An odyssey to the west

Manhattan New York, the big apple and so much more (Part 5: Liberty Island and an iconic Goddess's)

2007-08-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

I have lost count on the number of times the Statue of Liberty was used as the backdrop for movies. Flying 10, 000 miles from home, the last thing I would want is to miss arguably the most iconic structure of the United States. Missing the Knicks game at Madison Square Garden was bad enough. Another blow would have been crippling. Hence, the three of us woke up early and grabbed ourselves a quick breakfast before catching the subway to Battery Park, where we will finally take a ferry to Liberty Island. Perhaps I shall digress at this juncture to dedicate a worthy mention to the city plan of Manhattan, which is designed in a grid system, whereby every street runs at right angle to each other. As such, it is a near impossible feat to get lost in Manhattan. To our horror, a long queue had already formed at the ticketing booth which sells the ride when we arrived at Battery Park. Alas, this is a consequence of travelling during vacation, you will inevitably be travelling with people from all over the world (we have been queuing up at every major tourist attraction ever since we arrived in New York). With a cup of hot coffee (it costs me #%$%^* USD$2.00 at Starbucks, welcome to Manhattan), the three of us made our way to the end of the line and began the long wait to Liberty Island.

At Battery Park. The breeze from the sea numbed our fingers and probably our ears if we did not keep our hoods on. I ran to Starbucks immediately after this picture for a cup of coffee, not that I need a dose of caffeine, but something warm to revive senses to my fingers.

Crowds that formed the queue snaking towards the ferry terminal. A basker entertained the crowd with his violin, and when he approached us asking where we came from, he played 'Majulah Singapura' (Singapore's National Athem) on his violin! Utterly thrilled and impressed, I hardly expect to hear the national athem of Singapore 10, 000 miles away from home, and more surprisingly, played by a foreigner! I tipped him almost immediately after he finished with the nationalistic melody, rewarding the basker for a memorable and pleasant surprise.

Onboard the ferry, we took countless pictures of the skyline of Lower Manhattan. The conspicuious absence of the twin towers after the September 11 attack reminded me of that this part of Manhattan will never be the same again.

At last, our ferry berthed at Liberty Island! When this picture was taken, the scene in Godfather 2 came vivdly to my mind: Vito Corleone gazing sadly at the Statue of Liberty. Like so many other immigrants that came in search of better fortunes, he was probably griped with fear and uncertainty at the prospect of starting anew in this country.

This trip would not be complete if we did not pose with the Goddess herself for the camera. Having seen the Statue of Liberty on TV for as many times as I can remember, nothing beats seeing the real deal.

After a whirlwind of photo taking, we roamed around Liberty Island, reading all the interesting facts of the Statue (such as what material the Statue of Liberty was made of, why the material subsequently turned green and a brief biography of the Statue's designer) and bought ourselves some minatures of the Stature of Liberty for souvenirs. Hoping on to the next ferry, we headed to Elis Island (Liberty's sister island, a stone's throw away. Ok, I exaggerate). With the reputation of being one of the most expensive cities to live in, the public transport of this city is incredibly affordable, not to mention efficient. The ferry tickets we bought earlier include a ride to Elis Island for free! No news pleases a cash strapped backpacker more.

Manhattan New York, the big apple and so much more (Part 4: Shopping!)

2007-07-22T23:04:00.000-07:00

At the risk of falling into a self-parody for this entry, I am going to say that I hate shopping. Friends who have known me for years will know that drawing reference with me and shopping is tantamount to an oxymoron. Hence, I let off a "DOH!" inspired by Homer Simpson when Jiahao and Allan declared that we were going to spend the rest of the day shopping in Manhattan. Who could blame them? It's the post Christmas sales, and everything was going for prices so cheap that consumers actually have to ruminate on the possibilty of a catch involved in these good deals.

Ah... Brought back memories of Quebec city when we walked pass this outdoor ice-skating rink.

Shoppers thronged the streets of Manhattan.

Aware of over zealous shoppers from Singapore, the NYPD mobilized their best.

Before the onslaught begun, we went to grab tickets for a musical at Broadway. Our preferences were divided between 'The Lion King', 'Phantom of the Opera' and 'Les Miserables'. Fortunately for me, the first two musicals were sold out, and I was further elated when the counter staff informed me that we've got the best seats in the house (we were only seated two rows away from the stage). I did not doubt her at all, since we paid an exorbitant amount for our tickets. Grabbing a quick meal at Mcdonald's (we have been living on fast food or chinese food for the entirety of this road trip, since these are the two cheapest options available to us), we promptly took the subway to Madison Square Garden.

Madison Square Garden, probably the most iconic sports center in USA. There were countless epic sports moment in this sports center, with Ali defending his title and WrestleMania taking place within its compound. More importantly, it's home to the New York Knicks and the New York Liberty, the basketball franchise in NBA. Although I am not much of a Knicks fan (and at the risk of getting shot down in flames by New Yorkers, the Knicks suck!), I still went on to purchase a ticket for their game against the Detroit Pistons. Alas, the tickets were all sold out, I could not recall another moment in Manhattan in which I was so disappointed. After comforting my loss, I accompanied Allan and Jiahao to the largest shopping mall in Manhattan at Macy's. Here, all of the designer's label one could thing of is housed under one roof in this gigantic retail outlet.

After Allan got a Coach handbag (for his cousin apparently), we went to the NBA store. This place resembles the cross between a store selling NBA merchandise and Disneyland. From live sized NBA players fashioned out of Lego to autographed jersies, this place caters to the wildest dream of any fan boy. Unfortunately, I wasn't really impressed over despite being a self professed fan. Most of the merchandises smelt distinctively of 'made in china/vietnam' and sold at a rip-the-dorky-tourist-of-his-hard-earned-currency price. I don't need a Detroit Pistons fridge magnet to remind myself that I am a die-hard Detroit fan. Neither do I need to wear a piece of Garnett's over-sized replica jersey to declare my admiration for the talented all rounder. Hence, I left the place pretty much empty-handed safe for the coupons the sales assistant distributed at the entrance.

We reached NYC's very own M & M's world after taking a wrong turn at a junction. When I stepped into this candy wonderland, I almost screamed Charlie and the chocolate factory! Willy Wanker, I mean Wonka will be so proud if he has a branch of this scale right in the middle of Manhattan's prime district. Like all the wide-eyed kids in the store, we rummaged around the 2-storey building in search of our favourite candies, oh my, I can already see the disapproving stares from my dentist. Screw him, dental checks could wait, but I will be eating chocolates to my heart's content for now.

Over burdened with souvenirs and our haversacks, we were suddenly drawn to a luminous sign from afar. Like mesmerized sailors drawn to the songs of sirens, we found ourselves attracted to the 'store-wide discount' banner hung outside a Levi's botique. Immediately flocking into the shop, before the sales assistant could even say, "What the f**k?!" we already made our way out of the stores with bags of Levi's famed jeans. Allan was the winner of that day, he bought 8 pairs of jeans. Jiahao came in a distant second with three pairs. A worthy mention of the day was the service of New York's sales assistants. Polite an without a fault, they went out of their way in offering us useful comments and advises on the merchandise we purchased. If there is a 'best service award', my money and vote will be on New York. Finally making our way back to our rented apartment, with bags of shopping items, we could not help but think about our trip to Liberty Island the next morning.

Manhattan New York, the big apple and so much more (Part 3: Madame Tussad continued)

2007-06-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

(pictures continued from the previous post)

I'm not too sure if Mikey's pleased with Jiahao's pose.

With President Roosevelt, perhaps the most influential man of his time.

William and Henry's long-lost brother?! Prince Li?!

Spielberg's apprentice from Singapore.

The wax model of Captain Jack Sparrow's resemblance to Johnny Depp is uncanny! I swear we'll probably be unfazed if it suddenly moves.

This has got to be my favourite picture from Madame Tussad's, running neck to neck with Jesse Owens!

Jiahao's hilarious (and maybe a tad spastic) poses with the wax models.

If you were to look closer, the background of this set does not seem to make any sense. The rest of the cyclists all seem to be cycling in the opposite direction from Lance Armstrong.

Allan's advise to Woods? "How many times do you want me to say?! Use the Force on the next stroke! Forget it, just get this man a Tiger!"

Standing next to an idol.

I'm not sure if the man of steel likes his new sidekick...

The three of us finally left Madame Tussad's after spending close to half a day in the wax museum. We thought of going to the Empire State's building next, but as the next picture will show you, our hopes were dashed.

Much to our frustration and horror, a long line had already formed at the ticket booth of the Empire State building. To avoid wasting any time on the queue, the three of us decide to come back another day instead. We made our way to the ticket office to get Broadway tickets instead. Allan wanted to watch the Phantom of the Opera, Jiahao wants to watch Lion King while I craved for Les Miserables. As luck would have it, I won! Both the Phantom of the Opera and Lion King were either sold out or shown on the day we're leaving Manhattan. Even Les Miserables was perilously close to a sell out. We got ourselves the most expensive tickets and were utterly thrilled about it (although Allan and Jiahao were visibly disappointed to miss their shows). After the spending the entire morning at Madame Tussad's, we decided to find a restraunt to have our lunch, and recharge for the itineraries planned for the rest of the day.

Manhattan New York, the big apple and so much more (Part 2: Madame Tussad)

2007-06-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

I slept like a pig the moment we returned to our apartment in mid-town Manhattan. Exhaustion from the bus and plane journey has taken a toll on the three of us, and I slumbered blissfully till the next morning after discussing the itineraries for the next day. Although none of us set the alarm, the three of us woke up automatically at 8 am and after a simple breakfast, we began to hunt for Manhattan city's tourists attraction. The first stop of day 2 in Manhattan is Madame Tussad's wax museum, a wildly popular tourist sport. Jiahao prepared 3 memory cards (each of memory space 128~256 MB), especially for this trip. I kid you not when I say that we took more photos at Madame Tussad's than at Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec combined.

Standing at the entrance to the museum: the Incredible Hulk. The museum shrewdly places him at the entrance and 'assigned' him with the role of a bouncer. Brilliant!

Woohoo! Up close and touchy touchy with Claudia Scheiffer.

Guess who's the special guest on Oprah's?

Diva sighted! Jennifer's latest toyboys from Singapore?

Diva 2, Shakira.

Jennifer Anniston's not smiling for this picture, and I think guess Allan's got something to do with it! *sniggers*

Getting warm and cosy with Paris Hilton. That's hot!

And who is that petite dame in this picture? None other than Madame Tussad of course.

The wax replica of ground zero, worthy of a salute to the heroic New Yorkers who braved the catastrophe that strucked them during the 9-11 incident.

Jiahao's duet with Sir Elton John. This picture was taken with tremendous skill, I had to cover my ears and click away at the camera at the same time. Not an easy feat to say the least.

Spot the difference.

We got more than what we bargained for when the come back of Spice Girls included a fifth member.

Wohoo (2)~! Another touchy touchy shot, this time with Britney. To make it more convincing, the chest (and hence, boobs) of Britney actually moves up and down to give the impression that she is panting/breathing heavily.

{Pictures from Madame Tussad is continued in the next entry}

Manhattan New York, the big apple and so much more (Part 1)

2007-06-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

You've watched it on the news, the papers, the movies and heard a great deal about it and wondered just what is the big deal about Manhattan city. Afterall, it's just a narrow strip of island incredulously packed with sky-scrappers lying smack in the middle of New York State. But, this city has never ceased to be a popular icon for the United States of America given the widespread attention of media showered upon it. Beneath the canopy of the beautiful urban jungle made out of skyscrapers, concealed Manhattan city's prized gem such as the famed broadway, Times Square, Central Park and just off its southern shores, Liberty island. Adding to its glamour, Manhattan has seen its share of home groomed celebrities, most notably, King Kong scaling the Empire State Building and Spiderman taking on Doc Ock atop the city's Metro. Suffice to say, I was dramatically overwhelmed when I arrived at La Guardia airport in New York. Hopping into the city's ubiquitous and brightly yellow coloured cab, the three of us made our way to an apartment we had previously rented. An icon of the city by itself, taking the cab alone was already an unforgettable experience. Of course, the rate which the meter jumps at USD$0.40 per mile did contribute significantly to that experience; this has got to be the most expensive cab ride I have ever taken! As the cab shrewdly navigated its way through the heavily congested traffic, I couldn't help but feel what it must have been like to rub shoulders with the cast of Friends at the 'Central Perk' or running into Carrie Bradshaw at Fifth Avenue, for the entire journey, I must have been 'Star' delirious. Yes, Manhattan is that captivating, I was totally lost to the charm of the city itself. For the first time, I find the lush greens of a sub-urban dwelling unattractive when compared to this amazing city.

The cab brought us to the squat seven storey studio apartment we rented for our week long stay in Manhattan. With the reputation of being one of the most expensive place to live in, the rentals for appartment in this city is unbelivable. We paid USD$ 840 for this 2 roomed studio apartment (equipped with a kitchen) for a week's stay, and as Allan's cousin (coincidentally she is studying in New York University and helped us paid the rental for this appartment upfront) pointed out to us that given the close proximity of this appartment to Manhattan's downtown, the rental could easily be USD$ 2500 a month. The cab fare was just as outrageous, chalking up to USD$ 30 for ferrying us from the airport to our appartment. Expensive living aside, the cozy apartment and the vigorous city life exuded by Manhattan won me over. If ever I have the chance to stay/work in Manhattan for an extended period of time, I will leap at the opportunity without hesitation.

If there is a bright sport in the sky-high living expenses in Manhattan, it has got to be the public transport system. At just USD$ 27, you can purchase the city's Metro pass which allows you to take unlimited bus or metro rides. The subways of New York (apart from the sharing the same moniker with the sandwich chain) tells the history of the city. It may look dilapidated at first, but the Metro service (just as the bus service) operates 24 hours all year round, attesting to both the well maintained public transport service and the saying that money never sleeps in New York. Although it may just be a train ride, but as the train passes through the well constructed rail-lines, it was as if I could feel the bones of the city.

Manhattan's beautiful urban backdrop. As we were exhausted due to the long journey from Canada to New York, we did not take much pictures on Day 1 of our stay in New York. Instead, our top priority was to have a good meal for dinner. Allan's cousin recommended us a good Italian restaurant and we treated her the dinner that evening to thank her for helping us with the appartment. Needless to say, the food was superb and the service faultless (probably due to the 15% customary tipping). Before we tried to skive away with any thoughts of conveniently 'forgetting' about the tips, Allan's cousin cautioned us against that waiting staffs will remember for life the faces of customers that sneaked away without tipping. With thoughts of coming back to NYC for a second time, the three of us obediently left a generous amount of tips for the waiting staffs.

It is not too hard to fathom why New York city is the darling of Hollywood movies given its you-have-to-see-it-be-believe-it urban mysticism that is unique from other cities I have been to. New Yorkers must be the coolest urban dwellers I have ever seen, each man/woman walks with a sense of purpose and there are no lack of nightspots for them to hangout or exciting places to be at. I slowly realized why New Yorkers are proud of their iconic city, and why travellers fall instantly in love with this city which brims with attractive lifestyle. The dynamicism of Manhattan can not be summarized in a few sentences, which is why I have divided the entries of our trip to the city into a 5 or more part series in order to depict our encounters as much as possible. Hence, do stay tuned for more accounts and pictures of our trip in Manhattan!

A tale of 3 cities in Canada- Montreal (Part 3: Notre Dame Basilica )

2007-05-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

This was the first time anyone of us had spent Christmas overseas, except for the part where it did not snow, 2006's Christmas was truly an unforgettable one for the three of us. After a hearty breakfast at Mcdonald's (we had breakfast at Mcdonald's every morning during our stay in Montreal! I will probably never eat another Mcmuffin once I head back to Singapore!), we took a leisurely stroll to Montreal's Notre Dame Basilica. Although none of us are Christian, but the splendidly crafted architecture and lavish interior decors of Notre Dame Basilica truly promises plenty of pictures for the reminiscent of Montreal.

The interior of Notre Dame Basilica, with beautiful panels of stained glass and a majestically crafted altar in the middle of the church. When we were in the compounds of the church, the mass had already ended, and almost as soon as it ended, tourists flocked through its door and started clicking away with their cameras. Except for the occasional, "Say cheese!", the sanctuary of Notre Dame Basilica was both peaceful and serene.

There were plenty of candles lit within Notre Dame Basilica, adding to the numinous aura to this place of worship.

The Casavant-Freres pipe organ, can anyone say the Phantom of the Opera?

Can anyone guess the function of this place? Hint: It is a place where vows are exchanged.

Habitat 67, it is a unique architecture in such a way that none of its room has windows facing the other room.

Before we leave Montreal for New York (hurray!), we had our lunch at a Chinese Restaurant. Without any hesitation, I ordered the Roast Pork rice on the menu. Although the roasted pork did not taste as heavenly as Singapore's, it was nonetheless a welcome change to fastfood. Furthermore, generous heaps of rice were given to every portion of rice dish, with an equally huge amount of meat. The price did not come cheap though, at about 4 Canadian dollars for that plate of rice it was still money well spent when compared to another Big Mac meal or fish and chips combo. Feeling extremely bloated and satisfied, we boarded the bus bound for London, and began our much anticipated (yet dreaded) 24 hours journey to New York!

A tale of 3 cities in Canada- Montreal (Part 2: Robbed of a white Christmas!)

2007-05-04T06:18:00.000-07:00

At first I was skeptical, but after watching the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" (it's more like a documentary if you ask me) and robbed of a white Christmas during our stay in Monreal, I am utterly convinced that somehow, we have screwed up Earth's ecological system big time. In the dormitary of our hostel in Montreal, things could not get any worse. Much to our dismay, we discovered that we had to share a room with a complete stranger! Ever since we arrived in Canada, the three of us were able to move into rooms in which we were the only occupants, the unexpected fourth guest in our dormitary had therefore ruined our mood to celebrate Christmas. Visibly disheartened by the turn of events, we were nevertheless treated to a free dinner buffet entirely sponsored by the hostel. The sumptuous spread of the usual Christmas fare lifted our spirit somewhat, and after a hearty meal, we took a long stroll along Montreal's famous Rue St Catherine and St Laurent.

We stayed in this hostel called Auberge De Jennesse (translated: Inn of Jenesse) it may look unremarkable at first, but once we entered the hostel, we were bowled over by the friendly staffs and the cosy decor.

Montreal has a decent number of Chinese living in the city, as evident in Chinatown. Earlier that afternoon, our plans to have Dim Sum at a chinese restaurant was foiled by the long line formed outside the famed eatery (and of all people, Caucasians were queuing in the line!). Gastronomic disappointment aside, I'm impressed by the chinese in Montreal, who are able to speak cantonese, English and French.

Rue St Catherine, with high-end boutiques sprouting on both sides of the street (Louis Vuitton, Guess, Hugo Boss just to name a few). Jiahao and Allan had the time of their life in Root's boutique by going on a shopping spree. They grabbed a jacket each at 40 percent and 60 percent discount respectively, and to my horror, Jiahao bought the very same jacket I had bought a couple of weeks earlier back in London! Similar design aside, the jacket was so much cheaper!

Sarah, this picture is dedicated especially for you! Hope I can take a peek at your LV stash in Coppenhagen if I ever get to travel to Europe!

Just for laughs! After watching their shows on the onboard TV of SBS buses, I decided that I prefer their standup comedies more. Their 'Gotcha!' segments really fell flat most of the time.

Despite the lavish amount Singapore spend on its Christmas lightings at Orchard every year, I find it to be pale in comparison with the ones I have seen in Canada. At Montreal, the lightings did not disappoint at all further illuminating the city (already brightly lit at night by neon sign boards) that night.

We passed by the Montreal's version of 'Geylang' (Singapore's red light district) along this street. The neon lit sign boards and LCD screens outside these shops were displaying models dressed suggestively touting peek shows to passerbys. Had it not been for the dwindling cash in my wallet, I would have taken a 'peek' (no pun intended) inside.

Montreal city's Vieux Port (old port), a place where the heritage of Montreal is in full splendour. Restaurants oozing with romantic ambience are found all over this nostalgic stretch of walkway.

Not far from the Vieux Port, Montreal city hall.

From the pictures uploaded in this post, you would have guessed that the three of us did quite a bit of walking. Indeed we did, and we had a minor emergency when we were at the Vieux Port. Me and Jiahao were looking for a washroom in the vicinity after having a tad too much to drink. To our utmost exasperation, none could be found (not even at petrol kiosk!!! Don't they need to pee or something?!). With each passing minute, the wave of desperation that hit us (at least for me and Jiahao) became more vicious as our bladder fought the uncomfortable and dreadful feeling of coming dangerously close to exploding. Again, thanks to the ever perceptive Allan, we finally found a washroom at Marriot's hotel... (a conservative estimate told me that we had held our pee for close to an hour). It was almost at this time, the clock strucked 12 and Christmas had arrived in Montreal! As I exited from the hotel, I could swear that I could hear the hymns of angels celebrating the end of our ordeal! What a way to herald 2006's yuletide... Exchanging greetings gifts and greetings between the 3 of us, this Christmas will be an unforgettable one even with the absence of snow (sigh...), because of the companionship we share together that night.

A tale of 3 cities in Canada- Montreal (Part 1: A city with 2 souls)

2007-04-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

In Montreal city, Canada's bilingual trait is fully evident. In the packed Grey Hound bus terminal at Montreal, I overheard numerous conversations held in both English and French, a marked difference when compared to Toronto (mostly English) and Quebec city (mostly French, wait a minute, everyone speaks French there). Hence, it would be safe to conclude that the assimilation between the English and French speaking populace is largely successful in this city. Indeed, the assimilation does not end with language alone. Culturally, the city dwellers in Montreal has even managed to blend the unique old world charm from their rich bilingual heritage, with towering skyscrapers and a bustling traffic network snaking through the entire city.

Montreal city's beautiful skyline, somehow, the city reminds me of Toronto and a little bit of Quebec city. Best of both world? Not exactly, just that there is a hint of unique identity not found in both Toronto and Quebec city. The identity of a city with 2 souls: that of French and English.

At the peak of Parc Mont-Royal, a park that lies on the fringe of the city's central business district. Parc Mont-Royal is Montreal's version of Central Park, and surprise, surprise, both parks were designed by the same guy.

Beavers are omnipresent in Canada, but the ones at Parc Mont-Royal are slightly more used to human presence as proven in the above picture.

Beaver Lake, but contrary to its moniker, we did not see any beavers at the lake.

A giant cross made out of iron on the slopes of the park. It looked more like a radar to me.

With Christmas only a day away, there wasn't a slightest hint that it was going to snow in Montreal. All these while, the three of us were speculating and running wild imaginations on spending our very first 'white' Christmas in our entire life. Annoyingly, the temperature just did not seem cold enough for any snow to fall. Instead, I felt warm during my hike up to Mont-Royal and I can assure you that the hike was not strenuous at all. The convenient culprit for our annoyance? Needless to say, Global Warming.

A tale of 3 cities in Canada-Quebec (Part 3: Leaving for Montreal)

2007-04-14T21:13:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the only regret that griped me during our short stay in Quebec City, was giving the famed tourist attraction, the Montmorency Falls a miss. With a packed schedule ahead of us, we could only afford the time to make a trip to the Plains of Abraham before we leave for Montreal. Thankfully enough, our hostel was located within a 20 minutes walk to the plains and we were able to squeeze in this attraction to our itinerary.

That morning was particularly cold, despite the freezing temperature, it did not snow at all. Instead, a thin layer of ice was formed on walkways and paths, and predictably enough, I came dangerously close to slipping several times.

Chateau Frontenac, in its full splendour.

The Plains of Abraham was the site of the battle where the fate of Quebec was decided. Commanded by General Wolfe, the British army succeeded in defeating the last remaining garrison of French troops led by his adversary, General Montcalm, allowing Quebec to remain in the hands of the British empire for the remainder of their colonial reign in Canada.

The Citadelle of Quebec, a strategic fortification erected on the Plains of Abraham. An engineering feat way ahead of its time, it boasts a star-shaped fortification and redoubts that enable the Citadelle guns to fire at hostile troops at the plains without exposing them to the enemies' retaliatory fire. A pity that the museum was not opened to the public during winter.

Quebec City left me a lasting impression. Apart from its beauty an old world charm, its populace were extremely warm and eager to help as well. I can still recall the kind gentleman who had so generously offered to show us the way to our hostel and a lady who helped me up when I slipped on the 0 friction pavement (covered by a thin layer of ice). These, in addition to a romantic atmosphere that permeates every corner of the city (especially at night) allowed me to conclude that Quebec City is the best city I have visited thus far in Canada.

A tale of 3 cities in Canada-Quebec (Part 2: NIght fall)

2007-04-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

Ambiguity, trepidation and more often than not, a sudden impulse for great expectations are some of the feelings that stirred my soul when I gaze into a particularly beautiful night sky. Quebec city magnified these feelings by ten folds, giving testament to the beauty exuded by its night sky. Taking a stroll along the lively but strangely quiet streets in Quebec city, I was instantly held in trance by the endless streams of Christmas lightings that decorated virtually every corner of the city. Intricate, yet intimate in its arrangement, the Christmas lightings alone, was suffice to herald the impending arrival of Christmas.

The pictures do no justice to the beauty of that night, it merely unveiled a minuscule portion of the city's charm. Despite taking a stroll in sub-zero temperature, the risk of suffering from frost bite was absolutely worth its taking.

An arc hanging over the main road that leads to the town area, adding an old world charm to the city.

This has got to be my favourite picture taken in Quebec city: a theatre impeccably lit by Christmas lightings.

Like any Singaporean, we were always fascinated by fancy looking cars. There is hardly any chance where you can find cars like this in a carpark or on the road back home in Singapore.

Thanks to an ever perceptive Allan, we got to skate in this public rink for free, when we borrowed skating shoes from the hostel we were living at. Although I had once skated in an indoor rink back in Singapore, outdoor skating is a completely different experience. Coupled with a night sky that was filled with countless number of stars, the feeling was truly magical and unforgettable. I can promise that any dating couple who happened to be skating in that very rink that night will without a doubt, be utterly enchanted by the romatic ambience of that place.

I was struggling with an immense reluctance to head back to our hostel when we had our fill of skating. But alas, the bitter weather and immense weariness ultimately got the better of me. The feeling that night was hard to describe, it is probably comparable to watching a stirring performance during a musical and utter satisfaction brought about by an orchestra. Thus, should I ever steal a glance at the night sky from henceforth, it will not fail to remind me of this magical evening I have spent in Quebec city.

A tale of 3 cities in Canada-Quebec, exuding an old world charm (part 1)

2007-03-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

From the minute I arrived in Quebec city, I could sense that it is different from all the other Canadian cities that I had been to thus far. For starters, its entire population spoke French and this province definitely embodied quite possibly every element of French culture. This may seem innocuous to the casual observer, but somehow, the population of Quebec gave me the impression that they are trying to create their own unique identity in the English speaking continent of North America. In short and in my own humble opinion, they probably want to be different from the rest of Canada. From the slide show I saw during a lecture on 'World Cities', I could vaguely remember that the buildings in European cities are rarely a couple of stories high and sky scrapers are indeed a rare sight. Quebec city fits nicely into this description and if I was to conjure an image of an European city, Quebec city would provide an ideal source of reference.

Narrow streets and low rise buildings in Quebec city evoked a nostalgic ambience.

The most iconic architecture in Quebec city, Chateau Frontenac, a magnificent looking hotel with a roof made out of bronze (due to oxidation, the roof has turned green).

Quebec city lies on the Northern banks of the St. Lawrence river. In the 1700s, the contest for supremecy in North America during the French Indian wars between the British and French empire saw the construction of numerous fortifications and batteries in their respective sphere of power. The province of Quebec was a major stronghold of the French and predictably, heavily guarded by French garrisons. Standing on the Northern banks, I realised the strategic importance of St. Lawrence river. With well constructed batteries, there is no chance that any naval fleet could navigate along the river without coming under a steady stream of barrage from the artillery fire of Quebec city's coastal fortifications. Hence, heavy caliber cannons were strategically placed along the coastline of the Northern bank of St. Lawrence river to command the approach of any naval vessels from the mouth of the river.

The city of Levis is on the Southern shores of St. Lawrence river, with ferries transporting commuters between the 2 cities on a daily basis.

The Petit Champlain district, surreptitiously tucked away in the basse-ville (lower town) of Vieux Quebec (old Quebec). Walking through the narrow streets of this charming part of Quebec city, I couldn't help but feel that Quebec city has a distinctive European identity rather than a North American one (even though I have never been to Europe, this is probably what Europe looks like in the figment of my imaginations). Romantically lit by Christmas lightings and surrounded by throngs of French speakers, you could be forgiven for mistaking this place for a small French town. I was totally captivated by the beauty of Petit Champlain and the rest of Quebec city, there is without a doubt that Quebec city is the most beautiful city compared to the other cities I have been to in Canada.

A tale of 3 cities in Canada- Ottawa, the low key capital of Canada

2007-03-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

We finally arrived at Ottawa, the capital city of Canada after spending close to 8 hours on a coach that took us from Toronto to the city. It was 0430 am when the bus arrived at its desination and predictably, the entire city was still in deep slumber with the exception of a couple of commuters who were on their way to Tim Horton's (the Canadian's version of Starbucks) for a quick bite. With the cold gust of morning wind sweeping at us, we began to traverse through the city of Ottawa lugging our luggages along and navigated our way to the famed parliament house in Ottawa equipped with a map of the city.

As we were walking towards the parliament building, we past by the broadcasting station of the city. Located on the ground floor of a tall and massive building, passerby could easily peer through the window pane to see the DJs doing a live show.

Lying across the opposite bank of Ottawa is the province of Quebec. Although we have no idea what that building that was emitting a red light is, its unique lightings and beauty prompted us to take a few pictures.

After walking for close to 15 minutes, we reached the gates of the parliament house. As you can all see from these pictures, dawn has yet to break. Hungry, cold and obviously exhausted from the lack of proper rest aboard the bus, the thought of reaching our destination comforted us somewhat. A patrol car of that was doing its round stopped by and we could see the officers in the vehicle guessing our intents when we were loitering around the compunds of the parliament house in the wee hours of morning. It was until we started clicking away with our cameras did the patrol car drove off to its next check point. I bet the police officers in that patrol must be thinking, "Crazy tourists..."

At long last dawn breaks, and along with that, the rays of sunshine casted away the cold morning air.

Serenity exuded from the compound of the parliament house makes this a good spot for yoga or tai chi exponents.

A statue of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on her steed. I could almost hear the cries, "For Queen and country!"

An elegant but somewhat solitary pavilion behind the parliament house. We were speculating the function of the pavilion, and my guess was that the pavilion was probably used to conduct matrimonial unions.

Statues of women of unknown identity. The presence of these women in a scenario that looks like a meeting of sort prompted my guess that these statues were erected in memory of some feminist movement.

The full view of the opposite bank was unveiled before us when dawn breaks. Already, Quebec promises to be a place of scenic beauty when we set our sights on these views.

The three of us huddled together for a picture in front of the parliament building, but poor camera angle failed to capture the parliament house in this picture.

The parliament house basking in full glory when the first rays of sunshine were casted upon the magnificent looking building.

A chapel-like building located behind the parliament house with solid masonry.

Our tour of Ottawa was a mere 4 hours before we caught the next bus bound for the city of Montreal in Quebec. There was little doubt that we did not cover the entire city during our short stay. However, from fellow international students who shared their travel experiences in Ottawa, we learnt that the only significant tourist attraction is the parliament house. Hence, the explanation of our short visit to Ottawa and the parliament house as the only places of interest we went to. Although it may seem unfair for me to pass the comment that Ottawa is a 'low key' capital city in Canada during this short stay, I was not sufficiently bowled over by its attractions to heap praises on this city. The parliament house may be Ottawa's architectural pride, but to contend with Niagara's famous falls, Toronto's towering skyscrapers and London's reputation as a unique forest city, Ottawa became pale in comparison. Suffice to say, we were not particularly sorry to leave for Quebec city when we boarded the next Greyhound coach bound for Montreal.

A tale of 3 cities in Canada- Prologue

2007-02-24T19:42:00.000-08:00

The road trip to Ottawa, Quebec and Montreal has officially begun. Despite the initial wave of exuberant, we soon recalled that the road trip is a grueling 15 hours bus ride from London to Quebec City (our first pit stop for this road trip), and that alone was sufficient enough to dampen some of the excitement. Familiar to most inhabitants of the Northeastern region of Canada, Grey Hound is probably the largest bus service that caters to the travel needs of Canadians in that region. Hence, we purchased the bus tickets for this trip a month prior to setting off from Grey Hound. Below is the itinerary of our bus journey to the Northeastern region of Canada: (for the records, we left London at 430 pm)

1) From London to Toronto (approximate travel time: 2 hours) - Notwithstanding of the precariously tight bus schedules, Allan and Jiahao had somehow managed to squeeze in a shopping escapade at Toronto's famed Dixie Mall.

2) Toronto to Ottawa (approximate travel time: 8 hours) - After the shopping frenzy at Dixie's Mall (we got ourselves a pair of Levi's jeans each at the price of CAD$30+, a bargain only matched by those in New York), we caught a late dinner at 10 pm, before boarding the bus to Ottawa at 11. Here, the most excruiating part of our road trip unfolded. The long journey coupled with the unchanging landscape (imagine flat plains running through both flanks of the highway with the occasional sightings of featureless factory buildings were the only scenery that greeted me for the entire length of this trip), thoroughly dampened my mood. As I stared at the barren stretch of plains, a sudden tinge of home-sickness began to well up. To make things worse, no matter how hard I tried to sleep during this stretch of the journey, the uncomfortable seat thwarted my every attempt. When we finally arrived in Ottawa, I was half dead from weariness.

3) Ottawa to Montreal (approximate travel time: 3 hours) - Since the Parliament building at Ottawa was the only distinct tourist attraction, we spent a mere 3 hours in Ottawa before heading of to Montreal. On a brighter note, the female Grey Hound staffs at the bus terminal were dressed in kinky Christmas costumes, handing out free gingerbread to all the passengers (damn! I would have taken pictures with them if I was not overwhelmed by fatigue from all that travelling!)

4) Montreal to Quebec City (approximate travel time: 2 hours): Our first pit stop for this road trip. The first thing we planned on doing after we arrived was to immediately check into Auberge Internationale de Quebec without delay, a hostel we had booked in advance.

The Grey Hound bus terminal at London, a transit service that I had come to develop a love-hate relationship with...

Packing up and leaving Med-Syd

2007-02-20T06:08:00.000-08:00

The residence's moving out policy required us to vacate our rooms 24 hours after our last paper for the semester, with the primary reason that other fellow residents need to study for the remainder of their exams. Hence, with each following day, the number of students staying in the residence (and indeed our floor) dwindled. Not surprisingly, we were among the last to leave the residence, but fortunately enough, not the last. Thankfully, Sarah (Denmark) had her last paper on the same date with Allan's, and we were able to have a much needed company for our meals. Before we vacate our rooms the next day, we decided in the 'good old' fashion Singaporean way of celebrating the end of our exams by having a feast that evening at Xing's place. Profound thanks must be given to Kawei and his girl friend Vivian (a.k.a Vivi) for so diligently volunteering to buy all the food for the steam boat, and undertaking the ardous task of bringing all the necessary utensils required for the steam boat. Before heading off for my paper, we went around the residence to take some photos with friends we have made since we first arrived at Med-Syd.

With Jean and Sarah (she lives at Elgin Residence, just opposite Med-Syd), who dropped by to say goodbye. They were among the first international students whom we got to know in UWO.

Yassar is a first year health science student I got to know at the residence's gym when I was running the threadmill. An extremely studious and generous person, he gave me plenty of winter clothings when he learnt that this was my first trip to a temperate country. For that, I am deeply grateful and will treasure this friendship always.

With Dave, the maintenance staff of our residence, an extremely cheerful and friendly fellow.

Our favourite cafeteria staff (actually, she's Allan's favourite, we kept speculating whether Allan will be her prospective son-in- law), and no surprise, she's a chinese!

After we finished our final paper (World Cities) in record time (the paper was 3 hours, but I finished it in less than an hour), me and Jiahao rushed to Xing's place for the much anticipated steam boat dinner. I guess we could call it supper, since it was already 9pm when we started preparing the food. This time, we invited the Danes and Benjamin (a fellow resident on our floor) for the dinner.

The sumptous spread that was laid out at Xing's apartment, and like all steam boat dinner, the amount of food was too much for us to finish even though there were 10 of us.

The Danish guests we invited over for the dinner/supper, from left: Sarah, Marie and Minna.

Marie and Minna, they always had me roll on floor laughing with their comedic descriptions on any uneventful encounters they had with the Canadian or in school.

Sarah is our fellow resident at Med-Syd. We always had our meals together whenever possible, and stayed for lengthy talking cock sessions after that. The best part was always supper, nobody yearns to go back to their rooms after supper during the exams period, because we know that once we step back to our room, the mugging will begin. I'm gonna miss Sarah so much when we leave for our respective home country, she's such a good person to talk cock with.

The guy in red is Benjamin, a fellow resident staying on the same floor as me and Jiahao. It was glad to have his company for the 3 and a half months during my stay in Med-Syd as we often had basketball sessions together.

Kawei and Vivi, the golden couple that prepared all the steam boat for us. Vivi is a Canadian who migrated from Hong Kong, and for that, I'm deeply impressed by their long distance relationship.

Minna caught red-handed when she tried to pinch on the food!

And she got away with it by flashing us a smile almost too innocent for us to convict her!

And the feast begins, mutton, beef, dumplings, mushrooms, prawns and so much more. It was really a banquet that was worthy of a post examination celebration. Minna was quite amazed that we actually have to cook the lettuce we bought during the steam boat before we eat it. To the Danes, lettuce, the ubiquitous vegetable used in salad was eaten raw. Marie surprised everyone when she used her pair of chopsticks to perfection, as she revealed that she had been to several parts of Asia before.

Preparing the fruits for fondue. We had fondue for dessert after the steam boat, a luxurious way to end the feast.

Though paled in comparison to Nelly's fondue party, it was a treat to remember as the fondue brought the feast to an elegant end.

10 very well fed friends posing for the picture that will bring them fond memories of that night for many years to come.

After the feast, we went back to our respective residence to embark on the unglamorous task of packing up our luggages. It was a heart wrenching event, knowing that our stay in Canada is approaching an end. But still, what needs to be done has to be done, and we made ready the preparation for our road trip to Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec and New York.

Packing our luggages, notice how empty the room has become. Allison (Jiahao's peer guide) had generously agreed to let us deposit any unnecessary or excess luggages that we did not want to bring along with us during our road trip. She's an angel.

On my desk doing some last minute blogging. Notice the calender on the top left portion of my desk, it had brought me both joy and frustrations with the numerous markings on the dates fraud with quizzes, midterms, project and assignment deadlines.

In the final stages of packing, notice how depressingly bare my desk has become... This was the last picture that the 3 of us took in our room.

Nelly, Pauline and Emma surprised us by dropping by to join us for lunch before we moved out of our residence, it was so sweet of them. Already, I could feel a slight tingling sensation in my stomach and the increasing difficulty of fighting back the tears that were threatening to well up. Since when have I become so emotional?

Pauline and Emma, doing their pose while we wrote testimonials on their dairies.

Emma is my supposed and scandalous wife wedded during Nelly's fondue party. I will be missing her a lot when I return home.

Nelly and Emma, since when did Emma became the daughter of William Tell? Au revoir, mes chers amis...

All packed and ready to go at the bus stop that will bring us to Gray Hound's main station, the bus service that will ferry us during our road trip.

Coincidentally, Nicholas (French) ran into us when we were about to board the bus, he was on his way to take his exams.

With that, our much anticipated road trip has begun. Although I was looking forward to going on this road trip, I couldn't help but feel melancholic at the same time. Nevertheless, our adventure from this point onwards marks a new beginning, and that alone is a comforting thought enough.

End of exams, an end to our stay in Med-Syd and a new beginning to the next stage of our adventure

2007-02-11T05:54:00.000-08:00

4 exams in 5 days was an experience to remember. With the exception of the management module MOS 101a, the rest of the modules were suffocatingly packed into 5 days. As if this was not enough, MME 303a (killer module Fluids 2) was rescheduled to a Sunday morning due to a snow storm a week before. I have never had an examination in my entire academic life on a Saturday, much less on a Sunday! Hence, you can imagine the vexing frustration me and Jiahao went through during the preparation for our exams. Despite the ridiculous schedule, we did managed to pull through this trying period somehow. But with the end of the examinations, so was the end of our 3 and a half months stay in the alluringly charming residence of Sydenham. Knowing that our exchange was about to come to an end, fellow residents of our floor surprised us with a bagful of souvenirs each during our final floor meeting. The gifts probably did not cost a lot of money, but the memories that these fellow residents had provided us for the past three and a half months were priceless...

Floor meeting at the Jay-Hen, our floor Don's room (in case you were wondering that, "Hey! Isn't a Don the moniker for a mafia boss?" That's what I thought too, but his/her role is really the chief administrator of the entire floor and makes sure that harmony reigns between residents). Me and Jiahao always had a good laugh at these floor meetings from the spontaneity and in your face remarks made every single time the Don tried to make an announcement. Notice that 2 very unattentive souls at the floor meeting were posing for our camera: that guy's Shawn, one of the funniest person of our floor and Miss Congeniality, Margot who hails from United States Pennsylvannia.

Our floor Don, Blake. From they way he posed and dressed, you guessed it, he's a rocker and a lead guitarist in his own band! Cool dude eh?

Our Residence Advisor (RA) Galia (a.k.a Rant) with Jiahao. We always thought that she resembles a penguin!

At the residence's hall taking our floor pictures with Miss Congeniality Margot. I'm gonna miss having the days we had lunch and dinner together at the residence's cafeteria.

Mitra (of Philipino heritage), a cool dude on our floor, check out the add-ons to the ridiculous costume.

The theme for our floor photo was to drape everyone in black thrash bag (some kinda theme...), hence, the explanation for our weird costumes. From left: Yours truly me, Ilona (of Finnish heritage), Kim (coincidentally she lives in Singapore at the 6th Avenue and flies back to our little island during the summer holidays!), our floor rep Terone and Dana.

Our Floor Rep Terone (a.k.a T-bone) from the Bermudas. A charmer with the ladies (I wonder why) and perpetually flashing a wide grin, he will forever be remembered for saying, "Wassup?" whenever he runs into me.

The rest but not all of JN-2 (our floor's residence),
Top (from left to right): Shawn, Greg and Adam (Greg's roomie).
Bottom (likewise): Erin, Allie, Terone and Margot's boyfriend, the wildly hilarious Lenny.

Our floor's Soph (Sophomores are second year students) Chuck and freshman Harley (he's the floor appointed fire warden).

Our floor's cleaner Christine, a nice and sweet lady from Poland who always had plenty to chat with us when we asked her about her country. Gonna miss her alot too! Could never thank her enough for keeping our floor spick and span every single day despite the mess we made when we were drunk. Love you Christine!

Although Allan lives in Med-Syd with me and Jiahao, he was assigned to a different wing in the residence. Hence, let me introduce some of his interesting fellow residents from his wing.

Allan with his Floor Rep Itai.

Allan with his floor, full of whacky and quirky folks as shown in this picture.

This picture is wrong in every sense! Feel like retching out my meals every time I see it!

There're actually quite alot of Asians living in Canada. This Korean freshman (don't know his name at all) lives just right next to Allan.

Allan with Med-Syd's Academic Programmer (apparently, his job as a soph is to organize study group or self-improvement study methods talk) James.

Allan's RA Elena from Kazakhstan. She's got the demure damsel in distress look when she's wearing her glasses.

Floor meetings were held every week on a Tuesday to announce important floor or residence events and build the entire floor's cohesiveness. It is pretty strange for 3 twenty three year olds to mingle with a bunch of 18 year old freshman, not to mention that the floor Don (a final year student) is only twenty two years old. Therefore, we are considered as the 'senior citizens' of our repective floor. However, our fellow residences thought that like them, we're only a trio of 18 year old freshmen. You can imagine their expressions when we revealed our age (Rant gasped, "No way!" when she learnt that me and Jiahao were already 23). Before these floor meetings, Tuesday was to me a mundane and monotonous midweek menace that was standing between me and my weekends. But floor meetings, no matter how time consuming they were, always managed to bring me much needed respite for the entirety of the week, with the numerous hilarious exchange of words between these freshies. For that, I thank Jay-Hen for this lasting memory.

The calm before the storm: Bowling our stress away

2007-02-06T05:29:00.000-08:00

With the exams a little more than a week away, Jiahao's peer guide Allison (see entry: Gibbons Park) organized a bowling trip for quite possibly our last gathering in Canada. Despite having tons of assignments to hand in and project deadlines to meet, the three of us just could not care less, and decided that we must bowl at all cost. Allison was an angel of a peer guide, always organizing ice cream trips for her peers and even invited them to her home on one occassion for movies and pizzas (really regretted alot for not making it to that movie she organized! Damn!), she really deserved the 'Peer Guide of the Year' award if there ever was one. Did I mention that she's a hot and smart blond (sounds like an oxymoron eh? Not a chance, she's planning on doing medicine after her final year). Adam (Allison's boy friend, a well built macho hunk who's a wrestling fan, so any male blog readers who are already having designs on Allison, please don't. It's for your own good ) gave us a ride to the bowling alley. There were 7 of us in a Chevrolet 4-seater, but somehow, we managed to squeeze everyone into the car. The front passenger seat was built for one only, that day, we challenged norms, designer's limitations and more importantly, traffic rules by seating 2 people in that very passenger seat. They say good souls come to good end, and all of us did manage to make it safely to the bowling alley.

Jiahao, Allan and me on one team (Team Singapore of course), while Allison (blond in this picture), Adam, Sappho (long hair brunette from France) and Wang Can (sweet law graduate from china) were another team. Well known for our prowess in this sport, we were preparing for nothing less than a win.

Jiahao's expression when he scored a strike.

Bowlers from right: Adam, Allison, me (I kept holding up bowling balls and irritated everyone by saying, "Look! There're holes in my balls!"), Sappho (I have mentioned before in previous entries that she looks like Sadako from 'The Ring', judge for yourself!), Allan, Jiahao and finally, Wang Can.

The game ended with Team Singapore claiming a hard fought victory *sniggers*, but there was no hard feelings at all, just plenty of fooling around and thrash talking. I guess we all owe it to Jiahao's good fortune to have such a wonderful peer guide, adding much more fun and insight to our stay in Canada. Despite spending the entire Sunday at the bowling alley, I did not feel the least worried about the tons of revisions I have to do. Instead, I was in a tremendously good mood as I had never experience such a stress-free state of mind during a pre-examination period. Already, there's a small tinge of sadness starting to fester in the deepest reaches of my heart. Because I know for sure that when all these are over, I will miss this place and more so, the friends I have made here for quite possibly the rest of my life. I don't want to bid them adieu...

Examination in Western: The hour of reckoning

2007-02-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

I was wondering what I have been doing for the past 3 months since I arrived in Canada, and during that process, tallied the amount of hours I have spent on studying. The grand total came up to a miserable and utterly dismal figure of course, since most of my time was whiled away on play instead. Hence, with a total lack of preparedness, the panick attack that strucked me was almost too much to bear as I counted down to D-day. Below is the assessment of how I will fare for each individual modules registered for this exchange:

1) MME 303a - Fluid Mechanics:
Touted as the 'killer' module, this module boasts a failure rate of 30% from the previous semester. The sheer amount of calculus involved in this engineering module is mind boggling, with partial differentiation proving to be the main obstacle in this course. Despite having a certain amount of confidence on my knowledge of calculus, the concepts for the physics on fluids (i.e. the theory) is difficult to grasp at best.
Prediction: Would be contented with a pass for this module. It's like a division one team playing an EPL team, they will be mad with joy by forcing a draw for that match.

2) MME 450a - System Controls
Let's just say that this course is an enigma. No, I do not mean it as a meterphor, it is literal. After attending 3 months of lectures and tutorials, my understanding for this particular module is an abysmal 40% at most... Quite frankly, plotting the roots locus of a feedback system (the most important part of this module, in fact, the crux of what this entire module is all about), remains to be an unsolvable mystery to me. To cap things off, half the class's consist of graduate students doing their Masters/pHd, talk about a level playing field. I will be minced meat even before the exams start.
Prediction: Can you spell disaster in capital letter? It will take more than just divine intervention for me to scrap through this course, and gasp, it's worth 4 AUs (academic units) in NTU. If I screw up this module in Canada, I will have packed 'Western' food to bring back to Singapore...

3) MME 259a - Design & Manufacturing
Hugely project based module, with the final exams contributing a measely 40% to the entire outcome. Although the results for our project remained undisclosed, I'm pretty sure I won't take a hit for this module.
Prediction: As long as I write some nonsense for the exams, they will be forced to give me some sympathy marks and save me from failure.

4) MOS 101a - Management and Organizational Studies
Arguably the most tedious module of this semester, fraught with written assignments, read-ups and a 2 and a half hour mid term (that's like an exam by itself back in NTU, wtf?!). Despite the onslaught of these odds, it proved to be a mere nuisance to yours truly, since the art of dispensing crap during written assignments has always been my proud achievements. Though shallow in my arguments in these essays, they can at least assure me a modest grade.
Prediction: Will pull through with some work.

5) GEO 155a- World Cities
This module remains to be a paradox even on the last lecture. For starters, the lecturer is a 70 plus year old 'veteran' if you will, of the teaching profession. 'Finding Forrester', 'Dead Poet's Society' and even 'GTO' comes to mind when Prof Cecil is mentioned to any student that took this module. Strangely enough, despite the 2 written assignments required to be handed up in this course, I enjoyed this module thoroughly. As the course's title suggests, this module introduces different cities around the world and sought to explain the development and history of these cities. Gained plenty of general knowledge in this course and attended every single lecture even though the lecture begins at 7pm on a monday (my first lesson for monday is 0830am and ends at 9pm!). To top it off, the examination format is MCQ, therefore, an element of chance is factored into the final results.
Prediction: With a myriad of possibilities, the examination could swing both way. Should Lady Luck frowns on me, the results would of course be disastrous, and failing the module may not be entirely impossible. However, if fate is kind, an A is not hard to achieve either. Hence, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for now.

The seats and tables look familiar in every aspect with regards to those in NTU. It proved my point that taking examination is the same whether you're in Canada or Singapore. Be it Caucasians or Asians seating by your flanks or front or back, it makes no difference, the feeling of dread is ominipresent. At this point, that dread is maddeningly frightening, but listening to the song Sangatsu Kokonoka from 1 liter of tears, my feelings were set at ease somewhat. Recalling that Aya fought the hardships of her disease, suddenly the dread from exam stress seem insignificant. Wish me luck...

Christmas lightings followed by Beauty and the Beast at the Grand Theater

2007-01-31T07:43:00.000-08:00

By now, the festive atmosphere of Yuletide has permeated to every corner of London. To mark the approach of Christmas, London is lit up (most notably at Victoria Park) by thousands of light bulbs and other decorations. Without any ostensible plans in mind, we decided to catch the much acclaimed musical, Beauty and the Beast at the Grand theater. Taking advantage of the spare time we had before the show begins, we took a stroll along the streets to capture some pictures of the extravagantly illuminated city.

Breathe taking view of Victoria Park. This photo was taken at the top of the city hall's building (see entry: Victoria Park), it was freezing when we went up due to the strong wind. With the presence of a snow capped feature, the picture would have been perfect, protraying the impending arrival of Christmas eptly. Unfortunately, due to our wanton leisure in plundering nature's resource, the climate has been knocked off its balance. In short, we f**ked the balance of Nature big time by consuming its fruits excessively. Talk about ruining the Christmas spirit...

Even the building that runs the insurance business in Canada is elegantly lit up in all due sense of the Christmas spirit.

The entrance of Victoria Park.

It is sights like these that makes you wish that the night can last forever.

Guess who Santa has for companions this year?

Jiahao and Sarah (Denmark) managed to tame themselves a reindeer each.

This has got to be my favourite picture taken that night. Why? Because it was taken together with close friends I met before and during this exchange.

After an hour of photo taking and immersing in the beauty of the night, we rushed to the Grand theater to catch our musical and barely managed to make it on time. Winning rave reviews on the local entertainment news, we were about to witness a broadway worthy performance staged by an all Canadian cast. Indeed, I enjoyed the musical thoroughly. It was in my opinion, watching a 'live' movie.

The stage at the Grand theater, fabulously decorated and rich in flavour.

We paid about 30 Canadian dollars (40 plus Singapore dollars) for seats that were almost all the way to the back of the theater. But the view was not too bad, and again, enjoying the bliss of a small frame, the seat was fairly comfortable. The same could not be said for the caucasians seated behind us. Notice that they were tucked uncomfortably in seats that are at least 2 sizes smaller than them. The perks of being an Asian? This is 1 prime example. *Sniggers*

We were unable to take any videos and pictures of the musical. Some how, the intrepid French who watched this musical a week before us managed to capture a clip of this two-thumbs-up production (I snitched this video from Nelly's blog, desole!), and I just feel the urge to share this wonderful theatrical experience with the equally wonderful readers of this blog.

After the musical, we head to Xing's place for supper. Cooking a simple but utterly delicious meal of instant porridge and noodle (I guess we were too famished to hold these simple fares in low regard). Alas, the beauty of that night will soon be marred by the onslaught of our examination in a few week's time...

Royal Canadian Regimental Museum and the Christmas Parade at downtown (Part 3)

2007-01-30T07:19:00.000-08:00

After spending the entire afternoon in the museum, we headed to White Oaks Mall (located at the southern end of London) for some shopping. Actually, only Jiahao wanted to get something. In an epic show of filial piety and generosity, he bought a sweater for his mum, and a jacket (with fur lining on the collar, we called it 毛毛 for short) for his cousin. In an attempt to rush to downtown London to catch the Christmas parade, the shopping and our dinner (or perhaps snack) was completed in just under 2 hours. Much to our despair, the entire Dundas Street (downtown) was already thronged with crowds of families, who gathered for the town's biggest event of the year. But blessed with a thin frame and tremendous dexterity, the three of us managed to slip through the almost inexistent gaps between the crowds to hog a reasonably good picture taking-spot. Below are some pictures captured in the thick of the crowd's excitement, and I was thoroughly reminded of the Chingay procession back home.

毛毛 bought at White Oaks Mall. I seriously don't understand women's fascination with furs...

The throng of crowds at downtown. This cross road is the intersection of Dundas and Richmond Street, a place that will forever be of lasting memory to me.

What would any parade be without Western's band? Go Western!

Hansel & Gretel? Nope, it's just a simple ginger bread house on wheels. Wait a minute, that's not simple at all!

Budget cut at the local police department manifests itself in the police's patrol vehicle.

The various trucks lavishly decorated with the theme of Christmas in mind made its way to downtown.

At last, Santa arrives in London about 1 and a half month early to spread the Christmas spirit in this small but beautiful city in Ontario.

Royal Canadian Regimental Museum and the Christmas Parade at downtown (Part 2)

2007-01-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

More pictures taken at the museum. For the more perceptive readers, you would have noticed that we have taken the most pictures at this museum. A casual mention by the way, the entry to the museum cost us $4 Canadian dollars (S$6.4), hence, taking our money's worth of picture was a priority in this visit.

Small arms used by the regiment, I'm pretty darn sure that gamers from 'Call of Duty' will be able to recognize most of them. Most conspicious of them all, the Stan submachine gun used by paratroopers and commandos.

Medals of honour.

The regiment's signal equipments.

Dioramas depicting trench warfare, brutal and often senseless attempts to advance into 'No man's land' to seize the enemies' trench almost always resulted in heavy casualties until the invention of tanks.

At one point of time, the idea of taking pictures with the mannequins and striking silly pose was simply too hard to resist.

Royal Canadian Regimental Museum and the Christmas Parade at downtown

2007-01-19T22:21:00.000-08:00

In the final leg of our museum visit, we arrived at the Royal Canadian Regimental Museum. With a history spanning for nearly two centuries, the regiment had embarked in numerous campaigns around the globe. From fighting the colonial wars in Africa, to getting into the thick of action at the Korean peninsula, the regiment has seen actions in nearly every part of the world. I was particularly excited about this visit as I have a strong interest for military history and warfare, hence, the museum was almost like a Disneyland to me.

The museum is situated next to an active military barrack. Its site was founded in the early 1800s when Canada was still a crown colony of the British empire.

Pictures of the empire's monarch, a reminder of the Canadian's colonial past.

Uniforms of the officers in the regiment.

The equipments and uniform of the regiment's trooper.

Cigarettes and cigars are part of the ration in the regiment, it's amusing that a stick of dead leaves could have a significant impact on the troop's morale.

Badges and insignias that distinguish the different service arms in the regiment.

Paintings by war veterans.

Pure coincidence? This portrait was painted on my birthday (the 5th of July)!

The museum has a library that holds plenty of books on *no surprise* military history. Needless to say, I spent quite some time in this dimly lit room.

A chapel at the basement of the museum. Spiritual comfort meant a great deal to the soldiers, providing much needed relief from the carnage they had to face.

The colours of the regiment.

Uniforms worn by the regiment's brass band.

Museum London

2007-01-11T04:32:00.000-08:00

I truly deserve severe reprimand for the delay of entries to this blog. But before any judgement is made, please understand that I was on a road trip to Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec and New York last week and was therefore unable to provide any punctual entries. With that, I can only offer my heart felt apologies to the readers of this blog and promise to make amends by uploading EVEN more pictures we took from the road trip. I can assure you, the wait will not be in vain when pictures of the New York trip is displayed on this humble blog.

In the mean time, kindly bear with me as I continue with the remainder of the museum trip. This continuation is necessary as it ensure that this blog possess some kind of chronological order. The next museum introduced in this chapter is Museum London, a museum that has fine art exhibition in addition to its collection of artefacts. Although none of us appreciate the fine art, the free entry simply proved too hard to resist.

Museum London.

I have no idea why this rhinoceros is placed outide the museum... Perhaps it's made out of recycled aluminium cans to preach environmental awareness?

A self explanatory sign.

Much to our frustration, the museum forbades any photo taking on its exhibits. Fortunately enough, there is a park located next to the museum that provided much picture perfect moment.

River Thames runs through the entire city of London, its tributaries cut through downtown in several places. The park beside the museum is one of them.

Middlesex courthouse, the seat of government for the early adminstration in London. It is concidentally situated next to Museum London.

London Museum of Archaelogy

2006-12-23T17:48:00.000-08:00

3 months after we arrived in London, we decided to do something constructive (not that we were doing unconstructive stuffs all the while, just that we wanted to do something different) by visiting the museums in London. Our first stop is London Museum of Archaelogy, a museum built on an actual archaelogical site with budding archaelogists performing manual digging to recover artifacts. The place was a good 45 minutes bus ride from the campus, tucked quietly in a nondescript neighborhood at the fringe of the city.

The entrance of the London Museum of Archaelogy. We were informed by the staff that students from Western can visit the museum for free for that entire month (Jean, Nelly and Emma had to pay a $2 entrance free each when they visited the museum earlier during September). Whoever said that early bird gets the worm must be sadly mistaken.

Exhibits at the interior of the museum. Displayed items are mostly archaelogical findings or a brief introduction of the history of Canada since the Ice Age, *yawn*, pretty boring stuff no doubt.

Artworks by Native American Indians of the first nations.

The compound of the museum, an actual archaelogical site where ongoing excavations are still carried out.

A life size Native American Indian living quarters built on the excavation site. The walls of the quarter was made of tree barks.

The woods surrounding the museum reminded me of 'Blair Witch Project', we took a couple of pictures there and ended the visit to the museum by heading back to the campus for lunch. Although visibly bored by the visit, we still bought some souvenirs from the museum (obviously over priced made in China commodities).

What the f**k?!--> Part 2

2006-12-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

Allan told me that the janitor of our residence, Dave commented that the snow storm we had 2 weeks ago was the heaviest he had seen in 4 years. Boy were we lucky to see snow fall from the sky in such an extravagant amount. It's not exactly biting off more than we could chew, as we wanted to see snow so bad that even if it means that our exams is postponed, it was worth it. Hence, we spent the remainder of the weekends building ourselves a snowman (the first one wasn't really impressive), pelting each other with snowballs, burying ourselves in the thigh-deep snow and attempted to snow board down the hills.

It is as if icing was spreaded nicely onto the entire campus. Seeing snow for the first time really got three of us excited, we went around taking tons of pictures and marvelled at a season that is little more than a slight inconvenient to folks living at the northern hemisphere.

Notice the amount of snow accumulated on the shade of the lamp post.

Then you will notice that folks are struggling to trudge through the thigh-deep layer of snow.

Bushes started to resemble cotton wools on twigs.

This picture was taken before the snowball fight began. Keep your friends close,your enemies closer.

The snowball fight got out of hand, Allan was ruthlessly buried in the snow after he 'fell' to the hail of snowballs.

Sarah (Denmark) was next...

I tried to snowboard down the slope at University College with a tray I 'borrowed' from the cafeteria. Bad mistake, the snow was too thick and not slippery enough.

The making of a snowman. It's not as easy as it looks, our hands were freezing all the time during the process.

It probably took about half an hour to get this snowman up, we came a long way from our first snowman.

When evening set in at 1630, the sky was already dark. Instead of getting diminished, the beauty of the snow was further enhanced as the sheets of white snow contrasted nicely with the night sky. I love the tropical climate in Singapore, I really do even though it does cause some discomfort. But when I saw the beauty unleashed during that weekend, my conviction came close to wavering,

P.S. The snow storm lasted 3 days, thereafter, the snow melted away, disappearing as mysteriously as it came. Just last week, the temperature in London even climbed to 15ºC... Global warming? I won't discount the possibility.

Long Halloween Part 5--> Pumpkin Carving

2006-12-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

After getting inebriated at the party, and carried back to my residence *alive* (thanks to Allan and Jiahao), I was really surprised that I was able to make it for the pumpkin carving the next day at all. We have never carved a pumpkin before, and definitely will not miss it for the world. Below is the step by step procedure of carving an award winning pumpkin:

Step 1:

Choose the biggest pumpkin you can lay your hands on. The bigger the better...

Step 2:

Draw rough outlines on the pumpkin.

Step 3:

Cut an opening on top of the pumpkin to scoop out the seeds and the flesh of the pumpkin.

Step 4:

Do not throw away the seeds! Collect them on a tray, lightly sprinkle some salt and roast them in an oven for 20 minutes or so for a convenient 'after carving' snack.

Step 5:

With a sharp pair of knife, begin the carving of the pumpkin, inhaling and exhaling with each stabbing and withdrawing movement.

Step 6:

The final touches is added on by signing off your name on the pumpkin (in this case, since this is the joint labor of 4 students from NTU, we decided to dedicate our first carved pumpkin to our home university).

Step 7:

The pumpkin seeds are ready to be savoured.

Step 8:

Viola, our very first pumpkin. Take tons of photo now with the pumpkin to complete this tutorial!

A display of all the pumpkins carved that day.

One liter of tears (Ichi Rittorou No Namida)

2006-12-13T21:31:00.000-08:00

I did not cry one liter of tears of course, even though the thought of sitting for 4 exams in 5 days made me come close to tears (Friday-Engineering Design, Sunday-Fluids 2 (killer module), Monday- System Control, Tuesday-World Cities, if I survive this shit, I will be able to take any kinda shit in the future).

On a more serious note, 'One liter of tears' is a Japanese drama series based on the real life account of a 15 year old girl, Aya Kitou. Strucked by a terminal illness called Spinocerebullar Disorder, she will eventually be robbed of her freedom to move her body due to the continual deterioation of her cerebullum. I'm not a fan of sappy drama, and definitely not someone who would get weepy after watching a serial drama. Which is why I find it incredulous that I came dangerously close to shedding tears during several episodes of this show.

If a show is able to push a cold hearted, stoically indifferent man like me to the brink of tears, you should take my word for it that this is a good show. My review for this show? A glorious 5 out of 5 stars of course. Strong chemistry between the cast, brilliant cinematography and most importantly, it touched me. Come to think of it, I have never used that word for a very long time...

Beacon of hope

2006-12-11T16:30:00.000-08:00

I dedicate this entry to all my friends I have met during this exchange in UWO, who are currently slugging out in the depths of the libraries or the confines of their desk for the tiresome but controversially necessary examinations. Do not despair, do not give up hope. This picture was taken a couple of weeks back, I was thinking that it may offer some condolences during this trying period.

Long Halloween Part 4--> Party Time 2

2006-12-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

As promised, more pictures from the party. Fortunately, the spell cast by the French duo was lifted at middnight, and I was able to resume the partying without anymore mishap...

The party continues! With plenty of dancing around the trees a la Bollywood!

Tim, the co host of this party(Half Canadian, half American, all party), in his lumberjack outfit. The chainsaw was awesome! It's the REAL thing!! Looking at his almost deranged expression, we thanked our lucky stars when we learnt hours later that the chainsaw was not working.

Partying one moment...

Massacred the next...

Audrey in her Supergirl costume, all we need is kryptonite *evil grin*.

Maxime (French) with shades, I wonder how the heck can he see that night on the dimly lit dance floor, and of course, Emma, the Eiffel tower.

Guess who's this snow woman? These French really impressed me with their capacity to party and creativity. Nelly looked so 'huggable' in her snow woman garb, almost reminded me of a soft toy! We always had a good time making fun of the Canadian's accent (e.g. Twenty = Twenny, Party = powty), I almost died laughing that night when she said, "Let's powty!!"

Spot the similarity. Allan managed to pull off the masquerade of a computer nerd without the aid of a costume!

Orsi finally had enough of her mask (makes sense of course), and transformed to Lara Croft with a bit of improvisation. She's got the brains and the looks!

Ben (Finnish Nigerian. Confused? So am I, hahaha) in his one piece green spandex, sexy!

Jenny in her Dutch lady costume, I guess alotta guys had wild fantasies that night. Kinky!

Henri (Finland) and Rasmus (Denmark).

Mariska (Netherland), she's the authentic Dutch lady! 100%.

Made peace with one half of the witches (Emilie was nowhere to be found), and agreed not to use any cheesy pick up lines on them anymore, hahaha!

Kenta (Japan) rose to challenge Nicholas' reign as the king/queen of drag in his punkish pink wig!

More joined in the fray, slugging it out for the glorious title of king/queen of drag. Who is the fairest of them all? I'll be frank with you, my stomach turns every time I look at these 3 pictures...

Maki-san! We got to know her at ACBB when we first arrived at Canada. It's always feels so good to see an old friend!

Jiawei thought that he could make off with some 'free gifts', but...

Was beaten to death by the hosts when he was caught... Tim's chainsaw finally worked.

Long Halloween Part 3--> Party Time

2006-12-08T15:41:00.000-08:00

The party for that night can only be decribed with one word 'Havoc', I cannot recall when was the last time we took so many pictures after the Niagara falls trip. Reminded that a picture can speak a thousand words, I'll let these pictures do the talking in this entry for a change.

Jiawei made this spongebob square pants costume out of cardboards for the halloween party, but the heavy downpour that night prevented him from wearing it to the party. An absolute waste...

Halloween decorations at London Hall (Xing's residence).

A pre-party picture we took at Jenny's place (London Hall). Bjorn's (Swedish guy who is madly in love with Jap stuffs and is a kendo exponent) dressed up as a male pimp and Orsi is behind the mask of that cigar chewing redneck.

Reached Chloe's place (where the party was held) after much walking and the number of people arriving at her place was incredible. Plenty of effort has been put into the decorations at Chloe's place by the use of candles to create a dimly lit environment (the flash of Jiahao's camera did wonders here), the display of pumpkins carved into the shapes of ghouls, and the strewing of cobwebs ingeniously made of cotton wool all over the place.

The petite Chloe dressed up as a sultry looking she-devil (all she needs is a pitchfork to complete her masquerade), Jean's tribute to Bill Gates in a computer nerd costume, coincidentally, he's also a computer engineer.

By now, almost everyone has worn Bjorn's hat! Jiahao was not petrified of David's costume, rather, it was probably his breath. Notice that Bjorn's expression never change when he takes a picture. Haw haw...

Nicholas' drag queen act really deserves a worthy mention. His expression flaunted when posing in front of shutterbugs was priceless! She's, *confused* I mean he's hot! Mort du rire (died of laughing)!

This picture makes me roll on floor laughing all the time. Why? Let's just say that Jiahao's silent scream was not a faked expression.

By wearing the symbolic structure of her country as her costume (the Effiel tower), Emma won hands down in terms of creativity and effort! Pity she only got the second prize for the costume competition. Nevertheless, you rock!

A tribute to King Kong scaling the Empire State Building. I did not plunge to my death from the Effiel tower of course.

Hot witches from France, Sarah and Emilie. I'm sure they can take on the Charmed ones any day.

Never cross the path of the Charmed ones from France, I was turned into an empty beer can and was carelessly left at the dance floor for the remainder of the party... (more pictures will be uploaded in the next post)

What the f**k?!

2006-12-08T04:40:00.000-08:00

Life can be a bitter irony. It could also be a sick joke. We were praying for snow ever since we arrived in Canada, and when it finally did yesterday, the forecast read: snowsquall (read: thigh-deep snow). For the entire month of November, there was hardly any speck of snow drifting down from the clouds (I can even afford to go for a jog in the evening, you can visualize how 'cold' the weather was), and our patience was beginning to wear thin. Hence, we were mad with joy when large clumps of snow fell from the skies yesterday. Snowball fights, running around like mad, building ourselves a (minature) snowman.

Happier times spent in the snow.

Our very first snowman! It's been scaled down of course, not bad for first timers?

This picture reminded me of 'The Legend of Narnia'. Snow really brought mysticism and a fairytale surrealism to the surrounding.

Quite frankly, I welcomed the onslaught of the snow squall without any qualm. BUT, as it did so many times before, fortune has to vomit on my laps. Waking up a couple of hours ago with intense anticipation to seat for my first paper in UWO, I was smacked right across my face with an abysmal news when Allan informed us that the exams has been rescheduled due to bad weather. Hucking Fell! Hours of mugging aside, this means that my misery is extended indefinitely and my trip to Montreal, Quebec and New York may be cancelled!! If I could channel my rage to the f**king weather, I would. But how can a mere mortal duel against nature? Not that I will lose of course, just that I can't fight something I can't hit.

Then shit happened... Notice that even the bicycle stand and tables at the quad were buried in thigh-deep snow.

Thereafter, my wrath was directed at the university's adminstration. Why can't those imbeciles working at the administration postpone this wretched paper to noon instead; the weather will definitely be warmer by then (it was forecasted on the net that there will be sunshine from noon onwards). I guess the addages, "Be careful of what you wish for." & "Biting off more than you can chew." lend a whole new meaning after this unfortunate turn of event. My love hate relationship with winter has begun. But I am pretty sure that this relationship will only last for another month at most, after which I will be returning to the warm embrace of summer in Singapore. Not that I am a philandering bastard of course, I just can't continue with a relationship that has turn cold.

Long Halloween Part 2---> Curry before party

2006-12-04T07:29:00.000-08:00

Food in Canada is boring and expensive, with mostly fast food and BBQ meat making regular appearances on our menu. As mentioned in previous posts, french fries have already become a staple in our meal since rice tastes like crap here. Hence, we decided to cook ourselves some dishes from home that can lend us a brief respite to our long suffering palate. The first dish that came to mind was a no brainer: Curry, as the Ingredients for that dish are readily available. To 'spice' things up abit, we invited a couple of French over for the dinner, and I really could not wait to see the expressions on their faces when they taste the fiery bowls of curry. Did I mention that Nelly's threshold for spicy food is extremely low? *wicked grin*

Nothing reminds me more of home than food. While we were waiting for the curry to simmer, the aroma from the pot simply overwhelmed us.

The smaller pot of curry was for the French. It was less spicy than the bigger pot.

Jiawei suggested cooking some Tom Yam soup as well. Great news for us, more bad news for Nelly and perhaps most of the French...

Jiawei, the chef who was at the helm of the kitchen for that night. Was his job cushy? His expression says it all in this picture.

All smiles after a great meal.

The French were either being extremely polite or brave to finish their portion of curry and Tom Yam (it was literally licked clean). In the words of David, " It's so hot, but I can't stop eating because it's too delicious!". But poor Nelly had only a few mouthful of curry and Tom Yam, surviving mostly on the goreng pisang we made for dessert and the French loaves we bought. Special thanks must be made to Xing for so generously lending us his kitchen for this dinner to be possible.

Long Halloween Part 1---> Floor decoration

2006-12-03T20:49:00.000-08:00

Halloween, the mere mention of this festivity conjures image of whole bunch of kids draped in costumes of superheros, ghouls, brightly coloured and impossibly furry animals etc, dragging sacks of candies from the entire night of 'trick or trick-ing'. At least that is what folks back at home will think. But in North America, Halloween is a big deal and in my humble opinion, it comes a close second to Christmas. Young adults dress up in costumes as well (not to 'trick or treat' of course), wreaking havoc at parties with plenty of drinks and smokes.

Before heading to the party held by the exchange students, there was a floor decorating competition held by our residence to kick start the Halloween spirit. Although I was reluctant to participate in it initially, Jiahao's enthusiasm for this entire affair eventually made me relent. As we were soon to find out, the experience was amusing indeed! The entire floor participated in this ridiculously hyped up event and wanted the judges to have a you-know-these-people-are-in-costume-but-can-you-still-act-like-you-are-afraid experience. Despite knowing that we don't stand a chance in frightening these sophomore (2nd year undergraduates, sempai in Japanese) judges, I played along and got into the mood as well.

Theme for the decorating competition? An asylum with all its patients running loose.

I have no idea why they wanna let the toilet papers drape from the ceiling, but from a distant, it reminded me of a gigantic toothbrush.

The entire floor was extravagantly covered in black thrash bag. The objective was simple: engulfing the entire floor in total darkness when the lights are switched off. It was a huge success, everyone practically had to grope around when the lights were switched off.

What spooked Jiahao? I guess it was the thought of being caught wearing his less than flattering pair of pyjamas Our role for that night was to grab the feet of any judges who walked by that stretch of corridor. When the lights were switched off, we were totally 'invisible'.

The guy having a 'brain sugery' is Blake, he basically had this gigantic mass of raw meat mixed with tomato sauce spreaded nicely onto his head. The girls were having a great time of course, but the same could not be said for Blake who spent hours in the showers after the whole event. Fortunately enough, he had just shaved his head a few weeks ago.

I have to admit, there was plenty of fun. Jiahao even 'upgraded' his role to that of a chinese ghost, yelling a string of nonsense in chinese at the sophomores. Scary... The night ended with the clearing up of the huge mess we have created during the decoration. We did not win the first place in this competition of course, and I secretly began to speculate whether Jiahao's relentless rant with his mother tongue has anything to do with it.

Fondue Party

2006-12-01T12:55:00.000-08:00

Whoever insisted that music is the food of love should really be invited to a fondue party. The three of us thanked our lucky stars when we were invited to one, graciously hosted by Nelly (French exchange studentl) over at her place. I have got to admit, I am a chocoholic, these brown stuffs just drive me crazy. Cadbury, Sneakers, Mars, Hershey's, Kit Kat, Van Houtan's, you name it, I've tasted it, but I dare say, non of these even come close to a fondue experience. Laden on the table at Nelly's place was an extravagant spread of fruits, french loaves, cereals, bread sticks and of course, the ubiquitous marshmallows. Dipping fruits into the chocolate fondue and savoring it with wine is a heavenly experience, and without a doubt, this is the food of god. My personal favourite would be grapes dipped with the fondue, if you guys love those chocolates with raisins and dried grapes embedded within, this will definitely blow you away.

The undisputed highlight for the party, viscous and rich creamy molten chocolate. Jean (Nelly's boyfriend) had a huge hand in preparing the chocolate.

Fruits were sliced and diced to bite-size pieces, in French, "Parfait!".

The host for this superb fondue party, Nelly, a demure looking and petite French girl from Nice. She rocks!

In true 'makan' fashion, the three of us wolved down most of the food at the fondue party. But the stream of food was endless! Nelly must have prepared the party for a crowd of at least 30 people!

The French, from left: Jean, ,Nicholas, Pauline, Audrey and Chloe (she really reminds me of models you see on the covers of magazines endorsing perfumes or LV handbags).

EMMA! Indispensible in any party, she just radiates joy and fun with her presence. I think I'm gonna miss her most when this exchange ends.

I guess Audrey is the most eloquent and witty French exchange student I've met so far (hardly surprising, she's doing a major in English).

In danger of becoming diabetic if the gluttony continues at the fondue party, the three of us reluctantly put down our forks and finally put our system to 'rest' mode. The rest of the evening was spent with rounds of chatting, plenty of dancing (Audrey was especially high that night!) and drinking, it was a beautiful way to end the week. Bisous and merci Nelly! The fondue was délicieux!

Crisis!!!

2006-11-30T23:25:00.000-08:00

Jiahao is ill! The apparent cause of this illness is unknown, but the doctor diagnosed this to be a possible case of viral infection. Diarrhea, feeling feverish and vomitting were among the symptons of the viral infection that plagued Jiahao for the past two days. To make matters worse, we had a Fluids 2 quiz today (definitely a killer module in the Engineering department with a mortality rate of 30%). Like the poignant-tragic hero of a play, Jiahao had to brave this killer paper and casting off any discomfort brought about by his illness at the same time.

Visibly pale and thoroughly weaken by this illness, we accompanied Jiahao to the University's Hospital in the campus after our dinner (Jiahao survived on fruits mainly for the duration of this period). Although medication and diagnosis are free, the waiting time was atrociously long. The line formed for diagnosis and consultation was prioritized according to the seriousness of each individual cases. Obviously understaffed, I began to suspect that the entire hospital has only one doctor on duty to attend to this ever growing line of patients, miserably waiting for their turns. We were no exception, and the sight of Jiahao growing paler by the minute worried me and Allan quite a bit. After close to 3 hours of waiting, it was finally Jiahao's turn. He was put on an IV drip for 2 hours (grand total of 5 hours spent at that darned hospital), without any prescribtion of medicine.

By the time we reached our residence, it was close to 230 a.m!!! With a presentation at 0830 a.m tomorrow, I couldn't help but think that will the lack of sleep, stress from the presentation and the increasingly cold weather put me next in line of the 'falling ill list'? I hope not! Looking at how Jiahao heroically combat this illness, I doubt I can conjure the same effort. Before I'm off to make the final preparations for the presentation, I hope that you guys can wish him a speedy recovery. Afterall, Jiahao needs every bit of strength to lug the truckloads of souvenirs he bought to Singapore!

Ice Hockey: a 3 in 1 game

2006-11-30T15:16:00.000-08:00

Arguably the most popular sports in Canada, ice hockey is really a combination of 3 other kinds of sports: American football, hockey (DUH....) and skating (I'm tempted to add in wrestling here as well; the players seem to be exuding too much testosterone during the entire match). In short, you have to be some kinda super athlete to play this sport. The Canadians have a professional league, the NHL (National Hockey League), but I've been told that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get the tickets by both physical or financial means even during the regular season. Which explains why we are reduced to watching the Western Mustang in their opening match against the Windsor Lancers for 8 bucks. Despite the fact that some of the players are just your average tertiary students, these athletes are really in a league of their own, and the popularity they enjoy in London is phenomenal.

John Labatt Stadium, home of the Western Mustang. There was scarcely a crowd that day.

The Mustangs warming up before the game in their trademark purple jerseys.

The opposing team: Windsor Lancers (their ass is gonna be kicked that night).

The Mustang's mascot.

With a resounding clash of the hockey sticks, the match began...

The entire game was fast paced. My eye balls was moving left and right so rapidly that I can swear it almost came right out of the sockets.

Nelly (French girl) won herself a Mustang jersey! The rest of us could only settle for the free towels given to us at the entrance....

The Western Mustangs beat the Windsor Lancers 7-2 in the final quarter. Needless to say, the crowd was ecstatic in the Mustang's first opening win. But for the French, Malaysian and Singaporean exchange students, it was little more than a trivial weekend alternative to the movies.

Post home coming party

2006-11-26T22:34:00.001-08:00

There were parties all over the campus that night, plenty of booze and meat (the other kind of 'meat' as well) were passed around. Me and Jiahao went for one of these, and guess what, a snippet of video of Jiahao dancing was caught on camera! Thanks to Sappho, the French girl (she kinda reminds me of Sadako from certain angles, especially when her long flowing mane covers her face. Will upload her pictures soon for all to see), this video was made possible. Jiahao did NTU and Singapore proud! We can groove any time, any where!

Home coming

2006-11-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

Do not ask me what 'home coming' means. When I asked, I was given the vague reply that it is an event where alumnis of UWO return to the campus for the event, beer/foam/BBQ parties (and plenty of fornication afterwards I bet) were held all day long, a parade and procession by the various faculties snakes from downtown to the campus to mark this event. The parties (and perhaps the fornication) and procession went on as scheduled despite a light drizzle that morning.

University of Western Ontario's marching band, with their riduculously puffy attires.

The procession making its way into the campus from downtown.

The university's very own radio station. Honestly, I've never tuned in to the station before.

Trucks in Canada are HUMONGOUS, you get run over by one of these, chances are you can be made into fillings for wanton (chinese dumplings).

The decorated float from my residence. Go MED-SYD!

Soft toys are not just for girls...

Material and Mechanical Engineering's buggy made from scrap metals.

Tough luck to the Electrical engineers. Weather forecast for that day: Overcast with light rain.

You guys can start by not spending so much money on this procession.

An unexpected, yet predictable news from home

2006-11-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

The title for this entry is conspicuosly oxymoronic. No doubt about that. But when it comes to innocuous sounding words like 'revision' or 'upward adjustment' of the GST, it does make sense to most Singaporean readers. It was a week ago when I learnt that the GST will be 'revised' from the current 5% to 7% from next year onwards. The implication here would be simple: by applying simple economic theories, the price of all luxury items will be significantly more expensive, while purchasing price elastic goods, the impact of the 'revised' GST could be felt when it compounds in the long term. If you ask me, the year end sales will be a good time for the ladies to grab their LVs and the guys, their PS 3 or Wii, before the 'revision' kicks off in 2007.

Moving the focus to Canada, they have a GST of 6%, and a PST of 8% (PST = Provincial Sales Tax), adding up to 14% in total to the amount taxable on any goods or services. In terms of the GST, Singapore has surpassed that of Canada. Not something to be proud of, of course. Bearing this in mind, I can only tighten my belt further when I return to Singapore should the amiable auntie selling the lor mee at my favourite hawker center say, "Lor mee, big bowl one, S$3.07." There is one nagging question that has not cease to disturb my otherwise enjoyable trip in Canada: when was the last time the 'revision' of GST was made before an election? If memory did not fail me, was it never?

Toronto (part 5)---> The long walk to CN tower

2006-11-23T19:03:00.000-08:00

Walking for close to 8 hours around the city of Toronto was no easy feat. We journeyed to CN tower (the pin-like structure in part 1 of the Toronto entries) to rendevouz with the rest of the international students to catch the bus back to our residence. I guess I was glad to be finally taking the bus ride home, and finally get to rest my feet again.

London Royal Museum

I'm pretty sure this stone lion wasn't made in Canada. Talk about globalization.

Just some unusual architectures and monuments that stirred the interest our camera guys.

CN tower, the most prominent building in the urban landscape in Toronto and perhaps the structure represents Toronto as the Merlion is to Singapore.

Toronto (part4)---> Casa Loma

2006-11-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

An ancient castle in a bustling modern city is a queer sight indeed. Casa Loma is a historical site rich in both heritage and significance to the Canadians, capturing tourists with its magnificence and majesty. Nestled on a hill-top, the castle conjured up all kinds of imagination possible for a fantasy novel fanatic. Needless to say, the shutters were clicking away furiously the moment we arrived at this monumental piece of architecture.

A long flight of steps leading up the hill top. The toll of capturing the beauty of Casa Loma is to obviously perspire heavily and feel short of breath. Small price I guess?

Sharp observations will tell you that the pictures we took only captured the compounds and exterior of the castle. This is because by the time we reached Casa Loma, it was already closed for public admission. Agonies of agony!

Without even realising that we might miss the bus back home, we have spent nearly all our time in Toronto taking several megabytes' worth of pictures. Not wanting to be stranded in Toronto for the night, we immediately got packing and began the long trek back to rendezvous with the rest of the exchange students.

Toronto (part3)---> Trekking to Casa Loma

2006-11-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

Essential items for backpackers? Map, checked. A water bottle filled to the brim, checked. A comfy pair of walking shoes, hmmmm, checked. The willingness to walk that extra mile, remain to be seen. Our next stop in the list of 'must see' sights is Casa Loma, an Edwardian era castle in Toronto. On the map, Casa Loma seemed to be just a stone throw's distance away. I guess we should have checked the scale on the map. To sum it up, we did plenty of walking. But as the pictures below tell us, the walking was worth it.

Memorials and sculptures were erected on road dividers; a brilliant use of space in the city of Toronto which is increasingly threatened by overcrowding.

Toronto University, alot similar to SMU back home. It's a university with its campus built on the city.

Yes, the towering Edwardian architecture at the background is Casa Loma. After walking for close to an hour, we were STILL nowhere near its compound!

Toronto (part2)---> China town and the start of a long trek...

2006-11-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

A quote from my geography lecturer who headed the module on World Cities (an eccentric old foggy with more than a slight penchant for drinking and partying), "A city is best explored on foot, in this way, you can feel the pulse of the city." But in actual reality, the reason why we trekked for most of the way through the city of Toronto was simply to save on transport expenses. In an almost accidental manner, we did detect the pulse of this city. It beats just as rapidly as Singapore's be it in terms of its traffic or the pace of its commuters on a casual saturday afternoon.

An odd juxtapose: towering skyscrapers dwarved the heights of nostalgic buildings of yore such as these.

You don't need Sherlock Holmes to tell you that you are in China town

An interesting fact: Toronto has more Chinese than caucasians.
The most memorable part of my brief stay at China town? I got ripped off. Bought a cup of bubble tea for about S$7. Damn it, back home I could easily get at least 3 cups of those crap for the same price, and it really tasted like CRAP!

8 days a week

2006-11-02T15:14:00.000-08:00

Last week was crazy, if I were to summarize everything that happened into one sentence, it will be as such: *deep breathe* had 2 brain haemorrhage inducing mid-terms, 3 wretched assignments were due, 1 pointless presentation, lost my residence's keys *heartpain* (there's a fine of $60 for losing the keys, and it's in Canadian dollars of course), got myself involved in the floor decorating competition for halloween (tremendous waste of time), cooked curry with the rest of the NTU chaps, invited the French over for the curry, got myself dead drunk at a halloween party (will upload more photos of the party after the Toronto trip), carved a pumpkin and finally, adjusted the clock an hour back for daylight saving (the countries in the Northern Hemisphere have to do this as dawn arrives an hour later and dusk, an hour earlier).

In short, the events that transpired for that week reminded me of a roller-coaster ride: you can feel as if crap just landed on your face one day, and feel wildly ecstatic the next. Ironically, despite losing my keys and going through the distasteful mounds of assignments, I enjoyed last week thoroughly, especially during Halloween. Which brings me to the point that I still do not feel home sick, at least for now. Before you dismiss me as a heartless cad, an indifferent cur etc, at least let me have the chance to defend myself. 4 months is a short time compared to the next 5 or 6 decades I have to spend in Singapore, and to constantly feel homesick would mean only one thing: you are not enjoying yourself during the exchange. With the inexhaustible sights to see, the opportunity to make friends with people from all over the world (inevitably party alot with them), and almost an unwavering certainty that this exchange is a once in a life time experience, why then would I feel any tinge of homesickness? I do think of my folks back home for sure, but bear in mind that I will not be staying forever, this 4 months will end before you, them or even I will know it. Hence, I will not mar the purity of this perfect bliss with any thoughts of homesickness.

This week saw my luck change for the better, I've gotten my keys back after some undue perplexity. Apparently the front desk at my residence has been trying to reach me through the phone since last thursday. Unfortunately, I was away from my room most of the time, only returning for the single purpose of sleeping. Which brings me to a question that almost ceded common sense: do those people at the front desk even know what the f**k is an email? Hopelessly inefficient management aside, I give my profound thanks to the good samaritan for returning my keys to the front desk. Unfortunately the front desk do not know the identity of this person (given their competency in handling matters, I would be surprised if they did), if not I will see to it that a good deed is rewarded.

My PRECIOUS has returned to us!!!! So bright, so beautiful, my precioussssss.... Hahahaha, I'll definitely be extra cautious and not lose it again!

Toronto (part1)---> Eaton Center (shopping disappointment)

2006-10-29T09:46:00.000-08:00

Toronto is a megapolis from every angle, and in an uncanny way, reminds me of Singapore with its rows of shopping malls and towering skyscrapers. But geographical similarities aside, the three of us had only one objective: shop like nobody's business. Unfortunately, we were hugely disappointed. Did I mention right from the beginning that every commodity in Canada is subjected to a 14% tax, and that the exchange rate is CAD$1 = S$1.42? Performing some basic arithmatics, it simply makes more sense to shop during GSS. However, we did compensate this shopping disappointment by taking plenty of pictures in this bustling city.

Hallmark of any great North American city: towering skyscrapers.

Eaton Center, a shopping mall with more than 200 retail outlets, but the stuffs they sell are expensive la...

Interior of Eaton Center: Reminds me of Jurong Point!!!

Can you guess what is the needle like structure in this picture?

Serenaded

2006-10-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

I think me and Jiahao became damn bo liao after hours upon hours of pouring through our notes for our midterms. We tried to kill our boredom by searching for all those boy/girl bands which are disbanded on youtube, and found this ancient clip of Take That's 'How deep is your love' MV.

Call me a wuss, but some times I still find myself listening to songs belted out by boybands.

Shit happened

2006-10-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that my run of good luck has finally ended, since I have not seen any black cats so far, walked under a ladder, or even have the chance to be associated with the number 13. Why then did bad luck befell me? I was so tempted to kick start this entry with a torriental tide of swear words, but overwhelmed with fatigue from an impossibly long day (0830am~0900pm), I could only manage one: je t'emmerde.

This hapless drama unfolded when I lost the keys to my residence this morning. I have to admit that I'm hardly known for exercising extra caution when it comes to keeping important things from getting lost (a scatterbrain so to speak), BUT, combined with fatigue from late nights spent on mugging, I'm hopeless. In short, I lost the keys, and the first words that came to my mind rhymed with trucking bell. The rest of the day was spent with needless anxieties and frustrations, to top it off, there was a presentation and mid term in the evening. If you asked me, I really 'enjoyed' my day.

Did I forget to mention that I have to pay a massive fee of $60 Canadian dollars to get the lock changed and replace the keys? I guess that would mean I will have to 'revise' the budget I allocated for the 'souvenir funds' for folks back home. Share weal and woes with me in this dark times will you? For now, I think crashing into my bed and lay in deep slumber will probably help me get over it. Shit happened today, and someday, I'll smear this shit back onto misfortune's face!

(Apologies for the numerous mention of human excretion here, but I'm really pissed today, so t'emmerde off if you find this entry offensive)

Something that reminds me of home

2006-10-20T12:18:00.002-07:00

Despite finding myself cursing and swearing at lecturers who have problems articulating their PHD's worth of knowledge to students effectively, NTU is able to exploit the full advantage of technologies in providing learning tools for its students. Unable to take pride in the competency of our lecturers back home, I had to resort to boasting about the lecture recordings students back home enjoy when other international students queried about the uniqueness of Singapore's University.

The link below is definitely not one of the lecturer's finer moments, but it does get across a point: who needs to go for those 0830 lectures when we can watch the whole darn thing at any time we desire at the comfort of our home?

I probably will not miss those overpaid and underworked professors back home, but lecture recording is totally a different matter altogether. For 3 days a week, I have to drag my semi-awake body to those dreaded 0830 lectures while braving incessant rain or raging snow storms. Perhaps it's the work of retribution? Because if memory did not fail me, the last time I actually attended an 0830 lecture back home was during my first year's second semester! Debts that are due must be paid, and needless to say, the collection of payment is often expeditious.

Quirky spontaneity from (future) engineers

2006-10-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

An otherwise boring tutorial right after lunch was pretty much liven up by the raunchy humour and sharp wits of a fellow student during that tutorial class. Below is the exchange between the student and a training assistant, TA (post-graduate students running the tutorial classes):

*Scene: we were doing a survey that has a total of 180+ questions for a Social Science department.*

TA (getting impatient). "Will you guys hurry up and complete the surveys? I thought engineers are quick in everything they do."
Student's reply, "Yeah, especially when they're in bed with a girl."

TA (manages bitter smile), "I've got to submit the surveys now, for those who have yet to finish, please submit your surveys at the Social Science building. You guys know where that is?"
Student's reply, "The depths of hell?"

The trip reaches a climax at Niagara (part 6)

2006-10-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

I suppose good things come in parts of 6s? From the Number of pictures I have uploaded onto my blog so far, you can have a rough idea of how prolific our photographers are. In this concluding part of the Niagara series, we took a leisure stroll down the rest of the Niagara fall's wide boulevard.

My favourite toy when I was a kid: Robocop.

An Oscar for my mum! There's no doubt that she deserves the award!

Took a picture with the Pope! How cool is that?

Posing with Tiger Woods.

Allan has a new car, but I don't fancy a ride in it.

The 'Mecca' for all chocolate lovers around the world: Hershey's factory!

The interior of Hershey's, being a hadrcore chocolate lover, this is the closest thing to heaven on earth I have found.

Guess the Hershey's kiss mascot doesn't like me very much...

Spoilt for choices... So many rows of chocolate fudge, but so few cash left!

Tucking into the chocolate fudge!!!

After spending a night at Niagara and a fair amount of cash, the mood became heavy went we were about to leave. Alas, why are happy times so fleeting? Nevertheless, Niagara Falls has etched a lasting memory on the back of our minds with its grandeur, beauty and without a doubt, its unique and quiet charm at night.

The trip reaches a climax at Niagara (part 5)

2006-10-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

While the rest of the international students returned to UWO at 630 in the evening, 4 intrepid undergrads from NTU chose to stay behind to catch the beauty of the Niagara under the night sky. Armed to the teeth with digital cameras, Energizer Lithium batteries and memory cards, Jiahao, Allan and Ah Xing were prepared to capture as many pictures as they can for that night.

As we would later come to discover, appearance is NOT at all deceiving; the motel (Stardust Inn) is as miserable as it looks. Poor service, dirty rooms and its remote location triggered off an instant regret for booking this motel online. The only comfort was that the rooms were 'dirt' cheap (get the pun?).

No, it's not Ah Xing's butt that stinks, the room at Stardust Inn reeks of the smell lingering cigarette smoke.

The feeling of wretchedness were banished almost immediately when we took a stroll down the streets of the Falls. Colourful neon-lit signboards lined both sides of the roads, with dozens of tourists attractions that constantly kept our cameras clicking.

The beauty of the Falls in its full splendour under the mesmerizing night sky. I have got to admit, I was totally captivated by the romantic ambience and mood of the falls.

The only well taken photo with me and Jiahao inside, the rest of the pictures were blurred and barely discernible. No thanks to slow shutter speed and shaky hands.

The lonely trek back to our miserable abode for that night at Stardust Inn after some fruitless attempts with the fruit machines at Casino Niagara. I thanked my lucky stars that we were not mugged, murdered or became the hapless victims of some race related violence after we reached the inn safely. Resting our tired feet after an entire day of trekking, we tried to catch whatever wink of sleep we could to replenish our energy for EVEN more photo taking the next day.

Something is awfully wrong!!!

2006-10-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

I was referring to the weather in Canada of course, it snowed at approximately 11 am today on the 12th of October Thursday. One Canadian living on my floor commented, "F**king crazy weather! This is not supposed to happen man..." and he disappeared into the raging blizzard that was slowly gaining in its furiocity. Casting the obvious weather abnormality aside, instead of feeling wretched (like that Canadian), I was exhilarated! This is the first time I have SEEN and FELT snow! Entire buildings and stretches of lawns were covered in sheets of snow, the feeling was almost surreal. Almost immediately, I was engulfed in a poetic mood and taken over by romantic ideals. It's worth it to freeze to death in this sub-zero temperature to marvel at this sight.

Although it was truly a sight to behold for someone who has lived in the equatorial region all his life, I really could not help but wonder if this meteorolgical disorder (winter and snow fall only comes to London in late November) is the prelude to yet another grave environmental issue? But for now, I'm really quite contented in seeing the heavy snow fall create a white and fairy-tale-like campus.

Trivial nonsense

2006-10-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

Before I continue to upload the impossibly huge cache of Niagara falls pictures, let me show you folks back home the picture of our Fluids 2 lecturer.

He bears an uncanny resemblance to a character in one of my favourite movie, can you guess who it is? The person who can come up with a correct/satisfactory enough answer will be the proud owner of a key chain from the Niagara falls (it's not really expensive stuff, but it's all the way from Canada!).

(PS: Each person is only entitled to one attempt only and MY family members cannot participate in this contest!)

(PS my previous PS: Rules are subjected to changes most of the time, depending on my mood)

The trip reaches a climax at Niagara (part 4)

2006-10-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

The blog's spokeperson, Jiahao!

Some whacky photo taking session.

Me and Jiahao both agreed that this china gal got a 古典美 look (classic beauty).

Casinos at Niagara. Anyone feeling lucky?

Niagara's city charm.

The trip reaches a climax at Niagara (part 3)

2006-10-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Nothing can be more breathe taking than taking a ferry right into the middle of the 3 falls and experience the beauty of the Niagara falls in its full grandeur. Known as 'The Maid of the Mist', the ferry is a world famous tourist attraction, providing tourists with spectacular photo taking opportunities.

It's not a 'all blues' costume party! It will be a wet ride when we take the boat right into the middle of the 3 falls, which explains the poncho (it kinda reminds me of NDP). In case you're wondering where the heck is Jiahao, he had wandered off to take photo and ended up at the lower deck of the ferry.

Picture taken before we were ferried into the middle of the Niagara falls, enjoying our last dry moment.

It was until I saw it with my own eyes, I cannot believe that the water from the falls can result in ths gigantic cloud of water vapour surging up to the skies! It's a gigantic vortex of water vapour generated by the huge volume of water splashing down on to the surface of the water.

Bracing ourselves for some real WETNESS!!!

Wild Wild WET!!!

An aftermath shot. I must really give thanks to Jean for his bravery and generosity to expose his camera all the while when we were in the vortex of water vapour.

The American and Bridal Veil falls. If you look closely, there's a rainbow formed by the refraction of light on the water vapours of the falls. The falls alone is beautiful, but the rainbow completes the beauty...

Horse shoe fall in its full grandeur, beautiful isn't it? I'm so glad that I can see this natural wonder in my life time.

The bridge that links Canada to USA!

Arggghhh!!! I did not get to walk these planks into the interior of the falls! It was the only regret I had in this trip!

Living quarters for the staff workin at Niagara?

The trip reaches a climax at Niagara (part 2)

2006-10-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, there's a vineyard in Canada. Situated at an aptly named location: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Joseph's Estate Wines churns out award winning wines to the rest of the world in a region scarcely famous for wine. After our lunch at Planet Hollywood, we headed down to the winery for a paid tour and sampling of some of its famous wine.

Joseph's Estate Wines.

The vineyard with its rows after rows of grape, I tried one and they're SWEET, not a hint of sourness at all.

Using your bare feet to crush the grapes is a method of yore, not to mention questionable hygiene factors. I'm sure these machines will do the job just as fine, what's more, you won't get athlete feet flavoured red wines.

Used to store the freshly crushed grape juices, these huge cylindrical containers are called futs. Notice that Jean is dwarved in comparison to the futs' size.

More futs, but in an air-conditioned room this time. The wooden barrels are also futs, a more authentic approach to wine making, I was told. Jean vehemently insisted that the equipments in the winery are imported from France, hahaha! More than just a wine?

No it's not a lab, this is where the wine are finally processed, sealed and packaged into bottles and boxes.

The lady in the purple frock is the tour guide of the winery. Extremely eloquent and jovial, she kinda reminds me of my grandmother.

Wine tasting! The wine Allan's tasting is the uniquely sweet ice wine, it's given the impressive name of 'the nectar of God'.

First hand view of the fall after we finished the winery tour. It's only the tip of a magnificent natural phenomenon you guys are about to see.

The trip reaches a climax at Niagara (part 1)

2006-10-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

Most country has a crowning geographical attraction formed by the works of Nature over thousand of years. The United States has the Grand Canyon, Europe has the Alps, Japan its Mount Fuji, and Canada, the Niagara falls. I thought to myself: this must be the climax of the entire trip, I can finally get to see the awe-inspiring art piece carved out by mother nature herself using the rapids from the Niagara river. Just a little trivia before the picture galore, the Niagara falls consists of 3 waterfalls namely the American falls, the Bridal Veil falls and in my opinion, the most beautiful of the 3, the Canadian "horseshoe" falls.

Before we reached Niagara, we stopped over at this flower park for about 10 to 15 minutes. It was a much needed respite from 4 whole hours of boring bus ride. The clock tower is not entirely made out of flower, at least not the minute and hour hands!

Sporty babe from Hungary, Orsi Timar (the O in her name has two dots on top, a special Hungarian character, so her name is pronounced as er-shee), Allan and me.

The number of international students signing up for this trip is incredulous! They need 3 buses to ferry everyone from UWO to Niagara!

The bus ride from UWO to Niagara took 4 hours, and by the time we arrived at Niagara it was well into lunch time. More than a hundred exchange students converge into Planet Hollywood to ease their hunger.

Jiahao a showroom model? My ass... He's just contemplating a career in the public transport sector!

Emma (whacky gal from France), me and Jean were the last three standing competitors of the "Hands on Chevy 2006". Hunger pangs and pure common sense tell us to abandon the match shortly after this picture was taken.

Why is Jiahao looking so despondant? No matter how 'Pok Gai' that car looks, it's still a car what!

The interiors of Planet Hollywood, it's just like immersing yourself in one of those Hollywood movies.

If you look closely, this mannequin of Sylvester Stallone has a piece of black tape discretely covering up his p***s.

Don't ask me why, but Jiahao insist on taking pictures of Planet Hollywood's washroom.

Magazines cover of yore, notice how young Robert Redford looked. I still remembered his face looked like a badly crumpled piece of paper in 'Spy Games'.

I can understand why Demi Moore and Nicole Kidman are wearing lipstick, but Tom Cruise?! He's not called the most eccentric star in Hollywood for nothing.

David (pronounced dah-vee in French) from France and Bjorn from Sweden (again, the O in his name has 2 dots on top, and it's pronounced bee-yorng).

Jean, me and David.

Notice the similarity in this picture? It's very conspicuous.

I'm sorry that the pictures of the falls will have to be posted in either part 2 or 3, as the number of pictures we took that day was simply outrageous. For now, I'll have to rest my eyes from close to 2 hours of uploading all these pictures!

Gibbons Park

2006-09-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

A distinct difference between Singapore and Canada is how their citizens spend their weekends. Whereas an average Singaporean will almost predictably head down to the many shopping malls (most notably at the notoriously crowded Orchard Road) dotting all across the country, the Canadians really prefer to bring their entire family to the parks for some outdoor activities such as BBQ or simply a game of baseball. I begin to wonder, what mystifying attraction does the shopping mall possess to hold us all in thrall? Surely a good weekend with the entire family at the Bontanical Garden wouldn't hurt? Alas, despite its romantic ambience and ideal site for gathering with friends or families, the Bontanical Garden remains woefully empty, save for some consicentious joggers or a few old folks taking a casual stroll. Spending Sunday at Gibbons Park was really a different experience for me, as I joined the rest of the international students in games and a picnic of sorts with our peer guides (usually senior students who volunteer to assist international students in their stay at UWO).

Perhaps pale in comparison with the Bontanical Garden in terms of the variety of flora and fauna, Gibbons Park has its own quiet charm.

The London river meanders through the entire park, with tall sagely trees and endless stretches of greenery, the park provides a comfortable retreat for the city dwellers during the weekend.

Notice the difference in this picture? Yes, both me and Jiahao are wearing shorts, despite the sun, the temperature is a freezing 10ºC and Jiahao has the jacket!

Soccer, frisbee and football, you name it, we played it. The weather was perfect, sunny, but cool. No amount of running can make us perspire!

My new found buddy from France, Jean, a French version of me! Cheeky, tongue in cheek humour and always flashing a wide grin, we enjoyed talking crap with each other all the time.

Jiahao's peer guide Allison Foran. Me and Allan were really dying with envy, while Jiahao netted himself a hot blond as his peer guide, we had to settle for a bloke from Hong Kong and a lass from China respectively.

The weekend was well spent, plenty of friends from more than a dozen countries were made in the short span of 2 hours, but more importantly, I finally did some sports since I arrived at Canada. Perhaps it was due to all the fun I'm having so far, I scarcely felt homesick at all. Slowly, I am beginning to believe that this exchange experience might just be the best thing that has happened to me so far in my entire academic life.

Western Culture (part 2 of previous post)

2006-09-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

This is a long overdue entry, partly because of nagging assignments and deadlines, but mainly due to sheer laziness on my part. Nevertheless, I shall continue the odyssey of the campus in this entry and fill you in on events that transpired when we first arrived at the campus.

An open air concert in the evening for Frosh week (i.e. Freshies' Orientation). The temperature for that night must have been 15ºC at the most, I was freezing to death in my dri-fit T-shirt that night.

Pursued by murderers, muggers, rapists, hooligans? Fear not, emergency posts like these are erected all along the campus's walkway. Help is just a button away, but let's hope we won't get to use it, hahahaha.

For the first time in my life, I get to watch a live football match (not to be confused with soccer), and the game night is HUGE. Crowds thronged the stadium, entire families were gathered to watch the match between the Western Mustangs (UWO's home team) and their rivals, the York Lions. Fortunately for us, students of UWO watch the game for free and like any true blue Singaporeans, we rarely let free stuffs slip us by. Jiahao and Allan who hardly know anything about the game watched the game enthusiastically anyway. As we reached the stadium after the opening ceremony, we got ourselves pretty rotten seats. We were seated at the furthest row of the stadium and did I mentioned the stadium was not sheltered? Gusts of strong and bone chilling wind swept down on us as we tried desperately to rub our palms or put them between our thighs to keep ourselves warm. It was futile. But the skimpily dressed cheerleaders and the adrenaline of the crowd managed to make things slightly more bearable.

The Mustang's home stadium, think the maximum capacity of this stadium is more than 10,000.

We only have to smile once and our cheek muscles will be frozen in place. That night was really cold, the 3 of us were shivering throughout most of the match, and for the first time in my life, I begin to wish that another 20 pounds of fats could miraculously be transfered to my body to insulate me from the wind.

Cheerleaders!!!! I must say they're really a cut above the ones we have in Singapore... I cursed when Jiahao's camera ran low on battery and no further pictures of cheerleaders could be taken. I will never buy another Energizer battery.

The Western's mascot, predictably, a Mustang. It is dragging a doll in the form of a lion with it, talk about Voodoo magic.

The game was intense at every quarter, we had a really good view of the game when we decided to move all the way down the grand stand.

A forlorn looking Jiahao was left behind at the stadium when the game ended.

It was a mind blowing first week in UWO, activities after activities were strewn at our faces and we could hardly rest our foot for a moment. But isn't that what exchange is all about? Immersing in every activities possible, experiencing the time of your life and more importantly, milk the money worth you have spent so far! (I'm a Singaporean after all)

As I walked further, I came to the set of Harry Potter (part 1).

2006-09-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

Clearly this must be the campus where they shot the movie Harry Potter! The buildings and lush green fields bear the uncanny resemblance to those of the movie. I am convinced that just touring the campus alone is worth all the trouble of flying half way across the globe.

University College, the key building that embodies a Victorian age feel to the University of Western Ontario.

Middlesex College, another building on the campus that looks more like a castle of sorts than a lecture hall.

Besides squirrels, there are ducks wandering around the campus's field as well.

The crest of UWO, I still have not figured out what the animals flanking the crest are, but guessed that it is a moose and a lynx.

I walked into the set of Pride & Prejudice

2006-09-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

The title for this entry echoed my exact sentiments when I finally arrived at Medway-Sydenham hall in UWO. I guessed the three of us simply cannot comprehend how on Earth can a student residence be built so elegantly. Even a darned street lamp can easily thrash NTU's, whose buildings are constructed to be woefully utilitarian. Little did we realize, the exterior of the residence was only the tip of the ice berg of the architecture shock we're about to experience. Naturally, our intrepid photographer will not miss the chance to take some pictures of our residence.

The green patch of land within the premise of the residence is known as the Quad. Basically, it is a mini-park where students can play sports or do some outdoor reading.

Sydenham hall, the oldest hall of residence in UWO with a distinctive Victorian age architecture. My first thoughts when I saw this building was: this has got to be a museum! I thought only Oxford or Eton college still boost fine architectures like these. I was totally blown away, if only they have more adventurous architectures like these in NTU back home. I mean how can any of the halls back in NTU from 1 to 15 come anywhere close to matching a residence like this?

Me and Jiahao's wing in the residence, the Neville house.

Me and Jiahao's room, notice the stark difference between the exterior of the residence and its rooms. By a stroke of luck, we got ourselves a double room.

Jiahao's bed,

and mine...

We each has a walk-in wardrobe, not much 'walk-in' space, but better than nothing.

Beneath that modest windbreaker and miserable 3 quarters, I was really shivering like mad on that cold, yet sunny morning.

The gates of the residence at night. The lamps that lit the compounds is really captivating. You can easily take a romantic stroll within the premise of the residence after dinner and be captivated by the charm exuded from the building.

River Thames, a river that meanders through London. It is also the river that seperates Medway-Sydenham hall from the campus.

Across the bridge, the beautiful campus of UWO awaits. More pictures will be uploaded on my next entry, until then, I'm simply overwhelmed by fatigue from my Niagara trip over the weekends, and long for some decent rest.

London, Downtown (part 2)

2006-09-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, I apologise for the inconvenient delay between part 1 and 2 of the London, Downtown entries as the overwhelming amount of read up I have to do for homework demanded my immediate attention. Here are the remainder of the pictures we took at London, do enjoy.

Can you believe that this majestic looking building right beside the park is an insurance company?! Damn, every building in this city has a distinct and nostalgic Victorian age look.

Plenty of churches can be found in London, and they are all magnificent architectures in their own right.

This has got to be my favourite, St Peter's Cathedral.

St Paul's Cathedral, there are numerous churches as grand as these all over London, but a limited camera memory card allows us to capture only these 3.

Jiahao, "London also got City Hall interchange ah?"
Me, "........."

These are the kinda residences Londoners live in. Every house here looks like a chateau. Wish I can bring 1 home...

Exhaustion took its toll on me after half a day's of walking around the city... On London Transit, only Allan and Jiahao are still energetic to be capable of nonsense.

London is a great place to visit. Buildings that exude nostalgic Victorian age design, friendly service staffs and plenty of shopping malls that are EMPTY during the day and WEEKENDS, it is a place where dreams come true for any die hard shoppers (you will hardly need to jostle with any crowd, and the entire city is constantly 'air conditioned' by an ambient temperature of 20ºC). However, a wilder if uglier side of London surfaces at night. Pubs, bars and clubs are thronged with people and there were scarcely any space to walk on the streets. It is during the night when we encountered a less than pleasant incident as we were walking back to our residence at UWO. We could distinctly hear a motorist shouting some racial slurs in our direction as he drove past the three of us. I suppose xenophobia however regrettable, takes its roots in almost any country. Sure, it does get on my nerve, and I do feel like whooping that SOB's a**, but it serves no purpose at all, except giving these xenophobics the pleasure and opportunity of staging any retalitory actions. Afterall, I'm only an exchange student/tourist for 4 short months in this country, and I don't have to face morons with the likes of that bugger all my life. Hence, I did not let this little unpleasantry work on me. In fact, it made me look forward to the trip to the Niagara Falls and Toronto next week.

London, Downtown (part 1)

2006-09-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

Canada London is in a lot of way similar to Orchard Road back home. Rows of shopping mall, eateries and at times, frustrating traffic highlight the distinctive advantage the 2 cities share. However, female readers back home will love it here. With the highest temperature recorded for the day at 19 degree Celsius, shopping outdoor is literally a breeze. This entry will feature the pictures we have taken in London, enjoy.

Entrance of Victoria Park, a park which honors the soldiers and war dead who fought in the British colonial wars and the second World War.

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As you can see, they slap us with a fine back in Singapore for littering and other minor offences. In Canada, they take things a tad more seriously. The nature of my offence? Taking my time to walk slowly... An interesting fact for history enthusiasts, the tank is a M4 Sherman (one of the top 3 weapons that won the war for the Allies in World War 2), it belongs to the Canadian tank regiment and has now become a monument in the park.

I've always wanted to own a tank for car. Traffic jam? No worries, my 75mm gun will take care of it with a slight din.

Quiet and serene, the park is ideal for any outdoor activities.

Squirrels squirrels everywhere. This furry devils are both quick and bold, darting around trees and bushes with acorns in their hands.

I seriously have no idea what this monument is for, but oh well, if it makes great picture, then why the hell not?

In memory of the Canadians who fought for the British empire during the colonial wars.

"12 o'clock, 60 degrees, Jiahao behind tree, FIRE!!!!"

Next time I don't want to play true or dare liao...

Dining with exchange students from half the world

2006-09-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

I guess to the Americans, BBQ is a huge affair. Food is prepared in humongous portions, gallons of beers are bought and of course, practically everyone the host knows is invited. Such was the scenario at ACBB; it was like a mini UN conference. Germans, French, Swedish, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Canadians and the Singaporean trio who made this blog possible. Different cultures were exchanged, strange tales and practices of another countries were learnt over mountains of burgers and endless bottles of beers. A burger could make or break a BBQ, at ACBB, the meat patty is HUGE. If the meat patty in a big Mac in Singapore is a size M, ACBB's is at least a size XXXL, Carl's Junior's burger is a hobbit compared to this one. Superbly grilled and surprisingly juicy, the slice of a patty is so thick that you would probably have to break your jaws to properly fit a bite.

What shocked me during the BBQ, was not the exotic cultures from a foreign country, but the huge appetite this German lady Anika. I thought I was the undisputed King in buffet, but alas, I think I might have met my match at last. While I was still on my first plate, she had already started on her third, and when I was too bloated to stuff the remnants on my plate to even the score, she upped the ante by wolfing down another bowl of ice cream. I'm sorry if I let you folks back in Singapore down this time, but I always believe in living to fight another day.

From left: German lady with an appetite to be reckoned with, Anika, cheerful Mexican, Sidarta, Chinese lady, Macy Zhao Yin, and petite French girl, Chloe.

Again from the left: Short haired German lady, Sina, French guy whose name-I-can't-really-pronounce, Macy again, guy from China Hong Kong, Zhao Yoke, reticent chap from Nepal, Birandra,

Still from the left: Tony from I-forgot-where, the trio from Singapore trying their best to do Asia proud, lady slurping spagetthi, whose name-I-also-couldn't-remember (pardon the Singlish here), and Sina again (perpetually smiling).

*There were many more guests who were at the party, but I guess a ravenous appetite has a much higher priority than taking photos (even Jiahao's trusty camera made way for the irresistable burger at ACBB). Hence, I apologise for not being able to feature everyone we got to know that night in this entry. But just to let all my female readers know, the French guys will be able to sweep you off your feet any time.*

Food, from left: Meat patty for burger, a pot of chilli cooking (it's not the chilli we know of back home, more like spicy gracy with bean paste), spagetthi.

Food, from left: Omnipresent at every meal, fries, bowls of salads, buffalo wings and drumlets, tray of shrimp and lastly, close up view of chilli.

Sawyer's triumphant pose.

To me, BBQ is just an excuse to eat food with a less than desirable level of carcinogen and a convenient way to prepare food when the trouble of cooking sets in. ACBB changed that perception. I've made more friends from around the world than I could in a short span of 4 hours. Still reasonably jet laggged, I was really surprised that I could last through the entire BBQ session. I suppose the camaraderie shared by everyone that night was magical and it has etched a lasting memory in my life.

ACBB

2006-09-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

I have got to admit that I did have some reservation when I was considering putting up our stay at a beds and breakfast (b & b) for two days before we move into the residence. Afterall, sharing rooms with fellow guests in the B & B with dubious background could put our safety to question. Nevertheless, we didn't really have much of a choice anyway as almost all the hotels in London are fully booked, so we had to settle for All Canadian Beds & Breakfast (ACBB) after much deliberations.

Our cab took us from the airport straight to ACBB (at down town London) in less than 15 minutes. A small, nondescript 3-storeyed detached house greeted us when we alighted from our cab. We were at once welcomed by the host of ACBB, a jovial and big guy called Patrick and began orientating us around the house and to our room. Trivial in appearance and space when compared to most hotels, it was however a warm and cosy place. Furthermore, Patrick is a perfect host. Eager to help and extremely generous in advice. He introduced us to his housekeeper Connie, a lady that is just as nice and friendly and his wide eyed and always curious son Sawyer. Not as bad as I thought, it's almost like putting up at a friend's place. Going at CA$25 per person per night with free breakfast everyday and BBQ on saturday nights, it was a real bargain.

Appearance is deceiving, in the words of a Canadian, "ACBB is awesome!"

Workstations with wireless access for those who could not betechnologically deprived.

Hard at work? Not a chance, just updating my entries and msn-ing.

Sumptous spread for breakfast, but I learnt that early bird gets EVERYTHING.

Connie's the lady wearing pink and a cap, the blonde babe wearing glasses is Jenny from Sweden.

That huge guy in the middle is Patrick, I bet he could easily crush me with 1 hand. His son Sawyer is as adorable in picture and in person. Notice the made in Singapore keychain he is holding.

Sleep comes easily for our first night in ACBB due to severe jet lag. Safe for Jiahao's snoring and Allan's periodical but deafening teeth grinding, my sleep was pretty sound.

Lost in transition (part 3)

2006-09-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Never expect blogspot to suck so much. Getting increasingly frustrating and troublesome to upload pictures. Forget it, this will be the final of the trilogy of pictures taken during our transit.

After more than 25 hours, we finally arrived at London international airport.

Canada's soil bears the footprint of 3 more Singaporeans.

This place kinda reminds me of PLAB's hunter's circle.

Waiting for a cab, without even realising that the car right beside is one. Notice the size of Allan's luggage.

Darned cab fare costs us CA$30... We really shouldn't be complaining about the 'revising' of cab fare back home in Singapore. But still, we were impressed by the cab's capability to hold our combined luggage. Reached our lodging for the next 2 days at ACBB (All Canadian Beds & Breakfast), and this time, jet lag has totally settled in.

Lost in transition (part 2)

2006-09-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

Can't seem to be able to load any more pictures onto the previous post, this blog will bear the remaining pictures taken during the transition.

Detroit airport.

Jiahao, "Take picture, take picture!!"

Great hangout place at the airport.

3 of us unanimously, "I rather go back can A eat..."

An aesthetic touch to the automated walkways.

Where the heck is the plane?

Jet lagged...

Lost in transition

2006-09-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

Let me bore you with the unnecessary details of our flight's itinerary before I kick start this entry.

Fri 01 SEP DEP Singapore (terminal 1) 0600 Hrs
ARR Tokyo Narita (terminal 1) 1415 Hrs

Fri 01 SEP DEP Tokyo Narita (terminal 1) 1555 Hrs
ARR Detroit Metro (E.M. Macnamara terminal) 1425

Fri 01 SEP DEP Detroit Metro (E.M. Macnamara terminal) 1750
ARR London Ontario 1830

As you can see from above, the flight from Singapore to London Ontario takes more than 24 hours. A casual mention by the way, 6 am on the 1st of September Singapore time would be 6 pm in the evening in Canada on the 31st October. Without giving much thoughts to jet lag or flight comfort, we boarded the plane with eagerness.

Any thoughts of taking a long slumber on the plane vanished immediately when we were settled on our seats. It would be a gross understatement to say that the seats were uncomfortable. Clearly the seats were designed without any concept of ergonomic in mind, and we had to pretty much seat upright all the time with a predictably minimum leg space of an economy class seat (so unless exhaustion is overwhelming enough, it is quite impossible to fall asleep).

For faithful readers who expect pictures of hot air stewardess, be thankful I did not upload any to spare you unwanted misery. Northwest Airlines (as with almost every American Airlines), has a crew of aging flight stewardess. Even their flight stewards fall under the category of uncle. Aged crews aside, the service they provide do leave much to be desired. I will not dwell on the details for now, but let's just say the glass of water Jiahao asked for never came. No good service award here.

After nearly 7 hours of flying, we arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport. Another wave of disappointment hits us: any myths that every Japanese woman look like Norika Fujiwara or Ayumi Hamasaki, and Japanese man that bear resemblance to Takuya Kimura were effectively dispelled when we arrived at the airport. Much to our horror, the airport staffs are mostly 'obasans' and 'ojisans'. I could vaguely feel the omelette I had on the plane churning in my stomach and threaten to make its way up my throat. Jiahao was in 'hyper' active mode, taking pictures after pictures, shopping at the duty free with amazing energy level. While me and Allan collapsed on to the nearest chair we could find while waiting to be boarded, Jiahao bought us some strawberry flavoured Mochi (Japanese gluttonous balls, aka Muah Chee). Not-so-good looking Japanese people at the airport was compensated by the delicious snack.

Narita international aiport, Tokyo.

Transistion in progress.

Me, "Go toilet first can?"

Custom officer (in Japanese), "Stare what stare?!"

Darlie's ambassadors.

Souvenirs probably made in China to rip tourists off in Japan.

Jiahao, "Take picture, take picture!"

Manage to spot any difference? Neither could we.

Mochi mochi!

Boarded the plane to Detroit after waiting for 1 hour. To my relieve, the staffs are much friendlier this time, but they still fall under the categories of 'auntie' and 'uncle'. The number of hours we spent on the plane this time was more than 12 hours. Exhaustion overpowered the 3 of us, we took short naps of about 2 hours periodically, only to be awaken during meal time or the need to answer the call of nature. I think we have already crossed a dozen time zones by now, and beginning to feel the effects of jet lag with each passing minute.

Finally arriving at Detroit, me and Allan were already half dead from lack of sleep. Jiahao still has abundant energy surging from within, again, pictures after pictures were taken and almost every gift shop at Detroit's airport was probed. As expected, security measures at the airport were tight. Armed custom officers (they all have bellies that probably look like melons wrapped under their uniforms) probably cannot pass any physical tests thrown at them, but they do look imposing with their semi automatic handguns tugged in their holster. The security checks were tediously slow and unbearably thorough, but I could safely say, this is necessary to prevent half crazed lunatics from hijacking airplanes.

Boarded the less than impressive propeller driven plane bound for London, and within half an hour, we were at London's airport. I have to admit that an uneasy fear that something untoward could happen to the plane was constantly pricking me. Propeller driven! How 'cool' is that! It reminded me of the Dakota C47 cargo plane I saw in 'Band of Brothers', and of course I was 'thrilled' to fly in one. The landing of that plane is less than smooth of course, not to mention that the passengers have to be evenly distributed on both column of seats on the plane, lest the plane may swerve out of control when it lands (now then you tell me, I would had rather walked to London).

At long last, after surviving the plane ride, we have arrived at London airport. Compared to Detroit, Singapore and Narita, the airport at London was modest both in size and scale. The first gust of cold but otherwise refreshing air hit us immediately as we step out of the airport. For once, after so many weeks of preparation, I can see hardwork paying off and dreams coming true.

*pictures will be added shortly*