As a highschool senior, that has been mistaken many times as a freshman, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one dreading the possibilities that are after highschool. Rather, I'd rather not deal with them. But sadly, there comes a time in the year, now, that you have to start applying for universities and other post-secondary institutes.
Frankly, I'm shit scared.
I guess after spending a wad of money filling in applications, if I fail I can always just live under a bridge in a cardboard box.... My parent's would be proud of such a resourceful daughter ^^
Along with other things...
I'm heading to Japan in December I believe for probably 5 days or so. Spending the rest in various areas in Asia~
Currently Watching: Coffee Prince
So far I've been wasting my life away sniffling at night crying while watching it on my monitor. It's really horrible because I end up going to school with swollen eyes and panda circles. Not very becoming for a girl. Maybe when I'm done and not so lazy and depressed about school I'll do my duty and write something about it. But for anyone who's interested, you can find it on Veoh.
For those who are following my little vacation down in California, here is the continuation.
My uncle lives not too far from San Francisco. So one day they decided to tour me around the city. Our schedule for that day would be frolicking at downtown, go on a tour of Alcatraz and then cap the day with a majore league baseball game featuring my uncle's faveourite team, the San Francisco Giants versus their so called rivals, the L.A. Dodgers.
So to start things off, my cousin and I hopped into the car and sped over to San Francisco...
On the road to San Francisco...
A view from the bottom looking up...
Oooh, tall buildings...
So after enough frolicking we went over to the piers where we would take a boat going to Alcatraz, that infamous prison island. I wouldn't say it is unescapable since there were 5 reported people that got out of Alcatraz and are said to be missing still...
Anyways, before getting on the boat we visited pier 39. Out by the floating platforms lay a huge group of sea lions.
One is cute, but that many is just disgusting, not to mention noisy and smelly...
A few minutes later we boarded the boat to Alcatraz...
Our mode of transportation
Getting close to "The Rock"
A stern warning to all those coming to the island...
Coming to the dock, the white building you would first see would be the living quarters of the warden, prison officers and their respective families. So basically Alcatraz is not only a prison but it's own community. The only difference between the civilians living there and the prisoners would be the civilians have free access to the docks and can go back to San Francisco freely, depending on the boat schedule. Throngs of people would visit and tour the island, surprisingly, most of these people are not from San Francisco and if you ask, most San Franciscans or locals of the area might not even have visited the Rock. Like my cousin, it was the first time she ever visited Alcatraz...
A quick tour of the outside of Alcatraz would give us a feel of the lay out of the island and a little history lesson regarding the island and how it came to be. After which we were directed indoors where they gave us some audio devices for the audio tour. I find this very convenient since you get to have your own personal tour guide. It's systematic and you can go at your own pace, if you miss what was said, simply stop and rewind and you are back on track. The audio tour contains comments and statements from the prison officers and prisoners themselves.
A typical cell would look something like this, you would have a small table, shelves, a toilet, a vent and there is supposed to be a bed in there too. Meals were served at a common mess hall. Officers dread meal time at the mess hall cause it is said to be the most dangerous time and place to be, with all the inmates together and with close proximity to kitchen utensils most notably knives.
for those who would come to their cells for the first time they would find a little booklet on their bed. It's the prison manual. It gives you a rundown of the dos and don'ts of the prison. For those who don't follow these rules... well... read on to find out...
A recreation yard for the privileged few...
And as mentioned earlier, for those prisoners that don't follow the prison rules or are causing trouble they would be put in special treatment...
The special treatment cells...
And for those exceptional trouble makers...
We have the darkness of solitary confinement...
One of the prisoners commented that to pass time in solitary confinement he would go to one corner of the room, tear a button from his shirt, flick it through the air, and on his hands and knees would try and find the button in the pitch black cell, after finding the button, the whole process repeats itself...
These people are those who have been given such special treatment. Some of them you might know... At the far left we have Al Capone. Next to him is Machine Gun Kelly. In the middle is a strange character, inmates would testify that he would always walk around the prison tip-toed. And to that guys right, probably the prison's most problematic inmate, Robert "The Birdman" Stroud. In for several murders he seems to like taking care of birds and when they took that privilege from him he was just livid...
During the early sixties a few inmates of the prison made a daring attempt at escaping, things didn't turn out so well and it escalated into an uprising. The army had to be called in and the pock marks you see on the picture to the left are from the grenades the military used against the inmates.
Some inmates accepted the fact that they may spend the rest of their lives in the prison. So they tried to make do with what they are given and made their cells more homely, paintings, a little musical instrument and they were even provided with headphones to listen to two prison radio stations...
A typical prison officer's uniform...
What used to be the warden's office overlooking the San Francisco skyline...
The lighthouse...
The actual cell of one of the prison's escapees. For those that have watched Escape from Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood, this would be the real life inspiration of that movie. The inmates made a replica of their heads using plaster of paris and some hairs they managed to swipe from the barber. Using spoons they dug through the vent that goes into the back of the wall where they climbed up to the roof, climbed down using a pipeline that runs down the wall and using a make shift raft braved the beating waves and frigid temperatures of the night. Whether they made it to land or got washed off to see, no one really knows, until this day they are reported as missing...
And so ends our tour of Alcatraz...
After that tour I am up for some baseball game. My uncle and his family are avid fans of baseball, especially their San Francisco giants. My cousin wouldn't let me into the ball park without something to show my support for the Giants. This would be my first ever time to spectate a majore league baseball game.
A view from outside the ball park...
All decked out in Giants gear...
The crowd to my left...
And the crowd to my right...
Barry Bonds hitting a single...
Giants celebrating after winning with a walk-off homerun...
We were celebrating the win as well. Later my uncle tells me that I am an extremely lucky dude. It's already rare to see the giants win a game, let alone this particular game with the Dodgers since their standing with the Dodgers are 1-13 meaning out of 13 meetings they have only won one game against the Dodgers. So for me who is witnessing the game of baseball live for the first time, seeing a come-from-behind win by the Giants against the Dodgers via walk-off homerun which is even rarer to witness even by season ticket holders makes me one helluva lucky bastard...
So my little tour for the day ends with a happy celebration...
Oh, and I did visit some other places in San Francisco on different occasions...
So to end things on the San Francisco chapter...
The Golden Gate Bridge...
Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world...
Today will probably be one of the most memorable days of my life.
At the moment, I am currently suffering from lots and lots of pain thanks to my geography trip. I would've not gone, but I didn't really want to let down my partner, and I had no real idea of how vigorous the damn trip would be until I got there.
We went to the Garibaldi Lake area, which is basically halfway from Vancouver to Whistler (it's snowing up at Whistler already) and we were to hike up to the top of the frickin' mountain to see Lake Garibaldi. However thankfully we didn't make it all the way up to the top and instead went to Barrier Lake, the first of the three.
Thing is, I'm not a very athletic person, hell I'm not athletic period. I sit around on my fat ass all day and do nothing and my hobbies include eating and sleeping. (Even now as I type this I'm waiting for my noodles to be done.) So the painful 6km hike uphill basically killed me. It took 3 hours or so going uphill and 2 to come downhill. It wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't start hailing/snowing by the time we got closer to the top. The altitude was causing some of our ears to hurt, and going down they popped.
At least I can say I finished it I guess. I brought home a few souvineers which consists of blisters on my foot, dirt soaked socks (they're brown), 2 cuts on my feet, and very sore knees. Who knows though, maybe it toned that fat ass of mine.
P.S. I'll put up photos maybe sometime later, to be honest the most disappointing thing was that when we reached the top it was so foggy we saw nothing.
Some of the regulars in the forums might be aware of my little trip down to California...
So I am here to share with you my little vacation down there...
I graduated from my college course last August and since then have been going everywhere, from camping in the Skagit Valley, road tripping to Calgary, to attending the Anime Evolution in Simon Fraser University.
My relatives from California saw my in-between work status to be a good excuse to invite me to come down their way and show me around their side of town. Seeing no reason to deny their generosity I found myself looking over the net for the best deals of travel going down to Cali.
First off, I took a bus from my place in Surrey, BC to go across the border and into Seattle, Washington. From there I took a plane going straight to San Jose, California
A view from my seat in the plane just before we flew off.
In San Jose, my relatives toured me around town.
A glimpse of downtown San Jose
Outside the "Shark Tank", the turf of the San Jose Sharks.
Far Left: a water park in downtown... Left: trying my best not to get wet... Right: a quick pic at the San Jose State University... Far Right: erm, yeah...
Now, In the Philippines we have our own local fast food restaurant that would be equal to the MacDonalds or A&W of North America. This place was called Jollibee and I just love their chicken and gravy. I haven't had a Jollibee meal for like a couple of years so given the chance to eat there once more I took full advantage of it and even looked like a fool to some of the people that were there.
They didn't have all of the stuff that we had in the Philippines but they did include the important stuff...
My relatives also accompanied me in visiting Stanford University. I'm not so sure how true this is but from what I gather Stanford Uni would probably be considered the Ivy League of the West. So yeah, anyways if that is true or not I don't really care, the place was nice and of course I took pictures of it.
Left: You might not be able to see it but that is a "S" in the center of that garden. Right: This unique church hosts many denominations of different religious backgrounds, so basically, at a certain time of the day they would have catholics in it and at another time jews would fill up the place, they just change the stuff inside.
I spotted pillars... So I posed with the pillars...
I spotted statues... So I posed with the statues...
I was on my way to a job interview and had problems finding the location. So I stopped beside the highway to make a phone call. While I was on the phone, I notice from the mirror that a motorcycle coming at us with high speed and then it rammed the back of my car.
The impact was so huge that the back mirror was completely shattered into pieces and our car pushed forward a metre. My mother was sitting beside me and the two of us took a few seconds to recover from the shock. We then came out of the car and saw the rider with his bike lying on the ground. Luckily, he only broke his wrist and suffered a few cuts.
A passer-by drove the guy to hospital while my mom and I wait for the police. We spent more than 3 hours waiting for the police to finish inspection. I'll have to go to the station later to make an official report.
The car insurance will cover the car's repair fees but I'll be fined at least RM300 or about $100 for stopping the car on highway, even if it's the roadside. I then face a possibility of being sued by the guy, as my car stopped on the motorcycle's lane.
If you've been following this blog, and remember a week or so ago, I blogged about my Vancouver friends coming over for 2 weeks. I blogged the first week, here's the second week.
What conjured up our whole weekend was basically the anime convention. We also had some fun in Paramount Canada's Wonderland. Let's start off with the convention~
My favourite parts about the convention were the cosplayers the ginormous Dealer's Room, and participating in the anime trivia. I didn't give you any pictures of maids last time, but you get to see some maids today!
The Austin Powers here was what made my day, he was extremely into character, he could have been Mike Meyers himself!
Yup, conventioneers also went to eat here
Right after our convention outing, we went across the street to eat at Jack Astors. I ordered their Pad Thai. The server said it would be spicy, but it wasn't spicy at all :/ - it was delicious though! I think about that Pad Thai all the time~
Boy was that Pad Thai good~
Our day didn't end there! Nope, the whole gang went to the Chinese Lantern Festival. It was very interesting, not only can you enjoy the walk looking at all the extraordinary lamps, but they had side shops where they sold their neat creations. I got to see a very skilled artist make a spiderman figure out of wax, it was quite something o_o.
You see the entrance to the CNE amusement park here
They also had an excellent acrobatics performance, it was just as good as the Cirque de Avaia that I saw in Niagra
And here's the whole Monkey gang! Yes, I wore my Haruhi outfit around Toronto >.>;
I'm too lazy to type out our outings, so here are some pictures:
(Paramount Canada's Wonderland)
lol, we took this picture (right) with a timed shot, and right when it flashed, a little girl walked by it. Fortunately, she didn't cover anyone up.
I'm preparing for my journey to Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu Island, Japan... so of course I'm using the internet to learn about where I'm going. I came across this the other day and it made me laugh:
>>>Q4) And when I come to Fukuoka by air, my baggage tag will say?
>>>It will announce to the world that you are flying in to FUK.
My brother, who is absolutely set on getting an XBox 360, suddenly asked me about my Street Fighter EX plus Alpha PSX game. The question was probably triggered from the song that was playing on my PC when I emerged from my room to grab an iced tea. I told him that when my room was remodeled while I was in Japan for a semester, I found all of my games except for that one, which left me miffed for a few days. I actually played that game to challenge my own limits.
Before I know it, he's asking me about my taste in current consoles. Since XBox 360 was already mentioned, he asked me about that. I told him I disliked the games for it. Hey, I may not game hard, but I know which audiences consoles are generally catered to. He then asked me if I liked Wii, and I said yes and that I wanted one. Well since he wasn't about to change his goal about getting an XBox 360, he then did something I don't think the majority of people would do if they spent $120 on something:
He asked me did I want his "game boy." More accurately: Nintendo DS Lite. He brought it out of his room and handed it to me, telling me he didn't want it. I was flabbergasted as I held the rarely played handheld...absolutely giddy, but hiding it well. I confirmed once again if he was serious. He said yeah.
Why am I so happy right now? I have wanted a DS Lite for over half a year, but could never justify shelling out the money to buy one. I don't use public transportation (I drive), nor do I game like I used to as a child...but I just got a DS Lite FOR FREE! I already have a few game paks that I have honestly wanted to buy, Japanese & US. I have to buy a stylus too, but no matter.
I thanked him with a much subdued composure and told him that he seriously just made my day. Amidst all of this, I have to acknowledge the fact that it has been many years since I really connected with my brother...let alone him doing anything that has made me genuinely happy. This simple gesture may have restarted something that did exist in our younger years: a relationship through gaming.
For the last two weeks, I haven't been online much since I had friends from Vancouver visit us. More accurately, they're my brother's friends. Four people invaded my home: John, Nav, Chinh, Gus; and stayed with us for 2 weeks. There were three guys and one girl. I'll be refering to them as Monkeys from here on out since my brother does the same (something about WoW). Their visit was tons of fun and we did a lot of traveling, lots of picture taking too. I certainly miss them already...
Our first outing was the Pacific Mall in Scarborough (part of Toronto). It's an all-round asian mall. There are many, many stores that are relatively small in size; plus they have an arcade! I didn't buy much here, just a Blooper keychain, and them yummy walnut pastries - yum!
Before heading to the mall though, we were of course hungry. Our lunch for the day was all-you-can-eat sushi. It was a party of seven and we ordered sooo much, we had trouble finishing everything by the end of it.
Me and my best friend Ashley at Pacific Mall
If you've been keeping up with this A-S blogging feature, you'd know that Kaiser had visited that new maid cafe, well, I visited it too! No pictures of the maids though, didn't have what it takes to ask. But I assure you that they were really cute, they didn't smile much though. Wonder how it feels to work and be oggled at all day.
Kaiser went when they had white and blue dresses, I got to see them in red :3
The day ended with late night Karaoke! They had an abundance of songs, even new anime songs! Indeed, I saw NANA, Darker than Black, Nanoha StrikerS, even Terra e. My friend took loads of hilarious photos that will be very memorable. I took a few videos, I'd love to upload them, but they're on a funny angle and very dark.
I've karaoke-d quite a number of times, but after this night, I'd have to say that you need someone like Abz and John to make it fun.
For the next day, we drove the opposite way towards Niagra Falls. The same group of seven: me, Ashley, the four monkeys, Chi (brother), and Abz (friend). We enjoyed Marine Land, the Falls, and then Fireworks.
Chi and the Monkeys (left), and a sealion sliding down the slide during one of their performances
A trainer ontop of a dolphin (left), and a bear sleeping in a cute position :3
An Orca performing a jump (left), and deer - lots of them!
For dinner, we gave "Planet Hollywood" a try. I suspected their menu to be super expensive, but I was pleasantly surprised, it was just like any other restaurant. The food was good and their side salad servings were more like a meal :/
Looks very cluttery inside, but it was very neat. Our waitor looked like Adrian Brody and there was a naked Sylvester Stallone mannequin suspended on the ceiling...
By the time we got out of the restaurant it was already dark so viewing the falls wasn't as extravagant, but we did manage to see the firoworks, they started at 10pm.
My friend captured a video of the firworks at Niagra Falls
Chinh and Me being silly >.>; (left), and a balloon in the distance that John guessed was the CN tower (and we were in Niagra!)
I was laying on one of those floating cushions in my pool yesterday just thinking about random crap when a question popped into my head. I wanted to know what other kinds of shows outside of anime, do anime fans watch. I don't mean the typical shows either, like Family Guy, Futurama, or anything else on adult swim or comedy central. I mean your guilty pleasures, like reality TV, or soap operas, or Fox News.
Personally I'm a sucker for any reality show on MTV. I (religiously) watched Laguna Beach, still watch The Hills, The Real World, and all that crap that comes on VH1.
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A typical cell would look something like this, you would have a small table, shelves, a toilet, a vent and there is supposed to be a bed in there too. Meals were served at a common mess hall. Officers dread meal time at the mess hall cause it is said to be the most dangerous time and place to be, with all the inmates together and with close proximity to kitchen utensils most notably knives.
for those who would come to their cells for the first time they would find a little booklet on their bed. It's the prison manual. It gives you a rundown of the dos and don'ts of the prison. For those who don't follow these rules... well... read on to find out...
