Arts Craze!

Wow, I can't get enough of going to shows and concerts! 2 weeks ago, it was down to the Ford Oriental Theatre for some lovely green fun at Chicago's longest-running musical... Wicked! The Oriental Theatre itself was beautiful and had such intricate interior designing... and the set was absolutely grand. Imagine a giant dragon bordering the stage... a moving dragon that can flap its wings and have its eyes glow red! Pardon my excitement... but it was my first major musical here in the states. In case you haven't heard what Wicked's about... it tells the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West, in the Wizard of Oz, came to be evil... it takes us on a journey back in time to when she and Glinda the good were still in school together. Very well put-together, i have to say. Bought the soundtrack, which was totally worth it, and the music's been playing in my head ever since. :) Stephen Schwartz is a brilliant composer and songwriter.

And then the very next day, it was a trip down to the Chinatown Summer Festival! But not before a long, painful ride on the El! lol. Our very own Corrinne May was in town performing there and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. :) She still amazes me with how she takes the time and effort to speak to each and every one of her fans... and she remembers them too! The festival was pretty cool... lotsa little stalls set up along the street.. little bit like a Pasar malam... except that there wasn't much variety in terms of food... all mostly pot stickers and fried bee hoon... none of which looked very appetizing... so Jessie and I headed to Penang instead! hehe... had a good dose of Prata there... (still can't believe they charge $3.50 a piece!).

Ooh.. McDonalds had this really weird campaign going on too... they called it "I Am Asian". When i first saw it, i was like o_O. But it's true... they handed out freebies with that slogan... and it shows a website too... Seems like they're helping promote the Asian culture... and even offer scholarships to Asian-Americans. Hmm...

And finally over the last weekend, Sam Kastelic came down form Wisconsin to visit us... and we went to catch Cirque Du Soleil together! It was held in a giant tent next to the United Center with stripes of blue and yellow (Cedarian colours! yay!). This particular show's called Kooza and right from when you enter the fenced area the carnival atmosphere hits you. Staff members walking arond with songs and cheers about how they're selling water and ice cream... photographers to help you and your friends create memories (and to help them earn $ when you buy their souvenir photos). Basically the show was fantastic. You watch, you're entertained, you're kept at the edge of your seat. It really amazed me how elaborate a set you can put under a tent... it was transformed to a performance area as good as any theatre, really. With the moving sets and the hidden trapdoors and all... brilliant. Aye, watching it just makes you wanna run away and join the circus too. :)

Adventure in Ohio: Got carded for buying DVD?

Last weekend I went to my friend's place, and after watching The Dark Knight - awesome movie!!!!! - we went shopping at a large departmental store. We discovered a pit of DVD movies selling for $5, and so we spent 50 mins looking for DVDs to buy.
I chose Speed, and then headed to the counter to pay.

"Sir, do you have an ID?"
"Err.. huh? ID, does this work? (Giving her my NU ID)"
"It gotta have ya birthdate on it Sir, you gotta be 17 to buy it"
"Well I don't have my ID, but don't I look more than 17?"
"Well, I gotta card you Sir or else I can't check this out for ya".

Do I really don't even look like 17 years old...?
And what..??! Carded for buying Speed?! The thing they say about Asians: we never age. Yayyyy ....(?) ^_^''''

ps: Update the blog everyone!! ;)

By the way, 2 movies totally worth watching:

To love Boston

A colleague and a friend both told me before coming to Boston that it's their favorite city in America. Being in here for 3 days and left on Sunday made me realized I actually felt the same as well.

The excitement in this town simply never ends, no matter from its history, intellectuality, beauty, landscape, or people. I haven't been here for long to make a conclusion that it's the best town in the States, but it definitely is till date my favorite city.

Since I arrived on Thursday, I've been staying with JJ in Harvard, and have met up with Nick Kim - one of the best ReFresh-ers who taught me how to dance, and then been meeting up with Eric Bell - my fellow "Wall-E" inventor - for a few times. There's been some enjoyable conversation in this nice town. So great! ;)

And then yesterday there was the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, to celebrate the 4th of July weekend. JJ and I actually waited along the Charles River for 4 hours starting 6 pm, and then to observe the entire event starting from the moment the orchestra played at 8.30pm. Never had I ever seen such patriotism and commonness of tens and thousands of people, gathering at a single place! No matter if its for the country, or for the Red Sox, it's an exciting atmosphere.
The two F-12 tactical fighter fly-over added more acoustic to the celebration - especially when it flew right above our heads!
The fireworks was even better! It really was the best I've ever seen in my entire life! Extremely well choreographed with the music, the orchestra etc. It's spectacular!

Today was even more exciting.
I went on a walk on Freedom Trail, visiting all the historical sites, including
The State House : ( ps JJ didn't come coz he's tooooo lazzzyyyyyyy ;p ;p ;p )

The Boston City Hall, Faneuil Fall, Quincy Market, Whale Watch harbor, the North Church, and the USS Constitution:

       Boston City Hall                 Quincy Market 

       North Church                   The USS Constitution 

One of the things that I really like was the almost pure European style shops in the North Church area. Italian cuisine, people playing harmonica and violin, horses carriages etc... it's just mesmerizing.



Another thing is the diversity that I got to witness here. It could be that the North Church area was flooded
with primarily tourist, but from all around Boston, there are people from basically any ethnicity that you can name, speaking a myriad of different languages. Just in this one day alone traveling Freedom Trail and then taking the -T- to dinner, I heard fluent speakers of Spanish, Italian, French, German, Chinese, Thai, Cantonese, Korean, and I think Vietnamese as well. The diversity is simply great.

To say that Boston is a city that incorporate both modern city life and strong cultural roots is certainly not an exaggeration.

How did my last day in Boston ended? With Boston Lobsta~~!
We finally went back to Legal Seafoods (this time in Copley, Eric) to get a taste of Lobstha~ and Oystha~ and for JJ - Chowdha~


This has perhaps been the best vacation I've had since I've come to the States. And I think I'm going to come back here again someday!

Arizona!

So i'm finally getting around to making a post here. Since my pictures from the July 4th Celebrations and the Taste of Chicago festival aren't ready yet... i'll do a little backtrack to my 5-day trip to Arizona! Visited Jessie Chen (who'll be joining NUSAF) next year. So the first thing i noticed as I stepped outta the airport in Phoenix the 110 degree weather. It's like having a giant fan blowing hot air into your face... no kidding.

And as the pic will show you... the landscape is a big difference from in Chicago too. There really are cactus plants everywhere. Even their school names and building names carry the word "desert" in them. Yup, nearest shopping mall to her place is called "Desert Ridge". lol. It's no wonder that most people living there don't come out of their houses unless it's to walk to their car... or it's at night. And instead of the usual caterpillars and squirrels we see around campus, cockroaches and sometimes scorpions are the sight to behold there.

Jessie's family was nice enough to do a day-trip and take me to see one of the 7 wonders of the world... The Grand Canyon. First of all... it's HUGE. It'll take a few hours of driving just to get from it's south point to it's north point. Imagine looking out into the canyon and seeing nothing but magnificent rock formations extending all the way into the horizon. We're allowed to hike down trails into the Canyon, but signs are posted everywhere warning people not to hike down and up all in 1 day. People have been known to die from exhaustion attempting that. I heard it takes like 8-10 hours to hike down to the bottom. I hiked for about 1.5 hours. lol. If you ever visit the Grand Canyon in future, i recommend planning to spend about 3 or 4 days here... take 1 day to hike down... camp down there... explore n everything... then take 1 day to hike back up. It'll be amazing. Breathtakingly amazing. I bought from the souvenir store a little jar of something labelled as "Desert Hot Chocolate". Oh my, i wonder how that'll taste.

During my stay, Jessie also organised a little party for me... she invited a bunch of her high school friends over and even started a Facebook event called "Pot Luck party with a Singaporean and Roast Duck"... Lol. It was nice getting to know each one of them... i find that many people are curious to learn about our sunny little island. Got questions like "so what do people in Singapore do?"... or even "did you have to serve the mandatory military service? no? Then why's your hair short?"... hehe... either way, i was happy to share with them more about our beloved Singapore. :)

-Shuling

4th July

Hey people, by popular demand i've decided to post. So yes, Yee Hoong was here for about 4 days or so.... I'll have a lot of stories about that but I think he'd rather I not post them here.

The 4th July fireworks were magnificient and worth the crazy 4-5hour wait during which we listened to the Boston Pops (Jazz). It was interesting to compare how Asian countries and the USA celebrate their National/Independence day. They have their own version of community songs but its not so..... forced... like in Singapore.

Life in Berkeley

Hey all

It's been a pretty busy 2 weeks here at Berkeley. I left Northwestern thinking that it would be a really chilled out summer with loads of time to work on the NUSAF website along with some other random stuff but it has definitely not been the case!! The math classes that I'm taking are totally pwning my ass. And I am definitely not exaggerating.

Hmm.. anyway more on the culture at Berkeley. There are a whole load of Asians over here (and Ben really likes it) along with a LOT of Asian Food. We've been having Chinese/Thai/Viet/Korean food for the past 2 weeks with just only one non-Asian meal. Expectedly, Berkeley might be a great school academically but I think it's definitely not the best College to be in if you're looking for the US experience.

Oh and we probably shouldn't complain about our workload. Most of you probably think that NU's workload is crazy along with craploads of mid terms but it's even more insane over here!! Engineers spend about 8 hours (or more) on each weekly problem set and I'm guessing that's excluding Lab work. A typical mid term would have an average of 50% (as compared to 70-80% at NU which is the case for most of the classes that I have taken) And it's a hidden rule that students are expected to spend 2 hours on homework for every hour in class. Crazy.

Anyway I made a couple of skating videos alone today. Take a look everyone. They're not that great so feel free to comment/criticise.

Oh and how's everyone doing elsewhere on this planet..? The people at GS..? In Czech Rep or should I say Rome..? In Barcelona..? Oh and how is it back at home in Singapore..? Come on, don't be shy, let's see what's going on!!