day 7

queued up early in the morning at TKTS to buy tix to Hairspray. After that sorta dilly-dallied around before heading to the theatre for our show. Was real fun! One of those musicals which tended to make you really happy after watching it. Music and all sorta like grease. Great fun ^^

Just before the musical, we visited St Patrick's Church which was right smack in the town center. It was gorgeous!!! And huge *haha* loved the stained glass and sculpture inside.

After musical went to meet kek and co for dinner at Joe’s ginger. Nice food and real cheap too! Haha. Amused ourselves seeing who could grab the most xiaolongbao without having it break. *lol* Later on proceeded to the rockafella center skating rink to ice skate. Was very fun but cold. Amused ourselves immensely watching Kashwa-aka-retarded-jock and Mitsubishi-aka-poncy-asian-figure-skater-wannabe play around on the ice below us *lol* En can insert videos/photos/amusing commentary here ^^

after ice skating, RUSHED to yoshionoya ^^ Ok, I RUSHED ^^ because it's Yoshi!!!! and i've not eaten yoshi for AGES!!!!! *yum yum yum* ^^ yup and that was supper. And after that we went home.

day 6

continued on said tour. of all days, it had to bloody pour. and this was when everyone got sick, since we were drenched. >.<

saw the Korean and Vietnam war memorial, and also trooped over to the Lincoln memorial where I was thoroughly disappointed since the statue was covered by scaffolding. >.< sigh. The Korean memorial was one of the coolest since it featured 18 soldiers marching towards a flag, and the entire thing was constructed such that the sculptures would reflect the black wall and thus appear as 36 soldiers (since the was was carried out at latitude 36 degrees I think) Also saw the Theodore Roosevelt memorial, which was quite boring IMO *haha* Very modern sculpture, which didn't really appeal to me. However i loved the quotes ont he wall. went on later to see the Smithsonian natural history museum, and saw the hope diamond, i.e. largest blue diamond in the world (I think)

After that was a quick lunch before the long bus ride back to Washington. After chucking our stuff in the hostel, went to meet kiat chuan and J&J and zhihao for dinner since it was kiat’s bday. That was followed up by a jaunt at starbucks, and then small talk over some beer at kiat's room.

day 5

woke up early. took the bus from Chinatown to Washington. it was a hongkong-er who conducted the tour, and hence the english and chinese was very weird. he pronounced river as ‘liver’ and the capitol building, which was domed, as the ‘dumb’ building. *lol* there was more, like how so-and-so statue was ‘to memorial XX’ *lol*

saw the liberty bell in Philly. Or rather, saw it from quite a distance away, since we didn't have time to go back *lol*

went to Baltimore to see the Baltimore harbour. which was pretty much like any other pier you've ever seen. So it was pretty boring to me.

also visited the Thomas Jefferson memorial (the white one at night) which was very beautiful. rushed through the aerospace museum too, which was impressive and featured the real space consoles. cool stuff!

stayed over at the best western pentagon. lol. was quite shiok, plenty of space.

aaand. that's it for now, someone please fill int he details since i can't rememeber. ^^

day 4

point form cos i wanna sleeeeeeep ^_^

- woke up SUPER early to let kiat in so he could dump his stuff. then went for breakfast at murray's bagels again ^^V good stuff!

- took a train down to Ground Zero... very very sad place there. As ningz says too, it's been 4 years, but the war is still going on....makes you think if anything's really being done, doesn't it?

- walked over to the Battery park so we could queue for the ferry to Liberty Island. And then decided not to, because the ferries from the island had black throngs of people packed llike sardines on them O-o It was amazing how the boat could even stay afloat! And the queues were sooooo long >.< managed to take some pictures of the Staatue of Liberty, but it was 'as small as a matchstick' as en says *lol* ah well... *haha*

- then trooped down to Wall Street so we could look at the famous stock exchange from the outside. We also stepped into St Patrick's (or St Peter's) Church for a look-see, since it looked totally gorgeous from the outside. And it was totally gorgeous from the inside too!! Beautiful. ^^

- Took a train to little Italy for some authentic italian pasta which was pretty good. Tzo got chatted up by the over-eager waiter..*ROTFL* reallly funny XD haha

- stepped into a cute japanese store near the restaurant to look at funky japanese fashion. Was amused how the japanese ladies manning the store were using a calculator to trash out the numbers for the tax etc *lol*

- went to Rice to Riches for some apparently famous rice pudding. VERY VERY COOL packagaing. The pudding itself was decent, but the packaging and marketing was awesome!!! fit for a design book in kino, seriously. Took lotsa photos, and we even had souvenirs!! (kept the spoons and bowls the things came in ^^) *insert pics here*

- took another train to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. VERY HUGe. The collections were decent, and it was very easy to get lost >.< Otherwise I rather enjoyed my expereince. Was just disappointed that i dind't get to go to the egyptian temple since the museum was closing >.< There was also a very interesting exhibit on the occult in photographs... O_o talk about weird exhibits...*haha*

- had dinner at au bon pain

- went to watch the alvin ailey dancce commpany.

-trudged home

- super shagged.

le fin ^^

Day 3

Today. Woke up early. And basically went SHOPPING *haha* saw a weird little store with a human model for a mannequin O-o Weird. And she wasn't even pretty! Had brunch at Murray's Bagles, which was gooooood. And then dinner at a place called Moonstruck which had gorgeous burger/sandwich things. *lol*

ok. Nothing else liao. tomorrow is liberty island and then ground zero i think *hahahahaha*

Day 2

En darling, it's BRITA. not Rita. *LOLOL*

On other things, I guess i've officially become the detail blogger ^^ So i shall live oup to my name *lol* In point form, cos i'm kinda tired (only waiting for my hair to dry *ho hum*)

1. woke up ealy, went to the Natural History Musuem. Had a simple breakfast of bagle and cream cheese and cofffee before trooping over to the main entrance to meet up with Andre, Chris and Aaron. Anyway. In short, MUSEUM WAAAAY COOL. We visited the dinosaur exhibit, and learnt alot of things on locomotion and neck stiffness and bone structure evolution. Super cool ^^ Saw many many life-sized moounted fossils, so with a leetle bit of imagination you could actually imagine a huge diplodocus towering over you, while behind you a T-Rex is frozen in motion giving chase. COOOOOL! The sheer number of specimens was amazing. One of my favourites is the new birdlike dinosaur found in china, called the Confuciusornis. *ROTFL* well, obviously someone ran out of names. *LOL* it's real cute, it's like a cute white puffin with two long trailing feather things. So funny XD Also saw a cool triceratops skulll and a very very cool fossil of a moose ancestor. The antlers were very impressive! Also saw some cool taxidermy exhibits (vic wennt nuts there...up till then she was singign the taxidermy song from the moment she walked out of the house O_o *haha*) In the ocean life exhibit, in particular, there were lots of interesting tidbits of information on deep sea life. My favourite was the one on male angler fish latching onto females: their insides degenerate and their mouthparts fuse into the body of the female, so eventually they become merely sacs of sperms for the female's disposal. *ROTFL* talk about fatal attraction....*snicker*

2. lunch at a small cafe called teriyaki boy. DAMN GOOD salmon sushi. And the price was good too. ^^

3. walked over to the empire state building and proceeded to torture ourselves with 90 min of queuing to reach the top for the view *lol* It was a nice view, luckily. We managed to just catch the last few minutes of sunset. So it wasn't a total gone case *lol*

4. dinner at The Harrison. >GORGEOUS food. ^^ Wonderful wonderful food (pictures insert here NOW ^^) Also had a good wine. I think it was german, and called a R-something (check receipt), which are supposed to be sweeter than the rest. Apparently some cabinet thing which means just a hint of sugar. *lol*

That's it *yawn* vic and en gave everyone really sweet presents 8grin* sankyuuuuuu ^^

*yawns somemore* okaaay. I think i shall sleep now. En is snorign next to me listening to some swedish rock music (pretty good stuff...what is the name again?) *lol*

over and out XD

MERRY CHRISTMASSSSSSSS ^_______________^//

You know you're in Chinatown when....

Backdating the post since i was lazyyyyyy ^^

Anyway, Christmas day. And where else to go but Chinatown, since only the Chinese work on christmas? *lol* Woke up real late to go hunt down Joe's Shanghai, supposedly the best shanghainese food in NYC. DAMN SHIOK. We called like 3 baskets of xiaolongbao, 1 soup, 1 noodles and 2 pastry things, and the whole thing cost 7 bucks per person including tips and tax O-o SHIOK hahaa.

But after that it started raining and raining *sigh* like singapore-style downpours O-o Which was miserable, and also where i discovered that my columbia jacket is not waterproof. T___T

Chinatown was HUUUUGE. Very very big. And so chinese!!! We were so happy that we started playing 'You know you're in chinatown when...' *LOL* Things we came up with included:

-you see a macdonalds sign and then you see a small declaration below that says 'three floors of seating' (to be read with the hongkong accent for full effect XD)
-you see andy lau posters
-you see many many stores selling the same fake scarves, pirated vcds and watches etc over and over again *lol*

etc. someone please filll this in *lol*

After more shopping we bumped into j&j and the mich pple O-o talk about small world lah. And then we eventually made our way to Columbia University to visit andre and have some dinner at the swish cafe ^^

Then it was a viisit to andre's room *lol* but it was raining so heavily...sigh. hahaha. the rooms in columbia are huge!!! or at least andre's was *lol* though i must say throughout the dorms, it's quite obvious that they have a very *koff* healthy *koff* alcohol culture *LOL* But the uni is very pretty ^^ if not for the rain and the darkness, ithink it'll be much pretty *lol*

watched BBC America over a bottle of beer shared amongst the 5 of us. There was a Creature Comforts christmas special showing, and it was susper cute!!! they were singing the 12 days of christmas and discussing between themselves the origin of the lyrics. *lol* Imagine depressed plasticine foxes, upsidedown partying bats and an operatic blackbird *LOL* En's fav was the singing clams *lol* Though i liked the slugs *lol* VEYR CUTE ^^ all done by the wallace and gromit animator so you can imagine what it looks like ^^

Later went to kenneth's house for some supper before heading back at 4am o-o Yes we did sing carols, and also ont he way back there was SO MUCH FOG O-o couldn't believe it hahaha. Ah well.

overand out. cos i can't remember anything else ^^ someone PLEASE take over this chronicaling job......^^;

yes. Today I arrived. And vicki went mad *lol* miss you toooooooo!!! ^^/

New york is GORGEOUS!!! I love the vibrancy of the city. It has this indescribable life of his own, totally addictive. The drive from the airport was very interesting, albeit VERY VERY dangerous. I'm surprised i even got through that alive O_o *haha* The driver was squeezing through very very narrow gaps, not really keeping to lanes, and changing lanes in split seconds O_o Man if i was behind him, i would be FREAKED out. As it is, sitting in the shuttle itself is TERRIFYING! I was gripping on to my chair the whole time, especially when the driver decided to accelerate on this narrow, windy and upward sloping road O_O Let's just say i'm not partiicularly keen to try it again O_o

But madcap drive aside, I saw many things:
a) new york's version of grave yards - unlike the peaceful, spaced out tombstones in ann arbor, with statues and engravings, these were somewhat...compressed. They were like narrow pillars, some with figureheads, while others were just stone pillars. And they were packed together so that the whole thing looked like an uneven concrete jungle, literally. Gives a whole new meaning to space conservation ^^;

b) broadway. GORGEOUS!!!!! I was looking around with wide-eyed wonder at the lights! Gorgeous. I somehow thought of that old song, Downtown. Beautiful. And rockefella centre!!! the christmas tree and the angels. Pretty ^^

c) KINOKUNIYA ^^V Hahahahahahaha. Walked in with vic and went Berserk ^^ Japanese books!!! Manga!!! Magazines!!! and OMIGAWD, japanese stationery!!!!!! Hahaha. One thing i really miss is pretty stationery. Or at least decent, aesthetically pleasing stationery. Americans really do not understand the importance of good mechanical pencils and colour pens *lol*

d) the REAL bebimbop is NOTHING like that shite in silly University Cafe. First it's delicious. Also the egg is NOT fried. It's raw and then you kinda cook it as you mix it. And the entire thing is in a hot bowl thingy. NICE. But now that means going back to university cafe and staring at the stuff they serve up in disdain. *lol*

haha. Also met up with the RJ councillors like Kenneth and Chris and Andre. Kenneth is seriously on crack *LOLOL*

MUSEUMS TOMORROW!!! *wheeeeeee* and shit i'm hungry. Over and out ^^V

packing packing packing. shit it's 12.19am and i haven't started packing. shite. on other things, my apartment mates are all gone. However. There are TEN freshies camping out like refugees in my living room *lol* Martin, Jerald and Jeremy included *lol* and jeremy has taken to walkign in and out of my room every 10 min or so cos he's bored (the others are watchign anime).

O-o. Doing laundry too. The whole world is doing laundry when there's only one freaking machine. So there's a queue of baskets outside. *lol*

Yup. And i've got maps. Lots of mini googly maps ^^

cool stuff i can't wait!!! NYC here i commeeeee ^^

over and out ^^/

*amused*

okay make that *very amused* ^___^

yaaaay blogging!!! am now in sch lib printing out some maps for hotels and what not in case we need them. I do hope the stoooopid strike i sover by then *sigh* sigh. lotsa things to do. gotta clean the house, do my laundry and pack O-o

BUT MY EXAMS ARE OVER WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. i think i totally screwed it, but ah well. >.< there goes my gpa *sigh*

and i like blogger. it's easy to customise. *grin*