Monday, March 31, 2008

Easter eggs pictures!!!!

Easter weekend has come and gone! This year was kinda different as my colleague Gina invited us to her place for easter egg painting and it was so fun and interesting:) Haha, my 1st time painting easter eggs and i seriously should make this my last time as I don't seem to be very good at it:( oh well, but we had lots of fun and ate yummy berries with cream, chips, lemonade and jelly beans. and not forgetting, took lots of pictures of the easter eggs we painted that night!

The weekend started us setting off for Grand Canyon on friday evening which was basically a 12 hr long drive:( After driving for 2 hrs and sitting next to zhikuang for 4 hrs while he drove, i basically nearly felt like dying as I was super sleepy. I think we must be kind of crazy to embark on such a trip especially since we had work the earlier morning and I stayed up to 3 to plan the trip the previous night. But when we reached grand canyon, the 12 hrs was definitely worth it. haha, the entire view was spectacular and even better from the last time i went. The drive in grand canyon was basically mostly sightseeing, taking lame pictures, admiring the beauty of nature and wilderness. I think the sunset or sunrise would have been really pretty there but oh wells, we din have a chance to see it:)

Then we made our way down to Hoover Dam, which was not much before heading to Vegas. Our hotel, Luxor, was pretty cool as it was the shape of a pyramid and some egyptian theme. being the typical singaporean, we starved ourselves the entire day and went to the Rio hotel for the word carnival buffet. Haha, and the 4 of us just sat down and ate non stop for the 1 plus hr as we were famished. yummy crab legs, cakes, teppanyaki, mexican food and basically food from all over the world. and it all costed around USD 25 which was really quite worth it. Traffic was quite bad in Vegas and we were stuck in the jam for like an hour. But we had the chance to look at the beautiful lights while blasting some music in our car.

I guess its really true that Vegas is as what most of them said, sin city. Pretty girls all over the place wearing skimpy clothes, strip clubs along the road, casinos all over the place and large billboards advertising for strip shows along the road too. Oh well, some of the guys went to club and gamble after washing up but I decided to look around instead. Haha, but I tink i was too tired and fell asleep instead at the hotel instead of walking around as plan.

Started the next day by going to the spa with zhi kuang to chill since we had complimentary coupons. Haha, it was super relaxing as I went to the jacuzzi, steam room and sauna alone to spend some me-time and browsing thru magazines while sipping on fruit juice. Haha, and we went for a brunch buffet after that which cost only 11 bucks each cos I found some coupon online. Once again, indulged in all the yummy food and dessert. Met up with the rest after lunch and decided to head down to the 'old vegas' which basically was the golden nugget hotel and fremont street which used to be the popular district of vegas.

Drove down to Red Rock canyon to take a look and it was quite nice though not as nice as grand canyon. Took some pictures and it was time to embark on our journey home. The 8 hrs drive home was horrendous as well but not as bad as the initial journey to grand canyon. Haha, at least I got to drive 3 hrs which hopefully improved my driving skills. Reach home at 3am and fell asleep almost immediately while reading thru some california travel guidebook.

Went to work abit late and went for this mixer event at 6pm today. It was quite interesting to talk to some of the delegates from singapore and to hear about how the entrepreneur scene in singapore is coming along. and the yummy tiramisu for dinner was also a plus point:) all in all, great road trip but tiring though. shall post pictures tomorrow when i get them.

Oh, and I received 2 postcards from derek. Thanks so much and hope you are having fun in UK now!

The pretty sunset I saw at Half Moon Bay:)












The beach was super nice with lots of seagulls as the peaceful sounds of the waves. Haha, what can be more perfect than a perfect sunday afternoon, the blue sky, pretty seagulls and the beautiful sunset and great company. Definitely a worthwhile trip!

Some pictures of the last day of our e145 class and it happened to be Weiyang's birthday, haha, we bought a cake to celebrate it. Nice pictures ahead!


All of us squeezed in our classroom

All of us outside the class with one of our lecturers, Randy

Me and my 'irritating' housemates Zhi Kuang

Ravel, me and Yingtuo gorging outselves at the party outsider our class

Yummy brownie!

1:25 PM

Monday, March 17, 2008

Finally springbreak has arrived! Not that it matters much considering we still have to work but oh wells, no more lessons for the next 2 weeks. Yay:) We submitted our final exam which was a take home exam paper today afternoon after working hard at it for the whole of saturday. I seriously just camped at home the entire day to try to finish the entire McAfee business case but guess what, I sort of enjoyed doing the paper and realising the amount of stuff I've learnt during this quarter. Not bad an experience at all!

After turning in our paper today, we didn't want to waste the day away and we went to Half Moon Bay which was like an 1hr drive away to see the sunset cos I've read about how beautiful it was there. Haha, and it was really really pretty and nice. I've never really seen the sunset before and so it was really a good way to spend my sunday afternoon. But the beach was freaking cold and we resorted to sitting in the car to see the sunset. Shall upload pictures of the sunset when I get them. Had a nice dinner at some asian place and we actualli got to eat prawn mee and nasi lemak. I think we were crazy to pay 8USD for each, but oh well, thats the high cost of eating in US.

Anyway, something sort of drastic happened last friday as I was getting takeaway lunch myself at the supermarket. Some bugger reversed her car into mine at the car park and hence, there's now this dent near the back of my car. Haha, but the best thing is, I brought it to a mechanic and the estimated repair cost was USD $900 but I can choose not to repair it since the damage is merely cosmetic and will not affect the performance of my car. Haha, considering the repair cost is 1/3 the value of the cost of my car, I can spend this amount buying stuff for myself. And so, I have decided to change my tires tomorrow and my alternating belt in the car. If all goes well, I shall buy an iphone soon to reward myself, haha, considering my handphone is so lousy and laggy.

Anyway, to dear friends who are reading this space, my good friend Yeeling and her boyfriend ZhonJie and I have set up this online shopping website. Please visit this website and we are starting to take orders from today. Do show your support for us and feel free to direct any questions for us!

http://www.shopaholic.spruz.com/main.asp

4:07 PM

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Back from a day trip to Yosemite national park on sunday, it was really a pretty sight. Haha, as they always say, there's no lack of places to visit in the States. Hopefully we can visit Yosemite for all 4 seasons, haah, to see how the view changes. My car was used as the primary vehicle and it has survived the 3.5 hr long drive to Yosemite without breaking down. Check out the pictures:)

my new shades:)

my new black car!



the beautiful mountains







Rainbow across the waterfall




our last stop: the souvenir shop for postcards!

2:27 PM

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Finally blogging after so so long, been caught up with work lately. On a happier note, I bought my car! Like after test driving so many of them and troubling people to send me to view cars and mechanic checks for the past 3 weeks. I really like the freedom that I get when I drive alone, to the carwash, grocery shopping and even to the gym last night.

Been shopping a lot lately, I think I might get addicted to online shopping very soon, haha, cause its super cheap with returns policiesJ Bought myself a new pair of shades too as the UV rays here are terrible and glaring. Cosmetics here are pretty cheap here with brands like Clinique, lancome and benefit.

2 months have passed already, it seems like forever since I’ve been here. There are interesting things happening everyday and lots of events to join. My cooking skills have also improved tremendously considering I have been cooking all 3 meals. It’s amazing how much one can save when you cook all 3 meals everyday.

Anyway, going to start an online shopping website with yeeling soon to ship clothes back to Singapore. Construction is still underway but hopefully it’ll be up pretty soon! I bought a red Stanford jacket for myself as there was a 25% discount at the school book shop, and its super prettyJ shall post pictures of it soon!

4:45 PM