Texas : Dallas Farmers Market

Went to the Dallas Farmers' Market today. It was at the West End station of the DART system and we bought a local all day pass at $2.50. Before that we went to FRYS to get Sam's new camera.

After that we went to take the DART and reached the market. Here's some photos. Lazy to type.

First building we saw after we got off


Took the bus to the market and saw this sight first


The market!


Stretch of stores


tons of produce




Pumpkin painting




After that...we went to eat at Sonny Bryan.


EAT!!!


The waiter took this for us. After the meal all ready to go.



More pictures here! Don't miss them!!

Perfomance at the market! He reminds me of Obi Wan Kenobi


Horse carriage for rental...let couples ride the street.

Texas: Buffet time!!!

Today was a slack day...well the first half was. Reached at 9am and had a call with Randy. He was out eating too...come to think of it. So the call lasted only 5mins. After that we met Bach and he said he'd bring us to some buffet at 11am. So at 11am we went off to lunch! Earliest lunch I ever had! We went to this place call Best Buffet and lunch was $7.50 which works out to be around $10 SGD. It's considered cheap since a normal burger meal cost ard $6.50 and you don't get the variety.

Me and Bach outside the place.

My 1st,2nd,3rd,4th and final serving!!

After that we went to FRYS, some kinda big electronic store and walked around. That was already like 1pm + already.

Before that we went to Best Buy also, here's us outide Best Buy.

I was quite full even when we reached home at 730pm. Yeah the later half of the day was spent doing work till around 720pm. Kinda made up for the 3 hours lunch!

Just had tons of carrot for dinner ( and 1/4 Hagen Daiz...shhh)

Preview for tmlo: Going to Dallas Market downtown to see some pumpkin harvesting event.
Preview for Sunday: Might be going down to their zoo!

Sidenote: Found out from Bach that the average engineer pay in US is $50k p.a. And in USD!! Damn...thats $80k p.a here...meaning...around $5.5k SGD per month.

Texas : To the gym!

Finally I did it! Today marks the first time I went to their gym after being here for like 10 days. Haha, ya it took me quite a while, but finally I went!! Didn't do much there though.. ran halfway and wanted to pee badly. Then I couldn't find the door to the toilet outside! It happened to be a glass door which i thought was just a glass panel! haha how dumb.

Anyway, today Liling was conned of USD$10 by some teenagers who managed to talk her into giving them $. It all started something like they were playing some games, then they asked her if she wanted to buy 1-2 magazines from them. When she agreed, they wanted to sell her a year's subscription. Of coz she said no since we're living here for 3 mths only. Then the teenagers said they will send the copy to her or she can also opt to give those free copies to some needy kids i think. In the end i think she say she'd just donate $10 to them. And they promised her some kinda sticker to paste on her door so that other teenagers would not approach their house again as they have donated so something. But in the end the sticker turned out to be some blank sticker handwritten on the spot. Stating something like "xxx was here, do not knock on this door again" in an ugly handwriting.

Texas : Normal day at work

Today was a normal day at work. Read some documents and did some stuff. After that went to Walmart to buy more TV dinners.

Was calculating during work how much I'd spend a month if I keep on eating TV dinner...haha. It totals up to around USD$300. Not bad, thats like only $500 sgd. Still got alot of money saved! Can go home buy a new PC or PS3!!

Anyway, there wasn't much photos to take today. Since didn't go any new places. Maybe this Friday I am going to some chinese buffet for lunch. Will take more photos then!

Texas : Texas State Fair

Gonna be a long long entry....bear with it!!

It's Sunday and the last day of the Texas State Fair (TSF)!! Since we're in Texas, there's no reason to miss it! Met at 12 noon and drove to the railway station to take their DART ( something like our MRT). Bought an all day pass at $4.50 which gave us unlimited rides and a 2 dollar off the TSF admission. The ride took around 40 mins with ~ 10 stops. Freezing cold weather today. Yesterday was much nicer.

Reached the Pearl station and took a shuttle there. The fee is included in our ride pass. The TSF tickets cost $13 but with the $2 off we are required to pay $11. However, when I gave the cashier $20, she gave me back 2x$5 and 4x$1. So i only paid $6 in the end.



The first event that greeted us was a scottish performance. Wonder why it's here in a TSF.



The 1st building we saw was the Women's Museum. Nothing much...mostly on Maryiln Manroe. And some small 'Did you know?' stuff. Took a round in and walked out. Oh there was this impersonator of Maryiln and we had a photo taken with her.

The Women's Museum

After that, we walked around the fair...visiting some small exhibits and looking around. It's pretty much like a scaled up pasar malam. They sell lots of food but it's all about the same stall. You see like the same kinda store selling same things all over the place. There were some performances and stuff like that such as animal races. We went to catch the pig race at 4:15pm.

Watch this! It's the nicest vid i took!


After the race we walked around and viewed some livestocks. There was this mega pig...super huge! There were plenty of rides and stuff...I was thinking in Singapore no body would go sit in those Chua Chu Kang small pasar malam rides...coz the atmosphere is just not there. Look at the nice ferris wheel and merry go round!

Relive your childhood dreams.


Basically we spent the rest of the day walking around and taking photos. Lots of small little games to play and stuff like that. At night we watch a small parade of floats ...not very magnificent..but still worth a video capture.



After the parade of floats we walked around abit more before heading back. Its getting cold already..think it was around 830pm. Wonder how the locals take it. Coz we see kids in t-shirts. While we are all wrapped up!! Okie that's all, remember to view all the 40+ photos here!!

Texas : Collin Creek Mall

Saturday!! Finally it's Sat!! The first weekend of our week here. Had actually planned to go to the Texas Fair. But decided to get our Internet working here. The guy had actually set it up but didn't give us any password/id. So we called AT&T and got some techie coming down to help us fix it. We thought the modem was spoilt since it can't be reached at 192.168.0.1, but it turned out that it was connecting using PPPoE thru a wanport so there's no address for the modem.

After the tech support left, Liling called to say her laptop was also screwed from installing the DSL Cd. And it was more severe this time, coz the BSOD was showing everytime she boots up. Sam was over at her house but couldn't fix it with the same method i used for Minh's laptop. So they both came over and we tried fixing it till we realised we mixed out 1 important step that we used for Minh's laptop.

Okie, after all that's done, its already 1230 noon. I went on to cook lunch while Sam did his laundry. Pasta with vege and beef! Something nicer compared to the plain pasta we had initially.

A close up of the pasta i made!~ Nice....

By the time washing and cooking was done, it's already 215pm. Decided it's too late to go to the Texas fair. Quite wasted coz the weather was good. Anyway, we decided to walk around other malls which landed us in Collin Creek Mall.

Reached there at around 245pm and the 1st store we went into is Macys.

It's a totally Robinson kinda layout. Nothing much to show, you'd probably see it all in Sg. There were some other interesting things thou. They sell Ipod thru vending machies, like those tibbits machine in SG selling M&M and Twisties. But it's Ipod inside here!! There's more picture of it in the album I posted here.

The mall is typically a SG kinda mall...nothing much to shop around. But it might excite girls who look for brands like Forever 21, Gap , and what have you....I am not too sure myself.

This is what happens to guys like me and Sam. ( Minh was the photographer, so who's not here?)

After that we decided to go home, on the way home we decided to stop at a grocery store just beside our house. It's called Tom Thumbs and it's kinda like Walmart, abit more exp. And guess what we got each.

Yes, we need water! War is coming and its better to stock up. 2.5 gallons for USD$2.19. (Yes you all are asking how much is 1 gallon? 3.87 litres). We finished our shopping and went home. And here's the big part.

Our official cook is gonna make some Viet Chicken rice. Oh i tell u it's damn nice. Abit sour and smells good with those "yan shui" u add in normal chicken rice. The sour taste makes it appetizing. Thanks Minh for the effort you took ( while we were all watching TV, I really dunno how I can fit in here)

Remember....if you ever wanted to see more photos that are not on this blog, they can always be seen here! Don't shortchange yourself, get it since its free!

Texas : Last day of the week!

Sorry this update came late. Coz the network was down and I really had a hard time leeching another net work! Haha, anyway here's the update for today! Its getting slower down here so dun expect an update everyday.

Yeah, its friday! 1st week has finally passed. Had a conference call with Randy today at 9am. After which was back to more VOD debugging. There was some bug in the deployment and I had to document it and find proof to show its consistent. That pretty much sums up the whole day.

After work, which ended quite sharply at 5pm, we went to Walnut Street where there is a place that sells alot of Asian food and stuff. The drive there was quite long, thou considered near by the locals. Anyway, we dint lose our way this time and only made 1 wrong turn. Minh was good at choosing chickens and pork and stuff like that, thou its really damn alien to us. She's now appointed as the Offical Chef! (haahha, by me)

Went back home at around 9 and tried to cook another of our USD $1 dinner again. This time it's pizza! Looks big and nice. But then we found out that the oven wasn't working. Had to use the microwave instead. That made our pizza turn out like 'nua nua'. Must get it fixed soon man, else the rest of the pizzas will get similiar fate!

Anyway, as I was uploading videos, (Yes inspired by vincent haha) my net got cut off suddenly. I think the owner found out that someone was leeching him and turned on the WEP. Damn...1 less connection to leech and our internet connection wasn't fixed yet. Hopefully my guess is wrong and that tmlo we will find the familiar SSID 2411 again!!!

Took some video and pictures today and had it posted up!

Anyone seen catfishes all staring at you before?



On the way back...the vast empty scenery makes one go crazy.

Texas Richardson : Cokups

Today can be considered to be one of those cokup days.

Cokup day: (adj) Describing a day when more than 3 things went wrong and it about much troubles.

1. This wasn't exactly considered my cok up, but i guess it's still a cokup. There was a cokup today during some patch coz they forgot to backup some config files before executing the backup. And now they need to restore/roll back around 30+ servers.
   
2. Internet access came today, but the modem seemed spoilt and I couldn't reach the address of the router ( 192.168.0.1). So much for having net access soon....guess will have to wait for tmlo to get it done.
3. The fire alarm went off as i was blogging, or maybe it was the short circuit alarm. Not sure thou but it certainly had a burnt smell!! Damn!! No more smoke detector to save me when i am asleep!! I suspect its due to the air con which i changed to heater mode. That also meant i am going to freeze to death!!
   
4. Oh just got Minh's call...lets add one more cokup to the list. Her laptop died after installing the broadband net CDROM. And she's bringing it over to me to let me see if I can fix it.
   

MAJOR DAY OF COkUPS!

Here's some photos i took...click this link

Texas Richardson : Oh ya the dirty water!!

Forgot to blog about this the 1st day, too much stuff to write. Anyway, since nothing much happened today, this shall be my entry!

The tap water here is clear, but it has this funny smell. I am not sure how to describe it, but it kinda smells like those old cupboard you open. It makes you wanna puke after a few mouthful. Boiling doesn't really help..the smell is still there. Its abit of the muddy smell and abit saltish. It's not only my apartment that has this smell...i guess it's thru out Texas cos the water at my company tastes the same.

Texas Richardson : Things are getting normal

2nd day at work, no more alarm problems. Woke up and had cereal from Walmart ytd. Liling came at 8am and we reached around 810am. But there was no one there! Only Bert was around, who told us that they usually trickle in around 9am. So we decided to reach at 9am tmlo! No point going there early, missing some sleep and having no one around to guide us!

Learnt quite some stuff about VOD today, Rory was a good teacher. He told us alot about VOD and was very friendly to us. Time flies and it's time for lunch! Actually, I missed this out in the previous post, but their portions are huge! I can get full by eating the fries alone! The meal is ard 4USD which is SGD$6.40. But it fills you up good. Anyway, we bought a super duper foot long sandwich from Walmart ytd, which had been my dinner and gona be my lunch today. USD $6 and it's shared by me and Sam. So that's $1.50 per meal for us.

Ended at 6 once again, tired today so didn't go anywhere. Might be going to some Asian store tmlo to get some food.

Went back and found the place looked quite nice in the evening so I decided to take some shots. Here's the link to the shots.

Texas Richardson : 1st Day At Work

The first day wasn't a smooth one. It started way early in the morning, at 630am. Not that we were required to report for work at 7, but the alarm for the smoke/fire detector went off and it wouldn't stop. What a way to make sure we weren't late on the 1st day.

Called the maintainance hotline but no one answered and was given another number by the automatic voice recording, let's call this number #2. So i dialed #2 and the lady said she would check and get back to us. After awhile she did , and told us there's some problem with the whole block alarm and it's alerting the whole Texas firefighting stations. Told us to wait while the firefighters fix it.

Okie, we waited but nothing happened. Liling and Minh came over to join us for work, it was 8am already. We decided to go over to their apartment to call for a cab. As we left the house, we dint hear any other blocks having alarm problems. ( I gotta feeling i was smoked). The cab took quite long to come, don't think the cabby knows his way ard. So we decided to head back to the apartment and see if the alarm issue was fixed. It wasn't.

Anyway, I found another number, (#3) on the piece of paper they gave us with all the info and stuff. I called and they took down the name..and thanks that's it. Then I found another number (#4) on another paper..they seem to have different numbers printed on different "Welcome" notes. So I called #4 and they say they will look into it.

Finally the maintainance guy came over and got it fixed. 4 numbers...1 guy...so which number actually worked?? I have no idea!! Anyway , the problem was due to a leaking roof that seeped water into the detector and short circuited it. By right they should fix the roof right? Well, they didn't! They fixed the detector ( by unscrewing it off the roof). So now i am having a leaky roof when it rains...and 2 burnt out corpses if there's a fire.

After the guy fixed the stuff...the cab came ( ard 920am) and we all went to work! The fare was 20 USD to work...lucky its only a 1 time cost..will be getting car after that.

Work was okie...1st day we were taken to make some ID badges and walked around knowing ppl. The ang mors are frendlier and more helpful. Not as reserved as Asians.

Work ended and we went to walmart where we really shopped like mad..bought tons of TV dinner at 1USD and some washing powder and stuff. Oh the ice cream is cheap!! Ben and Jerry is SGD$4.30 here!

For more photos , check this link out!

Texas Richardson : First Day of Ups and Downs

The flight was a freaking 20+ hrs. That's the 1st thing i wanna say. I was having this window seat for a 13 hr flight and I had to pass 2 other ppl before I could go to the toilet. It's always a chore to go to the toilet this way. And that made me drink less water in order to avoid going to the toilet.

Reached Chicago for a domestic flight transfer. Took a few shots at the O'hare airport and checked out their Mac prices. It's the same as SG!! USD$6.20 for a meal! Crazy...how to save $ here.

Took the domestic transfer flight from Chicago to Dallas , it was a 2hr + flight and we were seated on a smaller plane. It was quite a scary experience for me becoz the small plane was shaking during the journey. As i was seating next to the window ( AGAIN!) , i could see the plane wobbling in the air. But I just prayed hard that nothing would happen.

Reached Dallas at around 740pm local time, took a Yellow Shared Shuttle cab which was actually a mini van sorta cab that fetches more than 1 passenger to differnent places. As long as you are going to the same place, the charges is as follow, U$28 for the 1st person and subsequent U$13 each. Kinda cheap coz there was 4 of us which amounted to U$69. Quite a long journey imho, I think it would have cost $40+ if in SG taxi terms. However, as we din't noe if we should give tips to cabbbies, we decided to play it safe and paid him a total of U$80. Amounting to U$20 each.

Finally we reached our apartments, but the best was yet to come!! Me and Sam couldn't find the stupid elusive apartment. Ours was supposed to be 2817, but we saw 2816 and 2818 side by side. So where the hell is 2817!!!!! We walked around in the rain and coldness, ( yeah as if things wasn't bad enuff already) and finally found the entrance in some secluded dark corner. That searching alone took us out 1hr in the cold rain.

Then we found the gate was locked. Following the access code given by the apartment manager's email, we couldn't get the stupid darn lock to open. So i figured that the gate could actually be opened from the other side of the gate. But my hand was too short/fat to slip in the gate to open it from behind. Damn...its here so near yet so far.

Finally I used my umbrella as extension to poke the handle from the top so as to push it down and open the darn gate. Finally...after like 90 mins of crazy cold rain beating down, we finally got into our nice warm apartments. The interior was damn nice. I have taken some photos, but I am thinking of whether to share them here or give a direct link to a photoalbum for you guys to view. Anyway, I am leeching on wireless now which makes it slow and unstable to upload tons of image.

A view of the Hong Kong airport, where we stopped over for 1 hr.

Check out the rest of the pictures here!

1st Entry

This is going to be my blog for all my oversea's pictures and happenings! First up shall be Texas Plano this coming Sunday! Stay tuned!