When we arrived at the Washington memorial, we wanted to take a tour of the monument itself, but we were a bit too late because they had ran out of tickets for the day (the tickets are free anyways), so what we could do was to fiddle with our cameras again.

The Washington Monument (isn't it magical?)

We then decided to continue the rest of our journey on foot and next up was the National Archives of the USA (where the declaration of independence is located). Again, we were just unlucky because the time when we were there, the building was already closed to the public. So again, all we could do was to satisfy ourselves with some pictures.

The National Archives

The grand entrance of the National Archives itself

After asking an officer at the National Archives, he told us that most of the museums would have been closed by that time (which was only 5.30pm), but he did told us try the National Museum of Natural History which was just across the street.

The Department of Justice which we passed by while walking towards the Museum of National History

The National Museum of Natural History itself

Well, the officer was right about it, but only for 15 minutes and we were again outside roaming (but there wasn't anything interesting in the museum anyways besides preserved animals).

The Smithsonian Castle (anything with Smithsonian is free, as in the museums :))

Since there wasn't anything much that we could do, Winson then suggested we take the bus tour again but on another line (the bus tour came with 2 lines which was red and blue, both which tour different parts of the city) and so we agreed and headed to the nearest stop of the other line. Along the way, we passed by a book shop and decided to have look inside. Soon, we got carried away reading magazines and books that we forgot about our tour totally (so guess we will just take the tour tomorrow since our tickets are valid until 11am the next day, 24 hours from the time of purchase). It was 7pm and we headed back to our apartment to take our bath before we come out for dinner again. While Winson and Dickson had their dinner at a Sandwich shop, me and Damien decided that we would budget our spending and had our dinner at Mc Donald's again (which cost me a mere USD 3.30 for 2 burgers and 2 apple pies). When we were done with dinner, we decided to spend some time at the book shop again and when the book shop closes, we decided to call it a day.

Day 6: Miami - Washington DC

2008-09-02T22:25:00.000-07:00

It was around 2.30am when we arrived at the airport, we unloaded our luggage from the car so that Dickson and Winson could return the car while me and Damien will look after our luggage in the airport (the car rental return place was outside the airport). Seriously, I haven't had any idea on how to spend my remaining 6 hours at the airport, which I drafted a blog post, slept and ate etc. But the 6 hours didn't turned out to be so long after all as we were soon entering the airplane already.

The departure hall of Miami International Airport

After a 2 hour plus ride (which I slept through the ride), we arrived safely at the Washington Dulles Airport, and it was the first time for me coming down from a plane using a stairs instead of the usual passage straight into the arrival terminal.

The plane which took us from Miami to Washington

The arrival terminal of Washington Dulles airport

Once we were done with our baggage claim, we immediately started finding a way to get to the hotel which we found out about online the day before. With the help of a friendly travelers' aid advisor, we were told that we could either catch a super shuttle (something like a taxi which will cost USD59) or take a bus, transfer onto a subway and take a walk which would take us to our destination. You could say that we were crazy in our attempt to save money, but we decided that we took the long and cheap way into the city of Washington (which would eventually cost us a total of USD 4.75 each). And we didn't regretted a bit, because it was a first for everyone of us seeing and taking a subway and what an experience it was!

Our bus ride from the airport to the Subway Station at Rosslyn

The escalator down into the subway platform

Me & my first subway platform :)

Inside the subway carriage

It was a less than a 10 minutes ride when we arrived at the Metro Center station in the heart of Washington DC.

The Metro Center Station

Again, just right outside of the subway station, we were caught asking directions again, and with the help of a City Service and Maintenance officer, we decided to stay in a different hotel which was just nearby the station (and wouldn't cost much more) instead of the one that we had planned earlier due to the hotel being situated quite a distance away from the station (we had our bulky luggage with us, remember?).
The name of the hotel was Harrington Hotel, and we took a room for 3 nights and immediately settled ourselves down.

A picture of our room (in case if you were wondering why is our room so small, we had 2 rooms which had an opening between them)

Hotel Harrington in Washington DC

Due to not getting enough sleep, all of us were knocked out the moment we settled down in our rooms. When we were awoken, it was already close to 7pm and after we were done bathing, we put our clothes on and ready to roam the streets again. Below are a few pictures of the streets of Washington DC.

Me & the Hard Rock Cafe in Washington

After a short walk, we were soon at the China Town of Washington, which we had earlier planned to have our dinner at. And so we came by a place which had quite a few restaurants serving Asian food. The one we eventually had our dinner at was called Chinatown Express, which we had fried noodles and pork dumplings (oh, words just can't explain how much I missed those food).

A bunch of restaurants serving Asian food

The seafood fried noodle which I had

After we had paid our bill for the food (which was USD 36 after tax and tip), we then continue our quest to roam the streets again. There were indeed many many sights of interest that we saw and below are pictures of them.

The China Town arch

The Smithsonian Museum

The House of Treasury (beside The White House)

The backside of The White House (we couldn't get a clear view of the front of The White House)

Me & the House of Directors

The famous Washington Monument

I still just couldn't believe myself that I had the chance to see all these structures (which we usually see them on TV only) with my bare eyes. It was pretty late already and we decided that we should continue our sightseeing the next day, so we headed back to our hotel to get some rest before another explosive day tomorrow. :)

Day 5: Miami

2008-09-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

It's on the 1st of September, and our 5th day since we've started traveling, although our flight to Washington is on the next day at 8.45am, but we had decided to check out of our hotel today (which will eventually come up to USD 228 or USD 57 per person) and spend our night at the airport to save money. Again, by the time when we were done with packing our stuff and checking out, it was already 12 noon, and our stomachs led us to a Subway to have a $5 footlong sub as our lunch. After our lunch, we took our car and drove to a tattoo shop (Love Hate Tattoos) made famous by the show 'Miami Ink' (which I never heard of, but Damien and Dickson kept making a big fuss out of it :))

A post office while on our way to the tattoo shop

The retail shop of the Love Hate Tattoo shop

The Love Hate Tattoo shop itself

After we were done with the tattoo shop, we then took a drive up to north beach of Miami beach. To our disappointment, the whole of North beach were private beaches (and also where all the high class hotels were situated) and couldn't find a way to enter the beaches

The place where all the mansions of the rich and famous are

The street along north beach

It was around 2.30pm when we headed down to the downtown of Miami again, which we were suppose to drop Damien by the Greyhound station so that he could meet up with Anna.

A picture of Downtown Miami (the streets were pretty empty because it was Labour day)

This is how a fire station in Downtown Miami looks like

We were having much troubles finding the Greyhound station in Miami and after asking for directions for a few times, Damien was told that Anne had arrived at the Greyhound station near Miami International Airport instead. After picking Anne up from the station, we headed back to the Bayfront Park which we decided to spend the rest of our day at. Once we were there, Damien and Anne had gone their separate ways while we went on our own. There weren't much that we could see at the park again and so we decided to walk the area around the park instead. Below are a few pictures which I took while we were roaming around area of Bayfront Park.

I'm standing on a railway track! while taking this picture :p

The Miami Herald press (the local newspaper)

After we've covered quite some distance, we've decided that we take a rest in the lobby of a Marriot hotel, and guess what, all of us fell asleep in the comfort of the chair. After an hour of sleep, we headed back towards the Bayfront Park to have our dinner.

A bayside view from the Marriot hotel

I have no idea what building was this but it looked pretty impressively lighted up

The American Airlines Arena (home of the Miami Heat basketball team) lighted up beautifully

When we were back at the Bayfront park, Dickson suggested that we have a meal at the Hooters Restaurant (it's a restaurant famous for their hot waitresses :p).

The Bayfront Park at night

I had a classic American Burger of beef patty, cheese, onion rings, bacons and BBQ sauce (so damn unhealthy but delicious :p), and also the 3 of us shared a plate of 20 chicken wings.

The Hooters Restaurant (see the waitresses :) )

The burger that I had (which was pretty gigantic in size and delicious too)

My meal plus my share of chicken wings cost me around USD 16 (was pretty worth it considering the erhmmm.. and the time we spent there using their free internet). The restaurant closes at 12 and that was the only reason that we had to leave the restaurant. Then, we waited for Damien at the hotel where he and Anne were at and after a short wait (which I spent my time using the internet again), the four of us then headed for the Miami International airport which we will spend our last night in Florida at.

Day 4: Miami

2008-09-01T21:46:00.000-07:00

The time was 10.30am when all of us were done with our morning chores, with our surf pants on, we headed straight for the beach for a morning wash. The moment we stepped onto the beach sands, there was no turning back, the sight of people dunking in the sea waters was just so tempting, that we immediately find ourselves a spot where we can leave our stuff and run straight into the water. Well, the beach was awesome and so as the waves (it's Miami after all), it was pretty windy and the waves were pretty strong. The feeling of being washed around by the waves was just plain great, something like a free spa treatment :).

After an hour of splashing fun, we left the beach and headed to the swimming pool of our hotel to wash off the sea water before we took our baths in our room. By the time everyone was done bathing, our stomachs were already calling, and naturally, we took our car out for a drive into the city in search for food. Along the way, I managed to grab some pictures from inside car. Below are a few interesting pictures which could depict the city of Miami.

In the end, all of us settled for Mc Donald's (something cheap after our fine meals in the last 2 days) and I got myself 2 cheeseburgers and 2 apple pies (which cost me a mere USD 3.25). Once we were done with our food in the car (to save on parking fees), we got moving again, this time in search of a place where we could spend our time at. After some sightseeing around the city, eventually, we decided to have a look at the Bayfront Park after we spotted a pretty big crowd around the area. We got a parking for our car and we headed straight for the park. There were many things in the park, like bazaars, shows, boat tours and stuff with a Latin centric theme. Below are a few pictures of the park.

A picture of the outside of the park taken from the inside of the park (don’t get confused :p)

The Bayside of the Park

Bayfront Park, sign on a truck (if you could see properly)

A monument of Christopher Columbus

Me & Hard Rock Café Miami

Another picture of the bayside, but at a different place instead

The terrace by the bayside where all the food shops are located

Bayside again at a different place

The bazaar

A picture taken at the entrance of the park but facing outwards from the entrance

Before we left the park, we had an early dinner in the food court of the park. After that, we headed back to our hotel with the thought of visiting the beach again, this time armed with our cameras.

A picture of South Beach, and guess what, we even saw a nude lady there O.o

I spotted this little art of a mermaid and just can’t resist taking a picture of it

It was quite some distance that we have covered until we decided to turn back, but before going back, Dickson and Damien had a shot at the water again while me and Winson decided to keep ourselves dry. It was already dark when we’ve reached our hotel, and everyone got themselves cleaned up and dressed up ready to club (we’ve always wanted to visit a club in Miami).

And so we headed out in search of a club that would admit patrons that are under the age of 21, but guess lady luck just wasn’t smiling at us on that day, and we have to settle for a bar along Ocean Drive instead. After a drink or two, we headed back to our hotel feeling disappointed, but glad because we could finally get some rest after all the activities that we had today.

Day 3: Key West - Miami

2008-08-31T23:18:00.000-07:00

It was already 9.30am when we were done with our breakfast, which was the Key Lime pie that we bought yesterday. Well, the pie was awesome in every way besides it being a little bit on the sour side.

The Key Lime pie

Once we were done with our breakfast, we took our car and went out for a drive, and what we had in mind was to pay the beaches and the lighthouse a visit. But too bad, both didn’t turned out as what we have expected to, because the beach wasn’t good at all (but maybe because of the tropical storm which washed all the debris ashore) and the lighthouse was still shut.

So we headed back to the hotel to pack our stuff and got ready to check out since it has to be done before 11. It was just right at 11am when we were done with checking out (the bill was at USD 155, reasonable considering the location of the hotel and the comfort of the room).

Southernmost Hotel, before we left :)

Before leaving the Key West, we dropped by a former US navy base and had some pictures taken which among them includes an old warship.

Me & the Warship

After the navy base, we then bid farewell to Key West and headed northwards towards Miami. Well honestly, the Key West was a very nice place with much historical and cultural element, but this trip of ours could have been better if not for the stubborn weather (the consolation would be that I can tell people that I’ve been to the Key West :) ). It was raining heavily when we left the Key West but it didn’t lasted long before it was drizzling lightly again.

Our journey from Key West to Miami

A 2 hour drive and we decided to stop by a beach in Islamorada to grab some fresh sea breeze (of course some pictures too). Below are some pictures of the beach at Islamorada.

After a half an hour break, we were soon on the road again. But it was not long before we made another stop, this time was to fill our hungry stomachs. This restaurant with the banner “The Most Famous Fish Sandwich” had gave us a reason to pay them a visit, but I didn’t ordered a fish sandwich, but a roasted beef club instead (because it was cheaper at USD 6.95 :p ). The food tasted good, and the portion was pretty big too, so I was pretty satisfied :) .

The Roasted Beef Club that I had for lunch

Once we were done with the food, we continued our journey towards Miami (without any more stops). After another roughly 2 hours of drive, we’ve finally arrived at the City of Miami, and the sight of the skyscrapers of the city was just captivating. This is the Miami that I’ve always imagined it to be and it didn’t disappoint me. Below are a few pictures of the city.

But this was the city and what we wanted in Miami were the beaches, and the right place to be was at Miami Beach (which was away from the mainland). Along the way, we spotted some big cruise ships at the port of Miami and it was indeed a sight to behold.

A picture of one of the cruise ship

The port of Miami

Yachts after yachts

What we needed next was a place to stay for all of our remaining nights at Miami, and so we went hunting for a motel with reasonable rates. Since it’s Labours’ day on the Monday, so there will be a long weekend and hotel rates had all rocketed and rooms sold out. After a pretty long hunt, we finally settled on a deluxe room in a motel (called Day’s Inn) which will cost us USD99 a night. The usual chore of unloading our luggages and settling down then ensued, and of course, we got ourselves washed up too.

Once we were done with everything, we got dressed up and were ready to roam the streets on foot again. Below are a few pictures of Miami Beach at night.

After a short walk at Ocean Drive (where most of the cafés and bars are), we decided to have our dinner at one of the café called Foxcafe. It was kind of a fine dining type and I got myself some pasta, which was called Penne Pesto (pasta cooked with shrimps, chickens and dried tomatoes in Pesto cream sauce which I seriously had no idea what it was). The food tasted great and it came in a pretty big portion, worth the USD 13.95 that I’ve paid for the food.

Penne Pesto

When we were done with our dinner, we wanted to visit a club at first, but we didn’t have any luck in finding one that suited us (or rather accept patrons that are under 21 years of age). So we walked around the area of Ocean Drive before we headed back to our motel to get our much deserved rest.

A picture of a portion of Ocean Drive.

Day 2: Key West

2008-08-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

After everyone's done with their morning chores and having the left over fried rice for our breakfast, we loaded our things into the car and were ready to leave for our journey again. It was already around 8am when we left the motel and at a slow cruise, we headed towards the Keys of Florida. On the way towards the Key West, the Florida Keys consists of 5 notable keys, which are the Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Big Pine Key and the Key West itself (arranged in order from the nearest to the furthest). Below are 2 pictures which I took while we were on our way to the Key West.

The 7 mile bridge (longest bridge on the journey to Key West)

The Atlantic Ocean on the right and the Gulf of Mexico on the left

After a drive of roughly close to 4 hours, we have finally arrived at the Key West. The sight of the island was captivating, really earning it's name as a paradise for tourist retreat. The very first thing that we had in mind was to head towards the southernmost point of the island (which is also the southernmost point of the USA). Below are a few pictures on the way towards the southernmost point and the point itself.

Boats, boats, boats

A street in Key West

A lighthouse

And a picture of me at the Southernmost point of the US :)

After some picture taking, we started our hunt for a lodging which would house us for the night. After enquiring a few hotels, we decided to settle down at the Southernmost Hotel (as the name suggests, it is near the Southernmost point). It turned out to be a very good choice indeed as the room looked good and was very comfortable.

A picture of our Hotel room

After unloading our luggages and a quick wash, we were ready to roam the streets again. The very first thing that we had in mind was to look for our lunch and so we got some recommendations from the hotel staff. We took our car and drove towards the place where the most famous fish sandwich was sold, but unfortunately due to our poor understanding of the streets of the island, we parked quite some way off from the place where the fish sandwich was sold. But nevertheless, we decided to go by foot so that we can take more pictures of the island. Below are more pictures of the streets of Key West.

Cheeseburger of the Key West? NO WAY!! :p

Can you spot the shack selling the fish sandwich? It was really well hidden :p

Inside the shack

The fish sandwich which cost me a whopping USD9+ (but it was delicious though:) )

After our satisfying munch, we then headed back towards our car (which our parking meter was expiring). It was also just happened that we parked our car nearby the place where they sell the all famous Key Lime Pie. And so we didn't hesitated and got ourselves a whole key lime pie (which was around USD 25).

The Key Lime Pie factory where we got our Key Lime Pie

After that, we took a drive back to our hotel in order for us to get some rest. And so a rest we had indeed as when we were about to roam the streets again (this time by foot along the famous Duval Street), the rain had just stopped (the weather had never been good due to the looming Hurricane Gustav). Duval Street because we were told that there is where the sunset festival will be held everyday and also because Duval Street has the most happening night life. Below are a few pictures of the Duval Street.

Hard Rock of Key West!

At the very end of Duval street, was the Malory Pier where people will normally gather to watch the sunset but we were just too unlucky on that day, the skies were filled with too much clouds in order for us to view the sunset (plus, it was drizzling at that time too).

Malory Pier (realised the clouds?)

The Memorial at Malory Pier

It was not long before our stomachs were calling again, we then headed towards the place where we were told to sell good seafood at reasonable prices (but we didn't had high hopes with the prices though). The restaurant was called Half Shell Raw Bar, and it was some 10 minutes walk off Duval Street.

Half Shell Raw Bar

Inside the Restaurant

The food I had for dinner (I wasn't sure what fish was the fillet was made of but I think I heard Dolphin :| )

The meal cost me around USD19 after tax and tip for our server, pretty reasonable considering that the food was delicious and filling with some good atmosphere in the restaurant. We then had plans to patron a bar but unfortunately, most of them (or all of them) requires patrons to be 21 years of age and above, and of course we were left disappointed.

The night life

Sloppy Joe's Bar (which was one of the bars which we intended to patronise)

After a short walk (to digest our food), we decided to call it a day and headed back to our hotel so that we can get ourselves cleaned up and have a good rest. It was a long walk back indeed but it didn't really mattered in the end because of the sights and sounds of the street and by the time we reached our hotel, it was already at the 11th hour :) .

The Begining Of Travelling And Unbearable Farewells

2008-08-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

The day is Wednesday on the 28th of August, it used to be one of the most awaited day for us but I doubt it is still as awaited as it was before. Just the night before, we had just bid farewell to our colleagues at BK and I admit that there were traces of tears in my eyes after that. Anyways, me and Winson were up early in the morning to collect the car that we have booked through the internet. And so there we are and we got the car that we had wanted (or maybe an even better one), which was a Hyundai Santa Fe (a full-size SUV where we can pack our luggages into).

Hyundai Santa Fe (a pretty fine SUV too)

And so we drove the SUV back to Walden Circle. After close to 2 hours of packing and clearing of our apartment, we were ready to leave the place which housed us for the pass 3 months. First, we met up with the Ukrainians and bid them a last farewell. Hugs, goodbyes, and pictures, everything we had, and I was reduced to tears (so as Damien). To the Ukrainians: You guys had been great friends and nice colleagues at work, it was really a fortune that we got to meet you guys, I'll miss every single one of you and hope to keep in touch. Then came the Taiwanese girls' turn, it was really a moment that I have been avoiding all these while but I guess it was really unavoidable after all. After a wonderful 2 months with them, I had really grew fond of them (especially Wendy) after all the times that we had spent together. And so it has come to the day where we have to part and move our separate ways again, after taking some pictures, I gave both the girls a hug and tears just started to flow uncontrollably out of my eyes (and so as Wendy's as I realised). To Wendy and Jessica: You guys had just been great, we had much memories together and I would never exchange them for anything else in the world, you guys will always have a place in my heart, I'll miss you guys so badly and also hope that we would cross paths again in the future.

A picture of me and the girls before we left

And so, we left Walden Circle with our heavy hearts and headed towards our work place to collect our cheques and bid farewell to the people there as well.

The last picture of Walden Circle

Burger King

Adeline (BK's manager) and our gift

Canoe Creek Travel Plaza

After packing some free food for the last time from both BK and Popeye's which we hope could last us for the day, we then headed towards south of Florida.

A rough map on the places we passed through on our way to Key West of Florida, which will be our final destination

There wasn't much along the way besides trees and buildings until we have arrived at Fort Lauderdale. We took the exit out of the Interstate and had a short drive in Fort Lauderdale, we even dropped by a beach and got some fuel for our car (which was really hungry on petrol). Below are 2 pictures of Fort Lauderdale

At a crossroad in Fort Lauderdale

A picture of the beach in Fort Lauderdale

Without wasting much time, we then continue our journey again. The next point of interest would be the city of Miami. Well, it was really a teaser for us as we would be heading back towards Miami once we were done with the Keys of Florida.

The skyscrapers of Miami

The plan was that we have a night's stay at Homestead of Florida before we continue our journey towards the Keys because we figured that we will not reach Key West late at night and pay for the expensive hotels there but instead push-off early the next morning and so we don't need to stay at the Keys for 2 nights. And so we got a motel (Country Hearth Inn) in Homestead which cost us USD50 for the night.

Country Hearth Inn

A picture of the room which we were to spend our night in

After settling down, we took a short ride out into the town to get some food, and so it was a Chinese restaurant that we stopped by and we got ourselves a big tray of take-away fried rice (which cost close to USD20), which we planned to have it during our breakfast the next day too.

A picture of the Chinese Restaurant

As we have to push-off early in the morning the next day, all of us were already asleep by 12.

Last Of Our Break Days

2008-08-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

The end of our working days are near, it was just the last working Sunday (24th of August) we will ever have and just another modest Wednesday to go before we are done. So it was on Sunday night after we were done working, the Ukrainians decided that they wanted to hold a belated celebration of their independence day and everyone of us were invited to their house. The celebration would then become one of the craziest night we have ever had in Walden Circle because after a meal with some vodka shots, we had a volleyball game and a football game afterwards in the middle of the night (or should I say morning?:) ) What made it even crazier was that after our football game, we then intruded the swimming pool (it was already closed) and had a dip. It was already 5am in the morning when we were done when the Ukrainians suggested the king of all foolish ideas, which was to see the sunrise at Walden Circle itself. Although it was foolish, we didn't hesitated (but only 2 Ukrainians joined us in the end) and we ended up staying up still 7.30am in the morning for the sunrise before we doze off in our respective beds.

A picture of us during the sunrise

On the next day itself, all of us got together for a fine dinner (sort of a farewell dinner too) at Hard Rock Cafe in Universal. This time, it was one big group of us (which even included the Taiwanese girls that joined us at SeaWorld) that made it a dinner of all dinners. It was close to a half an hour wait for a table but I guess it was worth every single second of waiting not only because of the food but also the feeling of getting together in one big group and have a meal.

A group picture of us which we took while we were waiting for a table

A picture of 4 of us (which we didn't had for quite some time already)

A picture of some of the food we had (steaks and cocktails:) )

A group picture of us while we were eating (since we had too many people, we were being divided into 2 tables)

On Tuesday, we didn't did much the whole day besides me getting a new camera (my old one got soaked and died on me) and Winson's friend paying a visit to our house for a chit chat. But I decided to cook up a good last dinner for the 5 of us (including the Wendy and Jessica) for one last time.

Food for thought (Marinated chickens, Sardine eggs, Cabbage with tomato sauce, and rice of course:) )

After our dinner, we then got together to prepare a gift for BK. We decided that we make a photo album with some pictures which we took and also throw some chocolates into a big nice box together with the album (hope the people at BK would like it). Well, it was suppose to be a gift from me, Damien, Dickson and Wendy but in the end, it was only me and Wendy doing all the work besides Dickson giving the idea of the gift itself.

Wendy with the photo album

A picture of the contents of the gift before we sealed the box

So it's a reality that we are about to leave everyone soon, time really had passed by so quickly and 3 months was like as if we had just arrived at Orlando a week ago. I really hope that I could bare the feeling on the day that we are suppose to part...

SeaWorld

2008-08-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

Another week of work has passed and the clock is still ticking, so as of the 18th of August, we are another week of work away before we are done. Time passed by really quickly indeed and it seems like it was just last week that we arrived at the US.

Guess that most probably most of you guys have heard of the looming tropical storm Fay that is going to hit Florida (forecasted to be on Tuesday), plus the fact that we might need to go to work on Tuesday if the need arises (due to evacuation and there might be heavy traffic along the turnpike). We have decided that we should pay another theme park a visit, and this time, it’s the SeaWorld theme park in Orlando. Again, we got our entrance tickets for free, thanks to the Taiwanese connection (I wonder where are all the Malaysians? lol). As for this time, we will have 2 more Taiwanese girls joining us (Mila and Maggie), besides the 3 of us (Damien again not included) and the 2 Taiwanese girls (Wendy and Jessica). And the usual routine, wake up early-prepare-get on a bus, so it happened that Mila and Maggie got onto the same bus as us, and that made things even easier. This time, we made sure that we wouldn’t let our ticket sponsor to wait for us, and we were by the entrance of the park 15 minutes before 9am, which was the agreed time.

A picture at the entrance of SeaWorld

It was not long before we got hold of our tickets and we were lining up behind a crowd of people.

The queue at the entrance

It was a good 10 minutes wait at the queue before we managed to enter the park due to the usual security check and stuff. This time, another girl by the name of Elaina (who works in a park linked and neighbouring of SeaWorld) joined us and she was acting as our tour guide. Below are pictures of the 5 foot ways of the park.

A short walk then brought us to a dolphin nursery

After a few pictures, we continued our exploration of the park with the help of our tour guide.

A picture of the waterfront lake of the park

The next point of interest was the Pacific Point Preserve, where there were lots of sea lions hanging around.

A picture of the Pacific Point Preserve

A mother Seal feeding it’s pup, a catching sight indeed.

Just to let you guys know, the SeaWorld theme park is more about performance and shows rather than rides. So it was decided that the Clyde & Seamore show held at the Sea Lion and Otter Stadium that will be our first show of the day. When we arrived at the stadium, we were greeted by a clown and the clown did something behind our backs that got the whole stadium laughing, but well, it was the clown’s job to provide the entertainment before the show starts anyway, as we did enjoyed what did the clown did to the rest of the entering crowd. The show started and lasted for a good 30 minutes, and the show indeed wasn’t disappointing, with funny acts from the seals and otters, it was pretty entertaining and got us going. A really really good first impression in my opinion.

The seal and it’s human companion performing one of their trick.

Our next pick has got to be one of the main attractions of the park, the show named Believe held at the Shamu Stadium. And if you're wondering, the star or rather stars of the show were killer whales (yes, you read it). The stadium was already packed with people even though we were there 30 minutes before the show started (at 11.30am) and we had to get a seat at the soak zone of the stadium (and they really meant soak zone as they got the killer whales to deliberately splash water at us using their tails). The show lasted half an hour and it was a show of 2 thumbs up quality with a heart warming theme.

A picture of the Shamu Stadium

A group picture of us which we took while we were waiting for the show to start (Dickson didn't appeared inside because he was the camera man) From bottom right: Wendy, Mila, Winson, Me, Maggie. From top right: Jessica, Elaina.

A trainer and his whale friend soaring high up in the air.

A Killer Whale in the air!

Next up, we paid the park’s sole roller coaster (named the Kraken) a visit, and it didn’t disappoint us as well (although it is still isn’t as good as the ones in Busch Gardens) as we went up the ride for a 2nd time after the get-wet attraction (Journey to Atlantis) which we had.

The Kraken from afar

After an hour plus having lunch at a café (where most of the time was spent at the line due to the tremendously long queue), the weather again wasn’t pleasant to us as it was raining outside, but we braved the wind and rain just to make it for the next show (Blue Horizon) held in the Whale & Dolphin Theatre. We weren’t rewarded as to what we have expected after all our efforts as while we arrived at the theatre, the doors were not opened to the crowd yet, we have no choice but to wait under a shade. Soon the rain subsided and it was not long before the theatre doors were open to the crowd. Well, the Blue Horizon show was a musical performance starring both dolphins and human performers. And again, it was just so amazing to see the dolphins performing their routines and what intelligent animals they are.

A view of the Whale & Dolphin Theatre

There was still some time before the next show Sea Lions Tonight starts, so paid the Penguin Encounter a visit (which reminds me very much of Happy Feet, especially the Latino penguins in the show which I got to know that they are called Rock Hopper penguins :p). After the encounter with the penguins, we proceeded to our next show again held at the Sea Lion & Otter Stadiums. And again, we were greeted by the clown of the stadium when we entered and which eventually the clown played a part in the show itself, because the show that we were about to watch was a comedy relief or parody of all the other performances/attractions in the park starring Clyde & Seamore the Seals and a clumsy walrus thrown into the mix as well.

Remember the show Believe starring the Killer whales? :p

A group picture of us with the SeaWorld signboard

Guess what, the park even serves free beer at the Hospitality Deli (SeaWorld, Busch Gardens and a few other parks were owned by the Anheuser Busch Company, which at the same time produces the Budweiser brand of beers). But well, since the legal drinking age in America is 21 years and above, me and Dickson “couldn’t” get a fair share of our beer (but I bet that you guys won’t be surprised if the girls sneaked “some” for us :) ). After our drinking antics, we headed to the Atlantis Bayside Stadium for a show (Bayside Ski Jam) of water skiing and stuff. In truth, the show wasn’t really that interesting compared to the rest, but still it was good nevertheless.

A view of the Atlantis Bayside Stadium

We then headed to Wild Arctic for a lame simulation of a helicopter flying to a “Base Station in the Arctic” and landed there which we then get to see some Polar Bears and Walruses up close. After our freezing cold “adventure at the Arctic”, we then rushed to the next show which begins at 8.15pm, this time, it was Shamu Rocks held at the Shamu Stadium, and judging by the name, you all would have already guessed that it was a show of Rock and Roll starring Killer whales.

Shamu Rocks!!!!

After yet another impressive head banging show by the Killer whales, we then headed towards the Waterfront of SeaWorld for the last show (Demystify) of the day of water fountain, lights, and fireworks. The dazzling sights and roaring sounds of the show were indeed impressive (sorry that I didn’t had any pictures of this show, only videos which are too large in size to be uploaded).

We then had a look around in a souvenirs shop while waiting for 3 of Wendy’s friends working in Tampa which we promised to house them in our apartments since they were paying Orlando a visit. Just to let you guys know if you guys were wondering, the 3 girls were the ones that suppose to provide us with the free tickets for Busch Gardens, and it’s timely that we return them a favour :).

A picture of me with Maggie and Mila before we part ways (since we have no idea when we will be seeing each other again)

A late bus ride and soon, we were back home (which was around 11.30pm). After a make-our-guest-feel-at-home session, soon, we were already all snoring away after a tired but satisfying day. Again, another heartfelt gratitude to our Taiwanese friends.

Busch Gardens

2008-08-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

Work, work, work and work, it's starting to get really really boring and it seems that all of us are counting down to the last day of our work, but for a good reason though, because I'm really sick of spending most of my time with buns, patties, lettuce.......

But after a makes-you-wanna-press-the-lifeline-button day of work on a busy Sunday, we were glad that our day off came again. On the first of our 2 break days, we had planned that we pay the SSN office another visit after last week's visit to change our mailing address, this time, it was for the same reason too, because we got the zip code wrong. This was our 4th visit to the office until that the attendant even recognised our faces and I can imagine him thinking "for what reasons are these guys here again". Anyways, we didn't got to change our address because our cards were already sent out and are being processed. Then, it was shopping and only shopping right after that. First, we were at Orlando's Premium Outlet till around 8, then we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe in Universal Orlando and got ourselves some Hard Rock memorabilia. It was already 11.30pm when we reached home and looking at the fact that we need to depart at 6.45am the next morning to Busch Gardens, I just hope that I get the sleep that I need so that the same thing that happened in Universal wouldn't happen again. A little bit on Busch Gardens: It is a African-ly themed park located in Tampa.

It felt like as if before I could get enough sleep, I could already hear my alarm calling at 5.45am and I reluctantly woke up to get ready for the most awaited day of the week. By 8am after a 35 minutes bus ride, we were already at the car rental outlet and were among their first customers of the day. And as usual, the paperwork and stuff set us back for another 20 minutes before we could get our car which was a Kia Spectra (an asian car finally :))

A picture of the car we rented.

After a journey which was roughly around 2 hours, we had finally arrived at our destination (which was around 10.30). But in truth, we were an hour late compared to the original plan that we had, and it matters because we managed to get 5 free tickets from a friend of Wendy and we were suppose to meet her (Wendy's pal) at the entrance of Busch Gardens about an hour ago. Well, I wouldn't want to continue on this :p, but in the end, we managed to get another 5 free tickets from Jessica's friend (by the name of Elaine) instead, and guess what, she even agreed to be our tour guide for the day until her work starts. Words can't explain how thankful we are, but it was just plain kindness and we were really grateful for all these favours.

A picture of the 5 foot way of the Busch Garden's entrance

Look at the queue at the entrance!

Once we were in at the entrance, all of us were so excited by the prospect of roller coaster rides for the rest of the day. And armed with the map that were given to us at the entrance and the advice of Elaine, we decided that the Montu roller coaster ride will be the first and warm-up ride for us. I'm really sorry for the lack of pictures, since we didn't had much time for them. In truth, the Montu ride was indeed a warm-up ride and we were just a tad dizzy after the ride, that's all :). And did i mentioned that Jessica has phobias for coaster rides? As after the Montu ride, she was already half dead..lol (ok, I was just joking). Since Jessica needed some time before the her next encounter with a coaster ride, we then opted for a musical theatrics by the name of Katonga which was about musical tales from the jungle.

On our way to the theater

Inside the theater

The performers

Well, honestly, musical theatrics was never my kind of 'thing' and it seems that it still stays the same as half way through the performance, I actually fell asleep :p (No disrespect for the performance though). But what I could say was it was a colourful performance with lots of pretty sights and sounds. Next up was the Gwazi coaster ride. What made this coaster so special is that it's wooden (a classic!) and is one of the main attraction of the theme park.

The Gwazi ride!

Look at the tracks, they are wooden!

The Gwazi attraction is made up of 2 coaster rides, one the Tiger and Lion the another. We took the Lion ride and in truth, I clearly underestimated the true colours of wooden coasters and I paid the price for it. Although there weren't any 360 turns or cockscrews, it was still a hell-of-a ride with it's speed and vibration of the coaster car, and that combination of both was enough for me (and maybe the rest too) to give the ride a 5-star rating! Well the weather wasn't really too good to us as it rained shortly before and after our Gwazi ride, but thankfully, both were just short downpours with no lightning. Below are more pictures of what's inside Busch Gardens.

A flop of pink Flamingos

A picture of the girls which I took while we were waiting for the rain to stop in a gift shop. From left: Jessica, Wendy and Elaine.

After the rain stopped, we immediately headed to the Shiekra ride, and it was around this time that Elaine had to go and prepare for her work. For your information, what made this Shiekra ride so special is that it has 2 very close to 90 degrees fall!

The Shiekra ride

One of the 2 close to 90 degrees fall

What could you expect of a coaster ride with 90 degrees falls? Adrenaline pumping action of course! During the falls, the feeling was just out of the world, and at both falls, we were suspended in mid air before we were released down both falls, what suspense!

Since Elaine had left, we were required to store our belongings and loose articles in lockers provided which weren't free! So for the following rides, I didn't had any pictures of them (apologies). Next we had was the Kumba coaster ride, which was pretty decent, since it was all about speed. Then, we had a pirate ship kind of ride, where they start swinging the ships till it goes 360, nothing special but still fun nevertheless. Again, we headed back to Gwazi and this time, we took the Tiger ride instead and Jessica came along with us this time around since she skipped the Lion one. Both rides were as crazy as each other with the only difference were the tracks each ride had. And it turn our that the Gwazi Tiger ride will be last of our dry attractions as the 2 following rides that we had next were water attractions (Tidal Wave and Congo River Rapids). After the rides, we were all soaking wet and I was shivering like nobody's business (fine fine, I'm afraid of cold :( ).

Well, as you might know, we’re not going to continue with our soaking clothes, so we got ourselves changed and were ready to roll again. Lol, but in truth, we were all exhausted already after 9 rides of action. So we decided that we should take a more relaxing ride instead and so it was the sky ride that we had next (remember Genting highlands? :) ). While waiting at the queue for the sky ride, we met 3 Korean girls which happened to be from Walden Circle too, and what coincidence it was. We struck up a chat and soon it was our turn to board the sky ride, the long queue of the sky ride seems not be so long after all. Below are a few pictures which were taken before and during the sky ride.

A group picture of us while waiting at the line for the sky ride.

A view from the sky ride

The Montu roller coaster

Shiekra and the Pirate ship (or whatever you want to call it)

Shiekra close up (look at the fall again :p )

A view of the animal park

The end of the sky ride brought us to the animal park of Busch Gardens. Well, there weren’t nothing much to talk about here, besides that there were elephants, tigers, fishes and bla bla bla (usual stuff that you get to see in a zoo). But here, there were a few pictures of interest :)

A hippo in water behind the glass

A Lion chilling under a tree (it really knows how to relax)

It was already around 7.30pm when we were done with the animal park, so it was time to say goodbye to Busch Garden as we headed for the exit. Along the way, we passed by the Marakesh street (does that remind you guys of Sunway Pyramid? ) which has rows of shops selling souveniers. But well, we weren’t in a mood for souvenirs as all of our stomachs were already calling for food.

A picture of the Marakesh street

A group picture of us at the Exit (or rather Entrance too)

Of course, we left the theme park with heavy hearts, because we just had so much fun and excitement there. Well, it was time for food and we drove along the street outside the park and in the end (after a few stops and discussions), we decided that we pay an American Pizza Hut a visit.

A picture of the Pizza Hut restaurant where we dined in

After a satisfying meal (we even had extras to be packed back for our breakfast the next morning), we then had GPS set to return to Walden Circle. It was really an exhausting day for everyone as not long we were on the road, most of them were already asleep. It was already half past eleven when we arrived at Walden Circle. We bid the girls good night as we dropped them at their place while we headed back ours.

What an experience we had at Busch Gardens, and the best part was, we got to enter the park with free tickets. It was indeed just great to have the Chinese connection :). Again great thanks to the girls and their friends for all the troubles they had.

20 Years Ago On The Day I Was Borned

2008-08-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

It was 08/08/08 on Friday and yes it was my birthday :) The day before, which was during Thursday night, we (me, Dickson and Winson) had a little celebration among ourselves after the clock ticked past 12. It was just a small but meaningful celebration with some chickens and a bottle of beer (which Winson bought, thanks :)).

Here's the meal which were bound to go into our stomachs.

On Friday itself, I had many birthday wishes from friends and colleagues alike, through all means. In fact, i already had some from Malaysia since Thursday (thanks to my family and those who had wished me, I really appreciate it) :) But the surprise of the day was i received a little birthday card from Wendy (for those who doesn't know, Wendy is our beloved colleague from Taiwan). What was written in the card will only be between me and Wendy, but what i could say was, what she had written was very meaningful and i'm starting to wonder how it's gonna be like when we were to part in about 20 day's time. To Wendy if you were to read this post: "You're really a thoughtful and sweet girl, I can't and don't want to imagine the moment when we're about to part, but knowing you was indeed a blessing and worth this very trip alone.. :) and thanks again for that birthday card". By the way, after work during Friday night, we had a little party with some chickens and beer again, this time, the Taiwanese girls were invited and so as Damien and his girlfriend. Well, at least it felt like a little party.. :p

A picture of the little party

By the way, this 20th birthday of mine was indeed a very special one, for the fact that it was celebrated away from Malaysia with people from different country. I would like to thank everyone for their wishes and you guys are just great :)

Road Trip (Daytona-Cape Caneveral)

2008-07-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Another week of grueling work has ended and it was our break day again (Monday - 28th July). It was just a day before where we were working like cows (it was a Sunday and crazily busy), and I thought that we deserved a timely ‘vacation’. It was so that we had already planned a trip up to Daytona 2-3 days ago and booked a car online. On the very awaited day, me and Winson were up early in the morning (this time, Dickson and Damien will not be joining us, because Dickson can’t afford to spend and Damien, erhmmm :)), we were already knocking on the Taiwanese girls apartment door by 8.50am in order for us to catch the 9am bus to Downtown. An hour of bus ride and we were already at Downtown, and so the plan was that we headed to the Bank of America in Downtown where the girls can collect their ATM cards while we deposit our cheques. Once we were done, we headed to towards International Drive where we will collect our car at 3pm, but it was only around 11am when we arrived, so after a short walk, we decided that we catch a movie in order to kill time. So it was Hellboy 2 (It was Dark Knight at first, but due to the timing of the movie, too bad..), the ticket was a miserly USD7.50 (very expensive compared to what we get to pay in Malaysia) but guess what, there were only 5 audiences (4 of us and another stranger) in the whole theatre, and it was free seating, plus no one came to check on us, so we thought that we could just get a ticket and stay in the cinema the whole day watching any show we can, but it was just too bad that we had an appointment to pick up our car at 3pm.

After the movie (which was so-so), we left the cinema with and unsatisfied feeling, because we felt that the money we paid for the ticket was unjustified for. It was already looking as if it would rain heavily when we left the cinema and we hurried to the car rental outlet which was a 15 minute walk away from the cinema. After some short paper work and dealings, we finally got our car and it was a Pontiac Vibe (intermediated SUV) instead of a Mustang which we rented online. The reason was because the Mustang is a special car and the driver has to be of age of 25 and above in order to rent. Nevertheless, we took the Vibe and it was really comfortable and spacious (and about the petrol consumption which I will talk about later).

A picture of the car we rented

Off we go and with a GPS guiding us, we headed towards Daytona, and the very first destination was the all famous Daytona International Speedway. An hour of driving and we were already there but the bad thing was the it looked like as a heavy downpour is about to take place. Below are some pictures of the jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring Speedway.

The journey to Daytona...

The Speedway’s signboard (and the dark grey sky)

Me & DAYTONA!

Look at the magnificent audiences' seatings of the speedway!

Me & a race car :)

Some thunders was the very reason that prevented us from continuing our tour of the speedway and so we left before it started raining because we wouldn’t want to get stuck in the speedway just because of the rain. It was not long we were in the car before a downpour started, but we still had our GPS to navigate us to the Daytona Beach Shores. After a short 20 minute drive, we had arrived at the beach shore (the downpour had just stopped) and we decided to stop by and had a look at the beach. The beach was great but I was a little disappointed by the lack of people by the beach (because it has just rained).

A view of the street

A short while of admiring of the beach, we then chose to have our dinner at a Subway outlet nearby (some Subs anyone? :P). After our dinner, we then went on to look for a motel for our night stay (after the last experience in Tampa, we really didn’t wanted to go through that again :p). So after scouting a few motels, we decided on the Oceanside Inn for a USD78 night stay with breakfast. We unpacked our stuff from our car into our room and soon, we were walking by the beach. It was already dark when we were walking with some great lightings by the beaches (unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of them due to the inability of my camera to take a good night picture without a tripod). But it was no kidding distance that we covered by the beach (a whole 45 minutes of walk) and we arrived by the Main Street (a street where all the night activities are). There were buskers performing (which reminded me of myself volunteering for the Kuala Lumpur International Buskers’ Festival during December 2006) and lots of bars and pubs around not to mentioned lights and sounds (and again sorry for the lack of pictures).

A picture of Main Street

After a short walk around the street visiting gift shops, we dropped by a 7-11 outlet and got ourselves 4 cans of 16 oz beer and some chips where we can enjoy once we are back at the motel. It was a long walk back (felt like never ending) before we reached our motel. All of us got our bath and we had a few round of games of poker cards with the beer and chips we bought. It was only a can and the girls were already high, lol, while me and Winson were still downright sober. It was 2am when we were all snoring away on our beds.

Before we (I believe all of us) could get enough rest, we were all awake by 5.30am, because we had planned to catch the sunrise by the beach. By 6am, we were all ready and we headed to the beach. And it was all worth every single bit-of-lack-of-sleep because the view of the sunrise was just captivating and awesome. Here are a few pictures of the sunrise.

The sun wasn’t up yet when I took this picture

A picture of the coastline

A picture of the motel where we had our stay in

The sunlight breaking the horizon

And the sun rises!

After a good session of picture taking, we headed back to our room and left all our stuff in there, then we headed to the beach again, this time, we had a splashing good time by the beach (what a feeling it was because I didn’t really got into the water at Tampa due to my poor dressing) and not to mention that I volunteered to be buried in the sand by the rest (it felt like a spa treatment :) ). It was indeed one of the most enjoyable moment in Florida I’d ever had since I came to the US. After that, we then went back to our room to have our bath before we go for our free breakfast provided by the motel.

A picture from our room window

After a satisfying continental buffet style breakfast, we then packed our stuff and were ready to leave. It was already 10.30am when we left checked out and left the motel. Next on our list was the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral.

Our journey towards Cape Canaveral from Daytona...

Another hour of drive and soon we were at the parking lots of the space centre. I can say that I was so eager to have a look at the real life space shuttles that I’ve always seen in pictures and it was like a dream came true when I laid my eyes on them. We even got the chance to go through a simulation of shuttle launch. After paying some USD38 per person for the entrance fees, we were thoroughly scanned through before we were allowed to enter the visitors’ centre. Below are a few meaningful pictures taken at the visitors’ center.

The entrance of the visitors’ center

The real-life space shuttle on show (amazing indeed!)

A picture of rocket gardens (where all the previous rockets which were sent to space on display)

A group picture of us with a NASA signage behind us

It was time that prevented us from going on a bus tour which will take us around the whole space port (launch pad, training centre and so on) because we had to return the car we rented by 3.30pm before we were being charged for another extra day’s fee. It was really a waste of the money we paid for the ticket and I would admit this was due to some poor-planning on our part, but nevertheless, the pictures we took and the sights we had partly overcame the bad feeling. We headed back towards International drive to the place we where we collected our car, and we got caught in some bad traffic jams on the way due to some accidents. For that moment, we thought that we wouldn’t be able to make it but luckily, time and luck was on our side and after we refilled the car till full (which was just 5+ gallons for the 200+ miles we travelled, way better and in fact very excellent petrol consumption compared to the car we last rented). When we returned our car, we were at first given a bill of USD188 but after some checks and calls, our bill was corrected to USD112, which was the agreed contract price at first (thankfully).
The girls then decided they want to drop by Prime Outlet for some shopping and so after spending 2 hours there, we all headed home by foot (to save some cash) and it was a good 30 minutes walk when we finally arrived at our beloved Walden Circle. All-in-all, it was really an thrilling eye-opening trip indeed and worth every single dollar of the roughly USD100 that each of us spent for the whole trip, because this might be the only chance we will have in our foreseeable future. I was about to say ‘Life well spent’ again but guess I wouldn’t this time. :p

Road Trip (Tampa)

2008-07-19T06:42:00.000-07:00

It was the 14th of July (Monday) and after another grueling week of work, our day-off came again, but this time, we had a very different plan. Instead of planning to what we're suppose to do for the day, we decided that we take a bus ride down to Downtown Orlando and check out about renting a car. It was 3 of us again (excluding Damien) plus the Taiwanese girls, which were suppose to come along, but somehow due to some misunderstanding between them and us, so it was only 3 of us (Me, Dickson and Winson) who ended up on the bus. After an hour of tiresome ride, we reached the station at Downtown, and without wasting much time, we got out searching for the car-renting concept and it was within 5 minutes that we spotted the concept. As I did mentioned earlier that Winson was trying to apply for an international driver's license but gave up on that because the driving school he contacted said that can only be done in your home country, we were all praying so hard that we could rent a car with just only our Malaysian driver's license. Indeed, our prayers were answered and the attendant at the concept allowed us to rent a car. After a short discussion between the 3 of us, we made up our mind and rented a Chevrolet Cobalt which cost a meager amount of USD42.99 (but with all the other extra charges, which I'll explain later). And if you were wondering how are we gonna get around on the road, we also rented a GPS unit. We headed back towards Walden Circle with an air of excitement around us and hoping that the girls would change their mind and come along.

A picture of the car we rented.

The girls were still sleeping when we woke them up from their slumber and true enough, they agreed to come along and after a short wait, we started our historic journey towards Tampa and below is roughly a map on where Tampa is.

After a painstaking 2 hour ride (the Cobalt was a 2 door compact car and we had 5 person in it, so imagine), we arrived at Tampa at last and the very first place we made a stop since we started traveling was the Treasure Island.

A picture of a street of Tampa.

After our lunch at McD's we headed to a nearby beach, what a feeling it was! It's the first time I lay my foot on a beach since the last time i was on a beach was around this time last year when i was on a trip with my college mates in the Tioman Islands. But how regretful i was for not putting on a proper attire (i was in jeans and shoes! We didn't even knew we were going to Tampa at first), but we still had a short walk along the beach and time for some pictures.

Treasure Island beach

Me & the beach

Me, Wendy and Jessica

After spending roughly an hour at the beach, we decided to move on and next on our list was the Clearwater Beach. And look, it's the first time I've seen a draw-up bridge and here's a picture of it.

A random picture along the way to Clearwater Beach

After a short drive, we arrived at the Clearwater Beach, we were jaw-dropped at the sight of the beach and this was the kind of beach we used to see on TV, and compared to the previous one, the beach at Treasure Island was nothing compared to this one.

A picture of the beach

A picture along Clearwater Beach, what a magnificent view!

After another hour at Clearwater Beach, we then took a pointless trip to the Busch Gardens (a themed park) and had a short walk around outside of the park. We were so envious of sight of people shouting at every turn of the coaster but we could only just look (the tickets were expensive and it was already close to 7, no point for us buying one anyways).

Next, we headed towards the cow-boy like town of Ybor (no idea how to pronounce that). Again, we were captivated by the sight of the streets of the town and it was like we were in a town in the 1970's. Here are a few pictures of the town.

Me and a theater as the backdrop

Soon, we continued our journey again and we this time, we decided to have our dinner at Taco Bell since the girls had not been to one before. Some chats and talks at the restaurant and we left as soon as the restaurant closes (which was around 10.30pm). We looked for a gas station nearby for a refill and it was a good USD40 we put into the tank. All of us then agreed that we should spend our night by the Clearwater beach again, and so there we went. This time, i didn't even thought twice and i took off my shoes to had a feel of the sand by the beach (what a feeling it was! :)) Walking, sitting and drinking by the beach with the wind blowing at our faces, all we had done.

A picture of our faces 'drunk' of root beer :p

We spent the rest of our night at a gondola nearby the beach, we had some chit-chat and really addictive games which really worked in passing our time. And soon, it was already 5am in the morning, we were ready to move again and this time back to downtown to return the car (we had to do so by 10.30am or we will be renting the car for a 2nd day). If you could see our faces (unfortunately i don't have a picture of it), we all looked like you know, people-who-had-not-slept-for-the-whole-night faces. It was a short drive and before we could get any further, we decided to stop by a parking lot and all of us had a short nap in the car (which i clearly didn't due to the super uncomfortable back seats of the car and to make matter worst, was shared by 3 person). The short nap passed and we continue our journey back home and it was another painstaking 2 hours (it felt like forever for me), we arrived at downtown at last. We refilled the car again before returning the car (it's the rental policy to return the car at full tank). All the under-aged charges, insurances and taxes brought the rental of the car to USD36 for each of us, which was around USD180 in total, but i would say it was worth every single penny of it and what a waste for Damien to be not with us.

After accompanying the girls to the bank in order for them to open a bank account, we headed back home to Walden Circle by bus at last and the first thing in my mind was my bed, and I had the slumber of my life :)
Again, what a trip it was!!! (and the only missing thing was my family, otherwise, it would have been close to perfection)

Random Outing

2008-07-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

The date was 7th of July on a Monday, after another 5 days of work, we finally had our days off again. These time, we had a few things in mind. We decided that we would at first accompany our Taiwanese colleagues in applying their Social Security number then head to a driving school by West Colonial drive in order for Winson to apply for an international driving license. As usual, we got up from bed as early as our body could, since we were both mentally and physically tired after a week's work.

Anyways, Damien for the first time decided that he wouldn't wanna come along, because he said he was tired (although we doubted that:p) and the following sequence of events would later lead to him coupling up with one of the Ukrainian girls by the name of Anne (and I'm not joking :p ). Back to our part, we took a bus at first, to Downtown Orlando, there the guys decided that we bring the Taiwanese girls to Gino's Pizza (where we had the super sized pizza in Downtown Orlando). And we had a new girl by the name of Xiao Yu (the Taiwanese's room mate) joining us because she wanted to had her Social Security application done too. Xiao Yu was also here on a work and travel program but unfortunately, she didn't passed her test in her work place and was later sent to New York for another job (poor girl). I guess how lucky we were to actually secure a job with everything gone smoothly. Here's a picture of us having pizzas at Gino's.

Then after a short walk around Downtown Orlando, we headed back to the central bus station and hopped onto a bus which will bring us to the Social Security office. And after roughly and hour and a half at the SS office, we hopped onto another bus and headed towards West Colonial drive where eventually we didn't achieved anything since there wasn't any driving school nearby there, but it still wasn't a waste since we got to see new places :).

Since it was still early when we were done with what we have set out to do for the day, of all things, we decided to visit Universal for the 3rd time, this time to see the night life there, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions of the day. Here are all the sights (but not sound) of the night life in Universal Orlando.

A group picture of us (Wendy as the camera girl)

The Universal Merchandise Store in the night (I had posted one in a day in my earlier post)

Me and Hard Rock Cafe in the night.

And it was really our day indeed as we were treated to a live sound stage too, where we had some head banging moments :)

This time, a real group picture of all of us who were present (realised that Damien was missing? I'll get to that later:p)

Finally, we gave in to our stomachs as all of us haven't had our dinner, we left Universal with our heavy hearts and hoping that this will definitely be not the last time we visit Universal again :) When we arrived back home, we found that Damien wasn't at home too and our guess was true as he had spent the day with the Ukrainians, but to more of our surprise, started a relationship with Anne O.o...

So a new chapter begins... :p

Downtown Disney

2008-07-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

It was 1st of July (Tuesday) and the 1st time we had made up a plan with the Taiwanese and through that, we decided that we would pay Disney Downtown a visit and see for our own eyes how magical it was :). And so here we are, we woke up early in the morning at 8 to catch the 9am bus. Unfortunately to say, due to poor planning on our part, we detoured the whole of Orlando before we reached our destination as we didn't planned our bus route properly, we ended up spending and hour plus on the bus before we could lay our foot on the floor tiles of Disney. But what's done is done and here are some pictures of Downtown Disney itself.

Disney, Disney and Disney

Five-foot ways of Donwtown Disney

I still remember how i was a fan of Lego while i was young and i would say it was a dream came true that i got to visit one of my childhood dream places. (but i will say that i'm no more such big a fan of it anymore :p)

A smiling Lego dragon :p

After having our lunch (of all places, we chose Mc Donald's, since we didn't had any other choices), we decided to continue our walk. And you had guessed it right, we visited the Disney merchandise shop and it's decorations inside was really really magical :)

Spotted Goofy?

A picture of the entrance before we left Downtown Disney.

Immediately after that, we brought the Taiwanese to Prime Outlet (the place where they sell cheap branded stuff that i was talking about in my earlier posts, to show them around what girls does best :p ) Well, it was only their 1st time shopping and they already got themselves (Wendy & Jessica) a pair of slippers, which roughly took them about an hour to make up their mind before they are willing to part with their money (which was understandable:p ). As for me, I can proudly say that I've not got myself a single stuff (while the rest had already started spending) and the reason was I'm holding back myself until we are done with our work and I'll shell out everything in a single shot :p (I'm eagerly waiting for that day).

Anyways, after an oriental meal at the eatery in prime outlet, we decided that we call it a day and headed back home to our respective apartments.

New Arrivals

2008-07-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay of posts, i was just about to give up on updating this blog (well, due to poor internet connection and my laziness :p), but due to persuasions and inspirations from the people around me, i've decided to continue on this blog till my American journey ends, so this could serve as my travel journal in the future (and maybe save my mouth from telling everybody my story over and over again :p)

By the way, what a pleasant surprise we had on the morning of June 24th Tuesday (it's an off day), we were called by our manager (Mr. Ron) and were informed that one of our about-to-be colleagues has arrived on the previous night and her name was Wendy. Mr Ron gave us her apartment number and suggested that we looked for her and show her around the place (since we were in Orlando for close to a month already). It was bad enough that she came all the way to our apartment looking for us (bad on our part for not departing earlier, since we had planned to go out anyways), she had to walk with us all the way to the Mall at Millenia, which was a good mile walk. When we were about to leave our doorsteps, we were surprised, never we had an idea that she would be a Taiwanese, because we were told that there were going to be Germans who will be joining us and not Taiwanese (looks like we totally got the wrong information). So, since i was the one among we four who could speak the best mandarin (which I have doubts), I was assigned the job of mediating between us and Wendy. Well honestly, i didn't had any problems communicating with her and i found her to be quite enjoyable to be talking to (we talked about our culture and stuff...).

Anyways, our original plan was to look around for a 2nd job (to earn some extra cash :)) and we went into doing that once we had done accompanying Wendy having her lunch. We headed to the nearest few shops and before we could get started, I had a call from Mr. Ron asking us whether we are available to work on that day itself and we didn't had a 2nd thought and said 'yes' immediately. Poor Winson was left out because they only needed us from BK and it was clear that Winson was a bit unhappy about that (but there was nothing that could be done). So we left Winson and Wendy while they continue their exploration and ran all the way back to our apartment to prepare for work totally not remembering that we had to look for a 2nd job :).

Then on the 29th of June, we had another new arrival from Taiwan (this time, we knew about it since Wendy told us before hand). Her name was Jessica and we met her for the 1st time after our driver was late and it turns out that our driver got lost while picking Jessica up from the airport and sending her here to Walden Circle. Anyways, I really admire both of the girls courage to come here alone (if you'd asked me to do it alone, i don't think i would dare :p).

It would be later that Wendy was designated a place in Burger King and Jessica a place in Starbucks in our work place. Wendy would eventually become my working partner in BK and how nice and fun a girl she was in work and play :) And honestly never since after the Thais left, that I've found working pretty enjoyable again...
(Not that Damien and Dickson were boring people, haha)

Universal And Goodbyes

2008-06-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

I couldn't believe that i would just have around 4 hours of sleep, but we had already make it a point that we would wake up early in the morning and leave for Universal Studio Orlando where we managed to get some cheap tickets (black market ones :p) from our colleagues in BK. I was half awake when we were in the bus on the way there but it doesn't matter since we were there in a blink of an eye. Couldn't blame us if we didn't look enthusiastic, it's just because we were all walking zombies :O

Well, a little bit on Universal, it is divided into 2 parks, one the Universal Studios park and another is the Island of Adventure park. We decided to enter the Universal Studios Park first and it will later turn out to be a bad decision :( Anyways, here are some pictures of the park.

We took on the Shrek 3D ride at first and i could say that it was a pretty nice first impression where we were required to wear those glasses and they throw you into a theater with moving seats and then put you in an adventure. The next was Jimmy Neutron ride and it was basically the same concept as the Shrek but only with more action. We then took on the 'The Revenge of the Mummy' ride. And these 'mummies' on walking sticks indeed caught the crowds' attention.

'Wow' was what we could said about the indoor roller coaster of the mummies, very cool indeed and it will be the appetiser of all of our rides. Sorry for the lack of pictures but that's the best i could manage since we have so much to cover within 11 hours because the tickets we had were of a day passes only.

Don't this street look like those that were in London?

The Jaw's ride were next on our list and it wasn't really impressive which same goes to the Terminator 2 3D which were similar to the first 2 rides. But we were at the main attraction of the Universal Park, The Simpson's ride.

And the ride indeed was breathtaking, it was a virtual roller coaster but it indeed got our adrenalines pumping! The moment we were out of the ride, we were all having neck pains (it wasn't a real coaster!) haha..

It was already around 3pm when we entered the Island of Adventure park and the sky didn't looked really good as it was about to rain and almost all the rides in the Island of Adventure park were outdoor as opposed to the ones in Universal Studios park.

But still, we gathered ourselves and moved on and the first real roller coaster (Incredible Hulk) caught our attention immediately, but to our disappointment the ride was temporarily stopped due to safety reasons while we were already half way at the queue.

We didn't wasted anytime and we headed to an indoor ride and it happened to be the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman.

I wouldn't say that it was a very good ride but it's at least a tad better then the Jaw's and Terminator ones :) But anyways, it was really our day (either we can call ourselves lucky or something) the rain stopped and the sky cleared, but some of the rides were still not opened to visitors. So we continued our walk......

and next was the Jurrasic Park.

It seems that this little guy was inoblivious that a T-Rex was just about to swallow him up :p

We took the river adventure ride of the Jurrasic Park and it was all boring until the end when we were thrown down on a 45 degree slope and a big splash right at the bottom although i didn't really got wet :)

We were on to the 'Lost Continent' part of the park and the ultimate coaster ride immediately caught our attention. All i could say was 'Life well spent' or rather money well spent, haha, because the ride alone was worth the ticket price, the ride was a hanging coaster and we went thru a pretty lots of 360 and downwards ride. By the end of the ride, we were all feeling dizzy and out and Damien was the first to get knocked out as he didn't took any ride after that. Well, in truth, i was pretty up for another ride of that scale and since it was the Dueling Dragons ride (realised the 's'? There were 2 rides for the Dueling Dragons) that we took, i wanted to have a go at the 2nd one but Winson and Dickson were already saying they are not going in again, so i didn't took the 2nd ride in the end.

After a drink, we (without Damien) took the Poseidon's Fury ride and guessed we were deceived by the name as it turned out to be the most boring attraction of all.

Me & Poseidon's Temple

We then headed back to where we started, the Incredible Hulk ride and although it was nice, after the Dueling Dragons ride, this was nothing :)

And right after the ride, i was already knocked out, and i can feel like my head was going to explode anytime soon (guess that the lack of sleep has taken it's toll, and i swear it was the lack of sleep and not my endurance of the rides :p) We went round looking for souvenirs right after that but i got nothing myself since i figured that this will not be our last time here.

We then headed back home planning to pay our Thai friends a visit before they leave after our dinner. But to our disappointment, all of them were not back yet and we decided that we go back later. But after around an hour or so, instead 2 of them paid us a visit while the rest were already asleep. After a chat, we took a picture together and bid farewell to them.

I couldn't say how much i'll miss them but they had been great colleagues in our 3 days of work and they had been of a great help during those times. It's just too bad that they were leaving this soon...

'International' Adventure

2008-06-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

We all know that we need a Social Securite number in order to work in America, and that's what we have set out to do today, we hopped onto a bus at noon (yea, we were late since all of us were sleeping like pigs). After a transit and close to 2 hours of ride, we arrived at the center, and got our procedures done within 20 minutes. It was raining heavily when we were done but we thought that we wouldn't want to waste our time there, so we ran in the rain to catch a bus that happened to stopped at the opposite side of the road.

We decided that we should go for a walk by the International Drive since we have a bunch of coupons where it would come to great use. On the way there, we got a few pictures and here is one which could best depict a typical American neighborhood.

Here are some pictures along the International Drive that we will eventually spend our whole day at.

A fancy Chinese restaurant? (I bet it wont be as nice)

And look! A really big terrorist (incredible hulk?) ripped the building off the ground. Nah, it's a museum of arts.

Pictures of Pointe Orlando (remember the Curve?)

Guess you guys had heard before of the famous Ripley's (believe is or not) telecast, so decided to pay USD18 to have a tour of the museum (which Genting had one too).

A Malaysian Silver pipe (lol, do we smoke in pipes?)

A man with 3 legs (it's true!) Imagine him playing football, Ronaldo will not even match him.. haha

Run for your life! Head hunters!!

I didn't know about vampires being true stories.

The infamous Iron Maiden

OMG, mini me, dwarved by a chair.

Me & a chunk of Berlin Wall (Iron Curtain)

Night life in International Drive

Guess this was by far the longest mile (American units) we've ever covered in a day, at the end, we could be seen chasing buses because it was close to 10pm and bus services were about to end, but in the end, we were back in our condo by 11pm. And all we could say was 'life well spent'.. :)

1st Day Of Work

2008-06-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

The day that we've been awaiting enthusiastically has finally arrived, we were all ready to go half an hour before the time our van were suppose to pick us up, this just shows that how much we just wanted to work, after almost 2 weeks of rotting, we finally got to put ourselves to more use. 3 of us (me, Damien and Dickson) were assigned to work in Burger King where else winson was assigned as a cook in Popeye's (yes, they have that in America:) )

Within BK, Damien was assigned to the fries, Dickson the lobby, and i was assigned to the burger board (lol, burgers again after my last experience in McD's). But it was a blessing in disguise, hehehe *sinister laughter*, my mentor (from the previous batch of WAT students) was a pretty cute thai girl, awwwww, lol, as usual, i went through all the training drill of making burgers. Since it wasn't really different from McD's (how different can it be?), i didn't had any problems besides memorising the dressings of each burgers, which they had, hamburger, cheeseburger, double cheeseburger, double stacker, classic steakhouse, loaded steakhouse, and maybe 1 or 2 more, which i don't really remember, haha.. now imagine the pain i went through... but it wasn't so bad with the erhmmm as my mentor :) (well, i cant help it either, especially with her soft spoken voice and her cute looks :p) don't ever call me a desperado please, i can already hear whispers of it...

After a short 3 hour training stint, we were done for the day and headed back with the van we came.

At Last!

2008-06-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

Finally, we got a surprise call from our manager, and he told us all of our drug test results came back just fine and we're ready to work, just a little paperwork left (paperwork and paperwork again).

At last we're getting to do what we're suppose to do here, since our funds are all running low :) So it's going to be all work work work and work for the next 3 months from friday (US time) onwards. And once we've started working, we'll have the cash to spend again, since those rides in Universal Orlando are already waiting for us :)

So guys, don't blame me if my posts are getting lesser and lesser :p but well, i'll still try my best to keep u guys updated on our 'American Adventure'. haha..

Food For Thought

2008-06-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

I just cant explain how much i miss home cooked oriental meals :| lol, the thought of eating American food everyday just scares me off sometimes. So we've decided to get some ingredients and try to replicate what we used to eat at home :)

For 3 nights already we've been cooking our own meals, and all i can say is that it just gets better day by day.. haha. Of course i couldn't afford to have high hopes for superb meals, but it's just unimaginable joy when u get to eat white rice, and yeah, i'm not joking! :p

The 1st dinner, we've managed to cooked up oven baked pork marinated with garlic and salt, cheese rice which we bought off the shelf and lettuce on salad.

Now the story behind the food :) The pork was tongue bitingly salty, and we burnt our pot (the cheese rice became pieces of charcoal at the bottom of the pot) lol, and the salad was just salad, how wrong can we go with that:p

The 2nd dinner was whole lot better, we cooked up some oven baked chicken (yea, yea, ovens are for noobs) marinated with teriyaki sauce, and it was just wonderful! The white rice which we got from Wal-Mart was just great and salad lettuce again:)

I just hope we can keep going like this, then food wouldn't be a big problem anymore :)

The Real 'Downtown'

2008-05-31T06:48:00.000-07:00

LOL, i was wrong in the 'Day 1' post it seems, cause the place we went with lots of malls wasn't called downtown Orlando after all, but it was Millenia boulevard instead. But we had plans for the real downtown and we decided to take a bus downtown, since, there were lots of traveling required, we decided to get a day bus ticket. After a long ride, which took us around 45 minutes, we arrived at the central station in downtown Orlando.

The bus terminal in downtown Orlando.

We got on our foot and started to explore the town, or rather city, lol. Here are some pictures of downtown Orlando.

We dropped by a pizzeria, well maybe because it's smell attracted our senses, and guess what, the pizza was great, and it's portion was humongous!

Look at how the pizza occupy 2 plates!

We headed to a park nearby, which we got to know through the tourist information center. The moment we set our eyes on the park, we were wowed and stunned by the immense beauty of the park.Here are a few pictures of the park or also known as Lake Eola.

Look! A rubbish bin the middle of no where lol.

After some pretty long walks, we then hopped onto a bus to the biggest mall in Orlando (Florida Mall) which was around 40 minutes from the downtown.

One of the walkway in the mall.

Guess what we saw? M&M's world, yes, u heard me. It's everything M&M's, clothes, pants, souvenirs etc. And we were also told that there were only 3 M&M's world in the whole world, and this is one of them.. :)

Everything M&M's.

The Wall of Colours.

After having some Tacos and Burritos for my dinner, we then took a bus back to our condo and our day ends there after.

Groceries!!!

2008-05-30T06:09:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering why did i named this post 'groceries'? it's because i ran out of names and i'm starting to get lazy:p nah, i was just joking, but basically, we did nothing much besides getting more groceries, which we had been doing for the past 3 days, haha...

But well, this was also our 1st time cooking a chinese meal :) rice, pork chop, and spinach. lol, words cant explain how much i already miss those meal :p But the chinese meal today was inspired by our lunch, where we had a very expensive chinese meal, which was around USD 5 a plate of what we usually call 'chap fan'. Anyways, here are some pics of our mile-breaking meal.

Judgement Day 1

2008-05-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

JUDGEMENT DAY!!!!!! We'll be havin our drug test today, and so that was the thing that got us up early in the morning. After havin our breakfast of bread and egg, which we had been having for the past few days.... :)

Uh huh, after having our breakfast, we met up with our future colleagues, which are staying in the same condo as us. To our surprise, they were 4 Ukrainians, 3 girls (errrhhhmmmmm) and a boy. Well, we were picked up by a van from our company HMS HOST and went to the very plaza that we will be workin for the next 3 months. First impression wasn't very good, since it's those kind of rest house along the highways, only much better then the ones in malaysia :p

We met up with our boss, Mr Ron, he was a nice guy, he gave us a brief talk and he even treated us to lunch :) After our meal, we immediately went to a diagnostics centre to have our urine tested. LOL, damn, i feel so uncomfortable giving people my urine, it just doesn't sound right :| Well, there were 8 of us, and after a long wait, we were finally done and headed back home with the same van we came.

Back home, we checked the public loaf and had a dunk in the swimming pool, and guess what, i've found my gym, woooooooooooooooot~~~ haha:)

Day 3

2008-05-28T14:18:00.000-07:00

Oi, it's 10 already, get your a$$ up and start moving, nah, just joking, no one said that to me :p But well, after having our breakfast, we did our usual routine as well and went exploring again, and this time, instead of heading to millenia boulevard (where all the malls and IKEA were situated), we headed a different direction, south of our place. LOL, the road looked like it was never ending but finally we stopped by 7-11 to have a refuel, yea, to refuel our bodies:p We then continued our journey and dropped by Festival Bay Mall. After a drink or two, we then headed to the opposite of the mall, it was like a boulevard kind of thing with shops along the walks, guess we finally found a shopping haven with stuff at factory outlet prices. Brands like Calvin Klein, Timberland, Nike, Addidas etc etc (can't name them all here) were all selling at floor low prices.

The Boulevard of shopping haven

And guess what, i saw the exact pair of shoe that i bought in Malaysia for RM220 and it's only selling here at the price of USD29.99 (around RM100), OMG, u cant imagine how pissed i was, GRRRR....

THE SHOE!

After a great while of walking around the boulevard, we decided to call it a day, on our way back something caught our attention, TACO BELL!! mexican food that is, and with a good deal thrown into it, so we had our dinner there, among the most filling one since we arrived here. After our feast, we headed back, with the sun setting, there were sceneries where you can only see in your dreams! Here are 2 which looked great by a lake.

BTW, TAKE NOTE, I'VE ADDED A SATELLITE VIEW OF THE PLACE WE'RE STAYING IN AT POST 'DAY 1' (TAKEN FROM GOOGLE MAPS)

Day 2

2008-05-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

The day started with most of us waking up at early in the morning (that's around 4am), after effects of jetlag? nah, didn't had any problems with that since i'm used to sleeping at odd hours in my university :) Anyways, what else could we do besides exploring again? So we went out to look for our breakfast and guess what we had for our breakfast? Mc Donald's yea, that's right :) It was like any Mc D's in Malaysia besides that it has different menus, and i had a big mac, which was like what we had exactly in Malaysia.

We then took a bus to the Universal Boulevard (Universal the company that produces movies) When we were there, i can say that everyone of us were stunned, oh my, that place indeed was a paradise :) Yea yea, i heard that, pictures, yess... here they are..

The entrance of Universal park

Hard Rock Cafe in Universal Boulevard

The world reknown Universal logo

Pictures of the boulevard:

Me & giant Jordan

A picture of Universal store

After a draining day, we prepared our first own cooked dinner, it was meant to be a soupy dish, but it turned out to be too dry, but it still tasted great regardless, with the pork chop we cooke up :) Here's a memorable picture of it

Day 1

2008-05-26T01:53:00.000-07:00

Pictures of our condo that we'll gonna get stuck in for 3 months :p

A picture of our hall

A picture of a room me and winson is sharing

A picture of our kitchen

We didn't had much sleep since the previous night, lol, maybe because we slept most of the time in the airplane. Barely 5 hours of sleep and we woke up, driven by our hungry stomachs, we decided to go out on foot to explore Orlando :) Believe it or not, it was a half an hour walk to the nearest mall, but lol, there were like 2-3 malls in that area and we went from one to another.

Of all places, we had our breakfast, or rather our brunch in IKEA, here's a picture of hungry me eating my breakfast meal :)

Here are some pictures of downtown Orlando

lol, i dun think i've ever seen this in Malaysia where we have our 'lepak' culture but in america, we're not allowed to do that in a bus stop, ROFL

After our meal, we headed to a hypermart (super target) nearby to get our needies, lol, and we spent most of our day in our condos thereafter :p

lol, believe it or not, these are 2 pictures of a view from our balcony (isn't it cool?) at 8pm, yea, u heard me, 8pm... lol. There's more daylight then night due to summer over here in florida :)

Here's a satellite view of the place we're staying in, it's called Walden Circle, if you wanna know more, go to google maps and type in the search bar Walden Circle, Florida.

About Airports And Transits

2008-05-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

7.30pm, that was the time me and my friends (damien, winson, dickson) were supposed to meet at the main terminal of KLIA :) so says 7.30 and as usual with all the reasons in the world which i don't wanna get started on, i was late :| and i got my friends waiting, urgghhh, what a bad feeling it was, but well it wasn't my fault that i got stuck in the jam for nearly half an hour (here i go again)...
but well, so my friends waited and i arrived 15 minutes later, we checked in and got everything settled and waited for the time to enter the departure hall, ohhhh, all the scanning and stuff.

RAPE!! RAPE!! nah i was just joking, haha but well, i did got literally 'raped' by the imigration officer, as in i was being performed a body check after the metal detector sounded when i walked through it, apparently it was due to my belt :( and i still can't believe that i lost my virginity just because of that ^^

After countless security procedures, finally! at last! in the end! i was in the plane, after 8 years since the last time i was on board a plane. lol, this time, it was made even sweetter with the japanese stewardess welcoming us on board :p

Barely able to settle down, we were immediately told that we were about to touch down at Changi, rumoured, or at least that was what i heard to be the best airport in the world. Well, it turned out to be somewhat true :) with so much of free stuff around, massage chairs, good internet, free TV and the list goes on and on....

Me & Changi :)

Changi

8 hours later...

The worst has yet to come, but the coming flight will be a 7 hours one, hardly i could imagine resting my a$$ on a chair for twice the time it usually takes for me to return to my hometown, but whatever :p 7 hours of torture ensued, lol, the hardest thing was to find something to keep myself occupied, sleeping wasn't a really great option due to the terrible turbulence now and then.

But somehow, 7 hours passed and we landed in Tokyo Narita airport.Well, to be honest, Narita wasn't as good as Changi in terms of entertainment, but hell, it was holy clean and the legendary toilets in Japan was really true, heated seats, automatic wash, super clean floors and on and on and on. 3 hours, that was the time we had in Narita before we boarded our next plane, so all we could do was to hang out at our departure gate and kill out time there. Up next will be the mother of all tortures, a 12 hours flight, urghhhh........

woooooooot, me beside an aeroplane in Narita :p

What i could did during the 12 hours flight was just sleep sleep and sleep, there were much turbulence, very, shaky ones, lol, at times i was wondering whether i could reach chicago in one piece or not, haha.. our flight brought us across the alps like mountain near Alaska and what a sight to behold and i even managed to grab some pictures :) there was nothing much about this flight besides the food, which was among the best meal we ever had since we started our journey towards the east (east yes, we flew across pacific).

Upon arrival at the chicago airport, we were required to go through the customs and later take a domestice flight towards Orlando, Florida. LOL, i got the scare of my life when the customs detained me for further interview (only me and not my friends), i was interviewed by a customs officer and everything turned out fine after all but i had to admit, i'd never felt that kind of fear in my life before. We moved on to the departure gate of our domestic flight after going through the stringent checks of the US customs. Before that, we managed to grab some fresh air outside the airport and the temperature was a cool below 20 celcius, there were time for some pictures too :) All i did on the next flight was to sleep and soon we arrived at our destination and we were transported to our condos after a short wait.

A picture of chicago airport

SO HERE WE ARE AMERICA :)

Succumbing To The 'Dark'side

2008-05-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

LOL, i can't believe that i've been saying 'how on earth people have the time to maintain a blog daily' all the while, guess i'm forced to eat my own words now huh?:p

anyways, i'm gonna start this blog off with my trip to US for a work & travel program that i've signed up for during the summer to keep myself occupied bla bla bla (lots of background stories), that was the very thing that got me started blogging alright...

so here i go again :)