The eagle has landed
We made it, we're in the US. Not our final destination yet though: currently in Minneapolis - will soon embark on our hour/90 min drive to Rochester, MN. Enjoying the transiently free Internet connection in our hotel room about 10 minutes away from the Minn. Airport.
We started our journey early in the am on Monday Singapore time. Woke up at an unearthly time, got to the airport by 7.30 am. Very sweet, couple of friends appeared to say bye bye, and before you knew it, it was time to go. It was just extremely surreal. Maybe it didn't quite hit that we're going to leave for a year... it was pretty much chop chop, lets get going, grab that bag, grab the other bag, wave bye bye... grab the trolley, last wave, board plane.
Dorothy - my travel agent from Fortune Travel (very good, go to her if u need to get things done) - managed to secure us exit aisle seats so it the flight was actually quite pleasant from Sg to Narita. During the layover, Gene gets imspiration to try the dry "kare" or curry at the cafe. It looked terrible on the menu but it tasted very good indeed. Tiny portions though.
Post Narita, we popped stillnox to go to sleep. It gave me hallucinations!!! I *saw* little green men on the airplane window sill. Figures were seaguing in and out of the plane. Totally cuckooo-ey. Stillnox is also very strange - it works for five hours in the fifth hour, we're usually both awake. Why 5 hours? Not 4? Not 6? Dunno man.
The transit in LAX took forever. ALTHOUGH, surprisingly, the customs and immigration process went quite well. Only queued for about like 40 mins, and the immigration officer was really nice (!) and of course, he laughed when I said that I'd be staying home the whole year. "Ohhh boooy, you're going to work hard huh?" he teased Eugene.
Our bags were definitely rifled through by the security folks, luckily we listened to a friend's advice and did not lock the bags. Apparently, they can cut locks, cut bags or worse, reset your bag lock to a new combination *roll eyes*
They were quite curious about the microwave rice cooker - this small specially designed plastic pot - that I brought along.
For the record, I was contemplating shipping it here but Gene looked quite astounded at the prospect of a 10-week-no-rice delay, so it went into the luggage. The plastic clips I put inside the pot were strewn all over the place!
The NW flight from LA to Minn last night (this morning Singapore time) was the WORST leg. First off, it was delayed, which meant that we stayed in LAX for five hours, which is about three hours too much in my view.
(Except, we had a sighting of a rather bemused looking Martin Sheen - or someone who really looked like him - in the terminal)
By this time, we were quite lagged, since we had only five hours of sleep over the 17 hours flight from SG. Plus the luggage lugging and some really waaay-too-salty buffalo wings later (we decided on a small snack - this would turn out to be the only food for the next oh, lemme calculate... 18 hours) meant we were about dead on our feet.
The flight itself was only three hours long but it was easily the worst leg of the trip - kiddies crying AND no inflight entertainment! Whooaa. tough man.
There was this chap on my right with a sean connery-esque beard who used his PDA to play his mp3s and he was playing it at SUCH a volume that I promptly blasted my own iPod Nano. Despite that I could hear his Billy Joel over my arias. Cruds.
The only thing that saved my sanity was this solitaire game on the Nano. Its incredibly fiddly but I'm not going to complain too loudly. It was my only source of entertainment man.
By the time we arrived, it was 1045 pm and we hit the hotel room at midnight. We hadn't eaten but by then sleep was a priority. Gave mom a call to wish her happy birthday (it was 11 am Sing time when we called) and then we broke out some duty free Single Malt and called it a night.
Onwards now with a now-working GPS to Rochester in our new rental Hyundai Sonata!
We started our journey early in the am on Monday Singapore time. Woke up at an unearthly time, got to the airport by 7.30 am. Very sweet, couple of friends appeared to say bye bye, and before you knew it, it was time to go. It was just extremely surreal. Maybe it didn't quite hit that we're going to leave for a year... it was pretty much chop chop, lets get going, grab that bag, grab the other bag, wave bye bye... grab the trolley, last wave, board plane.
Dorothy - my travel agent from Fortune Travel (very good, go to her if u need to get things done) - managed to secure us exit aisle seats so it the flight was actually quite pleasant from Sg to Narita. During the layover, Gene gets imspiration to try the dry "kare" or curry at the cafe. It looked terrible on the menu but it tasted very good indeed. Tiny portions though.
Post Narita, we popped stillnox to go to sleep. It gave me hallucinations!!! I *saw* little green men on the airplane window sill. Figures were seaguing in and out of the plane. Totally cuckooo-ey. Stillnox is also very strange - it works for five hours in the fifth hour, we're usually both awake. Why 5 hours? Not 4? Not 6? Dunno man.
The transit in LAX took forever. ALTHOUGH, surprisingly, the customs and immigration process went quite well. Only queued for about like 40 mins, and the immigration officer was really nice (!) and of course, he laughed when I said that I'd be staying home the whole year. "Ohhh boooy, you're going to work hard huh?" he teased Eugene.
Our bags were definitely rifled through by the security folks, luckily we listened to a friend's advice and did not lock the bags. Apparently, they can cut locks, cut bags or worse, reset your bag lock to a new combination *roll eyes*
They were quite curious about the microwave rice cooker - this small specially designed plastic pot - that I brought along.
For the record, I was contemplating shipping it here but Gene looked quite astounded at the prospect of a 10-week-no-rice delay, so it went into the luggage. The plastic clips I put inside the pot were strewn all over the place!
The NW flight from LA to Minn last night (this morning Singapore time) was the WORST leg. First off, it was delayed, which meant that we stayed in LAX for five hours, which is about three hours too much in my view.
(Except, we had a sighting of a rather bemused looking Martin Sheen - or someone who really looked like him - in the terminal)
By this time, we were quite lagged, since we had only five hours of sleep over the 17 hours flight from SG. Plus the luggage lugging and some really waaay-too-salty buffalo wings later (we decided on a small snack - this would turn out to be the only food for the next oh, lemme calculate... 18 hours) meant we were about dead on our feet.
The flight itself was only three hours long but it was easily the worst leg of the trip - kiddies crying AND no inflight entertainment! Whooaa. tough man.
There was this chap on my right with a sean connery-esque beard who used his PDA to play his mp3s and he was playing it at SUCH a volume that I promptly blasted my own iPod Nano. Despite that I could hear his Billy Joel over my arias. Cruds.
The only thing that saved my sanity was this solitaire game on the Nano. Its incredibly fiddly but I'm not going to complain too loudly. It was my only source of entertainment man.
By the time we arrived, it was 1045 pm and we hit the hotel room at midnight. We hadn't eaten but by then sleep was a priority. Gave mom a call to wish her happy birthday (it was 11 am Sing time when we called) and then we broke out some duty free Single Malt and called it a night.
Onwards now with a now-working GPS to Rochester in our new rental Hyundai Sonata!
haha. welcome to the great us of a. glad to hear trip was more or less easy breezy. and i do hope you brought lots of 2 pin adaptors or whatever u call 'em.
Posted by
ting ting |
16:29