my mumble in a jumble

completing the uncompleted

2008-08-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

*blows dust off independentpjgirl.blogspot *

ah-chhhOooo!! ohman, what alot of dust.... *sniff*sniff*

well, it's been awhile since I last blogged eh? hehe.. during one of my mamak sessions last week, my friends were commenting about how dead my 'dead' blog has been.

*pooof* all of a sudden I just felt that even though I may not have the time/ inspiration to blog, I should just finish blogging about the Work & Travel episode of my life. not very nice to have things left hanging la...=)

exactly one year ago, at this time of the year, it was my last few days working for Anheuser Busch. travelling plans up north from Orlando to Washington DC and then to New York were already confirmed.

goodbyes were said to the place we called home for 3 months and as usual, goodbyes are never easy. it was a good thing we placed 'travelling' as the closure for our Work and Travel adventure because it really helped speed up the recovery from the 'goodbye syndromes'.

At Washington DC, I separated from the group because I stayed with my aunt and family who lives in Maryland, Annapolis (about an hour drive away from Washington DC). Well, I felt kind of sad to leave the group, yet excited to meet my long, lost, faraway relatives.

After only 2 nights at Peck-bee koko's beautiful house, I had to leave to meet the rest of the gang at New York. THREE CHEERS AND HURRAY for the Independentpjgirl (ME!) who braved herself and took the notorious yet surprisingly reliable GreyHound coach up to New York, ALL BY HERSELF! Clunging not only to my life but also my stuff (2 mega luggages and 2 hand luggages), I slept (and pretended to sleep) through the entire journey to prevent myself from thinking that I was going to get robbed/stabbed/shot by the really weird yo-yo people on the bus. Manz, I tell you..the yo-yo people, they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes!

As soon as I got off the Greyhound coach, I saw Seok Kheng and the rest of the gang all waiting for me at the New York bus station...wow..until today, i still don't know how to describe the feeling I felt at that moment when I saw their faces. It was like as if all of my 5 senses were triggered at one go!..haha..i just felt really, really relieved, happy, loved and most importantly ..SAFE!haha.. THANKS SEOKIE, WEIMING, JM, WL, SUEN and JF for saving me!

And that marked the beginning of our adventure in the Big Apple... Picture time!!

to the right, to the right!..brooklynn bridge!

kawaii des nehhhh~!

the famous bull at Wall Street

Doing the Donald Trump's Trumpet shaped lips

Ground Zero - emo

Yellow cabs, mega sized billboards, lights and action...Welcome to Times Square!

ohman! it's David Letterman!

Chillin' at Central Park

Like as if we really stayed on Fifth Avenue

Uptown Girls

History lessons for Bangla

2008-01-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

Before Suen's parents came to visit us, we had no idea about the existence of St Augustine.

Thinking back, we must have been crazy!

If you ever go to Florida, don't ever miss out on visiting St Augustine, also known as the Ancient City or the Nation's Oldest City.

St Augustine has such a long history but I would try to explain briefly (hopefully accurately as well) so that you all won't get too bored. hehe!

Hundreds of years ago, a hot Spanish guy, Ponce De Leon, was on a quest to find for the Fountain of Youth. It was believed that anyone who drank the water from the fountain would never grow old.

In his search, Ponce de Leon stumbled upon the first city of Florida, St Augustine. Being a blurhead, he didn't know that he landed in North America, he thought he landed on some island that had lots of flowers. Also not very creative, he named the island 'La Florida' which meant 'Land of Flowers' in Spanish.

Because hundreds of years ago there was no such thing as DOTA, the old boys got bored easily and found joy sailing from one place to another to bomb and attack each other. Somehow the French boys managed to establish a fort in St Augustine, driving the Spain people out of their territory. And as usual, the Spanish people decided to fight back to protect their land and after bombing here and there, the French people got fried.

However, thats not the end yet. The Bristish people, who enjoy being in every history textbook, decided to cause some trouble and established colonies in Georgia and the Carolinas. To protect Florida from the Brits, Spain authorized the building of a stone fort which has a really u-la-la name, Castillo de San Marcos.

Don't ask me what happened after that cos we had to leave St Augustine which is 3 hours away from Orlando... and... if we were late Krispy Kreme would be out of Glazed Doughnuts. YUM!

haha..

Fountain of Youth

Bluff you-la, it was some random fountain

Castillo de San Marcos

Some locals that brought history out to life and some banglas that had no life.

The Old Schoolhouse - boring place

Looks like a cowboy town ya?

Ponce de Leon, founder of La Florida!!

Yo, Leon, how's tha weather up there??

Wax statutes that were rejected and left outside the shop

The lighthouse which we circled 3 times wishing for CAP 5

banglas get FREE entry into Universal Studios

2007-12-21T00:49:00.000-08:00

The lyrics of the patriotic song 'America the Beautiful' :

America..America!!! From Sea to Shining Seaaaaa....

should be changed to

'America!America!! The land where banglas get everything FREEEE~!!'

haha..

As employees of Anheuser Busch, we get unlimited free entrance into Universal Studios, Busch Gardens and Seaworld. That's why after 3 months in Florida : The Land of Theme Parks, we Banglas, had an overdose of theme park rides and we slowly gained immunity towards even the scariest monster Roller Coasters.

Anyway, Universal Studios Orlando is divided into 2 different parks :

Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida

The attractions founds in Islands of Adventure brought the Marvel comics ( Spiderman, X-Men, Incredible Hulk), stories by Dr Seuss (Cat in the Hat) and Jurassic Park all out to life!

the gila Hulk roller coster!

out of no where got mist and water 'booooff!!' on your face!

jurassic park! another gila ride that gives you free showers!

Wet rides are cursed: if you say you don't want to get wet, you would surely get terribly wet!

stupids asians in action again : don't need to buy, take photo enough!

take photo still not enough...

must pose first then laugh-laugh-laugh until satisfied then only leave the shop..

Put yourself in a comic strip! Great photo effect..

Looks like i'm being pulled by the dog ya?Actually i'm standing like this looking very silly...

and i wasn't shouting 'Marmaduke!' ,

i was shouting

'BENSON! hurry up and snap the photolaaaa...people looking at me-LA!!!'...grrr..

Universal Studios Florida is where the attractions are based on TV shows and movies like Twister, Shrek, Mummy Returns and i can't remember what elsela..hehe..

Turkey Legs are sold as snacks in most theme parks. Because the drumstick is disgustingly huge, only the first few bites are yummy..after that you would start

feeling sick of the taste of meat..

eee...so unglam..

the whole set up in Universal Studios is really unique, as you walk you would feel as though you are walking down the streets of a movie setting.

So since we were kinda of like in a movie...we decided to have some fun posing to bring the settings and scenes alive! haha...

Waiting for Bus 143 to Orchard
Geng Mafia

OH! Must not forget Barney Land! haha... SK, JF and I actually queued up to watch the Barney Live Show whereby 70% of the audience were kids, 29% were parents and 1% were people who had very Barney deprived childhood (us included!)...haha..it was so funla!
Yap Eng Han and Yap Rou Jin!! this picture is for you!! Aye, Aye Captain!

dream come true for banglas!

2007-12-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

Walt DisneyWorld ~ Where dreams come true ~

Our bangla dreams really did come true at this Magical place. We visited Disneyworld 4 times and managed to enter all 4 parks for FREE! Unbelievable but true!

How we did it? well, this time around, we used Stupid Asians Trick # 15 : You need lots of nerves. Stupid Asians Trick # 14 : Squeeze some tears, doesn't really work in this context.

Magic Kingdom

It all started from JF. She actually went up to the IRide bus driver and asked him if he had any relatives working for Disney ( Disney employees can bring in a total of 18 people into the park for free per employment year). By some luck, he really did and he was even nice enough to pick JF, SK & JM up and drove them into Disney! Don't worry, he wasn't some hamsap kwai um hai lam yan!..he is a living proof that nice people still do exist in this stinking world!

wink-wink-blink-blink

Anyway, at Disney, SK aka mafia made friends with a Hongkie student who was working as a cashier and with her 'wink-wink-blink-blink' skills, he fell head over heels and tadaaaaa...from that day onwards we had free access to Disney (and in future maybe Hong Kong Disneyland too). haha!

The 2 guys with specs are our new found Disney Hong Kong Friends

The Epcot Durian ..!

Their uniforms are so much cuter than my walking flower basket

Stupid Asians - Don't need to buy, just take photo

This is quite cool! Out of nowhere you can find pictures of Mickey painted out of water from water puddles

bangla goes wild!

2007-10-24T01:21:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Everglades National Park, Naples

Yup! Stop rubbing your eyes~!

You are really seeing Suen's parents in the photos! Aunty & Uncle came to visit for 3 weeks. They were really happening! Travelling from one place to another, nonstop! Suen and I had to work so we couldn't really tag along with them..we only manage to follow them to Naples and St. Augustine

Naples is such a beautiful place! A small fishing town with hundreds of boats 'parked' at the Naples dock. Uncle enjoys fishing alot and he kept saying that it is his dream to own a boat just like the ones out at the docks.

At Everglades, we took the airboat into the mangroves swamps to get a closer look at nature and.....real life alligators.

the view ...wow~

I thought that eating alligator nuggets was part of the airboat package but it turns out to be that we only get to hold them in our hands, not chew them in our mouths.

Suen & I practiced carrying soft toy alligators before the real thing...haha

Thanks Aunty & Uncle for the wonderful trip to Everglades!

bangla goes to miami!

2007-10-19T05:18:00.001-07:00

wohoOo...

Will Smith's 'We're going down my alley (miami), Bienvenidos a mi alley'
still rings in my head everytime i think about miami...

7 hours car ride from orlando to miami

Thank God we survived!...

WELCOME TO MIAMI!

Miami South Beach

ohwow! so pretty ya?

......i meant the girls..not the beach...haha

the cookie so big, but the coffee cup so small

crazy Ang-mohs!

cute cuban coffee aka cuban crack.

no, we didn't smoke no crack, it's called cuban crack cause the coffee is sooooo strong after drinking it you feel a lil crack..haha

we were so fascinated by the cute cup and wanted to snap pictures of it. on the other hand, the guy who ordered the coffee was so fascinated by us (stupid asians..haha) being so fascinated by the cup that he treated us to a free cup!

the old guy told us

'Ola, ola! if you haven't tasted a Cuban Coffee, you've never been to Miami!'

and so, all 11 of us stupid asians shared that one small cup of coffee..

(yuks.. the coffee tasted like cough medicine..so bitter! no wonder they give such a small cup.)

We stayed at Jazz Hostel for 2 nights. Nice small room with 3 bunk beds and a bathroom that has no ventilation (if you shower for too long you may die due to lack of oxygen).

We paid only USD 25 a night per person which was really cheap. No needla to stay in posh hotels because the average time we spent in the rooms was only about 6 hours. the rest of the time we are out causing chaos..and taking pictures of EVERYTHING!

and so that was Miami...

ok..ok..i cheated and left out alot of info about the trip but aiyo, nvmla k

next stop, EVERGLADES!

Not that Bangla Afterall..

2007-09-03T04:09:00.000-07:00

ohooOOooo...

yayaya....i know..i know..

eh, it's not that i didn't want to update when i was in Florida...the internet connection was really bad...and also...i wasn't exactly physically fit enough to blog due to unforseen circumstances.... like...erm...last minute shopping and travelling... haha..

so don't angry,ya...

see!! i took a picture just for all of you...

awww....yea, i know..you feel like melting right?...hehe

Not that bangla afterall

Work

Discovery Cove is divided into 2 parts; beach area and the island area.

In each area there is a snack bar which serves free flow of drinks and snacks and BEER (actually its not exactly free, the guest already paid for it in the overpriced USD279 entrance fee..)

And…in the snack bar lies a cute Malaysian girl …*wink*

The work I do don’t require much brains, need more energy and semangat.

Since there are only 3 people working at the bar each time, I have to work from the opening till the closing of the bar which is roughly from 9am till 6.30pm daily.

At the bar, we don’t have menus so I’m the menu. Everday I have to repeat the same things over and over again.

1) May I help you sir/maam?

2) *shouts* Can I help somebody please?!?! (I use this when there is a big crowd and nobody seems to be able to decide what they want to order)

3) Would you like salt on your pretzel?

4) Types of soda? Erm..(takes a deep breath)..we have Pepsi, Diet pepsi, Cherry Pepsi, Sierra Mist, Orange soda, Lemonade, Fruit punch and Mountain dew (ask me to repeat again and i'll kick u…grrr)

5) Those bottles? Oh, they are wine coolers. Like a malt beverage. 5% in alcohol. Comes in 4 flavours, strawberry,cranberry, blueberry and citrus.

6) Coffee? We have cappuccino, caffe latte, regular white or black coffee. What kind of coffee would you like sir/maam?

7) Would you like any flavourings in your coffee? We have vanilla, hazelnut and almond.

8) Aviary? Ok, just keep to your left around the corner. The aviary would be on your right hand side. The entrance is a rocky area.

9) Restrooms? Just next to the bar, it’s the blue building. (the restrooms are too clean..otherwise I would just ask the guests to follow the toilet smell..haha)

10) Beer? Yea, we have lots of beer. You want a light or dark beer? For light we have Michelob Light, Michelob Ultra Light, BudLight, Budselect. Dark beer we have Amber Bock. We also have Landshark which is something like a Corona, Beach Bum our seasonal brew and O Douls our non-alcoholic beer (???)

11) Anything else sir/maam?!?!

So besides repeating the same thing to about 800 guests everyday, work was really fun!

During my first three weeks, my best friend at work was Oak, guy from Thailand.

Oak left without taking a picture with me so i had to resort to stealing this picture from Benson

My second best friend was Ron from Phillipines...sigh..no picture of him too.. :(

They were really nice to me, teaching me how to set up the bar, how to pour beer, how to close the bar and how to say bad words in Thai or Tagalog..hehe.

Their contract ended early July so after working with them for 3 weeks, they had to leave.

Ohman..I miss them lots! >_<

When they were around, I was really spoilt. They did all the heavy work like transporting the stocks across the sand under the hot sun, carrying and refilling the ice bin and washing the floors. After they left, I had to do all the MAN-ly work. I transport stocks that weigh more then myself to the bar every morning and come home with a sore back..but it’s ok, I’m a strong independent pj girl! =)

look at that smile, man! trash! gimme more!!woohooo!

Besides Oak and Ron, there's Old Ron

(my fav old guy!..he is 68years old but still so hip and happening!)

And, Mirline!!! My laughing and gossiping partner! ...you go girl!! uh-huh!! haha..

There was Sarah, my 'spot the lifeguard' partner..*wink*.. hehe...

but no picture taken with her.. :(

Oh!! Not forgetting, my lovely Laguna Grill Thai friends..They kept feeding me and showed me how to 'work smart' and fast..hehe...love you all lots, Nan, Khai, Miao,Reen, Tokyo, KASAMA, Peet, Hoho, Tammy

And last and the least..eh..i mean..not the least...DEREK! grrrr....he is ALWAYS annoying me and asking me if whether we have houses in Asia, whether we have cars....whether we eat cats...*sweat*

haha...ok-ok...he isn't all that bad..he can be quite cute, funny and entertaining!

After I close the bar, I normally take up extra shifts at the main restaurant, Laguna Grill, to do DISHES!

DISHES may sound bad..but..i think it's really fun! especially when you do it together with lots of crazy people...

We worked hard when we were in Orlando. Really hard. So hard that sometimes I don't believe it myself. We don't care if we were asked to do trash or sweep or even shine the dumpster!...because we know at the end of the day we would gain great frienships, nice toned muscles, a great tanned skin, a whole lot of fun & funnier memories, a stronger heart and mind and ....teng..teng...teng...

excessive 'tai-tai shopping' (guess watches, guess shades, coach pouch, levis jeans, forever21 jewellery, Victoria Secret perfume,VERY SEXY makeup..hahaha...)!

haha...bankruptla si high class bangla..*wink*

for real, it was great!

Can't wait to be a Bangla

2007-05-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

18th May

JF& I will be working at Discovery Cove while everyone else would be working at Seaworld.

Just a rough description of Discovery Cove: DC is a by reservations only park and the entrance fee is USD 279 per pax for a day (crazy). The place is really exclusive and is a man made island beach place. Guests get to swim with dolphins, stingrays and get a free flow of food and beverages. Only 1000 guests are allowed to enter DC each day which makes it even more ooh-lala...

Those working at Seaworld started work today whereas JF & I had to go for an extra training at DC today. We went for a short tour around DC and wou…it’s so pretty..but honestly USD279 for a day there is really to expensivela…can use that money to eat 300 packets of chicken rice with extra egg somemore! Sheesh…these rich people..

Everyone came back home with fun stories about their first day of work today. I hope my job would be fun….i start work on Monday and I can’t wait to come home with stories too!!

Ohya! I prepared dinner tonight! Fried chicken with broccoli and carrots! Looks good ya?..the fried chicken is cheating one, just have to heat up in the oven..haha..

Bangla Reality begins

2007-05-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

17th May

After 2 days of fun, the Bangla Party begins. We got into our really weird uniforms for our culinary training. Ohya, forgot to mention that all of us are in culinary operations. Only WL is in operations. Culinary operations means helping out with the food business; cooking, serving, preparing, stealing food back for dinner (haha) and etc.

Our uniforms make us look really MANly and the shorts increases your hips size by 10 sizes. Our shirts makes us look either like a walking aquarium (SK&JM), tablecloth(WM), magic carpet(Suen) or a basket of flowers(JF & me).

After training, Suen & I made chicken carrot porridge for dinner. Must practice our culinary skills before works starts…hehe. Indepentpjgirls can cook too, oh-kay!
Erm, ok, a small secret…I cut my finger with the knife when I tried to cut the carrot bag open. My finger started bleeding and I felt faint. Suen the St John member helped me plaster my finger while I kept my eyes closed…ouch!!
Our chicken carrot porridge was really yummy! We ate it with mama’s love fried shallots, crispy keropoky stuff and some fried dried prawns too. Oooohh…yummy!!

Bangla's day out 2!

2007-05-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

16th May

Went to Seaworld for training & employment paperwork. After that we went to watch Shamu show at the park. Shamu is the name of the killer whale which is like the Ronald McDonald of Mcdonalds. We watch the really smart killer whales jump up and down doing really cool stunts and splashing water here and there. The whales had a really musky cheesy smell but other than that they were really cute! I wish I could go into the water to sayang them!

After the Shamu show, Seokie wanted to go back to International Drive to return the shoes she bought yesterday. Seokie Meokie tried on size 8 but brought home size 8W. 8W is a wider then size 8 and we didn’t realize that until she tried it on back in the apartment.

Suen, JM and WL wanted to go to Downtown Disneyland so we went on our separate ways. I wished we could have gone together but I guess it’s okla. I just hope we don’t keep going on our separate ways otherwise it would defeat the main reason we joined this program – to experience US together.

Seokie & I asked WM & JF to come along with us to International Drive since they haven’t been there. They whole journey Seokie & I kept annoying WM..haha..JF is picking up on the skill too…jiayou JF!haha..opss..*innocent*

After changing the shoes, we went to try IHOP (International House Of Pancakes)…yummy!! Four of us shared a one person’s portion banana walnut buttermilk pancake. One person’s portion actually comes with 4 pieces of pancakes! Madness! No wonder obesity is at a very critical rate here in US. I don’t want to get obesed!!!Save me!!
After pancakes, we went to the McD’s nearby. That McDees is the world’s most unique McDees. The building is in a French fries shape and inside..ohmygoodness! you really don’t feel like you’re in a McDs. They have an arcade upstairs and the place is divided into kid’s area, McD bistro gourmet and a normal eating area. They have over 30 plus variety of food to choose from: 10 plus kinds of burgers and 10 plus kinds of wraps and pizza’s and salads and pasta and etc. Crazyla! So unMcdonald-lish! Felt like a mini foodcourt!

Banglas' day out

2007-05-20T15:16:00.001-07:00

15th May

Exploring around Florida

Before we went exploring, we had to go settle some stuff at the Seaworld office. On our way out, we got lucky and this Singaporean guy we nicked named Mr. C offered to give us a ride in his convertible. We all never sat in a convertible before and started jacooning around again. After settling all the Seaworld office business, we headed of to International Drive, one of the most happening roads around where all the buildings and civilizations are. First stop, International Drive Fleamarket. JM & I got our cool shades here. $10 for 2 pairs. Cheap and cool, eh? JM used her really funny bargaining method to bargain for us..haha..I’m still not used to wearing the shades but the sun is really intense in the afternoons and if you don’t wear shades, you feel like your eyeballs are frying up...ewwwwWe also visited the Adidas Outlet store. Ohmymama!! Everyone control-control- must not buy anything-bangla must wait till get first pay only can go shopping.
Suen & I just randomly picked some caps to pose for pics and ohoo…I just fell in love with the blue cap I tried. And…teng,teng,teng..I sinned. I bought it!haha…it was toooo preeetyyy! And, I didn’t bring a cap so..hehe..nevermindla ya? *wink* After that, we just kept walking and walking. Stopping here and there to take pictures like a bunch of crazy tourists.

We had lunch at Denny Diners. The portions are super huge! 5 of us shared a 2 people’s portion and an appetizer. Drinks were refillable for free too! The waiters and waitresses were really friendly and we really enjoyed our meal there. Thumbs up, yoyo!! Haha..it’s the American way, yo!

Training up the banglas

2007-05-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

14th May

Orientation plus training

It was like a 4 hour lecture. We learnt about the company we are working for (Anheuser Bush), safety issues, service with a smile & bla..bla..bla..It wasn’t really that boring but there were a lot of waiting time because we had to get our uniforms and go for a terrible drug test! We were required to give hair samples for our drug test from 3 different spots on our scalp. So terrible& membotakkan!

After orientation, we were allowed to enter Seaworld and play the rides. WM, JF, Ernie & I sat the Kraken, the highest roller coaster I’ve ever sat! waaahh….super mendebarkan! Turn and twist and fly and spin until my organs all felt like they were in the wrong places. But it was really funla! I can’t wait for Suen to be ready to sit Kraken with me. It would be really crazy!

House away from home..

2007-05-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

The journey was quite uncomfy because the plane seats were rather squashy. Everyone didn’t really get to sleep well on the plane but I slept quite a lot. I sat next to WM in the plane to Los Angelas. WM didn’t get to sleep because he said I kicked and elbowed him in my sleep. Whoops..!! haha..sorry WM!! It was such a loooooong journey across the other side of the world and although we were super tired, everything seemed so exciting!

When we reached the airport in Los Angelas, there were sooo many people and the place was just all messed up. We only had 3 plus hours to rush through the super chaotic checkpoints and we were just running from place to place. Because of the mess, Suen, JM and WL missed the flight to Florida and were delayed by a few hours. I was quite worried about them but thankfully, they got help from the very helpful airport people and everything turned out fine.

When we reached Florida airport, we were greeted by the Seaworld people. There were altogether 30 students from Singapore who were on the same program as us and we were brought to our resort : Westgate Leisure Resort

Yeah, I was stunned too. I didn’t expect the resort to be that ooh-lala! I was jacooning around going ‘wowww, ooooo, cool’ as I looked around. The apartment is really pretty! The kitchen is really complete- a perfect mama kitchen. The best part of the kitchen is it has a dishwasher! Hehe..(P/S: Boss, I changed my mind. Next time I won’t use paper plates in my house. I will buy a dishwasher!!! Aren’t you proud of me?? *wink*)

While waiting for the 3 lost girls to arrive, we had our first meal in Florida! YUMMY!
We unpacked and then we just slacked aroud watching TV…cin ho miah ah!!! Hehe..After the girls arrived at the resort safely, we went grocery shopping at a nearby SUPERmarket, Publix. It’s a real SUPERmarket, I tell you! SUPER big! Everything here looks extra BIG! The pizza’s, the oranges, the boxes of juice…everything!First dinner in Florida : NASI LEMAK!! YUM!!

Miracle Sambal

2007-05-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

At Changi, Independentpjgirl faced her first cabaran : Cabaran Sambal

This entry is a must read!

At the Changi airport hand baggage checkpoint, the customs were really very strict. No form of liquids or aerosol were allowed in hand luggages. I didn’t have any liquidy or aerosolly stuff in my bag but I had my mama’s love sambal in my backpack. I thought foodstuff would be able to pass the customs but ohno…the custom lady told me I can’t bring it on board and she would have to throw it away! I tried to explain to her and Seokie explained that my mum spend the whole day making it for us. We also tried talking to the big man in charge but he also told us ‘no’.

The moment I saw the big man throw my bottle of sambal into the bin, I just couldn’t control myself and I cried all the way into the plane right up to my seat. It was quite embaressing and everyone was looking at me but I just couldn’t stop crying. I kept thinking about all the trouble my mum had to go through just to make the sambal for me and *poof* it was gone just like that. It was really weird, maybe at that moment I somehow just missed home.

However, as Seokie was trying to comfort me in the plane, suddenly the big man came walking down the aisle…WOUUUU!! He was looking for me and asked me to follow him back into the airport! I was super shocked and still crying at that time I followed him out of the plane to the custom checkpoint place. He explained to me that they could give the sambal back to me but I may have problems at the US custom checkpoint. I felt like hugging him at that moment..haha…but cannotla! Later he don’t want to give me back my sambal then… that’s the end of the world, o! The custom lady took my sambal out of the bin and as she handed the bottle to me she said ‘mother’s love is always the best love’…ohdear, make me cry even more..so bad!..haha..but at that time i was really in disbelief!!! I hugged the sambal like as if it was pohchim…hehe. The big man put the sambal in a China Airlines envelope and told me to not to worry anymore.

At the US customs, it was another miracle that I didn’t have any trouble with the sambal at all! Thank God! The sambal made it to Florida!!!!wheee~!

It was a real miracle I tell you! REALLY Unbelievable! I wish I got the big man’s name so I could thank him..'THANK YOU BIG CHANGI MAN!'

Truly, ‘mother’s love is the best love’…it comes with a form of miracle and protection too. ;)
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY MAMA!!

Goodbye Changi..see you in 3 months!!

2007-05-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

12th May 2007

The night before we left, Ylian & Boss prepared a mini farewell for Mafia & I…They were super sweet and made us feel super loved…awwww! They bought some yummy-tummy donuts for us from Vivo and helped us carry our super heavy luggages into hall. We ate, laughed and crapped the night away. Thanks soooo much ya! Mafia & I are missing you & you lots!!

The next morning, YLian, Boss, Dr Colin, Laur and Andy sent us (WM, Seokie & I) off at Changi airport. Lil Chew came too!!

The journey to Florida was supppperrr long! Madness!

Changi airport to Taipei = 4hrs 45mins
Transit at Taipei = 4hours
Taipei Los Angelas = 11hrs 45mins
Transit at LA = 4hrs
Los Angelas Florida 4hrs 45minsTotal travel period = 29hrs 15mins

Updates from Florida!!

2007-05-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!! Really sorry for the late update. We don’t have internet connection in our apartments. If we want to get wireless connection, we have to pay USD30 for a 6 days connection…super expensive! We can get free wireless but we have to walk out to the main lobby area which is quite far out, about 5-10mins walk.

Okie, now that you know I’m innocent for the late updates, let’s get started with the fun stuff! Whoopee!!!

11th May 2007

Packing madness!

Suen & I shared a luggage filled with foodstuff : instant noodles (enough to feed a kampung), barley (*blink*blink*wink*wink), chrysanthemum tea, ginseng herbal chicken soup, bak kut teh, tae koi noi, mama’s miracle sambal, mama’s love fried shallots and fried dried prawns.
Super crazy! I think we can open a mini grocery shop when we reach Florida. Maybe I can serve my barley love drink too…eh, now upgraded to 3 barley flavours already, oh-kay!! Hehe…

opening ceremony!

2007-05-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

hello and welcome to you & you & you & you!!!

welcome to the mini opening ceremony of the independentpjgirl blog! yaaay!!*applause*

erm... i hope you would stay tuned with this blog even though we don't serve free food at the end of the opening ceremony..hehe

as some of you already know, the independentpjgirls are going to Florida for 3 months under a Work&Travel program. therefore, i thought a blog would be good to keep you & you & you & you updated.. ;)

i would TRY my best to update regularly & post lots of pretty pictures. it really depends on whether i can get good internet connection, acerman's mood (acerman is my laptop..when he gets HOT, his screen changes colour...i'm serious!) and if i have the time to blog.

anyway, stay tuned ya!!...stay awake too! don't let me catch you dozing off!haha...