From Singapore to LA....LA to Grand Canyon!

Hi all…I’m so excited to anounce to the whole world that I finally set up a blog to note down all the memorable expericence along this long journey…cant imagine myself doing this cos I always wonder why ppl have so much time to blog….now I finally understand. This is my very first entry so u guys shld feel honoured reading it..haha…!

This entry is long for reasons. Firstly, it's a summary of wat happened for the past 2 weeks...Secondly i tried my best to note down every single thing that happened...that's why it so damn long...take ur time reading it..

FYI, I’m on Work and Travel USA Programme which will last for 3 months in the States. The plan is to work in the States for 2.5 months so we can save up for travelling later. I’m hoping that my pay here would be sufficient to cover most of the major expenses if not all, so that I dun have to fork out too much for travelling. I’m currently located at Grand Canyon North Rim…a place which is much less commercialised than Grand Canyon South Rim…Most tourists will go to South Rim cos there are more things to do there…more resorts, more trails, more ppl and the area covered is few times larger than North Rim…however North Rim is mostly for nature love…Everything is so natural…I would prefer North Rim!

May 17

First of all, thanks to Bao Zhu aka Babi, Ah Xian, Jieling, Mingjun (the ghost) and not forgetting Kel Choo (Thanks so much for one night of free accomodation) for sending me off….i was so touched and will u guys. Hiy cant make it back in time for my last FWOC man…sad…sigh...

Zhu, me, Ah Neo, Mingjun and Xian

Kel Choo and me!

We left Changi Airport at 8.10am. The plane took off on time. We chose China Airline cos it’s one of the cheapest airline to Los Angeles…but China Airline was surprisingly good…service is good, food is good…hmmm it’s generally not bad la considering we were so much less compared to SQ.

Arrived at Taipei 4 hours later. The airport is kinda old compared to Changi Airport. Waited 4 hours for the next flight. Rested at a waiting area to use its wireless service…luckily I brought my laptop here if not I would be bored to death.

It’s 4.40pm, time to board the plane. At the boarding area, we were checked by this weird officer. Dun even know wat he was trying to do…he checked our passports for very long, think he wanted us to bribe him…cant be bothered…we din do anything wrong, dun think he could do anything to us. Finally we boarded the plane and had a long ride to Los Angeles. Watched Brokeback Mountain on plane..hmmm quite meaningful..no wonder it’s award winning.

Arrived at Los Angeles International Airport safely. Tell u wat…this was where all the unpleasant incidents began! I was stopped by the immigration officer for a secondary inspection. Not everyone has to gone thru this procedure and only “randomly” selected ppl have to go thru this. Waited 2 hours there…asked them wat I was waitig for but they refused to tell…They only asked me to wait…was damn pissed off and went to argue with one of the officer..u know wat kinda response he gave me…SIT DOWN!! Wat the hell…..USA, such a civilised country. The fellar reminded of malaysian police officers….unreasonable and rude!! Disgusting! Now I understand my lots of ppl say Americans know nothing about wat’s happening outside USA….maybe they think the whole map only has USA! That gave me a very bad impression of US…but we cant stereotype la…There r lots of nice americans out there…..LIKE CHRISTINA!!

Poor Christina…she waited for us for 3 hours at airport…she was angry with how I was treated. Haha…shouldn’t complain so much la…we cant expect everything to be the same as Singapore la…different countries do have different culture and we just gotta accept it when we are in the country. What to do….at least we reached LA safely.

So glad to meet Christina again…it’s been so long when we last seen her…she slimmed down a lot and she’s so much prettier now. She drove us around in LA. We visited her school UCLA….took some pictures at the place where The OC was filmed…

Headed to a place called The Grove. It’s a shopping and eating area in LA…things here are not cheap at all even for american standard. We had our dinner at a very nice restaurant called The Cheesecake Factory. It’s an exclusive restaurant with really really good service….this restaurant really made me understand the real meaning of service man. The servants are so proactive and frenly…we were really treated us like VIPs…nice place... Christina insisted to treat us this meal as an appreaciation to all the help she had when she was in Singapore….feel so bad cos the meal was really expensive….Thank you Christina…You’ve been a really nice fren.

@ UCLA library

Whisper Lounge, The Grove?

@ The Cheesecake Factory...yummy!

Musical Fountain @ The Grove

Christina, Lina, Manting and me!

After dinner, we headed the Greyhound(bus service) terminal to catch a bus to Saint George, the place where we gonna meet our employer. The terminal wasn’t exactly safe. There were lots of homeless ppl along the streets and lots of beggars. Actually Greyhound is meant for lower class ppl in the US.

It was an 10-hour ride and we have to transit at Las Vegas Greyhound Terminal. Guess wat..I met my frens at the terminal and we are going to the same place…haha…now we got 2 more ppl to travel with us liao….total 2 guys and 3 girls…

@ Saint George, Utah

@ Saint Geroge Mcdonald's

From left: Hongwei, ne, Lina, Manting and Cindy

May 18

Arrived at Saint George at 8am (US time). The employer will only pick us up at 12pm at Mcdonalds. Haha….5 of us only ordered a meal at Macs and sat there the wholde morning….there was this auntie who kept giving us free refill of coffee..felt damn paiseh…While waiting, I called home and a fren…so happy to hear from them!

The employer arrived at the Macs at 12pm…we settled some administrative stuff and headed straight to Grand Canyon…. I was damn tired cos didn’t sleep well on plane and Greyhound …..I slept throughout the 3-hour journey to Grand Canyon.

Met our employers and they are bunch of frenly ppl…(unlike those cocky immigration officers).

Today is our first day here so din do much…we just walked around the place and rested te whole day cos eveyone was too tired.

May 19

Today is our first day of work. Before we started working, the employer brought us around to show us some of the places that we need to know.

After introducing to us our department manager, we started work immediately. Lina and I work as kitchen helper. It is an easy job but after 10 hours of work I almost died la….we worked from 3pm thru 2am non stop man….was damn shag after work…felt so puzzled after work cos we are supposed to come here and enjoy…not suffer lor! But come to think bout it….because of shortage of manpower we got a chance to work extra hours and save up more for travelling….maybe it’s a blessing I disguise…always look at the bright side….maybe cos it is only the first day….we still time to get used to it….tomo will be better I hope!!!!

May 20

Things are not as bad as i thought it would be…today was much less tiring as compared to our first day…I think we really needed time to adjust to it. I’m happy working with the ppl here…they are generally nice and frenly ppl. So glad that we are not ostracised by the people here like wat Bao zhu told me wat Shengwei’s fren encountered. A fren of mine is working at the Deli next to the place I work. He kept feeding us really food from his place to keep us full…so nice of him! Ended work at 1am and headed back to my dorm. Today is a great day…think tomo will be even better!

May 22

Woke up late today and missed my breakfast…and that was the only breakfast I missed so far…haha it is oppoite of wat happened back in kent Ridge Hall…! Today is freezing cold…tempearature dopeed below 0 degree celcius in the afternoon….IT SNOWED TODAY!! I was so excited…quickly rushed back to my room to get my camera….took some picture of it but couldn’t really see the snow....sigh….! Anyway this is my first time seing snow and im sure it will snow again.

Snow!!!!

Made a much-needed call back after work…So glad to hear the heart-warming voice again…I was happily sitting outside the staff lounge talking on the phone… It was even colder at night. ….the ppl here must be thinking wat this guy doing outside while everyone was hiding inside….haha…it was simply too cold outside but I enjoyed it….hulk..

Went back to my room after making the call….there was a little note pasted on my door….“Wenhao..pls enter and leave the room quietly…No offence..trying to catch up with some lost sleep”…I was very stunned cos I din know what I did that disturbed him….maybe he’s a light sleeper? sigh…too bad…maybe I really gotta enter my room quietly…

May 25

Today I had my very first trail in Grand Canyon. Lina and Manting did Transcept Trail and Bright Angel trail but I haven..cos I couldn’t get up of my bed. Lina, Javier (a really nice Spanish guy from front desk) and I went forUncle Jim Trail. Uncle Jim Trail is a branch for Ken Patrick Trail. It took us 3 hours to complete the entire trail. It was tiring but fun.

After the trail, Lina told me that she actually knew that my room mate was disturbed by me cos Manting told her…diao! How come Manting knows? My rom mate actually asked Manting to tell me that cos he wont have chance to talk to me…when I come back rom work he will be asleep….or maybe he felt paiseh to tell me? I dunno….but I dun like to involve thrid party….

I better take a nap before I get back to work at 3pm…it’s another long day so better rest well! Here are some pictures we took…enjoy!

Javier and me @ Uncle Jim Trail

Beautiful Canyon...North Khaibab Trail is right behind me!

May 26

As usual, I woke up at 5.30am….think I must be very sensitive to brigtness. Met Patrick , an american guy working at the same kitchen, at EDR (employee dining room) during breakfast time. I used to suspect he’s a gay cos he usually doesn’t talk much to ppl but he always came to me to talk….He’s not bad looking and some of frens even said that he’s the best looking guy in the kitchen. After a long chat with him I realised that he has a girlfren…haha..! Think too much…haha…Anyway he’s a really frenly and helpful guy but he’ll be leaving soon…so sad! Hopefully we can still keep in touc via email…

Manting came while we were chatting...then we started discussing bout our flight ticket to Washington...when we were done, Pat asked..."were u guys speaking English? I could hear some English words but couldnt completely understand u guys!"....muahaha....Manting and I suddenly burst into laugh....YES we were conversing in English, hmmm to be mr precise Singlish la...damn funny...then we started to explain to him.

Sometimes we found it hard to understand them...guess so they are...it's becos of the american accent...Ppl from Calinornia still ok...No much problem. But other states like Texas, Winscosin etc, the accent is simply too strong that we can barely understand wat they trying to say...Manting said she repeated 3 times before her boss understood her...sometimes we gotta rephrase and rephrase before they could understand us...haha...but it's really fun...so sometimes we must fake angmoh accent in order for them to understnad us...haha!! interesting!

May 29

Couldn’t sleep well for the past few days….sleep at 2am and wake up at 5.30 almost everydaty…dunno why…I guess maybe it’s too bright at 5.30…

Woke up for breakfast early today cos we’re going for a trail later. Initially was only 4 of us, Javier, Manting, Lina and I. But Hongwei and Madonna (an american lady) joined in at last minute. So 7 of us squeezed into Javier’s car to the detination. Im not gonna explain how the scenery in Grand Canyon is like cos it’s simply beautiful. Picture says a thousand words so I think I’ll just show u guys the picture that we took along the way.

Madonna was so weird, she was so crazy over “holes”. U know she was so excited when she saw a hole between the 2 rocks and some little holes in rocks. WE DUN UNDERSTAND. Apart from that, Madonna is horny too. She approached a guy who’s quite good looking to ask to his email address and took picture with him….we were so stunned!

I din really enjoy the trip as much as the rest did cos it was too cold and I din wear enough clothing! Really hope I could hug someone to keep me warm.

It was a wonderful trip I would say. Thanks Javier for bringing us around.

Here are the pictures….enjoy!

Javier, Madonna, me Hongwei and Manting!

May 30

went to Patrick's room to use his laptop cos he has high speed wireless internet connection in his room...his room was in a mess the moment i stepped...it wa horrible...clothes were everywhere...gosh....

Patrick and me in his messy room!

So sad Pat and Sam are leaving on thursday...they are here cos there's shortage of manpower in North Rim.

Went back to EDR to see if i got a room at new dorm....YES YES YES! I got it...!!! i finally could use high speed internet connection again! let me show u how different my new room is compared to my old room...u will be surprised! It's 10 times better than our hall rooms...it's more like a hotel room man!!!

Good bye my old room!

Welcome to my new room!

New dorm corridor!