appreciating arts…not my cup of tea…~

August 7th, 2008 by anthonyinus

   Checking out our accom, we moved over to Hilton LAX, another Hilton stay again after Hilton SF, guess Hilton is just up to our expectation and that made us decide to stay at thr. Next day, I went by myself to Walt Disney Concert Hall, MOCA( Museum of Contemporary Arts) and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Walt Disney hall was exhilarating, self-guided tour was very informational. Next, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was just within my sight. Thr wasn’t much cos it’s just like any other normal music centre. So, I only took a few pics at thr. MOCA was a disappointment to me, cos I nvr have to passion to appreciate contemporary arts. So in the exhibition hall, I thought I was seeing a few rubbish pieces of arts which gave me the impression that I also hv the ability to produce them, lol…funny…For instance, they hv one painting which was just plain black, and the title for it was ‘I have nothing to add on it anymore’, such a ridicule. After that, I strolled along Downtown and stumbled on Pershing’s Square and had my Starbucks at thr. Coming up, I walked to Fashion District and Toy District, though I couldn’t tell if I had reach those places or not, lol…cos they weren’t apparent…lol..went back to tapao dinner from Panda Express and McD, Im such a poor thg, lol…

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Exam…

August 7th, 2008 by anthonyinus

   After final, we went on our own pace to the places that we wanted to go. For instance, Eunice wanted to go for last-min shopping, thus she went to the nearby Ross in hope of searching for dirt-cheap stuffs. Whras for me, I went to Malibu beach and Getty Villa, another distinct part of Getty’s museums; rmb I went  to Getty Centre b4 this…lol, thought I wanted to compare which one was better and more towards my cup of tea, and in the end, I had decided to opt for Getty Villa as they hv more ‘godly’ sculptures which I hv pre-knowledge on it as compared to boring arts and paintings, lol…The whole place was gr8 and I dunno how to explain my euphora, I’ll just let the pictures I hv uploaded to speak for themselves, lol…

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Griifith

August 7th, 2008 by anthonyinus

   Even though I had exam on the next day, I still had decided to explore LA and this time we went to Griifith Park Observatory, the view esp. at dusk was picturesque! We could see the Hollywood sign so upclose. We managed to go all the way up thr cos of Ting’s fren, An, a Vietnamese fren working in LA. He was so kind that he treated us to the planetarium show and pizza for dinner. Considering he was just an acquaintance made online, he was truly a big fan of Ting and an avid reader of Ting’s blog. He brought us ard with his car to different places unreachable if taking bus or other means. After the whole trip, we felt extremely tired and had no way to study or prepare for tmr’s paper. Thus, I gave in at least for me and had my slumber at abt 2am+; paper was at 8am though, lol… I’d be free after tmr’s paper, yay!…

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SEA

August 7th, 2008 by anthonyinus

   Next was the trip to Seattle. We took Virgin America and the flight was unarguably comfortable esp. the in-flight entertainment provided was absolutely entertaining and I thought it was better than the one in A330 to HK from KL. When we reached SEA, Stephanie met up with her cousin, Janlyk and he drove us back to his apartment; it was huge and thr was Rock Band 3!, lol…We played quite a few times throughout the whole trip in SEA. The next morning, we went to Pike Place Market. You could find a plethora of choices of seafood and the size was gigantic. The whole market place was very different from the ones in Msia as I found it confusing to navigate my way inside the market. The 1st Starbucks which we went to was just a stone’s throw away from the market, and it was always crowded with ppl. I ordered Mocha Mint Chip and it tasted the same and so the place was only this happening cos of the fact that it was the 1st Starbucks in the world. We came to know more about the history of SEA from the undergrd tour that we signed up. In short, the SEA that we hv now is on top of the old SEA which was burned off caused by negligence. To know more about the story, u can ask me directly bcos I feel it’ll be too lengthy to mention it here. Next, we went to Museum of Flight. We got the chance to board Air Force One and if u haven known, Air Force One is the airplane serving only the US presidents. That reminded me of the movie Air Force One starred by Harrison Ford. The other significant plane that we boarded was the fastest plane on earth which is British Airways Concorde. After that we went to the beach to have our seafood craze and I ordered halibut, it’s more costly than ordering salmon or cod fish. The next day, we went to visit Microsoft campus, the place whr Janlyk worked in. The working atmosphere was quite relaxing and I like the pantry most cos u can take whatever drinks or food that are prepared for foc. Following up, we had our lunch at the 1st Malay restaurant that I hv ever seen thus far in US of A. I ordered ‘wat tan hor’ which tasted quite similarly to the one in Msia except that they put scallops, lol… Next, we went to Snoqualmie Fall which is at Snoqualmie town. We spent a few hours exploring the area and taking pics. We had one of our most expensive dinner at Tap House Grill, and I ordered beers sampler which was a unique feature of that restaurant. They served 160 different types of beers. Next, we went to the Space Needle, there wasn’t much at there except that it looked a bit like a space ship. The next dinner that we had was an Ethiopian cuisine. It was my 1st experience dining in an Ethiopian style and ambience and I thought it was not that bad. After our dinner, we went to club at Kurrent. I didn’t do much at thr except drinking a few cocktails that were ordered by Steph’s bf. Then, we called it a day and rested earlier to prepare for next day’s early flight.

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LV & GC

August 7th, 2008 by anthonyinus

   I realised I have forgotten to update my trip to LV and Grand Canyon. Well, we drove to both places all the way from LA, the former one took us 5 hours to reach there. We stayed in Circus Circus. The 1st impression we got from the place was high temperature and sweltering heat. It was obviously hotter than Sg and Msia. The next morning, we went to LV premium outlet, it was our last planned outlet for the entire programme, thus I bought to my heart’s content, it was fun though lol…. Along LV strip, you could see LV is divided into a few significant areas such as New York, Paris and etc. Most of the buildings here are hotels cum casinos, therefore you can gamble almost evrywhr throughout LV as it’s known as the ‘Sin City’. In the day, after we have settled with our night show which was Zumanity played by Cirque Du Soleil, though we could actually consider other shows such as Phantom, however Zumanity appealed to us more as it could be regarded as a striptease as well as a professional circus show, we went to visit M&M World and Coca-Cola factory. You could find anything related to M&M and coke from both places, anything that we could get from elsewhr to peculiar stuffs that aren’t available elsewhr obviously, lol…  When night creeped in, the whole city was seen luminating as various colours of lights were being lit up. We had our dinner at Al Dante, a French fine-dining restaurant, and I ordered pasta for myself. The dessert was the most special part of the dinner. 10 minutes b4 the show, we rushed to NewYork-NewYork hotel from the restaurant, fortunately we had cars, or else it’d take forever to reach, lol…jk…The show was spectacular and it’s definitely worth 100$ so I had no regrets bout it, lol… Cirque Du Soleil is indeed professional and it’s not any circus shows that we normally catch at our place. After the show, by the time we reached our hotel, it was already 2+am and we had to call it a day as the next day, we had to depart to GC which was another 5-hr journey from LV. Along the way, we stopped at Hoover Dam, the place whr they shot Transformers. Then, b4 reaching GC, we went to another part of GC without realizing it and we got lost for like an hour. After that, we were on the right track to GC. We were caught for speeding at about 95mph though the limit was only 65mph on that freeway. It was a scary experience though as the officer didn’t even offer to let us go as it was our 1st time. Well, along the freeway, thr wasn’t anything much except desert, desert and desert. The routes looked familiar and I was certain that I have seen it before in shows or movies. When we reached GC, the view was magnificent and breathtaking. We have to slowly crawl our way to the edge of the cliff just to take pictures of ourselves with the canyons as the backdrop. B4 driving back to LA all the way from GC, the day almost turned dark, which made our journey back to LA even harder. However, in the end, we managed to reach LA at about 5am and we took turns to drive for the 10-hr ride, lol….  

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Venice

July 31st, 2008 by anthonyinus
   Preparing for final paper, thought i could squeeze my already tight schedule just for ths post. Next gr8 attraction is Venice. The beach was totally impressive and thr’s no way to compare it with Santa Monica beach. Well, that day I din feel like frolicking at the beach though, instead I strolled along the street just next to the beach. Guess wat..it really wasn’t a bad decision as I was more than amazed by the buskers. In particular, I made my donation to one of the them as I felt he was truly gifted, being blessed with an agile and flexible body, he asked to be chained and handcuffed by 2 volunteered audiences and when it was done, i almost thought it’s an impossibility to get freed from the complication. He did it within 2-3 minutes and we saw with our very own eyes, thr’s no fakey trick, it’s purely ability and to top it all, he’s an old man, lol….
   U can find a lot of weird stuffs and also weird ppl along the street. They sell from imitation gds, shirts with weird printings/vulgarities all the way to WEEDS! I realised ppl like to flaunt their body figures and by saying tht, i meant they like to take off their shirts and get sun-tanned. Their bodies are so ripped and well-built including ladies, lol…well, cos thr’s an open-air gym thr known as Muscle Beach Gym, sounds tempting, lol…well, tht’s all abt the beach though…the next day, i went out with the rest to 3rd street promenade cos boo wanted to get somethg from thr…and the whole day, we rotted at tht street only, lol…funny isn’t it? ok, back to studies…
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SF

July 24th, 2008 by anthonyinus
   Before the trip to SF, we went to 6Flags, Magic Mountain for another thrilling day of fun-filled roller-coaster rides. Some of the rides are the best I have taken so far, so much so that I almost threw up after queuing for a few different rides. It’s a must-go place for those theme-park enthusiasts.
   The next day, after my class, on the way to Rieber dining hall, we came across a group of workers shouting and flagging placards with the words ‘ON STRIKE’ on them. We had the impression that it was going to be one of the futile attempts that we normally see in msia or sg, however it turned out to be quite influential. Dining hall was closed earlier than normal operating hours, workers took their own sweet time preparing dishes, toilets were untouched, after all we, students are the ones most affected from the strike as we hv less to eat and hv to bathe in dirty toilets. The strike took place for a week’s long.
   La Brea Tar Pits was our next destination. As the name suggested, u can actually smell tar in the proximity of that area. I came to know that tar is not restricted to the use of making roads only, but it plays a major role in geology and paleontology, where remains of prehistoric species have been excavated for studies. One weird thing was a partial woman skeleton was excavated as well and thr’s only one, dated at approximately 9000 BP.
   The next day we took Alaska Airlines to SF. It was a smooth flight though the air stewards and stewardesses looked old and unattractive, lol…We stayed in SF Hilton. Our room was good as they provided Crabtree & Evelyn shampoos and lotions, how lovely! lol…Our 1st day was to loiter around the area and then we reached City Hall. We have no idea that we were about to witness a ‘queer’ marriage; same-sex marriage between 2 girls. I was dumbfounded when they kissed each other at the end of the ceremony. Then, we strolled along Haight St to shop for weird stuffs. After that, we walked to Golden Gate Park, the 3rd most visited city park in the states. It was so cooling to walk around the park. At dusk, we walked to the Macy’s in Downtown SF to have our lavish meals in Cheesecake Factory. Though we have to wait for like 2 hrs+, it’s worth waiting as the food was so tasty esp. the Dulce De Leche cheesecake which made my day, lol….
   The next morning, I went to meet up with my uncle, Steven, whom I have nvr laid my eyes upon b4 in Ipoh. He’s already a US citizen and hving a stable life. He brought me and a few of my frens around and on tht same day, we went to Ocean Beach, Cliff House, Sutro Baths where the place has drastically changed after the major earthquake in 1906. Then, we went to Fishermen’s Wharf and Pier39. You could see tonnes of fresh seafood being cooked/steamed to perfection and I have my costly seafood meal at there, lol….
   Our next target has to be Golden Gate Bridge; one of the most amazing structural architecture ever built in 1930’s. The bridge has withstood many forms of earthquakes thus far and is still in its tip-top condition. The secret lies in how the metal wires are being constructed en masse and made those in a section of a cable, it’s truely impressive considering that time the technology was still on its path to forefront. According to my uncle, the bridge was named ‘Golden’ as it was built using gold as the form of payment, I noe it sounds too unbelievable to be true, well maybe u can wiki it, lmao…Dinner on that day was a chinese ‘zi-char’ in Chinatown SF. Food was cheap and as usual, portions were retardedly large. In the end, we hv to pack back the leftovers. B4 heading to my uncle’s humble abode, I went to buy Godiva cheesecake at Cheesecake Fac. to hv it as my dessert. Upon reaching my uncle’s place, I couldnt wait but to barge into the house, lol…jk…Well, it was rather short as I could touch the ceiling if i jump a bit. Overall, it was a cozy home. My uncle then drove me back to Hilton and then bid adieu to each other.
   Next morn, we took Bart to reach SFO and flew back to LA. SF is such a nice place to live in, lol….till then.
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updates…

July 6th, 2008 by anthonyinus
   I just realised that I haven’t updated my blog for quite some time. Well, I was quite occupied adapting to the life here though I managed to travel almost every single day since my arrival, :). Ok, here are the updates. Where should I start from? erm….I will try to put them in order. 1stly, our very 1st econs. lesson was conducted in the morn, on the way to our LT which is in Haines Hall, Eunice and I came across friendly squirrels busy sourcing for food, how lovely!…The 1st lecture was quite engaging, lecturer was outspoken and I never felt a moment of ambiguity as every word delivered was precise and clear. After our class, we took a ride to Rodeo Dr. in Beverly Hills. We saw Burberry, LV, Versace and other high-end shops along the shopping district which is famous for haute couture fashion. Following day, I had my 1st feast in Diddy Riese, it was a complete satisfaction. I have never tasted cookies sandwiching ice-cream. You have to taste it if you are in California, else u have not been here b4. Next, we went to Beverly Centre and I shopped a few items from AX.
   The following outing is the chicha or hookah ‘adventure’. My 1st hands-on experience let the rest wonder if I was born to be good in smoking which I thought was incorrect. However, I chichaed happily throughout the night. Next morn, we departed early to Universal City. We were given the wrong directions by the Rieber ppl which costed us some time to find out the buses to be taken to reach there. When we reached there, Universal Studio was within out grasp. We hiked to there and quickly made our way to the rides and etc. I particularly like the Studio Tour as I was intro-ed to the few mock scenes of popular films which I thought were real; I was wrong about it. We spent half a day at there and went back at dusk.
   The next 2 days were spent on factory outlets. It was our shopping spree time. We spent each day at Camarillo and Desert Hills Premium Outlets, they were darn huge as if lands are free. I shopped too much and spent almost all my fortune at AX, Nike, Polo RL, Coach, Gap, Nautica and etc… No lah, I still have loads to spend in other outlets next time, lol….
   Next destination is The Getty Centre. It was built on the hilltop so whatever plants u see at there, they were planted on the building floor. Getty Centre and Getty Villa, both sum up the total endowment of 3 billions, omg u r dumb not to visit them as they are free to the public, unlike museums in Sg and Msia, u pay for wat u see, and they are not even close to the Gettys in terms of technology and classical, cultural antiquities. The garden was spectacular too.
   Next, the USC excursion! USC stands for Uni. of Southern California, unlike its arch rival UCLA, it’s a private university with many famous icons like Steven Spielberg came from there. However, I still think UCs esp. UCLA and Berkeley are doing a better job than USC. Following trip is all the way to Anaheim which is in the O.C. We went to Disneyland and California Adventure. Unlike HK Disneyland which I hv been to thus far, Disney Anaheim has more ‘lands’ to offer ranging from The Main Str. USA, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Frontierland, etc etc all the way to Mickey’s Toontown. Everything was perfect except for the atmosphere as I felt gg to Disneyland on summer is a bit weird; hot and sunny! The rides were impressive esp the ones in Cali. Adv., as the name suggested, they were really adventurous, lol…I dunno how else to explain my euphoria, let me tell u next time ba, lol…The fireworks were spectacular as it was July 4th, US Independence Day, not the normal fireworks we see on ‘normal’ days in Disney. We spent about 20 hours non-stop walking, rushing for rides and etc in both parks, that was real tiring. The next morn, b4 coming back to UCLA, we had our brunch in Panda Express, I managed to savour the whole sinful meal by myself, the chinese food was salty and sweet.
   I guess i hv to pen down now for i nd to take my dinner now, i get hungry very fast these days, lol…ok, more updates at a later stage, until then.
p/s :  more photos uploaded in the album :)
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I am a UCLA Bruin!

June 23rd, 2008 by anthonyinus
   Yay! Finally we hv arrived in UCLA, but the journey was awfully painful to the core. Getting on a so-called direct shuttle bus from LAX to UCLA was a bad idea as we have to hike mountainous, uphill as well as downhill routes to just get to the UCLA entrance. U definitely have no idea how much we hv perspired; the luggages weren’t light…lol.
    We had our Bruin cards done in order to be an official Bruin, lol…Dinner followed on and the meal was a 4-star hotel buffet, we almost thought that was our best meal so far, well it wasn’t tht bad afterall they served evrythg Western and I like dessert the most (I have been hving chips for so many days, it’s understandable, lol…). At evening time, we went to explore Westwood Village (notice here that it is in fact a well-developed area and not any village tht u r thinking rite now…:)) We took several pics of weird buildings at thr and had a supper in a Asian restaurant. We were scolded for insulting them as we weren’t aware tht leaving tips esp. coins meant their service wasn’t up to satisfaction. As the waiter was almost going in berserk mode, I realised ths fact and quickly took back the coins saying tht we forgot to take them while the others were laughingly thought that the waiter had asked for more tips, lol…My new and 1st acquaintance is a South Korean, name is Terry (he resembles Kazuo a lot) and he is a friendly, nice guy. He’s not my roommate, he’s Kenneth’s. My roommates are a South Korean, Sukjin and a Chinese-American, Derek. I felt inferior when Derek talked to me in American-accent English, he’s so outspoken. Room was hot cos fan wasn’t provided, i hv to get it soon or else i’ll be dead drowning in perspiration.
   The next morning we walked for a bit around UCLA in search of our school for lectures and classes. Gosh, the scenery was so breathtaking that we decided to laze ourselves on the grass under a tree (It’s common to see ppl sitting on the grass to read,slp,eat and etc.). Then all of a sudden, we could hear bells chiming melodiously marking the start of lecs? (i guess haha im not sure but it seems like evry hour it chimes once…) Next, UCLA Store was within our sight, it was so huge and evrythg sold were UCLA-branded. I was spoiled for choice as the huge selection of goods were parallel to one another, i meant they are just shirts anyway with different styles of wordings/printings.
   This evening, we’ll be going to Venice beach and etc. Will update more in days to come. :)
Oh btw, the pics couldnt be uploaded in friendster, i dunno y…probably i’ll try uploading them later.
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1st Post from LA!!!

June 22nd, 2008 by anthonyinus
   It is my 1st post ever to have a blog in friendster. Well, before I move on to the very first few days since I reached LA, the flight was approximately 19 hours inclusive of lay over time and I hate to say that taking CX from HKIA to LAX was a pain in the arse. Not only the seats were relatively fixed and still, the flight is always full and you will feel confined to a cramped space which is potentially cramp-inducing. Omg, I couldn’t even sleep much and I was so thankful the moment the flight was going to touch down in LAX. Whereas, my friends’ Thai Airways flight was as smooth as silk as there were empty seats where they could take the whole row and laid down sleeping just like business-class seats.
   1st few days were quite tiring as we (Steph, Kenneth, Eunice and I) strolled along streets where we felt like we weren’t in the America. Instead, it seemed sensible to deduce that Mexico has a sister city! i.e…. LA! You can expect more blacks if not ‘yellows’ than whites, and Spanish is very influential here. We found out that chicken eggs here are WHITE! That was pretty white in fact, lol…Santa Monica beach was sandy and water was pristine clear so much so that we almost dozed off sitting on the beach - that was mainly due to the fact that we were still experiencing jet-lag. Btw, did I tell you that in LA, the newspaper vendors are machine-operated? lol, so funny…
   The following day, we went to get Prepaid card and we had this extremely costly meal for our lunch on our way to Downtown LA, 20 bucks for 20 chicken WINGS! no joke manss… and we found a 7-Eleven station that actually sells GASOLINE! we laughed as we took pics of it. When we finally reached Downtown LA, we could finally see at least some skyscrapers not like in other areas where the shoplots are as tall as ‘Yao Ming’, lmao…Little Tokyo was very little and we had exorbitant sushis where my Traveller’s cheque was not accepted as I ate too little, that is hilarious.
   
   Next, in Hollywood!, our most anticipating spot in LA, turned out to be our most enjoyable day where we could really feel that we were in America. Victoria’s Secret was having a crazy summer sale, up to 75% sales, and to complement the theme of being ‘crazy’, we forked out ‘crazy’ moneyzz…and shopped to our hearts’ contents, believe me it was really a fulfilling experience as I never thought I would buy anything VS…Hollywood is just too gigantically ‘elephantine’ (opps, i might have gone a bit overboard here, lol…), so we have decided to explore it bit by bit, thus we took bus back to our ‘abode’ calling it a day…
   That’s about what I have gone thru’ for the past few days and I shall update more on new findings and ‘queer’ experiences. Yay, i’m moving into UCLA tmr and will start a new chapter of uni life at there, hope my South Korean roommate behaves like one though, lol…ok, i wan to slp liao…nitez..
p/s : pls refer to UCLA photo album for pictures, tq.
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