Kite and Cherry Blossom Festivals

I went for my third Cherry Blossom Festival on March 27 since I came to USA. Before heading to DC, I went for Dim Sum brunch at Jesse Wong's in Columbia with a group of Singaporeans. Nine of us paid $21 each including tips. For $189, it was too expensive.

Thereafter, we drove to Greenbelt Metro Station. It cost $4.70 for a round trip. There were long queues buying the subway tickets. Before taking a 30-minute ride, a few of us wanted to use the restroom. Upon asking the staff, we were directed to a door with no conspicuous sign except a small unisex sign at knee level.

We were told to wait in-line outside the door while the restroom was in used. As it was cold, we decided to wait inside instead. The door led to the employees' lockers and different rooms pertaining to operating a subway station. Upon entering the restroom, there were an urinal and two bowls. The best of all, there was no partition. Basically, at least two persons could use the restroom at any one time. I often wondered why doesn't the Metro management simply install the restroom outside where they do not have to deal with the issue of security.

By the time we reached Smithsonian Station, there was a sea of people flowing out of the train. Some had kites since it was the Kite Festival. The National Mall was packed with people too. The peaceful ambiance I felt last year was replaced by constant jostling with people coming to admire the cherry blossoms.

I particularly love this picture of a cute baby with cool shades, all bundled up and sitting calmly on a branch! He was so adorable.



Cherry Blossom pictures.

White water kayaking

Yesterday, I went to my first of two rolling sessions to prepare for April 6 white water kayaking trip to one of these rivers, the Potomac River, Shenandoah River, Lower Yough, Muddy Creek, and Gunpowder Falls.

I had surfed JHU Outdoor Pursuits website which offered a variety of outdoor activities like sea kayaking, mountain biking and climbing since last year. This time, I wanted to participate in at least one of these activities.

After work, I had a quick dinner of two bananas and a pot of beef soup. I was lazy to transfer the soup into a bowl as I would have to wash the bowl too.

When I reached the pool at 7pm, I was the only person attending the rolling session. There was a small test before the session, I had to swim 50 feet and tread water for 2 minutes. After only 45 minutes of digesting my dinner, I swam slowly to prevent regurgitation. It is advised not to exercise strenuously one hour after meal.

After passing with 'flying colors' (quoting the tester), I was introduced to my instructress, Jamie. I had to put on a spray skirt to keep water out of the kayak (imagine a ballerina tutu). Getting into a tiny kayak was difficult for me since I had long legs.

Jamie taught me how to get out of the kayak upon capsizing. Basically, I had to lean forward toward the bow, tugged my head, pulled the
grab loop toward me and pushed the kayak away from me.

I had no qualm in water as I love swimming and water sports but I hate being inverted where water tend to get into my nose.

Next, I had to learn hip snap to row the kayak upright upon capsizing. This movement utilized muscle groups which I hardly used. A good thing I had been training my abs, obliques and back (core muscle) for running longer distance.

I practiced at the side of the pool where there should be a smooth but forceful movement involving twisting your hip up and keeping your head close to the shoulder where you last exit the water. Lifting the head up (a natural instinct to breathe) while hip snapping makes it harder to upright the kayak as it offset the roll.

I had little trouble uprighting on my right but had to practice more on my left. Next, we proceeded to T-rescue where you signaled for help by tapping on the sides, sliding both hands on the sides to feel for a rescue kayak and hip snapping using the bow of the rescue kayak as support.

The next training involved hip snapping using two floats and subsequently one float to simulate the paddle.

I had fun learning rolling though my neck is aching now. I am looking forward to the beginner level on April 6.

The Horse Whisperer

I took a while to finish this fiction as I had to flip through a dictionary to find the meaning of a word at every other page initially.

The way Nicholas Evans had written this novel was compelling and descriptive.

Definitely a good book to read.

Natural beauty in the sky

I was supposed to go snowboarding on Saturday, Mar 8 for the last time this season as winter is ending. This trip was organized by the Johns Hopkins Post-Doctorate Association where Hopkins post-docs were subsidized and paid only $25 compared to the usual $77.

However, the weather on Saturday was bad and the trip was re-scheduled to Sunday. I slept till 9am since I always sleep better when I am warm and cozy under my blanket on rainy days. My usual waking time is around 7+am. I needed the extra since I had a busy week.

The sky did not let up till 3pm and the sun peeked out from the overcast. I thought the rest of the day would be clear but Mother Nature proofed me wrong.

While cooking laksa for dinner, there was sudden pelting of the windows. It was falling 0.5 inches of hailstones. Just as I looked out of the window, I saw a beautiful bow across the sky.

I dropped what I was doing and took out my camera to capture shots of the rainbow. There were two rainbows, the primary bow with seven colors (mnemonic: Richard of York gave battle in vain; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) and the secondary bow in reverse order and of lighter intensity.

The amazing sight was the rainbow ending at a ruin castle-liked building and a sun ray illuminated the building while the rest of the surrounding was overshadowed. It was like heaven reaching out and pointing a way to me.

Whenever I see a rainbow, I remember the Bible passage of Genesis 9:13,15 where God made a pact with man to never flood the earth again: "I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth... .. the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh."

Rainbow pictures.

Second hand item

Recently, I bought a Toshiba SD2805 5-Disc Carousel DVD and CD Player from a moving sales for only $5.

Since someone beat me to a $60-DVD player from a previous moving sales, I was on the lookout for one. In retrospect, I was glad that I did not get that DVD player.

When I went to pick up the Toshiba player, the owner highlighted to me that the metal case was dented, otherwise it was functional. Upon testing its function, I was a happy owner of the $5-DVD player. Now, it is sitting in my bedroom where I can watch up to five movies without moving from my bed to change discs.

I could not imagine buying anything second hand in Singapore but this seems to be the culture here.

Luray Caverns, Virginia

This was last year's trip to Luray Caverns, Virginia after I had recovered the pictures from my crashed laptop.

Upon entering the cavern, the cool and moist air hit you like a blanket. Lights were strategically placed to illuminate the pathway and interesting natural wonders of stalactites, stalagmites and columns. A way to differentiate between stalactites and stalagmites is a stalacTite hangs from the top like capitalized T and a stalagMite has two mounds protruding from the ground like capitalized M.

Other formations looked like two fried eggs or shells, waves at sea, majestic draperies towering down from the cavern roof and 'frozen' waterfall. Besides different formations, there were various colors to the limestone caves where white is the color of pure calcium carbonate, red calcites contained iron, and blue and green calcites have copper minerals.

There was an underground pool in the middle of the tunnel which reflected the hanging stalactites. It had a calming effect on me. At the last part, there was a wishing pond where the coins would be collected at the end of the year and donated to charities.

Due to the dim light condition, I had to use flashlight to capture the spectacular carvings and wonders. My battery was flat by the time I emerged from the caverns.

More Luray Caverns pictures here.

Recovering lost data

After nearly a year since my laptop crashed, Debbie informed me that her husband had recovered my data and had uploaded them onto his server.

I was glad to get back the data since I had pictures of my travel which I had not edited and family pictures. Downloading 8 gb took longer than expected since some files were corrupted and interrupted downloading. I had to manually checked which files were missing and downloaded those which were not corrupted.

Lesson 1: Always back up your files frequently.

Lesson 2: Don't give up when people who were trained in IT told you that it would be very hard and expensive to recover the data.

Thanks to Mr. Giam!

Following another car for direction

On Feb 24, Singapore International Foundation (SIF) had organized a post Chinese New Year gathering in Virginia. There were two rental cars and 10 people attending from Baltimore.

Due to some last minute changes, I had to drive a car and followed Wen Min's car since she had a global positioning system. This was the first time I had to follow behind some car since I would plan my route before going anywhere.

I hated leaving only a car space between us on the highway, so I left two to three spaces. Along the one hour odd journey, there were intervening cars obstructing my view where I struggled to ensure we were still in the right direction.

My passengers also complained that my overtaking was not smooth initially which I made a mental note and overtook smoothly.

The last part of the drive along D.C. was tricky as there were many turns at short distances. I had vague memory of the direction because I was concentrating on following, rather than constructing mental road map.

We arrived in one-piece at the cafe. The food was not superb but the company was. There were performances put up by young Singaporeans and I was picked to play 'Who is smarter than a fifth grader'.

I did not have to drive on the journey back since I hopped onto Wen Min's car. I only had the slightest memory to get back to 295.

Snowboarding Part II

After recovering from countless falls from my last snowboarding trip on Jan 19, I was determined to try it at least one more time.

I went to Liberty Mountain again on Feb 9 with my colleagues, Jianshi and Vladimir, together with his wife, Dijana and a new Singaporean friend I made, Charlene.

Because we did not have to rent a car, we reached there around 1pm. As I had lost my previous ticket, I could not get a mountain pass that day. If I had the mountain pass, this trip would be free for me. On hindsight, it was better that I did not get it since this winter season was coming to an end. I would rather utilize the pass for a full season. The cheaper alternative to renting the gears and getting a lift pass was to pay $77 for a lesson again.

I thought it would be a waste of time but I was proven wrong. Charlene and I joined a group taught by James Abbey. Since he had started with the group, he briefed on what we had missed. Sometime later, another person joined us and he patiently repeated the lesson to her all over again.

Compared to my first snowboard instructor and him, they were miles apart. James was professional to go around each person to check that our shoes were fitted snugly to the snowboard. He demonstrated alternative placement of the free foot. Now, I found I could move faster and freer, placing my free foot on the toe side than heel side of the board. He also corrected our individual mistakes by observing us one at a time.

I also learnt from him how to stop the helicopter effect where there was changing in the leading legs upon slowing down. The trick was to continue to shift my weight onto the same leg, which in my case was the right.

After one and half hour of lesson, I was ready to practice more. This time, I came prepared for falling. My secret weapons were wrist guard and two sponges (the type used for washing car) which I tugged into my ski pants. My jacket was large enough to cover the protruding 'bums'. The sponges really cushioned my falls.

My satisfaction came from not falling thrice while getting off from the lift and better maneuvers on the heel and toe sides.

I also thank God that my wallet was not lost when I looked down and saw that it was on my snowboard. It had dropped out of my pocket. Being a novice snowboarder, I am grateful that I did not suffer any major bodily harm where I witnessed a man falling off and injuring his right arm. He had to be escorted by a medic down the slope.

All said and done, I am looking forward to the next winter season where I visualize myself snowboarding down the hill.

Welcoming the year of the rat

This was my second Chinese New Year (CNY) spent away from home. I had no mood to celebrate since my family was not around and there was no holiday in Baltimore. In New York where there is a large Chinese community, Feb 7 was a holiday. Anyway, I spent CNY working away on my experiments.

With the addition of two Chinese colleagues to the lab in late 2007, we decided to take Wednesday morning off to watch China's CCTV countdown towards the year of the rat. Since Eastern USA is 13 hours behind China, we had to catch the program at 7am i.e. waking up at 6am to go to Jianshi's place.

I was told that the singers/performers had to pay the producer to appear on the program. That was new for me since I thought that the producer will pay artistes to sing or perform on stage. According to Jianshi, there was a large viewership in China and from overseas Chinese like us. Paying the producer is like advertising for your career.

While watching, we made some dumplings. I learnt that Northern Chinese eat dumplings while Southern Chinese eat glutinous rice balls (tang yuan) and Singaporean Chinese and Taiwanese have steamboat. Interesting!

Thereafter, we went back to work after lunch.

In the evening, I was invited to eat steamboat with a small group of Singaporeans. It felt good to speak Singlish and Teochew. We ate and chatted till 11pm. I had a whale of a time and was exhausted by the time I reached back to my apartment.

At 1am plus, I called back home to send my mum CNY greetings. I was exhausted when I hit the bed.

On Friday, Feb 8, I was invited to attend a CNY celebration at the Singapore Embassy in D.C.. I wore my suit while most of my Singaporean friends were put off by the formal attire.

There, I met a lot of familiar faces I knew from attending Cecilia's events. At the beginning of the reception, we had YuSheng, a Singaporean signature CNY dish which can be described as a Chinese raw fish salad. Auspicious greetings are said while adding spices, sauces and ingredients and mixing the salad. The tradition is to toss the higher to bring in better luck for the new year. Chinese loves auspicious stuffs.

In this new year, I am hopeful of finally publishing a paper. It will serve as my reward for my stay here.

Turning into "Super Webbed Handman"

Now that my left knee hurts when I run, the other ways of burning calories are working out on an elliptical machine, climbing up the staircase to my apartment on the tenth floor or swimming.

There is less impact on the knees while working on the elliptical machine compared to running on a treadmill. Climbing does not hurt my knee though I am careful not to aggravate my injury.

While browsing at Sports Authority, I chanced upon this pair of Speedo aquatic fitness gloves. It is different from the usual swim paddles which are not allowed in most public pools in Singapore because of safety reasons. You may hit someone with the hard plastic paddles. The fitness gloves is soft and has a flexible rubber palm for gripping and webbing for increased water resistance. I am improvising with this to swim faster and burn calories.

My obsession with burning calories or keeping my weight down started after I weighed myself recently. I thought my previous latest weight of 77kg/170 pd was due to dinner since I weighed after eating. At Jianshi's place, I weighed before and after dinner and found I could consume 2kg/4.4 pd of food. According to the Body Mass Index (BMI), I am 1 kg/2.2 pd short of being overweight. Coming from a BMI of 19 when I was around 20, I could not reconcile this latest figures.

Time to trim and burn before it is harder physically and mentally.

Reality TV is getting downright low!

Since the screening of Survivor where contestants competed to last 30 days in the wilderness, there are all kinds of reality series such as American Idol, The Biggest Loser etc. Some are inspiring while some are plain stupid.

I found the latest reality, The Moment of Truth, screening on Fox45 disgusting. Participants will be put on a lie detector to answer a series of personal questions where they may win up to $500, 000. As the price money goes up, the questions get more personal.

Why are people so nosy to know a stranger's secrets? Is money more important than relationship? Are TV broadcasters pushing the moral boundaries of audience? Is human moral suffering from decadence?

Weak knees from running

Recently, my knees have been feeling weak or painful which put me out of the gym for almost one month now.

I had been using one pair of running shoes for almost a year. It was high time for me to throw them away.

There is a good website at Road Runner Sports which can help you to select the right type of shoes for your feet. Since I have a medium arch, stability shoes are good for me.

From among the listed, I bought Asics Gel-1130 but I have not run with them yet as I need to recover from my sore butt injured from snowboarding.

Speeding down a snowy slope on a board

After spending my third winter here, I finally got myself to go snowboarding. The small steps leading to it were asking friends to go and buying a ski pants.

It was decided between Wenmin and I that we would go to Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania, an hour's drive away. Kian Meng was undecided because he did not have any ski gears.

On Saturday, Jan 19, we rented a car from Enterprise in the morning. There was a miscommunication between Enterprise and Wenmin where we waited for 45 minutes for someone to pick us up from our location to their office. Upon speaking with someone on the phone, we were told that they did not have enough manpower to pick us up and we had to hail a cab instead.

We finally got our rental car around 11am and proceeded to pick Kian Meng up and drove Northwest towards Liberty Mountain. We dropped by Sports Authority at Pike Park Plaza where Kian Meng bought over $130 worth of ski gears such as snow goggles, Under Armor thermal, hat and gloves. I found a $25-off-every-$100 coupon and managed to save us some money.

By the time we were done shopping, we were hungry and proceeded to Be-Se-To for lunch. However, the food was pricey after they renovated. I brought them to H-Mart instead where we ordered the spicy pork meal (Number 14). Wenmin and Kian Meng had to pack the left over while I finished mine. I also bought a box of sashimi since food would be expensive at the ski resort.

At 3pm, we reached our destination and took our snowboarding lesson at 4.30pm. Walking in the snow board shoes were like walking with a cast. The lesson occurred at the foot of the hill where we learnt how to move around with one foot secured to the snowboard while the other was free to move around.

The theory was to always bend both knees, keep hands to the sides instead of stretching out and apply 70% of body weight on the leading/front leg and 30% on the trailing/back leg. Turning was by tip-toeing to go forward and sitting down on an imaginary chair.

We practiced these movements and were told to take the lift to reach the summit. While sitting on the lift, I was happy that I was finally snowboarding. In retrospect, I had always wanted to try it after watching it on television when I was young. The lift could accommodate four persons which was squeezy since we had to snowboard down a small slope at the summit. I always ended falling and once grabbed Kian Meng to prevent myself from falling.

For beginners, there was no stopping down the slope except to fall on your back or front. Since I had not mastered my turning, I fell to avoid people on the slope too. When I placed 70% of my weight on the back leg, I felt I was going faster which was not intentional.

After about five trips down the slope and endless counts of falling on your back and front, my butt was sore, my knees and ankles were complaining, and my forearms hurt from absorbing the impact.

Despite the pain and bruises, I intend to go back again for at least one more try before winter ends. Next on my adventure, I am thinking of doing tandem skydiving before my guts shrink further as I grow older.

Singing vs. losing weight

Yesterday was the premiering of American Idol 2008 which I had been waiting since Jordan Sparks was crowned in season six last year.

It clashed with The Biggest Loser which was also airing between 8 pm to 10 pm.

I had my remote set to both channels so I could switched during the long and 'timely' commercials. I guess this would be repeated every Tuesday.

2008, a year of change

After 12 days into 2008, I finally started to write again. Firstly, happy 2008 to my friends.

This is my final year of my post-doc contract. So, I have to speed up my experiment and publish. Meanwhile, I also need to look for a permanent or some would say a real job within this year. I am torn between academia and industry.

I am going snowboarding next Sat, and would try tandem skydiving when the weather is warmer. Yellow Stone National Park trip is roughly in the first week of June before summer break. Sunny Florida is calling me to tan at its beaches.

So many things to do. Let's hope I have the energy and mental focus to accomplish these goals!

Wish you a blessed Christmas

Today, I spent my Christmas first time overseas. No, there was no white, romantic Christmas here which was good since traveling would be a hassle. Instead, we had a calm and almost warm Christmas.

I went to work half-day on Dec 24 and tried to get an afternoon nap as I wanted to attend the midnight mass service at Saints Philip and James Church. I tossed for about 15 minutes before giving up and watched TV instead.

Street in In the evening, I arranged with Jingshi to take pictures of Christmas light up at intersection of Chestnut Avenue and 34thHampden. Only at this block could you see every house decorated with lights and Christmas decorations. It has become a tourist attraction at this time of the year to see the light ups. Traffic came to a crawl as many cars slowed to take pictures and pedestrians covers the walkway on both sides of the street. Snowman, The Grinch, reindeer, candy sticks etc were out on display.

I overheard a conversation between an owner of the houses and a sightseer that the electrical bill was expensive but she rather sacrificed and spread Christmas cheers. What a noble spirit!

Thereafter, I went to the midnight mass where they had a special half-an-hour of carols. The choir and music were good. After mass, I took pictures of the church decorations, especially the Nativity scene which is the reason we celebrate Christ-mass (celebration of Jesus' birth).

The walk back to my apartment was peaceful and silent like the carol, Silent Night and I contemplated on the meaning of Christmas. I called back home to wish my family a blessed Christmas and opened a gift.

Christmas was spent cooking lunch for Eduardo and family. I grilled and baked pork loins which I marinated with three separate recipes on Sunday night. I also served stir-fried Shanghai cabbage with shrimp, fried sweet potato fries and white radish red dates with wolf berries soup.

My boss, Prof. August invited the 'lonely' post-docs for a dinner at his home. I had red and white wine, chicken, salad and baked potatoes, followed by dessert.

It had been an eventful Christmas here and pray for peace to reign in the hearts of men!

Hampden Christmas pictures.

The Gift by Richard Paul Evans

After a hiatus of not reading novels, I picked up a book entitled 'The Gift' which had an attractive cover. It had my favorite color and a beautifully wrapped gift box.

I woke up at 2a.m. this morning and could not get back to sleep. So, I decided to finish this novel revolving around the main character, Nathan Hurst. He was carrying emotional baggage from his past. At Denver airport where planes were grounded due to a snow storm, an act of kindness to Addison Park and her children changed his life. He discovered her son's gift of healing which Addison tried to hide. As more people discovered about this gift, Nathan's and Addison's lives intertwined.

A touching book on love and making life choices. I had to dry my tears after reading.

Talking about gifts, I hand-delivered greeting cards to my colleagues this week. I observed that they were eager to open up the cards upon receiving them. People still find the suspense of getting a greeting card. If a small card could lighten up their day, imagine what greater joy others would have when you share your gifts of time, companionship and many other gifts, not only during Christmas season but everyday of your life.

A Season to Reflect

19 days to a brand new year.
346 days had past, leaving memories of laughters and tears.

While looking ahead to new adventures and making resolutions,
also reminiscence on friend and family relations.

Tis the season to buy gifts and send out greeting cards,
loved ones receiving them will have warmth and joy in their hearts.

Washington Monument light-up

On Thursday Dec 6, there was the annual light up of Baltimore's Washington Monument at Mount Vernon. This is not to be confused with the Washington Monument at D.C. although both were designed by Robert Mills.

Visitors to the 178 feet (54 m) monument can climb 228 steps to the top for an excellent aerial view of Baltimore city and obtain information on George Washington and construction of the monument at the ground floor museum.

Shortly before 7 pm, the mayor of Baltimore, Sheila Dixon, gave a rousing speech and flipped the switch, lighting up the monument and triggering the fireworks display.

For the sake of taking pictures, I took off my right glove. My hand was numbed from the bitter cold that night. Without a tripod, I had to hold my breath to minimize movement for longer exposure (1/10 s) .

Traffic was re-routed for this event. Among three of us who had arranged to watch the fireworks, I was the only one who caught it since Eduardo and Jianshi could not find parking lots. They arrived at 7.20 pm, long after the fireworks had extinguished and workers were removing the road blocks. To make things better, I treated them to Korean food at Jong Kak Restaurant at the intersection of Charles St and 20th St.

Cute egg-themed kitchen gadgets

The collection of egg-themed kitchen gadgets began in 2003 when I bought an egg-shaped hour glass in Australia. At that time, I did not think of collecting them since I only saw the hour glass.

While passing by the kitchen section of Sears at WhiteMarsh in 2005, I saw the egg whisk and it dawned on me that there were other similar gadgets. I started to look out for them whenever I was near to any kitchen section and thus began my collection of egg-themed kitchen gadgets.

The pan and spatula were bought from Su Casa in Fells Point. I also checked out the website on the packing and discovered that these interesting and cute gadgets were sold by MSC International. Other cool gadgets included Mr Potato Brush, Carrot Peeler and animal-shaped ice cream scoops. I love their creativity and ingenuity of turning simple ordinary things into works of arts.

Ranking of my photo albums on Webshots

I created my Webshots account (littlesaul) on March 21, 2006 to share my travel pictures online with friends and family back home. My initial idea was to upload every single picture so that I had backup of all my pictures online. In addition, I had saved them on my 100Gb external hard disk.

Charles once mentioned that he browsed through the majority of pictures in an album and clicked on those that caught his attention. This set me thinking. He suggested that I should select the best and do some editing such as cropping and changing colors before letting the world see. For me, I just simply use PictureProject which came with my Nikon D70S to do auto-enhancing. The software usually brightens and sharpens my pictures. He also recommended to burn CDs on top of storing pictures in my hard disk.

As time passed, I set for myself a limit to upload a maximum of 45 pictures per album. This meant making decisions to include only those which I wanted to tell a story or my point of view. So far, two categories which I uploaded my albums are ranked while the rest have this annotation "see the top 1000 members in this category". In outdoors, I am ranked 6956 out of 16,132 members and in fall scenic, my rank is 857 out of 14,353 members.

I get a kick out of seeing my works noticed. This definitely motivate me to improve on my capturing skill which reminds me of a book I bought on all I need to know on digital photography. I will need to set aside some time to go through it.

Thanksgiving, a time to count your blessings

Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Coincidentally at my lab, we had five persons, including me celebrating their birthdays in November (Nov 16, 21, 24, 25 & 26). That was the greatest concentrations of birthdays I ever experienced.

The celebration began on Nov 16 when BJ brought in a caramel cheesecake to celebrate for us all. After that day, I had enough of cheesecake as dessert or food. I ate pumpkin cheesecake in the morning for breakfast, a cheesecake at a seminar given by my boss and finally BJ's cheesecake in the afternoon during tea break. The amount of calories intake exceeded my system.

Knowing that I would be eating continuously, I put in extra effort to exercise in the morning and evening, alternating between swimming, running and lifting weights daily.

On Nov 21, I went to a Thanksgiving party organized by The Singapore Students Association at JHU. It was a potluck party where the undergrads cooked a turkey, roti prata, vegetables and steamed fish. I felt like an old fart among the youngsters and most were scholars. I also found out that some actually lived in the same condominium building as I.

Thereafter, I proceeded to Vladimir's party where I had lasagna, sausages wrapped in bacon strips and many more. My colleagues were amazed at the amount I could eat. I was so stuffed later that night. I slept the moment I laid on my bed.

On Thanksgiving, streets were quiet and stores were closed. Most would travel to their homes for this major holiday to be with family members. Airports, train stations and roads were packed from mass exodus starting as early as Sunday and peaked on Wednesday.

Together with Shuzhen and Wenmin (whom I 'picked-up' in Hopkins shuttle because she carried a bag advertising Singapore General Hospital), I drove to Josephine's home in Bethesda where she had graciously opened up her home to celebrate Thanksgiving. Driving on the highway was smooth since traffic was sparse.

Her home was huge with two real fireplaces and it was beautifully decorated. It definitely looked like an American home. I helped to make salad and carve honey baked ham. Besides the traditional dishes of stuffed turkey, sweet potato, cranberry sauce, etc, we Singaporeans had rice, Devil curry and Thai prawns. I was teased again for wolfing the wide spread of food at my age (FYI, I had three helpings of food and three helpings of dessert comprising of Edy's ice cream, grapes and caramel custard). I let the gals drove back the car as my brain had 'sank' to my stomach.

On Black Friday which marks the beginning of Christmas shopping season, I woke up at 5am and drove to White Marsh Mall to witness some shopping frenzy. Some stores opened as early as 12 midnight and most retailers offered door buster deals to attract consumers, especially electronics stores. I also observed that there was a high occurrence of advertisements selling diamond jewelery as an expression of love during this consumerism season. Husbands, I bet, are under a lot of pressure from the constant showing of these ads.

I was disappointed when I reached the mall. It was not as crowded as claimed. The discounts were not that attractive from sales which I had been. The best time to shop I found out was after each season when prices were really low. I intend to drive to outlet after this winter to find some bargains. I got a pair of brown dress shoes and a brown belt at Macy's for $76. My head was throbbing from five hours of sleep and I took a short nap only to wake up to go to Arundel Mills Mall where Vladimir, Dijana and I had bought tickets to watch Medieval Times where diners were entertained based on the true medieval tradition of royal families inviting guests to a festival and feast to watch Knights compete on horseback.

Dinner began with garlic bread and hot vegetable soup ladled into a pewter bowl. Next came roasted chicken, spare rib, a seasoned potato and apple roll served without silver ware. The horses were well-trained. They pranced and strut gracefully. Knights jousted and fight. Overall, the food was alright and the show was entertaining.

Since we had some time left on our car reservation, Vladimir and Dijana shopped while I took a brisk walk around the mall. The mall, being the largest in Maryland, took me 15 minutes to encircle.

On Saturday, I celebrated my birthday and am glad that I have the chance to work overseas and experience a different culture.

Duckpin bowling

On Saturday, Greg suggested to go bowling and four of us, including Vladimir and Djiana went to AMF Pikesville Lanes.

Upon entering the premise, I was glad that I did not smell cigarette smoke since lighting was banned. I hate to breathe second-hand smoke! I also noticed that there were a lot of boys and men wearing yarmlkes on their heads and dressed in white shirts and dark pants. This is no surprise since Pikesville has a large community of Jews. The head gear reminds Jews of God living in heaven above and they shows their respect to the divine presence by wearing a cap at all times.

Families with young kids, dating couples and bowling buddies were having fun bowling. We each paid $16 for unlimited games till closing time. At 10pm, lights went out and music came on like in the movies.

When we went to our lane, I noticed that the bowling balls were smaller than average size balls but slightly bigger than a shot put ball with no holes for inserting fingers. The pins were also smaller than usual and the lanes were shorter. I wondered why we were given a piece of paper when we collected our bowling shoes. I realized that it was used to record our results manually! There was no screen announcing the results. The best of all, we had to push a button every time to swipe and replace the pins. Compared with Ten-pin bowling, bowlers were allowed three shots per frame, rather than two.

While writing this post, I did some researching and found out that what we played was actually called Duckpin bowling. The ball was lighter which I played to my advantage by using brute force to knock down the pins but was ungraceful at my lofting. I scored the highest for two games and tied for one. The good thing about Duckpin bowling is that I do not suffer from arm aches the next day from throwing heavy balls as in Ten-pin bowling.

Salt-ejecting iron

After one year of storage, I took out my steamer iron from my cupboard to iron my wrinkled corduroy pants.

To my surprise, the iron started to spout out scales (mineral precipitate). I had taken for granted that water here is hard compared to Singapore. Hard water has high mineral content, usually consisting of calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate and sulfate ions. It is harder to lather soap or toothpaste with hard water than soft water.

In the span of almost two years, I had encountered two victims suffering from kidney stones which are usually calcium oxalate. I wonder if there is a correlation between hard water and kidney stones.

This brings me to another aspect where one had to adjust to a new environment. There is a Chinese phrase "水土不服 (shui2 tu3 bu4 fu2)" which means water and soil are not "compatible " with those back home. My friend even suggested that I mixed a portion of water brought from home together with water here so that I would not get sick.

My Serbian colleague also told me that fruits and meat tasted different. Well, soil and climate do play a big part in husbandry.

Halloween 2007

This was my first Halloween since I went back to Singapore before Oct 31 last year where it is not celebrated.

I noticed this festival when our department requested for donation of candies to be given out to children patients trick-or-treating at Hopkins hospital. We were encouraged to dress up in costumes when giving out the candies.

Supermarkets (e.g. Giants, Whole Foods), shops and homes were decorated in red, orange and yellow, colors of falls. Squashes, pumpkins, dolls of witches, skeletons etc. served as decorations.

Cinemas and TV stations started to screen horror movies, chilling-related serials and documentaries on Halloween.

It all began in pre-Christian Ireland where it was believed that the dead revisited the mortal world and large communal bonfires were built to ward off evil spirits. Coincidentally, Chinese culture also marked not only a day, but the entire seventh month of the Lunar calendar where the dead were released from Hades and allowed to roam the mortal world. Offerings of food, Hades money etc. were burnt to ward off spirits.

While waiting for the shuttle bus in the evening, children dressed as princesses, pirates and ghostly outfits were with parents, collecting goodies in bags or buckets. I also went around trick-or-treating, where I had two cute little boys, bony Mathias and clownish Amar as an excuse. They are children of friends I made here.

Two-year-old Mathias did not say trick-or-treat when collecting his goodies but no one minded since he was cute in his costume. The funny thing was he said, "Thank you" only after he turned his back from the giver.

Older Amar was observing the big inflatable decorations put upfront and costumes worn by other kids. They were scared when a man in a horror face mask came down the steps to give them candies.

The atmosphere was friendly where some families had their gathering and people were just sitting in the cold, giving out goodies to children and teenagers. The candies that Mathias received were brought to the lab since his parents would not like him to develop a sweet tooth. So much for Halloween.

Inner Harbor, Baltimore

A cheap way of visiting Baltimore's Inner Harbor was to buy a water taxi ticket, price at $8 for an all-day unlimited rides. It allows you to hop on and off at various landings to visit the attractions.

Landing 2 is a convenient location to most of the attractions where one can visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland Science Center, Baltimore Maritime Museum and The Gallery. Get your map and information from The Visitor Center.

Federal Hill is just a short walk away where you can take a panoramic view of The Inner Harbor.

At Fells Point Landing (Number 11), there are many shops and restaurants along Thames Street. For those interested to hunt for second hand stuff, there is a flea market held on the second Sunday of every month at the square.

Caton Waterfront Park Landing (Number 16) is situated at an upscale residential area where you can see many waterfront condominiums and yachts at the marina. Property prices are exorbitant. You can visit The O'Donnell Square for more shops and pubs. For those interested to get unique items, you can shop at 2910 ON THE SQUARE where I bought a set of game cards in the shape of a bone and handcrafted wooden boxes.

Happy cruising!

Inner Harbor pictures.

A stone throw away

After living around the Homewood Campus for 20 months, I discovered recently that there was Catholic mass service held at the InterFaith Center on every Sunday. It is just a one-minute-walk from my apartment to the center. There is a tendency for people living closer to their destination to be late where I failed twice miserably to be early.

I do not have to walk 30 minutes to Blessed Sacrament, though the congregation is warmer. At the center, I finally see youngsters attending mass compared to seniors at Blessed Sacraments. In the colder months, this place will be refuge for attending Sunday masses.



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Great Falls, Virginia

After attending a "makan" (Malay for eating) session organized by the Singapore International Foundation in D.C. last month, I attended another function, this time a picnic at The Great Falls to meet up with fellow Singaporeans.

Together with ShuZhen, who was mistaken as my "wife" previously and her friend, Kian Meng, we met at the visitor center. As I am collecting fridge magnets of various states which I had visited, I was disappointed that there was none.

Before going for a hike along the Potomac River, I watched an 8-minute presentation on the history of The Great Falls. I learnt that "Potomac" in the Algonquian/Powhatan word means "where the goods are brought in" where American Indians and early colonists traded. George Washington dreamt of turning the river navigable in the hope of stimulating trade between the East and the Ohio Valley, and building cohesion between states in a framework of mutual interest and trade.

Construction of a series of five canals began in 1785 by the Patowmack Company and took 17 years to complete. During the span of 26 years of operation, flour, corn, whiskey, furs, tobacco, iron ore and timber were transported on flatboats from as far as Cumberland, Maryland. The canal system declined due to newer modes of transportation that could haul larger loads much faster than the canal boats which took three days from Cumberland.

Today, the remnants of the Patowmack Canal can still be seen along the forest trail. People still gather at this river, not to trade but to drink in the spectacular view of Potomac River falling over a series of jagged rocks and journeying through a narrow gorge; avid rock climbers scaling the vertical walls, family and friends having a picnic or whitewater rafting for the brave hearts.

More Great Falls pictures.

Camping at Delaware Water Gap

Greg, Mario, Vladimir, Dijana and I planned to camp at Delaware Water Gap on Oct 13 and 14 to catch the colors of falls. However, Vladimir and Dijana backed out and left three of us. On Friday (Oct 12), Greg and I went food shopping for the trip and drove up to Pennsylvania to spend a night over at Mario's.

Early next morning, we set off towards our destination. Along the way, we missed our exit while Mario was navigating and we had to drive for another 20-odd miles before the next exit. At the next exit, I suggested to Greg that we stopped and asked for directions but he refused.

He said, "I know my direction."

He made a U-turn to head towards the missed exit. After looking up on the map of Pennsylvania, I told Greg, "Actually, you could have continue on route 209 East and it would still lead us to our destination."

We arrived at Kittatinny Point Visitor Center in New Jersey and started to determine how much food we wanted to bring. On hindsight, we brought too much food for just two days and one night shared among three persons. There were coleslaw, beans, mashed potato salad, 3 cans of Campbell soup, muffins, cereal, roasted beef, turkey breast, hot dogs, hot dog buns, yogurt, one loaf of bread, half a gallon each of apple cider and milk, and water. Greg and I carried most of the stuffs while Mario's was the lightest since his bag was smaller. We stopped by the visitor center to get some maps and were told by a staff that we could only camp at specified campsites and not along the trail.

We marched north along the Appalachian Trail towards Backpacker Site 2, ascending 700 ft (213 m) in 2 miles (3.2 km). We switched backpacks along the way to share the heavy load. The trail was very rocky and I was wearing sneakers, not ideal for hiking. We had lunch at some place which looked like a campsite but did not know that it was actually Backpacker Site 2 since there was no mention of it on the notice board put up. We only realized that after we had reached Sunfish Pond which was another 1.7 miles and 300 ft climb with our heavy backpacks and saw a signboard that had a trail map.

We backtracked towards the campsite and set up two tents. Greg thought of letting me sleep in one tent while he would share with Mario. As the night temperature would drop to freezing point, I suggested that we slept in one tent instead where three body heat would warm up the tent. I learnt some cold surviving tips after reading Mike Horn's conquest of the Arctic Circle where he survived in extreme cold.

Thereafter, we hiked back to Sunfish Pond and walked around it. The pond was formed by glacial eons ago. Along the way, we passed by a group of scouts where one complained, "Rocks, rocks, rocks everywhere." I could empathize with him because my soles were hurting now.

As night fell early, we ate dinner around 5pm and cleaned up the area since there were bears which would be lured by smell of food. Metal boxes and a pole with hooks were available to store food. The trunks of two trees supporting the pole were covered with metal sheets to prevent bears from climbing. Hooking and unhooking bags of food and garbage high up were a challenge.

Since no camp fire was allowed, I turned in early around 7pm after a long day of hiking. In the middle of the night, I went out to answer nature's call and saw the starlit night. It was beautiful but I had to go inside the tent after a while for it was cold.

The next morning, we packed and headed towards the Red Dot Trail. Greg warned us that it would be arduous . The trail would rise rapidly in elevation and involved hiking over large boulders but "it would be worth it" (quoting him) where we would have an excellent view of Delaware River. My left knee was hurting and I was lifting my left leg by pulling my pants with every climb I made.

After climbing 1549 ft (472 m), we reached the summit of Mt Tammany. The view was magnificent. You could see areas of trees extending towards the horizon and the Delaware River meandering through the land. We had lunch at the Indian Head scenic view which was a rocky outcrop that dropped nearly straight down. I had included my feet in the photos to demonstrate it. Vehicles traveling along I-80 looked like small model vehicles. The wind felt good and there were vultures soaring in the sky. A couple even sat near the precipice to admire the scenery (what a romantic guy he was).

As we hiked down, both my knees were complaining at the steep descend and rocky trail. I overheard one woman complaining to her companion that this was not a staircase while she climbed timber-and-rock stairs. Her companion replied,"This is a natural staircase." I was laughing inside.

This trip would have been better if the trees were all red and yellow.

Delaware Water Gap photos.