AROUND THE WORLD IN THE AWESOMEST WAYS

i think that all of us agree, hands down, that san francisco was our favourite city. the weather was perfect, the shopping was perfect, the people were perfect. hell, even their hotdog vendors were hot. and thanks to my lovely sister, we were introduced to henry and got an awesome place to crash for our five days there. henry's basement was very hippy and had such a that 70s show vibe to it. i felt obligated to get high or something. loved it.

um, yeah. so.. i'm too strong for my own good. don't think henry knew about this but we managed to fix it. sshhh.

shopping at union square and bought truckloads of sweets and goodies from trader joe's. figured we couldn't walk up the hills with that load, so we had to take a cab back to jarboe.

we bought tickets for a bay cruise. it took us to the golden gate bridge and around alcatraz. we weren't lucky enough to actually go to the island cause the tour was all sold out. major bummer. then, we headed out to see the world's crookedest street. cars actually line up to drive through it. jebus. sanggup seh.

golden gate bridge. duh.

kite surfers! looked like fun.

 

next stop: stonestown galleria. we really never stop shopping.

it was a total nightmare to pack all that shit in.

dinner at the cheesecake factory. friggin aaaaaace :D

little misses sunshine.

brought home a souvenir from the vans store.

and of course, who can forget roddy. the four of us split up on the last day cause jean and i had to go hunting for more stuff for our families at union square while yani and deeds decided to go to haight and ashbury to check out the hippy scene. they got back to the house first that night and when jean and i reached there and found them talking to roddy, i thought that they might've picked up another stray. god knows we have a habit of doing that. but it turned out to be henry's british neighbour who was very very drunk. so funny though.

basically frisco was too good to be true. which is probably why things got pretty fucked up on the last night. we didn't foresee a problem with getting a cab to the airport but considering it was a saturday night, we probably should have. we were so close to missing our flight back home. we had loads of stuff. it was too late to take public transport. henry couldn't send us cause he already had plans and roddy was in no condition to be behind the wheel. we felt so bad cause henry was calmly freaking out (idk how he managed to do that but he did) and in the end he managed to book us two shuttles. it was 1145, our flight was at 130 i think and the shuttle could only pick us up at 1215. so we were pretty much fucked at that point. all we could do was twiddle our thumbs an pray. while waiting for the shuttle we lined up all our stuff along the pavement so we wouldn't waste any time when it finally came.

luck seemed to be turning our way when henry's neighbour spotted a cab and ran barefoot down the street to catch it. eternally grateful to her i swear. although traffic was terrible (a football game just ended so the highway was jammed), we managed to get to the airport in good time. we unloaded all our stuff when suddenly,

yani: where's my trolley bag?

no lie. she left it back at the house. so she had to get her ass back there while we stalled for time at the counter. it was barely open and clearly, we were the last passengers to check in. speaking of, checking in was such a big production. the bobos' carry-ons were too heavy and we had to repack at the counter to spread the weight. as if things couldn't go more wrong, the stroganoff we packed exploded in my bag and drenched my stuff with pasta sauce. in the process of cleaning it, jelly beans spilled onto the airport floor. definitely an fml moment. even the airport staff was laughing. when yani came back, we were still at the check in counter. we practically sprinted to the gate as they were about to close it. we made it just in time.

TRUE STORY.

can't believe i still remember all the details after all this while. i suppose these misadventures sort of make the trip epic. so that's it for this summer, i guess. god, i swear i could still cry thinking of my last day in wildwood. i've been postponing this for a very long time. but i guess it's only fair to finish the story before the year ends.

long live SUMMER 09 :D

So since I'm bored of writing my speedwing ASSay which is due tomorrow, I shall type out my "eat wishlist" which I wrote out over the course of the summer whenever I was craving or thinking of something I wanted to eat when I got back home! So the ones I striked off are the ones I've eaten since coming back, woohooooo :)

Perenakan Inn Assam Fish Head

Perenakan Inn Sambal Sotong

Airport T1 Mixed Rice

Marina Square Hokkien Mee

East Coast- Stingray, Beef noodles, Wanton mee, Chicken Wings, Or lua, Satay Bee Hoon

Vivo Banquet Tom Yum Fish Soup Steamboat

Chilli and Pepper crabs

White Chicken Rice

Mummy's Plum Sauce chicken (baked and normal)

Mummy's Kungpo sauce chicken

Mummy's Pumpkin soup

Mummy's Hoisin sauce chicken

Choa Chu Kang Park

Jumbo Mee Goreng

Chipster Hot n Spicy

Teppanyaki

Coca Steamboat

Beach Road Prawn Mee and Ngoh Hiang

TK Meepok

Old Chang Kee Sambal Fish and Rice

Adam Road Nasi Lemak

Blk 85 Ba Chor Mee

Kenzo Mee Siam

So after San Diego we headed to LA for a couple of days..met up with our fellow sporean homies Cat and Sharissa who were going to be our special guests on our LA leg of the tour =)

People always assume LA is all glitzy and glamorous, home of the rich and famous and so did we but as it turns out, it was the most dodgy, dirty city (save for the few areas where the rich people live) with the most unhelpful, unfriendly locals on our entire trip to the US. There were SOOOOOOOO many crazy people around and we actually came across a PILE of cockroaches one night when all 6 of us girls were walking back to our hotel, obviously we screamed our heads off and ran like there was no tomorrow hahaha
LA was good to us in terms of food though, we managed to eat all our favourites one last time: (we actually spent one whole day doing a food trail and just eating all the things we wanted to eat one last time cos San Fran wouldn’t have them)

Crum/bs- best cupcakes in the world

Tut/ti Fru/tti- best frozen yoghurt place everrrrr
I love their concept cos it’s a “grab whatever sized cup you want, put in however much yoghurt you want (and you can choose from a whole row of amaskin flavours like chocolate, cheesecake, cookies n crème, peanut butter, and all the usual fruity ones..I LOVED their triple berry flavour), add whatever toppings you want (nuts, gummy bears, chocolate chips, sauces, fruits)..then they weigh it and it costs 35cents per ounce, realllllllly worth it. I wish spore had something like that..

 

Jam/ba Ju/ice- best ice blended healthy drinks

We went to the usual touristy places like...

Rodeo Drive

 

Bev/erly H/ills

paparazzi shots...WE WISH

 

Hol/lyw/ood Blvd

Saw the stars, saw Mich/ael Jac/kson’s star which had loads of people and flowers around it, there was even an MJ impersonator nearby who was all action, wearing a black mask and all, WHUTEVSSSSS..but I must say he looked EGGZACTLY like MJ, people were going like “mj’s back from the dead! He’s alive!” hahaha

 

Far/mer’s Mar/ket (which sold ridiculously overpriced Sporean food: US$9.50 for a plate of noodles)

Checked out the shopping spots like the Gr/ove

ya, that's a bus, COOL RIGHT

Melr/ose Ave which had nice thrift stores

 

..oh and along the way we discovered LUSH, super nice smelling store with all sorts of soaps and skincare, haircare products etc..vegan and all that jazz, and the soaps looked good enough to eat prease haha and they were in such huge chunks, so colourful and such CUTE shapes..they gave us quite a few free samples too when we bought something!

I guess the one really cool thing about LA is..we saw Ch/ris Mas/terson while eating yoghurt at Pin/kbe/rry on Hol/lywo/od Blvd!!! haha our only celeb sighting since there were no premieres for us to stake out =(  Poot was the one who recognized him and if you guys don’t know, he played the oldest brother in Ma/lcolm in the Mid/dle…he just walked in with a few friends, no fuss at all..but we didn’t get a picture with him UGH

Oh and we met up with kecik who was doing a summer school thing at U/CL/A, so she showed us around the campus which seemed wayyyyyyy nicer than N/U/S obviously..

vj mcs reunion

And we attempted to go to Ven/ice Beach! We wanted to watch the sunset but it was an epic failure, we got there when it was completely dark, and realised the beach was SOOOOOOO dodgy at night, so many dubious characters around so we just turned back and went home hahaha skeelarious

 

oh and we passed by, really randomly, the Wa/lt Dis/ney Con/cert Ha/ll

 

Some other random things we enjoyed in LA were our nightly conference meetings in our hotel lobby where there was internet and we would just sit there in our pjs and use our comps and talk about how much we miss Wildwood, laugh and make a lot of noise, complain about bidding and school, fall asleep..oh and get irritated with the guy who BANGS away on his laptop keys and makes so much noise

Ok so that wraps up LA! When we have more money, we’re going to go back there to do the expensive stuff like disn/eyl/and, un/iver/sal stu/dios =)

-jean

HI

the LA post is still under construction hahaha

SO MANY things to do la, room still in a mess, photos not uploaded, la pictures to upload on the blog post, speedwing essay to write

and I have been uploading videos on fb so check those out!

and moreys sent us an email telling us to close our bank accounts and I have NO idea how to do that and what on earth is going to happen to my $6.23?

anyways, school sucks and we've been having simpz meetups to curb the depression to a minimum..

I promise LA will be up soon so pootie can do SF!

<3 jean

the greyhound took 9 hours to get to san diego although it’s probably only 4 hours away. we kinda stopped by la to make a transfer but rly, it shouldn’t have taken that long. greyhounds pretty much suck. cheap way to get around but if you want comfort (and willing to spend a few more bucks), take the train, or look for other shuttle services. like the bolt bus! ooh, nothing beats the bolt bus. for now, it’s only available in the east coast though. i think san diego was the very chillaxed leg of our tour. probably cause we didn’t have to worry much about accommodation. stayed with my uncle smitty and aunt cecilia who’re the nicest people ever. they pretty much took care of us and brought us around everywhere. plus, we were able to do laundry for the first time in 3 weeks.

first stop: IHOP for breakfast. great meal after a longass ride from vegas.

chocchip pancakes.

nutella crepes.

went to sea world to see shamu (jambu! jambu!) and caught a bunch of other shows. my personal favourite was the sea lion show. it was the funniest of the lot and its preshow was also pretty excellent. went on some rides that got us soaked. me and didi especially cause we were the suay ones who sat on the wrong side of the float.

clyde and seamore.

look at that dude fly.

with my cousin, cassie.

went to la jolla during our stay. swung by mount soledad, a korean war memorial, before hitting the beach. was hoping to get rid of that horrible tanline i got from the warped tour but to no avail. i'm forever cursed with uneven tans.

at the top of mt soledad. can't rly see the view from this pic, but it was simply  gorge.

went shopping with my cousin jeannah at fashion valley and a couple of thrift stores. she was a great tour guide. nothing's better than going around the city with a local cause they will definitely know the best places to go. most importantly though, she introduced us to this great mexican place that serves the most awesome burrito ever.

just look at that thing. i have a mad craving for it right now.

um yeah, so my hair got stuck in the car window. the others would love to tell you how it happened.

this is our skype room. it was empty the first day we were there. we could hardly see the floor a few days later.

ah, san diego was also the place that we celebrated yani's ability to enter 7 seas legally. woots. of course, there wasn't a chance we could go back there again so... *permanent sad face* oh well, we did it san diego style. managed buy a cake and some candles while deeds led the birthday girl away to ~buy some bread~ snuck out of the supermarket for a bit and stuck it in jeannah's car underneath all our shopping bags. all in all, great teamwork everyone.

birthday excellence to the little singapore midget!