Machu Picchu

Had dinner with a friend last night and we've made plans to head to Machu Picchu once I graduate.  Its cheap to head down south to Peru from North America and I can't wait.  The lost city of the Incas... how fantastic is that.  Look for updates 2 years later!  

Whale Watching in Cape Cod

Was running thru my photos the other day and came across this. Ah I miss going for holidays. Just 1 more month to mine!

Travel Bugs

I hate travel bugs. They bite and when they do, the itch to travel just becomes unbearable. I like traveling but I wouldn't consider myself a travel bug. My sweetie on the other hand, is one huge, feeler twitching travel bug. And she bites me all the time (figuratively of course, get your mind out of the gutter). So now, we've just paid for our tickets to Bali in October. Yes we just came back from a long holiday, but here we are, paying for our next one. Something tells me our bank account isn't very happy with us.

And So The End is Near...

Ok so after weeks of blogging, I finally kinda finished sketching out my trip. After the vineyard, we basically drove down to Woodbury for some good ol' factory outlet shopping and we went home soon after. Sigh, it was a good trip and even though I've only been back a couple of weeks, I'm already itching to go away again. And now we're planning to head to Bali in Oct for some good ol' R&R and diving. Ah... I can't wait.

Martha's Vineyard

So after P-town, we headed down to a small town called Hyannis from which we we visited the island of Martha's Vineyard (the summer vacation island for the Clintons). Because we didn't quite dare to rent the mopeds (i.e. scooters), we took bicycles instead. The guy was sweet enough to recommend us the hybrid bikes which were more energy efficient than regular bikes - one peddle took you a longer distance. Great, we thought. I don't know if I mentioned this, but A and I did try training for this Martha's Vineyard cycle at Pulau Ubin. We almost died after 10 minutes. But given that the terrain for the vineyard was rather flat, and these fantastic energy efficient hybrid bikes, we figured we'd have no problems, no problems at all. WRONG. Those damn fantastic energy efficient hybrid bikes were too bloody tall for us both! (Americans are bloody big!) We ended up with the kiddy mountain bikes (mine even with a wicker basket) and the distance people took one peddle to move, we probably took 5. Without needing too much explanation, you would have figured why we only managed to cycle to one town. By the time we got back on the boat, our butt cheeks were probably 2 inches from each other than we started.


But ass splitting aside, the town was beautiful. White beaches, really blue waters, crisp air. Ah, no wonder the Clintons came here for their vacations. I'm sure even Bill Clinton could relax in this atmosphere.

Our First Gay Resort

Provincetown - the gay mecca for this part of the States. We stayed at a really quaint B&B place called the Bayberry with our 2 gay friends from Chicago. Quaint wouldn't quite begin to describe it. Lacy curtains. Flowery bedspreads. Freshly baked scones and muffins for breakfast. Just thinking about it makes me feel all warm inside.  In case you're wondering why we went there, well our gay friends did play host and they did invite us to P-town, besides, when would you ever get to come here anyway??


So where do I being about P-town? Everywhere you turn there's a rainbow flag flying in your face. On the streets, lots (and I mean LOTS) of gay men walking hand in hand in skimpy shorts and trunks.  There's even a nude beach where we heard our gay friends tell us (cos we were too chicken feet to go) there was lotsa hot hot action going on. It was like we had stepped through the heterosexual mirror into the other side. Seriously, even the waiters were gay! Although there wasn't much for us to see, we had fun just walking and soaking in the vivacious, frolicsome atmosphere. 



But the best part of P-town was the whale watching bit. Because P-town is closest to the whale feeding reserve, it was short boat ride later when we started seeing WHALES (yes those giant mammals) swimming beside our boat, twisting and turning and flapping their tales as they dived back into the water. I was completely enraptured. Every time a whale came near, I would scream and frantically point. It was really one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments. God, they were majestic. Just thinking about it now as I write this makes me take a step back and pause and go, holy shit, I saw whales and they were "this" close.

Red Sox Boston

So this is Boston. We took the $15 Chinatown bus from New York to Boston and this was a steal, considering the Grayline buses cost twice as much. Since we spoke Chinese, it was easy for us, although getting to the Chinatown bus station was not so easy. We ended up cabbing in one of those exorbitant New York taxis.


So yes, Boston. Its a small city with most of its residents studying at either Harvard, MIT, Boston U or Boston College (where my favourite survivor Elizabeth Filarski studied). Quite different from the hustle and bustle of New York and Chicago. But it was a nice change and we appreciated the slower pace of things.


But generally Boston turned out a tad bit boring for us. We even succumbed and took the Duck Tour (which incidentally, A fell asleep on). The highlight of Boston was the Chowder festival where for seven bucks, we got to taste clam chowders from 10 different restaurants and in the end, voted for Ned Divine's. We even took a drive up to Harvard and MIT and all wished we had studied harder for no other reason than the fact that the schools are gorgeous. Old buildings, iron wrought gates, stone lions - everything that an old educational institution symbolizes. I even bought my niece a real Harvard tee-shirt! She'll look so cute in one.


So Boston was just so. Wouldn't head back but happy I was there. 

I Heart New York

My favourite city turned out to be New York. A's been there so many times that New York just doesn't quite hold any more fascination. All A sees are lots of strange homeless men who sometimes do really bad sing & dance items in the subway, hoards and hoards of people, lights which are so neon bright looking at them gives you a migraine, polka dotted streets from the remnants of one too many people spitting out chewing gum and yes, A remembers the smell of pee on the streets (my guess is homeless people probably couldn't find a free bathroom). Suffice to say A wasn't particularly fond of the place.


I, on the other hand, love New York. I love how metropolitan the whole place is. Everywhere you turn, someone seems to be speaking a different language. Sure, its crowded and choked with with vendors selling t-shirts along polka dotted streets, but standing in the midst of it all in Times Square is just such a sensory overload. Day or night, the city is just bustling with so much activity its hard to keep up. From people watching at the MET to wondering "that's art?" at MOMA, from the swanky fifth avenue stores to the hot dog vendors that line the same street, New York is really the epitome of what a city is.


I would go back in a heartbeat. Indeed I heart New York. (and yes I did get one of those tee-shirts.)

Chicago Gay Pride 2007

Some photos from my first gay pride! It was all that you would imagine it would be. Loud colours, dancing men in tight tight underwear, rainbow flags, and yes, even Kathy Sledge (from Sister Sledge) singing "We Are Family!". It was nice celebrating diversity in its sometimes really strange forms, even though politicians and companies are probably in it for the pink dollar. Ah but no, I won't lament. I had fun although I missed the dykes in bikes cos I was too busy stuffing my face into IHOP pancakes. Oh well, leather never really did it for me anyway.

Chicago

We landed in Chicago on 19 June 2007 and thankfully for us, A's friends offered to let us stay with them. They're one of the nicest gay couple you'd find around and we had a grand time hanging out with them (As an aside, they've been together for a decade now and in gay years, that equals 100 years.)


So where do I begin talking about Chicago without boring everyone to death? Trips are like that. Most times, people don't really want to hear every single freakin' detail about it, no matter how much it might have meant to you at that point. I'll try to keep it succinct. Then again, I guess you don't have to read on if you don't want to.


A and I started the week trying to do the famous Loop sculpture tour. Chicago has all these really famous sculptures in and around their downtown area and we figured since they all looked so close together on the map, we'd skip one of those walking tours and save ourselves a few bucks. Have I mentioned A and I have really poor directional skills? Well, we do. As you might imagine, the sculpture tour turned into a sculpture hunt. For instance, we were standing along the street trying to look for this huge Picasso sculpture (yes we had pictures of them so we did know what we were looking for) when we saw this really nice fountain across the street and decided to walk over and rest for a bit. As we were sitting there, we kept looking around for that Picasso sculpture. It had to be around, that's what the darn map said! Turns out, the 2 storey high sculpture was a stone's throw from the fountain, we just somehow never saw it. Repeat this incident about 5 times and you can imagine why we decided we didn't have to see ALL the sculptures, just the ones we liked was sufficient. We slept well that night.


We also managed to catch Wicked - this hilarious musical about what happened before Dorothy (from the Wizard of Oz) arrived. Its wicked funny.


Because we spent so much time with our friends, apart from sightseeing downtown, getting lost in the streets doing the loop sculpture tour and doing the must-do Chicago River Architectural Cruise (Chicago Architecture is really an eye-opener), we spent most of our time experiencing Gay Chicago - thanks to our gay hosts. From the gay games (imagine an entire beach full of hunky gay boys & a couple of lezzies playing beach volleyball), to visiting the awesome homes of handsome gay friends, to waving our rainbow flags at the Chicago Gay Parade, it was an absofrigginlutely fantastic experience! Its an entirely different world, no one was bothered by sexuality (straight or otherwise) and there was a real kind of community. Geez, during gay pride weekend, the mayor of Chicago even put out a big ad in a major newspaper wishing everyone (gay & straight) happy pride!


So yes, there's our Chicago experience for you, well at least some of it. Chicago's a really nice place and without batting an eyelid, I would go back. Weather's a little chilly (yes, even in summer), food is fantastic (we had great Thai, Vietnamese, French and Chinese food - way better than what we have here!), nice people (not like those small town folk - more later), and just an overall really nice environment to live life.

Ready to Go

We're all packed and ready to leave tomorrow morning!


I'm so excited (*dum dum*), and I just can't hide it... I know I know I know I know I want to... uh-huh-huh...


Well at least I think that's how the song goes... but we are all packed and ready to go! Taking a 3 week hiatus from blogging! I can't wait. But now I have to go back to work and finish up everything before I abandon this place! Woo Hoo!

Penang - Our Pre-Holiday Holiday

We headed to Penang over the weekend and we're all burnt and A's nose is starting to peel. But we had a blast, although there wasn't that much to do. We spent most of the day lounging around at the pool, sipping water and munching on fruits sprinkled with prune powder. In the evenings, we headed to Gurney Drive for the ooo-soo-famous and ooo-soo-delish char kway teow and soPublish Posttong bakar (basically grilled dried sotong with prawn paste sauce). There wasn't that much to do, we didn't hang out at the beach cos' it was a little too dirty for our Singaporean comfort, but we had a good time talking, laughing and basically doing nothing... my favourite kind of holiday.


This was a pre-States holiday holiday which A put together. Now we head off for the States in a month's time and boy I can't wait for the 20 hour flight!

My Eyeballs are Beginning to JOIN

We've been researching so much on our trip that its beginning to drive us nuts! Car rentals, hotels, tickets and all that... so much to plan for and so little patience to plan with! Once we're done with the car rentals and hotels, I think we're going to take a back seat on things for a bit... just so that we don't lose the sense of excitement... I fear the planning is killing it somewhat. But yes, I know, better to suffer now than being there and suffering without tickets and having to walk from Boston to New York.

Planning for the Road Trip

Who knew that planning a road trip could be this difficult??!! My idea of planning for the trip was to come up with this sketch... obviously not drawn to scale but I must say, on paper, it looks pretty good... messy but good nonetheless (especially with those little cars and ferries eh? ). We take a bus here, take a ferry there, stay a night here, and drive off in the morning. Its my usual mind map thing I love doing. Of course, because everything is so not drawn to scale, and I of course don't quite have the sense to know how long bus rides, ferry rides and car rides take, Washington looks as if its only an hour away. Its actually more than 4 hours away. Thankfully for me, my partner has come up with a plan... in the form of an excel sheet no less. Mine took less than half an hour to come up with, my partner's still doing that plan, calculating what time we have to wake up in order to make it to Nantucket to go whale watching. I have the sense we won't be bringing my map to the states.

Copy Cats

We're going to do a self drive thingumbaloo through New England but being first time self-drivers, planning a road trip has been somewhat tricky to say the least. Thank goodness A found this Cosmos tour brochure and we're going to plan our road trip the lazy way - copying where Cosmos would bring their tourees! Hee hee. Then with our handy New England Lonely Planet in hand, we'll slip in some additional sights and sounds and ta-da, the almost perfect road trip ala Cosmos new England Charm style. Lazy asses we are.

We Have Our Tickets!

We were at the Natas fair yesterday and we finally got our tickets for Chicago. It wasn't actually any cheaper than getting it off any other travel agent, but with all the prizes, lucky draws and freebies thrown it, I thought it was well worth the 2 hour effort squeezing with the crowd. So its final then, we are going and I can't wait, I simply can't wait! I'm so excited I feel my shoes are going to burst off my feet from all the excitement. Now its down to research, research, and more research... where to go, what to see, what to eat.... ooo... I hope we'll get tickets for the Oprah Winfrey Show!

Travelling Tips

A and I are planning for a long trip end June to visit some friends and do some long overdue holidaying. I'm particularly excited because we are heading to the States! Not that the US is the best place to be, but for someone who has only visited the west coast, a trip to the east coast sounds divine. We'll probably be heading to Chicago to visit some of A's friends.


From Chicago, we hope to do some educational touring at Washington DC before heading up to party in New York and meeting the friends in Boston before heading back to Chicago again. Oh have I mentioned this will be a long trip? I'm trying to get A to go for a month, but I'm not sure if work will allow for it. But no harm trying eh?


I've been trawling the internet trying to get the best low down on tickets, hotels, coach and domestic flight fares and so far it hasn't been all that fruitful. I'll probably head down to the library sometime to get some research done on these places. I'm an anal traveller and I want to know where I'm going and what I'm going to see when I get there. You wouldn't want to go all the way to New York and miss ground zero now would you? Precisely my point. Research research research. USA, here we come!