USA West Coast Day 4 - Seattle to San Francisco

San Frans, Chinatown!!



Monkey Business

USA West Coast Day 3 - Seattle Downtown

Highlight of the day - Pikes place



Drinking the Coffees in Seattle

USA West Coast Day 2 - University of Washington

Today we visit University of Washington a.k.a UDUB. But we started off the day first by visiting a famous thai food place. Street side place but really yummy. :)



We also visited UDUB's bookstore. That's so much more interesting than anything we have in NUS.

USA West Coast Day 1 - Bozeman to Seattle

Today it's time to head off to our first day of travels, 1st stop seattle. But first we have to get to the airport. That's me and dear lugging our luggage to the airport. We had to do some "taichi" with our stuff too, cos my bag was way over weight.


We had a quite bite at this cafe at the airport before boarding our flight. This airport is really really small!!



It was a bumpy flight all the way to seattle, plane was tiny and the 1 "super-experienced" air stewardess. Ha!

Day 71 of Work & Travel - Final Day

The final day of my stay in yellowstone has finally arrived. I started the day with a final day at work. It's my last day and it really felt sad actually, i really liked the people i worked with. It was a fun-filled day everyday. My hrs were shorten today so that i could do my checkout procedures, while going thru my check out procedures a also ran around trying to catch some last photos with all the people i'm close with at old faithful.

Day 70 of Work & Travel - Lower Loop & Cody

After the upper loop yesterday, it's time to cover the lower loop and show dear the Yellowstone Lake. We also made a stop in Cody to walk around, however i realise there wasnt really much to shop for over there. We wanted to go see the Rodeo, but the weather was just BAD!! Not a very exciting day. :P

But at least I got to bring dear to Irma's the first restaurant I visited other than our EDRs. And best of all there's rib-eye steak buffet!!

Day 69 of Work & Travel - Bear Hunting w Dear

My final few days in yellowstone are dedicated to bring dear around. And today we went bear hunting. We ventured up the grand loop, looking for bears. And we were lucky enough to see one before the end of the day. :)

Day 68 of Work & Travel - Goodbye Singaporeans!!

Today is a really busy day for me. Only got back to Old Faithful like 4plus, 5am in the morning. And i was going to send zing & kailun out to bozeman in the morning. I came back took a quick shower and had a short rest and it was time to go back to bozeman again. I wasnt complaining, but i do wish there was more time. :P

Had a last meal at Bozeman with Zing & Kailun, Jap food. I must say this jap food is by far the best food i had so far since coming to US. :) Did some shopping after lunch and met the rest of the Singaporeans who are leaving on the way back to Holiday Inn. I dropped off Zing & kailun and turned back to pick them to Target/Ross area as it started to rain. Kyla was just hilariously depressed about leaving Yellowstone. Funny gal. :P

I had to rush back to Old Faithful soon after Ross/Target cos i had a volleyball game tonight. It's my last chance to play in the Yellowstone Volleyball League and i don't intend to miss it. Volleyball is something which i'm good at and something i standout in Old Faithful. The last games were not too bad, but perhaps due to my lack of sleep, I wasnt playing exceptionally well. We won nonetheless. hehee..

Day 67 of Work & Travel - Employee Appreciation Day & Dear Arrives!!

Today's employee appreciation day and also the day which i go pick dear up from Bozeman. She's finally coming to USA!! :)

Employee appreciation day marks the beginning of 2 weeks of 40% discounts for employees at all giftshops and today there's an appreciation dinner catered for all employees. This dinner is special in the sense that our managers will now become the ones who will be serving us dinner, which is pretty unique. :) and this dinner has great food too, prime ribs, prawns and other good stuff. This is really a great dinner cos there were a huge group of us who are having fun together, kindda like reunion dinner, farewell dinner to some of us. :P

Day 66 of Work & Travel - The Final HIKE....

Today I did my final hike of my stay in Yellowstone National Park. And i'm really glad it's the Bunsen Peak & Osprey falls trail, it's a really challenging hike, especially for me. PuiEe and ShanEr joined me on this last hike, i'm grateful to have them accompany me on this hike cos, i've already postponed this trip for a few weeks due to lack of participation.

It was a really tough hike cos first it was a very steep ascend to the top of Bunsen peak, then it was a long and tedious downslope to Osprey falls. Down slope has never been this tiring, cos it was steep and filled with loose gravel, we all fell at least once on our descend. Osprey falls was awesome, it was definitely worth the hike. :)

The hike back to the car was mainly flat, but i think cos we were all kindda drained already, the seemingly easy route back just seemed endlessly long. We were all glad we manage to finish the hike even though we took much longer than wat i had estimated initially. :p

Day 65 of Work & Travel - Just another Tuesday

Well, it's just another tuesday... :P

Day 64 of Work & Travel - Cycling

Went cycling with a bunch of people. It took more than a morning to finally agree on going for the bicycle ride. There were many reasons for that to happen, cycling wasnt cheap, some did not cycle for a long time, some could cycle but couldnt stop or move off, but i shall not say names, let just say it's all GALS!!! But i'm still glad we manage to go ahead with it FINALLY anyway.

We cycled to lonestar geyser, the ride there was HORRIBLE, it was upslope all the way. Only minor downslopes in between. Cos kailun had zing on his pillion, riding speed wasnt fast, so we had a torturous time there. :P

However, it was worth the ride there, cos Lonestar Geyser is really worth the journey. Pictures are up at fotopic. And to add to the good times, the ride back was exhilirating!!! Really fast and exciting :)

Day 63 of Work & Travel - Zombified!

Woke up really early today, 7++ i was up. I washed up and went for breakfast. Called dear to discuss the travel plans and i went for work at 9am. Only when i reached the giftshop and someoneask me wat time i'm supposed to knock off. Only then did i realise i was at work too early, I'm only supposed to be in at 10am, not 9am. :P

Just like yesterday i was stoning today as well. It took me a few breaks to get slightly more refreshed. Usually i'll be at a cashier where it would be easy to chatt with my co-workers, but today i was assigned to a secluded corner. There was no co-workers to talk to and i was quite lazy to make small talk with customers. Quite a bad day for me.

I found someone to take my shift for tml, so i'll be free tml. Shld be going on a bike ride around Old Faithful. Hope tml will recharge me alittle.

Left work early to join Lance and Kailun to West yellowstone. Used the internet at the bar which we went the last time. had dinner there too. The food was really good, pizza and such. Yummy yum, better than EDR or Pub. That made me feel better already. :P

Day 62 of Work & Travel - Most Boring Work Day ever!!

I only slept like 3 hrs before going to work. I'm like super super stoned today. Although it's a closing shift but i still felt super tired and super not motivated. Kept taking breaks here and there to try to recharge myself. Not much help really. :P I went for breaks mainly with Zing, cos the both of us are mostly on the same shifts. Multiple toilet breaks + ice cream breaks, and we kept reminiscing the times when we would go look for dawn and louise to do some crapping.

I was really tired, I came back to the dorm and fell asleep soon after.

Day 61 of Work & Travel - Dawn & Louise Last Nite

People who are closer frens are starting to leave. It's time when contracts of people like me are coming to an end. Today Dawn and Louise leave yellowstone and I drove them out to Bozeman, several others tagged along to do some shopping of their own. It was fun to drive them out again, but it's kindda sad also cos the 2 of them are usually the ppl whom i talk to during breaks and such. Dawn works at the dining room host stand, and louise at the front desk, both are just next to my gift shop. Break times just wun be the same. :(

We did some shopping today at the usual places, Ross, Target, Walmart. I bought 3 balls from target this time. 1 white for myself, 1 for fren and 1 for present(dunno for who yet.) I did not buy anything else, except for some titbits. Dinner was the exciting part today. We had dinner at this Chinese place called Purple Bamboo. We had buffet, the food was pretty authentic chinese, we were all super bloated after dinner. It was really satisfying.

came back to Old faithful really lat etoday, cos Dawn and Louise have not booked their accom for the next few days in San frans. So they were kindda paniky already, so we stayed to help in watever way we could. By the time we got the accom partially settled, it's already almost 2am. And by the time we reached Old Faithful it's already 4plus am. Shawn & Lorraine were kindda pissed that i was back so late cos they were delayed for their trip to Mt Rushmore. However, I think it cant be helped.. :P

I have some pictures Posted for their last day. :)

Day 60 of Work & Travel - Most Boring OFF ever!!

This is the most boring off day i've ever had cos I had planned to hike to Bunsen Peak and Osprey falls, yet i did not go cos there wasnt anyone to go with me. Initially, there was a few, but they either did not feel like going or just fell sick at the last moment. I was so so sad when I realised i was left alone interested in the trip, at that point of time i was really really disappointed. I planned this trip since 2 weeks ago, and i was very enthusiatic about going for it. But now, SADDED!!! :P

I rot in my room for the bulk of the day and that kindda made me feel even worst cos i really dun wanna waste the last of my off days doing nothing. :P I wanna see more of the park, walk around more, go around more. PISSED off!! :P

played volleyball in the evening, that was quite fun, But i'm still sore about not being able to go for the hike. :P super sad...

Day 59 of Work & Travel - Bear Hunting Day & Cody

Today started really slowing, cos the car wasnt back until 3pm. That was actually quite saddening cos i actually planned to leave early and go bear hunting. Shawn & lorraine took the car to saltlake city, utah. They had some problems with the car so they had to take it to service. Honestly, i couldnt feel much of a difference driving the car after the service.

We only managed to get the car and leave like 3plus and that wasnt really helping me in my bear hunt. We were going on a bear hunt main cos Dawn, who is leaving on friday, hasnt seen any bears thus far yet. We drove from Old Faithful up towards Tower Falls in search of bears, luck was on my side today. Even before reaching Tower Falls we saw it, I was really exciting myself. This time we saw a grizzly, that's like the first grizzly i saw, the previous bears i saw were all black bears. So yah, the bear hunt was successful and we headed to Cody.

I think i drove pretty fast to Cody, cos some of my passengers are kindda dizzy after the ride. BUT, i had to do it in order to make Cody in time for dinner. We had dinner at this Japanese restaurant, the place was pretty nice, but the food wasnt fantastic. That really disappointed me, cos i was expecting good authentic Jap food. Their saving grace was having sashimi and a frenly boss. We had thai styled curry instead of jap curry, but the boss said if we wanted japanese curry we could actually call her ahead and she would make the curry herself and serve it to us. That sounded pretty nice. :)

Day 58 of Work & Travel - Another Boring day

Not sure why i find these 2 days so boring. But i guess it's cos i spoiled my ball yesterday and i did not have the car to use for these few days. Even though we were all off early, without the car, i felt so crippled and couldnt go anywhere, that feeling sucks and i hate it!!! having your own transport in US is like so important, without it you cant go anywhere or do anything. :P

There's BBQ today, our area manager Matthew organised one for all retail staff in old faithful area. it should be pretty cool, but there wasnt many people who showed up. I ended up eating most of the food. :p it was not bad, even though it was BBQ in the Daytime, but the weather was pretty cool despite the glaring sun. :)

Day 57 of Work & Travel - Boring Monday Day again.

Once again, i was late for work, but this time i called in to tell mike that i would be late. So it wasnt all that bad. Work wasnt all exciting today, except for a short period of time when i was suppose to tend to the gallery. The Gallery is a part of our gift shop which has all the native american stuff like jewelery, carvings and such, basically expensive stuff. usually when i tend to that area not many people would ask me anything, cos i really dun know anything abt native americans.

but today, there's this couple who came and start asking me about the origins of some of the artifacts and i had to go around looking for the info and answer that they need. I learnt abit more today, but i wonder how much of wat i said was even accurate, cos there was no one to verify wat i said. And i was really not sure what i was looking at, thankfully mike came in and gave a rather convincing answer to them, which i did not think it was acurrate either. hahaa..

Left early today, even though i came in late cos there was just too many people working already. walked around the general stores and gift shops with a few frens. Cos some are leaving on friday, so they were looking for stuff to buy and i tagged along.

Went to play some volleyball after that and disaster befall on my ball. It was struck by a thumbtack and it was ruined!! how unlucky was that. And it was like the first spike of the day and the ball was lost from then on!! we had to use the lousy ball that the rec hall has, not conducive for volleyball at all. :P

Day 56 of Work & Travel - Beach Theme Party

This is my second party here in old faithful and shld be the last one before i leave. The theme was beach, there were quite a few in beachwear but i was in tshirt and shorts. :P I still couldnt really dance. i could only shake a little here and there, but i think i had a good time still. not as much booze this time compared to the last time though, maybe cos din really feel like drinking and there wasnt anyone making me drink this time around. hahaa. took photos with everyone i knew at the pub.

Day 55 of Work & Travel - Sick Day

Had been coughing for almost a week, but it had been the worst last night. I would cough so badly that i would wake up in the middle of the night. This morning when i woke up i was feeling so uncomfortable that i called in sick and went to the clinic instead of going to work.

Medical fees here are just so so expensive. Luckily i'm an employee so i only pay $15 consultation fee and half of the price for the medication, which adds up to $29. Not too bad actually, but if it were someone from the public it would have been $200+ instead. I'm have some insurance coverage too, but i'm not sure how they are going to reimburse me, i'm not even sure if they would reimburse me. :P

Day 54 of Work & Travel - 4th Jul @ Jackson Hole

It's Independence day here in US, and there's celebrations everywhere. I know there's some events going on here in yellowstone too. But since it's my off day today, i decide to go out. So some of us made our way to Jackson Hole where we know there will be fireworks going on.

We had a pretty awesome time here in jackson, walked around and did some shopping. I bought 2 tshirts here which i thought were pretty cool. there's lots of shopping opportunities over here and there are some pretty good prices too, even though most of the shops are kindda classy and overpriced.

Had dinner at this place called Billy's giant burgers, it's the best fast food i had so far over here. cooked to perfection, not the cleanest place you will find here but, the food and service are pretty good. so if i ever come back to jackson, i would most likely eat here again.

fireworks only started like after 10pm. We found a pretty good spot to watch it, a multi-storey carpark. that's like the best spot cos it was the only elevated structure with an open space for the fireworks. I'm really glad i brought my tripod along for this, cos i think i took the best fireworks i've ever taken. super nice. the pictures will be in fotopic soon. :)

Day 43 to Day 46 of Work & Travel - Mount Rushmore (Belated)

Left for Mt Rushmore on tuesday night in order to save some time and have more daylight to spare on wednesday. It was a 9 hr drive all the way to Mt Rushmore. But that's not our first destination. First was Walmart at Cody, where we stocked up on some food and supplies for breakfast. We made several intermediate stops to refuel the car and myself.

Breakfast was at Devil's Tower, here we set up our solid fuel and mess tins and started the fire. We had "bak kut teh" and "curry chicken" on the menu. Withthe supplies we gathered from walmart. I'm proud to say we whipped up a pretty good meal.

We went into Rapid city after breakfast, we had to look for lodging. We found this place call EconoLodge. Good price, nice room frenly staff and most of all the room is big!!!

After loading our stuff in the room we headed off to Mt Rushmore. From Rapid City it took less than an hr to reach Mt Rushmore. Mt Rushmore really is a HUGE piece of art. Sculpting a face is a huge task in itself, more so when the task is as huge as Mt Rushmore!!

We ended the day with some shopping over at Walmart again. We are really kindda stuck with walmart!!

Thursday morning we checked out of EconoLodge and proceeded to Wind Caves National Park. The Cave trail that we took showed us a whole new experience. In yellowstone we see all kinds of mountains and ridges and trees. The cave were new and refreshing.

For this trip we had chinese food 2 times, once at rapid city an once in gillette. Neither was fantastic, none of them had a fully chinese speak crew either. SO disappointing. :P

Day 53 of Work & Travel - Tiring Road Trip

We made our way to Roosevelt today. First stop was Tower Falls, it's supposed to be a very beatiful water fall, but when we reach there we saw that the trail to the bottom of the falls was closed for repairs. So we could only get a look of it from a far, which did not really do justice to the falls at all.

But even before the 1st stop, gues wat happened!? I saw BEARS!! 2 bears this time, a mother and a cub, the cub was really small and cute, it was running around and climbing trees. We managed to get much closer to the bears this time to take pictures cos the ranger was not there yet, so we managed to steal a few close shots of it. :) those bears totally made the day of everyone, therefore even though we did not have a good view of Tower Falls, no one was bothered.

Roosevelt Lodge was our destination for lunch, initially we wanted to eat at their EDR, but we realised that their EDR is so small that we had to give them notice of our arrival at leas a day ahead for them to prepare enough food. So we chose to eat at the Dinning Room, which is the hotel restaurant, instead. The food was quite good, much better than in the EDR, and it's not expensive too.

Next destination was Lamar Valley, this is supposed to be the place where we should be able to see lots of wild animals. However, we only managed to see several herds of Bisons. No bears, or anything here. But no one was unhappy, so we saw bears earlier already. :P

This is so far the most tiring trip for me. Cos i was driving all the way, and most of my frens were sleeping o nthe car. I couldnt sleep, but i was really sleepy, esp on the way back. But i managed to get back safely.

But that's not the end of the day, I came back to Old Faithful and got changed immediately to go to the rec hall. I had volleyball league games today, and i'm finally present for the first time. We were supposed to play 2 games today, but our first opponents were not fully present and hence they were walked over. In the next game, I finally played my first competitive game with a full team. It was really fun and i enjoyed it alot. Oh did i mention we won??

That was not the end of the day still, after volleyball i went to the pub. Our gift shop was having a pizza party tonight. All you can eat pizza, courtesy of the boss. That was pretty good, chatted a little with all the rest of the co-workers who turned up. :)

I'm just super super tired now!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 52 of Work & Travel - Lucky Day

The original Plan was to go the Bunsen Peak which is a hike near Mammoth Hot Springs. However when we got to the trail head, we realise the weather was very ominous. So we went direct to mammoth and check out the weather and some alternatives trails to check out. There was a high chance of thunderstorm at the Bunsen Peak area, and so we forego Bunsen Peak and took an alternative trail instead.

The lucky thing today happened just after we left Bunsen Peak trailhead for Mammoth. On the way to mammoth I finally caught sight of the first ever BEAR i see in Yellowstone Natinal Park!! How cool is that, and the bear wasnt far from us. I tried to get closer to get a good shot at him, but the ranger did not allo wme to get too close. Anyway, I'm just happy my bear-curse has been broken!!! Everything else that happen today did not really matter anymore. :P

Day 51 of Work & Travel - Active Day

Did alot of work back in the storeroom today. I was only at the cashier for a few moments when the crowd builds up. Otherwise I would be in the basement sorting out stuff for GAD tml. But i'm actually quite happy to stay in the storeroom and do that, physical work but brainless and easy. :P

I managed to clear all the stock needed for tml faster den ever, sadly i did not get much reward from my bosses. Mike would usually give park perks for a good job, but Tracie the other assistant manager who saw me doing the work was more stingy on her park perks. She did say thanks for helping, and my boss Mike did give me a pat on the back. :P better than nothing. I'm just glad i dun have much $$ to count at the end of the day.

Day 50 of Work & Travel - Monday Fatigue

Been Coughing quite badly since yesterday, so i bought a bottle of robitussin cough syrup from my shop. 10+USD not cheap, but it seems quite effective, at least initially. cos after awhile i felt groggy and dizzy. So i did not clear customers, i change to packing stuff instead.

I felt better after lunch and was back to normal work.

Had some sort of a "gameshow" today. Our area manager conduct something like a quiz show for all of us to take part. Quite fun, it tests us on our park knowledge. And i think i'm actually not bad, but i did not have the luck to answer those qns. But it's basically a fun experience. I think i was creating fun there too. :P Oh i must mention that i was taking part in this gameshow during my office hrs, so i get paid to play!!! YEah!!

After work i went to the rec hall, it's been a while since i got the chance to play some sports. I started off with some basketball and volleyball. Fortunately i had some players from my team which i play the league vball with around to play with me. :) had quite a good time playing sprts, sweat alot. And I'm really aching all over now. :P

Day 49 of Work & Travel - Boring Sunday

Today's kindda even more boring than yesterday. In fact, i was feeling quite tired still. Think i'm falling sick too. Tired singing today, but din have energy to carry on for along time.

Started coughing today, think that's making me tired too. zzzzzzzzz

Day 48 of Work & Travel - Singing Saturday

Still super tired today, still haven really recovered from my fatigue. And to counter that, I started SINGING!! hahaa. yah, i've been singing like non-stop from i start till i stop. But it seems no one hates my singing, some liked it in fact. The only prob was that i couldnt remember lyrics. So i had to cut my songs short. hahaa... But it was really fun to sing and sing.

Day 47 of Work & Travel - Super Tired Day

Haven slept much since coming back from mount rushmore. It was really a great experience going on a road trip with a bunch of frens. :) but the aftermath is to be very very zombified when i got back immediately to work.

I got back only like 6plus this morning. Had breakfast at the EDR and came back to rot until it's time to go to work. Only took a short nap before going to work at 2pm. Super stone when working today. Just float around, din really do much of work. :P

Day 42 of Work & Travel - Work & planning

Woke up really late today, 12pm but i only start work at 2pm. Spent most of the time awake before work trying to find out info about the trip to mount rushmore. But the lousy internet connection is really giving me very little info.

Work today was not too bad, been folding a lot of tshirts again. Also did some stocking. My ankle is much better now, such that I can move around much faster already. But sometimes the ankle still aches.

Been checking up on the trip ever since coming back fm work. Still the internet sucks. I'm pretty nervous now, cos tml we'll be leaving for Mt Rushmore already. It's so scary to not have a full plan of wat to do and where to go, yet at the same time it's so exciting. :P

Day 41 of Work & Travel - Work & Play

Work today is not really very exciting, kindda drained at work also. But i managed to scrape thru the day happily. :) I still managed to enjoy my day at work by having fun with my co-workers and my customers. It's great to be working in an environment where everyone, including the workers are just looking for a good time. :)

Wanted to go for volleyball after work, but there was no one at the courts when i reached there. quite disappointed about that, but i met 2 frens from china there shooting some hoops so i joined in. I seriously think my shooting is better than the both of them. hahaa. 3 of us went to the pub together for pizza, it's only 12USD for a large pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms. It's good and cheap.

Went to hang around with some ecuadoreans after the pizza. They are really fun and frenly. Had a few beers with them and they tried to teach me how to salsa. I'm relaly keen to learn but my feet and hips are just not listening to my mind. :P But it was really fun and nice. :)

Day 40 of Work & Travel - Cody PowWoW

This morning i went on a trip with the recreation hall to Cody. There's an event known as a Pow Wow, it's like a carnival where native americans get together to dress-up in their traditional costumes and show off their products, dances and such. It's really vibrant and there's lots of ppl around that area where they held the Pow Wow. My camera is not really working well today, which made me rather sad about that, the white parallel lines are back and it seems to be worsening. I'm going to try to reduce the use of it.

The Pow Wow was actually quite nice, i wanted to see the dancing competitions, but we had to leave early cos the rec hall peeps as to be back in old faithful for dinner. :P so we only manage to catch the Grand Opening and glimpses of the competitions for kids. :P

We had a quick stop at the Walmart in Cody, I knew what i need to get and i headed straight for the section where i could find my stuff. I picked up a 250gb portable harddisk and a 2gb mp3player for only 180USD, which i found quite worthed it. :)

I had a quick dinner once i got back to old faithful, cos i was preparing to drive to a rodeo west yellowstone just outside west yellowstone. I had a bunch of passengers along with me too. All of us are new to rodeo, but it really looks quite exciting. There were bucking horses, bucking buffaloes which the cowboys had to try to stay on and gain points for time and posture. There was breakaway where the cowboys/gals will try to lasso a runaway calve in the shortest time possible. there are also events which involves the kids from the audience, they had to chase after a calve to grab a red ribbon tied on it's tail. Really fun to see them running around. And all the kids are given a dollar for their effort, the winner get xtra food vouchers from some restaurant. quite exciting. Had to pay 10USD to watch the rodeo, and i think that's money well spent.

really tired when i got back, but i'm still ok. Just love to see everyone having fun. :)

Day 39 of Work & Travel - Shirts Day

Really tired today when i start work. Only came back after midnite yesterday and i had to open today. I gave myself a huge task today. I'm going to refold ALL the tshirt in ALL shelves so that they will look neat and uniformed. And that's what i did the whole day, standing in one corner getting all the shirts and folding them nicely and putting them back into the shelves. I think a did a great job today, but the best part is that, at the end of the day, i dun have much excess cash to count in my register!! hehee..

I was so tired today, i fell asleep the moment i got back to my room. Only woke up in the night, then i went to terrence's room for fun and got to know 2 taiwanese gals, they were funny ppl. but the funniest part was they tot i was speaking chinese like a chinaman and looked like a korean. :P

chatted around for a while and i'm going to sleep.. still so tired!!!

Day 38 of Work & Travel - Bozeman Day

Took a super long trip to bozeman today. Woke up early for breakfast with the rest of the people who are going with me. I took 7 passengers for this trip. That's the maximum capacity of my car. 3 in front, 3 in the middle and 2 in the trunk seats. Quite cool to have so many people travelling together. This huge capcity crowd is made up of zing, dawn, puiee, louise, kailun, slyvia, diana and myself. This is pretty much a shopping and entertainment trip to bozeman.

We left Old faithful at about 830am. Our first stop was in west yellowstone, i planned to stop for just a while over here but the shoppers were just too passionate about their jobs and went on to extend their shopping hrs. We went to quite a few good shops there, so expectedly they had moreand better things to entice them to shop. We only left west yellowstone around 1145am.

The drive to Bozeman was pretty easy, although this is my first time driving to bozeman, i remembered most of the landmarks when dorothy took me there and that made my driving pretty smooth. It took me slightly more than an hr to reach bozeman from west yellowstone. The view slong the way was pretty nice, very different from the last time cos it was hailing and snowing the last time i went to bozema, now it's all bright and sunny.

1st thing to do in bozeman is to look for a place for lunch, i did some research on my own the night before for food places in bozeman. I'm glad i did that little research cos i was recommending them to try out this Jap restaurant there, Watanabe. It had several good reviews on it's food quality and service. Most of the gang were really keen on having that after so many weeks of repetitive EDR food, except slyvia & diana. They are from ecuador and had never tried japanese food before, so they kindda afraid. But after looking at the menu i managed to convince them that the jap food will be edible to them too.

This lunch was really good, I liked my teriyaki beef loads, the portion was big enough to fill me. Sylvia and Diana have pretty much lifted their fear of the jap food and turned to like it instead. The rest also also blissfully contented with their meal. I'm really glad to see everyone with their looks of fulfillment after the meal, that makes me feel so proud. :p

It was time to start the shopping, stop no.1 Ross. zing, dawn, puiee, louise & kailun got off and started with their shopping. I drove Slyvia and Diana to another mall where they could catch a movie, Kungfu Panda. I dropped them off and went to find the camera repair shop for my camera. It was not hard to find thanks to my limited research. They did a quick check on my camera and told me they will have to order the spare part for my camera. So i'll have to come down some other time to have it fix. But thankfully it can be fixed.

I went back to the Ross and Terget area, i went straight to target to get myself a new pair of track shoes, 30USD for a pair of Champion shoes. I meediately changed and put on the new pair and threw my old pair of brroks away cos my brook are really old anf flat already. And i feel GOOD in a new pair of shoes!! :)

I couldnt find any of the gals initially anywhere, when i finally spotted them i realised they had been ross all the time. They have been trying on dress after dress, shirt after shirt, really scary. especially when i saw the pile of clothes and the multiple bags they ended up with. This is only the first stop for their shopping. By the time they were done at Ross it was almost 6pm already.

I took them to another place nearby called old navy before going to the mall to pick up sylvia and diana after their movie. I really like driving around in the car and i really think i'm very familiar with the area already. hahaa.. When i returned to old navy again, i tried to shop around a little too, wanted to buy a few bermudas cos they were on offer, but sadly, those designs i liked did not have my sizes and thos that are my sizes did not have any design i liked. However this is not cos i was too fat now, i realised i dropped back to 36in waist since getting here, but they somehow did not have much 36in bermudas, there are lots of 38 and 40in though. :P

Initially, i tot we would be going to walmart next for our final stop, but the sg gals saw a plastic bag from the ecuadorean gals which says "Aeropostale" and they got so exciting. So i took them to the mall which the shop was at, and did a little more shopping there before going to Walmart. These gals can forego dinner for the sake of shopping. :P

Walmart was pretty quick for them, cos most of them were kindda tired already, but i had to buy some stuff for other ppl as well, so i took awhile exploring the place. But i was done pretty fast too.

It was straight back home after that. almost 3 hrs drive back to old faithful, not much problems, just had a fox running past the car and i reach home safely with the car really really fully packed. :P

This is pretty much a shopping trip and i'm glad everyone was really happy at the end of the day. Perhaps i really should think about being a tour guide. :)

Day 37 of Work & Travel - GAD Day #3

Work today is pretty crazy, almost had no time off from the cashier. Been ringing up sales from the moment i got in to the moment i got off and i actually broke my previous record of sales, this time i hit 4.5K in sales. OMG!! So damn tiring and draining.

Went to play some volleyball after work. Not bad, did not start off too good, but got some pro players came along to make the game more exciting. Tried jumping a little, not much strength in my ankle yet. sobzZ.

Off tml, will be going down to bozeman, mainly to fix my camera and to do some shopping.

Day 36 of Work & Travel - Tiring Day

Super long day at work today, cos boss wanted me to stay back and help setup for tml's GAD day. GAD (Guest Appreciation Day) is a day where there are $5 stuff going on sale. I think i've already said that before, but doesnt matter if i say it again.

This was the faster setup of the GAD stuff ever, i think that cos i was doing it. hahaa.. but now, i'm tired.. need to get some sleep.. zzzzzzzzzzzz

Day 35 of Work & Travel - Big Decision Day

Today is just another monday at work, working on mondays feels kindda weird after 2 days of off. Gotta switch back to working mode, but it was good. My ankle felt much better already and i was able to walk much faster and also go up and down the stairs with much ease.

I made a pretty big decision today, cause i decided to take a road trip to MOUNT RUSHMORE next week. Yeah, there will be a few of us in the car next. I really want to go on this trip, see mount rushmore. WOAH!!! so excited now!! haha..

But at this point of time i only have a destination, there's no idea how to get there yet. hahaa. but i'm confident i'll find something. :P

Day 34 of Work & Travel - Fairy Falls

Slept thru most of today as well, just felt really really tired. Din feel like waking up at all, so i slept thru all the way. Thru mornig, thru breakfast, thru lunch. Only woke up just before it was time to go hiking.

It's fairy falls today, drove to the start of fairy falls trail. That really shortened the trail a lot, perhaps alittle too much. It took us less than an hr to reach the falls from our car. And the hike there was pretty easy, not much up or down hill. Not that i'm complaining, cos my ankle hasnt recovered to 100% yet.

There were 7 of us on this trip, Shawn & Lorraine,Dawn & Puiee, Su & BSZ and me. highest capacity in the car so far, but we could still take one more. Shawn was the driver this time. I still like driving more then being a passenger.

The view of fairy falls is really very pretty, much better than wat we had at mystic falls. It was a really steep cliff and the water fell from quite a height. There were a few marmots running around and climbing up the cliffs, they are fantastic rock climbers!!

We took quite a few nice pictures there, luckily most of the photos in my camera turned out quite ok. Some of them had horizontal parallel lines in them making it look like being seen thru a fence. i'm going down bozeman soon to get my camera fixed if possible. :p

We had xtra time on our hands so we went back to the car and proceeded to midway geyser basin next. It was and even shorter walk, 20mins and we are done. There was this spring there called the Grand Prismatic Spring. REALLY huge, but to really enjoy the full view of it, you gotta take a helicopter to see it totally. But we dun have that luxury, i tried going up a hill to have a better view but it wasnt much better. Still slightly better than on flat ground though. :P

Super tired, today actually, sweat quite a bit but it was not that tough. Perhaps it because the temperature is rising already. Summer is really here, lots of flies and mosquitoes and other bugs are starting to appear.

But as the sun sets and the temperature drops, the insect disappeared. I'm starting to love the cold instead. :P

Day 33 of Work & Travel - LoneStar Geyser

I slept thru the bulk of the day cos last nite's dancing and staying up really tired me out. And i'm glad i had the day off to sleep in. :) It was a much need sleep after a few days of lack of it.

The first thing i did after waking up was to take some photos of MY car!! :) It's a a 1992, Ford Taurus. It's a really good car and i realise i can legally take up to 8 ppl in the car, how cool is that?

Din really have much of plan about where to go initially, was suppose to go somewhere with annie, but it seems she left without me. but the day has not ended yet. I went for dinner and met Lorraine and Su there, and we decided to take a hike to LoneStar geyser. It turned out to be a great trip.

The hike was easy, mostly flat ground all the way with huge and obvious paths to walk on, so we wouldnt get lost. It's a cool forest trail to walk on and when we finally reach our destination, it only took us like an hour of leisure pace walking. But that's not the greatest part, the greatest part is that we were kindda just in time for the next geyser eruption. The eruption was fantastic, it was not as tall as the old faithful but the jet is very clear and strong, looks simply majestic and it went on for about 20mins before toning down. We took loads of pictures there, but i did not use my camera cos it's kindda injured from last nite. I lost the small metal piece which protects my lens. :P

OK, back to the lonestar, the geyser is really quite cool. From one side of the cone, it kindda looks like an old man. See the pics below, these 2 are not in fotopic, check out fotopic for other photos we took there. :)

Day 32 of Work & Travel - Friday 13th!!

It's been a very eventful day. but the start of the day was kindda torturous for me cos i was so so tired. Only slept a few hours yesterday before going to work. Really felt so so tired today, could make myself active and greet people or entertain people. But i was happy that i managed to scrape thru the shift. i did not do much sales today, was folding shirts and stocking stuff most of the time, so when i checked out, it was really easy and fast.

After work, i went on a short hike with some frens, annie, chino, allison & su. Annie is our RC (Resident coordinator), she needs to get to work at night i nour dorm, so we did short hikes. Really short ones. We went to Keplar Cascades. I've been here before sometime back when Mike drove some of us around, but this time we did not stay at the viewing gallery. We climb down to the bottom to see the falls even closer. It was quite cool. :) we took a few pictures there before climbing back up. The Climb was short but quite tiring, cos very steep and it was kindda like rock climbing already.

Went back to the dorm and got ready for a PARTY!! There's a PJ party going on at the pub, and i decided to go crash it!! The music was crap in the beginning, cos they were playing western music. I think i'm not the only to feel weird trying to dance to it, just doesnt click at all. But soon the DJ realised change is required and on came the familiar dance mixes. And fun started!! Anyway the DJ is my BIG BIG boss, hahaa.

That was basically my first time dancing in a pub, had quite a few beers but it was fun. I was alittle uptight at first, but as the beers add on, i convinced myself to let loose and that was fun. I also took my camera and went around snapping photos with whoever i knew. Danced with many frens, both guys and gals. I also made my boss mike buy me several drinks. I think in total i had like 10 beers, and i think i'm still ok. :P

The photos are up at fotopic check them out. You will notice my face is like super super red.

Day 31 of Work & Travel - Parkwide Volleyball

Started work early today so that i would have time to rest a bit before going down to mammoth. somethine pretty eerie happened in the morning when i just got onto my register. I was talking to my fren for a while, den i hear a sudden click, i turn and looked at my cash register's monitor and i saw "8" being keyed in. No one else was around. Scary. The rest of the day was pretty boring, nothing much happened and morning's are always very slow.

I drove to mammoth for the Parkwide volleyball tournament. It was a pretty long drive, look me almost 1.5hrs to get to mammoth. First time driving out of Old Faithful and first time on mountain roads, it was quite fun, but gets boring after a while cos there was no music in my car, it only had a cassette player which kindda sucks. There was no audio input as well. Double sucks!! But it's okay, we got there safely and without getting lost.

There were 5 of us going there together as a team, not the same team as the one i play with last week. These guys are better, much better. We actually thought we had a chance of winning something, but i thought wrong, there were really strong teams around. Good thing we are in as champions of Old Faithful, so we dun have to meet any strong teams in the first round, we got thru to second round which is also the semi-finals and we lost!! But at least we lost to the eventual champions so i'm not too sad about that. And they were really good, we had no chance at all, they are college players from columbia, super zai.



We had pizza and nachos at the employees' pub at mammoth, that place looks like a cooler place to chillout compared to the pub in old faithful. Nice place. The drive back to Old Faithful was pretty exciting, cos the WHOLE journey was pitch black. There were no street lamps at all, the only light were head-on traffic which did not turn down their high beams when passing, ASSHOLES!!! I almost knocked over an animal if the car on the other side did not flash me to hint me to slow down. It was like a racoon or something crossing the road, dumb animal!! Got back to old faithful around 1am in the morning, very fun day of volleyball. :)

Day 30 of Work & Travel - Test Drive

Woke up really late for work today, but it was still ok cos i was within the 2 hrs limit but just barely only. But i did have a chat with the manager cos of that, he reminded me that after 3 official warnings i'll be GONE!! But luckily this is not a warning yet. Phew....

Went to pick up the car from Lorraine today, had a short drive from her side to mine. It was pretty ok. But going down to mammoth tml will be the challenge.

Day 29 of Work & Travel - Off to Bozeman

Asked for off today so that i could go Bozeman. Actually there's really nothing much for me to do there. But i'm quite glad i came. Dorothy our co-worker drove me, su and her boyfriend, Bian Shang Zhi to Bozeman. Dorothy is very nice, it is her off day, she had almost no purpose in Bozeman but she offered to take us there on a trip anyway.

We had hail coming down on us when we reached Bozeman, luckily it ended pretty soon or else it would have been a really bad weather to be in. We only had one simple aim when we reached Bozeman. Look for Ross, a shop that sells branded stuff cheaply. After wandering around for a while, we finally found it. That was not before we went to Sears for lunch. There was a foodcourt there and it has chinese food, so i had that for lunch. Pretty good. :)

Ross was tough to find, but when we got there, we had a good time looking for stuff we would wanna buy. Most of the stuff there are branded and cheap, the only downside was a lack of selection. I got myself 2 pairs of NIKE shorts, wanted to get a pair of shoes too, but the design i wanted did not have my size and none of those shoes my size are anything close to what i want.

There was a Target store next to the Ross store, and we went there next. More shopping and i bought a Spalding volleyball, an air pump and some snacks. Target is a better store than Walmart is you ar elooking for brands, walmart has really cheap prices but there's no famous brands on sale or something. They had a whole beach volleyball court set on sale, and only 45USD. I was so tempted to get it. :p



We made our way back after that, it was quite an exciting way back. First we reallyed we had a punctured tire and had to change it at a mechanic shop nearby. As we made our way to west Yellowstone, there was snow, rain and hail. We also saw lots of bisons along the way which was pretty awesome. It's either seeing them in herds or seeing them really close to the car.



We had dinner dinner at west yellowstone, ate in a chinese restaurant cos dorothy said she liked it. And her favourite was egg drop soup, which is bascially "dan hua tang" to us. but she liked it. We ordered a few other dishes as well, and it was not expensive. We treated her to dinner after she had spend the day bring us all the way to Bozeman.



I had a great day.

Day 28 of Work & Travel - Car ARRIVEs!!

I woke up really early today, had breakfast for the first time in a long while. Even after taking almost an hour for my breakfast, it's still too early for work, but wth, I still went to clock in and start my shift. Business started off really slow today, perhaps it's monday, and i think most people are rushing to get out on hikes cos today's weather is quite good. traffic picked up as the day wears on, but there were too many of us around, and i mainly hopped from one register to another just to help pack stuff. I did not do much cashing at all, so i had plenty of change and kindda became the money changer to everyone.

highlight of the day is basically shawn coming back with our CAR!! I have a car here in yellowstone. It was late at night therefore i did not take any pictures. I'll take some photos of it when it's daylight. It's a big car for a cheap price, I piad 700USD upfront and i'd likely get most of it back when they sell it before going back to singapore. I'm happy about it. :)

Day 27 of Work & Travel - Off finally.

I slept through most of my day. I only woke up at 12 just to go for lunch. I met Corina, one of my assistant managers. She's really nice at work, and i had a long chat with her at lunch today. She wants to work on a cruise ship, disney one to be exact. So exciting. Dorothy, one of my co-workers who's around 80, joined us for lunch and i had a long chat with her too. I asked her everything about her life living in a farm. She used to live in a farm long ago and she had cows, pigs, chickens and many other crops. So they were pretty much self-sustained. I kindda envied that sort of life, she also found that period of her life a very enjoyable one.

After a very long lunch, I went to find the personnel manager to get a transit room for dear. The room situation is somewhat settle, but also somewat unconfirmed. Cos it seems that she could promise rooms only for now, and if some emplyee comes along and needs the room the room for themselves. It might be taken away from me. And i'll have to find some other way out. Getting a room from the hotel may seem the next possible course of action but July is really the PEAK period, so rooms are likely to be lacking by the time they tell me the transit room is not available. And they are not cheap(dear, check www.travelyellowstone.com for rates). The last option is to talk to my room mate and see if he could move to someone else's room for a few days for us, seriously last option. But currently the situation will be, i have the transit room from 18-21st jul. I'll check with them again at the end of the month when they could possibly give me a more confirmed answer.

After dinner i when to the rec hall to see if there's volleyball for me to play. But, there was a church service going on so i couldnt play volleyball. they would only be done at 9pm, so i felt kindda dejected and came back to my room. Internet connection totally sucks during this time of the day when everyone else is also trying to get online.

However i did check on the availability of hotel rooms before coming back to my room. And it looks very bad for me, cos the period when dear will be here is TOTALLY fully booked. So there's not much of an option left for me. I'm kindda depressed about that. I really want her to be able to spend as much time as she can with me over here.

Day 26 of Work & Travel - Snowy Day 2

The snow did not stop today. It kept piling up since morning. Worked late today again, it's my 6th day of the week and i'm kindda feeling tired. Especially with the past few days standing at the cashier the WHOLE day really made my right heel very sore. So yah, there's more sore than pain in my ankle today. But I did much more walking around today, I did some stocking, fold shirts for most of the day, swept the floor too.

I'm happied i did different things to standing at the cashier, cos that meant i had less $$ to count at the end of the day and i was right. I was the last cashier to close the counter, but i was first to finish my counting and paperwork for the night. hehe.

After work me and allison had craving for fresh pizza from the oven since yesterday. That's cos i took and ate a slice from Annie, one of our RCs yesterday. And so we decided to go get one ourselves. 2 Equadoran guys, davin & chino came back to the dorm as we were going off, so i got them to come along. So 4 of us went to the pub together. Allison is jewish, so she doesnt take pork and not beef & dairy product at the same time. So i order the pizza with only pepperoni on 3/4 of the pizza. Chino & Davin are really cool ppl, they are fantastic drinkers, cos beer is cheaper than water where they come from.

Day 25 of Work & Travel - Snowing Again

It's been 3 day since i sprained my ankle. I think it getting much better already. Can walk abit faster, as long as i dun twist my ankle when i walk or stand it's pretty much ok. But I believe it will still be a few day before i get back to running and jumping.

Worked a late shift today, so i woke up quite late. I finally have the confirm dates which dear is coming over to find me. I tried to find the personnel manager to arrange for a room for her to stay, but jenny the personnel manager seems to be playing hide and seek with me. Always couldnt find her when i need her. :P

And today, it started snowing again. It was just hail in the morning. Then it became snow and that lasted almost the whole afternoon. The whole place is covered in white snow again. very beautiful, but that means all the hiking trails will be covered again. Not good for hiking. :P

Took a few pictures in the snow this time. Check it out.

Day 24 of Work & Travel - Limping Victor

Called dear today before going to work, ask her to go visit my mum cos she was in the hospital a few days ago. So i'm wondering how is she doing.

Started worked early today. I was allowed to stay at the cashier position the whole day again. But i tried to walk around and do stuff whenever i can. I think my ankle is really feeling better today. Wearing the higher cut hiking shoes help by keeping my ankles steady and not twist any further. I suspect there could be some hairline fractures, but it shld be fine, think it's healing already.

Ended work quite early today, 2plus and i'm back in my room. I din know why i suddenly felt really tired and i fell asleep. I slept past my dinner time and i had to go to for the volleyball 3on3 tournament. So yah, i skipped dinner and had a huge snickers bar for dinner. :) The volleyball tournament was not very exciting. I won, with a team of people who i'm not familiar with and are definitely weaker than our opponents. I pretty much killed off the opponents with serves, i couldnt jump, couldnt dive. All i could do was receive and serve, which happened to be enough to win. And so i'll be going down to mammoth next thursday for the parkwide competition. I hope the opponents are just as bad. :p

Day 23 of Work & Travel - Immobilisation

After having my ankle sprained, my movements have been pretty much impaired and inconvenient. I still went to work today at 10am, but i requested to stay and the cashier the whole day and not move around stacking or stocking. However, i realised, just standing there is not easy too. There's constant pressure on my ankle, and the swell can be felt thru my shoes. i've been limping around the whole day, and that's such a sucky feeling. I hate this disabled feeling yet the pain is so intense that i cant ignore!!

I tried to play a little volleyball today after work, limp around the court as well, but i think that's enough for tml. tml will be the 3 on 3 tournament, i really hope my ankle kindda heals tremendously overnite, so i can play well tml.

I've finally uploaded some of my pictures for the past few days, check it out.

Day 22 of Work & Travel - Birthday!

It's my birthday today. And i'm really happy. I think i'm partially high now as i'm typing this blog, but i think i'm alrite.

I started off the day just like any other day, missing my breakfast. Work was as per normal, it seems no one remembers it was my birthday. We had this retail product info session today, and that's when i reminded people that it was my birthday. And i started going ard the rest of the day, telling my co-workers that it's my birthday and we shld all go to the pub together.

It was really an awesome time at the pub, cos many of my co-workers turned up. And i was really glad i had company on my birthday. I appreciated it LOTs!! I had a couple of drinks there, free one of cos, cos i was making people buy me drinks. But it's ok, i'm think i'm still sober enough. I took loads of photos at the pub, it was really fun there. I've got my 1st birthday card in the US too!!

I also attended a sports league meeting today, and i'm planning and trying to get a volleyball team up for the volleyball league. I hope there's response for the sign-up form i put up. :)

I sprained my ankle on the way back from the pub. It's not too bad for now, but i know it's surely going to swell like hell tml!! AARRrrrggghhhh. What a 26th birthday for me!!??

Day 21 of Work & Travel - Back to work

Back to work again after a weekend off, it was really good to have rested the whole of yesterday. But i still did not wake up in time for breakfast. I had to even drag myself up and out for lunch. I was really tempted to skip lunch too, but i was hungry. Talked to dear online, and on the phone yesterday. Finally talked to her in a while. She sounds so sad and stressed with her work. Poor thing. I wish i could have been there for her.

I sent something to her today, hoping it will make her feel better. Although i totally dunno how long it will take to reach her. And i seriously hope it does reach her. I know she will like it when she sees it. :)

Went to the general store today. But not to buy anything, just went there to change a raincoat i bought 2 days back before going up the Tetons, from another general store. I accidentally bought the kids sized one. So I got it changed for an adult sized one. Lucky for me i did not have to use it during the hike at tetons, otherwise it would be rather embarassing.

Worked till close today, nothing very significant happened at work today. Felt rather lethargic at work today, but i think i still brought certain level of entertainment to everyone, which is good. I'm glad these americans get my lame jokes.. hahaa.

Day 20 of Work & Travel - Sleep In

Wanted to go on the bus tours today initially, but my legs and back are just too tired to get out of bed in the morning. So i slept pretty much the whole day.