Friday, January 19, 2007

Orientation..

Ming says: I have been thinking a lot... a lot...

Today is the first day of orientation. Slept at 10pm last night and woke up at 6 in the morning. This kind of life is good huh.. =p I wish I can do this everyday. Walked to school early in the morning like 7:30am? It's cold out there but still we prefered not to take the tunnel way, hmm, just wanted to experience the snow la!

The Oak Hall. The place I live in.


On the way to school.


I love this view. Can slightly see the view of the Lake of Bemidji.


Yvonne and I sneak out from the hall before the English Test to take a picture. It's snowing!


Potluck that prepared by the Family Friends. The aunties and uncles are seriously friendly. Of cos the foods are nice too!


I love the egg!

See what I got. Finally a proper meal for me.

Today have been a long day. Pretty tired but surely is a fruitful day. Get to know a lot of new friends and get to learn new stuff too. Tomorrow nite I'm going for IceHockey game! And Saturday someone is organising Polar Plunge where they dig a hole on the lake (on the ice of cos) and someone will jump in. These people are crazy and I definitely gotta check it out. Hehe! Will show you guys the pictures later. =)

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

On the way to school...

Ming says: It's another brand new day. I woke up with a smile on my face. =)

Lets do video blogging today!
Before that let's post up some pictures first. *hehe* Nothing much though.

Part of the Minneapolis town.

The Baptist Church. I saw one church looks really nice but I was in the bus that time. =p

Eh, they have this kind of parking meter too.

The frozen lake.

Anyway, I got depressed today. Because of this! Was sitting inside the bus looking out from the window, and for the 5 hours most of the scenes are as below. So dead. So boring. It got me depressed. =



Minnesota is also calls as the city with ten thousands lakes. So all the way from Minneapolis to Bemidji, I saw like a lot a lot a lot of lakes. This is one of them, it's calls as North Long Lake. *hehe* pretty nice er, but again, sorry for my skill. =p




That's all for now. Will show you guys the look of my dorm and school on the next post. *hehe*

Love,
the ming who is physicaly in Bemidji but the heart is in you
.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Another day in Minneapolis.

Ming says: When you think I'm weak, I am actually so much stronger.

Here's a few pictures to show you guys. *hehe*. A day to Mall of America. It's huge honestly. It's bigger than One-utama of cos. I spent 6 hours there and I only finished walking 50% I think. I am too tired to continue shopping la. Aiyo!


Preparing to go out. Yes. Taken in the bathroom. =p



Had a simple breakfast at the lobby.

This is so good. Strawberry Cheese Spread. Mwah. Love it!

Stepping on the ground. WoohOo! Adidas from Petaling Street is travelling with me!

Somewhere around the hotel. I finally see sunshine!

The cars are covered by snow.

Outside of the LaQuinta Inn.

I am not a cam-whore. =p

The Mall of America.

Part of the themepark.

Another view. This it's like only 25% of the theme park. =_=

Trying to capture myself with the big ice-cream cone behind. Failed.

The lunch. Some chinese food store. Big portion. Expensive. Couldn't finish it. =_="

The Fairy Wheels!

Rainforest Cafe. They have a lot different different theme of cafes. All looks really nice.

Another one. KoKoMos Island.

*haha* They have kiosks too! Anyway I get to know a guy name Johnny at one of the kiosks. =p
The Lego World.

This is what I got myself after 6 hours of shopping. I only bought those necessary things that can keep me warm at the moment. *hehe* I almost got tempted by the sales but i got control myself a bit la. The sales are really sales one, they call it blow out sales. *haha* Really cheap la! I got my winter jacket from American eagle for 30usd (it's cheap cos I got the other one in penang for 300 ringgit plus!!), well, I thought this is a really good deal already, mana tahu I saw the other shop selling other pattern one for 12-20 usd only. =_="

The vending machines that just outside of my hotel room. =p

Oh ya! My luggage! Got it back after 28 hours. Phew! Finally!

Oh yea. I love shopping at here. The sales persons are so so damn friendly. They will greet you when you enter the shop. But, everyone asks the same question and sometimes I answer until dunno what to answer anymore. Cos they will ask "how are you doing today and what can I help you". It's good that after they greet you they wont be following you around. And the best thing is no matter what kinda shops nyou go in, they wont look down on you like as if you don't have money to buy. =p

K la. That's all for now. The next time when I post I will be at Bemidji. See ya guys around then!

Cheerz!

Wait! Last one. Haha. The van driver that sent me here and there while my stay in the hotel, he thought that I am a Japanese! Yay! Jacob, we are equal now! =p

Long journey

Ming says: I am a lot more closer to my dream now. *smile*

It's 5:29 a.m. right now. Shoot. My eyes just don't want to shut, physically it's darn tired. Nevermind, I will use this time to post up some pictures.

Warning: The pictures below are quite blury. Not good in taking pictures I admit. But better than none rite? I will not post up the pictures I took with my family at the Penang Airport as I don't look good in the picture. =_="

Depart from Penang at 9:00pm. SIA. Vegetarian-curry-kinda twister look of food was provided.

Reach Changi Airport one hour plus later. Panic at first as I couldn't find my next flight number on screen. Later realised that it was on the other terminal. =_="

That's my flight!

Found a place to get a frappucino (I need it as I was damn sleepy), they provide internet service which will not disconnect you for every 15 minutes unlike the internet service that provided by the airport. So I ordered Low Carb Mocha Frap. Crap. Taste Yucks.



That's the place I hang out the most during the long night.

Ted suggested it's a good idea to explore around the airport. So I decided to walk back to the other terminal. It's pretty far but travellator all the way, so it's totally fine. Most of the shops were closed by then around 3am. Went into a bookshop for 1 and plus hour, but just couldn't get one that I like.


The travellator.

After 9 hours of waiting, finally it's boarding time. Tight security in Singapore airport. I had to take off my sweater, shoes, belt, watch. I had to take out laptop, camera, mp3 player from the backpack and on the power and showed it to them. I had to show them my I-20 to let them know I'm a student. Standard procedures in Japan, Chicago, and Minneapolis Airport, too. Going to America can be very troublesome sometimes.

Fly with United Airlines from Singapore to Japan. An uncle, business man was sitting beside me. He either slept or watched movie beside me and laughed loudly. =_=" We were provided food like Omelette with spinach inside, a mini-mini sausage, fruits and bread. The next round was sandwiches and grapes. The uncle beside me drank Bloody Marry early in the morning. Ha! =p
Reached Narita airport 6 hours later. A lot of Japanese around. They are all majority good looking. =p I have 3 hours to kill in Narita. Went to Fa-La-So (duty free shop) to get 2 boxes of Japanese rice cake and green tea cheese cake for friends in Bemidji.

One box is 500 Yen each. It's considered as a good deal in Japan I guess.


The Fa-La-So.

Before went on board at Narita. That's my flight! Actually the sky is very pretty, I just don't know how to take a good picture with a glass window blocking. Grrr.

Continued with another long flight. This time was 11 hours. Food that I had:

  • First round - American pretzels with milk from Hokkaido, taste really really nice; as good as the one that I drank in KK, Sabah the other time.
  • Second round - Beef with potato, salad, hot bun, cheese cake.
  • Third round - Haha! They know I miss the cup noodles time with Pam, so they got us instant cup noodles plus a banana (damn big one) and a lemon cookie.
  • Forth round - Pasta with bacon, fruits and a hot bun. Of cos with unlimited drinks provided too.

I see students around asking for beer, vodka, wine. I didn't. At first I thought I wanna get redwine to keep my body warm, but later I chose green tea. So all the while I had milk, green tea, orange juice, apple juice and a lot of glasses of plain water. Although it may seemed that a lot of foods were provided, you still get hungry easily even without moving much, I don't know why cos I don't know why. =p But everytime the food came, I didn't finish it. I was hungry but my stomach didn't worked well. It filled with air inside. =_=" So I slept most of the time. =p When I was awake it was approaching Chicago already. Yay! Finally! I saw snow from the plane. Got so excited. Cos this is like the first time in my life. Ohare Airport is darn big! Tight security of cos, I claimed my luggages and went through the custom, they didn't request to open my baggage. Luckily. Phew~ Then I re-checked in my luggages, ma-fan-dou-sei. haih. Then another 4 hours to rest in airport, where I started to see a lot of guai-lou around. People around are all so friendly, from Singapore to Japan to Chicago to Minneapolis. I am amazed by them. Malaysians really gotta catch up a bit. =)

Outside of the sky train.

Flight delayed in Chicago due to bad weather. It only took about 1 hour plus to fly from Chicago to Minneapolis. When I went to claim my baggage I realised that one of them is missing. =( File a report and all the procedures. Called my hotel and they get someone to airport to fetch me. Freaking cold outside as I don't have any winter clothes with me. I only had this poor sweater and a longjohn inside. When I found that I lost my luggage I really had the feeling of going home, why on earth this has to happen to me. Grr. Nvm, stay calm I told myself. Forget about that. I will be staying here in Minneapolis for these 2 days and then only I will go to Bemidji. Tomorrow I need to go get a winter jacket, that's something really important. Haha.


A look from the window oh my room. Yes it's blur. I know!


My bed. King size. With my tortoise and laptop on it. =p

Was talking to mom on the phone through Msn just now. She was crying and all that. Very dramatic. I know it's becos she is worried about me. But I really can take care of myself la. =)

Well, it's 6:18am rite now. Time to go to bed.

I miss home. Miss my family. Miss dad, mom, brother, sisters. Miss you dear. Miss my baby poodle.

I miss you too if you're reading this post.

Greetings from Minneapolis with Love,
Ming

Monday, January 15, 2007

Miss Home

Ming says: Mummy I wanna go home....

Landed in Minneapolis at 7pm due to the flight delayed.
Camera gone crazy. I don't know it's because of the weather or going through too many times airport custom x-ray. Ha!
I lost one of my luggage with all my clothes inside. My winter jacket, gloves and etc are in there too.
Sigh.
I'm cold daddy. Hold me tightly, please...

Sunday, January 14, 2007

00:00 at Changi Airport

Ming says:I miss you!!

I am in Changi Airport right now...Another 6 hours to boarding time.=_=" pretty tired as I didnt sleep well last nite. A lot of Japanese around. A lot of people around actually. A lot of shops. Everything is so expensive!

Cut those crapz.

Exactly a year and 15 days ago, someone standing here in the same building sent me an e-mail saying he miss those times that we do things together as in we always help out each other when we wanna do something. Actually,I miss that person right now. I mean miss those times that we can actually do things together, its so much easier when you have another person with you. But well, it's time for me to be more independent. =)

Bah! Not many came to airport to send me off. I'm actually happy about it cos I no need see those berat-hati-face. *haha*... I miss my family now. For the first time, my dad helped me to carry my luggage. He is so worried about me as my luggages are so heavy, 56kg er. =_="

Well.. Actually I've got lots to say. But this keyboard is teruk.SO hard for me to type. Will post again with my own laptop. See you guys around.I will take care of myself. No worries.

Miss you.

Love,
Ming

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Missing you guyz..

Ming says: You don't care at all. Do you?
You know, certain people will always stay in your heart. You guys may be seldom hang out, but you know everyone is close to each other. They are the people that will always come across your mind. They are the people you will be missing always. They are the people you hope they are doing fine all the time. These friends below of mine are "those people".

They never failed to bring smiles and tears (good one!) to my heart.

No one wears a fake smile here. Not even one. Not even a single second!


Best Friend, Best Aunty, Best-friend's Sister


One in Us but currently travelling in Europe, One in Australia, One in Canada. Why do you guys have to be so far away from me?


Best Friend. Best Friend. Love them both.


His voice anytime can melts a girl's heart. Mine once came close (=p). Poor little girl, she is alone in Canada now. Love the guy behind too, it's not a secret anyway. =)


Ha! He promised to come to send me off in airport, I know he will be there when he promised me. The other 'He', hope he is having fun in Europe. =)

When will be the next time we meet? Miss you guys - Jamie, Ted, WeeJian, WeiYong, Choot.

=)


=_="

Ming says: I'm holding you close to my heart. But. How about you?




I am loved.


Mom wants me to go to Bemidji to sell chicken soups or herbal drinks. See the amount of the foods she got me... =_="


F.Y.I. This is only one of my luggages. I have two. 28inches each. =_="

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Stress

Ming says: I'm outta direction. Dad, I need you. Take my hand and lead me on.


Today, I break down in tears.

Sigh.
I started to question myself of the things I am doing, is it right or is it not right. I am doubtful. I cannot decide.

Sigh.
And I hate being in control, for I know I ain't no baby in the family.

Sigh.

Can I be like her? I want to blow bubble too! I want to have a friend eating yogurt together-gether too! By the way, the little girl is my cousin's daughter. Yes, she calls me Aunty. =)

F.Y.I , I love babies. I wish I have one right now. =)

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

3 days to go...

Ming says: This feeling isn't great. Trust me. I do not feel good at all.

In another 3 days I will be leaving this island for some times. Lately, I often get this question from people around me "are you excited about your trip?" Before today, the answer was "no". No, I'm not excited at all. People who is really close to me should know that I actually took quite some times to decide whether to go or to stay in KL. But later with the encouragements from people around and with God's guidance, I made the decision of going to Minnesota! Yay! =p

These few weeks was really great. I'm blessed by people around, from my family, from my friends. Especially my family, they are extra kan-cheong about me travelling alone. So, they got me a lot a lot of stuff! You name it, I've got it (haha, yesyes, kua-cheong abit dee). They got me laptop, camera, winter jacket, cardigan, sweater, jeans, slacks, coats, boots, gloves, scarf, mittens, muffler, ski cap, jacket, shirts, new lingiriez, new spec, new contact lense, new backpack, ear cover, socks...aiya..a lot la! They even got me long john which I don't think I'm gonna wear it... =_=" Besides, I have people treat me eat every day, like every nite!! make me fat only!!

Lets put those material things aside. The thing I'm glad about is having a lot people that care about me. Everyday I receive phone calls, messages that asking me when I'm going to leave and ask me to take good care of myself. I have friends in Us that share with me their experience of what they have learned in states. I have friend that offer me a bed to rest on when I reach there. I have friend that offer to wired me money when I need it for emergency. I have friends that want to go to airport to send me off. I have friend that offer to help me on my studies. I have friend that wanna introduce me job when I'm in states. With those blessings around, what still can I complain about?

But still! I have things that I can't let go. Yes. I am berat hati to leave this place. Leaving my family and my friends is the hardest thing. That's why I didnt tell most of my friends that I'm leaving. *hehe* I doubt a lot people read my blog too! I miss church and I miss all the brothers and sisters in the cell group. I miss Shirley giving me bible study. I miss the big family of City Harvest. I miss those friends in KL, although we have just met for quite a short time, I am sure the bond is so strong. I miss friends in Penang too, sad though as I cant meet up most of them. I miss Vjian and WeiYong especially as when I'm leaving they will be back to M'sia. =( ish!

Another thing is.. I'm not gonna be here for Chinese New Year. argh! My AngpowSSSSS ar!!! and MahJong!! aiyo! *die* and I'm surely gonna miss the laughter in our big family with all my relatives around. Ha! but nevermind, I'm gonna be back for my brother's wedding on September, well, I hope so la! Pray for me k.. =p

Wait, I think I never said why today I suddenly feel excited of my trip. Hmm! It's because.. today, I was reading all my friends' blogz where they posted up all their pictures showing how fun they are having in overseas. =p So, that's make me excited a bit la..yes, a bit only... =p

That's all for tonight. Will post again when I'm done preparing of my stuff. Till then. =)

Manhattan Fish Market

Ming says: I love to meet up with you guys before I leave...=)

Today, not a day for Chicken Rice, not a day for Sushi King too.. It's a day to eat fish! So, here we go, Manhattan Fish Market!

Wait! This post is specially dedicated to Jacob Yuean! =p

Was starving the whole day at home, no breakfast, no lunch. I have this very kind friend who tried to "seduce" me with the idea of how nice was his chicken rice... Well, HurmpPhh!! Nevermind, what I have is patience.. I waited for my mom to come home and she brought me to Queensbay Mall with my sister... and I had my "high-tea" at Manhattan fish market! woohoo! Got green tea ice-cream from Hokaido somemore...*hahahaha*.. All the starving part was worth it afterall... =p


~Mussels in Garlic Butter Sauce~


~Manhattan Seafood Platter for two~

=p A great day indeed....

Saturday, January 06, 2007

I'll be back...

Ming says: It's been a long time..yea..i know..=)

*haiya* I will be back here again..i promise.. =p