yoz! finally back in SG again!!! Yeah!!! the flight was really long and uninteresting... well, it wasn't that long, just abt 24 hrs of flight tt's all... :)
hmm, experienced the longest 4 hrs and the shortest 42 hrs on my trip to States... Left SG early at 8.20am on 26 Dec and reached San Francisco at ard 9.40am 26 dec... It took me only 1hr plus to get from SG to States, but it really felt like 20+ hrs, which in actual fact is really 20+ hrs... but due to the time conversion from SG time to US time, it's like we only spent an hr or so travelling from SG to US. And a stranger thing is tt it took me double the time to travel from San Francisco to Denver - abt 2+ hrs... oh no... what is happening?? is SG nearer to San Francisco than Denver is to the latter? Baffling huh? Anyway, this 4 hrs really seems very long... And the same theory goes for the short 42 hrs on my way back to SG from US... Left US on 7th Dec 8.20 am and reach SG on 8th Dec 11.55pm... this 42 hrs flight seems so short all of a sudden... hmm... i wonder why... :)

Anyway, my trip to US was good, far better than any of those in the earlier years, reason being, it's still holidays after this holiday!!! yeah!!! no studies like the last time when school starts one or 2 wks after i return... yeah!!! Will find some time posting some of these fotos up after i find the time to develop it and to scan it into the com... hhaah~ maybe will do it when i ord next may... haha~

anyway, some enlightenment from this trip
Q) how do you know that you're going the wrong way?
Ans 1) When you see a sign at the side of the road that says "Wrong Way".
Ans 2) When you find that you are driving side by side with the aeroplane that has just landed.
Ans 3) When you find that you seem to be going round and round and visiting the airport 3 or more times and still can't find your way out.

Q) Why can't I sleep in the car like what I did the previous years?
Ans) Because I'm the one driving it... sometimes... yeah!!!

Well, speaking of driving, I'm so proud to announce that I didn't drive on the wrong side of the road... driving in US is the total opposite to driving in SG, for eg, the left wheel drive, turning right is safer than turning left, sneaking a right turn on red, keeping to the right side of the road when making a left turn and not the left side of the road, and most importantly, the overtaking lane is the left most lane, not the right!!! haha~ Had seen a sign on the left side of the road somewhere on the highway towards denver, telling motorists on the left most lane to keep a minimun of 55 mph, instead of the usual max spd limit of 65mph. Interesting siaz...

Anyway, had great fun playing with the auto cruising function of the vehicle which my bro had kindly introduced me to. yeah! you don't even need to place the foot on the accelerator and the car moves at a constant pre-set speed. You see, from manual car to auto car, you are spared from using the left leg. And from auto car w/o auto cruise fn to one with the fn, you don't even have to use any of your legs altogether. You can just regulate the speed by pressing e + or - button... haha~ Of course, this fn is only meant for highways with little or no cars around you. yupz, and 1 strange thing about Denver is that they have many many flat valleys around the mountainous areas. So the road is especially surprisingly straight, and never ending. You can actually travel an hr or so at abt 75mph w/o actually see a change in the surrounding scenery. Those trees in front of you may seem like 1 or 2 km away from you, but you actually have to travel 13 miles before you past them... Well, this valley which I'm referring to is the biggest valley in US called the Colorado Valley, i think... haha~ it's exactly 20 Singapores big, with an area of 100miles by 50 miles... And it's so flat that you can see from 1 end of the valley to the other, which means, you are looking at an object that is 50 miles away from you... how often can you do that in Singapore man? haha~

Anyway, this trip was really a good test to my driving skills man, i must say. All in all, I drove about 300 miles, which is around 500 km in all... haha~ not bad for a beginner like me, who's still on probation... and there's more to it... There're many many natural S-shape and U shape curves on the way when I was driving from mountains to mountains to get from one town to another... those are really what I saw in the simulator at BBDC... haha~ now i play it real... with more hazards around, like snow, ice and steep gradient. But Bro has the best experience of going up a slope like what we see in the obstacle course in all driving circuits, except that this time the road is laden with ice and the car simply can't stop halfway up the slope and had to retreat. Bro was finding the 'biting' point which allows the car to move forward by stepping the brakes with his left leg and the accelerator with his right... boy, since when do you need to find the 'biting' point when driving an auto car? hmm...

Yupz, seen bro's jap gf on this trip... felt quite bad that the whole family was like speaking chinese most of the time, and she couldn't help it but nani-ing (means what? in jap) all the time... haha~ no la, guess it'll be the same for bro if he visits her parents in tokyo next time... haha~ he will be going she-me all the way... hehehe~ oh yah, her name is sen something kazuyo... in kranji: guan1 kou3 zong1 dai4... and if anyone doesn't know what each word is, I shall translate it directly. it's close mouth 18 ancestors - aka guan1 kou3 zu3 zong1 shi2 ba1 dai4 for long (formulated by the tian Cai)... haha~ think i'm going to be bashed up by bro... hhahaha~ *quickly hides behind the pillar*

Oh yes, and it was rather cold in and around Denver. There was one time when we felt that the heater wasn't really working, as it kept blowing out cool air instead of warm ones... Hence the room remained rather cold throughout the whole of the night... but we realised on the next day that the temperature reached as low as 3 degrees F (which is around -17 degrees centigrade) that night... And we were complaining that the heater wasn't really working... haha~ Ice crstals formed on Dad's car and we had a little problem removing them... I made it worse by using the cleaner at the petrol kiosk to wash away the crstals... haha~ didn't realise that the windscreen's temperature is far below the freezing point of water, and thus the water from the cleaner froze within 5 sec upon contact with the glass... It was really a truly intriguing sight man... you pour water on the windscreen, hoping to melt the little ice crystals, and before you can say "I'm a tian Cai", the water became ice as well... oh boi...

Yep, and needless to say, the snow there was really really thick, thicker than I've ever imagined... it's at least 5 Inches thick and your whole shoe sank into the snow when you stepped on it... haha~ But I wasn't that stupid to step into the thick snow, like what my eldest bro did, and get my feet wet... hehe~ but the snow was really nice... yeah!!! hmm, now looking forward to go US and study liao... hahaha~ hope they accept me... else gotta go back to my NUS :(

kk, gotta slp now... Good nite everyone... err, no, it's good morning everyone... hee, no no no, i refuse to admit that I'm suffering from a serious jet lag... hahaha~ byeeeeee ^^