New York I Miss You

It's 2:36 in the morning and I'm pretty sure a fever slash cough is on it's way, but still, I'm awake. You know, a sensible person would have probably gone to bed approximately 5 hours ago but noooooo.... Guess I'm not sensible enough. 

Anyway, I've been up watching random Youtube videos, spanning from 非诚勿扰 (a Chinese dating variety show) to Meteor Garden episodes, to DDR and skating videos. 

While browsing, I started to miss New York City. The feeling came rather suddenly, but I think it was probably inspired by a dream I had last night about being back in the US, driving around in my car and hanging out with my friends there. 

I started to think about all the things that I used to do in the city. The places that I used to hang out- Times Square, Central Park, The High Line, LES, St. Mark's, etc... Smells and sounds started to come back to me. The feeling of warm steam drifting up from manholes in the winter. The silent dark waters in between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. All those nights I spent handing out hor d'oeuvres and champagne. It all came back in one mad spinning swirl of memories... 

Many memories weren't that pretty at all, to be sure. Yet I do have a tendency of romanticising moments past. I've always said that I could never see myself living in New York City for the long term, but tonight I almost wish as if I were stuck there for another five years. 

"Almost", is the key word. 

Don't misunderstand me. It's not dissatisfaction with my current life that is driving my nostalgic sentiments right now. NYC was where I really grew up. It was where I lost and found my soul and was where I really transitioned from my teenage years to being a young adult. As I draw closer to turning 25, I can't help but feel sad at leaving my youth behind. That sense of loss I guess, is what's really making me miss even the heady stench of Manhattan's subways in the rain. 

So, missing NYC and all, I ended up watching this video:

I haven't watched Gossip Girl for the past two years or so. Pretty much ever since I started going back to church and everything. Just felt that its content was a bit too provocative for me. 

Still, I'm not gonna lie. When the first episode of Gossip Girl first came out in 2007, I was a freshman in college and I went nuts for the show because it hit so close to home. I loved everything single thing about it. From the punny lines to the amazing fashion (yes, I was still into the whole fashion shindig then), GG kept my eyes glued to the screen every Wednesday evening. 

I felt like Gossip Girl really reflected a portion of my life during those few years and I connected so much with it that it makes me sad to see the show end now, even though I haven't watched it in a while. 

Six years.

Where did the past six years go???????

Sigh.

I really don't know what's around the riverbend. It's always an exciting ride forward, but I hate always having to say goodbye to places, things and people. I feel so torn between Pennsylvania, NYC, Washington State and Singapore all the time. 

Dear God, I know this world is not my home. You have opened my eyes to that, having had no choice but to live my past 23 years as a semi-nomad. I've switched living quarters about 15 times in the past 12 years and left pieces of my heart everywhere. I just pray Lord, that You will help me to stay grounded in You, because You are the only person that has not changed throughout my entire life. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus You are the same. All may change but Jesus will never, Glory to Your Name!

Of Hurricanes

Over the past two days, the entire northeast area of the U.S.A. has been battered by a strong storm named Hurricane Sandy. Since then, I've been actively watching all videos and following live reports from friends and various news sources. I didn't sleep till about 03:00 this morning because the videos were just so interesting! Case in point: 

I think I re-watched this video about 15 times before my aching stomach wouldn't let me anymore.

Anyway, in Singaporean news, Hurricane Sandy is given some airtime (punneh!), but I noticed there were a few things that might not seem obvious to Singaporeans, or even some Americans.

For example, have you ever wondered what exactly is a hurricane? Because if you look up the definition online, it sounds pretty similar to a typhoon.

Well, ten years ago, I used to have this encyclopaedia on my computer and "hurricanes" happened to be my favourite section to read. Why? Because it had the coolest pictures ever!!! So in the following paragraphs I will be highlighting some facts about hurricanes that I can still recall.


What is the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon?

In simple terms, hurricanes are very strong tropical storms which occur in the Atlantic Ocean, around the Americas. Typhoons are the same type of storm, except that they occur in the Pacific Ocean.

That is why in Taiwan, you only hear of typhoons, but it is a hurricane that slams into the American coasts.

Just to confuse us a bit more, such storms would be called a "tropical cyclone" in Singapore.

Go English.


Why do hurricanes always have female names?

I'm not sure why the more famous hurricanes usually happen to have female names, but there are actually male hurricane names as well, like Hurricane Leslie, Hurricane Earl and Hurricane Isaac.

The names are from a list provided by the World Meteorological Organisation. While this list used to only contain female names, concerns of it being sexist were raised and therefore male names were added to it later on.

There are a total of six lists of names, one used per year. The names go in alphabetical order on each list. Every six years, they will go back to the first list and start using the names in order again. That means that in 2018, this year's hurricane name list will be reused again. Note that names that start with Q, U, X, Y or Z are not used.


Here is the name list of hurricanes in 2012:

As you can see, if another hurricane occurs after Hurricane Sandy is over, it will be called Hurricane Tony. 

Now, does this mean that there will be another Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy in the future? The answer is no, because the names of devastating hurricanes such as these are "retired" or in other words, permanently removed from the lists. 

 What do the different categories of hurricanes mean? 

If you're following news about hurricanes, you're likely to hear phrases such as these:  

"... Category 2, downgraded to a Category 1..."

 "... is now a Category 5 hurricane..." 

And if you didn't pay attention in Geography class, don't worry. I'm making this very simple. 

Hurricane categories are based on two measurements:

1) Wind speed

2) Storm surge

See storm surge diagram below:

Storm surge is an abnormal rise of water that is generated by the strong winds. 

And these are the different measurements for each category.

Category 1: Winds of 74-95 mph (119-152 kmh) with a possible storm surge of 4-5 feet (1.2-1.5 m) above normal.

Category 2: Winds of 96-110 mph (154-177 kmh) with a possible storm surge of 6-8 feet (1.8-2.4 m) above normal.

Category 3: Winds of 111-130 mph (178-209 kmh) with a possible storm surge of 9-12 feet (2.7-3.6 m) above normal. 

Category 4: Winds of 131-155 mph (210-249 kmh) with a possible storm surge of 13 to 18 feet (3.9-5.4 m) above normal.

Category 5: Winds greater than 155 mph (249 kmh) with a possible storm surge of more than 18 feet (5.4 m) above normal.

And there you have it!

Roadtrip Part One!

Helloooooooo!!!!!

I've been M.I.A. for some time because I'm currently on a roadtrip with two gal pals and we haven't had any good Internet connection on the way. But now that I've got great connection and the pictures are all loaded, I can blog! Yay!

This trip started last Monday, on 13th June when I went to pick Talia up from John F Kennedy Airport.

She looked really glad to be done with the almost day-long flight from Singapore. Here's her happily snapping away with her camera in my car.

While we waited in FOUR HOURS of traffic!

By the time we got back into New Jersey, the sun was setting.

Met up with friends for dinner in... where else but K-Town (Korea Town) in NYC again?

The Kim Bop was super yummy for it costing only $5 for a large chunk.

As part of a tradition now, we headed over next door to Pinkberry for dessert.

We spent that night sleeping in the dorms at school instead of paying for a hotel.

In the morning, Talia, Nat and I got up bright and early for a run and then we bought bread and peanut butter to have for breakfast.

It wasn't until about 09:30 when we hit the road though.

We were driving north towards Toronto, Canada and that drive took us through the Delaware River Gap in Pennsylvania.

Talia was still feeling a bit of jet lag and promptly fell asleep in the backseat.

After about a four hour drive, we stopped at a place in New York called Arnot Mall for lunch. I made a lot of lame jokes about that afterwards.

"We are not at Arnot Mall anymore"

I don't think anyone else was amused haha.

My crusty sausage pizza!

Though the weather was a little cloudy overall, we would get an occasional stretch of blue sky.

Found a New York signboard enroute to Toronto!

Any guesses as to where this is?

One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World- Niagara Falls!

It was quite cool to come here again after eight years and to notice how things have changed. I remembered a lot more tourists and felt that the falls were a little further back than I'd remembered.

The smell of Indian food brought us to this stall in the mall that sold roti and curry for a whopping price of $9.99!

In Singapore that would NOT go down. But at such a touristy spot like Niagara Falls, I figured there was nothing else that could beat that price.

Since Niagara Falls lies right between the border of the U.S. and Canada, it barely took us a few minutes to get into Canada. Ontario is one of the provinces of Canada and Toronto is a city in Ontario.

Finally got to our hostel in Toronto- The Canadian Backpackers Inn.

It was a nice cosy room with a deck and a view into other people's backyards.

Upon arrival, we promptly put our things away and changed our clothes so that we could go out for the night.

The first place we headed to was also the most prominent at night. The CN Tower! We wanted to go up but it was closing in half an hour.

Then we just strolled around and went down to the waterfront which was really pretty in the moonlight.

Woke up the next morning to a nice big plate of pancakes.

Ready for some more walking!

Went up the CN Tower for a look around.

The view from the top was lovely. It was like looking at Google map in HD!

Then we went and lay on the beach all day!

Not really...

We just found a fake beach thing in the parking lot where the car was parked. After taking a bunch of photos on the fake beach, we left Toronto and started driving towards Sandbanks Provincial Park which is about three hours from Toronto.

On the way, we stopped by Walmart to shop for essentials.

By the time we arrived at Sandbanks, the clouds had more or less cleared and we got to enjoy a whole afternoon of clear skies.

Sandbanks Provincial Park borders Lake Ontario and it is such a big lake that you can't even see the end of it. The winds blowing over such long distances then creates little waves that were reminiscent of the ones at East Coast Park in Singapore.

For some reason, there were a million ladybirds out on the beach that day too.

We were at Sandbanks to camp out that night and dinner was cooked on a nicely fired up grill.

Woke up the next morning to fresh air flowing in from the lake and into our tent.

After packing up, we drove about four hours to Montreal in the next Canadian province- Quebec.

Stayed at this really nice boutique hotel called Celebrities Hotel. I really recommend this place to anyone who may be visiting Montreal in the future because of its awesome location. It's literally a few blocks away from Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal) and there are buses running everywhere near it.

Not to mention, the rooms are cheap (around $30 per pax), clean and tres chic!

We were so excited by this time that we were in Montreal because of all the french signs on the way in. Most people speak French in Montreal, which is just fantastic because then I could pretend that I was in France!

The evening was just the right temperature and the city lights were just beginning to come on.

A quick walk around Vieux Montreal landed us at a French cuisine restaurant called La Sauvagine.

I had lamb shanks for dinner and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't fantastic either. Maybe I just wasn't that much in the mood for lamb than I thought I was.

More walking around after dinner brought us to some pretty interesting sights, like this field of giant air fresheners.

Vieux Montreal at night looks stunning. The tourist websites and brochures all said the same thing- that this place is the closest thing to Europe in the whole of North America.

Can't say that I know that for sure because I've never strolled the streets of Paris. Sadly.

Found the beaver hats I'd always wanted! Unfortunately I did not get one because they cost about as much as 10 meals for 10 hungry grownups.

Finished off the night with some Canadian brew. Wasn't bad, but wasn't my kind of thing anyway. A tad too fizzy and light.

And that's it for now!

What I've Been Up To & Thoughts

Yes... I know I disappeared for a while, but I'm back now!

I can't believe the week after graduation passed so quickly. It seems as if I blinked my eye and it went by. Here's a really really condensed recap of what I've been up to with my dad visiting.

Spent two days touring NYC.

Ate in and shopped at Peddler's Village.

More shopping at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets.

Visited the Amish, of course.

Had an amazing Memorial weekend.

Basically hung out in the lovely weather.

Celebrated my twenty-second birthday with family.

Set up a lemonade stand with the boys.

Went bowling (boy, I really stink now).

Went picnicking at Lake Nockamixon.

Had ice cream at Merrymead Farm.

Then it was time to say goodbye...

After he left, I spent the next day cleaning the house and doing laundry. There were a lot of errands that had piled up during the time that he was here and I had to get those out of the way too.

This morning I went with my young adults' group from church (C.L.I.M.B.) to a place called SHARE in Philadelphia to volunteer. We didn't know what we would be doing until we got there.

Since SHARE gives out charity boxes to the elderly with food inside, we had to help them put together the boxes. The goal was 700 finished boxes, but we soon learnt that the assembly line wasn't as easy as it looked.

Although we only managed to finish about 300 boxes, it was still a great feeling to be tired from doing some manual work. Not to mention, helping out a non-profit organisation at the same time.

And since it was Dorie's birthday, we celebrated it in the afternoon with ginormous Philly cheesesteaks at Mama's Pizzeria and draped her in pink paper ribbons after C.L.I.M.B. at night.

So that basically sums up my activities in the past week and a half or so.

Everyone has been asking me what I'm going to do now that I've graduated and I still give them the same reply: "I DON'T KNOW".

I'll admit that once in a while, I do get jittery about my future. I think about all the things that I have not done right or done enough and imagine that my life is just going to go downhill from here. But that's just me forgetting God's promises and losing focus.

The other day, I got a little upset thinking about all the reasons why I'm probably going to end up falling short of what I know I could achieve in this life. It was rather depressing and I realised that though I'm a big-time slacker and a "anything, whatever" kind of person on the surface, I actually do harbour desires for a certain level of "greatness".

Greatness- not necessarily in monetary terms, nor am I talking about fame... But just something. I just know I'm made for so much more than this... But what?

I can tell that my mom is trying her best to back off from prodding me too much about finding a job, but just being able to sense her nervousness can be a little frustrating.

I wish everyone would calm down and not think that I am being a slacker right now. All things in due time...

I have too many options to choose from and yes, although it's both a boon and a bane, I shall look upon this situation as a blessing. How many people have this many choices concerning their futures after graduating from college?

I know that wherever I go, whatever I end up doing, God will bless the work of my hands if I am working for Him. So I am not worried about that.

I just need to move.