Well, yah, I was in U.S. from the 8th of November to the 23rd, quite a long trip I would say.
Let's get started!
Day 1 (8th Nov)
The trip started off with the 9 of us, Mr Chia, Mr Gi, our two coaches, the three of us and our parents. I was sort of fortunate to have both my dad and my mom to come along with me. They have never been to the States, so yah, I suppose it was a eye-widener for them as well. (Has been a hard year for them, good time to relax and enjoy their rare holidays). We took SQ002 to Hong Kong for transit to San Francisco. The whole flight took some 15 to 18 hours. The flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco was particularly great, as most passengers got off at Hong Kong and we had additional seats to sleep. =P Watched a couple of movies - Hairspray etc. (Sok Mui was right, the music was great! The singing was fabulous.) Upon reaching San Francisco, we were driven to the downtown area of San Francisco. Got a peek of Parc 55 Hotel, where we were going to stay for ThinkQuest Live 2007 (from the 10th onwards). Mr Gi did us a favour by going around the same area to look for a hotel that fits our budget (US$250 dollars per night is way too.. you get it.). So we moved into Aida Hotel! Its a small, cozy hotel, had communal bathrooms, but most importantly, it was decently clean (that's all that matters to me).
We took dinner at some Thai food restaurant. Had this 'hor fun' in peanut sauce (similar to satay 'hor fun'). Mr Gi took us to walk around the city area of SF. I love the architecture of this shoppying mall called the Macy's. We visited the lady's section of the departmental store later in our days in SF and I LOVE THE STUFF IN IT! They have much much much more fashion sense than Singapore's departmental stores =X. Alright I'm not being disloyal here, but but but.. The designs were fantastic =.=
Day 2 (9th Nov)
Went to Chinatown in the early morning for breakfast. Chinatown was sort of expected - Chinese shops all around, Chinese seen everywhere, Mandarin and Cantonese filling the air. (It was interesting to even watch Chinese programs on TV.) We ate some dim sum at this dim sum restaurant. The food was, obviously, no way near Singapore, but eh, it wasn't too bad either.
[Hill-like road; typical scene in SF]
We then took Caltrain (This train that runs in California. The line we took was from San Francisco to San Jose.) to Palo Alto, where Stanford University was located.
Stanford was COOL! The campus is really huge.
We first went around the campus, taking pictures of the many faculties they have there. They had this tower in the center of the campus, named Hoover, after Herbert Hoover. He was a president of the U.S. and built the Hoover dam (which we visited too, on later dates). The view from the top of the Hoover tower was magnificent. That is when you realise how BIG the campus is. They have this organ-like instrument at the top of the tower, where students could play. Although the instrument is organ-like, the keys actually hit the bells at the top of the tower. So when the bells are being rung, no one is suppose to be at the tower (probably except the student playing it). Cool eh?
Ching Hua, Mr Gi's ex-computing student was nice enough to bring us around the campus. He brought us to the chemistry lab place (Or is it Biology?) Oh I love the architecture of this reddish building the most. It is made of glass on the exterior so when night comes, and light passes through the building, it looks as if its transparent. Awesome! Oh and surprisingly, he's in the same cohort as my brother. (Another surprise: He doesn't know my bro, but my bro knows him =.= )
So basically, we spent the whole day walking around Stanford University (It might be our one and only time there in our whole lifetime after all =X ) I really love the culture there - you know, students cycling around the campus, talking to one another, joking around, deeply passionate about what they are researching on, discussing with their professor about their doubts, asking how one is doing when he/she drives past on a bike etc. Its simply.. that kind of school culture that is so conducive, and makes school a second home.
Well, did a lot of walking that day so stayed at hotel at night to rest.
Day 3 (10th Nov)
Early in the morning we took a Grayline city tour of San Francisco. We were brought to various tourist attractions of SF and learnt more about the history of San Francisco. I would say the city tour was pretty good - in the sense that it was multi-lingual. (I've honestly never seen something like that.) The tour coach was equipped with sound outputs of 5 languages and obviously we can choose which language we wanted. The coach drove us past some important landmarks as well, though we didn't alight the bus to take photos. It was rather good.
Okay I shan't go into the details of the city tour, but here are some photos -
Thats Mission Dolores. For more information, visit Mission Dolores Wikipedia.
That's a view from Twin Peaks! You can see the whole of San Francisco, San Francisco Bay from there, but a storm was approaching and the fog filled the whole area..
Here's De Young Museum. Its basically a reddish, copper-coloured structure, quite magnificent, nice architecture again. There's this tower you can go up to for free, and take another view of the neighbourhood. There are quite some number of buildings around that area but we didn't have enough time to visit them.
As mentioned earlier, the sky was filled with nothing but fog. What a pity. The Golden Gate Bridge, being one of the seven/eight modern wonders in the world is left in fog. The bridge, contrary to most beliefs, is not golden, but red. We saw the bridge again when we were at the Ideo place.
The city tour ended and we went for lunch at some place near Aida Hotel - It was some Chinese cuisine (yah, again!) and the portion was really way way way too big (yes, again!). And finally - we moved into Parc 55 Hotel! The feeling of moving from one less luxurious hotel to one really really big, comfortable, cozy, hotel is more than great.
Nice, comfortable chair. Two queen-sized bed. Perfect for rest. Yes, speaking about rest, we then rested for another few hours, before we went to eat (at another Chinese restaurant) again. No wonder I gained weight after this trip =X