clean linen

Where I am: Arcadia, California Time: 9:19PM, 29th August 2007 I have been too lazy to blog regularly about the trip so now, I've to blog about the past few days at one go. Therefore, I will be as succinct as possible, only choosing the highlights of each day and maybe one or two interesting photos to spice this entry up a little. Please forgive me if I do digress once in awhile. Day 7 (USA's Aug 25th) My parents went for a hike with Uncle Buck, Aunty Kin and Nicole. My sister had stayed over at her friend's house. Jodelle had gone for her driving lesson. I woke up late, alone at home. Eventually, everyone came back and left for a dimsum brunch. My sister, her friend Jeremy and myself didn't stay long at the very, very, VERY crowded Chinese restaurant (My toe got rolled over by one of the carts). The 3 of us left for Paul Getty Center, something like a musuem. A few hours later, our stomachs called us to lunch at In-N-Out Burger, a fast food joint that serves up delicio...

Where I am: Arcadia, California Time: 9:08AM, 26 August 2007 Day 6 (Aug 24th, Singapore's Aug 25th) didn't see us doing much stuff. Instead, we were travelling the entire day even though we left Oakhurst at 9AM. Two major reasons: 1. Flat tyre Our tyre got punctured! We were travelling along highway 41 with my sister as the driver. My dad was just talking to my sister when suddenly she alerted my dad to this yellow symbol that had just been lit on the dashboard. My dad looked at the symbol and realized that there was something wrong with the tyre. He said, "I think there's low pressure in the tyre. Let's turn out at the next exit and find a petrol station." However, moments after he said that, all of us heard a weird noise. My dad immediately hit the hazard lights and called to my sister to pull to the side of the road. Afterwards, we called the Hertz hotline and then began the wait. We waited for about two hours before the car technician could find us. By th...

Where I am: Oakhurst, USA Time: 9:45PM, 23 August 2007 The day started, of course, with breakfast. I must correct what I said in my previous entry, the breakfast is not to be classified as "the simplest breakfast". In fact, it's one of the better breakfasts provided free by a hotel. They have two stations to make our own waffles. There is a small selection of pastries, toast and scone-like thingys that we can toast. Besides that, there is corn flakes, fresh milk, coffee and hot cocoa mix to match. Oh and one more thing, they provided my mum's favourite - oatmeal. So... GOOD BREAKFAST:) We left for Yosemite Park later and headed for Glacier Point. The heat was already beginning to get to us, fortunately for the occasional breeze that brushed past us due to the altitude we were at. Besides donning our caps and sunglasses (except for me, I don't own a pair of sunglasses), I also spotted a lady sunbathing (in the bottom right corner of the photo on the right)! I guess...

Where I am: Oakhurst, USA Time: 10:20PM, 22 August 2007 To summarise the little things we did in the morning before we actually began our trip to Yosemite Park, we started with the simplest breakfast provided by the hotel (inn). Thereafter, we left for the Tourist Information Center. The lady who served us was so friendly and very helpful in her advice to what we should do in the two days we will be spending in Yosemite Park. The maps we got though were found to be not as helpful as we wished it to be because all the lines just seemed wriggly and they did not show any junction names or something. From the Tourist Information Center, we headed into Yosemite Park itself. For those who are interested in visiting Yosemite Park too, just to let you know, you'll need to pay US$20 per car for a 7-day pass to the Park. Our first stop was to the Sugar Pine train station (I'm not sure what is its actual name) to book places for their moonlight special. It's actually a train that use...

Where I am: Oakhurst, USA Time: 11:05PM, 21st August 2007 From where I left off from my previous entry, we had dinner at The Gourmet Delight on Atlantic Boulevard with another family and after last night's dinner, I think we have become fast friends. We talked as if we had known each other for the past decade or something when this dinner was actually our first formal meeting as family to family. Where driving is concerned, I had to become "navigator" in the family. Trust me, my sense of direction isn't fantastic and, because of me, our car has had to make quite a number of detours to get to our final destinations. But I guess the important point is that I actually got everybody to where we wanted to go, so that will do;) My brother's still the best navigator in the family lah. Today, we woke up at our own timing and had Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast! My sister bought them yesterday when she had gone out with her friend. The greedy me ate TWO of them! Afterwa...

Greetings from the USA! I'm now in Los Angeles with my parents and sister. My brother could not join us because of his school and NS commitments. As much as we hoped the whole family could go together, a trip before I go far away to the UK to study for the next few years, it was still not possible. For the record, LA is 15 hours behind Singapore. So while I may appear to have blogged this entry at 8:13AM on the 21st of August, it is actually 5:13PM on the 20th of August over here in the US. Yesterday, we travelled 5 hours to Taipei for a stopover lasting about 1 hour 20 minutes. After which we arrived in LA after 11 hours of travelling on the plane. We sat a very new SQ plane! The screens were so much bigger, the whole system of KrisWorld was different too. They also provided Microsoft Word and Excel for you to do your work, with provision of points where you can insert your thumbdrive to save your work when you're done. As for the seats, they're slightly wider and when you...

I'm into the middle of my Last Week at Work. The person taking over, Xiu Fen, is of the same age as me and is also waiting to enter University to study Law. However, she will be going to Melbourne, Australia for the February '08 intake. I am now teaching her whatever I know, while she begins to understand how the work flow I get from Uncle KK can be said to be never ending. Besides being displaced from my desk in this Last Week, I have also begun reading a new book, setting aside "Learning the Law" for awhile. The book is entitled "Three Dollars" by Elliot Perlman and I am now about half way through. I am reading at a fairly fast pace because my workload has been cut down to practically, nothing. Well, almost nothing. So I get to read at work, on the train to work and on the train home. Here's one passage that struck me. The protagonist was describing his parents at his small wedding and somehow, I could just imagine my parents like that too. It also mad...

Something I learnt today: When you're feeling... weird (can't think of any word to describe it because I don't know HOW to put a word/s to it in the first place), listen to Westlife. This boyband just makes you feel better, somehow. Well, basically, go for the pop (passé) music. Then, attempt to sleep. Now, I say "attempt" because I've been having nights packed full with dreams these past few days, it's the most annoying thing ever. I wake up the next morning feeling even more tired than the night before because of all the dreams I had that night. They aren't nightmares but they just leave me feeling rather bewildered when I wake up. I can't remember what exactly I dreamt about but I am positive I had dreams. Just last night, I dreamt about my sister and I doing something together. I think we were walking around and I thought I dreamt myself eating something that wasn't edible... I don't know. I've forgotten it already. My sister thinks...

Good news: I have successfully applied for my visa! Now let's just hope they find everything about my father (because he's my sponsor) and I favourable such that there won't be anymore delays in my visa application. I should be able to get it by this Friday or coming Monday. In other news... Yesterday, I helped an old lady across the road. It was a hilarious situation and yet something that I wish I could've gotten out of because I was rushing to Eunos for my driving lesson, something I was already late for. You see, first I left the office 10 minutes later than expected, then I couldn't get a cab. FINALLY, I had to help this old lady across the road. She walked at a snail's pace . She called me an aunty and kept repeating, "Are you in a hurry? Nevermind, nevermind" How can you say "nevermind that you're in a hurry" to me?! In the end, I arrived for my driving lesson 20 minutes late. Today, I was only 5 minutes late for my driving lesson...