Some introductions first, since I figure these people will feature very often from now on.

From left: Albert, Daniel, John, Uma and yours truly :) We are the Oceanside peeps!

That photo was taken on Thanksgiving morning, when we woke up bright and early to take part in the Turkey Trot down by the beach. It was 5km long, I managed to finish it a little faster than the Great Eastern Run, probably cos of the cool weather and Uma who has fantastic stamina. Albert and Daniel finished among the first 250 and they got medals!

Guy in a turkey costume and kid with a turkey hat:

Was supposed to go to the San Diego Zoo with some seniors after the run but the plan was canceled so we went to catch Madagascar 2 and managed to squeeze in a second movie, Australia. Then it was back to the hotel for dinner and a short nap before we headed off for shopping at 1.30am. The day after Thanksgiving is commonly known as Black Friday and stores nationwide will have huge sales that typically start at midnight or really early in the morning so we drove to Carlsbad Premium Outlet to check it out.

Oh yar. We have a rental car now. It's rather large, like the size of Dad's Camry. Still trying to get the hang of it.

Anyway, the outlet was bustling with people when we got there. Some shops had long queues outside and Starbucks had even longer queues haha. I bet people wanted to pump some caffeine into their bloodstream to shop throughout the night. The shopping was ok I guess, but it's unfortunate that I just arrived in the States and I can't afford to spend too much, not until I've settled my permanent accomodation and bought a car. But I still dragged 3 guys behind me for a good 4 hours haha :)

Just slightly before the sun rose, we left the outlet for Best Buy, which is a major electronic store here and this is the place where Black Friday took on a whole new meaning for us. To cut a long story short, Daniel lost his wallet, got it back with the cash missing but the cards in place and now, he'll never ever step into Best Buy again. We went back to the hotel for another short nap, then headed out for the Apple store in the afternoon for Albert to get his MacBook and ended with shopping at Walmart. And that's about how I spent Thanksgiving 2008 in the US. 

First day of work.

Jamey, my manager, described it very aptly. "It's like drinking from a fire hose." Totally.

But it's only information-overload, Oceanside (OCN) is a great place, people there are so nice, it's just awesome. 

The highlights of my day were the grey area tour and the shift change meeting where I got a chance to enter the manufacturing plant. Especially the latter, where I had to gown up before entering (remember those days Bippies?). 

It's too bad pltmates can't see my excitement, since they were complaining how I don't seem very excited for my USA trip prior to my departure. Well rest assured that I'm absolutely brimming with excitement right now, before the novelty wears off.

Some pics to make you all jealous:

Do these look familiar?

Heh. I'm now at Oceanside, and will be staying here for the rest of my one year in USA. Arrived at San Diego Airport at 8.30pm on Fri and was picked up by my managers and seniors. They brought us to Residence Inn Oceanside and later dinner at an Italian restaurant across the road from our accomodation. It's heart-warming really, especially since I've just left from a great bunch of people in San Francisco:

Hope we get to meet up again :)

16 Nov 2008 San Francisco City Tour

Awesome day, awesome weather. A little hazy at the beginning but it cleared up soon. I simply fell in love with the azure, blue sky. 

It was mostly a stay-in-the-bus-and-look-at-the-sights tour, but we did hop off at the Golden Gate Bridge, Twin Peaks and the beach for quick snaps. 

At the Golden Gate Bridge, there was a lonely sailor:

We decided to cheer him up a bit:

Had a great view of the entire San Francisco City up at the Twin Peaks but really caught my interest was this curvy road:

Stopped by the beach as well...

And the famous Victorian houses known as the Painted Ladies (but suaku-me only first heard of it on the tour). It's apparently featured in the TV series "Full House" (which suaku-me thought was a Korean TV drama.)

Government building with gold-plated roof:

Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39. Famous for the lively (albeit noisy) sea-lions...

...and I think that is Alcatraz (former prison) at a distance:

17 Nov 2008 New Hire Orientation

Basically my first day of work which started off with the completion and submission of various official documents and getting my photo ID taken. The facilitators next brought us through what Genentech was all about. The tagline, mission, values, goals, culture, benefits (which I'm not entitled to but doesn't bother me cos hey I'm just glad to be here) etc. Might sound boring the way I list it out here but by the end of today's session, I'm pretty convinced that I'll try my very best to remain in this company heh. The entire session was well-paced and addressed many concerns that new hires will have in mind so two thumbs up Genentech! 

I've got 3.5 more days of orientation here in South San Francisco before leaving for my working location at Oceanside. It's in Southern California, 1.5 hrs away from San Francisco by plane or 8 hrs away by car. Sigh. I definitely want to go to San Francisco again to see more sights and attractions but I'll see how it goes. Oceanside's not affected by the forest fires at Southern California so that's great news. Had my mom worried for awhile there. *Don't worry Mommy!*

I have arrived safely at San Francisco, checked in to my luxurious single suite, took a nap surrounded by fluffy pillow goodness and I'm now officially jet-lagged.

So at Changi Airport some hours ago, I was taking pictures with my mom...

...fellow bummers and...
...and Bippies.

The flights were pretty uneventful. The first flight was to Hong Kong for a one hour transit. However, we still had to alight from the plane to immediately join the security check queue to allow us to re-board the plane so that was pretty silly but good exercise for the legs. Managed to get some sleep on the flight to San Francisco, which might explain why I'm jet-lagged but whatever. Generally, the seats were uncomfortable but the food was good (Magnum Classic and Haagen Daz dessert!). 

Finally arrived at...

...San Francisco International Airport, boarded the shuttle to Residence Inn and checked into this:

All this for me and me only. Woo hoo! I hereby order you to be jealous of me hahahah! They dun call it "Residence Inn" for nothing I guess.

Gonna have a tour of San Francisco in a few hours time so I'm going to head back to bed to see if I can get a little bit more sleep. Meanwhile, don't worry about me, I'm enjoying myself here :)

In a few hours, I'll be departing for USA for a one year training programme in bioprocess manufacturing. The good news is, this blog will be revived with my American adventures. There isn't any bad news yet. Hope it remains that way.

Thank you everybody for your well-wishes and farewell gatherings. I'm gonna be out of your lives for a year but do drop by here so that I can entertain you with the happenings in my life and likewise, I hope you can keep me in the loop with what's going on in your lives (MSN, Skype, Facebook or email me!) cos you are all precious to me :)

Bye!