Back to my life.

So we flew from New York to Anchorage that night. But before that, the flight was postponed till 4-freaking-am, 4 hours after the supposed departure time... WDF.

So we were sleeping in the JFK airport, on the floor and all that..

And in Anchorage, we had a quick stopover (no pictures there... boring...). Funny how our trip to the States ended with us in Alaska again.

Same gloomy weather that we were acclimatised to for 3 months... same mountainous scenery... and same cool fresh air.

And after we bid farewell to Alaska, we flew in to Taipei for a stopover in the airport. We were supposed to have rooms in the airport's hotel but seeing how short our stay there was (cause of the 4 hours delay) we bargained to stay in the Business Class lounge...

How luxurious... Free food, luxurious bathrooms and WIFI.

And then we flew back. Back home.

How wonderful it feels to step into Changi airport. And see people of my kind (Seriously, seeing other fellow Singaporeans really had an impact on me).
Seeing the familiarity of the airport...
Being welcomed back (literally) at the passport check-in terminal...

And finally seeing my family again. I could not stop smiling the nano-second I caught a glimpse of my Dad behind the glass wall beside the baggage-collection belt.

I was smiling so wide, you could say it was almost involuntary.

The relief to see my Mum again. The joy of carrying my niece again.
And the anticipation to feel the humidity on the skin...

I cannot put all those emotions into words...
Or maybe I just did.

I am so glad to be home.

Really... :)

Note: This blogger will be back to blogging at his regular blog: Hebitch.

New York, New York.

I was unhappy about the previous day's rainy visit to Liberty Island so I made another visit to Liberty Island alone (the guys followed Ching Hei's uncle to his New Jersey's office and then shopped again at Century 21).

The queue was so long, it was snaking around the park! Twice!:
Entertainment to lighten up the mood and intense heat!:
Old jetty (under some renovation):
I finally got on the ferry.

Manhattan:
New Jersey:
Ellis Island:

There she is... in all the sun's glory:
Though initially cloudy, it soon became scorching hot. HOT.

Why is the Statue Green? Ans: Oxidation.
The three liberty's symbols include the 7-pointed crown (symbolising the 7 seas and continents), the broken chains on her feet (freedom) and the roman numerals on the book she carries (fourth of July):

THE Lady Liberty.

I wasn't posing or anything. I was squinting...:
The people there (other tourists) were really nice. They offered to take pictures for me after seeing me take snapshots of myself with my twistable-viewfinder-camera (a.k.a. cam-whore). Some even went to the extent of lying down on the ground to take the shots of me from below!

Pictures of the statue from almost every angle:

Tickets to get into the monument (just entry to the pedestal permitted... the crown and torch have been closed since 911) were completely sold out by the time I got there (and I thought I was early...)
Then it was time to go to Ellis Island, but I chose to bypass it and instead head back to meet up with the boys.

Bye Lady Liberty:
Wait... what in the world?:
Downtown Manhattan:

Brooklyn Bridge:
Met up with the boys and then we went high-end shopping at the boutiques in SoHo!!!:
And when I say shopping... We really went shopping...

And when I say high-end, I really mean high-end:
After boutique-hopping in SoHo we went to more boutiques up in Fifth Avenue! Like seriously! Anymore pampering from the sales-people and we wouldn't need to wipe our own asses...Now I know how Carrie Bradshaw feels when she shops...

So luxurious...

Money does make you happier... at least makes people want to please you more and that makes you extremely pampered which in turns makes you more happy and... and... (you get the picture...)

Never have I indulged so much in one day (we all kinda maxed out our daily spending limits on our VISA credit cards and I had to use my Mastercard to pay for everything else in the end...).

The Big Apple...

The next morning (or should I say afternoon) we finally got our asses down to MoMA.

MoMA was extremely crowded.Featured artist was Salvador Dali: his paintings and film.

Dali is one of Zic's favourite artist, you can imagine how excited he was:

Photography was not allowed in the exhibition but this is one of his most famous paintings which I saw upclose! "The Persistence of Memory"... it is only 24cm by 33cm! It is so much smaller than I thought it was!!!:Other exhibitions allowed photography.

This was by... *drumrolls*.... Pablo Picasso; "Girl before a mirror":
Frida Kahlo; "Self Potrait":Rene Margritte; "The Menanced Assasin":
Picasso again; "Seated Bather":
Piet Mondrian; "Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red":
Piet Mondrian; "Composition 10":
Piet Mondrian; "Broadway Boogie-Woogie":
Claude Monet; "Water Lilies":
Pablo Picasso; "Three Musicians":
Giorgio de Chirico; "The Song of Love": Giorgio de Chirico; "Great Metaphysical Interior":

Giorgio de Chirico; "Gare Montparnasse":

Picasso's "Three women at the Spring":

Marcel Duchamp:
Marcel Duchamp; "Bicycle Wheel" and "In advance of the broken arm":

Henri Matisse; "The Piano Lesson": Henri Matisse; "Goldfish and Scuplture":
Henri Matisse, "Still Life after Jan Davidsz de Heem's Dessert":
Henri Matisse, "Sculptures":

Wassily Kandinsky, "Picture with an Archer":
Who doesn't know this one? Its Vincent van Gogh; "Postman - Potrait of Joseph Roulin":
Van Gogh again with "The Olive Trees":
I could not find my favourite van Gogh painting, "The Starry Night"... its supposed to be in MoMA!!!

Umberto Boccioni; "States of Mind I: The Farewells":
Umberto Boccioni; "Dynamism of a Soccer Player":
Umberto Boccioni; "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space":
Pablo Picasso; "Green Still-Life":

I think it will take forever for me to annotate all this... Picasso's:
One of his more famous paintings; "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon":

Picasso; "Ma Jolie":
Picasso, "The Architect's table":
George Braque; "Man with a guitar":
Juan Gris; "Grapes":

Juan Gris; "Guitar and Glasses":

Paul Cezanne, "The Bather":

Pierre Suerat; "Port-en-Bessin: Entrance to the Harbor":Paul Signac; "Setting Sun: Sardine Fishing":
Henri Rousseau; "The Dream":
Andy Warhol, "Campbell's Soup Cans":

"OOF" by Edward Ruscha and "Girl with Ball" by Roy Lichtenstein:
Andy Warhol:
Andy Warhol, "Gold Marilyn Monroe":
Jasper Johns; "Flag":
Jackson Pollock; "One Number 31":
Picasso's sculptures:

"Helicopter":
Another exhibition:
Showcasing furniture and architecture:

"Metropol Parasol", a redevelopment project by J. Mayer H. in Seville Spain:

Moshe Safdie's:

Toyo Ito's "Berkeley Art Museum":
Paul Rudolph's:
Daniel Libeskind's "Jewish Museum Berlin":
"Moebius Building" by Peter Eisenman:

And finally Zaha Hadid's doodlings:
Sculpture Garden:
Then we rushed downtown to take a ferry down to Liberty Island. But we missed the ferry that docks on the island by half an hour, instead we got a ship that took us around Hudson River around Manhattan:
Weather wasn't looking too good:
This is probably where you would be able to see the Twin Towers if they were still around:
Tallest building in New Jersey (also where Ching Hei's uncle works): It was raining cats and dogs by the time we got beside Liberty Island, you can't even see the statue!:

Brooklyn Bridge...:
Washington Bridge:
Under the Brooklyn Bridge... Feeling miserable!:
Just as we were about to dock back in the ferry terminal, the sun came out again...:
See the rainbow on the right?:
What a bitch, right?:
Now we could see it...:

I have a series of "pissed-off-at-other-tourist" shots... and this is one of them. Maybe I should dedicate one entry to all these shots:
Castle Clinton:

The damaged "Globe Sculpture" found in Ground Zero by Fritz Koenig marks the memorial ground for the World Trade Centre:

Downtown Manhattan is where places like Ground Zero and Wall Street are.
Zic the Superman?:

The famous bull that everyone had to queue up to take pictures with...:
Bullshit...:
The church at Wall Street:
Wall Street!!:New York Stock Exchange:

Worship me, you money-grabbing slaves:

They filmed the finale of Heroes here FYI:
This is Ground Zero:
Train Station under the former World Trade Center:

We ended that night with shopping at Century 21. Its this shopping mall beside Ground Zero. It is the BEST place to shop in Manhattan. Designer proucts for less than half the price!!! Seriously! You can get anything from Versace to CK to Hugo Boss to Armani! The best kept secret in all Manhattan! I so wanna go there again when I am in New York!

Die die must visit!

The Big Apple..

Our plan to wake up early the next day failed. Miserably.

By the time we were in Manhattan, it was almost time for lunch. Lunch break at Seagram Building anyone?:
Seagram was designed by another famous architect Mies van der Rohe (Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and he are the three fathers of architecture; and I got to see all three's finest works!!):
The unique thing about that building is its huge open space in front of the building:
Which draws the lunch-ing people to it like bees to honey. This is what its original intention was to begin with, redefining the Manhattan streetscape.
Totally unintentional picture (which turns out to be nice): And this has Mies's signature all over: I-beams:Finally, we got to go to Guggenheim again:We couldn't take any pictures up the spiral and the exhibition spaces; picture taking was confined to only the first floor:
The famous roof and spiral:
The featured artist in the Museum was Louise Bourgeois. And this is her spider:

Interesting museum. My tutor once told me how unsettling it was to be in it and I did not understand. But now that I stood at the top of the spiral and looked down, at all the people walking under you, it was extremely dizzying...

Next visit was to the Empire State Building:Don't get me started with the queue... Any longer and we would have to camp overnight there.

But the 360 view was so worth it...

East side:
North-east side:
North side (can you see Central Park in the middle and Times Square to the left?):King Kong?:

More of Uptown Manhattan: The top of the Empire State:
The west side:

I think that is New Jersey:
Fear of heights?:
Downtown Manhattan, south side:
Liberty Island in the distance (top right):
Brooklyn Bridge in the top left corner:

Flatiron building (another iconic building apart from Empire State and Chrysler Building) in the centre:
I love this picture:
Zombie-fied:
New Art Museum by SANAA in SoHo:
The Washington Square Arch (fenced up for some construction work...):
Some random art installation:
Cooper Union:
Our future school?:
Grand Central Station!:
This was where Cyclops made a hole through the roof in X-Men:

From the outside:
Beside it was the Chrysler Building:
And our last building for the night was the UN Building, it was designed by Wallace Harrison, Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer to name a few:

Tune in for more NYC pictures...

The Big Apple.

So I arrived New York City at night and was supposed to meet up with the boys at Penn Station in Madison Square Garden. But I received a text from them on instructions to get myself on the subway and make my way to Queens. Once there I was to call them and they would pick me up from the bus station above the subway stop.

Well, firstly my bus from DC arrived earlier than scheduled. And the phone I was using (Ching Hei and I switched phones... long story...) was dying on me. And no matter how many times I called those boys, the call could not get through (apparently AT&T sucks... big time). So there I was in Queens close to midnight on the side of a really deserted road, alone. Obviously, after reading my previous entry, you probably know how I was feeling.

So I will spare you the details on how paranoid and anxious I was feeling and jump straight into the conclusion. I found a 24-hr Dunkin Donuts where I had my supper and devised a plan to contact the guys. Firstly, I tried to reserve the phone's battery by switching the phone off. Secondly, I made friends with the guy behind the register (to borrow his phone). Thirdly, I called Zic's number over and over again. When all that failed, I tried to randomly call the numbers in Ching Hei's phone in search of his uncle (whose house we were bunking in for the next few nights). My efforts paid off and I got through to the uncle (with Ching Hei beside him) and told them where I was. And then the phone died (not before I wrote down the uncle's number on a paper napkin). After over an hour of overreacting and waiting, they finally picked me up.

So that was how my second night in New York went. Quite 'uneventful'.

The next morning we woke up early to follow Ching Hei's uncle to the bus stop and then subway stop. He was heading off to work in New Jersey and he was showing us how to take the bus and subway train and all that. We bought our very own Metro Cards which we could use freely for the entire week.

Our first stop on that Tuesday morning was Museum of Modern Art a.k.a. MoMA.
Manhattan city scene:
Trump tower (in the centre) along Avenue 5:
Hmmm... I wanna go with some important church:

MoMA:
And... it had to be closed on Tuesdays:
This is Rockerfeller Centre:
This is so Superman...:

Now, this is St. Patrick's Cathedral:
Once again, scenes down Avenue 5. THE shopping belt:
LV anyone?: Beginning of Central Park (along 5th Avenue) on the Grand Army Plaza:
Towering skyline around Central Parl:
Horse-drawn carriages like in the movies:

Artists working on every inch of the side of the road (coincident or not, all the artists we saw, were Asians...):
Somewhere in Central Park:Here we have the Central Zoo. Seals!!!:
Penguin enclosure:
Polar bear... which we think is mechanical. Cause it keeps swimming back and forth:

Its a small zoo. Very small. Don't expect much cause its only 8 bucks to get in. No lions nor zebras (like in Madagascar the movie)... A bit disappointed with that.
Tropical rainforest habitat enclosure was really impressive:
And there were other smaller creatures too:
Fun place to bring your kids, but it is not really for the adults. Unless what you are hunting are (not animals but) MILFs.

THE fountain in Central Park:
Yes, this is the fountain that has been featured on so many movies... Recently, the song-and-dance sequence in Enchanted:
While we were in Central Park, we noticed (not one, not two) but four independant film crew; two of which were probably filming scenes for either a movie or show, one for a commercial, and one for some modelling reality show...
Under the bridge connecting the mall:
Perfect day:

Zic reliving his childhood:
Just us three:
I nearly fell:
And yes, this is THE pond (that you see in all the movies shot in New York):
And this is THE bridge. Everything HAS to happen on this bridge:

Ehem... filming a commercial?: This was where Little Nicky (Adam Sandler) was sleeping in the movie of the same name. The same exact boulder:
This was where many heroes went to 'emo' in many movies:
And this is called the Great Lawn:
Can you see why it is so 'great'?:
And this obelisk is the Cleopatra's Needle. One of three (other two can be found in London and Paris) it was built in 1600BC and was a gift to the United States in the late 19th century by the Khedive of Egypt:
Examples of residential architecture found at the peripheral of Central Park:

More artists and painters:
This is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Otherwise known as the Met:
It is really HUGE:
It has everything from antiquities from the Roman empire to Van Gogh paintings!:

Everything is so ancient (and priceless)!:
From Greek and Roman, we move to the Egyptian empire:
Yes, that is an actual temple:

Medieval paintings:

And furniture:
And armour...:From every corner of the world:

From Chinese paintings to African masks, this museum has everything. Everything.

Modern contemporary art:
One of Picasso's many paintings:

View of Central Park and Manhattan from the sky garden:

The roof garden has more exhibition space:
It was impossible to finish looking at the things in the museum in one day! I could only manage to see half the things there!

From one museum we move on to another. The Guggenheim Museum.
It was designed by a REALLY famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Unfortunately, it was closing for the day (we were there at 5-ish).
So we decided that we would go there again the next morning.

This is the Empire State building obviously:

That was when we decided to go see a Broadway show. But first, we stumbled into this:We unknowningly stumbled into Times Square:

It was (I know this sounds cliche) so surreal. The hustle and bustle; the traffic and crowds; the lights and sounds...

Of course I had to do this (re-enactment from Heroes; the one with Hiro):
YATTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ('I made it' in Japanese)

Zic and his 'beng' shot:
My infamous jumping shot:
This was posed:

Models?:
I love this shot:
After an hour or so of cam-whoring in the middle of the road, in the middle of Times Square, we finally made it to the theater: Which Broadway show did we watch?:

Well, it has to be, 'Chicago'... and all that Jazz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:
It was the probably one of the most expensive seats I ever paid for (subsequently the best view I ever got in any show) and the show was probably one of the best performance I have ever seen in my 23 years of life!

More of Times Square at night:
Overwhelming for a small 'country-bumpkin' like me. Too many things to take in...

Tune in for more NYC.

DC.

So I left the boys in Boston to go down to Washington DC alone. I was nervous travelling by myself especially when I found out have to transit in New York first. And that I would arrive in DC at 3 in the morning.

I am paranoid, I know that. I was more worried about travelling into a bustling city by myself than climbing a mountain solo. People are unpredictable, more than nature herself. Ever since the robbery in Malaysia, it never hurts to be safe... extra safe. Especially in a country where owning a gun is legal.

So there I was on a greyhound bus from Boston (left at 4.30pm) to New York. And I will never forget my first glimpse of the Manhattan skyline from New Jersey 5 hours later. I was spellbound. The glimpse of the red lights atop the Empire State, the bustle at Madison Square gardens and the blue shimmer of the Chrysler crown dazzled me.

I looked in awe at the sight, slightly regretting that I had tucked my camera all the way to the bottom of my backpack.

New York, New York. Now I know why they call it twice. (Cause its New York City, State of New York).

So anyway, the bus passed by quite a few blocks of shady neighbourhoods in New Jersey. And again my imagination was running wild. So the bus stopped at the bus terminal and I had to change buses. I almost missed the bus cause I was waiting at the wrong stand. Something was definitely wrong when I realised I was the only one queueing in that stand...

So I left New York around 10.30pm and made my way to Baltimore then to Washington DC. Got there at 3am and again the bus passed by a few shady neighbourhoods. (According to Leo, the terminal my bus stopped at was in a quite notorious neighbourhood...)

Thank you Leo for picking me up, buddy! Sorry about the ungodly hour. And thanks again for letting me bunk in your place.

So this is Leo a.k.a Gong Li-ou. My secondary school buddy. He is working in DC as a consultant and he lives in Virginia:
His nice neighbourhood:
This is somewhere near his neighbourhood, the Airforce War Memorial.
And this my friend, is not a picture of just any carpark. Its THE carpark of THE Pentagon. See it? I know its hardly noticeable; even Leo who has been driving past the building never realised it was the Pentagon until that day.
Dunno how to pose infront of the Pentagon... Awkward...:
We took a subway from the Pentagon to where Washington DC is Washington DC. We decided to venture to the east side of the Washington Monument first and the first stop was the U.S. Capitol Building:

Washington Monument and the entire stretch of green fields you see is called the Mall (Singapore has a soccer field too.. we call it the Padang). So all the important buildings are directly perpendicular to the Washington Monument. Like how the State Capitol is directly east.
YAY!:
It was a hot sunny day:
My tour guide Leo is an exceptionally good guide. When asked what building this or anything for that matter was, he would say, "Some important building."

So this is... some important building:

And another important building:
And this is the east elevation of the Capitol Building:
Pretty, no?:
And this is the Thomas Jefferson Building a.k.a. Library of Congress; it is just opposite from the Capitol Building: The interior of the south wing:
Trying to look dignified... trying...:
Interior of the main lobby:
The ceiling of the main hall:
Simply gorgeous:
This is the dome of the Library itself, snucked a shot...:
What was actually painted on the dome:

Beside the library was the U.S. Supreme Court:
Silent protestors standing outside:
Its like everywhere I go, they had some kind of contruction going on... the Capitol Building, Supreme Court, Lincoln memorial, Empire State building in NYC to name a few...
Interior:

Leo and I with the bust of some important guy:
Leo with a potrait of an alumni of his school, Dartmouth:
Then we walked west towards the Washington Monument. According to Leo, my tour guide, this was some important monument:
And so was this: Ahh... this was some important building:

Another monument:
And this was some important building too... If you can see the words beneath the pediment, it says 'National Archives':
View from the Navy Memorial:

Why do I even bother trying to anotate this...:
I know this building!!! Its the FBI building!:
I thought this was a church but I think I am mistaken. Lets just call it some important building:
Views of Washington DC (looks a lot like Boston's brick architecture):
Don't ask...:
No clue...:
Some important building exactly north of the Washington Monument...:
Duh... Its the White House!:

I wonder if Bush was looking at us from the inside:
I think this is the Eisenhower Executive Office building:
This is to the east of the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial:
Popsicle?:
Behind the Memorial (further west of the Washington Monument) is the reflecting pool and there you see at the end is the Lincoln Memorial:
Before visiting the Lincoln Memorial, I visited the Vietnam War Memorial.

The Three Servicemen:

The Vietnam War Memorial was designed by Maya Lin:
So the pathway sinks into the ground as you walk from either ends of the V-shaped landscape. And the names of those who perished are engraved onto the reflective black marble wall:

It felt so haunting... touching... and sad: And once again, like other buildings in the proximity, has a relation to the monument:
The Washington Monument:

The monument as seen from the Lincoln Memorial:
Can you see me?:
Lincoln Memorial:
THE Man himself. Ab Lincoln:

To the southwest of the Washington Monument is the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial:
Me waiting to get tickets to go in:
I think this is the statue of Roosevelt:
This 'lake' is called the Tidal basin and after that day it was renamed the Leo Memorial basin:

And this, to the south of the Washington Monument, is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial:
Kinda resembles the Panthenon:
THE Thomas Jefferson:
So this marked the end of my Washington highlights. Thanks once again to Leo for being a great friend.

And next entry, it would be on being back on the Big Apple, New York City.

Boston: Part 2

Harvard!!!
Harvard University:

My future alma mater's founder, John Harvard:
They say touching his shoe would make your dream of becoming a student there a reality. Obviously, we were so desperate:
Memorial Church at Harvard Square:

Harvard Square:
Sever Hall:
And THE Carpenter Centre by THE Le Corbusier:
ARGH!!! My first Corbu building... Its the one and only building in America which he designed (UN Building was technically not entire his...). Its also one of his latest works.
The ramp leads you into and through the building (west elevation shown here):

Brisque windows, ramps and pilotis:
You can see into the studios from the platform/ramp:
East elevation: I still can't believe it:
More buildings around Harvard:
I think this is the Memorial Hall:
And this is Harvard Graduate School of Design in Gund Hall:

The school has an interesting design; the studios are in a series of steps. That means those in the upper years (or studios above) can look down into the lower studios. Now that is what I call vertical studio.

My future school:
This is Widener Library:
So after the visits to the schools, we went to the CO-OP, where we bought books and... I bought a Harvard sweatshirt...

Poseur!

But I do have to buy school uniform, don't I?

Ehem...

Special thanks to Ching Hei's relatives and friends of relatives for being hospitable hosts showing us around Boston.

While Ching Hei and Zic spent the night there in Boston, I took a bus to New York and then to Washington that night... alone. I was nervous as hell. (More on that later)

Boston: Part 1

Boston from the air:
Home of Boston Red Sox: Beautiful brick architecture of Boston:
Seriously, its brick architecture everywhere...:
But I still like it:
More 'atas' neighbourhood:
So our first visit was Massachusetts Technological Institute (MIT):
MIT:
Carolina was our tour guide. She is a friend of Ching Hei's second cousin, Anna.
MIT future student?:
Under the dome of the main hall:

Day-dreaming that it could be my school:
I look like I am so at home, no?:
Oh, we found this little gem by accident:
Our first thought was, "This is so Frank Gehry."
"Looks like his 'dancing buildings'..."

"Metal cladding reflecting glare and intolerable heat..."
"Funny angles..."
"Oh... wait... This is Frank Gehry's work!"
Carolina in the centre:
Interestingly, he uses brick too:

Along with more metal and glass claddings:
More of MIT campus:
From left; Anna, Ching Hei, Zic and Carolina:

Sleepless in Seattle again: Part 2

Views of downtown Seattle: SAM, no, not Singapore Art Museum but Seattle Art Museum:
Interior:
Pike Market, famous for the fresh produce and fish:
The most famous fish stall in the entire market:The fishmongers throw the fish to the packer like baseball. Good gimmick. The audience love that:
Coming out of Alaska, I am sick of seafood!
One of the fishmonger:
The rest of the market and street scene:
Fried oysters and shrimp:

The market is huge!:
Well, technically it should not be called a market:
Zic and the world's tallest man... Zic has just the right height:
Another famous Seattle attraction just next door: Seattle Aquarium:

And the Seattle docks:
SAM again, this time the Olympic Sculpture Park:

A view of the Space Needle:
More of the park:
Interesting monstrous sculptures:
And another visit to the Space Needle (we went up the last time we came; see here for pictures):
Then it was time to bid farewell to Seattle.

And hello Boston.

Sleepless in Seattle again: Part 1

From Juneau, we flew to Seattle (for our first trip to Seattle, see here).

Sights in Seattle. Safeco Field, Seattle Mariners' baseball field: King Street Station:
Seattle City Hall:

And the reason why we were so excited coming back to Seattle, the Seattle Public Library (designed by Rem Koolhaas) and this time it was open!
Check out the angles...:
Sexy...:
So is the interior:

It was close to overwhelming:
Not too glaring and not too dark, it was perfect:
This is the third floor by the way (called the 'Living Room'). There are two entrances, from either Fifth (goes to the third floor) or Fourth Avenue (first floor). The second floor is not accessible to public.
The fourth floor is called the 'Red Hall'. This is where all the meeting rooms are. Everything was so red and organic:
Fifth floor, the mixed media room: The sixth to ninth storey is where the 'spiral' is:

You walk up this series of ramps which houses bookshelves and reading stations.

Till you reach the top floor:
Cam-whoring in the middle of a busy library:
...:
And this was the children's section (all the way down in first floor):

Generally, beautiful library but it does not have well-maintained toilets. The toilets look beyond 'hawker-centre' dirty with all the grafitti and questionable characters lurking inside. Simply parasitic on an otherwise monumental library.

Goodbye Skagway.

All packed and ready to go.

Thanks to those who sent us off (both in the Atco and jetty).

The ferry that took us to Juneau:
The boys sleeping... (I was beyond 'sleepy' too):

Goodbye Skagway. Thanks for the memories...
And hello Juneau, we meet once again. And once again you are rainy... :(

The people I have come to love.

Thanks for everything.

I cannot put into words how grateful and honored I am to have known you all. I love you and will always miss you all.

Keep in touch.

"I came here to discover myself, heck, I didn't realise that I am an American."

So goes my quote in the newsletter for Skagway Westmark Hotel (which Chilkoot restaurant is a part of). The newsletter was part of a bi-weekly publication given to all the employees. It so happened they were featuring the staff of Chilkoot Restaurant that week. And everyone (not just myself) had to write a little bit about themselves. I just thought of the quote and went along with it.

I'm not being a traitor to Singapore, oh no no (I am a born and bred Singaporean and I am damn proud of it), its just that when I first came here, I felt so miserable leaving my family and friends behind. I miss Singapore. Everything about Singapore: the food, the heat and the 'big' city life. Compared to Skagway, Singapore seems like a mega-metropolis.

But most of all, I miss my family. A lot. Especially my niece (I can't wait to carry her again).
So weeks past, and I began my 'countdown', first it was how many days I have been here, then it turned to weeks and then months, and then it began to be in reverse, how many months I have left here, then weeks and then days, and now hours...

Initially, when the days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months, I was really longing to go back home. I was missing the only family I know.But then as it began to be the reverse, when months left turned to weeks left and then to days left, I know I'm beginning to dread going back home. Cos I know I will be missing the family I made here. Family I would not get to see, maybe for a year or maybe even forever.

This is my American family.

I wouldn't have guessed in a million years how in just three months I could have made so many close friends, friends whom I want to stay in touch with for the rest of my lives; friends whom I have came to love so much, friends whom I feel are like family.

I have my Mama and Big Daddy, Rosalinda and Artie. My sisters (Jasmin, Tsvetalina, Ralitza, Mariya, Yoana and Tsveta) and 'sista' (Jacob). My bros (Greg, Chris, Bryan, Kevin and Justin, and even Alfredo).

Thank you for making being here alone and away from my family easy. Thank you for making me feel so welcomed. Thank you for making me feel loved and at home.

Thanks for being my family.

"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same."