Syrix's Sightings

Melaka : Workshop TWC

2008-10-27T00:04:00.002+08:00

This is the "To get her, we can" workshop. Meant to help single guys to know more girls and hopefully in the end, instill the confidence that, by working together, we can....

Actually, it's not! Just my company's workshop that tries to tell us we can do it together, not 'to get her'

Well, it's pretty boring place there. I've not been to any where interesting or photoworthy. The places are pretty rundown and I don't see much sense in posting my photos. (Another reason is that most of my photos don't really look good imo)

Anyway, it's been sickening because the markets were falling like mad and I was there without internet connection. It just sucks that I'm dragged to such crap workshop.

Melaka : Company's Workshop

2008-10-21T20:15:00.001+08:00

Finally this blog has another update. Thou I know NO one even looks at it.

It's just for my own reference.

Anyway, my company is bringing us to a 3 day workshop and we'll only have the first day free.
Which mean on top of this post, I'd post only 1 more post tmlo.

I'm traveling light. 3 set of clothes and that's all. No shampoo,toothbrush or anything.

Hotel should have it ba.

I'd be staying at Hotel Equatorial

Singapore : Back to my old blog

2007-02-06T22:15:00.000+08:00

Yeap, this blog is offically dead as of now. Not much more traveling to be done. Except maybe a trip to SEA sometime during May.

So for people still checking this. Please go back to my old blog. No address? Then most probably you are not meant to see it.

Adios

Tokyo : Atami Hot Spring Town

2007-02-03T02:33:00.000+08:00

Finally, this should be my last post on the plane. Mainly becos it's the last day and my flight should be landing in 30 mins time. Just nice to finish up this long last post.

Thurs was a free day for us, didn't have to work cos we made the installation a success on Wed and our Japan associates were leaving for some other place today.

Wanted to go see Mt Fuji, and was told that there's a few places you can catch a glimpse of it. Hakone, Atami and Izu. Also, the rest of the guys wanted to try their hot spring. And these are the 3 places you could go for hot spring. So in the end we decided on Atami. But the weather wasn't that good and Mt Fuji wasn't in sight at all. Just clouds. Darn, wasted trip, should have gone straight to Fuji since I wasn't really interested in hot spring.

Upon exiting the station, you see a free hot spring just outside for ppl to soak their feet in.

Even the drain is hot. Do you see the smoke?

Raiden? Finish him!

Looked around the map and decided to go to Atami Castle first. Followed by a cable car ride up the hills and lastly hot spring during the sunset. They said you could have it outdoor so u can enjoy the sunset.

This is their Atami castle.

View from the top.

The entrance fee to the castle is 800 yen and the entrance fee to the dolls collection is 500 yen. But if you get 2 in 1, you pay 1000 yen. Worth it ?

Inside the castle, they show some armour being used in the past. This is the 1st floor and most probably the most worth of the whole 5 floors of the 'castle'

The doll collection was the most cheated one with 1 floor of exhibit. The rest of them took a 2 min walk around and went out. I took abit longer. Around 6 mins i guess. They say the dolls looked scary, well, I think so too! But since I am here, might as well take some photos of it!

After the kana conned tour, we took the bus to another place. It was an all day pass that cost 800 yen. Oh did i mention the train ride here cost 1890 yen. That's around $24.

Our next stop was the plum garden. Supposedly in full bloom but all we see were botak trees.

Took some nice shots of the garden thou.

Crouching tiger hidden dragon.

Finally the hot spring. No photos here, but it's a hot experience! haha the water was at 58 deg. I went in and you could see the difference in color. My legs were all red compared to the ghastly pale body. haha, after a while it was alright but we didn't stay long. It felt good afterwards, like you just ran 2km and had a bath. Makes you sleepy too. I guess it's a good way to lose weight cos I went 0.5kg down for a while. Haha.

After this we went to Odaiba again, this time to test out the ferris wheel!

I didn't know they had a portal here, would have used my town scroll to get here.

200 photos here. Worth the browse!

Tokyo : Farewell dinner

2007-01-28T01:53:00.000+08:00

Well, the last post didn't take me long to write. 10 mins have passed. Still 50 mins before landing. So here's another post. In case you were wondering why the posts were updated so slowly given the fact they had been all written at once, its to generate more hits! Haha, what fun would it be to show you everything at one go!

Well, Wednesday was the day Alcatel Japan gave us a treat as a celebration for the success of the setups. Didn't managed to take any photos cos I thought it'd be weird and paiseh when you have big bosses and ppl there and you act like some country bumpkin so amazed about their every stuff.

Anyway, here's a short summary of what happened, coz the detailed summary would have alot of stuff which might be censored by our Garmen.

The dinner was supposed to be from 7-9pm as the room was booked during that slot. I was kinda glad becoz I can't really communicate with them as they had limited command of english. And I don't like such drinking/eating session. I am too much a pure boy at heart. Haha.

In the end, turned out that after 9pm there wasn't any other booking for the room. So we could stay as long as we wanted. Damn..there goes my plan to go back early and slack in bed. There wasn't much food, some sashimi and 2 pot of soup. I think it's more of a drinking session to them. They kept ordering beer, shoyu and what other kinda stuff they have. I had green tea and grapefruit juice. After they finished eating, they started toking about their Japanese fantasies if you know what I meant.

Can't believe that could drag on for 3 hrs. From 830pm to 1130pm. I was kinda bored becos it gets abit too repetitive. Is it so nice to discuss such things to such extent? I dunno, maybe they have not much common topics, given we are all guys. But 1 thing I find amusing was the way they luff. I dunno wat's it that tickles me, but they sure look funny to me. Thou I dunno wth they talking about at times.

So I finally got saved by the last train. Taxis here are expensive and they go 30% higher after 11pm. So they die die also must catch the last train. I wished the last train was at 9pm. Anyway, the 3 hr of senseless talk ended at 1130pm. Found some dark secrets of some other Sg employees during the talk. Haha, but it shalln't be disclosed here.

No pictures taken cos i feel abit pai seh when there's so many ppl ard and not very familiar with them.

Tokyo : Charcoal Grill

2007-01-25T22:56:00.000+08:00

Another post written on the plane. Still 1 hour to go before reaching. Battery estimated lifespan 87 mins. Should be able to last till the plane lands.

Hmm...I think we worked late on Tuesday too. Can't rememeber but we decided not to go out. So we went to try their charcoal grill. But I think this isn't Jap food, more like Korean food. Faizal didn't join in coz he don't want his jacket to be all smoked up. So he went for Mac.

The grill was nice but costly. It's more for the experience than the food. Cos we wasn't really full after the meal, but it tasted good!!!

All the 3 plates shown below cost 1000 yen each ( $13)

The bill totaled up to 5000 yen.($65) for 3 of us. It's an expensive experience!

Gluttons click here.

Tokyo : Shinjuku Bookstore visit

2007-01-23T21:17:00.000+08:00

Okie this is still being blogged on the plane. Thou it took me 25 mins to blog the previous post, I still had 90mins left till arrival. I guess i'd just blog all my post till my laptop battery runs out.

Monday is back to work again and I guess we left quite late. Lotsa cokups and stuff. I was doing some patch on the Personal Server (PS) and it went kuku. Sercurity issues were showing up everywhere. Damn, had to reinstall the whole thing again. Luckily I was familiar with it and it didn't take long. Had to test out serveral stuff to make sure it's working again. By the time things were settled, I think we left around 7+ pm.

Didn't have much time left to go out touring, so I decided to set out and get some notebooks my sis asked me to get. You know it's harder to find notebooks here than porn. Everyday since I arrived I have been keeping a lookout for nice notebooks, but their bookstores are really book stores. They sell published books and nothing else. I went to some stationery stores and they sell imported notebooks, brands like Campus and other stuff. You don't see a notebook with any Japanese words on it. NO WAY! 6 days of searching and I still can't find any!!

So I googled out some nicer stationery store and decided to go there just to find notebooks with Japanese words on it. So today my mission is just to find a nice notebook for my sis.

Vincent went with me while the rest stayed in the hotel. Probably tired after 2 long days of touring. Well, i'm tired too!

Anyway, reached Shinjuku at around 820pm and following the map that I got from google, we were lost. All because the map was a brief one and the only landmark on that map showed an Isetan. But....there were 3 Isetan there!! In the end we have to ask someone and he was kind enough to actually bring us there. It's already 840pm and the shop is closing.

Still, I didn't managed to find a notebook that has Japanese words on it. In the end I settled for a diary with Japanese words on it. Well, it can still be used as a notebook.

After that we were both hungry, I mean we were always hungry. But didn't eat coz wanted to find the bookstore before it closes. We went back to this alley that we'd been to a few days ago and tried their food. It's called Food Alley i think, and there were lotsa cheap food there. My ramen costed 400 yen ( $5.50) only.

The rest of the pix here.

Tokyo : Shibuya

2007-01-21T22:19:00.000+08:00

I am blogging this on the plane home. It's a really long journey, 7 hrs 30 mins of flight back. I wonder why it only took 6hrs 40mins when we took the flight to Tokyo.

Anyway, moving on, I have finally reached the Sunday post. Had a good sleep on Sat night and decided to go out at 12 noon on Sunday. The previous day was a long one, waking up at 5am to go to the fish market.

It's gonna be a free and easy day and we decided to go to Shibuya, more like the Orchard of Sg. But then the plan stretched and we ended up going more places than planned.

A subway museum.

Shibuya got its name from this dog. Story has it that this dog waited faithfully at the station waiting for its owner to come back, never leaving that spot till it died, even thou its owner never came back ( cos he died in sch, he's a teacher)

Parco is big here, I wonder if it's the same Parco. They have Parco 1, Parco 2 and Parco 3.

GAP in Japan. Seen enough of this brand in USA already!

The only church I've seen so far. Wonder if it's like City Harvest that kind?

Faizal always had his radar on.

After so many pictures, you'd have thought that we already had our lunch. But no! So now it's time to have lunch at this classy place. One thing odd about Tokyo I found, is that sometimes food court, roadside stalls have prices similar to restaurants. Its like a normal meal would cost you around 700yen but to have food at these restaurants which have nice deco and stuff, might only cost you 900-1000 yen.

After lunch we visited the Disney Store. It's a big thing here, you see Disney stuff everywhere. Guess it's coz of the Disneyland.

Next stop, Yoyogi park. This place has a lot of performances by budding artists. It can range from bands to comedy and abstract stuff. Not to mention strange people who do the weirdest things.

Walking further into the park, we stumble upon the Sungei road of Sg!! There's tons of ppl selling stuff here, not sure if they need any license for it but the sellers here are certainly not uncles!! In fact, even the road sweeper was a 20 year old girl with make up. Wanted to take a shot but didn't managed to get a good shot of her.

This is a concert hall where many performances by bands are held.

Elvis worshippers?

Till this point, i realised this is quite a long post, and of course a long day. Went to their Meiji Shrine which was destroyed in a fire or earthquake, can't remember, and rebuilt using public donations.

They had some ice carvings exhibition going on, wonder if it's all year round.

By the time we came out, it's already dark but not late. Skies turn dark here pretty early at around 5pm. This shot was taken around 530pm. After that we had our dinner.

Well, you would have thought the post would end here! But no, actually we went to another place called Odaiba. There's ferris wheel there and you could see the Rainbow Bridge of Tokyo and a scaled down version of the SoL. It's very cold as it was near the sea and many of my shots turned out to be blurred. ( shivering hands haha)

The ferris wheel from far. Didn't managed to go there coz it was a 20 mins walk and by the time we explored the Rainbow bridge and SoL we had barely enough time to catch the 930 shuttle back to out hotel.

That's all! Finally reached the end of Sunday's blog. As usual there are more photos to check out here.

Tokyo : Suidobashi Tokyo Dome (Sat Last part)

2007-01-19T00:04:00.000+08:00

Finally to the last part of Sat's journey. To Suidobashi! There's this amusement park there called Tokyo Dome with ferris wheel and roller coaster and some other stuff..

Had my first roller coaster ride in my life. Damn it was scary. But Sam didn't join in...he's scared. So the 3 of us went to take the ride and guess what! Me and faizal took the very 1st row. Woosh. Nice for a first timer like me !! When the ride was going down....we can't even see the tracks...that's how steep it was!! But it was fun and we got a postcard with our photos taken before and during the ride. Looks totally different! haha

After the ride we went to Mac for dinner and I found some pretty interesting sign

Had taken a video of a cultural performance but it's over 100 mb so i can't get it up on YouTube. So I'd just post a shot here.

All the photos here.

Tokyo : Akihabara Electric Town ( Sat Part III)

2007-01-17T23:24:00.000+08:00

After Ueno, we went to the Sim Lim Square of Tokyo, called Akihabara. There's not much difference between here and SLS. Doesn't really look appealing to me coz the stuff aint that cheap and I could always get it back in Sg. The only thing here that might be cheap is PSP (19700 yen ~ 240 sgd) but I think i'm not going to spend more $ on games.

Upon exiting the station, you could see 'maids' giving out flyers. They have some cosplay cafe around here I guess, as well as 'maids' giving u foot massages and stuff like tat.

We didn't really walk much coz most of the stuff could be bought in SG with corresponding voltage and better warranty.

Saw some interesting stuff you could win at the arcade's UFO catcher

Some sexy leg lamps

Tokyo : Asakusa Shrine ( Sat Part II)

2007-01-16T20:53:00.000+08:00

Okie! Today I didn't go out coz I think i am gona fall sick soon...got a bit of a bad throat. So here's the next part of my Sat adventure...yeah took kinda long to post this. Still have sunday...monday.

Anyway after the fish market, the next stop we went to is Asakusa. There's this old Buddist shrine there which schoolgirls go to pray for their exams I guess. We met a bucnh of them on a school excursion on our way there.

On exiting the station, I saw them selling 'gao luk'! haha didn't know they sell these here, my ah ma would love it.

Here I am under the big lantern. Not really under la..

Bought a small cup of sweet sake for 100 yen.

Look at the busy streets and things to buy on our way into the shrine.

Here's a postcard worthy shot.

People crowd around this incense burning urn to get some good luck I think.

There wasn't much stuff to look at in the shrine. Didn't wanna get anything from there too. Since its against my beliefs. Just visiting would be fine I guess. After that we went to Ueno station and walked around the Ameyoko market, settling for lunch. Wanted to eat noodles badly and finally found some Korean food. Damn hot!

Looks hot eh?

A cheap chocolate store I think. There were lotsa ppl queuing to buy.

After that we walked by a store that sells big taco pachi..haha but there's no squid inside. Just veges, but it's huge!! So I bought 1 ball and tried it ( at 200 yen). It wasn't as nice as it looked.

Rest of the photos here.

Tokyo : Tired sia...

2007-01-14T23:25:00.000+08:00

Everyday go out morning tour...come back must upload photos and blog...buey tahan la!! Haha, I will space out my blogs over 2-3 days and will keep updating this till all my trips have been documented. That means it would still be updated after I go back to Singapore. So for now...I need to sleep!

Tokyo : Tsukiji Fish Market ( Sat Part 1)

2007-01-14T10:05:00.000+08:00

There would be too many things to write for today, so entries shall come in parts. (And also when I have the time and is not so tired)

Sat's been a super busy day, traveling 5 places in a day is no easy feat! The first stop of the day is the Tsukiji fish market. It starts early in the morning at 530am-6am for its auctioning. We set to leave the hotel at 5am and reach around 530am in time to see some exciting bidding. On my way there, I wonder why I didnt wake up early in Singapore to go Punggol to see people selling fishes.

Had a cup of Starbucks (210 yen) from the mart to perk me up.

When we reached there, the subway station was kinda empty. It's too early in the morning. And our mind were empty too, coz we went off the wrong direction and got lost. By the time we found the market it was like around 640am.

The auctioning had ended, there's still vegetable auctioning thou, but we weren't interested. So we took a walk thru the place.

How the place reminds of me the wet market in Sg, thou the smell isn't as bad.

Cutting frozen fish with a saw....dangerous

Big squids? I dunno what is this species.

Went outta the fish market to explore the wharf. Supposed to have boats docking in and unloading fishes. But I guess it's already 7am and everyone had finished their work.

I guess they paint the big fish to help them net more fishes (their belief?) Haha, thats my guess.

We went back into the market after exploring the wharf and exited thru the market. We saw some shops that sell huge scales. Maybe like for a backup in case the merchant's scale spoils, dun think any merchants would get their scale there.

On our way back, caught a sleeping driver in the vehicle. I guess he must have waken up early to do his job.

For more pictures of fishes and buildings. Click here

The next part of the trip continues to Asakusa Shrine. Stay tuned.

Tokyo Rest to walk the longer journey

2007-01-12T19:33:00.000+08:00

Today's friday and its supposed to be a night to go out and enjoy, but since we're like waking up at 5am tmlo to go to their fish market, we decided to return to hotel and have an early night. At least for me. So here's an update on my lunch and work.

Had lunch at the usual place and ordered the today's special 714 yen ( which I found out when Vincent ordered it and was like 300 yen cheaper than what I had, despite being similar stuff)

Returned home today with a different route and found some other stuff to take photo of.

Went to buy dinner at their supermarket, those prepacked stuff. Didn't save much too. I think it's coz of the 232 yen rice! The chicken cost 398 yen and its a big piece!!

For the rest of the photos, click here

Tokyo : Hamamatsucho Tokyo Tower

2007-01-11T23:05:00.000+08:00

Intended to go to the Sim Lim Square of Tokyo today but then Vincent and Sam had to send mail we ended up knocking off at 730pm. So what can we do? Go somewhere near and where shops dun close soon. Figured it would be nice to go Tokyo Tower since it would look nice at night.

But before that, lets have dinner first! Ate at the Alcatel building where we first had our lunch and I order the same thing again. But this time there was little ingredient and there wasn't free soup and tea. I wonder why...was it coz we ate at dinner or was it coz the 1st time we went with some Japanese guy.

Sat at the counter and was actually wishing for some complimentary stuff.

Reached the station around 8pm and we started heading towards the Tokyo Tower. On the way we passed by a damn small door....dunno if its in use. Then we passed by a big shrine but was closed. However, we decided to sneak in and take a look. It wasnt really sealed off tight, just a barrier at its door step, so we could move around it.

Narrowest door I have seen.

The shrine entrance. It's damn big place

A shot taken from inside the shrine....its all dark around

Finally reached the Tokyo Towers but it's 940pm already and it closes at 10pm. We realised the time after we bought the ticket. Then announcement came....hahaha. 20 mins to utilise 840 yen! ( 11 sgd)

82 more photos here!!

Tokyo : Shinjuku

2007-01-11T18:07:00.000+08:00

Had dinner at a roadside store for 700 yen. It's ramen with some pork and seaweed. Its kinda costly coz we thought it would be like around 500 yen. But its an experience to try it at a roadside store. So here we go!

Didnt know what I ordered till it was served.

Went over to Shinjuku yesterday, a busy part of Tokyo which is also dubbed as the redlight district by some. It around 19 mins ride on the JR East railway and it cost 190 yen. Quite cheap considering Japan's standard. That should be like a ride from Orchard to Bishan distance.

The ride wasn't as crowded as expected.

There were pimps out on the street looking more for middle aged man. None of them approached us coz we might look foreign and I heard they dun really go approach foreigners. However, Faizal was approached by 2 black man asking if he wanted to see some shows. They spoke to him in english.

The sleezy street

Looking across from a bridge.

Anyway, it wasn't jus all sleaze, in fact it was milder than I thought it would be. There were arcades and a few nice shops. There's this alley that sells cheap food and its very cosy. But then it's kinda dark and I didn't manage to take any photos of the place.

Ultraman outside an arcade

A shop that sells food with flowers theme ( and i guess there's real flowers in it!)

Stopped by and bought a piece of red bean wadever u call this. There was abundant filling inside and it cost only 100 yen.

85 pix can be found here!

Tokyo : First Day At Work

2007-01-09T22:37:00.000+08:00

Today's the first day to work. Woke up at 830am and left the hotel at 9am for breakfast. Went into this cafe that had 160 yen breakfast. Which seems cheap but we can't understand the fine print, which might have stated that in order to enjoy the breakfast, you have to order a cup of tea/coffee. In the end the breakfast coz 650 yen ( $8.66).

After the breakfast, we walked to the Alcatel building which is quite near. 15 mins walk from hotel to it.

View from where i sit..nice clear sky with bird above ( not captured here)

Me and Vincent

We had lunch at the restaurant below our workplace, nice food and cheaper than the one we had yesterday night. Cost around 1250 yen ( $17) and there was crab meat, raw scallop, fish roe, sea urchin ( the orange stuff) and raw salmon.

After lunch we went over to NetOne to fix the personal servers and they were nice ppl. They even asked us when are we convinient to go to work tmlo. That's so whao! They knock off timely at 6pm. Which is something I like. We decide to walk home and tour the streets, which I took alot of photo and would be too much to load here. My photo count today is a whopping 65 pix!

See the Tokyo tower in the distance?

A roadside store

After that Faizal had his frend who lives in Tokyo to come over and be a temp guide for a while. Went into a cheap place to eat...sorta like Yoshinoya and this is what I ordered. 640 yen ( $8.50)

For a whooping 60 photos album on my 2nd day in Tokyo, click here!

Tokyo : Arrival

2007-01-08T23:16:00.000+08:00

Arrived at Narita Airport around 430pm and it's already getting dark. Kinda cold here at 11 degree. Bought a limosine bus ticket which would send me direct to my hotel at 3000 yen. Thats around $40. Heart bleed...

Reached the hotel at around 7pm and its freaking dark already. But they do give nice shampoo and body from Shiseido..I guess i wouldn't be using my VS shampoo over here.

Went out to scout around for dinner and realised that most of the stuff here are more exp than i expected. Finally decided to settle on this eatery that sells food that suits most of us. I ordered a crab and prawn tempura set. The crab is really crab meat...not those with flour. It taste nice I suppose ...since it cost me 1970 yens. ( Ard $25 sgd)

After that we walked around for a while before going back to the hotel to discuss on tmlo's work. The streets are brightly lit around this area and I guess we are near a shopping centre.

I bought a bottle of stuff from a vending machine just for the bottle so I can bring water to work tmlo. Here's the kinky bottle...turns out to be plain chinese tea....not even sugared!!

If you are interested in seeing more of Tokyo Shingawa, here are all the pictures I took.

Singapore : Overseas Announcement

2007-01-03T17:57:00.000+08:00

Okie, as anticipated, I would be going to Japan Tokyo on 8 Jan 07 - 19 Jan 07 for some work purposes. I would be staying at Le Meridein hotel which is around 10 mins walk from Japan Alcatel. According to the site there's internet access there so I think I would be able to update my blog from there. Thinking of getting a new camera as my old camera doesn't have anti-shake and it takes lousy night shots. But the thought of spending $500 more on an extra camera makes me sian. Although we would be given allowances ( $70-$100 per day, undecided), but I still feel its a waste to buy a camera just for the Japan trip.

Anyway, stay tuned on 8 - 9 Jan for my first post on Tokyo!

Tokyo : Stop over

2006-12-24T23:14:00.000+08:00

Finally at Japan Tokyo after a few hours of flight...I suppose the trash collector have already finished swearing at us and the trash had already been taken care of.

Arrived with 2 hrs left to shop around the duty free shop. And bought some key chains of Japan and took a shot at their famous butt washing machine.

Okie, this blog will stop functioning from now till my next trip overseas. Which should be around 2-3 weeks time. Then it's time to continue more stories of my sightings!

Texas : Balek Kampong

2006-12-20T15:21:00.000+08:00

Just got news that we would be flying back on 22 dec morning. Which would mean that we'll be reaching on Sat night. The flight would go San Fransico for transit before making a stop at Tokyo and finally back to Singapore. And upon reaching, there's 2 days to rest before work starts again!

So maybe this blog would be temporary closed until next trip. Which I suppose would be soon. To where? It's a secret....shhh

For now, there's 2 more days left to work. But I am planning to ask for a day off before flying to clean up the house and do some packing. Tmlo shall be clearance day and hopefully we can go back early. There's a mystery package that came yesterday from FedEx. Could it be the missing iPod? Coz Sam's package couldn't have reached in 1 day according to him.

But for now...I've got tons of food left to eat coz I tot we'd be going back after Xmas. So now I have just stuffed in a pizza at 1am and feeling full. Hoping I can finish my 8 fish fillets, 8 eggs, 50 meatballs, 6 nuggets, 1 pizza, 1 campbell soup, 1.5litre of orange juice, 200g of Famous Amos cookies, 1 pound of beef, a quarter of roast chicken, 5 hotdogs and 6 slices of ham in 4 meals!!!!!! On top of that, I am bringing my unpopped popcorns, mineral water and maggi mee to the office to give away.

Phew...tons of things to do in 2 days.

Texas : The Case of The Missing iPod

2006-12-17T13:03:00.000+08:00

Today, we had an unusual visitor. A guy with his kid came to our apartment looking for a package they claimed to have been delivered here. He told us that he's been living here for the past 6 years and there was a package that had been delivered to this adddress which contained an iPod for his kid.

Well, I didn't recieve any package thou, just a mail addressed to this guy. Perhaps the mail holds the key to the package. I dunno, but obviously he didn't believe us. The 1st time he came, I told him that all we got was a mail and I handed him the letter. Asked him to check with the resident' office to see if there's any addressed to our address ( which I guess probably not, since I collected my package 2 days ago and all I got was my own book)

After 10 mins he came back again and said that there wasnt any package in the resident's office. But he checked with the postman who he claimed to be his friend, and he was told that the package had been delivered. So I asked him where was it delivered to? My mailbox, my doorstep or wat? He said he's not sure but the postman's his frend and told him it's delivered. He even said that he don't mind if the package been opened or used, as long as we return it to his son. So I supposed he suspected we took the package ( which was supposedly an iPod).

The thing is, if the postman's his friend why doesn't he send it to his new address? And how the hell would a postman with tons of stuff to deliever remember who it was addressed to! Stupid yang gui zi, next time try coming out with something more convincing. And 6 years of living in our apartment? That would mean you are either holding a damn high postition to be living in an apartment that charges USD$3600 per month, or you are just another big liar. Serves you right for losing your package. (If it ever existed)

Texas : Lunch Thoughts

2006-12-16T04:07:00.000+08:00

Yeap, its friday noon and I am at home for lunch! Coz Liling and Minh didn't bring their lunchboxes so we drove back for lunch. Speaking of lunch, it has become the 1 thing I don't look forward to anymore. Becoz everyday I am eating food that I cook, which is basically the same every day. It's a standard to have rice, hotdog,nuggets, brocolli and corn. The mere thought of these food ( even the writing about it now) makes me sick and full.

I just got my last package delievered to me, which is a book I bought so I could have something to do on the 20 hr flight back to SG. The flight is supposedly confirmed on 29 Dec but plans might change anytime if they managed to get us an earlier flight since the Xmas week is all holidays here. At most 2 more weeks away from my claypot frog legs and hokkien mee!

Well, work's been pretty monotonous and so far I am just spending time looking thru the whole system and figuring out what each function does. It's kinda boring becoz I am not given any stuff to do, such as troubleshooting. There's no sense of achievement when I simply snoop around the system without the chance to prove anything. That's why I am getting bored of going to work. Well, luckily it's only 1 more week left.

Finally, I think I am not going to cook any more lunch to work next week. Since it's the last week, I was thinking of going out to eat. Like try their other fast food or something. Else it's like ...we've been here for 11 weeks and the only places we have tried are

Best Buffet
Fogo De Chaos
TGIF
Wendy
Sonny Bryan
Bone Daddy's
Charo Chicken
JC Burger

8 places and a few were like company treats. Hmm...ppl have been recommending a few restuarant but I don't quite recall them off hand now. Okie, time's up. Back to the company!

Texas : Welcome to SSS

2006-12-14T11:25:00.000+08:00

Guess what is SSS?

Hint: Look the photos below.

Okie, it's Syrix's Shoes Shop! Ya..lame..

Texas : The End Is Near

2006-12-13T11:15:00.000+08:00

Soon to be reaching the end of the internship here. The kinda mood is setting in....waiting to leave here, got enough of the life in US. Come to think of it, Sg is a much more lively place than Texas at least. Here the streets are empty and buildings are far apart. There's nothing much to be done here without a car/license. No way can you ask your neighbourhood frends out for a cup of tea. Or just take a feeder bus to some nearby shopping centre and hang out. There is practically no public transport here. The bus comes like every hour.

So, what I can do when I get home is just to surf the net, cook my meals and wait for 12 midnight before turning in. In view of the vast amount of time I have at home, here's another dish i whipped up! It looks nice I suppose.

My Hermit Broccolli!

Texas : Mike's Grad Party

2006-12-11T02:30:00.000+08:00

Went to Mike's grad party for his achievement in Masters in computer science. At first I thought it was like convocation kinda stuff. Then realised that it's held at his house, so i guess its more of a party where everyone mingles around.

It was supposed to start at 630pm but we reached at 7pm. There was no NSIT lab ppl around and we were the first. The rest of the people who turned up ( around 7-8) were Mike's frend and family I suppose. So we were really alienated there and got nothing to do. We went to take a serving of Mexican food and the 3 of us sat down and talked among ourselves.

Time passed and still no NSIT guys came over...we got to talk to Mike for a while and were back to our little comfort zone. Ate a few tachos and thats it! Its 845pm already and I guess the party's staying the way it is. We figured we've stayed long enough and its about time to leave.

Texas : Fogo De Chao

2006-12-09T15:25:00.000+08:00

Here's the post on Fogo De Chao! It's quite outdated actually, happened on Tues but there were so many other things to post that postponed it till now.

Tuesday was a Motorola Treat Alcatel (MTA) session. We went to this place called Fogo De Chao which was way classy and served nice roasted beef and lamb and pork and chicken! It's a buffet but the meat comes to you! There would be waitors going around with their own kinda meat ( beef,lamb,chicken and pork) and asking if you would like a serving. And there are many waitors around == many meat!! And there was red wine, white wine, beer and whatever you can order! Rem...it's a treat..haha.

As it looked too classy, I didn't dare to take photo of my food until the end when everyone was flashing out their cameras for shots. So I only managed to take a shot of the dessert.

Great looking dessert with a sunshine around it. Guess it's to represent a happy dessert.

A shot of us and Ali.

Texas : Shoes Peddler , Popcorn killer

2006-12-08T10:32:00.000+08:00

Yeap, thats quite apt to describe who I am recently. Firstly, it was a Sunday night and I was watching movie eating my 1st popcorn freshly popped from the microwave. I put it at 4 mins and it came out that 20% of the corn didn't pop. So I didn't have enough of it and decided to get another pack. This time I wanted it all to pop so I set to 5 mins. Without watching over the microwave, I returned 5 minutes later to find the whole kitchen filled with smoke!!!

Lately, I have been mass buying shoes to bring home, ordered 3 pairs for myself, 2 for my dear, 1 for my ah gong, 1 for dad and 1 more pair that didn't quite fit, thinking of giving to my uncle. But shall see if I even have the space to pack in. Else I'd just return for a refund.

More updates on the Motorola dinner at Fogo De Chaos soon! And latest changes in my training plan!

Texas : FireWheel Market

2006-12-04T05:12:00.000+08:00

(More pictures here -> )Firewheel market was supposedly an outdoor shopping area according to some of the colleagues here, but when we reached the place it wasnt as expected ( think pasar malam). Anyway we had a hard time going there coz it's quite far out and we didn't have a detailed map to follow. But trust me, coming back was a nightmare!!!

Reached there at 130pm and walked around the place, nothing much I would wanna buy because my luggage is going to be so full from adding shoes I need to buy for my Dad and ah gong. I just walked around and found a Clarks shoe store. Damn when I asked the sales assistant about their shoes sizes, she told me it's inconsistent. A 8US feet would have fitted nicely in a 7.5US Clarks. That explains my Ronald Macdonald's 9.5US Clarks shoe I bought from Amazon. Now I have to find someone to sell/give away.

At around 4 pm I think I have covered everything I am going to see, so I went back to the bookstore and sat down to read a book on 'Forex: 6 ways to trade the money". I guess it was much better than walking around with no aim to buy anything. The book was interesting but I think it's written by some guy who is trying to promote his company at the same time. So there was lots of sales pitch inside the book.

We met at 6pm, ( we split up to do our own shopping) and went to TGIFriday for dinner. Wanted to experience more dining in US before going back. ( Been eating rice and TV dinners most of the time). I ordered a ribeye steak medium-well, but it was kinda well-done in my opinion. Anyway that meal set me back by USD$21.

On our way back, we met the tollbooth from hell. In order to leave a tollway, you have to stop beside an automated tollbooth and pay 40 cents. We didn't have 40 cents so we gave the greedy machine 45 cents. It didn't allowed passage. So we thought the booth was spoilt and reversed into another booth. There wasn't much car coming through that exit so we could reverse. Then we still didn't have exact 40 cents so I think we gave it 50 cents. But it still didn't open, and we kept feeding it $$, think we spent around $2 dollars feeding this booth but still it didn't open. Other cars were coming into our previous booth and they all got passed. Hey does the booth recognise Americians?! Damn, we finally decided not to exit and made a 50m reverse back onto the main highway , kinda dangerous the way u see our car go reversing in a zig zag route.

Texas : Snowing

2006-12-02T11:12:00.000+08:00

Yeap, it's snowing here. For 1 day only, was thinking of getting thicker snow pic before posting them, but they have all melted. So here's some shots of the little snow I had.

See the pathetic snow on the roof

Texas : Coldest Ever

2006-11-30T11:48:00.000+08:00

Whao! It's 35 farenheit today. That's around 2 deg I think. Cool beans! There was rain just now when we went to Walmart. Lucky it stopped when we finished shopping. Didn't buy much today, but still spent 22 bucks. Think cos i bought more meatballs...haha now i got a total of 120 meatballs in my fridge (how do i noe? coz the packaging counts for u). Think some storm messed up the phone line and now my phone is dead. Imagine getting a call now....spooky.

The maintainance came in today to help us turn up the heater. So thoughtful? But i realised they only do it for us and not Liling and Minh. I supposed coz we're like only 20m away from the admin office and we live in the biggest apartment they could offer. So better services? Anyway I din't like that coz they turned up the heat to 27 degree. That's nice in SG but hell hot here. Was wondering how I'd survive back in SG. Sure melt in the sun.

They say it might snow tmlo and I am not going to miss it!! What's more, there's a chance the company will be closed due to icy roads..wah that's another day for me to nua at home!

Here's a shot of me slacking in my cubicle. Taken with my handphone.

This is the lotion that ah gong wants me to get. Can anyone help me verify this is indeed the one he's refering to? Coz its an after-tan lotion!

Texas : Online Shopping Spree

2006-11-25T15:56:00.000+08:00

Shoe galore! Haha, was doing some calculations on my expenditure so far. Had expected to spend around $1k USD for my 12 weeks here, but so far I have only spent $450USD. And I had enough food to last for the next 2 weeks! A rough estimation would bring my expenditure to $700 USD by the end of the trip. Which left me with $300 extra to spend!

So I did some online shopping for branded goods. It's not those impulse buying, but rather buying with purpose worth every bit of the money.

So here's my Dr Martens Doc Classic for casual wear @ US$64 after discount

And my Clarks leather shoe for work @ US$35 after discount.

I am going to wear them for the rest of my life. Think they can last you a good 5 years at least. Good value, great brand!

Texas : Thanks Giving

2006-11-24T12:29:00.000+08:00

Yeah it's Thanks Giving day! And 4 straight days of holidays! But without Liling the driver, there's no where we can go! So it's a day of slacking...correction...days of slacking for me. I don't think I would wanna drive the car, thou i could. And no car = no where to go! So i guess I will cook up some nice meals or just slack at home till Monday.

So, here's a pix of the meal I had yesterday. I name it as

8 Imperial Treasures Of the West!

Clockwise from top: Chicken Nugget, Meat Ball, Harshbrown, Egg, Broccoli, Corn, Fried Dace and Rice. Sides include orange juice and mushroom soup.

Journey to the Western Food.

You start with boiling potatoes.

Then I shred some halfcooked potatoes to prepare for rosti making.

Now I peel the rest and mashed them for a big tub of mashed potatoes.

Get the ingredients ready, then you cook them!

Halfway there

Chao Tar steak...the 1st one

The 2nd steak looked better!

The failed rosti

Racial Harmony

The finished product! Note it didn't include the rosti..haha

Texas : Hello Chef!

2006-11-21T14:22:00.000+08:00

Minh cooks again! This time it's some kinda viet noodles. Dunno what it's really called but it's got lotsa veg in it. Of all the veg..i only know there's mint leaves and lettuce. The rest are just jargons to me. Really thankful to have Minh here in USA, haha at least I get to eat new type of food and home cooked food instead of TV dinners.

Anyway, been starting to cook my own food since a week ago. Today there's been further improvement! I cooked rice, egg and some broccoli to go with my Yeo's canned curry sauce and some canned fried dace. Nice...but the curry has this coconut smell thats smells like it's abit overdue. Not sure thou coz there wasn't any expiry date on the can. Hopefully it's still edible. Coz I found that the Asian shop we went to does sell some expired canned food.

Today our boss came back and as usual there's more things to do! It's a change for me today as I became the teacher instead of the student! Early morning Liling was attached to me to learn about the web basher. Haha yeah! Then the ironic thing came when some guy came from Belgium and was told to work with me, in the end I became like teaching him what he's going to teach back to the Belgium team! Then towards the end of the day, Peter came in and gave me the web basher's developer's email and told me to email him and work on getting the web basher going and fill Peter in on the details. Wah, what a change today.

Texas : White Rock Park

2006-11-19T11:19:00.000+08:00

If you would like to dive straight into the nice pictures of this place, click here!

Went to White Rock Park today for our weekend outing. Its sorta a change cos it's more of nature stuff and nice scenery. And FREE! Haha, anyway, the place is nice and it's really good weather today to take a walk in the park. The first thing we saw was this huge lake, White Rock Lake which would be big enough to be Singapore's reservoir. Compare to our lake in Singapore...

Enjoying the nice scenery and the cool breeze.

Added this shot coz i tot it was real nice!

Dropped my camera and cracked the lens. Haha, u believe?

Creating the Maple Story

Feed the ducks! The sun was too strong...so it messed up the video.

Out in the lake..

Nice view of the park.

Finally, my dinner!

I skipped alot of stuff here coz I don't want my whole entry to be 10 pages long. But most of the nice pictures can be found here.

Texas : My dinners

2006-11-17T11:07:00.000+08:00

Haha, this is quite a wu liao post, nothing much happened lately. So the only big thing that happened is that i felt that I am starting to eat abit more healthier! So here's a show of what I had for dinner on Tues,Wed and Thurs night!

Tues got banana and a chao tar harshbrown.

Wed is brocolli and pizza..haha okie this is not as healthy

Thurs got TV dinner with egg and broco...and i finished my bag of brocolli le! Nxt week must buy 2 more packs.

Texas : Nothing in the microwave today!

2006-11-14T12:21:00.000+08:00

Yes, today my dinner was cooked without the use of microwave. Remarkable feat, since the day I came the microwave had been working non-stop. Made a trip to Walmart today but the shopping list was kinda different. No TV dinner, but I got oil,eggs,bread, ham and orange juice.(and 2 more packs of Famous Amos since its cheapers than Lays...SGD$4 for 425g) Healthier living from this month on!

Due to the amateurish cook at work, the vegetable oil got burnt and left its black mark on the pan. I guess the temp was too high. Any ideas how to wash it off?

Here's the finished product. Looks nice? Rice and fish stick complimentary of Sam.

Texas : Finally I own a Levi!!

2006-11-13T11:24:00.000+08:00

It's the weekend again! But since I was kinda sick with cough, didn't feel excited about going out either. Anyway, we went to this factory outlet place called Allan and there were lotsa stuff to shop! But i wasn't really super duper excited thou, just looking around. The Puma wasn't cheap, Adiddas & Nike I believed to be cheaper in Thai or Viet.

I did buy some stuff from Levis. Figured its not so expensive since its like SGD$40 for a pair of Levis. Wanted to get 2 initially but the other pair I liked didn't have the Levi's word on the small little red tag beside the back pocket. So I thought since I am buying partly for the brand, I am not going to buy that pair. So I bought only 1 pair in the end. If we're going back there again I might get another one. Else it's just fine. And I bought 2 branded stuff too for my dear. But I am not saying what it is.

Sunday was spent staying at home, which I actually preferred coz I wanted to get my cough off before going to work tmlo. Anyway, thank God it's been better already. Don't need that cough suppressant anymore! I can let Hubba Bubba have it! haha.

Cooked some Koka mee to eat today and it tasted nicer than usual! Sick of TV dinners and pasta...Singaporeans are blessed to have so many choices. Here I can only choose from cheeseburgers or pizza or pasta. Where's my char kway teow, ou jian, laska,mee rubus, chicken rice, mixed vegetable rice, bak kut teh, po piah, ban mian, duck rice, pi dan chok, yong tau foo, chai tao kuey, mee siam, nasi lemak, la mian, xiao long bao, kuey chap and so so much more!

Maggi mee with beef,corn and spinach. Wished I bought egg...its been like 25 days since I have eaten any egg!

Texas : Minh's Bday

2006-11-11T12:57:00.000+08:00

Okie this is a long due post, getting lazy to write everyday I come back. Anyway, think it was Monday that we came back and found our furniture for 1 bedroom was removed. As changing to a 2 room apartment now would incur a penalty charge, they decided to remove the furniture from 1 room to cut the cost..kinda dumb? Then i would rent a 3 bedroom and ask them to remove 2 beds from me. Anyway, here's the empty looking room.

Now, who would have thought Sam and Minh shared such near bday. So I get 2 bday post in a week! For Minh, we figured that she would love to go eat buffet, so we didn't really plan any surprise since bringing her there would ruin everything already. Went back to Best Buffet at night, and there was some new stuff we could take this time!

More pictures here of all the food I took!

Finally, there's some kinda pollen spreading around now. Seems like it's their sorta season for that, and I got myself a cough at this moment. Wondering if it's gotta do with the pollen or it's just coincidental.

Anyway, Hubba Bubba looks sad that I had to drink some cough suppressant.
( That's all they have here ...all off the shelves medication seem to only have suppressant.

Texas : BrianStone Mall

2006-11-09T11:50:00.000+08:00

Okie, here's the long lost post...actually there's something more to blog today but I decided to give this post the chance to go 1st. Went to another shopping mall last Sat and it's a very typical mall. Similar to the one we went to at Colin Creek Mall. Even the shops are identical, they also had Ipod vending machines there. So there's really nothing much to describe there. All the stuff can be seen on my Colin Creek mall post.

Anyway here's the link to the photoalbum for the mall. Click here

After a long walk at the mall, we went to have buffet at Pete's! Don't think it really popular, just another small pizza buffet shop. Like those in Singapore where u have alot of different kinda small chicken rice stores.

Oh something interesting...found my own family brand of products.

Texas : Sam's Bday

2006-11-07T13:18:00.000+08:00

Okie, actually had another post for what we did during the weekend. But I guess getting the bday post on the day itself is much more impt! So...here's a Happy Birthday to Sam on turning 25! We planned to give him a surprise so we came up with a plan...haha. Here goes...Minh and Liling were supposed to go to buy cake and chicken after work, while I am supposed to lure Sam to the gym. Haha, when we leave the house, I would take out the trash so that when they come over, they know nobody's at home when they see the bag of trash. So we went to the gym and I used the stepper machine today as it was easier and I could last longer on it! haha, to give the girls enuff time to buy and prepare their stuff. Anyway, all went pretty well for the plan! And he got a big SURPRISE!

Texas : Halloween

2006-11-03T11:52:00.000+08:00

Okie, this is an outdated post, wasn't really intending to blog about it since we didn't celebrate it. But since I am here at 745pm still waiting for Liling to finish her stuff with the siao on boss...I might as well create an entry on notepad and transfer it later.

Went to Walmart on Halloween to stock up on food (attack of the killer donuts) and TV dinners when I saw this cute looking sweet container ( and with sweets inside too!). So I decided to buy 3 and I'm gonna give a pair of it to my dear. Bought the extra green one coz I thot it could glow in the dark but I was cheated! Haha. Anyway that sums up my Halloween. No trick or treats!

Donuts line up for battle...but they lost to my overpowering teeth.

I am Hubba Bubba Ali Baba!

Texas : Dallas Zoo

2006-11-01T12:10:00.000+08:00

Okie, the zoo is supposed to be on Sunday, but i was tired when I got back, and Monday I went to the gym. So here's the Zoo update today.

In case you guys miss the link to the photo, ( I realised ppl can't see link towards end of post), here's the link to the zoo pixs.

The admission was $8.75 and the train ride took around 55 mins. That's like from Khatib to CommonWealth!

There are too many pix to be shown here...so i'd just put 2 and the rest of the video links here.

The zoo is a dangerous place....

But I have learnt to be strong!

Once again...you can click this link to see the rest of the pixs...

Here's a nice puppet show

Some kinda goat

Squirrel eatting nut

Naughty ah mengs throw pebbles at me and shook my cam!!

Gorrila backside also nice

Texas : Dallas Farmers Market

2006-10-29T12:01:00.000+08:00

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!!!

2006-10-28T10:46:00.000+08:00

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!

2006-10-26T11:09:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-25T11:11:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-23T10:30:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-22T22:20:00.000+08:00

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!

2006-10-21T12:31:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-20T11:34:00.000+08:00

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.

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.
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.
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!!
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!!

2006-10-19T09:39:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-18T11:17:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-17T10:41:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-16T15:18:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-14T02:41:00.000+08:00

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!