USA West Coast Day 5 - Alcatraz, SF

Abducted by Pirates!!




Day at Pier 39



Off to see Golden Gate Bridge & Alcatraz!!!



Night at Fisherman's Wharf

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.