Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Nothing much. Stayed at home to plan stuff for the upcoming days. Relaxing day to recharge. Played ninja gaiden 2 and it was wicked slashing ppl and seeing blood all over the screen. Blogged the past events too and check out facebook.
InD!gO plunged into darkness 6:08 PM
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Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Decided to take the public transport to Bellevue. Auntie eng dropped my mom and i at the Redmond bus terminal. Boarded ST express 545 and the bus driver told us that the bus doesnt pass by bellevue. Mistake on my part coz i thought i saw the bus passing through bellevue on the brochure...anyway we alighted and luckily the correct bus was right in front and we managed to catch up to it. Bus 253 of metro king county service. The bus driver is super nice. White father of 3 kids. Helped me quite a bit with the system and routes. A great comedian who talked about wanting to get a job in the mattress department as a bed tester so he gets paid to sleep on the mattresses and tell ppl how good it is. A driver for 15 years and he was from the police dept before. He has a vietnamese friend who keeps saying NO GOOD! He likes bill cosby and chevy chase. Great friendly guy.
Reached bellevue bus terminal and it was somewhat like the bedok interchange. Ate breakfast at a nearby starbucks. Ordered a hot mocha with a blueberry scone. Walked to bellevue square after breakfast. We went to Safety supermarket and it was damn big and colourful. Saw vegetaables such as avacado pumpkin and artichoke which are rare in singapore stores.. Saw apple pies and ready made steaks. Wide variety of meat and cheese. Bought bubblegum!
Was walking all around 4th to 8th ave trying to find a bartell drug store. While walking around, i saw a shop selling anime stuff! Went in to check it out and made friends with the shopowner there. He is called Eric and both of us talked a lot about anime and his favourite is Major baseball...hahaha and he mentioned that piracy is viewed very strictly in Seattle. One episode downloaded means 10000 in fines. Yes 10k. Insane. His friend got fined about 150k. He gave me directions to a bartell drug store finally and we said our goodbyes.
Bartell drug store is like 7-11 but a big one. The pudgetpass concession card is sold out and apparently the public transport system here is inferior compared to singapore. Singapore operates everyday and the concession card is available everyday. Here it is not. Depends on weather and availability of cards. QFC also doesnt have and QFC is sth like a supermarket too.
Went to Bellevue square to eat lunch at another TACO shop! Addicted to taco with salsa sauce with mexican rice and black beans. Drank minute maid lemonade. It was good even though the person serving had a very strong mexican accent and i couldnt understand most of time...hahahaha he probably thought i was just another asian struggling with english understanding.. Went shopping by myself again. Loads of shops with bigger chains of american outfitters, zumiez and pacsun. Went to a cool armani exchange shop and dolce and gabbana shop manager complimented my red shoes from HK! He said those are WICKED! HAhahaa...lego shop was pretty cool too. Banana republic, GAP and abercrombie and fitch are so NOT my type of clothes plz. TOO PLAIN. Macy's and Nordstrom were mostly female stuff. So in the end i didnt buy anything from there even though i liked some stuff from the AIX and american outfitters shop. Take note.
Met up with uncle richard at the ebar near nordstrom. We drove down to the firing range! Saw a lot of shotguns, rifles, pistols, uzis, snipers even. And there were a couple of strange laws. 18 years old allowed to buy shotguns and rifles. 21 years old allowed to buy pistols. Weird. AND must be 21 years and above to shoot in the range. I was devastated for a moment. BUT another rule saying that if accompanied by an adult...15 years and older can go in. WTH 15 years old.... anyway i shot 5 guns using 9mm calibre bullets. The stupid thing is that they dun provide supervision and they assume u know how to handle and lock and load the gun yourself and shoot all by yourself. So i didnt dare to try the uzi. 5 pistols were already nerve wrecking and high recoil enough...hahaha its very different from firing my M16 and SAR21. I saw AR15 there which is the original version of SAR21. 5 pistols i shot were Smith & Wossen compact, Springfield, Para, P223 and Ruger handguns. I like the springfield one the most as its silver, the biggest pistol amongst all the 5, not that high recoil and i shot a headshot with it :D Trust me its hard to aim at a target and hit the target with pistols. Luckily i had earmuffs too as the cubicles next to me had ppl firing automated pistols and it was super loud with echo as it was an enclosed range. I was quite scared to load the bullets too...hahaha
After shooting, my hands smelt like gunpowder. Went to drink yumcha and eat hotdog bun at a HK cafe with a super CUTE waitress at the counter. Probably from HK as she spoked canto to uncle richard. It was bittersweet more bitter tea but it was nice and close to the authentic one in HK. Went home.
InD!gO plunged into darkness 5:49 PM
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Monday, February 09, 2009
Woke up to see SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME OF MY LIFE! It was awesome i tell u. Snow covering the entire forest, backyard and frontyard totally. Snow on the pine trees. Snow on the driveway and the roads. I dashed out without properly wearing insulation against the cold as i was too excited. Wore my boots and a coupla shirts. I picked up snow and it really was like shaved ice. Made snowballs and walked around the backyard to explore the snow covered forest and to check out the unfinished wooden shed uncle richard was attempting to make. Then i realised i got locked out of the house and my hands were totally numb. My fingers had no feeling...hahaha so i rang the doorbell and everyone thought i was the postman or sth. Took a coupla photos. Made loads of snowballs.
Got a major accident at the 520 bridge connecting downtown Seattle to Overlake due to the snow and slush. Auntie eng had no school due to the snow. It is fascinating to experience first hand how snow can affect the everyday lives of the locals here. Travelled to Redmond town centre again with auntie eng and lunched there at Desert Fire! Awesome mexican south american food. I ate chimichangas, enchiladas and tacos dipped in authentic spicy salsa sauce for 12 bucks! Went shopping by myself. Bought a couple of american outfitters shirts and a hoodie and a pair of white jeans. Bought a Smith ski mask and a beanie too from REI. Saw Victoria's secret and the salesgirls were damn pretty. Saw a goldclass cinema at the town square too. Borders sold quite a number of adult novels and some of them are about gays and lesbians.
Tiring day of shopping and the cold was getting unbearable.
InD!gO plunged into darkness 5:36 PM
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Sunday, February 08, 2009
Time to go Seattle! Woke up at around 4am to get ready the last minute stuff left to prepare before going to the airport. 4.30am went to airport. Reached airport T3 at 5.30am. Flight was on United Airlines. It was awesome to be back again on the plane. Plus i was lucky enough to get a window seat. However, it was kinda boring to fly for the first 6 hours as the movies kinda suck. Watched some movie forgot the title about the first female quarterback for american football based on a true story. Listened to a hell lot of katy perry, akon, rihanna and loads others that kept repeating on the airplane radio coz they were the latest hits. Slept quite a bit...ok not really sleeping rather it was a fading in and out into consciousness kinda thing. Experienced quite a bit of turbulence too. Upon reaching Japan, my mother and i managed to see mount Fuji! Can u believe it that it is so tall that even people on an airplane high up in the air could see it?! It was an awesome sight. Plus we saw ice crystals forming on the airplane window as it was too cold. The japan sea was partially frozen with glaciers floating on the water surface. We got an aerial view of Narita and it was quite dilapitated. The development and infrastructure were similiar to a third world country as the land was mainly agricultural farms and wasteland. Very few vehicles mostly motorbikes. Houses with zinc roofs reflecting off the glare of the sun.
Narita airport was surprisingly quite developed considering the environment we were in. Japanese airstewardesses are one of the hottest babes on earth! Japanese salesgirls selling cosmetics too :D Checked out a couple of shops and japanese goods were really well packaged and attractive enough to appeal to many buyers. Products such as green tea kitkat and japanese sake were tasty. The air was chilly in Narita. About 8 degrees celsius.
Flight to Seattle was 8 hours long. This time is the last row of seats but it was good coz it meant i could incline the chair all the way back without even caring if there are ppl behind who would mind. Listened to the same latest hits for about 6 hours straight whilst reading the social psychology book priya lent to me on board the plane. The book is really intriguing and thought provoking. Dinner was japanese curry with japanese rice! Plus the green salad was hotel standard awesomeness. Breakfast was western sausages with omelette and hashbrown.
Finally at SeaTac airport! It was ok i guess...not as nice as Narita and Changi airports for that matter. The place looks very industrial like and the subway train underneath that connects the terminals is very old dating back till 1960s. Plus its transparent so i could see the condition of the tunnel which was horrible..looked like about to cave in. Met up with auntie poh eng and uncle richard. I could breathe out fumes without smoking a cigerette! No snow on the first day though coz it wasnt cold enough. It was only 4 degrees celsius then. Seattle looked kinda gloomy with the fog and the sun barely peeking out from the snow clouds.The pine trees were beautiful. Some were green and some were greyish. Traffic rules here and so much different compared to singapore plus the vehicles are all left hand drives. Mostly Toyota, Honda and Nissan cars here with a few Mercedes and Cheverolet. Long drive to our home. Home was awesome with a garage housing 2 cars. 2 stories house with loads of room upstairs and downstairs. A whole forest as a backyard and there is a frontyard even. A driveway to the garage is available too. Settled down and unpacked and we went to Redmond town centre to chow down on Claim Jumper! Awesome western restaurant with a bit pricey food but the american portion was huge! I ordered turkey and uncle richard gave me half his beef burger plus i had to eat quite a bit of auntie eng's calamari. Stuffed. Mom didnt eat much as usual. Redmond town centre had a lot of shops. Shops like zumiez and pacsun cater to the needs of teenagers.
We went to REI to look for some ski gear. There is a rockclimbing wall in the shop to test out rockclimbing gears such as boots and toggle ropes. Also went to a couple of other sportshops near Kirkland and Bellevue. We headed home.
InD!gO plunged into darkness 4:40 PM
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