Monterrey

Man, I took a few hours just to upload all these photos, so you all better appreciate it! Anyway this was from my Mexican trip last weekend. Went with a group of 5 French, and Alex, who hooked me up with them haha. We drove there in the French's minivan. 10 hours sia. Oh we went to Monterrey, which is supposedly the high class part of Mexico. But it's still Third World leh. Like extremely. I'm so glad to be back here in one piece haha.

Our group. The trusty minivan haha. It's damn old lor, from '94. And the aircon is faulty, so we were basically perspiring to death in the backseat throughout the trip haha. At least it got us there and back haha.The Mexican border, at Laredo.

Anyway, we reached Monterrey around 12 plus at night. It was bad, cuz we were trying to find one of the French guy's girlfriend's house (she's an exchange student there), and we lost our way in the city. So we were driving around for quite a while. Plus we met a few mishaps along the way, like being chased by a police car who thought the driver was drinking alcohol when it was actually water, and almost colliding with a car. Those crazy Mexicans. They drive like madmen, and their roads have no lane markings? I really admire the French lor, cuz they managed to drive properly haha.

So we found her house, and they were having a party there. It was insane, in a bad way. Those Mexicans party like siao lor. I saw couples making out left, right and centre. And there were drunk guys trying to pick me up. Gosh. I had to hide in the bathroom to run away from this particularly creepy guy. We left at 4am, and took 1 hour to find the hotel! Cuz we booked the Marriott hotel, only to realise that it's very far away from downtown Monterrey, so we wanted to change. But the hotel wouldn't allow it, so bo bian lor, have to find the hotel hhah. And it's not the real Marriott, just the offshoot motel version. But not bad la, the room was really nice :)

Our hotel. Fairfield Inns.
Good morning. The French are pros. They can sleep at 5am, and wake up at 10am?? Consecutively for 2 days.
Stop sign.
Lunch. Tacos, tacos and more tacos.

Err. Crap, I forgot the name of this church haha. I think it's called Catedral Metropolitana de Nuestra Se ora de Monterrey. It's sad how I only know the names of the places I go, after I come back and google them haha. As a tourist, I'm a failure. But then again, you should try remembering those Spanish names.

In the town central.

Gosh, I look like a freaking tourist. Me with my giant sombrero.

Monterrey is famous for its mountains.
Faro de Comercio

Oh man, I love those 2 Mexican girls we met at the park. They're so cute! And both of them kept giggling whenever I point my camera at them haha.

Err this guy popped out of nowhere and sang to us. He didn't even know how to play the guitar, he just strummed it randomly.
Ahh this is life, I tell you. Lying in the grass, talking cock.

Err. The Museo de Historia Mexicana. The museum of Mexican history la, in other words.
The museum trip was a complete failure cuz everything was in Spanish! We came out after 15 mins haha. Thanks goodness the admission was free.

Barrio Antigua. It's this street of bars and clubs. Crazy at night.

This bar we went to. Very nice haha.
They offered salsa lessons, so I tried. And embarrassed myself terribly. In Alex's words, "It's not that I don't wanna shake my hips, I can't even find them!"
Our group, with the 2 Mexicans we danced with, and the waiter haha.

Oh we visited this waterfall in the mountains. Cascada Cola de Caballo.

Taken with my 3.2 MP phone. My camera only managed to last for a day -.-

They offer miniature pony rides for kids, handled by kids haha.

Our last meal at this dingy restaurant on the side of the mountain roads haha.

And finally, some sights of the city on the way out.

Ooh, this is the line separating Mexico from the US. And the river in the background is the infamous Pincearo (I can't remember how to spell). Apparently many Mexicans die trying to cross the river over to the US.
The line to the checkpoint. I think we waited 1 and a half hrs in the sweltering heat.
And home sweet home! I've never been so happy to see Texas!!

Hahah I had alot of fun in general. Learnt quite alot of French and Spanish too haha. But I was basically lost in translation throughout the whole trip, cuz none of us were fluent in Spanish, only a few French know bits and pieces of it haha. ("Non comprendo?") The stuff in Mexico is cheap too! Basically 10 times smaller than the US$.

Speaking of which, I spent $38 on a haircut today?? Mother, forgive me!! I didn't think it'll cost so much!! I promise I won't cut my hair till I go back! Crap, I feel so cheated. And it's not even that nice. Oh today is Be Nice to Your Fellow Singaporean Day haha. Self-declared la. So we decided to visit the Asian market here (and walked 15 mins just to get there), and get stuff to make dinner. We cooked Mee Sua, and oh man, it was a complete failure lor haha. The mee sua totally sucked la. Not our cooking skills. The thing itself was too salty! We quit eating halfway, and just decided to finish the meat (prawns, pork kidney bleah, fishballs, luncheon) before we kena kidney failure tomorrow haha. Oh we made Milo Dinosaur though, and I think it was the only highlight of our dinner haha. Well, there's tang yuan for tomorrow so hopefully it'll turn out well. This reminds me of Rag. "Rag comm meeting outside!!" Yeah, and it was just an excuse for us to eat tangyuan away from those freshies hahaha.

Ok I need to sleep now. Gahh. I don't think I ever recovered from this trip. I'm destined to suffer from black eye rings and coffee-dependency forever.

But with you by my side I can do anything
When we swing
We hang past right or wrong

hit and miss

I suddenly miss Singapore very much. I don't know why, cuz I haven't really been thinking alot about home haha. But after talking to Shuqi online that night, I suddenly miss everyone :( It's the feeling of home I guess. Being able to shoot my mouth off without thinking too much haha. And being able to tease someone (besides my roommate, who incidentally posted a "Go Back to Mexico!" sign on my door when I came back).

I miss the food! Especially the variety and convenience. All I have to do is walk 3 mins, and I can something to eat, even at 2am in the morning.

I miss our transport system. Yes, even the rude SBS drivers haha. I think I might have trouble adjusting to the (lack of) courtesy at home. The people here are just too nice haha. I think I'll probably get beaten if I said "hi" to a random stranger in Singapore. Anyway, yeah I miss our transport system. The convenience of it all. I can always find my way home, even if I'm stuck at some Ulu Pandan place at 12 midnight haha.

I miss the safety and security. I don't have to fear for my life if I come home late. Over here, I freak out if I don't hear from my dear friend in NY for a few days. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

I miss PARKWAY. Oh man, the one-stop centre for everything. It has everything I'll ever need haha. And it's so near. Gosh, Parkway is seriously my second home hah. I think I sound like an auntie, but oh well.

I miss the PEOPLE. Especially the people. I'm talking about my friends actually. Not Singaporeans in general haha. I miss being able to hang out with friends with just a phone call. And hanging out at Shuqi's place watching movies that make us look intellectual, when in reality we have no clue what's going on. And going out with WWF to do dumb stuff. Talking cock. Being myself.

I hate it when people here don't understand me when I speak. And I can't really start doing dumb stuff cuz I don't know how they'll take it haha. I need to hang out with people who have the same frequency as me!! I think I'm only really myself when I'm talking to my friends online/through webcam.

But it's all an experience I guess. The more I think about home, the more likely I'll go back to the emotional state I was in when I just came here. And I don't wanna go back there. I really like where I am now haha. Granted there are times when I'd feel lonely and extra, but I know I'm going to get through this stronger, and better for it.

Oh btw, I just watched "Juno" online. And it was great! Like they managed to turn a serious issue into something light-hearted and uplifting. Anyway it's sad that I have to watch movies online. It's not that I don't wanna go to a cinema, cuz believe me, I really wanna do that (since movies are only us$4, which is cheap). I just need the FREAKINGG TRANSPORT. One day I just might steal a car here haha. I'm joking.

Ok, I'm going off. I've never slept before 2am the whole of this week, so I'm pretty bushed. By the way I was over at Monterrey, in Mexico, for the weekend. Woots. It was crazy. I'm so happy to be back alive haha. I'll post pictures and details once I have the time/mood to do that. And I'm really upset about my camera and it's puny, non-existent battery life. I hope it can last me through Spring Break :(

Here is the church and here is the steeple
We sure are cute for two ugly people
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you

Ok so because I have a test tmr, I have decided to blog. Makes sense? Never mind.

Ok this is my roommate, Lacy..
She's usually not like that. (she's gonna kill me if she finds this blog ahaha)

One day, the tape holding the cardboard pieces covering our aircon vent decided to fall off, and to prevent ourselves from getting hypothermia while we sleep, the roommate and I decided to implement a permanent solution:

Yes, we made a banner! I dunno where she got the maroon cloth, white paint, glitter (yes, glitter), and sequins (gosh), but they magically appeared and we decided to do up a nice banner to cover the *#(*& vent haha. Very waste time hor. Plus I had a test the next day haha. But who cares.

Heehee our PRETTYY banner! "Gig 'Em!" means "Get Them". It's a popular slogan around here. We even made the Texas A&M logo with (iron-on) sequins haha. And the words were done using glitter and white paint. (Omg I can't believe I'm actually gushing over glitter and sequins.)
Our banner up at it's rightful place ahaha. It looks puffy cuz of the wind from the vent. My room is literally a freezer. It's stupid. At least we don't have to freeze our butts off anymore haha.

So yesterday, she was high on Slimfast (it's a drink that's supposed to supplement your meal, so you get to lose weight, but it's terribly high in sugar content ahah). And this was what happened:

That's a stick of stain remover she's using as a mike. Hahaha oh man, she'd better not find this blog!!

Anyway, here are examples of the conversations we share:

Lacy (swinging her arms back and forth): "Can I ask you a question? Have you ever felt like doing a backflip even though you know you can't, and you're gonna land on your butt?"
Me: *silence* "Err.. sometimes?"
Lacy: "Shut up. You're just patronizing me."

Lacy: "Do you have ovens in Singapore?" (cuz she was telling me she baked something)
Me: "Noooo.... In Singapore, we wait for lightning to strike a tree. Then we use the fire to cook our food. It's very sad, cuz we only get to eat meat once a month. I'm so lucky to be able to come here."
Lacy: ".... Thanks, Ms Sarcastic."

Hahaha, oh man, I'm so glad my roommate is nicer than the others'! Though she does have some emotional issues sometimes, but oh well, it's better than nothing aha. At least she talks to me, and she doesn't kop my laptop without asking me. My suitemates are damn noisy though. Walao, they invite 10 pple to their room at 3am? And ALL 10 of them decide to use the toilet at the same time? Then they hold singing (screaming) competitions, and try to outyell each other. Argh.

Back to you
It always comes around
Back to you

family

SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE ME AWAY FROM THIS TOWN.

Take me to Dallas/San Antonio/Houston/ANYWHERE!! PLEASE.

Gahhh. Before I steal a car and drive far far away. I need something different. To see different people, different things.. And I've only been here for err, 5 weeks? I think that's enough actually haha. School's tough too. I foresee a terrible week. ExamS, project meetingS, paperS... The only silver lining is Spring Break haha. I think only international students look forward to that haha. Yeah, we're here to have fun, not study. Well not really, I don't wanna do too badly either.

Anyway I just received some of my family's CNY photos from my aunt! Oh man, I miss them so much :(


Reunion dinner.

My mum and her 3rd son, whom I miss alot alot haha.
That's my cousin, Eleanor, with my parents. She's afraid of Congee haha. And he refused to look at the camera.

The 2 boys I miss most of all haha.

And I posted my first video! Rocks huh. Hope it works haha. Anywya that's Eleanor sending me her New Year wishes haha. With my grandparents in the background.

It’s sad to me how quickly we define
What’s wrong with yours is right with mine
You think that we could learn to let things slide?
Just let things slide

counting down the days...

Rahh I hate mugging!

It's sad that tests and exams are a universal phenomena; you can't escape them no matter where you are :(

I can't wait for Spring break. Mostly I can't wait to get out of this town.

Why cant you be different from the rest?
Oh, won't you surprise me instead?

CNY in ah-melica

Because it's Chinese New Year tomorrow, or rather today, and because it's supposed to be a holiday, I'm giving myself a day off tomorrow. I'm a Chinese before I'm a student haha. So yup, 新年快乐，万事如意，年年有余 to you too!

It feels so weird to be away from your family during CNY, esp since this festival is all about family (well, to me at least). And it's even weirder not having to go around preparing for this occasion. Usually I'd be decorating the willow tree (my mum makes me do it), helping out with the New Year goodies, cleaning up my room etc. at this time of year. Oh and memorising all the New Year greetings so I can be prepared to 拜年 haha. And don't get me started on the food (Oh ba kwa, where art thou?) and angpows. Oh and the 捞鱼生!! Gee, I miss everything!! Ok, I don't really miss 拜年 cuz I don't like visiting relatives I'd only see once a year, and answering the same questions all the time ("Which school are you studying at?", "Which year?", "What's your major?"). Hahah but it's a part of CNY and like I said, I'd feel weird if one tradition goes missing, as redundant as it may be to me.

But anyway, the Singaporeans prepared our own steamboat dinner today!! Yeah, we're a bunch of foolish people who decided on a whim one day to cook our own food at the risk of burning down the dorm kitchen. And none of us had any experience preparing a steamboat (except for eating, that is). But we spent damn long to plan for this ok. Plus we invited a few other friends over, so there was quite alot of pressure to make sure we don't disappoint them and paiseh ourselves haha. I even went to HEB (the supermarket in town) for 2 consecutive days just to source/buy our food/supplies! Omg I feel like an auntie lor ahah. Thankfully all our work was worth it, and our steamboat was a success! Besides the problem of having too much leftovers, that is haha.

You don't know how important it was to us to make sure our steamboat dinner took off. Cuz at first we found a portable stove in my hall's kitchen, which gave us the idea of doing a steamboat. Then when we tested the stove last night, to our horror we found out it couldn't boil anything. We couldn't use the kitchen stove either. Like wth man, WHAT isn't faulty here?? So we started to consider the idea of going to one of the Chinese restaurants nearby to eat haha. But thankfully, this afternoon we found a kitchen in Fowler Hall which had a functional kitchen stove, and we bought another portable burner from Target. Sigh, the lengths we go to for food.

Waiting for the bus at HEB (Here Everything's Better -.-), with our groceries.

Our boss and man-in-charge, Mr Alex Goh. "Just shaddup and do what I say, stupid!" Yeah, we're a bunch of abused and mismanaged employees haha. But if it weren't for him this dinner wouldn't even happen.

Frenzy. We were bumping into each other in the tiny kitchen, cleaning/washing/cutting/moving.
Playing with food.
Busy busy...

... till we set the stove on fire.
But we finally managed to put everything together! We've got crabsticks, prawns (they call it shrimp here, but whatever), scallop, sausages, beef, chicken, pork, fish, veg (I still don't know what kind, we just anyhow buy hahah), and microwaved rice haha.
Our guests-of-honor. My roommate, Lacy, and Lauren.
Everyone :)

And finally we can eat!

Lacy deep in concentration as she tries to use her chopsticks ahaha.
Yes, she finally managed to pick something up! Oh oh oh!! This one's a real surprise! We found Yeo's in HEB! YEO'S LEH. Made in Singapore product ahaha. All the way in Texas! Oh man, I'm so excited haha. The wonders of globalization. We gave them to the angmohs and they said it was too sweet haha. But I taste home when I taste sugar cane :D

If I'd be your girl, will you be my guy

And I never thought I'd be the type to fall, to fall

of diarrhoea and football

Time for my weekly update!

School's boring as usual. But the weather is improving yay! Nowadays, outdoors is probably warmer than indoors. Which is weird, but nice :) Then again, it might be too early to comment on the nice weather cuz it might start freezing up in a few days. Texan weather changes every 15 mins haha.

So, I had a brief episode of diarrhoea last week haha. Cuz being the genius I am, I drank expired milk. Gosh, I thought I was gonna die from it man. I think that's the difference between falling sick overseas, and falling sick at home. At home, I usually won't care much if I had diarrhoea. But here, I was panicking cuz I didn't wanna die from diarrhoea all alone away from home haha. I mean, what a way to die. Haha I think I overreacted. But I recoverd after taking some medicine. Anyway I went to see the doctor for my cold also, and my medicine cost $33?? But my insurance is able to cover, so I paid $29 -.- OMG. Next time I'm just gonna go to Wal-mart for medicine. I feel so cheated. Americans have a different definition of 'insurance' from the rest of the world. And I still haven't recovered.

Anyway, leisure-wise, we did a few pretty cool things haha. Ok well, not that cool, but this is College Station. We played Bingo! Ahaha. Yes, it's a geriatric activity, but it's FUN. Basically you buy a sheet of paper with lots of squares with numbers in them. Like Sudoku. Then the guy will announce a number and you use a chop to mark the numbers in your sheet, and you win when you get the winning formation. It's all based on luck, so of course none of us won haha. This is what I call 'cheap thrill' :D We saw many die-hard auntie and uncles there though. They'd 'shush' you if you made too much noise haha.

And on Sat, we went to the mall in town. It was kinda disappointing though they had many brands like Gap, Abercrombie and Macy's. I thought the mall was kinda small and abit run-down haha. But we had no choice cuz we don't drive, so it's the furthest place we could go to. Then we had some scavenger hunt cum sushi party organised by this international students' association. The scavenger hunt was pretty pointless I thought, basically just running (and I mean run, like sprint) around school taking pictures of landmarks. I was too busy trying to catch my breath, to take in my surroundings haha. But we did some networking afterwards, and managed to find a group of skydiving kakis! So here's hoping we'd be able to do some serious skydiving soon haha.

Sun was Superbowl Sunday! Basically it's just the American football finals, which is big here. And I mean BIG. Basically people hold parties in their homes where everyone gathers around the TV with loads of junk food, to watch. Wal-mart even has this section where they sell Superbowl necessities, like chips and stuff. Superbowl has the biggest viewership in the US too, so advertisers spend like millions of dollars just to broadcast their ad. The ads are a huge draw of Superbowl too. Anyway we went to Lauren's house to watch. Oh Lauren is a local we met who's super nice, and is willing to drive a bunch of Singaporean stragglers everywhere. She's joining us for Spring break too :) But more on that later. So in between stuffing ourselves with tortillas and apple pie, and getting lost with the game on TV (no one knew the rules and where the ball was, sometimes), we played Uno and Scrabble haah. Oh yeah, the underdogs, the New York Giants, won the game, breaking the winning streak of the New England Patriots, who were unbeaten throughout this whole season. Amazing.

Us! Oh Alex was away in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Sheesh, I'm jealous.
Uno with a few of Lauren's friends.

And we've booked our tickets for Spring break! NEW YORK HERE I COME. Muahaha. YEs we're going to New York! And Boston and Washington, and hopefully Philadelphia if we've got the time. I really hope we'd have the time to fully take in the sights and sounds when we're there. I don't like to rush around. And yeah, I also hope we won't spend too much money ahaha. Our tickets were pretty cheap, thanks to Lauren who booked them for us haha. It's time to start saving! Gotta think before spending!

This week's Chinese New Year! Oh my ba kwa and pineapple tarts, where art thou?? Haha it's alright, I can live without them for 6 months. I think we're probably gonna do a steamboat thing on Wed night, and there are a few CNY dinners here and there too :) Anyway Gong xi fa cai to everyone in Singapore!

Ok I gotta go check on my laundry before it shrinks beyond repair. And do my homework :(( Next week's gonna be terrible. I've got 2 tests!

Sometimes what we think we really want we don't.
Sometimes what we think we want we really don't.
Sometimes what we think we love we don't.