Archive for October, 2008

Happy Halloween

October 30, 2008

Short update from yours truly.

Tomorrow is Halloween, the ang mo version of the Chinese “Hungry Ghost” festival/month, you get my drift lah. And what do these angmo go out and do? They wear costumes and knock door to door asking for candy. Hmmm the Cina version is to stay IN the house, AWAY from all the roaming spirits. So what does that say about the angmo’s? Yes, they are insane. I’m just being a smartass, don’t take me seriously. (Hi honey )

Speaking of the honey, Rob has a new blog up. Yeah I know, like he updates the one his has now often enough right? Well this new blog has some nice features. I personally like the Yahoo smileys. It’s so much easier to blog with, as compared to my where I have to type in the html code of the smileys location blah blah blah. Too much work! But at the same time I like incorporating the Yahoo smileys in my post.

His new blog is on WordPress which I find very fascinating and have wanted to convert over for the longest time but never had the time to do it because it’s going to take quite a lot of work on my part. (Whew, that was a really long sentence. Try reading it with one breath. I did, that took work! Heh ). I’ve linked his blog and the address is http://www.windycityblogger.com/

I’ve been busy editing chapters and re-reading them. I try to take the criticism as constructive as possible and try to think light of the situation and ALSO laugh at myself for the mistakes I make.

I had a ice blended cappucino during dinner so I will be up for a while. Might as well use this caffeine buzz on the thesis. Til then, have a great weekend all.

MOA: Epilogue

October 28, 2008

The night before we left MOA, we decided to try a restaurant that I have been quite curious about ever since Rob told me about it years ago. Since I didn’t try it the first time I was in the US, I thought it would be nice to buy Rob a good dinner, like a VERY early or late birthday dinner, depending on how you see it. Heh (His birthday is in January by the way).

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The restaurant is called Rainforest Cafe.

What’s so special about this place is the decor. Everything is based on the rainforest. They even have fake rain and thunder while you dine, with added sound effects of animals like monkeys, lions, birds etc. They have aquariums…

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They have huge parrots…

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Heck, they even have an alligator swamp.

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UNFORTUNATELY, Rob and I had a terrible waitress. I think her name is Jessie. Her service was disgustingly bad. It almost ranks right up there with MFM. The place was packed that night but we got a table in about 15 minutes, which was not that bad.

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Before the food disaster

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He’s just so adorable!

We ordered fried calamari as an appetizer. Rob went to the bathroom while I waited for our food. Fifteen minutes or so later, some guy came with the calamari. I sat and stared at the calamari because no one had given us any eating silverware (fork & knife). When Rob came back from the bathroom (about a few minutes later), we still had no silverware. The calamari looked dry and didn’t seem warm at all.

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Eventually Jessie came over to check on our food, and we requested silverware and then she FINALLY brought us some. That took almost five minutes itself. I mean, how long can it take for you to go to the working station, grabbed a couple sets of silverware and bring it to the customers? I decided to let it go. I took a bit at the calamari and it was COLD and soggy. Rob disliked it too. We waved to Jessie and told her about it.

Guess what she did? She stands next to me, one hand on her hip, the other on the back of my chair, looking down at us like we did something wrong and said “So what do you want me to do about it?” Rob and I looked at each other, shocked. Then Rob said “This is cold, how do you expect us to eat this?” Her response was “Well it’s cold because it’s been sitting there so long to which I looked at her in disbelief and said “Yeah, cause we had NO SILVERWARE to eat it”. Rob then proceeded to tell her we would like a new batch of calamari.

She takes the lousy calamari and comes back in less than 5 minutes and say “Here, there just came out of the fryer”. How is that possible? One, it doesn’t take 2 minutes to fry calamari and two, even if it was “just out of the fryer” it would’ve burnt my tongue when I ate it. We presumed that what she did was throw the plate in the microwave and heated it up, which explained why the calamari was so tough to bite on.

That wasn’t the only thing that pissed us off. Rob ordered a hamburger and asked for fries as opposed to the potato chips. But it came with potato chips. We let her know of her mistake and she went off, came back with a plate of french fries that were again “fresh from the fryer”. Funny, it was just warm, not burning hot, NOT just out of the fryer.

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I ordered some form of pasta which Jessie highly recommended because “it’s SO GOOD”. I was disappointed. It wasn’t that good at all. More spicy and oily than anything as you can see.

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The meal costed about USD60, with tax and tip and all. Nonetheless I was really unhappy, not because it was pricey but because the service sucked and the food was just borderline “ok”. It wasn’t great food, it wasn’t tongue-twisting delicious. It was just edible, for the lack of other terms. Rainforest Cafe at MOA really isn’t as good after all. (Note: Found out Jessie “no longer works” there when the manager of that location called to apologize for the lousy service and food after Rob emailed and blasted them. We got the money refunded! HAHAHA)

The next morning, we went back to MOA for one last run. Actually, my last run. Heh

Ahhhhhhhhhhh…pure satisfaction as I left MOA but at the same time…

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Sad to be leaving because I still could not get enough of MOA.

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At the parking bay

Then I asked to camwhore outside MOA, so Rob drove us to the front entrance of MOA.

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MOA at the palm of my hand

It was really windy outside the mall. Here’s how windy it was.

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Then what followed was Rob and I trying to camwhore together. After many attempts, this was probably the best picture we could take, with the sun glaring on our eyes, and the wind blowing in our face, which explains our hair and Rob’s squinting eyes. I was wearing shades.

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And we were off on our journey to Rockford. We spent a couple nights there and visited the Anderson Japanese Garden (which I probably will blog about next).

We didn’t take the scenic route on the way back because it looked as if it was going to rain. As you can see from the picture below, we were driving towards the gray clouds.

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Half sunny, half cloudy

Even though we didn’t take the scenic route, there were some nice views along the way to Rockford. I know I’ve said this a gazillion times (maybe less ) but I love seeing the countryside, with the farms, fields and lushes trees. Something about them gives me this feeling of serenity. It was a plus that I got to see some sheep grazing.

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As nightfall approached and my contant whining drove Rob insane we stopped at a town (which I totally forgot the name) for dinner. We ate at Perkins Restaurant! If you remembered from my previous post, I did take a picture of a Perkins Restaurant in Winona but the one we ate at was another location.

As we were seated in our booth, I noticed a man in a blue shirt and long hair. He looked up at me and smiled. I politely smiled back. We were seated a few feet from where he was standing. It looked as if he was shaping a balloon animal. Curious, I stalked continued to watch what he was doing. Then our waitress told us that it was Kids’ Nights at Perkins and that there was an entertainer in the restaurant.

He glanced up and saw me watching him, while I shyly looked away. LOL I didn’t want to seem rude from staring at him. Then I looked at him again, while he was shaping a long red balloon into a heart. I thought it was cute and told Rob to look. He turned around and this guy was just going crazy with the balloon. Within a minute, he had finished his task.

He walked over to us and presented me with the balloon. I was pleasantly surprised!

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By the way, that’s Apricot salmon with mash potatoes, corn, and bread

So cute right? Rob later on commented that it was weird that the guy knew to make a PINK flower with a HEART, of which I both love.

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Don’t quite remember his name

Anyway, this guy proceeded to give us a personal magic show. I didn’t mange to take a video of it because I was still in awe over the balloon thing. Heh

I remembered inspecting the rubber bands, and they were perfectly normal rubber bands. He somehow looped them together into a chain. (Rob had a rubberband too.) He also did some other magic tricks, which got Rob and myself dumbfounded! All that came outta our mouths were “What the!” or “How did you do that!?!?” or “Holy crap!” etc etc (you get the gist). Essentially we both looked like this:

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Magic rubberbands

This is me satisfied after a great meal with great entertainment. The apricot salmon was DELICIOUS!!!! Don’t worry guys, I will do the food post in due time. Patience my little minions.

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And of course, a must after every meal. We camwhore at least once.

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Love you baby!

Nickelodeon Universe @ MOA

October 23, 2008

*This will just be more of a photo post lah. Busy with my thesis.*

As I have said a few entries ago, MOA is so big it has its own theme park. Nickelodeon Universe @ MOA is also the largest indoor theme park in the US.

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It has tons of cool rides but of course, very overpriced. So what did cheapo me do? I just walked around the theme park and snapped pictures. Lol

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LOVE the pink shorts Spongebob is wearing. HEH

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Wishing I was a kid again so I can justify going on the pretty carousel

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Dora Ferris Wheel

For as how much I love going on ferris wheels, I didn’t go on this one because I knew I would be going on the one at Navy Pier, which is like 5 times bigger! (Will blog about that soon enough, bear with me.)

This next ride looked really cool. The SpongeBob SquarePants Rock Bottom Plunge. This roller coaster does spirals and intense loops by the looks of it. I happened to caught the rollercoaster doing some rounds around the theme park.

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The 90-degree turn

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Spiral loop

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Then from afar I saw something very familiar. A pineapple. Not just any pineapple but the pineapple from “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?”

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SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!

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Stupid Kid in the way

Spongebob was having pictures taken with kids. To be honest I would have loved to get a picture with Spongebob but I know, I know. I’m too “old” for that kinda stuff. So I stalked Spongbob from afar, trying to get a good shot of him. There were lots of kids queueing up to get their pictures taken so in the end, I zoomed in and got this picture.

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Still more stupid kids in the way

Spongebob staring at me with those huge eyes and long lashes. (Just ignore the kids’ arms/hands/partial body and I think it’s a pretty good shot.)

Nickelodeon Universe also has a on-site store and is the largest Nickelodeon Store in the world.

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You can get just about anything Nickelodeon in this store but of course, again, it’s all overpriced to high hell.
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When it gets darker outside, the theme park is lit up with colourful lights. (Pictures taken the night before I took the day pictures above.)

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There are tons more rides that I probably didn’t snap pictures of because we were getting ready to leave that afternoon, so time was limited. Plus I had wanted to shop a *little* bit more before leaving the shopping heaven. LOL I’m glad I did though cause I scored a couple good bargains at Nordstrom.

I SHOPPING!

P/S I get the feeling this post is so boring. Er…hopefully I’ll have more time to work on the next post.

Thesis woes

October 17, 2008

Taking a mini break from blogging about my trip, mainly because I’m just too lazy to resize and upload pictures.

I have just printed my chapters which I gotten back from the supervisor. I have never met anyone quite like him before when it comes to writing a thesis but I suppose that just means he has very high standards. He picks on ALMOST everything I write. I’m trying to regard his criticisms as constructive criticisms but sometimes it’s only so much than your ego can take right?

Anyway I just went through them and somehow found some humour in his comments and criticisms. One of the things he keeps reiterating is the way I write and I quote:

“PLEASE STICK TO WRITING ACADEMICALLY. REMEMBER, YOU ARE NOT A JOURNALIST…”

or

“HMMM THIS PARA[GRAPH IS] VERY NEWSPAPER-ISH IN WRITING STYLE. DO YOU REALL NEED IT? CAN NOT THE STATEMENT OF THE FACT THAT HIGH QUALITY CONSTRUCTION IS HAPPENING SUFFICE? JUST THINKING ALOUD”.

Let me give you an example of why he says my writing style is very newspaper-ish. I wrote this in a chapter about foreign-direct investment (FDI) in China and what are the factors drawing FDI into the republic:

These highways are brightly lit and offer quite a view at night. In the words of Fishman (2000 p. 119), the highways “turns the Shanghai night into one of the long-exposure shots of urban nightscapes that makes every city featured in the National Geographic seem to move at warp speed.

Now, my defence. Writing Reading a thesis can be boring for anyone. I figured including this little would spruce things up for the him since the supervisor has said my thesis is dull at one point. So how now brown cow? Letak salah, tak letak pun salah jugak. ADUHAI. [It’s “wrong” to put it in, it’s also “wrong” to not put it in. Le sigh]

Yes, a long time ago one of the things I wanted to do “when I grow up” was be a journalist of some sort. Apparently that didn’t happen and I am now channeling my “inner journalist” on my thesis. And I thought blogging was a form of therapy for me. Hah! Subconsciously I may be using my thesis as a therapy tool too. Oh I sound oh-so-psychologist now (which was also one of the things I wanted to be “when I grew up”).

Then there are his criticisms on my vocabulary skills:

“PLEASE USE THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH. APPARENTLY YOUR COMPUTER IS SET TO AMERICAN ENGLISH (I know! So sarcastic right?!?! Queen’s English…LOL)

or

“IF YOU USE FIRSTLY, THEN EVERYTHING FROM *edit* THEIR THERE ON MUST HAVE SECONDLY, THIRDLY…ETC”

It’s not that my computer is set to American English. It’s the fact that my brain works and thinks with American english. I hardly watch Brit-ish shows. I speak to Rob everyday with my version of English which is, according to many, very Americanized. It’s not like I go out of my way to speak with an American accent. It just happens. It’s just the way my English has always been like.

Ok from now on I will try to speak like a stuck-up Brit.

I saaaaaay, would you like a cup-pa tea with those crrrumpets?

or

I’ve gottttt tttto go wwwatchhh a bloodie footttie matcchhh this afty and freeze my bollocks off!

or

Oi, you lit-el tart. Go and fetch me mobile!”

or (This one is really good. I found it from a website)

Look at that bloke! He’s got a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle! (Don’t exactly know what that means but it sounds “bloody nasty”!)

Oklah, enough fooling around. 😛

Underwater Adventures Aquarium @ MOA

October 14, 2008

*Tons of pictures ahead. I suggest you let the page load and go grab a cuppa*

When we first talked about road tripping to MOA, I was excited to visit the aquarium since the last time I visited one was when I was about 8 years old in New Zealand’s Kelly Tarltons Underwater World. I still have a photo of myself covering my eyes cause I was scared of the shark swimming above me. But after checking the price of tickets per entry, we decided it was a bit overpriced also because cheapo me didn’t want to pay lah.

But a month or so before I was scheduled to arrive, Rob bought the entrance tickets at a cheaper price through a radio station shopping show. Needless to say I was uber happy! Because I’m a lazyass, I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking for this post. =P

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Koi fishes

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Baby gators

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The stingray smilling for the camera

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Loggerhead sea turtle

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Sharks

By the way, a 6 year old would know the names of the creatures in the aquarium more than I do so I’ll try my best to identify what is what.

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Saw fish

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More shark

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Oysters anyone?

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Piranhas

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Meet Rocky, the gigantic 17lbs lobster. I remember at one point Rob had to pull me away from the tank because he knew what I was thinking. SEVENTEEN LBS of lobster meat! DINNER!!!!

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Starfish

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This next picture is probably one of my favourite pictures from the aquarium. It really captured the essense of the aquarium, which are the sharks (of course) and the lighting is perfect, at least for me. As if I am some professional photographer eh?

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Look at those teeth!

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Another picture I love. DORY!!! You cannot imagine how many shots I had to take of this fish before I finally got this one. Perfection! I love it! I have to say here that while I was taking pictures of this fish, Rob was laughing his ass off. Why? Because all I kept saying was “STAY! DORY STAY! STAAAAAAYYYYY…” The fish was just swimming around, ignoring me. Grrrrr.

Now contratry to popular belief, this species is not a Dory. This fish is ONLY known as Dory in the movie “Finding Nemo”. The actual name for this species of fish is “regal tang”.

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Nemo the clownfish

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Pretty seahorses

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At the end of the aquarium was a strategically located souvenir store. I didn’t buy anything cause it was all overpriced but something caught my eye.

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A toy lobster! Therefore, camwhoring is VITAL!

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Just when I thought the tour of the aquarium was over, I was surprised to see that they actually have a pool for visitors to pet baby sharks and stingrays, called the Circle of Life. I was a little hessitant at first because, frankly, I love my fingers and hair. I don’t need a baby shark to bite of my fingers, nor a stingray to electrocute me, causing my hair to get curly and poofie. Rob was hessitant too but in the end we both tried it anyway because it was free and you knowlah I am a cheapo.

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Petting baby shark

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The stingray felt very smooth to the touch. As I stroke the back I thought I was going to feel guilty for all those times I ate BBQ sambal stingray. Instead in my head I was going “MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA I ATE MANY OF YOUR FRIENDS!” Then I realized that if I had said it out, I probably would’ve gotten a new hair do on the way out of the aquarium. Glad I didn’t say it out loud.

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With Sharkey (how creative) the mascot

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One last picture before leaving

The Underwater Adventures Aquarium was fun but when I think back I wouldn’t have been very happy if I had to pay for a full priced ticket which is at USD18.95 and that’s excluding tax. Thanks for scoring those tickets baby! MUAH!

GrrRRrrr spellcheck

October 10, 2008

Taking a break from my travel posts. Many random things…

First, I need to vent out some frustration. Earlier today I was so proud of myself for wanting to resume my blogging duties. *glares at Carolyn*

So I was editing pictures and came to a total of 48 pictures for my next post. It’s about the aquarium in MOA. I uploaded them to my Photobucket and one by one copied and pasted EACH html code for the photos. Fourty-eight times ok? Then I had to resize the pictures to fit in my template, one by one but that wasn’t hard at all. It was the switching from one page to another to copy and paste the html codes that was hard work. FOURTY EIGHT TIMES I HAD TO DO IT!

Ahem…

Anyway, when I was done with the pictures, again I was so proud of myself for having such great patience with it lah. I wrote some text and essentially I was done. Then I have no idea WHY but thinking it was a good idea at the time, I clicked the spell check button on Blogger. Guess what happened?

ALL MY PICTURES WERE GONE!!!!!!! !#^#!&#*@$!!#%!$!@#&#%(#*@

What was left was the URL for the pictures. My html codes for all the pictures….GONE!!!!!

My copying-pasting 48 html codes FLUSHED (!!!!!!!!) down the toilet and joining its fellow useless CRAP.

So what did I do? I went back into Photobucket and copied pasted the codes all over AGAIN. By picture number 30 I realized that I could’ve fixed the problem by pasting a different code in HTML mode that was supposedly “spoiled” by the spell check. *sigh* I am such a doofus sometimes.

In essense, I copied and pasted html codes 76 times today.

I guess it was God’s way of saying “KNOCK IT OFF!!!! GO WORK ON YOUR THESIS!”

Worked on the thesis I did, after of course getting my pictures back. Thanks for that “little” push” God. *looks up*

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I have so many things to do lah.

I haven’t even unpacked totally from my trip (So much for taking a break from my travel posts). Don’t get me wrong I have unpacked the neccessities and washed the dirty clothes. It’s the new stuff I haven’t unpacked, as in the clothes, shoes, bras, underwear etc. There’re in two luggage bags, sitting downstairs in the corner of the dining room. *sheepish grin* I’m glad mom hasn’t nagged me about those yet. I suppose she understands the lack of space in my little room.

Oh speaking of mom, I found out a couple days ago that October 7th was my parents’ wedding anniversary. They have been married 29 years. When my mom brought it up during dinner, my dad was oblivious. His response was “Really? It’s today? How many years has it been? Really? 29 years?” and then continued eating his beef noodles. We never really celebrated their wedding anniversaries so we just kinda shrugged it off like no big deal. I wished them happy anniversary and that was the end of it.

The more I think about it, the more it IS a big deal. Twenty nine years isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Being married and seeing each other almost everyday for the last 29 years. They fight like cat and dog at times but they are still together until today. Twenty nine years. In a world where failed marriages are so common, I am glad and certainly proud that my parents are still together and love each other, even though they do not profess it, at least not in front of me.

I hope to have the same long marriage, if not more. I look forward to building a life together with Rob one day. It’s a shame that there are people out there who see marriage as an end to their life, as in their single free life. I don’t see marriage as an end to anything. I don’t see marriage as something that ties you to someone. I don’t see marriage as something that guarantees you “company” as you get older. I see marriage as a starting point of the next chapter in life, corny as it may sound. Marriage is another symbol of love for each other and wanting to make it forever.

Hmmm do I hear complaints of me getting too mushy already?

I guess for some people when they see their significant other at a daily basis they tend to take things for granted. Or maybe they just haven’t found the right one yet. Oh well, everyone has a different mindset to things.

It’s about 10 now so I should stop my random mushiness and continue to “beef” up my thesis. It’s got to be “perfect”!

Mall of America

October 7, 2008

**I’m so tired today. I went to bed close to 4am because I was working on the thesis. I figured since I was on a rampage I might as well keep going until I got dead tired. Heh I’m now paying for it.**

In Minnesota we stayed at Homestead Studio Suites and Hotels. We got an awesome deal from hotels.com and got a free $50 gas gift card. For the price we paid and the distance to MOA, it was really worth it. The room came with tons of amenities but we didn’t use them much as I was busy dragging Rob around the mall, map in my hand and all.

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Oooo! I just noticed Rob in the picture. Heh Hi honey! ~waves~

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Pretty flowers outside. Oh how I love summer time there

Anyway we had to check in the hotel first as there was a time restriction on check-in time. We arrived at Homestead just before 7pm. We went up to check on our room and was pleasantly surprised.

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With a full kitchen. I love the breakfast bar!

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We didn’t unload our stuff because I HAD to shop, even for just a couple hours. Can you blame me? I had been sitting in that car for about 8 hours in total, excluding the time we were eating or taking pictures.

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This flock of geese were just walking around in the middle of the road like nobody’s business. Many cars had to stop and so did we (!) for them to take their sweet time to get on the grass! So tua liap hut meh??? (For your understanding Robbie, I’m basically questioning their importance )

MOA wasn’t that hard to find from the hotel. It was just over a highway and down and there was THE mall, THE largest mall in the USA. If I didn’t know any better, I may have peed a little over the excitement when I saw the huge building.

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Almost a picture of myself in the mirror

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MOA is so big it has over 12,000 parking spaces. Oh let’s not forget the huge outdoor parking right in front of the mall itself.

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MOA is so big it that 258 Statues of Liberty could lie inside the Mall! I’ve seen the Statue of Liberty and I can tell you it’s not small! I could even see it from the plane when I reached Newark International Airport.

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MOA is so big that the total store front footage is 4.3 miles (6.88km) and the walking distance around one level (There are 4 levels) is 0.57miles (almost 1km).

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MOA is so big it has 520 stores to shop in and if you remember, I once found out that if you spend 10 minutes in every store, it would take you more than 86 hours (or almost 4 days, with no sleep) to complete the MOA shopping marathon.

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MOA is so big it has 3 Starbucks, 2 Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and 3 large foodcourts. It is so big Rob and I got lost, not just once, not twice, not thrice but at least 5 times during our 3 day marathon. It’s especially confusing when you walk from one end to the other and see a Starbucks at that “same” corner you saw it at the previous side.

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MOA is so big, it has its own theme park, called Nickelodeon Universe. Believe me, Berjaya Times Square KL cannot compare.

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It also has an aquarium, a LEGO Imagination Center, Dinosaur Walk Museum, A.C.E.S. Flight Simulation, and NASCAR Silicon Motor Speedway.

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I bet most guys reading this are foaming in the mouth seeing those LEGOS, remembering the good ole days when they were building space ships and planes out of tiny plastic bricks.

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MOA is SO FREAKING BIG that they have a wedding chapel. A WEDDING CHAPEL! Who the heck goes to MOA and suddenly gets the urge to get married? “Hmmm I’m tired of shopping today, let’s go get married baby!” Huh??? Are there really people out there who do that?

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The wedding chapel also comes with a bridal boutique, selling just about everything one needs for his/her wedding. The dresses on display were very pretty though. Heh I have to admit I was almost *tempted* to walk in there.

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Must camwhore!

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Victoria Secret store. Life is Pink is Life. I like that statement 😉

The best part of shopping for shoes and clothes in Minnesota, and MOA in particular, is that there is no clothing tax!!! The first store I looked for was Old Navy. I always loved their clothes but at times they may be a little overpriced. But I suppose that’s because its a branch under Gap Inc. I did find some great deals, USD13 capri jeans and USD8 tops of which I bought 2 each. HEHEHE

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By the way, the Old Navy store had 2 floors


More MOA posts coming. Come back soon!

Roadtrip Part 2

October 2, 2008

It took us about 5 hours before we reached the border of Minnesota but we still had quite a ways to go before reaching MOA. We crossed a bridge and there was THE sign.

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Minnesota welcomes you!

At this point I was really happy and excited while Rob was really close to throwing me into the river we were crossing. HEH Here’s why…

S: We’re in Minnesota!!!!
R: Yes we are
S: So where is the Mall of America?
R: Ummm honey, we just reached the border.
S: I know, we’re in Minnesota!
R: MOA is a third of the way up the state
S: Oh ok, that’s not too bad. How far are we?
R: Pretty far…
S: Ok….how long of a drive left?
R: 3 or 4 hours
S: What?! But we’re in Minnesota!
R: …….

(Ten or fifteen minutes later….)

S: Are we there yet?
R: No…
S: How about now?
R: No…
S: Now?
R: No
S: NOW????????
R: NO!!!!!!!!
S: Why not?
R:

Repeat the above conversations, oh let’s say about 10 times, throughout the journey. I’m sure at SOME point Rob would’ve driven off a cliff somewhere. Lol.

It should be noted that I’m actually not THAT annoying. I was having some fun and trying to make Rob laugh because most of the time he had the look going as he was concentrating on the driving. All I wanted was to get a from him.

The scenic, although longer, route took us across the Mississippi River. That was the whole purpose of the scenic route.
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Side note from Rob “The first time we crossed the river, you didn’t get the pictures you wanted. So I drove back to Wisconsin for a couple minutes, turned around and crossed the bridge again so you can have your pictures, remember???”

Heh, thanks honey. I owe you one.

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The view after the bridge was so breathtaking that even the pictures doesn’t do much justice.

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One of the many dams along the Mississippi River

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We stopped so many times during the first hour or so on this track across the Mississippi River, one of the longest rivers in the United States and fourth longest in the world. I remember reading somewhere that it runs through like 10 states.

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On a highway lookout stop

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Oh so pretty!

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Not so pretty but must camwhore a bit lah!

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Along the Mississippi River are naturally formed and man-made lakes. Lake Pepin is a naturally occuring lake and the largest lake on the river. After reading up some information about it on Wikipedia, I’ve been zooming in my pictures to see if I caught a lake “monster”. Apparently, there have been sightings of Pepie, a version of the Loch Ness Monster throughout the years in that lake.

Anyway, no such luck lah. Thought that if I did capture a picture of Pepie, I could make some money selling the picture to a magazine or something and be rich!

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Lake Pepin

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We stopped by a town called Winona for a quick bite at McDonald’s. At this point I remember asking Rob, “Are we going to get to MOA in time before the stores close? I wanna go shopping!”. Of course he laughed at my eagerness to shop and I also remember him using that against me.

S: Oooo let’s stop and take a look here
R: If we keep stopping you’re not gonna get a chance to shop today
S: Oh…ok. Let’s keep going.
R:

We kept driving and driving until we saw this nice little town by a lake a little over an hour later. There were many sailboats on the lake. I couldn’t ressist, we HAD to stop and take some pictures. I think the town is call Lake City. Heh how creative.

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I think the most we spent there snapping pictures was about 30 minutes. I would have loved to dip my feet in the water or something but shopping at MOA was my ultimate goal for the day. Ahhh women…Lol

And so about 2 hours later (and after checking in our hotel room), we saw this…

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NO not the “Right Turn Lane” sign. Look BEHIND IT, at the humongous building


MALL OF AMERICA!

The journey started at 9am and we arrived at MOA just before 7.30pm. The roadtrip was SUPPOSE to take 6-7 hours but with my constant shenanigans “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? Are we there yet? How far is it? How long have we been driving?”, “Oooooo! Look at that!” or “STOP!!! Picture op(portunity)!!!” or “Honey, I gotta pee” or “Baby, I’m hungry” or “Ummm I really need to stand up…my ass is killing me!”, it took us about 10 hours. *sheepish grin*

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