6 Mar 05 - Snowboarding Trip in Homewood
We went to Homewood Resort. It has a much better view of lake Tahoe then the other resorts we had gone to.
A very nice group photo. :)
19 Feb 05 - Las Vegas
I had been looking forward to this day for the entire week. Since the coming monday is a public holiday (its President Day), we asked our lecturer of our New Venture Creation class to postpone the class to some other time. He agreed and so we have a long weekend for a great road trip.
Initially I proposed to go Los Angeles but most of the guys seem to be more interested in the city of entertainment, Las Vegas. So, that was our destination for the memorable weekend.
The drive to Las Vegas took about 9 hours. There were 3 drivers in our group and they took turn to drive in 3 hour shift. We began the journey in friday night. Along the way, we came across the Nevada desert and took some really nice shots. In particular, there is a wierd mountain with a cloud sitting right on top of it.
We reached Las Vegas at about 9 am. Even in the morning, we were quite impressed by the extravagent design of the hotels and buildings. Some hotels/casinos really have some very interesting theme. To top it off, there was a whole lot of huge and flashy neon signs everywhere around the city.
From the car, you can see the huge paramid shaped hotel, Luxor.
The MGM Grand sign. MGM Grand is one of the biggest and most famous hotel/casino in Vegas.
The Bellagio, biggest and most classy hotel/casino in Vegas. This is where Ocean's Eleven "stole" the money from Terry Benedict.
This is the theme structure of Paris, modelled after the Eifel.
The MGM Mirage.
The Treasure Island. Its theme is about sailing in the 16 century and pirates.
The Wynn, named after Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas tycoon. This very elegant looking hotel will only open in April 2005. It costed over two and a half billion dollars.
The Stratosphere. This tower is over 110 storey high and is the single tallest structure in Vegas.
We met up with another group of NOC students in Vegas during breakfast in McDonald. There were altogether 10 of us then. Our first destination, we decided was the famous joyride on the top of the Stratosphere.
The view from the top of the Stratosphere.
There were 3 different rides on the building: The Big Shot, the X-Scream, and the X-roller. The first 2 were some of the most famous joyrides in the world.
We played the X-Scream first. I think its the only one of its kind. It basically looks something like a roller coaster, but it slides out of the building and only stops just before the entire machine drops down from the tower. It then flings you upwards and stays for a few seconds. Then it jerks violently down and giving you a very real feeling of falling down the tower. This thing is fun!
You can see the X-Scream flinging people around one floor below.
Perfect capture. Too bad we couldn't take the photo of ourselves.
Guys...lets do it!
The Big Shot has gotta be the scariest because it tosses you up at incredible speed on top of a 110 floor tower and then pulls you down at the same speed. I have played the Hyper Drop in Genting, Malaysia, but The Big Shot takes the cake in terms of sheer speed and excitment. Afterall, when you reached the top of the ride, you are looking down at 120 floor above the entire city.
The X-roller is basically a normal roller-coaster that revolves around the top of the tower. Nothing special.
After the joyride, we visited the Tourism Bureau of Las Vegas. We came across a tour package around Grand Canyon by plane for $199. We signed up soon after. Now come to think about it, its really expensive. Anyway, we got our next day planned for.
We settled in a cheap motel called the Somerset Motel along the strip next to the Las Vegas Convention Centre. The rent was $70 a day, fortunately we are sharing it among 6.
We went around Vegas quite a bit more.
The MGM Grand again.
Part of the theme structure of New York New York.
The Caesar's Palace.
The Mandalay.
There is a shopping complex known as the Fashion Show in Las Vegas. Apparently, they DO have fashion show held in the complex on a regular basis. How regular? Hourly. I am serious.
They have this cat walk and stage that elevates form the floor automatically and colorful screen display on top of the stage. Absolutely professional!
After that we left the Fashion Show and went to Caesar's Palace. On the way we saw a few lorry transporting some exotic goods:
It seems that these truck transport professional call girls to the ones willing to pay. Talk about vice city...
The interior of Caesar's Palace. This place is decorated with various statues from the Greek Mythology and Roman Empire. They are really made very life like. I did learn a little about the Greek deities out of interest in the past, but I can't really pinpoint what deities are these statues depicting...could be Zeus or Poseidon or Chronos...
Then we went to Treasure Island which is under MGM. While we were walking half way there, suddenly we heard a loud booming sound. When we turned around to look, we saw an exploding volcano! The volcano literally spit fireballs and they really burn in the water! Its incredible that they go to such extent to attract people. The spectacular show lasted about 2 minutes. Agressive marketing if you ask me.
A nice shot of Mirage at the back.
The Treasure Island at night.
A nice mural at the entrance of Treasure Island.
The even more bombastic theme can be found in Venetian. By its name, you know it has something to do with Venice. Yes, Venice is known as a city of canals. So you know what they did? Yes, they built a canal in the hotel shopping area...yes, they built an in door canal and have boatmen row boats in them. If you look at the "sky" on top, those are simply wallpaper with strong spot light shinning on them to create the illusion of open shelter. But I gotta say it looks pretty real!
More night traveling around the Vegas Strip.
The Rio.
We only got tired at about 2 plus and we returned to Somerset Motel for a night rest before our trip to Grand Canyon on the morrow.
31 Jan 05 - Santa Cruz & Mystery Spot
Santa Cruz is a beautiful beach front with a mini theme park and other entertainments like bowling and arcade.
This place is also a surfer's paradize, with an abundance of waves coming from the pacific ocean. As a testament to the popularity of the place to surfers, it even has a small Surfer Museum. I snapped quite a number of photos there and from some of these shots, you can see that some surfers bobbing on the water and waiting to ride on the next big wave. I think I really want to try that some time.
The Surfers' Museum:
There are waves and surfers in the background:
Look at these guys, I snapped this spontaneously. Pretty candid huh?
The next destination is University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). We didn't expect to see anything special in a school campus. Boy, we were shocked when our car drove past the signboard for the college. The place looks practically like a rural farmland! Everywhere around the campus you see beautifully lush meadows or towering redwood and the buildings resembles little farm houses rather then faculty blocks. The environment is so nice that I highly doubt anyone can ever really study in such a place. It really looks a ton better then any holiday chalet in Singapore.
In the later afternoon, we drove to The Mystery Spot, a famous place for paranormal phenomenon. Some of my friends had some serious reservations to the authenticity of these claims but after the trip they were all admitted its real. A brief introduction of the place can be found at: http://www.mysteryspot.com/
There are quite a number of interesting phenomena in the Mystery Spot. Balls roll upwards. Granted, you can say its an optical illusion, but how do you explain why when a group of people lined up on a flat ground leans in different direction? The poeple at the side tend to lean away from the group, which means that the gravitational forces actually act in significantly different directions just a few feet apart. In fact, the G-field seems to diverges. I did a simple experiment - I held the ribbon which was tied to my camera directly in front of me. Initially the camera ribbon formed a 90 degree with my hands, but as I extend my hand further away from my body, the camera inclines towards me and the ribbon by then formed a 70 degree with my hand. Another experiment is that a pendulum does not swing equal angles on both sides. It actually tends to swing more on one side and less on the other.
There are even wierd stuff like the trees tend to grow in a wierd L-shape as though they have been tricked by gravity themselves. Mobile phones do not receive any signals inside the area too. At some part of the area you can feel yourself much heavier while at other spots you feel much lighter. While subtle, I am quite sure of that weight-changing feeling when I moved across different areas.
By the end, all of us have to admit that the place really has some interesting phenomena that we can't yet explain. I can only say that the gravitational feels disjoint and inconsistent in the area. Finally we left the place back to Mountain View with the conceded feeling of a weekend well spent.
30 Jan 05 - Gilroy & Santa Cruz
This is the first weekend we had since our work started. We decide to make a 2 day road trip down South to Santa Cruz and Gilroy. But before that, we picked up Nirun from the San Francisco Airport in the morning. This poor guy had to follow us to the road trip with his jet lag...
Anyway, we reached Gilroy at about 4pm. This place is a shopping paradize. There are about 50 outlets spread over 4 blocks. These factory outlets sell branded goods at incredible prices. To get a glimpse of the prices:
1) Timberland shoes at $39.90
2) Hugo Boss sunglasses at $29.90
3) Armani sunglasses at $39.90
4) Levi jeans at $14.90!!!
I was practically traumatized by the drastic price different from that of Singapore. I bet gals from Singapore would get crazy over the place. Being the rationale person that I am, I refrain myself from spending money there....maybe some other time.
We left Gilroy at night and headed for Santa Cruz. Sun and me booked a motel room at $50 and the rest of the gang sneaked in for a cheap night stay. I guess the location was ideal since it was just next to the beach.
24 Jan 05 - First Day at Excelics Semiconductor, Inc
The first day at work, I met the people and familiarized myself with the environment.
Gotta say I like the friendliness of the people. The culture itself is very different from that of Singapore. For example, we can just call our CEO by his first name. In Singapore you probably have to insert a salutation in front.
21 Jan 05 - Ski Trip in Boreal
We went to Boreal, a skiing resort near Lake Tohoe at central California. The drive itself was about 4 hours. During the drive, we can see the gradual appearance of snow along the roadside. Too bad it wasn't snowing on that day.
We rented the ski at $22.00 and we went for the college student offer for the ski lift at $10.00, thats about the cheapest deal we can ever get.
Anyway the skiing itself was the interesting part. None of us has ever skied before and we didn't want to spend another 30 bucks for the beginner's lesson. The result? We spend about 20 minutes trying to climb UP slope towards the ski lift from the car park. Anyone has any experience with skiing would have known that moving up slope with a ski can be quite or in our case, exceedingly tiring. By the end of the 20 mins, we were sweating so much we had to return to our car and take off one layer of clothings...
After some fallings and sliding in awkward positions and some unintended stunts, we got the hang of skiing. When I moved to a meandering lane next to the beginner trail, it was just more pain for me. The bottomline, however, was that it was fun. By the end of the day, I could manage myself much better. At least I could ski down a slightly steeper slope without falling.
We only left the resort at about 7pm when it got cold and dark. Gotta say its a nice and fulfillng day.
San Francisco - 16 Jan 05
It was a great day - sunny and cloudless. Finally we settled most of our urgent issues and we made a trip to the famed city San Francisco, which is about an hour and a half drive from Mountain View.
Our first stop is the Union Square area, a fantastic place to capture some nice shots. Beautiful city!
The city hall of San Francisco.
An art museum.
The city is buzzing with activities and reminds me more of Hong Kong then Singapore. The interesting thing is that the city has some extremely steep slopes, some going about as much as 40 degree.
We went around the shopping district. There are many interesting outlets and shopping centres. We saw a big Apple shop which showcases many cool gadgets including the new iShuffle MP3 player.
In the afternoon we proceeded to China Town. China Town was only separated from the rest of the city with just a single street. Everyone speaks Mandarin or Cantonese in China Town. You can really feel the abrupt change of culture simply by crossing a single street, like leaving the States to China. Its amazing how the Chinese managed to carve out a haven of their own in the middle of such a westernized city. I guess the proliferation of the Chinese really dates back to the 1849 Gold Rush. It sort of feels homely.
In the evening we reached the Fisherman's Wharf, somewhat a tourist attractions with seafood restaurants and souvenier shops. It is also very near to the famed federal prison Alcatraz, which is a heavily fortified island prison off the northern coast of San Francisco and the venue for the movie, The Rock. We didn't get to visit it though, since it was already closed by the time we reached it. But we will be back.
There are also a lot of fantastic street performance in the city. I was particularly impressed by a street performance of spray paint artworks. The artist paints real fast, spraying paint and fire and switching color all the while in a furry of seemingly disorganized but stylish movements. But the artworks that he produced at the end was just stunning and surprisingly coherent. These are really some talented guys.
The dissappointing thing is that we didn't get to see the Golden Gate bridge because we were just so tired that we all fell asleep on the car before we reached the bridge. But on the bright side, its a fulfilling day!
Second Day
In the morning, we fetched another 2 guys from the airport to the NCSV Office. These guys and I are going to share an apartment according to what we have earlier planned back in Singapore.
We spent the entire day sorting for an apartment. We made numerous appointments and visited about 10 of them. However, we all had problems getting over the first apartment that we visited. The apartment is called Americana and is situated at the eastern end of Mountain View, just next to Sunnyvale. They have almost every facility imaginable: swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi, gym, billard table, table tennis etc. The flat is freshly renovated and just about everything in it is new and clean.
We decided to lease the apartment the next day.
First Day in California - 12 Jan 05
The flight I took has a transit in Tokyo Narita airport. The plane took off from Singapore at 0600hrs and reached Narita at 0145 hrs (Sinapore time). It took off again 1 hour later and flew for another 9 hours. When I reached San Francisco Airport, it should be about 10-11 pm in Singapore. But due to the time difference (15 hours earlier in US), it was 0900am in the morning the same day.
San Francisco Airport was quite big, but the buildings looks old as compared to the much acclaimed Singapore International Airport. The Silicon Valley area, or the San Francisco Bay area basically looks something like this:
What strikes me was the scenery outside the airport. It feels very different from Singapore. The roads are very wide but buildings are few and mostly very low (2-3 storey high). In fact, buildings are often so far apart that you need to drive from one building to another building. Public transport is almost non-existent in Silicon Valley. Everyone drives and that's that. I got to get a license, really.
Another thing that struck me was that Americans are extremely outspoken, friendly and expressive. In Singapore, when I talk to a salesperson, I really don't want to say anything more then absolutely necessary because I know that most of them are just not interested in you unless you want to buy something from them. In US, however, sometimes they will start chatting with you and share things with you. Not bad for a complete stranger.
Upon our arrival, our friends and I rented a mini-van, a Nissan Quest mini-van to be exact, and went for the NCSV (NUS College in Silicon Valley) office. Fortunately, one of them can drive, else we would get stuck. A person without a car in California is about as mobile as a lamp post.
We had lunch with a senior from the 6th batch of NOC students, Gavin. His boss, Lawrence, came along too. This guy looks like a quiet Chinese youth and I thought nothing of it. But it was later revealed to me that this man was the infamous bond-breaker who made it to the headline in Singapore's Straits Times. He got a scholarship from the Singapore government to study in Stanford and apparently he broke his bond after he graduated so that he can work in US. Later he started the company L2 Solution with another guy. Smart.
The first night we slept at Gavin's place. Another guy staying with Gavin is Yizhe, a very friendly senior who bought us to Walmart out of his own work time. They even slept in the living room so that we can stay in their room, what can I say?
Why do I blog?
While in the past I feel no compulsion to blog, now I feel the need has arised.
I arrived in California on 12 Jan 05 (wed) thanks to the NOC program by NUS that I have applied for approximately one year ago.
The funny thing is that the feeling of leaving Singapore has always been unreal and detached, as if it concerns some distant future dimenion that will never come to pass. Or it seems as if it is a story I heard from my friend. It wasn't until I step out to San Francisco airport that the impact of leaving home hit me.
I have seen or heard much of United States from media such as TV and theatres, but the truth is US is a large nation, and every part can differ from the other quite significantly. My destination is the "Silicon Valley" in north western California. There are so many things and culture that I came across that are so different from Singapore, I feel that I am in need of a way to document them lest I forget.
Each and every one of these are part of the experience, and hence my life. I want to look back after this one year and remember them vividly, for they are truly worthy of my memory, and so I blog.
