Last day in US

It had been a good 2 weeks here. It was something new, met new people at work, successful testing and a really fun experience. I loved every bit of it. Today is the last day in Sunnyvale and Ivy and I had nothing much to do today. In the evening, we decided to go to the Flea Market but unfortunately, we got lost twice and I pretty much drove on and on for a while and couldn't find the road we were suppose to find. In the end, well..yea it was scary also because we didn't want to get permanently lost and miss our flight back home although that flight is midnight...haha long way to go. Anyway, what supposedly was a 12 minute drive turned into more than 1 hour because of wrong road and traffic jam. In the end, we found our way back to the place near our office and just decided to fill up the tank and go to the airport.

Even the trip to the airport was long, the roads were all jammed up. We took an hour to reach there. All in all, 2 weeks finally came to an end and I loved it, I'll miss it but I definitely do not want to spend months in the US like most people do. That would have driven me nuts. 2 weeks is just fine! Perfect. Now I'm on my way back home. I already spent like 12 hours from San Fran to Taipei and 4 hours from Taipei to Singapore. I'm so looking forward to a good bath. As I'm typing this, I'm currently in Singapore and it is 11 Nov at 1.45pm and waiting for my flight back to Penang. Home sweet home!!!

Malaysians are friendly??

I don't think so. I still don't understand why people who visit Malaysia always say that Malaysians are such nice and friendly people. I don't know but it seems to me that over here in US, people are so much more friendly and polite. 9 out of 10 people that I meet were like "Hi, how are you?", "How's your day?", "Good morning, how are you doing?", "Thank you", "I appreciate that", "You're fantastic". But in Malaysia, we pass people and it would be like ...dead silence or people just look away from us or complete ignorance. I just went to the restroom and just as I was going to open the door, a lady walked out and she was like "Oh, I'm sorry" and she holds the door open for me. I was surprised and thanked her and went in. I mean in Penang, you would wish that they would do that, unfortunately they will most likely just let the door slam on my face. I definitely don't agree that Malaysians are friendly. I'm a Malaysian, I see that everyday...definitely not as friendly as what you'll get over here. Another thing was that it really is like a culture here that when someone sneezes, people will say "Bless you" to them. I mean, this I know but I didn't realise it happens all the time. Someone will sneeze and someone else sitting at the other end of the room will say bless you and the sneezer will say thank you. It's cute and it's really nice to hear that too. Not the sneezing la!Anyway, tonight is our 2nd last night in the US. Finally, for dinner, Ivy and I went to Chillis. We had the Jamaican Paradise magarita, chicken crispers and a very nice dessert called chocolate molten cake. Both of us shared all the 3 things because it's too much to finish. Very nice and the whole meal costed us $27.00. Again relatively ok if you live and work there.. :)

Day of food

Today we had a very nice lunch. A friend of ours took us to Sweet Tomatoes which was a salad bar buffet restaurant. It's just USD7++ per person for buffet. I mean it is for USD! Forget the exchange rate...if everything is compared to the exchange rate, we'll be starving here. :) It's basically a salad bar, lots of veggie. I took a full plate of those and then I went for clam chowder which was followed by potato wrapped in tin foil. Baked potato? Something like that. It was good. After work, we went to Costco (this is like Makro, just nicer) and this was followed by another visit to Fry's. Haha. I'm a sucker for Fry's. I could go bankrupt in there. I have to control myself. For dinner, my colleague's brother took us to Pho' Queen Noodle House for vietnamese food. It's along Tasman Drive which is about 10 minutes away from the hotel. After that, we stopped at Ranch 99 supermarket at Milpitas. I saw that the Haagen Daaz there is so damn cheap! For the small tub it's USD3.99 and the big tub is USD5.99. Why the hell do they get things so cheap? These are like expensive delicacies in Malaysia! *cry*

For the sake of Abercrombie :)

It's Fry's day again. Second visit to Fry's and I still like it there. This time we went there to get our Ipod Nano which was at $149. We sacrificed lunch for this. Imagine our desperation. Haha! Later that night, I built up my courage to go to Greatmall again despite what happened last time, getting lost and all. This time I printed a different map using a different route which got us there and back safe and sound. The reason I went there was to get the Abercrombie & Fitch jacket for Ding. I figured something that displays that brand name big and clear would be worth it. So Ding, this'll keep you warm in the office. Later that night, my friend took me to Castro city for dinner at a japanese shop selling ramen. I took the butter corn ramen which was simply deeeelicious. You know USD8 for a big bowl of ramen is so very cheap for the people living here. In Penang, it's like RM15 to 20 for a bowl of ramen. Sheesh..

Shopping again

It's Monday again. After a day at work, Ivy and I planned for a visit to Westfield Valley Fair which was about 15 minutes drive away. It was supposed to be 15 minutes drive but due to traffic jam, it turned into almost an hour. This mall has got almost the same outlets but the range they offer, I guess, is more expensive. So we went walking around but I couldn't find anything for myself except some things that I bought for my mum. One good thing was that it's easy to get there. We were suppose to check out Santana Row near there. Apparently it's quite a happening place with lots of restaurants but we forgot. :(

Hollywood and all

Today, my colleague's brother drove us around trying to find us a good spot to take a photo of the HOLLYWOOD sign on the hill. Finally we got it and we were suppose to go to Warner Bro's studio for a tour but then it was closed on Sunday so we just settled for taking photos with a Bugs Bunny statue outside. Then we went to Universal Studios. We didn't have time to enter the themepark but that's fine. The Universal City Walk was interesting enough. So many shops, so colourful..very nice and we took photos in front of the famous Universal Studio globe. GRIN. After that it was almost 4pm and started the journey back to Sunnyvale. The drive back seemed longer and very tiring too. By the time we reached Sunnyvale, it was almost 10pm so we went for BBQ steamboat till midnight. There were a group of people celebrating birthday there with nice cake and so on. They were nuts...they turned a perfectly nice, edible cake into mush. Those idiots went outside and started throwing cake at the birthday boy. Bunch of idiots. Finally, we went back and settled in for a good night's sleep. Hmm..ok I didn't sleep till almost 2am. There was a nice movie on TV. I can't help it ok!

Los Angeles

The journey to Los Angeles on the road was about 5 hours and it is warm there. Much warmer than Sunnyvale. The highways were dark and long and curvy. There were hardly any rest areas around. Not as much as what we see on the highway from Penang to KL. Over here, there's not many rest areas and not many places to stop. It's not good for the driver. My colleague's brother must have been really tired driving such a long distance without much rest along the way. Around 6am, we were near already. We stopped at McDonalds for breakfast. I had the hot cinnamon roll which was freaking sweet. Urgh..that's a diabetic nightmare! After that, we went on and somehow got lost trying to find Disneyland but finally we found it and checked in at the hotel near Disneyland. I shared a room with my colleague and we settled in, freshened up and headed straight to Disneyland. We decided to cover both the parks which cost USD83. We figured, what the hell, we should try to cover it because there may not be a next time for us to come back to USA. What are the chances right? That was probably our first and last time. We tried the California Adventure park first and took pictures with Hercules. I ran up to him and asked for a photo with him and it was great. Next we 'attacked' Pluto. He was standing there taking photos with people, hugging them and so on. Along the way, we went into the Animation Academy. I thought it was a ride but it was actually a class to teach us how to draw Donald Duck. Hmmph...When we came out, we saw Mickey Mouse bouncing along and didn't managed to catch him for a photo. Sigh...so we went for lunch and then we saw Mickey Mouse bouncing back and headed straight into the toilet. Followed by Cinderella...haha. We headed for the Tower of Terror. It was an elevator ride that plunges down and up. Oooh scary but really exciting. The next ride was Soaring. It was really nice. This was followed by a roller coaster ride California Screaming. That was damn good! It was totally exciting. We headed to Disneyland themepark in the late afternoon. By then it was 5pm and getting dark. There was so many people in Disneyland and I was quite dissapointed that the photos I took didn't turn out so well because it was dark and I couldn't use the flash because it blacks out the pictures. But without the flash, the pictures came out blurry because my hands kept shaking. Anyway, we managed to catch the parade..it was nice then we rushed off for rides on the Peter Pan ride. At 9.30pm was the start of fireworks. It was a beauty that lasted about 20 minutes then we rushed off again for as many rides as possible. Our adventure ended at 11.45pm as we headed back to the hotel and slept like pigs. What a long and exciting day! I'm really glad that I got to see Disneyland for the first time. It has been a week of first-timers. I came to US for the first time. I went to San Francisco for the first time. I wore my leather jacket for the first time. I drove on the opposite side of the road for the first time in car that is a left hand drive. It is a great experience! But I had a hard time differentiating the money. The dollar notes all look the same. And the coins were confusing. They only have 25 cents (quarter) which is the biggest coin. 5 cents is a bigger and thicker coin than 10 cents (1 dime) which gave me a hard time trying to figure it out with a long queue behind me. ;)

It is Friday! Later on at 3am, my colleague's brother and family will be taking us to LA. But before that, today we visited the famous Fry's electronics store..gigantic store. It has everything. I believe my dad will go crazy in there. It has EVERYTHING electronic and I mean everything. It's like an electronic heaven in there. Even I was captivated. Fry's is very near our office. Just less than 5 minutes drive away and we spent about 2 hours there and had dinner at Coco's. This restaurant is nearby too and they serve a lot of sandwiches. Ivy and I shared a sandwich and we can't even finish it. It's begin a burger/sandwich week for us. We keep seeing burgers everywhere. On TV, along the road, shopping malls..everywhere. So sick of it. But the food at Coco's is quite nice just that it's too much. Everything served in US is too much and too big. But prices of food are really reasonable. It's an average of USD8 for a meal of burger or sandwich or italian food and so on. As long as I don't think of the exchange rate, then it's really cheap here. Dinner done, hunger reduced..we went back to the hotel and waited for 3am to come along.

Journey to Gilroy

Our adventure streak is starting again. This time it's further away but apparently much easier to reach because it's just one straight road along the highway/freeway/parkway...whatever they call it. I don't know the difference. In Malaysia, we just call it highway, simple as that. Over here, they have freeways, parkways, expressways. Argh! Anyway, today the 2 of us headed off to Gilroy Premium Outlets which is situated in Gilroy, of course. I guess it's like a town or city. Premium Outlets is a huge open air area with lots of outlets/retail outlets such as Guess, Nike, Coach, Timberland and so on.

Places such as Greatmall and Gilroy offer cheaper prices. So, to get to Gilroy is like a 30 mile drive (30 minutes drive) but we got there..yes we got there with nothing but a car, a map and my handphone with a dead battery. There were about 4 huge blocks of buildings, we managed to cover 3 as it was too late to cover the last one because all shops close at 9pm. When we got to Gilroy it was almost 7pm. All in all, it was interesting and a different style of shopping center. Even the drive back to the hotel was smooth except that at one point, I turned into the wrong side of the road and I saw cars coming slowly towards me. I panicked, stopped and made turn to get back on the right direction. *Sheepish grin* That was scary. Our dinner tonight was Carl's Junior take-away and lights off to bed, ZZZzzz.

Dinner at Fish Market

Tonight, we had a group dinner at Fish Market which was along El Camino Real. That's like just 5 minutes away from the office. The place was packed. I tried the red snapper dish which wasn't really that good. In fact, it was quite tasteless. I guess the Fish and Chips looked better. Nothing much going on today except that.

Greatmall : Part 2

Today, after work, we decided to venture of into the unknown by ourselves with nothing but a car, a map and a whole truck load of gut. Ok, it's Greatmall again but the difference this time is my colleague and I are going by ourselves. The journey there was somewhat smooth. We got there, we found the place..yippee. Shop shop and shop then got ready to get back to the hotel.WE GOT LOST! Somewhere along the way, we saw Lawrence Expressway. That's good, means we are near. So I took the turn but as I drove on...I didn't see anymore signs which says Lawrence Expressway. We started to see Mountain View, El Camino Real and some other street names and finally, we knew we were lost. Oh god..panic started to kick in. We stopped at a Baskin outlet to ask for directions but they didn't know where it was and I thought "Shit, are we so far that they don't even know how to get there??!!" Uh oh. Finally we stopped at a mini market and I went down to ask this guy how to get back. He was like "Lawrence Expressway?? You are very far from there!" I looked at him, dazed. Fortunately, he said the magic words, he was quite well-versed with the directions, which was good for us. Thanks to him, we found our way back and whew..that was close shave from ending up in nowhere land. Yippee!

Visit to Greatmall, Milpitas

Monday morning started off with a BANG! No la...I just thought it sounded nice to say that. It was actually quite cold and then we had breakfast then set off to office. AMD was just less than 5 minutes drive away. My friend took us for lunch at Tofu House along El Camino Real. Their dishes are all tofu (beancurd). It's beancurd in a claypot of different flavours served with rice. I took the seafood beanfurd pot and it was quite delicious and affordable too. Fast forward through the day, we left work and my colleague's brother took us to Greatmall at Milpitas for some good 'ol shopping! That place is full of what we in Penang would refer to as branded outlets. Guess, Levis, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike, Timberland, Dockers and many many more. It was definitely jaw-dropping cheap in comparison to Malaysia. I mean in US, let's assume they make like USD3000 a month for their salary. They only need to spend USD20.00 for a Levi's jeans or USD40.00 for a pair of Guess jeans. We make let's say also RM3000 a month in Malaysia and we have to spend RM300.00 for a pair of Levis or Guess jeans. Absurd isn't it? The cost of living in US (for people who work and live there) is SO LOW. A BMW costs USD50000 in US and it probably cost like RM200000 and above in Malaysia. *gasp* Even vitamins are way cheaper. *snort* Well, the shops close at 9pm and we shopped till 9.01pm and left. To be continued...

San Francisco

In California, we are 16 hours behind Malaysia but somehow I didn't feel the jetlag that people always talk about. I don't know why. I kind of want to know how that feels but I didn't really feel sleepy during the day and awake during the night. It was just normal for me. Today, we went to collect our car at San Jose airport. They gave us a Hyundai Sonata which is quite a powerful car and spacious too. After that, my colleague's brother took us to San Francisco. It was about a 40 minute drive to reach there. The temperature there was much lower that Sunnyvale so we had to wear thicker jackets. One of the place that we stopped over in San Francisco was Lombard Street. It's a really beautiful, curly, curvy and steep street whereby if you look from bottom up, it's simply captivating.

After that, Ivy and I dragged our butts up to the top and to take photos from top down this time. We are just too free! The houses in SF are cute and cosy looking. It's so full of hills there that most roads go up and down..up and down. Such a beautiful view. We also went to see the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz from afar and took a couple of photos amidst the windy weather. During the trip, we stopped over at IHop for some light snacks. It's quite a famous pancake/waffle diner-like place. I say it's famous because it was full to the brim. Later on, we visited the Exploratorium. Not inside. We took some photos of the landscaping there and set off to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. Now, that place is hip, hop and happening! So many restaurants, so many people. Very interesting place. As the time ticked away, day turned into night and we set off back to Sunnyvale and to get ready for the next day.

Off to USA

I have to catch my flight at 10.30 am to Singapore and from there to Taipei and finally to San Francisco on business class. To cut the story short, I missed all of that except the Penang-Singapore flight. Not my fault. All SIA's fault. That flight was delayed by an hour and a half. I don't even want to dwell on that matter here because it pisses me off. Anyway, we finally got a flight to San Francisco which transits at Hong Kong. We reach San Francisco at 7pm on 28 October US time of course... :) time travel huh? It's funny when I think of it. An airplane is like a freaking time machine. Well, the one bad thing about this journey is the delay and the fact that we were forced to take economy class on the alternate flight because everything was fully booked. I was so freaking pissed. I argued with shitty ground staff at Penang airport and the only thing they can say is "Oh, you'll have to work this out with the staff in Singapore and they'll arrange something for you". Arrange their ass ok! I got there and i went to the transfer counter and started proclaiming that this is all absurd and I'm not flying economy. Well nothing worked, the only thing they could do was put me on standby for business class. Crap! That's like saying no chance ok? If it's so full, and that they committed that I will get priority standby for business, why is it that another passenger who didn't even insist on getting priority standby be moved to business class when we reached Hong Kong? This is absurd. I was so pissed of at that passenger because he did nothing but stood there and took the freaking credit when I was the one arguing for my business class bookings. By the way, during the flight, I was sitting at the window seat and next to me was my colleague and next to her on the aisle seat was a freaking log. Tree trunk. Pillar...whatever you want to call it. That bitch just sits there and sleeps like a piece of wood. Doesn't budge and the whole 15 hour or so flight, never once did she get up to go to the washroom. I don't know what's going on but I think she's got a gigantic bladder. My colleague and I had to go out a couple of times to walk around and to the washroom and it's so hard waking that tree trunk up. What a bitch! I go to the washroom for a minute or so and I come back and there she is, sleeping again and didn't even have the courtesy to stand up so that I can get in easier. She's a freaking wood with the expression as if her dog just died. Screw her! All Anyway, I reached SFO finally. My friend picked us up and we checked in to the hotel. It was chilly in Sunnyvale. Quite a change but I like it. Later on, we went for supper and finally settled in around midnight. Next day, off to San Francisco for a tour!

Save me from myself

It's been hell of a long time since the end of MBA, yet it was just a month ago. I haven't achieved much truthfully, none of the 'having fun', 'celebrating freedom' or 'feeling light and easy' happened at all. In fact, the past 1 month has been filled with problems and issues right from 1st Oct onwards. I came back from Singapore on 13th Oct after a week there for training. Can't say it was exceptionally fun. It wasn't. A chance to travel is a good thing but if we're travelling on business trips...it ain't fun. It's stressful. I'd prefer to travel on holidays rather than travel on business related ones, coz then we won't be able to fully enjoy it. I'm off to US next week for the first time for 2 whole weeks. I'm kinda excited about it but yet I feel upset and a little down about it because it's a business trip, not a vacation. Speaks for itself. I hate packing, I hate trying to figure out how many clothes to take (too much is too heavy, too little is not enough %#$#@!!!!) These past 2 weeks has been full of rushing and moody blues week and sometimes I just wish I could have a break. Year ends are always hectic times...for some it's hectic partying season, for me, it's times of depression and agony. :) Why moody blues? Maybe overwhelmed by the upcoming US trip and I just wonder when I'll get the chance to just sit in front of the TV and relax. Trust me, I've been sitting in front of the TV for the past month but my mind has been constantly worrying about work. Gosh...I wonder how it would feel like just to take a really long vacation away from it. I can only dream about it.

Anyway, 2 weeks gone from home, half the world away. I'm gonna miss everything about it and everyone. I do hope I can at least enjoy a little bit of the trip, excluding the work related times. Ding, please don't get anymore M fever. :P

food for thought

This article on today's Star newspaper (22 October 2006) under StarMag section, page 5, entitled "You left, We stayed". It's about people who migrate overseas and constantly blabber about how great life is there and indirectly indicating that 'losers' stay on. I like that article. We choose our own lives and we make the best of it. No where is perfect...but in the end, no where is like home. Cheers to the writer!

4 days post-mba

It has been almost a week of sorts. I spent last Saturday afternoon completing my final of all final exams of MBA. Alas! After 21 months, I have closed another chapter of my education life. The next day, I went down to KL for a one day trip and Monday night was a very fun night. I went for a company dinner and my colleagues and I had loads of fun, dance and great music. My Tuesday and Wednesday was usual with nothing much interesting going on except that I can proudly declare that I managed to do 2 things that I wanted to do.

1. I brought out my dusty 5 year old guitar and tried to play something. I guess a few notes from Johnny Cash's Walk The Line was reasonable enough to call an achievement...I mean, despite the fact that I suck at it. Come on! it's not that easy to learn ok!!

2. Finally, applied for an MPH readers club member card. I know...I know, I listed a whole load of crap that I wanted to do in my previous post but I need some time to do that, especially the part which involves cleaning my room. :)

Things to do after the last day of MBA

Count down..... 0 days to go!

1. Buy my first vanilla latte from Starbucks, sit and watch people walk by.
2. Pray hard for good results.
3. Help Ding burn his books ? *this is still pending confirmation*
4. Read my brand new novels till my eyes pop out.
5. One Tree Hill and TVB Cold Blood Warm Heart marathon.
6. Spring clean my bedroom...again.
7. Apply for MPH member card.
Correction (due to special request)
9. Seafood feast *Ding, Peen, Lynn & Soon Yee let's go someday and get diarrhea for the next 3 days*
9. Try self-learn Mandarin, Spanish and revise Japanese. *what a challenge..i'm screwed*
10. Go shoe shopping.

Life is like a novel with its end ripped out

"Life is like a novel with its end ripped out". This phrase caught my attention today. It's a part of the lyrics of one of Rascal Flatt's songs. Well put...Life really is nothing but a story without an end until we finally reach the end. Yet again we won't know what the end would be...*deep*. I don't even know what I just said.
Frankly, this life journey is so unpredictable. Literally said, it's just like a novel with the end ripped out. We're happily reading a novel and we can't find the last page...what's going to happen? happy ending? No one knows. We meet all kinds of people in our lives..I know I have. And these different kinds of people either make you or break you, yet again, we wouldn't know it till the end. Sometimes things could be going so well and the next minute, we could be clawing at each other for no apparent reason. Freaky isn't it? Sometimes bad things that happen are followed by good things. Sometimes it is followed by worst things..and getting worser until you crawl into a hole and wish that you will just disappear into thin air. I hope that doesn't happen. Anyway, I think I like the thought of life being a novel with the end ripped out. I wouldn't want to know my end until the day comes because then if I had known...that would be boring. I'm definitely not the type to go sky-diving, mountain-climbing, re-creating dinosaurs or wrestling with lions, so why would I want to know how the rest of my story goes. I'd prefer it to surprise me...in a good way that is! Like maybe I might stumble upon a winning lottery ticket, or suddenly wake up in an orange Ferrari which is mine..all mine! or...*reality check* find myself fantasizing about materialistic items and suddenly fall back down to earth to where my 5 assignments are waiting to be finished and exam waiting to be studied for and work waiting for me to crack my head on. *sigh*

Training-The Breakup-Assignments

9.32am on a Saturday morning. Hell..it's been a week of fun and downs too. I just came back from KL on Wednesday night where I went there for training. The training session was quite alright, interesting learning experience. Not much happening besides that. I stayed near the training center which was a plus because I didn't have to wake up early and rush. It only takes me 5 minutes to walk there.

So back home then. It's not so great. I've been feeling pretty moody and down because of 2 assignments that need to be completed. Everytime I open them I feel like throwing myself at a brick wall. Gosh...I never knew doing assignments can be so freakishly depressing. I hope to finish one by today. It's really taking a toll on me...I get so upset that I feel guilty not able to read my storybooks without thinking about assignments. I went to watch The Breakup on last night. Somehow, it was a good show but I constantly kept thinking about assignments that are waiting for me at home. How upsetting it is. Now I'm awake and sitting here..staring at space. I'm doing my homework now. Hopefully I can get it over with. Now about The Breakup. Jennifer Aniston looked so damn good in there. I don't understand how in the world Brad Pitt can leave her for Angelina...I mean yea sure..Angelina's sexy, pretty, pouty and stuff...but she does portray a certain image......scary. Well, whatever. Anyway, the whole show is nice and funny except the ending. There was no ending which made all of us more pissed off.

Alright, I'll end off here. Guilt is bearing me down. I better go continue my homework.

Cheers~!