9 days in USA

Lots of pictures from the States!

My toiletries! Actually, I'm just showing off my Kodomo! Loved it when I was a kid... It smells so gooood... :D

Basically, the whole trip was lots of waiting and sleeping and flying. We spent the first 30 hours waiting: Waiting for our flights, waiting to arrive at our destination. And in total, we took NINE flights in a span of 9 days! Of course, the 9 flights includes the transits and domestic flights, but still!

This was our route:
Singapore > Narita, Japan > Los Angeles
Wait 5 hours for our domestic flight
Los Angeles > Denver > Omaha
Stayed 2 days
Omaha > Chicago
Stayed 1 day
Chicago > Denver > San Jose
Stayed 6 days
Los Angeles > Narita, Japan > Singapore


And so the story begins.

Our flight was at 6am in the morning, and so we're supposed to check in at 4am, right? We didn't wanna waste money taking cab or trouble people at such an unearthly hour, so we decided to check in at 12am to get intoxicated at Harry's!

But to our surprise when we arrived at the check-in counter at 12am, we weren't allowed to check in until 3am, so we were stranded at the airport with our luggages. So where the hell do we go and what the hell do we do from now till 3am?!

Headed to Cheers, got 6 large cans of Carlsberg, then to the viewing gallery. Watched La Bi Xiao Xin, read magazines, studied, talked, drank.


Our cosy little corner

Checked in at 3am finally, got some sushi, and found a place to watch soccer.. There was CL that day i think, I can't remember well now. Had another beer before boarding the flight and by the time the plane took off, I was sound asleep. Nice.

Narita Airport

Bad English on the menu

Had this really yummy dish when we transitted at Narita! Completely forgot to take photo of it... But it was rice with mushroom, beef, fishcake and a raw egg which we had to pour in and mix it all up! Yummmm to the max!! It was so good, that we had it again on our return trip, and we forgot to take a photo of it again because we couldn't wait to eat it! No joke.

The toilet had a bidet! It cleans your arse, not the toilet seat. I thought it was the latter at first because I've seen something like that in Barcelona 2 years ago.

LAX... was a disappointment! Don't we hear about it all the time and I've always thought that it'd be a huge and classy airport that is comparable to Singapore's Changi Airport. Amazingly, there is only one pathetic Starbucks from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4! But we had no choice but to wait there because we had a domestic flight to catch 5 hours later.

Brunch at this restaurant/cafe some 500m away from the airport.

View from the plane to Denver

Denver Airport. Better than LAX by a mile.

Finally we're in Omaha!!!!! Ok let's consider this Day 1, at Westroads Mall. A great place to shop! Hong and I went crazy shopping, poor jetlagged Josh had to follow us and carry our shopping bags for a good 4 hours at least. He volunteered for the second one actually. We didn't force him.

Mmmmmm... How yummy does this look? Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory sells apples with different kinds of chocolate toppings! Super yummy on first bite, but it's very gelat, we couldn't finish half the apple. But looking at the pictures now is really making me crave for it so badly! Ahhhh...

Victoria's Secret! Nah, it wasn't really close, there was a temporary stall somewhere else in the mall and we bought lots of Secret Garden stuff. So cheap. // And that's Josh with our shopping bags. We dramatized it lah actually. As if we were so mean to let him carry all our bags right? // Yingshi told us that Cheesecake Factory was a must-try! And so we did...

However, Hong and I weren't hungry at all after the chocolate-coated apple, so all we had was Key Lime Cheesecake. Fucking sour. That explains the last picture.

I think Josh had steak... Delicious, according to him. But I testify that the mash potatoes were superb!

Spot me in the reflection!

Day 2:

Hotel breakfast the next morning! Super yummy strawberry cheese spread! We spent the rest of our time in USA looking for it, but we couldn't find it. So sad...... :( // There was this machine for us to make our own waffles, so fun and easy!

Back in our room packing up! Loads of shopping. Wen's mess // Hong's mess // Josh (no) mess // My new undies from VS! :)

It was a rainy and cold day! Headed across the road from our hotel to a pub to kill time till our next flight. I almost froze my toes off because I was in slippers. How clever of me to have NOT brought a pair of shoes. I think we had 3 rounds of beers each. Brewburgers had SO MANY types of beer, we were spoilt for choice. Great place to chill at! Cold outside, warm inside, having ice cold beer. Sweet.

Ran back from Brewburgers! Can you tell how cold we were!? Hahahahah... And I dunno why Josh is like showing off his armpit. Maybe he's drunk? Hahahaha...

Arrived in Chicago O'hare Airport!

Collected the Ford Focus that we rented and started our night drive. Then, somewhere between Chicago and West Lafayette, we punctured our tyre once again. It was really a déjà vu from one year ago, when the 3 of us were in Australia, where we had 2 tyres punctured, a grand total of around AUD$2000 of fines and 3 traffic police stops in a span of 4 hours. Yes, we could hardly believe it too. It's probably the combination of these 3 beings, they're not meant to travel together smoothly.

Well, how the hell did we bust our tyre? Tell you what: Do NOT fully rely on GPS systems! Our stupid system told us to go onto a highway that was closed, but since the entrance to the highway wasn't fenced up, we tried our luck. We ended up on a deserted and rocky road and busted our tyre trying to get back onto the main road. (By the way, later on, when we got back onto the main road and tried to opt for an alternative route, the stupid GPS system took us to a U-turn and told us to go back onto the same highway! Fucking stupid! Some kind of alternative route...)

But it's alright, at least it was just 1 tyre right? And thank goodness we were covered by insurance... :) The spare tyre was much thinner than the original one, plus it was night and that it was left-hand-drive, so Josh refused to let us drive although he could barely stay awake. 1 hour into the drive, we convinced him to take a nap at a rest area on the highway. And then we ended up sleeping till 7am the next day. Last year, we spent our fateful night on the highway too!

Day 3:

Hong & I look like we just woke up, right? And Josh looks like he just came back from robbing/burglaring. Hahahaha...

But if not for that longer than expected nap, we wouldn't have seen such a beautiful sun rise. :)

Finally arriving in West Lafayette 9 hours after setting off! On a good day we would have arrived in 3 hours. LOL.

That's me driving! Got used to the left-hand-drive pretty quick. // My very cute McGirdles, yummy too // Tried to get our tyre replaced, but they didn't have the one that we needed. Just as well, money saved.

The drive back to Chicago

At Chicago Midway Airport. Josh had Chinese food which came with this fortune cookie.

And we're in San Jose! Rented another car, a Chrysler PT Cruiser (I kinda like that car, it has that classy and vintage feel to it!) , and busted yet ANOTHER tyre! What the hell, right? Here's the full story:

Arrived late in San Jose, drove to my aunt's place 20 minutes away from the airport. We were trying to open the trunk of the car to get our luggages out, by pulling all possible latches or levers, not knowing that it worked with an automatic sensor. And then we accidentally opened the bonnet of the car, which we had problems closing it later. Since it was so dark and cold outside, we decided to fix it the next morning.

Day 4:

We still couldn't open it the next morning, so we thought, oh well, the airport is just 20 minutes away, let's just drive back and get it fixed just in case. When we arrived at the airport, we turned in one turn too early, which was the entrance to another car rental company, so we just reversed out, not noticing a sign nearby that said "DO NOT REVERSE, SEVERE TYRE DAMAGE". So guess what? Our tyre was damaged severely by some spikes on the ground. Never mind lah huh, at least it's a bright and sunny day, and at least we're at the car rental place itself! Better than late at night, along the highway, right?

The moment we got off the car, we told the guy that we couldn't close our bonnet. So he lifted up the cover, slammed it down lightly, and it latched itself back. Just like that. Didn't we do exactly the same thing and it didn't work!?!? So it's like, we went to the airport, only to bust a tyre. Thank goodness we were covered by insurance again! We're very, very lucky this time round. Anyway, we got another PT Cruiser in exchange.

Okay! Headed to San Francisco. We were going on the Alcatraz Tour in the evening, so we went to the area early to sight-see a bit.

The Alcatraz!

I must say the Night Tour was really good. It sounds scary but it's not. It's just very interesting, as they covered some of the planned escapes, and even audio interviews of ex-inmates.


The bottom two pictures: a bar spreader used for an escape which failed // the cracks and holes made by explosives that were dropped from the top of the building by external back ups when inmates were trying to escape.

The Command Centre

Another escape plan: 3 inmates made dummy heads and escaped in the middle of the night. Apparently, they scraped their way through the wall of the cells using metal SPOONS. They were never found.

Families of the officers working on the Alcatraz actually lived on the rock as well. It's actually quite pleasant if you don't think about the prisoners living in the next block.

The first picture: The silhouettes of the kitchen knives were painted, so that if any of the knives were missing or out of place, the officers would notice asap.


After the Alcatraz Tour, we headed to the Rainforest Cafe at Fisherman's Wharf!

That place was full of energy man. Sounds of monkeys and birds all the time, occasional sounds of thunderstorm and flashing lights to simulate lightning, then the animals all come alive and you hear elephants and stampede. The food though, was just so-so. It's a really popular spot for celebrating birthdays. We heard at least 6 birthday songs within the 90 minutes we were there. Very well-marketed and packaged. Very well-packaged and marketed.

Headed to Ripley's Believe it or Not! after dinner. Nothing really interesting, only these two that I thought were worth taking a second look:

Day 5:
We went for a 5 hour Wine Tour to start our day off. But just like last year, we forgot to bring our camera for our wine tour! But anyways, I DO NOT recommend Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Tours at all because all they did was pick us up from our location, send us to a winery, leave us there, and when we're done at that winery, they send us to another! I mean, it was just chauffeur services, but it cost us USD$80 per pax! They got to at least entertain us a bit, right? Like talk to us more, recommend some stuff, or something! Another thing: We had to pay for our own wine-tasting fees at every winery! Such a disappointment... At first, I was expecting really good service, because the person who liased with me over phone and e-mail was really helpful and sincere, but it was the complete opposite! Sigh... Fine, at least we got lots of wine, so it was a good trip afterall.

Anyway... After the Wine Tour, we visited the Winchester Mystery House.

Don't know why but I was so static-ful! Hahaha.

To be honest, the tour wasn't as interesting as it sounds, or as mysterious as they make it seem to be. It was just a very large house that was built kind of like a maze. I don't know if it's because the guide that we had spoke in a very monotonous fashion, but I was looking forward to the end of the tour half way through.

Day 6:
Took a 7 hour night drive from Los Altos to Malibu! Josh is damn hero, he drove non-stop! I slept quite a bit because I had the most spacious seat of all, the back of the car! When the sun came peeking, I whipped out my camera and couldn't stop snapping. The scenery is just damn beautiful.

I love silhouette pictures!!! I shall compile all the nice sillhouette photos that I have some day. :D

We stopped by Santa Barbara for breakfast and I fell in love with that town. It's sooo pretty and clean!

Spot me new shoes!

At a nice cosy little cafe for breakfast. The fireplace was real!

Crazy Josh fooling around with the statues.

Alright! Back en route to Malibu!

The scenery was so pretty that we couldn't resist stopping for a picture!

Lunch at Malibu before checking in to our hotel

Finally checked in!

Hong and I wanted SO BADLY to get a tan!! The beach was too windy for us to be just wearing bikini, so we went to the hotel poolside. After 15 minutes, we found it too cold as there was still wind occasionally which seemed to be getting more frequent, so we went back to our room balcony. I think I lay there for 90 minutes, but I didn't get tanned at all :( The hotel bed was super shiok, shiok until Josh didn't even bother to get off the bed after showering right after checking in; shiok until Hong and I fell asleep at 6:30pm and forgot to wake up for dinner!

Day 7:

Hotel breakfast! These are the BEST potatoes I've ever had in my entire life, I am serious. And my mushroom cheese avacado omelette was damn good too.

Went for a hike after breakfast. There were wild rabbits hopping around!! So cute, right?

Reached the top of the cliff and was greeted by breathtaking scenery. We heard sounds of seals, and I was like "Is that really a seal?" Looked down into the water, omgosh, there really are seals! Nature at it's best, man!

Gorgeous view!

Universal Studios!!!

We went for an iFly experience on the Universal Studios CityWalk, which got me really excited before actually doing it. But it is definitely overrated. Don't really remember how much I paid for it, but no, it's not worth the money. I was only in that tunnel for 60 seconds, and the instructor was holding on to me for 59 seconds.

Ok it is definitely much more interesting than it looks. We just didn't take many photos. You can definitely complete the whole of Universal Studios in one day though, it's quite a small place... That's if you've got the front-line pass like we did. Just get the front-line pass man, it's just an additional $30 and you're a King. Why not?

Dinner at Karl Strauss

Almost identical concept to Singapore's Brewerkz. We all liked their Stargazer IPA. Their jug (they call it pitcher) was HEEUGE.

Day 8:
We went on the Starline Grand Tour of LA. Extremely Boring. The first hour was still bearable, but the subsequent 4 hours was hypnotic.

The Hollywood Bowl

Farmers Market

Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Johnny Depp, Marilyn Monroe & Matt Damon's hand and footprints. BIG deal.

Kodak Theatre. A pretty good place to shop, dine & wine
(we bought somemore wines here).

Koji's for shabu-shabu dinner. The food was not as yummy as it looks. You know in Singapore, whatever steamboat that we eat, the soup has flavour for sure, right? This one is just plain water! Imagine how bland it was.

Day 9:

Returning our car at the airport!Look at what a bad state it was in! The back of the car is SO DUSTY...

And that sums up our USA trip...