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Thursday, May 24, 2007 @ 5:44 PM

Hey ppl!

Updates...
We've been to Black Sand Basin. Its a long walk. It was 4 degress C and we didnt know it. the wind was like blowin damn hard. blow till my head go giddy. we pushed on. ZY tot the temperature was in the teens. i guessed it was a single digit. aft we come back from the trek then we know it was so damn cold. then it started snowing. Black Sand wasnt as nice as Geyser basin tho. not much to see...

Its been snowing for 3 days. Come fast, go fast. Then it rained just now. wah... weather;s really unpredictable..

Yest was a fun day. We went to Grand Prismatic, where it is a large plain full of colourfull bacteria growing in hot spring. We were supposed to climb a tree to get a clear view but couldnt find the hill. It was an outing where we got 4 cars from our american friends. And it was damn funny. the driver who didnt know the way drove first and we had to stop somewhere just to rearrange our order. cos its a one lane kinda thing. hard to take over from one another. Will make up for pics next time! Promise!

Then we went to Kepler Cascade. Its a nice waterfall! Went to near a cliff. wah. legs wobbly liao.

ok. gtg! catch ya next time!


Saturday, May 19, 2007 @ 3:22 PM

went hiking to Mallard Lake ytd after work ...it was a last min decision ....wasnt expecting a hike..thought the route has a trail or sth but we were oh so wrong! it's like so rocky...and steep at some parts as we were trekking in the mountains and there were times when we had to cross muddy pools and deep slippery snow.

yor and I were initially panting like crazy coz havent been exercising since v long...and our friends were walking at a very fast speed because we had to head back before it gets dark..where the bears and wolves may start to roam around. so we reached the lake after 1.5hrs of hiking (note: not trekking coz got gradient!) and the lake is really beautiful. the pics we took look like a poster at the backgound..very nice! and we had to hike for another 1.5hrs back...at the end of it our legs were aching like hell....but it was a good workout, i must say. have been snacking like crazy ever since i came here....i will be like snacking whenever i m free...either after work and before bedtime...and this excludes the sinful deserts during every lunch and dinner. tsk tsk!

ohh btw...i have received USD$20 worth of tips today!! it was abt $30 sing. quite shiok to receive so much tips..the first one was $10 and followed by $5 each. looking forward to work tml!!! haha had been dreading work until today's tips. :)

we'll be having our off days on 21st and 22nd and we're planning to go horseback riding with our friends on 21st and taking a tour to the other parts of yellowstone to see the canyon and the lake. it's really inaccessible here...like we're in the geyser village..so it's almost impossible to get to the other 4 villages without transportations...so we have to bang our hopes on such tours.

ok..going to have dinner now before shopping at the general store (oh btw, there yoghurt and creamy choc milkshake are damn nice!!!) and then ice cream after dinner! i m beginning to feel that i will be quite sad to leave this place at the end of 2 mths...but i'm missing the economic bee hoon terribly! it is my fav breakfast in singapore...;(

zhiying


Thursday, May 17, 2007 @ 5:45 PM


Old Faithful

This is what we look like during housekeeping.


Monday, May 14, 2007 @ 11:45 AM

today's the 2nd day off...the inn is finally opened and work's been pretty busy. we have to clean like 18 rooms each everyday. and making 18 beds everyday is no joke! and the singaporeans have arrived like a few days ago and coincidentally, one of my yr 1 classmates, xueni (engkiat should know who!) is here too. was so shocked to see her along the corridoor.

went trekking 3 days ago with the asians and it wasnt as tiring as we thought it would be. wont be able to post up the pics here...will show the pics if i have the chance :)

hopefully our next off day will be next mon (which is a Tue in singapore) and we might be taking a guided tour around yellowstone...

oh btw, we're tinking of ending work on the 25th june and we're be heading off the las vegas for 2 days..then to the Grand canyon...cant wait to go to the sky walker!! after which, we'll be going to Los Angeles for 2 to 3 days before heading home on the 2july. will reach singapore on the 3 july. think during may and june..we can only visit places within yellowstone coz it's pretty hard to get out of yellowstone without a car. wad's more we've only 1 or 2 pathetic off days each week.

zhiying

Housekeeping is realy tiring work. always makes us hungry, i start to eat a lot now. sometimes even more than zhiying. heehee. went to eat ice cream yest in OLD FAITHFUL INN. its a 2 scoop thing and they gave us 4 scoops. goodness. very big. but we finished it anyway. haha! we sat at the 2nd floor lobby of the INN, looking down is the magnificant fireplace. its a very nice relaxing view. OLD FAITHFUL INN is made up of logs. all wood. built over 100 years ago. its counted as a historic place in US. Read from a brochure that its one of the largest log structures in the world. too bad we cant post pictures up. its really beautiful. the OLD HOUSE, where we do our housekeeping for the 2 days, are the old part of the INN. the rooms are very rustic kind and cosy. but a lot of them with no bathroom. they do have the newer usual hotel kind. thats usual already la. we're quite lucky to be cleaning the OLD HOUSE tho. cos no bathroom.

Yellowstone is made up of 5 countries. Geyser Country- tts where we are at. a lot of geysers to see in here. Lake Country- there have a big lake on it. Roosevelt Country- got petrified trees and Lammar Valley where the wolves are! (ZY say petrified trees are trees that are scared- stupid). In case you are wondering, they are trees that got preserved due to volcanic eruptions. The next country is Mammoth Country-lotsa hot springs and Canyon Country-its a small grand canyon in Yellowstone.

think we gtg. ppl q-ing for com.

~Yor


Tuesday, May 8, 2007 @ 11:20 AM

A day off..

We got a day off today! nothing much to do. Did our laundry in the morning, then went to visit the OLD FAITHFUL. For the first time, we see a lot of tourists walking around and saw a few asians. We sat down for a while and the geyser started to squirt water. Then slowly it goes to a full eruption. It sprayed quite tall into the air actually.. Lasted for a few minutes. Took quite a bit of photos. But the com we using now doesnt have a USB plug, so we can only surf website and not anything else.

For once we felt like a visitor in this place. After that as always, ZY went to........

GENERAL STORE.....

Do wat...????

FOOD LO....

Always stock up food... we visit the store everyday. that's the only place that we can spend our money..

Aldwin: no food suitable for you leh... all chocolates... you want???

Tmr back to work again... so sian..

~Yor


Monday, May 7, 2007 @ 5:32 PM

1st official blog from US.

Oh my goodness!! Finally we are connected to the world. Sorry for taking so long. life's been hell for me for the week. For me at least. Zy been enjoying herself. Although i drag her down most of the time. Here goes my story:

In San Frans:
you guys already knew we reached TW airport. then we reached SF (san frans). we had a hard time looking for the airport shuttle. we know it exist but coulnt find it. so after a long search and dragging our luggage ard, we found it. we booked the service for 3 hrs. our guide is from hongkong. so we communicate in chinese. his chinese is better anyways. haha! he was a nice guy. lbrought us to a lot of places we didnt know. guess we didnt do enuff research. weather's pretty cold out there. but my clothes are good enuff.. for now.. so we had fun. then its a night spent at SF airport. couldnt slp tho. cos its daytime for us. at dawn, its time for another flight. This is where my suffering begin...

Salk Lake City:
its a 2 hr flight there. my throat start to hurt. u know those type it hurts when u swallaow your saliva. so i started drinking a lot of water, have no appetite for any food. didnt eat much. its a short stop there. only for about 3 hours. only went around looking ard at the airport. i was still quite alive then.. then its flight to bozeman.

Bozeman:
Weather's cold. throat become much worse now. cos it hurts, drinking water is also a pain. when we reach the airport, there's no taxi around. we could only wait. after bout hlf hr or so, we were brought to the backpacker's hostel. after putting our bags down, we had to apply for our social security card. its a long walk. draining my energy. after we got that done, the 5 of us decided to go to a nearby WALMART. only- its not nearby. cos i didnt really know my way back, i just tagged along. i already started to feel giddy and dying. its a damn long walk. everyting is so spacious it takes a long time to walk from 2 shop to another. the sun is scorching hot. really felt like dying. but i know i need to get some medication. so hopefully they have a pharmacy there. after like a half hr walk. we finally reached there. i quickly went to the pharmacy to ask wat they have formy throat and fever. they introduced me to their version of PANADOL-TYLENOL(or smth like tt). Hu dunno! i also have liao... but i;m desperate. buy lo. eat 2 pills. tot they would give me smth better. damn. Zy started walking bout the market. i felt too weak liao. found a bench and sat down. dozed off every now and then. sleeping in a supermarket! can you imagine! trying to keep myself awake. i didnt want others to think : "this girl so poor thing, sleep in a supermarket. aiyo..." after we bought our breakfast, its a lonf way back to hostel. grabbed a pizza along the way. the walk back was torturous too.
that nite i cant sleep at all. we forgot to buy water in the market and didnt know if tap water is drinkable. there's no one we could ask at tt time too. mayb cos i didnt drink enuff, worsen my condition. with only like 1+ bottle of water, had to survive the nite. i keep waking up every hour or so. tossing and turning, eating panadol. goodness. worst nite ever. so in the end, didnt get any sleep. tts 2 days without sleep already. the next day become worse.

Yellowstone:
early in the morn, a bus from bozeman come to pick us up. i was still sick. weather is damn cold.wore a lot of layers and still cold. the bus came and we got up the bus. worse, i got a seat right at the back. as u know, the back part of the bus is shaky and uncomfortable. the whole seat was vibrating very hard all the way. didnt dare to lean back comfortably. cos its making me nauseous. so i had to sit up for the whole 1.5 hours. everybody was asleep in the bus. i had to fight back my motion sickness and cant slp. i tried to slp but when i close my eyes, i feel even more sick and wanna throw up. so i rather not. after a long ride, we reach yellowstone entrance. i was DYING!! ZY looked v worried all along. we had to queue to sign in and everytthing. its a long q. so couldnt go to toilet to throw up. tahan tahan... i cant remain standing for very long. sat down most of the time unless they call my name. Finally, everything's done. Go toilet! make myself throw up. Felt better. weather outside is very cold. we get our uniform and took a bus for lunch in MAMMOTH (part of YNP-Yellowstone National Park). The place is very open. wind every where. no where to hide. had our lunch. i didnt really eat cos no appetite. and the food sucks. i want porridge! i know they had a clinic there. die die also wanna go there. anyways, we still have a bit of time. its a long and cold walk to the clinic and i tot the clinic was my saviour. but haiz...

went to the clinic, waited for the DR. luckily he;s still there. he nearly went for lunch. after he checked me and did a test on me for some bacteria, he said i;m fine. just told me i;m too tired. i need to rest and drink lots of fluid. (ok i know that already). then he send me off. i asked 'so you are not giving me any medication?' the dr say 'oh you don;t need any. you can just get those from the shelves.' ARGH!!! cannot see ppl dying liao! dun wanna give medicine!! at least gimme smth to feel better la!! NEVER LO THE STUPID GUY! wah after that feel so devastated man. and the visit cos me USD33+. goodness!!! bo pian. go back.

they put me on a job in OLD FAITHFUL. another hour drive from MAMMOTH. the same bus again. but i chose a seat right in front. didnt help. threw up on the bus. yikes! they assigned us which dorm we should stay in. and the dorm its actually just next door to where they assign us (office). the driver see wrongly and tot we stay at the other side. got up the bus again and send all other people to their dorm before send us. that would be another 1 hour or so. making me feel worse. i;m feeling horrible horrible horrible. and it snowed... i have totally no strength, had to pull my big luggage up the dorm and stupid snow is in my face!damn cold la! worse still to come.

at nite, the darn dorm got no heater! when we asked the co-ordinator, he said ' its not on, if you need more blankets let me know' from what he said seems like he's the one who doesnt want to on the heater. need to get some rest. so put down my stuff and ready to go slp.

before that, called my parents. goodness.. their voice sounds so good. the best thing that ever happen to me within those few horrible days. couldnt call them since BOZEMAN cos there's no pay phone around. i told them i was sick and darn dr didnt give medication. luckily my dad told me yah mayb tts the case. just keep drinking water. think a few more days will be ok. ask me to eat more panadol. talked to my mum too. think she about to cry liao. haha. i hear also very sad. cos they nv hear from me for 2 days or so and i couldnt speak properly cos of my throat. but after listening to them, i felt much better. they are better doctors than the darn dr. so i took lots of water and went to sleep. of course, its nt a peaceful sleep. eat panadol every 3 hours and kept drinking water. drink too much water, what happens...? go toilet lo... so.. go toilet, drink panadol, cough cough cough, practically kept me busy for the whole nite. next day, training starts...

OLD FAITHFUL 2nd DAY:
Hello Housekeeping! I'm a high class maid! hahahahaha... i felt better already after the nite. it was training day. training was ok.. learned how to make the bed. quite fun. learn howto clean room and wash toilet. haiz. the hotel is not open for the season yet. so basically they are asking us to clean rooms thats not been occupied for sometime. 1st day we just see how they do it. On the 2nd day, we had to make bed and clean 8 rooms. 1st time, stupid stupid. really clean every corner. the next day, getting smarter.. know how to eat snake. which one to clean which one dun need. learn to drag our pace to escape more work to quickly finish our job to get released early. hahaha.. always scheming on what to do.. its the first few days of work so me and ZY pair up to clean rooms.. so when you ppl go to hotels, don't think its very clean. think again. they may have maids like us!!! haha.. we anyhow one. looks clean can liao. wanna know some stuff we do?

we wash toilet liao, clean liao rite? we use first... haha.. do our business- when we need to la. huahaha.. wash hand, wet right? nice clean towel available- wipe using their towel la. huahaha.. hand towel la at least, not bath towel.. tired, wanna chit chat, lie on the bed.. huahaha on the comfortor only tho.. hahhaa... feeling cold, have a runny nose, just pull their tissue! haha... we use gloves to clean toilets and wipe stuff.. and not supposed to wear gloves when we touch the towels. i lazy to take off. v ma fan. dun care la just use for everything if team leader nt around. hahaha.. so.. you all better dont come here to stay.. toilet actually all must wash. but i see the shower place quite clean, just spray water can liao.. hahaha.. so.. we getting pretty smart by the day.. er hm...

NOW:
Old faithful getting warmer. not as cold as when i first reach here. but weather very unpredictable. sometimes i get very cold. our room have heater from the 2nd day onwards. dunno why so sway, sick then no heater. Very very grateful to Zhiying. keeping me alive during my dark days. haha. she look at me so xin ku, i know she nt feeling good also. she helped me whenever i can. thank you thank you. i kept saying 'i;m gonna die here' so many times and ' what am i doin here' so many times... if i didnt come here, i'll be enjoying my time in indo, goring food that i love. here... haiz...

my appetite just started to come back. but goodness, Zy can really eat. she eat a lot leh.. everytime hungry.. everything is nice to her. i say all not nice she say everything nice.. dunno whats wrong with her.. she eat full meal. at least main course, dessert and fruits. wah.. i eat main course didnt even finish.. and she can stand the cold better than me too..

now we are at WEST YELLOWSTONE town. a fren of ours which we just had the chance to work with together today brought us here. so grateful. the drive here was amazing. saw a lot of bison on the way. some crossing the road, so had tostop and let them cross. so fun! haven seen any bears or wolves. oh yah! there's poo everywhere at our place. all shape and sizes... small circular one that comes in large groups, or big isolated ones. luckily cos its cold, they don;t smell. oh well think things are turing up for us. hopefully.

by the way, there no a single chinese like us working here. all americans. we feel so out. haiz. heard gt some sporeans comin in today. but haven met them. dunno will they stay in our dorm or not. quite miserable. they seem not to like asians too. got nothing to say to them.

long essay ah.. tired of reading or not? let's see what i missed... Zy will be uploading the photos..

oh yah. the daylight is long over here. 8.30-9.00pm then the sky will get dark. day break at bout 6+am. so in the morning if we don;t see snow, and not much wind, we know that probably today is a good day. if we see snow or windy, then die liao lo...

think that's about all of my story here. been only 1 week so far felt like been here for a month. haiz. i dun mind going back there now. sobz. oh was telling ZY the other other day, when we go LA, let's check into a hotel. and mess it up for them! haha! revenge revenge! i belong to the hotel room nt the dorm!! haha... oh well... dunno when we gonna have internet again.. so bear with us.. we have very little means of communication.. we;ve settled down. so don;t be too worried about us. Thanks for those who are concerned about us though!

you guys take care too!

~Yor


@ 5:27 PM

greetings from yellowstone! sorry for the lack of updates because we're so deprived of internet access over here! luckily our neighbour is kind enough to drive us to an internet cafe in west yellowstone and this drive is alrdy 45mins. but we just got to know today that there's 1 (pathetic) computer in the entire yellowstone open for use. so we might just drop by in future after work or during our offdays. Oh and by the way, there's no reception over here, so i cant receive any SMSes. the past 6 days felt that we're like so cut off from the rest of the world man!

we're 14hrs slower here and the weather was very cold when we first arrived. it was snowing during the first 2 days but things are better these few days alrdy maybe because summer is coming. there're no asians at our dorm yet and we're all surrounded by the americans. they are generally nice pple, who will smile at you along the corridoors and stuff but didnt really interact much with them except maybe 6 or 7 of them. heard that there will be a batch of singaporeans coming over today or tml. looking forward to that!

we're doing housekeeping here...hai..have to wash toilets, make beds, clean this and that. ironically, our room is in a total mess! the life here is totally diff from what we have in singapore..it's very close to nature and you will get to see bisons walking very near you or appear just before your windows. havent seen any bears or wolves around yet. our only place to shop here is the general store that sells some food and souvenirs. but the weather is too cold for us to walk around anyway. it's still spring here and hopefully summer will come in 2 or 3 weeks' time so that it wont be freezing our asses off anymore.

anyway, tml's our off day and we're planning to go to the Old Faithful geyser (the one that we read from our geography text yrs old). past by it ytd and it's sooooo magnificent. cant wait to see it erupt! alright, shall let the photos do the talking...will try to blog as often as possible and you all can email me instead of sms-ing me in the future ;)

at changi airport


thanks for sending us off! :)

at san francisco (we arrived at 7pm local time, all groggy and tired from our 15hrs flight). we booked an airport shuttle and brought us around for 4hrs. but sadly it was at night and there's really nth much to see.





chinatown, san frans. their roads over there are all slopes and some of them can be quite steep, so it's like taking a roller coaster ride while travelling on the roads.

lombard street. look how steep the slope is! but it's really a very beautiful scenary, just that our lousy cameras werent doing justice to it.





fisherman's wharf. the clam chowder is damn shiok! perfect for cold weather! i'm missing it alrdy.

at golden gate bridge. too bad the fog was soo thick such that we cldnt even see the bridge though it's just in front of us. totally cldnt see it AT ALL. such a pity.

fellow singaporeans

spending our night at san frans airport while waiting for our domestic flights early next morning.
the view from our dorm at yellowstone


our messy dorm
shopping at the general store!

on our way to west yellowstone. internet access, here we come!!!

that's all for now! take care everyone and we're missing everyone and everything in singapore now!

*zhiying


Tuesday, May 1, 2007 @ 6:05 AM

greetings from taiwan! just arrived at taiwan airport at 7pm...we're now in the transit hall waiting for our next 11hrs flight to san frans at 11pm. thanks guys for sending us off! 　will post the pics when we manage to get a proper computer soon. the 5hrs from singapore to taiwan seemed very long though....

anyway, it's such a pity to be in taiwan but not being able to go out and shop ;( so near yet so far. how i wish i can go out and shop myself crazy at the night markets! such a waste man. the airport here is soooo quiet..so unlike of singapore's airport.

anyway, we met the 2 girls who will also be going to yellowstone with us. apparently, they seemed quite nice so far. and zhiying is getting homesick soon!! ;( (this spells trouble for yordia haha)

Indonesian note from yor:
nyonyowin ada lihat nga? harus baca yah!


about us

zhiying
ntu undergrad

yordia
engineer-in-the-making


the links

.geo. jac. jin. peggan. shelby. weiting. yihui. yiting. yushi.

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the past
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007