New York and Washington DC

ok i'm jet-lagged. been constantly tired since i landed on sat morning. its tues night now, and i want to sleep. it's only 9.30pm by the way.

just arrived in DC this evening at about 5.30pm. today was quite an adventure in itself. ok let me just skip all the details of the past few days, will update on that another time.

woke up at 9 this morning cos the sun was shining right into my face. it was super super hot. debbie went straight to the table and started writing stuff while i simply looked for a corner that was still shaded and went back to sleep. haha. finally woke up at abt 9.25. we thought we had all the time in the world. had cornflakes with milk (i think that was our first decent breakfast!) we thought the milk had gone back cos it looked like water, but it was just fat-free milk. how sua-gu of us. but u cant really blame us for expecting the milk to be bad cos everything in that suite seemes a little too dirty, too messy, too unkempt. haha.

made stan skip the first session of soccer so that we could go walk around the school and take pictures. it was really great to see the american college lifestyle. everyone walking to class, sitting around chatting or reading, some people sprawled on the grass reading... (it was a sunny day remember). deb and i took some pics but we were quite afraid of looking like idiots. until stan came along and said that it was very normal and became our photographer. before we knew it, it was almost 11 and we had to hurry back cos stan had another session of soccer at 11.

the grand 7-story lib where they filmed ghostbusters

the $ sign (seen fr the air) in front of the biz bldg

we tried to pack our stuff but we couldnt fit all our stuff into the bags! had such a hard time. ambrose and esmond were having buffet lunch opposite in the freshman dorms and invited us , but we HAD to pack. they missed called us at about 1145 and we were supposed to meet them the junction so that we could take the subway together. but we only managed to get downstairs at 1205 or 1210 cos we couldnt 1) close the luggage 2) carry the luggage. we waited and waited at the junction until 1220, then we decided to call them. but they put down on us and got an sms which said that they had left without us.... we were furious man! we specifically told them to meet us there cos we couldnt handle our luggage!!! so we decided to find out how much it was to take a cab. called stan again (who had finished his soccer class then). he met us and took us accross the road to get a cab to chinatown. thank God for stan. heh. we were so helpless, waiting at the junction while watching the rest of the students file past us to go to school! how gentlemanly, guys these days... tsk.

columbia students - the real genius and the wanna-be

we took the nyc cab, which really wasnt as bad as we expected. he didnt swerve too much, or talk to us. he just kept horning at the cars in front. the whole trip took us all of 20 mins and cos 22 something, so we paid 25. turned out that we were the first to arrive at chinatown, we just couldnt wait to load up our stuff. the competition at chinatown is really fierce, all the bus operators were trying to convince us that they're bus was the right one, even when we already had tickets! sheesh! anyway, since we were so early, we decided to look for some nice chinese food for lunch. spent 3 bucks on some chicken noodles which looked like maggi mee, but the chicken was quite nice. it was too hot and we had to rush like mad-literally ran all the way to the bus. but we go there on time, at like 12.25, only to find that ambrose and esmond hadn't arrived!

we started to get worried and tried to call them but all they would say is that they're on their way. the bus driver got a bit impatient cos he wanted to leave. gabe and nick tried to go look for them and all we could do was pray. they finally arrived at 1.35pm. dunno how on earth they took so long to get to chinatown! until now, deb's still hasn't gotten over that. why on earth couldnt they have waited for us, we could have all taken the cab together. and they would have to wait for us anyway, even if they left first, assuming we took the subway. and ambrose still had to check to say that we would have died if we had taken the subway.... doesnt he get it!! sheesh. anyway i took the motion sickness pill in case i felt carsick, but it made me so drowsy i slept all the way to DC. 4 hours in all. heh.

was super groggy when we arrived in DC, got off the bus and saw this dark-skinned guy asking esmond and nick for tips, so i quickly took my bags away so that he cant touch them and ask for tips, heh. i was so happy with my quick move when i saw the guy leave our area, until ambrose brought him back and asked us to tip him. like, what! crazy! i didnt even see him take my luggage out of the bus. i didnt want to but they were like staring at me so i gave $1. still dunno what happened. i must go ask ambrose why on earth he brought that guy back! sigh!

thank God for debbie's friends, eugene and claire. we're at their place now, which is really nice and cosy. eugene picked us up from that junction. thank God we didnt even have to wait cos i really felt quite uncomfortable there and the guys were leaving after finding out where the metro is. we're in the guest room, which is quite big. claire just came back from work but she went to the supermarket and bought stuff for dinner. she cooked pasta and baked pizza. they're really really nice. eugene is a foreign correspondent for the straits times (now that i think about it, i think ive seen his face in the papers before) and claire works for the EDB. very smart pple i think. was quite nice talking to them. oh, we had ben and jerry's for dessert, apprently it was $2.50 for 1 tub!!! cherry gacia frozen yoghurt, yum :p today is free cone's day, but we didnt get a chance to go queue...

ok thats my update for the day, ok im too lazy to type out the stuff that happened in NY, i will some other time, but in the meantime, go check out the places we visited on deb's blog http://songofdeborah.blogspot.com i havent actually gone there before, so i dunnom if it works...!

ok, the bed beckons... i'm gonna sleep... night!