West Coast travel part 1

This is no doubt my longest trip ever, 6 states, 9 cities in 2 weeks. My traveling companions? My university beties =) it seemed just a while ago that Huiling and I were planning the trip and it’s the trip has already ended. But the memories are really here to stay.

Gwen arrived in NY to meet Huiling on 9 july and for the next 2 days, they did lots of shopping and sightseeing. Having been to New York and is limited by the number of leave I am entitled to, I only joined them on 11july. The Pacific Hotel at Chinatown is simply amazingly value for money. For just $67 per night, we get a queen sized bed in a 2m by 2m room. But a small hotel in NY would fetch usually $200 a night. We departed at 7am the next day to catch the Niagara Falls bus and the hilarious error we committed was to take taxi to go down 5 streets. It is different here compared to Philly, when the streets run in sequence. As the hotel is at 100 something street, one would expect 60 streets in between the position of the tour bus which is at 42rd street but apparently, we’re wrong.

Soon we embarked on our journey to Buffalo, Niagara. After sitting on the bus for 3hours. It seemed that the bus would never arrive at the destination. It was already evening time by the time we arrived. A light drizzle began to fall but nothing could restrain our excitement to see the much awaited Niagara fall. The falls were actually noticeable from a distance, as there were some mysteriously large clouds of mist. Niagara got its name from its thundering sound of the falling water and no other name could have more aptly described it. We wore our poncho and stepped onto the maiden of the mists and almost as soon as it began to sail, the majestic view of the falls came into view. The falls are nothing like those I have ever seen in my life. The sight of the pure glistening water pouring down from heights was simply incredible. It looked so beautiful, like a painting, so surreal. We were soon drenched by the drizzle and the gushing sprays of water from the shore but even if it means risking our camera to take photos of the falls, it was worth it.
The rest of the trip didn’t occur as smoothly but it was a unique experience together. While I returned to Philly to work, Huiling and Gwen stayed on to go Woodbury to shop the next day.
For the next 2 days, I could hardly concentrate on my work, as there were so many things to settle for the west coast trip. The juniors had also just arrived on Mon and all the memories what I experienced in the first few weeks in Philly came rushing back to me again. All too quickly, 6 months had gone by and we’re seniors already.

Before I knew it, Wednesday arrived. At 4pm, gwen and I practically raced to the 30th street with our luggages and all. In retrospect, maybe it was an omen that we’d always be rushing for our flights and to meet deadlines for our trip. I was sweating profusely by the time we boarded the regional rail to the Philadelphia airport. It was in the nick of time that we reached the platform actually. Phew…
Everything else very much occurred smoothly after that. At the Las Vegas airport, we rented a Toyota Prius, which is supposed to run on only one gallon per 45 miles, which is simply amazing. As we drove down the strip, the sights around us were amazing. Even from the airplane, we could see the dazzling lights of vegas, the city that never sleeps. We recognized the hotels as our car crawled along the road, as there were so many cars on the narrow road. The famous pyramidal Luxor hotel, the grand Bellagio hotel that hosts fountain shows, the Paris hotel with its Eiffel tower lookalike. Circus circus was the conventional kind of hotel but it was nevertheless an enjoyable experience staying there. The room was clean and spacious, just what we needed after a horrible experience at the Fallside inn at Niagara Falls.
Our regret is that we could only stay one night there and a short one for that, as we had to set off at 7am for grand canyon the next day. If I am given the chance to change our itinerary, maybe we would have missed going to LA altogether.
There would be no argument for which why Grand Canyon is recognized as one of the 7 wonders of the world. It took a gruesome 5 hours to drive there, passing over 3 different terrains along the way, the desert, the savanna areas and the green hilly regions. But as we set our eyes upon the place, all our fatigue just melted away. The scene was just so breathtaking. The canyon looks different at every angle and nothing can certainly battle this piece of natural avante garde in front of us. We could only spend hour there but it would take a lifetime to forget the wonderful sight of Grand Canyon.

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Can't believe I stayed home on a long weekend

Gosh... Can't believe I stayed home for 2 days, another weekend of the precious 50 weekends I have here. Which means I wasted 2% of my time in USA. Hahah maybe wasted is a strong word... At least I saved money from travelling, $200 if I went to Orlando/ Chicago, $100 if I went to Cape May. And I vacuumed and mopped my apartment's filthy floor. Yea and blogged twice in a week (which is so rare), blogged on my business website, sent out the mass mailers to customers, updated the sprees, tidied up the documents for my business, shopped online!
Planned to go Cape May with my friends on Sat and Sun but Friday night I went to bed in a ruined mood as my eyelid was swollen again. Woke up with cold the next morning so I basically slept all the way till 10am. Woke up when hunger struck me but soon went back to slumber at noon... Could hardly do much yesterday but to plan for the Las vegas trip and cook dinner. Fried rice again =(
Yup and as I wrote earlier, I went to Woodbury and burnt my pockets on Friday so at least I went somewhere. Trying to sound optimistic here...

Today was much more productive as I woke up hungry at 7am. Settled breakfast and some business stuff before hitting the gym. I'm so going to miss the Upenn gym come Aug 31 as my membership would expire. Really like the facilities there, the towel service and the proximity of the gym to home. I'm going to the gym everyday till Fri, when I'm heading off to NY to meet Huiling and Gwen. We're going to Niagara falls together! Hope I can borrow Amin's camera so that i can capture that gorgeous maid of the mists... They then return to Philly with me on Sunday but Huiling is flying back to San Francisco again on Mon. Gwen gonna stay here till Wed before we head off to Las Vegas! West Coast, here we come =)

End of summer school... a new start

The feeling of the seniors leaving us so soon kinda makes me quite emo nowadays. It's like just yesterday when Peihiang and joshua met us at the airport and herded us to Philly but now, it's their turn to leave. The nostalgic memories of the time that batch 11 spent with us, just gushed back to my mind, as I enter this post. Someone said farewells are part and parcel of life, and make one more mature... I have to agree with that.. And it is not going to be the same anymore when I go back to office next Monday, alone and having no one around to look up to, having to stand on my own feet from now on. No more fooling around as someone else gonna look up to me, as a role model.

Summer school has ended but I felt as if it never begun. For one thing is that Prof Babin is right, it's a difficult class, not because of the course requirements, but cos no one can really focus and give off their best. The power of context which was a concept emphasized in class is so ironically true as the students influence each other, resulting in a less 'competitive' environment. Nevertheless, as much I would like to focus on energy and time on it, I know I have at least remembered most of the concepts taught in class. Like the power of stickiness and power of the few, from the book, The Tipping Point. It takes just such a little something to create a storm.
The part part of the course is where I could relate the concepts taught to the social networking industry, where my company resides.

Yesterday was US' independence day but I spent in a rather unconventional way. Went to the Woodbury premium outlets with Nadia and her Club SG friends. It was a gruesome 3hours away and by the time we reached, we exited the car like a bunch of kids that had been forced to sit for too long. Shopping was quite relaxing, as I mostly shopped for my customers, so it is kinda of guiltless. But I did get a 17usd white skirt from Armani(my fav brand!) and a 15usd top for my mummy from Espirit. Everything is so ridiculously affordable here. My friend, Cynthia, got a Fendi bag for $140! wow...

We returned to Philly at 1230 and headed to Target where I went to redeem my $10 gift card from Ebates.com. Bought my sunscreen (finally), cereal, bath towel (finally) and stuff... hahah the mart is so humongous! It's easy to get lost here.

The day trip ended with a bang when we went to eat dinner at an Indonesian cafe. We wolfed down fried chicken, curry, veg curry, satay and iced coffee... Yum!!

To commensurate Independence day, Nadia and I went to the Arts Museum. It was quite unexpectedly unentertaining as the artists performing are unknown to us, even John Legends. We left because of the rain, and ironically before the fireworks started, when it was the main reason that brought us here. Sigh hahah.... wat a tiring day!

Trail run at Fairmount!

I wished I joined the Fairmount runners on their Sat morning trail runs earlier! But my Fridays nights are usually filled with those stuff that resulted in a late sleep-in on Saturdays... Anyway, I will make it a point to go for Saturday trainings from now on.

At 8.20am (ungodly hour right?) Nadia and I met to take the septa subway to city hall, where we had to change to bus 33 to 20th Fairmount ave. I wasn't sure of the bus stop at first and approached the bus 32 conductor. But before I could speak to him, I stared in amazement when the lady in front of me planted a kiss on his skin. The thing I couldn't figure out is that she had paid for her bus fare so the kiss is definitely not for the sake of hitching a free ride. Anyway, the friendly driver gave me proper directions to the bus stop and within 5 mins from reaching the stop, bus 33 came along, much to our delight. The inconvenient problem with Philly is that 20th and Fairmount is actually rather close to where we live, in fact, we can run up to the place in 30 mins at a comfortable pace, but there are just no direct public transport route to the place.

Soon, we found ourselves near the Eastern State Pennetary, waiting for Bennett, my club president to arrive and fetch us to the hills at Fairmount to run. Accompanying us was Steve, the first club member I really got to know, since the time when we walked together to the pub for happy hour. He's working at the Upenn Alumni house so Nadia and I had quite a few topics to chat with him about. Sometimes, I think he's really kind-hearted and innocent compared to the other Americans I have come to know here. I wonder if he ever loses his temper before but I doubt. This kind of people are really suited for a job in the education and service industry I realize.

As we whizzed past the green scenery in Benett's car, I just stared in awe out of the window. There were many stone bridges which towered over us, hills that dwarfed those along the roadside of Macritchie reservoirs and the neverending stretch of the Schuylkill river. When we alighted, the sight of the entrance to the trail just reminded me so much of Macritchie Reservoir and the gush of memories to my head left me dizzy with nostalgia. We just started our stopwatch and lost ourselves among the greenaries.

But Macritchie can never be as hilly as where we ran. During the annual cross country race, there will be this steep slope before the route opens into the main road that everyone dreads. But here, there are an uncountable number of them. I wished I have at least gymmed for the past 5 days before coming here. However, the pace was comfortable and we had to slow down most of the time to avoid slipping down the muddy downhill sections and to land properly on the rocks as we ran along the face of the hill. One interesting thing about the trail is that instead of normal wooden bridges that span across the river, there were huge pipe like stone structures instead. One careless slip on it will just send one stumbling down into an abyss of stones and whatnots. But on the whole, I felt this great sense of accomplishment as we ran back into the carpark. At least the fattening food I have eaten over the last five days now have somewhere to escape. Steve sent us to the university area after Bennett dropped us off near the Arts museum. (see I said he's nice) Nadia and I indulged in a Dunkin Donuts' breakfast before heading off home.