every time the seesaw touches the ground is a point i make
on emerald hill. when you are not looking at someone someone else
is looking at you. they look blank but those windows have eyes.
here the lights are far above
and spell themselves into words
what takes centrestage?
xuemin.n
currently an econs major in nus. because she's caught in the wrong major.she's left having a love/hate r/ns with school. if a simple life isn't too much to ask for: days spent being happy and appreciated
and doing anything she wants to do, she thinks she might just have that someday. while she still remember how the lights twinkled across the skyscrappers, she starts up a little tea shop just for fun and discover new sounds like the thud of raindrops on leaves.
watching her garden glowing green after the Spring rain
she closes her eyes and begin to dream
breakfast at the hostel was good. but i still wanted to try the donuts here in the states. even though i am not a donut connoisseur, but they really dont taste that fantastic, though there are outlets of them everywhere at every turn of the corner. while waiting for the bus.
it was shopping time on the last day. shopping spurs us on and we dashed out at 930am to cover as much as we can before we hit the museums.
H&M store absolutely rocks. i like it even better than forever 21 now. i asked ming na to take a pic of me holding up this bag. (this is for mark who has been sourcing high n low for a men's handbag for the longest time) only managed to visit nordstrom, forever 21, H&M and Old Navy. there's summer sales everywhere and it really doesn't help that each of those shops is 3 levels high each. we seem to be spending forever in each shop. cant wait to check out the premium outlets in new york!
after lunch, it was back to the museum campus for more visiting!
we were all especially excited to visit this museum because of NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM
this is what we came to the museum for. T REX! they name her SUE
the Egyptian exhibits
the mummification process..
there are a thousand other exhibits and whatnots, but as usual we didnt have time to cover each and every one of them, so i shall end off with this captivating picture!
but then the real adventure was what really marked the end of our whole trip. we cldn't stop telling everyone and anyone who asked. i am therefore buying a phonecard. =)
psyched to start the second day of our chicago trip, we woke up early to visit the Chicago Architecture Foundation, which included a lot of interesting information of Chicago's outstanding architectural legacy.
initially we thought that this "model city" reminded us a lot of Singapore's URA as well as a dozen other modern cities around the world..
but then they have awesome stuff like this!
popped by the art institute of chicago too. it was free admission day from 5pm to 7pm so there was a long queue outside. but luckily, the line moved pretty fast and we got in within 10 minutes. works of art in over 21 galleries! no wonder it's the second largest museum of arts in the states, after NY.
walking down the streets of chicago. the sky never clear up
and one of my fave part of the whole trip: the architectural river cruise. really worth the 28 bucks that we each paid for the tour which introduced us to the various famous architectural designs in downtown chicago. my impression of the city totally changed after the tour. the city, along with its buildings bear more history and meaning to me now.
they have impressive river cottages which are actually high class condos by the riverside with yachts as their main mode of transportation. it was really cool because instead of seeing cars "parked" at the front, "they have special yachts parking lot for the residents.
and look at this high rise parking lot. circular it is! and really it is much more magnificent than what is shown here. because the circle is not a full one, it has some sort of wavy forms too.
my chicago travels continued with my visit to the Hancock Tower which is an observation tower with a bird's eye view of the whole of downtown. i reckon that the pictures will actually be boring because it is only breathetaking when you are there in person to listen to the interactive tours and take in the view yourself.
home of the chicago bulls. but too bad we didn't get a chance to watch a live match!
i am finally here. the 5 of us, charlie, sam, my other 2 roomies got out of the island on that fateful tuesday evening to go to the largest city of state illinois. it was tiring travelling from one state to another on the greyhound bus. true to meghan's words, the bus has quite a few weirdos travelling so it's really better to keep a watchful eye on our surroundings.
but well, we reached there bright n early to explore this "windy city" (go google to find out why! it has absolutely nothing to do with the weather!) speaking of the weather, for the 3 days that we were there, one can never be in the appropriate attire; one moment we rejoiced in the warmth of the sun, but the very next moment, a very strong gust of wind will send shivers down our spine agn. it is just very annoying with the weather.
jiamin and I outside the metra station
after checking into our hostel, we followed the recommendation of one of the staff to try out this pizza place
i really love pizzas, and so far all the pizzas i tasted in the states rocks!
first attraction: to the aquarium! which is really just abt 20 times bigger than singapore's underwater world and zoo. but personally, i rmb much more of sg's because there are always live performances to see but over in chicago, there are none scheduled.
afterwards, we walked down to Grant Park to join in the festivities of the 10-day food festival,"Taste of chicago"
chinese food for a change! and i tasted my first ever fortune cookie!! whee! i was damn excited! i got a lucky msg," i will be showered with good luck tmw!" the rest were all really excited too to taste chinese dishes after a long time. although this is not really authentically chinese because it was half thai, and had cheesy names like dragon set and crazy spicy noodles, we all agreed that the food was really delicious!
to navy pier! one of the largest attraction in downtown chicago!
the beautiful nice scene
playing with one of those mirrors
and to the most impt highlight of it all! navy pier has fireworks every weds and sats! how amazing! and mind you, it was not a short 5 minute one, it was a full 15 minutes of spectacular display!
we love navy pier!
i was actually dead tired by the end of it all, i went along with the rest to catch a late night movie in the theatre. TRANSFORMERS. i fell asleep ard 30 minutes in the show. i tried my best already. anyways, the seats are first come first served so even if we had bought the tickets online, it doesn't guarantee us good seats. we still have to be punctual to get a good view.
I'VE GOT A HUNGER TWISTING MY STOMACH INTO KNOTS @ 10:34 PM
@ sea-biscuit restaurant
it was initially just jiamin and i pigging out on our off days( half day for me) but then more came along afterwards. it was a good thing they did too. because the share for 2( or so we thought) can only be finished by 6 actually. I LOVE MY DERBY BURGER!
on a very rare evening, the 5 of us happened to all gather at the cafeteria to have a meal together. impromptu as it was, it was definitely worth taking a picture down because almost all of us are working different shifts; different timings.
i get eyebags because we are having frequent girl talk late into the night =) ( and of course with my crazy 630am shift)
on one of my off days sometime ago, sam, lydia and i went down to the nearby town, saint ignace for some sightseeing. perhaps we shd really have listened to my co-workers' advice against visiting this town in which he told me to be absolutely boring. but how can a town with a casino on site be boring. well the truth is, the downtown is really almost dead and even the small mackinac island has more people walking downtown. and the worst is, WE DIDN'T MANAGE TO VISIT THE CASINO.
that aside, there are some other attractions which sort of made up for this abject lack of intensity
native americans: indian village which sells a lot of souvenirs and gift items which can be encapsulated in the picture below; just a lot of stuff
next was another museum dedicated to conserving the culture of another kind of indian tribe: the ojibwa tribe
dreamcatchers
items made from plants.
their family network; a very specialised kind of division of labour among the diff members in which they each depend on each other for survival.
we took a break from all the museums by checking out this restaurant,"the driftwood restaurant" as recommended by the guy whom we met at the museum. the food was simply splendid. actually it was nth fanciful, just ham, cheese, chicken, beef and some lettuce but it was one of the best we have ever tasted for a long long time.
the strawberry banana smoothie i ordered. although this was smth i was normally wouldn;t have ordered even in singapore, i thought i gave it a try and really, i couldn't stop gushing abt it afterwards.
after lunch, we checked out just one more museum amidst ice cream( for me), taffy sweets, and popcorn. Fort de Buade, which used to be a french fort but then i think now it has been converted to the conservation of indian culture too. the guy at the museum told us that a lot of the native americans still reside in saint ignace, just that in their civilian clothes, it takes a really sharp eye and a knowledgeable one to recognise them.
photos according to how the indians were affected during the BRITISH PERIOD and AMERICAN PERIOD
the 2 grocery stores that we popped by afterwards before heading back gave us some cheap thrills like buying 25cents cupnoodles and for me, i bought stupid stuff like gummy sweets in spongebob, high school musical packaging. these stuff are all over in the states
EVERY NIGHT PEACEFULLY SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE @ 9:16 AM
as was discussing with roomie yesterday, and with james and krist today, it is somewhat at once frightening, but not at all surprising since it's an age-old question which i have always wanted to answer but then i am never satisfied with it. it's controversial. it has to do with my identity. it has to do with coming to terms with my roots, my race, although i never really like classifying people into racial categories but then that's the way the world works, so i gotta live with it.
we people are malleable and adaptable to our surroundings. of course we have our innate traits and characteristics that do not change. and believe me, i am definitely the stubborn one who subscribes to the mantra" to be myself and nth else" that we hold true to ourselves in a long time to come, but adaptability and flexibility and maybe understanding? are sometimes but a special paradox. we shd be allowed to change as much as the weather around us.
every time the seesaw touches the ground is a point i make
on emerald hill. when you are not looking at someone someone else
is looking at you. they look blank but those windows have eyes.
here the lights are far above
and spell themselves into words
what takes centrestage?
