Wow, almost 2 weeks since i last updated. Guess reality has really given me a huge slap on the face and I'm still reeling from the impact of it. I'm still determined, however, to blog about the stuff that happened in New York and coming home to Singapore before I really forget everything... (memory's not like what it used to be. getting old yar.) So just gimme a little time.

Who's still reading by the way?

Haha :)

Florida Part 2
19 Dec
Disneyland. We were determined to not miss the shuttle this time cos Disneyland is very far from our inn. In fact, the journey took an hour. When we got there, we had to take a monorail to another station (within Disneyland) where we took a ferry to Magical Kingdom. The entire Disney World comprises of 4 kingdoms (Magical Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and 1 more that I can't recall) but we only intended to spend 1 day there (due to monetary issues... the ticket prices have doubled in 10 years) so we chose to go to Magical Kingdom. The rides at Magical Kingdom are family-oriented and a large part of those in Magical Kingdom are catered to suit the needs of younger children. If I were to rank the amusement parks I've been to in increasing order of thrill, it would be Magical Kingdom, Universal Studios and lastly Six Flags. Yup Six Flags is really hard-core. Memories of the Superman ride still send shivers up my spine.
Right I digress.
So I had lots of fun there. Not so much of "screams and thrills" but more like a general sense of happiness and joyousness. Some memorable rides include the Rocky Mountain Rollercoaster (the name's not entirely accurate but I'm too lazy to dig out my stuff to check), Pirates of Carribean (the 2nd movie is coming out soon yay! More Captain Jack Sparrow!), the Haunted Mansion (really quite entertaining except for the group of teenage girls next to us who wouldn't stop screaming...) and the Lilo and Stitch ride. Well that one wasn't really a ride but I thought the overall concept was pretty refreshing. Basically it's about Stitch escaping his prison and jumping around the room. Our seats had an additional shoulder guard which applied pressure on our shoulders to simulate Stitch jumping on us to dodge his captors. They also sprayed some stuff to imitate the smell of chilli dogs which was what Stitch was supposed to have eaten according to the story line so it gave the impression that Stitch was pretty near us (for us to be able to smell his "bad breath" heh).
The queues for the rides were at 10 min to 20 min initially but as it drew closer to noon, we started seeing 60 or even 80 min waiting times. But yeah, we managed. Also tried on tons of silly looking hats, both in Universal Studios and Magical Kingdom now that I think about it. I shall post them up soon :) Ooh and I took pictures with Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Chip and Dale. Mickey was so charming, he kissed my hand before I left! *squeal* haha! At 7pm we all crowded at the main street to watch the parade. They dimmed the road lamps so that we could see the full splendour of the brightly-lighted floats at night. The parade ended at 7.30 or 7.45, can't quite remember, and we hung around for a while more for the fireworks display at 9pm. Ah that was really my favourite moment of the whole day I reckon. I just love to watch fireworks cos it brings a warm and fuzzy feeling to my heart. The shuttle bus back was scheduled to leave at 10pm and we absolutely couldn't afford to miss that so we sort of rushed back to the pick up point immediately after the fireworks display. Yup we were definitely exhausted after 2 days of theme parks.

20 Dec
We wanted to visit Daytona Beach today but we found out that we were just too tired so we went to explore Downtown Orlando. We discovered there was really nothing there. We essentially took a one hour bus ride downtown to look at a lake (Lake Eola, supposed to be famous but would someone please tell me the reason why?) with a fountain in the middle of it. On the bus ride back, we realised that the main shopping area (for gifts and souveniers) was in fact just one street away from our inn. So we spent the rest of the day walking down International Boulevard. Went into a Harley Davidson Shop and ogled at the cowboy hat, visited the world's largest McDonalds too (why it's so large is because there was an arcade on the 2nd floor. But they serve gourmet sandwiches too besides the regular stuff so I guess that makes it special) and lastly had dinner at IHOP which is the acronym for International House of Pancakes (whee!). Yesh pancakes for dinner is highly unorthodox but I didn't travel several thousand miles for nothing right? Of course we had pancakes and they were really delicious heh.

21 Dec
Our last day at Florida, we travelled to Daytona Beach. We wanted to go to Miami Beach but settled for Daytona in the end cos Miami is a 6 hour bus ride away. We still took about 3 hours to get to Daytona because we had to take a bus downtown to the Greyhound Bus Station which provides bus services between cities. When we arrived at Daytona, we realised that the beach wasn't that near the bus station so we walked for a good 45 min at least. When we reached the beach, we were kind of disappointed. It was too cold and windy for starters, and the beach looked kind of deserted. We strolled along the length of it for a while, then decided to head for Daytona USA, the racing track. That was a challenge too because we know we definitely couldn't walk there (6 to 8 miles is freaking long) but lucky for us, we met a helpful bus driver who set us on the right path. On top of that, we had reasonably good luck with the buses, always catching them just on time. Yup so we got to Daytona USA at 4pm or so, joined the tour and looked at the exhibits for the rest of the afternoon. We had to leave at 6.45pm to catch the bus back to the bus station. By then, it was dark and the 4 of us were walking out in the cold at the side of a really long but busy road. Heh. Well we met another kind bus driver. He was driving the bus back to the depot but he picked us up anyway and drove us some way along the road and radioed the driver of the bus we're supposed to take to let him know that he was to pick the 4 of us up. Anyway, when we returned to Orlando, we took a cab back to our inn because it was late and also to save time. We were leaving Florida at 6am the next morning so we figured we needed the time to pack.

This was when I was wrongly accused of flirting with the cab driver.

Argh.

Well it's a whole big joke, dun take it seriously :) Cos I was sitting in the front passenger seat and the cab driver is actually a Daytona enthusiast so of course I was obliged to make some small talk. Whatever were you thinking hmm?

Omigosh, I'm two days late. Oops.

Birthday dedication 1: Yali

Heh I still remember Arts Fest in Sec 3 or 4 where you dressed up like a movie star. That was fun. Thank you for the nice things you've said about my blog. More importantly, thank you for reading it! Happy birthday!

Birthday dedication 2: Andrea

Andrea jie jie! Happy Birthday! She's a really capable and independent woman and a great friend too. All the best in your future endeavours!

Florida Part 2 and New York currently in the works. Do stay tuned for it :)

Departure and Florida Part 1

16 Dec
We spent the day roaming around Cornell, exploring the places that we haven't. Brain collection at Uris Hall, Sage Chapel, the moving stacks at Olin library just to name a few. We also revisited some of our favourite haunts, like the Ag Quad, Dairy Bar and McGraw tower. At 4.30pm, we met up with some of the other Singaporeans to go traying on Libe Slope. Traying is pretty much like sledding except that instead of using a sled (which most of us obviously don't have), we use trays "borrowed" from the dining halls instead. The slope itself is pretty long and has varying gradients so we all "warmed-up" with a moderate portion of the slope. Then the 4 of us exchange students started to build a snowman (Whee!). Snowman-building is actually pretty tiring but we managed. Haha one of my long-time dreams fulfilled. After that, Jowyn and I decided to challenge THE slope. Gosh, that one was really no joke. I can't really judge how steep it was in the dark but the tray picked up speed really really quick. Then there was this bump near the end of the slope and I flew off the tray, landed on the snow with a thud, rolled once or twice before coming to a complete stop.
Ouch.
Yeah dun worry, I was just shaken but not hurt. Then we had to climb back up the slope. Now that was really tough. And quite hilarious too. Jowyn actually slid backwards after she struggled up the slope for so long. Then some of the guys (I think Guo Jian and Yizhuan) tried to help us from the top but they too slid down the slope.
So after that, Cherlyn and I went back to our room to pack. Really furious packing. Shavonne dropped by at 7 or 8pm I think to say goodbye to us. Really very touched by her sincerity cos by that time, the wind and snow was already quite heavy and yet she braved them both to come see us. She's really a great friend. Laura, our RA, came to check our room at 11.30pm and at 12 midnight, we started the tedious and tiring job of pushing our luggage to HILC. We were going to catch the 4am bus to NYC so we could have checked out later. However, Laura had a paper the following day so we thought it would be really unfair if we made her stay up so late. Hence we decided to check out earlier and spend the remaining hour or so at HILC with Jowyn and Denise. I can't really say this was a really smart decision now cos what was normally a 7-8 min walk to HILC became a 2 hour journey through the snow with extremely heavy luggage. Each of us had 2 luggages and we couldn't manage them both at the same time so we had to make 2 trips. We were totally exhausted and extremely annoyed at the end of it. So you see, I actually left Cornell not in the best of moods haha. Well it was much better later when we had to transport the luggages to the bus stop cos there were a couple of guys who helped us with it. Especially Shannon. Forever indebted to him. Guo Jian too.

17 Dec
I slept like a log on the bus after the extreme physical exertions. When we reached Port Authority Bus Terminal, we said goodbye to the freshies except for Yuan Xiang and Joseph. We were to deposit one luggage each at Yuan Xiang's hotel room so it'll make our travelling easier. Joseph was very kind to help us with it. After our luggage woes were settled, we made our way to LaGuardia Airport to catch our flight to Florida. We arrived in Florida at approximately 6pm, checked in at our hotel (more like inn) and headed out for dinner. We marveled at the fact that we could venture out in the night in just one layer of clothing compared to the normal 3 or 4 layers we have to wear in Ithaca.

18 Dec
We spent the day at Universal Studios. Well before that, we woke up early to stuff ourselves with the complimentary breakfast. The inn provided the best breakfast I've eaten so far while travelling. The muffins deserve special mention hee. Anyway, we ate the breakfast and missed the free shuttle to Universal Studios. Sigh. So we walked there. Our inn is quite near Universal Studios so it only took us about half an hour to walk there. We met up with Jowyn's sister and her friend at the ticket booth and proceeded in for a day of fun and excitement haha.
The first ride we took was the Shrek 4D thingy. It's a 3D show so we all had to put on the silly-looking 3D glasses. What made it 4D was when Shrek and Donkey jumped into a river (for example), some water is sprayed on our faces, or when there were spiders scuttling on the floor, something will seem to brush past our feet. Pretty cool :) Other rides we took included Jimmy Neutron (simulation ride), Twister (marvellous special effects, we all came out with messy hair), Earthquake (sitting in a subway train when an earthquake strikes), E.T. (riding a bike to save E.T.'s planet). The Mummy ride was the best. It was an exciting roller coaster ride with plenty of special effects too. M.I.B. was pretty cool too. We each had this gun that we were supposed to use to shoot aliens and earn points. We went for several shows too, like Beetlejuice Graveyard Rock, Animal Planet. The best one was definitely Fear Factor Live. The contestants were park visitors who volunteered to participate in the stunts. That was really way cool. We also went to the largest Hard Rock Cafe to pick up some gifts before catching the shuttle bus back to our inn. We're on a budget so dinner was Maggi Mee. Luckily there was a microwave oven in the room.