Uppety.

So tengkok the uppety eater decided to book a lunch table at Jean Georges (a 3 michelin star restaurant) for our mini reunion. He activated quite a number of flights to get the peeps in - Kaicheng from Duke, Hongwan from Cornell and Waikeong from Chicago. Sadly, Dedrick couldn't make it due to unforeseen circumstances - Ded if u're reading this, we missed you!

Anyways, tengkok is quite something. He travelled to NY just to eat. and I mean, EAT. He had a list of good and well rated restaurants that he went to for lunch and dinner - steak, donuts, burgers, everything.

Nothing beats old friends.

I am perfectly fine with simple and nice hawker fare like CHICKEN RICE(yum) and Ice kacang.
But this dish was quite something.
YES TENGKOK, I CONCEDE, IT WAS EXCELLENT AND WELL WORTH IT OK?????? heh. :)

The colour is scary right? heh.
It was kinda nice, but I actually prefer the wasabi prawns in Peach Garden.
I felt the peach and the carrot broth didn't really quite go with the prawns.
But since it's some super rated restaurant, I suppose it was supposed to complement each other?

Oh well, I do have a desensitized tongue.

Halibut

After lunch, we crossed the street to central park to meet some of sengteck's friends.
Turns out I actually know 2 of them - Pui san and Shafa.

Spring has arrived!

More Spring!

Columbus Circle

We then made our way to brooklyn bridge because Puisan and Sengteck wanted to walk across.
It was my first time anyways, so it was fun as well.
Yihan (who also knows puisan) met us at the bridge after his pscyh lab sessions (WITH CHIMPANZEES! AND IM NOT JOKING!) so it was quite a large group walking across.
What a reunion - sorta!

Pui on the left, Seng, Shafa

Random shot, but, exactly the same car!
By the way , the cars here are SUPER much less than the cars in Singapore.
I'll have a blog post breaking down the costs of the cars later. I did my homework and was absolutely shocked at how much cars are marked up in Singapore! I always knew they were marked up, but I didn't know by quite this much. heh.

Lucky we have cheap food. heh.

So after we crossed the bridge, we went to this quaint famous ice cream place.

Brooklyn bridge at dusk.
Man eating ice cream.

So Hongwan arrived at night and we met up with him.
After scouring the whole of jap town for a restaurant with seats, we ended up at a Sichuan Restaurant. Hilarious.

Culprit!
See the dish on the top right? Yes, the chillis in there were INSANE.
I chewed up one and almost died.
Kaicheng will aggree with that - he was also owned by one.

The NYFD outside the restaurant.
Someone called the firefighters cos Kaicheng's mouth was on fire. No. Really.

Ciao !

Some ramblings after I managed to recover from my endless bouts of laughter after watching the above:

1) Is it me or did anyone get uncontrollable bouts of laughter when he/she heard about this? Or maybe it's just because, like my brother, I laugh at things I'm not supposed to laugh at.

2) The voice of the chinese newscaster immediately brings into mind the image of 公公 and 婆婆 sitting in front of the telly watching the nightly 10 o clock news. Hm mm, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

3) I love the use of "兴致勃勃" in describing the tourists and locals who came to take pictures of the merlion under repair. 我们兴致勃勃地到了动物园。 我们兴致勃勃地到了海滩。 我们兴致勃勃地去看闪电击中过的鱼尾狮。

4) There must be something in the art of fengshui that states that nothing sharp should be protruding out of someone/something's head. How then should they attach the lightning rod to the merlion? Sticking out of its side like a broken-off arrow? hmm. Or maybe technology allows for a lightning conductor without a lightning rod.

5) I wished they had a video of the actual thing happening － apparently it sounded like a bomb exploded. the poor merlion.

Mangosteen in Chocolate

Tengkok housed me when I went to Chicago, and now , I'm housing him in my room in New York.

Anyways, tengkok says that in some really ATAS (high class) chocolates, there's an initial taste of fruit followed by the chocolate taste (duh) and then some I-dunno-what after taste.

Ok, I think my tongue has been desensitized or something, but I have no idea what he's talking about at all.

I tried his chocolate and I tried as hard as I could , pressing the chocolate onto the roof of my mouth with my tongue, but alas, no flavorful fruity outburst! Personally, I'M SURE IT'S A WHOLE LOAD OF CRAP! hahhaha. ok. joking. I might have incurred the wrath of some people there, but, haha - don't blame me for having a desensitized tongue!

Right now, I'm having some chocolates, and I'm getting some initial taste of durian, some mangosteen and quite a tad bit of Avocado. Get your cadbury and you might get a hint of ba-chor-mee in it !

BACK IN NYC!!!

WHEEEEEE. IM BACK IN NYC! AFTER 8 days, 6 flights and 3 radically different American cities, I'm back in NYC!!! ahhhhhhh. Though it was awesome fun, I'm so glad to be back !!!!

I know I have not posted pictures of the third leg of the trip - Chicago - but I have to blog about my harrowing harrowing disgusting horrible yucky nerve wrecking flight + subway ride back from Chicago O'hare's airport first! Need to rant! rrrrawwwrrrrr!!

Disclaimer: Below is super bitchy talk. If you don't want to be irritated, don't read it!

So maybe it was my fault - I did not know that the ziplock bag for liquids on your carry - ons had to be a quart (Like I use the metric system so dont quart me gallon that hokay!) so when I reached the security, the guy said:

"Do you know what the rules are for the carryon aerosols and liquids? "

"hmm, the liquid bottles have to be less than 100 ml?" I said, with full confidence that what I said was correct.

"any more?"

"erm... not more than one bag?"

"how big must that bag be?"

"I'm not sure !" I said. I was getting impatient cos my flight was departing in 20 mins and I was getting flustered. I had arrived late cos well, I left late for the airport from tengkok's place. NEVER EVER LEAVE LATE FOR THE AIRPORT. EVER. (ok , so maybe my fault, but still! BUT STILL!)

And then, he slowly gestured with my gallon ziplock bag, cutting it in half with his hand : "It has to be around a quart. I'm sorry, but you will have to check your luggage in. "

So I immediately asked the lady in front of me if she had another ziplock bag. She said: "I'm so sorry, I have none, but you should have come prepared!"

you know, WTH. I just felt like wringing her kneck, taking her and dumping her into the X ray machines to get X rayed. Bloody irritating reply can!

So anyways, yes, that was the beginning of my harrowing experience. The stupid guard said I couldn't go through, so I had to exit the security area, rush to the check in counter, and try to check in my bag when my plane was leaving in 10 mins (leaving, not boarding!)

But guess what! when I reached the counter, the lady said
"I'm sorry but it's too late, we can't check in your bag! You have to make the decision of dumping your toiletries to catch your flight, or you might not catch it at all!"

So yes, guess what I did? I went around BEGGING people for ziplock bags! I mean, inside my ziplock bag was easily more than SGD$150 worth of toiletries. I was in NO WAY gonna dump them away.

LUCKILY, this nice lady had a proper sized ziplock bag which she used to house some peanuts - she threw the peanuts away and gave me the bag . I was SO glad she had one , an absolute lifesaver. Whereever she is, she knows she got some good karma!

ANYWAYS.

Yes, so the second horrible thing to happen to me was that when I boarded the plane, there was no place left for carryons in the over head compartments.

That's alright, I mean , the air steward said he would take the cabin bag and I could get it later after I left the plane - they do this all the time for the smaller aircraft - ie, you leave the carry ons on plane side and you collect it from plane side after that. It's not the same as checking in the luggage. You dont need to collect it from baggage claim.

BUT GUESS WHAT! Upon arrival at washington's Dulles (I had a connecting flight from washington to NYC), the air steward said that he had sent my luggage into check in and that I can only get it from baggage claim!

HO . HO. HO.

TO get to baggage claim, I had to take one of their shuttles to get to the main terminal. Ok, so I did that. BUT GUESS WHAT AGAIN!

AFTER GOING TO BAGGAGE CLAIM, I HAD TO GO THROUGH ANOTHER SECURITY CHECK TO GO BACK INTO THE TERMINAL FOR MY BLOODY CONNECTING FLIGHT TO NYC ! AND. THE STUPID TERMINAL WAS ANOTHER SHUTTLE AWAY!

RAWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

So I reached the terminal's security area. Well, I took the ziplock bag of liquids out of my bag, and placed it in another tray to be screened just as how it has to be done.

You know what happened again? My moisturizer had fallen out into my bag and I hadnt noticed, so when my bag went through, the security guard had to go through my bag again. He took it out and said I shouldnt have left my moisturizer in my bag. Then he sent my bag in through for screeining again without the moisturizer.

I was like. WTH. FIRSTLY , I WOULDNT HAVE HAD TO GO THROUGH THE STUPID SCREENING IF THEY HADN'T CHECKED IN MY CARRYON . SECONDLY, CAN THEY STOP CHECKING MY BAG OVER AND OVER AGAIN! IT'S ONLY MOISTURIZER! ARGHHHHHHH.

Ok, so after that, it was a sorta ok flight back to JFK. Nice small aircraft with nice air stewardess.

But well, hohoho, after I got off I took the wrong airtrain which landed me at the wrong subway stop! I have NO idea why so many bad things happen at the same time!

BUT!

THAT WAS NOT ALL!

After getting onto the correct subway, THERE WAS A BLOODY GANG FIGHT ON THE STUPID SUBWAY!

STUPID GANG GIRLS AND THEIR STUPID FEUDS.
EURGH! SO ABSOLUTELY CHILDISH!

Well, so I was in the subway carriage and as the train was still at a trainstop, the door connecting the carraiges suddenly opened (its not the same here as in Singapore, where its like one long tube, the subways here have carriages and linking doors) and people started rushing in from the carriage behind ours. Some came in to sit down, and others went forward to the other carriages.

Soon after, these 2 girls came in swearing at I-dunno-who, and one was red and scratched up and obviously beaten up. They were like "I need my handphone back! We have to get it back!" They were both dressed in some punk attire. They were shouting "F*** F***" all the time.

So I asked the person who sat next to me in a soft voice " What happened?"

"they just started attacking her!"

There was alot of commotion in the other carriage and people were shouting loudly on the platform. I could hear the train master say "Please get off the train now." In a very unpolite sort of voice. Well, half the time I was really worried that some knife wielding young punk would come in and start slashing at me.

Oh well, Whatever.

Harrowing. Urgh.

Bad trip back from an otherwise lovely whirlwind American tour.

Urgh.

Will update photos of chicago soon! Thanks TK for showing me ard! See u in NYC in 24 hrs!

Spring Break - Las Vegas Leg Part (II)

So the next day I had to check out of the hotel and check into Planet Hollywood at around 1, and with all my luggage I was not intending to hike there. So I took the monorail which plies the road parallel to the strip.

The monorail reminds me of the one on Sentosa- all touristy and sightseeing-y. What makes it interesting is that as it goes along, there's a recording of funny but informative comments about Las Vegas which is looped.

Below is a video of one such comment:

the monorail track

It's interesting cos on the right of the monorail, you have the strip and all its tall buildings, but once u turn ur head to the left, its nothing but a wide expanse of land with small unglam buildings.

Elvis. Nuff said.

"Hello all!"

PLANET HOLLYWOOD RESORT AND CASINO!

To get into the Planet Hollywood hotel lobby, you have to walk through their casino and the experience is just absolutely exhilarating.
That casino I tell you is more like a dance club than a casino. Even in the day time it felt like it was a fully functioning dance club - all the changing coloured lights and deep bass club music.

I'm guessin that if I enjoyed gambling, I'd have loved that place.
But sadly, just as good food is wasted on me, a nice casino doesnt mean much to me.
I think if Uncle Edward and Jun were here, they'd have thoroughly enjoyed themselves!!!
ha.

Below is a video of the casino:



So after walking through the casino, you have to take an escalator down to the hotel lobby.
Suspended above the escalator is this GINORMOUS lighted ball that changes colour.

Talk about BLING BLING man.
Here's a video of that entrance:


The lifts are also another piece of art la.
Embedded into the ceiling of all the lifts are HUGE plasma screens.
Again, with the piped clubbing music and the visuals from the plasma scree, it feels nothing short of a mini club. I was rather impressed!

Here's a vid of the interior of the lift:

Lift Lobby of the 35th Floor.

Corridor to the rooms

Needless to say, the room itself was DAMN COOL CAN!

The music that you hear from the video is from my ipod. They even had one of those ipod dock cum speakers!

My trusty mac!

The uber huge bath room.

I don't usually take pics of myself in the mirror, but this time round I cut myself some slack . :)

Alladin lamp shaped tap which I thought was really nice.

A side table with some I-dunno-wad-movie artifact.

Because the room was on the 35th floor, and the nice lady at the counter gave me a Strip facing room, I got a GORGEOUS view.
the Bellagio.

The southern part of the strip - you can see MGM, New York New York as well as Luxor and the Mandalay.


here is another view from the room - at night !!!


Ok, so enough raving of the hotel.
Right after I put down my bags, I went to walk about. at that time I only had half a day left in Las Vegas so I was determined to see as much as I could!
And so the hike up and down the strip began once again:

I must say that although you can see more of Las Vegas in the day, it is prettier at night as you will see.

This is the bellagio in the day time.

The MASSIVE pool.

The pool in action

Here's a vid of the fountain. The funny thing is that while I was filming, I noticed a duck and got distracted by it:

The mist created after the show was over.
I loved it when the mist floated over and enveloped us in cool air.
yum.

A little video of my walk-about.

Ok, so the ironic thing was that when I was walking about, there were these 2 guys wearing 'Believe in Jesus' shirts who were carrying large loud hailers and they were basically telling people to live fulfilling lives. Hmmm. The funny thing was that opposite of them was like a whole row of guys handing out cards of pictures of naked women and call-girl numbers.

I wanted to film it down but felt bad about pointing my camera at the 2 guys, so I just took some random vid of some random thing just to get the audio: if you play the video, you can hear them in the back ground:

After my walkabout, I received a phone call from my friends saying they had arrived. So I took a bus up to Fremont strip which is downtown Las Vegas.

The person took the photo with the camera upside down. ha.

I actually thought downtown Las Vegas would be something like clarke quay - afterall, they did call it the 'Fremont Experience'. But no, it's more like Toa Payoh or erm, Jurong East. I mean, seriously, look! It's how ugly and unglam! I was just dying to go back to the glitz and glamour of the Strip. hehe.

The bus back to the strip took 1 hour to come. And yes , you read it correctly - ONE HOUR. It's supposed to take only 6 mins, but this time round someone or something screwed up and it took 1 hour.
So before it reached, we decided to walk down first. ( I know it makes no logical sense to walk down cos the bus will still pass you by, but yea, it was better than sitting around and doing nothing)

My first time seeing a blimp with advertising on it. Like a huge-ass Digital coloured screen on the blimp with messages on it. A-maz-ing.

This is a view looking south, with the Stratosphere in the distance. The stratosphere marks the beginning of the Strip which extends further south from it. So yes, as you can see it is really quite far, so we abandoned the hike and waited for the bus. heh.

By the time we reached the strip, it was already night time. We did some quick sightseeing and then proceeded to Chocolate Factory in Caesar's palace for dinner.

Treasure Island.

The nice thing about the more expensive hotels along the strip is that they have like half hourly or hourly automated performances.
Below is the one in front of the Mirage.

A little video of that performance:




The entrance to Caesar's Palace's shopping arm.

Some opulent sculpture inside the mall.

Random scultpures.

More random scultpures.

Even more random sculptures.

A bloody trojan horse in the mall.
WTH right.

An atlantis themed aquarium, a-la Wisma Atria but 10 times bigger.

So there was a pond with sculptures in them within the mall wing of Caesar's palace.
The amazing thing was that THOSE SCULPTURES COULD MOVE!



After dinner at Caesar's we headed to the Bellagio to watch the legendary fountain that I was telling you about.
You guys MUST MUST watch these videos. the fountain is AMAZING. I was telling tengkok how wonderful if they could build something like that in the middle of the Singapore river, infront of the fullerton or something. At such a scale, it would be breathtaking. Oh wells, fantasies, fantasies.

Mist appearing on the lake just before each quarter hour performance.

Fountains dancing to 'Time to say goodbye' by Sarah brightman and Andrea Bocelli:


The fountains shoot up SO FREAKING HIGH and the sound that is produced is reminiscent of live firing. ha.


Fountains dancing to 'My heart will go on':


Alrighty, so right after the Bellajio, my friends decided to head across the road to my room to have a look at the view.

And that was all for Las Vegas!

The next day I was headed for a 3.5 hour flight to Chicago where I currently am!
And thats more blogging to do for another time!

Hope you guys liked the videos!
(YOU BETTER DO COS IT TOOK ME FREAKING LONG TO UPLOAD + RESIZE + TYPE OUT EVERYTHING! RAWR)