Happy 27th Birthday, Xiuzi !!!
Happy happy happy birthday.. lala lala..:)
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followed yifan to texas today. didnt see much of the place though, cos most of the time i waited in the car. but at least i got to venture out of Durant. major construction going on everywhere -- mostly residential properties.

that's my house on the left.


my living room and our very own fireplace !! the window overlooks the patio at the back of the house.


walk-in closet and attached bathroom.


the master bedroom.


the place where i spend most of my time in-- my computer room.

they have this really stupid system here where new residents have to pick up their own mailbox key from the post office. and the stupid guy at the management office only told me about it yesterday !!! ( dunno what key he gave me previously didnt work, and only then did he find out about the system. OMG!)
because of this, i got some mails late, and the companies are going to charge me late fees. urggh! and what's this about having to pay excise duty for my Mass. car plate even though i am already using a CT one?? *headache*

enough of that.
for anyone curious to see what Durant is like, check out www.durantchamber.org i still havent gotten down to taking pics yet, cos it's just too hot out. oh, and i just found out about this Singapore club they have in Dallas. not sure yet if i want to join as a member, but at least we are not alone in this land of the rednecks. coincidentally, we were at the supermarket in Dallas last sunday when i overheard a kid speaking English with a singaporean accent. so good to hear that every now and then.

talking about accents, there is something about the southern accent that i totally cannot stand. the people sound like they are sleepy when they talk. too relaxed for me. and the way they describe stuff is so unlike people in the northern part of the US. just a few days ago when i called to inform that the light bulbs in my bathroom had blown, the guy at the other end couldnt understand me at all. he didnt know what " the bulb had blown" meant. i searched furiously for some replacements i could use. in the end, i said the lights were not working. and he didnt even pronounce " bulb" as " bulb". his sounded like " bolb" .. huhh??!!! and he had the cheek to say he couldnt understand me because of my accent, when it is their stupid southern accent that is being made fun of thru'out the US.

i dun know when i will get down to taking pics of my house, so here's a brief introduction first:
~ 2-storey
~a reasonable size concrete patio at the back of the house
~ 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms
~ fully airconditioned
~1500 square feet
so you can imagine how much i had to clean up when we first arrived. and because it's summer now, there are lots of insects and bugs flying around, so windows have to be kept closed at all times.

my neighbourhood:
i live within 5 minutes drive of Walmart, yifan's workplace, and almost everywhere else. there are lots of mexican restaurants here, which is good news for me. generally, lower cost of living as compared to New England. but extremely high tax rate here: a whooping 8.5%.

here's yifan and his U-Haul box that he had to drag for 3 days. all our stuff was in there, and also in the back of his pick-up. he couldnt go fast with the U-Haul cos then the box would start to sway from left to right. but then when we unpacked, i found a broken bowl. hmph! anyway, that was fun.


there is an amphitheatre at the Millennium Park. while we were there, there was an orchestra playing. the sound system was pretty good too. i wouldn't mind living in chicago-- there seems to be a lot going on everyday. full of life, just like NY. but i guess when u live alone, that's a different story altogether. Richard said he doesnt go out much, and i think i can understand why.. it really isnt much fun going out alone, and if u already live there, you tend to take the goings-on for granted. sigh !!
the architecture is quite futuristic-looking eh?
we were watching kids having fun and waiting for the water to spout out from somewhere...

it's sort of like how kids play at the fountains at Bugis Junction. the one in Millennium Park is much nicer though. there are 2 big walls with flowing water, much like the one in Suntec or Millenia Tower, or whatever it's called.

that's what we were waiting for. the picture on the wall changes every few seconds. now the man in the picture is spouting out water. Cool huh?


we had to wait for a table at the Cheesecake Factory restaurant. in the end, we decided to eat outside instead.

yifan and richard playing basketball. the building at the back is richard's garage, and this is his own back yard. interesting.


one of richard's many dunks. and that's me watching from behind. basketball? no thanks!
one of my favourite pics from the entire trip...


ribbit ribbit.. muahahah


that's the front view of the house. i know the outside doesnt look much, but check out the inside.


2-storey with a basement, a backyard and a garage that can take 2 cars. beautiful.

having our last meal before we continue on our trip. of course, in chinatown lah.

he looked like he was getting married, but he's only going for an interview. serious huh? guys even have to put on suits for job interviews. hmm, wonder how his interview turned out. haven't spoken to him since we got here.
Lastly, thanks for letting us stay over, Richard !!

A couple more pics of the road trip before we finally get to our destination :

that's St Louis. i dun have a clue which state it is in.. hmm, that reminds me. i have to surf the internet later to check it out. it seemed beautiful when we drove past that night. Big city, and also the last of whatever " civilisation" we will see for a long time. heheh. after St Louis, it was pretty much Smallville land, until Oklahoma, which is... like a scene from Back to the Future. of course, it wasnt really back to the future. more like back to the past. No kidding!!
the day after we got here and went to do laundry at the local laundromat, we saw those old-fashioned pressing irons. never seen them before, we even thought of taking a pic of that. too bad we didnt have the camera with us at that time.
ohh, and before we could get to OK, there was one last stopover in Missouri.


a SUITE in Super8 Motel !!! hey, dun laugh. see the jacuzzi behind me. other than that, the room was atrocious.

phew!!! after 3 days, we finally reached Durant. havent taken any pics of my area yet. will probly do so later today. so much things to do-- go to the post office to collect my mailbox key ( which is so stupid), go Walmart to get some stuff ( that's become a daily hangout for me, so dun think Paris Hilton was being sarcastic when she asked the farmboys if they hang out in Walmart, cos that's what I do since i got here), eat lunch which should be ready in no time, and then crash out in front of the tv. sounds good eh?

waiting for my hair to dry so might as well post some pics now..


that's the first morning since we started our road trip: pic taken at Comfort Inn in Pennsylvania. i wish i can visit PA again. the mountains and cool weather reminds me of europe..ahh!


that's chinatown in chicago. no crowds, so clean, so unlike the one in Manhattan. as you can see, Chicago is not known as " Windy City" for nothing.

Richard and me at Lake Michigan. Beautiful. i mean, the lake and the beach, of course.

quite a good strip of beach considering this is just a lake. ohh, and there's even a Bally Fitness Area on the beach.. so you work out and get a tan all at the same time. how thoughtful is that?

fair legs-- the pair on the left belongs to yifan, and the other equally fair one is richard's.

one of the few pics i took of them together.


thats probably the last skyscraper i will see for a long time.


the zoo in downtown chicago. not many animals there, but who cares, it's FREE!!

Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. the park was supposed to be ready for the 21st century, but apparently, it was only completed a few years back. hmm. nice park.

time to catch some sleep. post the rest tomorrow. cheers!

finally !! it's been 2 weeks since i moved from Hartford ( and lost internet and cable)
just got the house all hooked up today. yes, it is so so slow. the satellite service here sucks, we should have stuck to cable instead.

the road trip was uber-fun... Connecticut- New York- Pennsylvania- Ohio- Indiana- Chicago- Missouri- Oklahoma !!

met up and stayed for 2 nights with Richard, yifan's friend, in Chicago. oh man!! chicago is just like NY, a smaller and much cleaner version though. i was sad to leave when the time came. we took many pics at Lake Michigan, and some others. will post them up tomorrow.

been here in Durant for just slightly over a week. cant say i like this town very much, but neither do i hate it. it is just small, so nothing much to do or see around here. weather's really warm here-- hotter than singapore. i caught the Weather Channel yesterday, and guess what, the northeast is only in the 70s !!? urrggh.

last weekend was our first weekend in OK. we had lunch at some Dim Sum place in Dallas, after which we went grocery shopping. i am happy to announce that they have chilli padi at the hongkong supermarket.
* yay * those that i brought over from NY had all turned mouldy from the trip, but still i couldnt bear to throw 'em away until last sunday.

next Mon is Independence Day, so it's long weekend for us this week. that will give us some time to explore Dallas. it's pretty easy to drive around here, and now that i have Internet, i might just find somewhere to go, and take off on a weekday. traffic here is nothing like what you find in New England. it is so much easier and less stress driving here. in fact, the whole drive down south went very well.
Pennsylvania is beautiful, at least from what little i saw of it. Mountains and mountains. it took us a whole day just to drive across PA to get into Ohio !
after Chicago, the landscape was totally different -- stretches of flat land that stretched into yet more land.hehe. if you watch Smallville, yeah, that's what it looked like.

gonna surf around some more. later~

this is going to be my last post for awhile. i will lose my cable tv and internet connection in just about an hour. we will be driving to OK tomorrow afternoon, ETA friday evening.

have a safe trip oki !! --> thanks xiuzi

it will be a looong road trip, my very first. good thing the days are long so we should be able to cover more ground. in any case, we are not planning to drive late at night. dun want to be coming into close contact with deers.

lately the weather's been terrible. it is so warm here, singapore cannot even compare. at least, ventilation is somewhat better in apartments in singapore. here, everything is built for winter, so the heat gets trapped indoors for a very long time. i hear there is a tropical storm brewing in Florida. hmm, strange weather eh ? luckily we are not headed so far down south.

a friend will be undergoing some operation tomorrow to remove a tumour. hope she gets well soon !!!

~cheerios~

i have moved a couple of times since i came to the US.. but still, when it comes to packing, i am hopeless.
i am supposed to be finishing up whatever packing there is to be done -- like all the kitchen stuff, and the little pieces of items here and there... it's tough; i have absolutely no problem packing the clothes, but when i have to pack the sauces and spices, cooking utensils etc, i am always at a loss. for the past 2 hours, i stood standing and looking around at what i have to pack and how to pack it all. i have totally NO CLUE !! so it's no wonder that my kitchen looks the same as it has always been. the pots and pans and plates are still at their usual places .. sigh, i give up ! anyhow, yifan should be home in an hour or so. he will pack the rest. heheh.

all that " packing" is making me hungry again... time for tea- break. :)

drove the lexus all the way to Rhode Island yesterday to get it all cleaned up. aahhh ... nothin beats a nice-smelling car. :) we went in 2 cars -- i drove the white pickup (background in pic) cos the cleaning took quite a while, so at least we could still move around in the pick-up in the meantime.



it's been a long day for me today -- woke up early to go NY ( finally, this was really our last trip). retrieved my Victoria's Secrets nightie from Roberto. ;p Left it by the bedside on the last trip! As usual, Manhattan was packed, the problem possibly worsened becos there was some Puerto Rican parade on on 5th Ave today. got some pics of it, but nothing much so we lost our interest pretty soon.

will post the pics tomorrow. too tired now. also gotta learn how to use the D70 really soon. i had started reading the first few pages of the manual, but stopped for the last couple of days cos i was busy with other stuff.

anyway, tomorrow will be more packing, and some last-minute to-dos as well ...
later~~

i have never realised that some people can be so " weird" when it comes to the things that attract them to the opposite sex, until i listened/ watched the Howard Stern show. two nights ago, some guy said he liked watching women get sick and puke.. and amazingly, they got 3 girls on the show and had a contest to see who could be the first to puke ON him !!!

okok, no more of such sicko stuff. back to myself. i should have avoided the long grass in jeff's garden the other day. now there are rashes on my left ankle..*sian*

just got some prescribed medicine for yifan's stye from the pharmacy today. if there's one thing i dun like about the US, it is the medical system that is currently in place. first, medical insurance does not come cheap. you would think doctor consultations would be free since you already pay so much each month, but NO !!! you pay to see the doctor, and there is only ONE doctor you can see. then you get the prescription, go to a pharmacy and buy the medicine. i think the whole process is so stupid and cumbersome. if i am sick, not only do i have to go to that particular doctor which may not be the most convenient one to go to at that time, but i would still have to travel from the doctor's to get the medicine !!!
oh well!

some updates on our impending move:
~ found a nice 2-storey townhouse with a real fireplace *yay*
~ all our clothes are packed save for those in the laundry basket
~ tentatively moving off on tues afternoon
~ will be bunking in with yifan's friend in Chicago for a night and spending a couple of hours after that exploring the city ( that will be my first time there)

you know how people always have their car windows down while driving... well, just this morning, something funny happened. we stopped at the traffic lights, and yifan turned the wipers on to clean the windshield. the guy on the lane next to ours happened to have his car windows down, and the water was splashing onto his arm. i thought he was so silly, cos he looked helplessly at us, waving frantically trying to get our attention..when all he had to do was wind up his windows !!! and it's not like we can do anything to stop the wipers cos it had to complete the entire cycle .. but that was funny..heheh.

one of the sites i visit daily: www.expatsingapore.com

some of the topics are quite interesting ... like there's one that debates on whether Singapore is " sucky or fantastic". a rather balanced discussion going on although interestingly enough, anytime someone defends singapore, others immediately jump to the conclusion that the person is a singaporean.. hmm. that kinda says a lot about the majority of the people there huh ?! but at least there are not very many Americans on that site. thank goodness for that!!

not that i have anything against Americans, but from what i read on another forum, they seem to think they rule the world. when they talk about westerners, they actually mean Americans and they forget that there are Europeans, Aussies etc. basically, their world consists of just themselves and asians, and asians to them are gold-diggers !!! ( how dare they think of us like that) they seriously need to wake up their idea that the white-men ( in most cases, it means Americans) is superior. i quote someone on the forum: " the american dream is now over". apparently, they still havent gotten over that yet. i feel sorry for those ignorant americans. boo.

we went to jeff's house in Conventry yesterday. explored his garden and brought back fresh xiao bai cai, basil and mint leaves.


that's xiao bai cai on the left. it's not the shanghai kind that we are used to. we had it for dinner, but yifan didnt really like it... he said it's too tough. i thought it was fine.

we brought home the roots of the basil and mint plants too, cos i want to grow them in OK. dun think they can survive a week till we get there, though. i love the taste and smell of basil, and they seem to grow easily. i've already collected chilli seeds cos i think it'll be difficult to buy chillies there, so might as well grow my own... esp now that we will have a small garden. it's going to be fun !!

it's even warmer today than it was yesterday. urghh! we had to "escape" to some air-conditioned place. it's been quite a while since i last went B&N, and the Sophie Kinsella book that i was halfway thru was not at its usual place. :(
ended up reading Bound Feet & Western Dress by Chang Pang- Mei Natasha.


somehow, i just love reading memoirs, especially of people who used to live in East Asia. i guess it's because i like how it's like a non-fiction history book written in a fiction way. i get to learn about different cultures, and understand a little about their way of life.

i'd finished reading all the books i got from Overstock; not intending to buy anymore, cos i think it's quite a waste to have the books lying at home in almost mint condition after i am done with 'em. i sometimes wish i can work in a bookstore, cos there are too many books that i want to read. just like today, i was spoilt for choice. everything looked good to me. sigh !

we have to go back to NY one of these days. i had left my VS nightgown at Sutton last weekend. *shake head*
i woke up yesterday morning thinking that i must have left it behind cos i dun remember seeing it while doing laundry a few days ago. i panicked, cos it's a very pretty pink nightgown, and expensive too. it very nearly spoilt my day yesterday. i got so upset over it. but thankfully, all that's over. when i called the man at Sutton this morning, he said he found it !!
i seem to be losing my stuff so often lately. mostly becos i move around too much. the first time i lost my t-shirt in France. dunno what really happened, cos yifan lost his too... then realised that my towel and t-shirt were gone in Fairfield. one of us must have overlooked 'em while doing the laundry in Middleboro. sigh! so this time around, we must really really make sure we have everything with us when we move. it's hard to keep stock when there is so much going on, and so many things to carry.

it has been an unbelievably warm day today --30 degrees !! even now, at 10pm, we are still perspiring. guess there will only be more of such days to come. i can't imagine how it's going to be like in OK. urrgh!

we went to Hammonasset beach this afternoon. it's a public beach, but we had to pay to enter.. $9 per car. it appears to be the norm that people pay to use the beach here. of course, there is the one in Fairfield that is free, but we thought since they charge for the Hammonasset one, it should be good. plus, we had read reviews that it is the best beach in Connecticut. so we went.. the place was packed, as can be expected since today's the warmest day of the year so far. but really, there was nothing spectacular.. Fairfield would have been just fine, though it would be another 25 minutes drive.

this was taken barely half an hour after we got there, and i had already turned red.

and here's yifan looking pretty much the same after more than 3 hours of sunbathing. in my opinion, suntanning is just a total waste of time for him. i mean, how many more times must he tan before he gets darker, and by then, what is going to become of me? i even brought along a little towel to shield my face from the sun. and that's not it. my toes get dark really fast, so we had to cover them up with sand. hahah. at one point, i had my head buried under my towel, and my toes were covered with my shorts. i think i must have looked very weird then... i think if there was a contest to see who got darker in the shortest amount of time, i would win the contest hands down.

you can probably tell that my legs bore the brunt of the heat. oh, and just a little nugget of info-- the ocean behind me is the Atlantic Ocean. and the water is icy cold despite how warm the day was.. and yet, kids were still playing in the waters.

yifan risking a burn to his butt just so i can take a pic. heheh. he's sitting on the breakwaters. come to think of it, we should have taken a pic of that.. lots of people fishing there too.


ohh, that's the breakwaters. this pic was taken by a woman whom i think is very helpful, but has totally no clue about using a camera. the first shot we took of us, she took the sky instead, and all you could see of us was just yifan's head.. and not even his face !!! thank goodness this is a digicam, and we looked at the pic immediately, so could take another one.. if it were the film kind, then too bad for us.

yes, it is me eating again. this time eating an ice-cream... and no, i am not as greedy as you think. the nutty ice-cream is yifan's. he just wanted to give people the impression that i am greedy. heheh. we were a little apprehensive about buying the ice-cream there cos we thought it would definitely cost a lot, but we were pleasantly surprised to find out that each costs only $1.75. very cheap considering if it were in Singapore or some other Asian countries, the vendor would jack up the prices. anyway, people must have thought that the ice-cream cost a lot, cos there werent many buyers. ( there wasnt a sign shouting " $1.75 ice-cream" , you see)

enjoying the last of my ice-cream in the shade. i badly needed the cold cold ice-cream, and i think i needed the shade even more. i was getting to the point of becoming black. okok, just an exaggeration.

oohh, one last thing, while we were walking back to the car, i noticed a few black women suntanning too. hmm, i am not being racist here, but do they need suntanning? i mean, can they get any darker?

the Beetle Sport GLS is sooo cute. we, or rather yifan, test- drove the one in red. it's a 5-speed manual with turbo. i love the sunroof and i thought it's amazing that the key can wind the windows up and down. yeah, yifan said all volkswagen cars have that feature, but you see, that was my first time in a VW car. too bad i didn't manage to take any pics of the car cos the salesman was with us the whole time, and i didnt want to look too unpro bringing my camera out.
the salesguy drove us to a parking area 5 min away from the dealership so yifan could take over the wheels. i didnt know what i was thinking, cos the first thing that came to my mind was " hmm, it's going to be a long walk for him to walk back to the car dealership".. and " mabbe we should give him a lift back instead so he doesnt have to walk" .somehow, i just thought he wouldnt be joining us in the car. dunno why, but i think mabbe its becos i dun want him to be there. hahah. luckily, yifan was the one driving, cos i would have left the salesguy stranded at the parking area if i took over the wheels. hah, that would have been so funny..





i am tempted to sell off my lexus and buy the Beetle instead. mabbe i will do that when i go to OK?!! hmm, now what color should i get? manual or auto? just with sunroof or a convertible?

Happy 25th Birthday, Kel!!!

i know you are on your way to Loire Valley. have fun and say Hi to Chambord. if you have time or if it's along the way, go to Carcasonne. its a medieval town, and really nice. for anyone interested to look at some of the pics my bro took, it's http://moblog.blogspot.com

funny how enthusiastic we were before we bought the D70, but now that its here, we are just removing the wrapping to test it. ( its been 2 days)

since we are living close to car dealerships here, we thought we'd go test drive some cars this afternoon. i want to test drive the Volkswagen Beetle, preferably the lime green one. there is not much of a chance of me owning that car in this lifetime, so now's the time. we drove past Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche dealerships the other day, but we werent dressed suitably. i didnt think the salespeople would entertain us both since they would know those cars are out of our league.
i am going to try to sneak in our digicam, not the D70 of cos, but the old and smaller one, so we can take some pics of the cars later. dunno if the salesman will come along during the test drive. hmm, mabbe we should drive those 2-seater ones then. hehhe.

D70 is here !!! havent got a chance to test it out yet, cos we were out the whole day.

saw Betty at Super88 just now, and it was so funny cos we were trying to hide from her. not that we dun want to see her, but there isn't really anything much to say to her, so it would be kind of awkward if she saw us and then we would have to talk a bit. yifan was behaving like some private eye, snooping around and spying on her to make sure she wasnt going to walk our way.heheh. she must be feeling lonely, doing groceries alone, cooking for herself... but mabbe she likes her life like that, or else she would have gone back to singapore.

oohh, its Kel's birthday tomorrow.. yeah!!! enjoy urself in France ya?!

i tagged along with yifan today when he made his usual rounds of visiting customers. it has been a while since i last did that cos sometimes i get a little impatient waiting in the car.

yifan just commented that i am always blogging about me eating. i cant help it. eating is one of my greatest passions.

alright, back to what i was saying... the minute he told me that he was going to Greenwich, i immediately thought of La Salsa. so of cos, i didnt let the opportunity slip me by. what is waiting 1 hour in the car and listening to the radio, when the lunch that awaits me after that more than makes up for it ? you will see what i mean shortly.

just look at that-- mango salsa, carrot, habanero, tomatoes... between the two of us, we had more than 20 little dishes of those. i have never liked mexican food until i discovered La Salsa, and i am happy to learn that there is an outlet in Texas. :)