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