its been a long time, but my stand remains the same.
any fucktard who dares to mess around with my gf shall suffer no peace.
learning through life's potholes
some people say, if you don't talk, people will think you're a sick cat.
other times, when you do, you'll be thought as someone overpowering, too vocal, that you drown out other thoughts.
so when do you shut up and suck it up, and when do you speak out knowing that it'll raise a tsunami of problems in the future. is it worth it? does speaking up actually work anyways?
no wonder there is a saying: shut up and keep your head down.
learning through life's potholes
That was seriously long cooking times for a curry.
Anyways, I'm now finally counting down my last 10 weeks in Philly. It's all ending soon...I've learnt many things about the world and myself as I slowly explored the States, meeting people and slowly Americanizing myself to the culture.
So now I'm going back to hot, humid Singapore with crazy aunties screaming on the MRTs. I wonder how much it has changed, for the one long year I have been away. My journeys have brought me far and wide, through many continents and towns and cities and boroughs. Before the memories fade, I'll chronologically list down the places I have ever visited here:
1) Copenhagen!
My very first trip was actually one out of the country...flying from Philadelphia to Manchester to Copenhagen. Or rather, that was supposed to be the intended flight path until Philly had a 1hour departure delay, making us sit on the landing strip for that amount of time was so unbearable when all I wanted was to see Mel on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I reached Manchester only to see my flight pull out of the departure gate..and later found out that flight was to be the last one Copenhagen-bound then! Holy@#$%^...I was then told to go to Munchen (Munich) in Germany, where I POTENTIALLY could catch a flight towards Copenhagen from there. Problem was: the flight I was on would actually land 30minutes after the departure time of the connecting flight, but the attendant said Munich was having horrible weather and crazy snow, so she's confident the flight would be delayed. Besides, there's a 2nd flight to Copenhagen from Munich if I miss the first one.
So off I went to Munich, touching down to realize that the first flight had already flown off and the bloody Sun was shining its butt in general. What makes things worse: the 2nd flight was fully booked, and once again I was stuck, this time in Germany, with no flight to Copenhagen and no way to see Mel. Horrible, horrible planning by Lufthansa. I approached the counter and the lady only could sheepishly say....."Well, we could fly you to Frankfurt, then you could catch the plane to Copenhagen." By then I didn't really care when I would reach Copenhagen, so I just agreed and hopped onto the plane. Sadly, the moment I hopped on, Munich started to have a BLIZZARD. The plane was entirely covered with slurpee slushy snow, and we spent nearly an hour, with us customers on board and the plane in the hangar, seeing employees wash away the snow. What made things worse than it could be? The connecting flight's departure time passed when my plane in Munich was still in the hangar. FML.
So finally we flew to Frankfurt, and thankfully Frankfurt was Copenhagen-friendly. We (me and another American who was equally pissed) missed the next flight to Copenhagen, seeing the plane pull out of the gate (AGAIN!). We waited 4 hours before we finally got on to the plane to Copen...and that was where I finally saw Mel again. Thank goodness...I was 12 hours late and distraught, and I was so pleased just to touch Copenhagen ground. However, my luggage bag was MIA and only arrived 2 days later with a broken wheel...which I got replaced thanks to flight insurance! Denmark is unbelievably clean and sanitary, but horribly, disgustingly expensive. A simple McDonalds meal costs $17SGD, and a small pack of minced pork costs $10USD. I nearly grew crazy shopping groceries with Mel, knowing how badly she has starved herself there, I just wanted to buy everything for her and stop her from becoming skin and bones!
2) Prague
Me and Mel went on a trip to Prague in....March/April? It was biting cold from winter still, but we didn't really care. Prague was so awesome and picturesque, with fairytale castles and astounding views from the historic buildings of pre-World War. We spent most of our time walking, walking, and walking Prague, visiting powder towers and climbing stairs to the highest points around. The Astronomical Clock, the Charles Bridge (Karluv Most?), and cheating on fares in the subway, writing our names and our wishes down in the guestbooks...it was really too beautiful a honeymoon that I didn't want to go home at all. I still remember cooking Mel's few dinners the first few nights I was at her place in Copenhagen...and all the times we literally squealed when we saw the Key Statue which signalled that we were actually near a KFC. (OMG!!)
3) Washington D.C
It's to D.C for a Sakura Festival! Cherry Blossoms all around while I drove 6 hours to, 6 hours back from Philly to Washington D.C. We visited the Holocaust Museum and picnicked under the Sun for hours, while taking photos and doing a speedy walking tour of the country's capital. We saw Capitol Hill, took photos outside the White House, and visited the Jefferson Memorial, and the Reflection Pool...it was all antiquated and I was pretty messed up by the drive to and fro, so I did not really pay much attention, rather, I preferred to just quietly soak up the atmosphere of being in the very place where movies were made.
Oh yeah, and the Reflection Pool before the Jefferson Memorial was full of duckshit.
4) Latvia!!! (and Copenhagen again!)
Its' a pity I did not really take much photos (or uploaded them) of Latvia. We were the top 20 finalist teams for a business case and simulation competition, and got invited to Latvia for the grand finals. Realizing that we actually were representing both the States and Singapore, I had to cut my hair to look presentable. :( Well...the story goes that we got ourselves throttled really badly, but the best thing ever was the chance to do a surprise visit to Mel (since Latvia was in Europe after all!) again! I know the surprise didn't turn out the way it should have been, but I was really glad to just spend some time with her...it was well worth every penny, and I was so glad I didn't get lost going to her house!
5) Boston
This time round, I went over to Boston with Mo Bi and Lelian. We drove (well, he and lelian took turns driving) to Boston crossing over New York and New Jersey. There, we visited the famous Quincy Market on Independence Day (4th July), and also went to eat fresh oysters at the famous Union Oyster House (there's an oyster bar there!) We had crazy freaking huge lobster, one each at $15! After that we went to the Clam Chowder fest in Boston Marketplace and tasted zomg amounts of Clam Chowder...simply fantastic :)
Oh, and I dropped by Queens in New York for dinner along the way home!
6) Puerto Rico
My memory's starting to fade on the small trips, but this is one hugeass trip I will never, ever forget. It was a life-changing experience, and its just unimagineable how such crazy things could have happened to us, and how lucky we were to come out of it unscathed. Puerto Rico was a rainy country that seriously put a gloom on our vacation plans. We had a beautiful beach house on the northwestern part of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, taking us a 2hr drive from San Juan (Huan, as they pronounce it). I loved their mofongo (fried mashed plantains - think goreng pisang, in soup and sauce with shrimp and oysters and the shizz). We missed boats and got speeding tickets and basically got into any type of trouble you could ever imagine that I would not write on the blog, but it is just hilarious how Mel's face remained nonplussed when I told her the same thing happened to me again in 10hrs time. We rode speedboats across the Atlantic Ocean and visited uninhabited islands where you could really see fishes and coral reefs just at your fingertips (it got that shallow!). We visited the beautiful beaches and got severely sunburnt and cried about it the remaining of our trip back, and visited the casino and got lucky a while too!
7) Niagara Falls (New York, Buffalo)
8) FLORIDA! (Kissimee, Orlando and Miami)
My 3rd honeymoon with Mel! It was s super hectic time there, visiting Orlando by plane, driving to Miami by night and flying home to Philly the next morning after a beachful day!
9) New York
10) Utah, Idaho (Yellowstone!)
x) Longwood Gardens and Hang Gliding (can't remember where!)
These don't really count as a state, but boy these were great excursions and roadtrips! We booked the car for both days on the weekend, and visited Longwood Gardens and Hershey Park and did Hang Gliding! Hershey Park was boring because we didn't really go to the theme park; it was just the Chocolate World and we went off for a town tour where we saw the Hershey College, and cute Hershey Kisses lamp-posts!
x) Lancaster and Shady Maple
x) Baltimore Aquarium
learning through life's potholes