Day 3 - Dec 9

daddy's birthday! brought along a cute birthday card i bought from singapore, planned to deliver it later at night. woke up early for a day of coaching to Las Vegas. pretty uneventful, but the ride was spruced up with great scenery, fields, coniferous forests, lotsa rocks, the Mojave desert, the Rocky Mountains. if only i could see such scenery every day. i assure you i'll never tire of it. we then arrived in the City That Never Sleeps, home of the endless rows of jackpot machines which bankrupts and gamblers alike affectionately name: the One-Armed Bandits. it is honestly the best example of a city that looks the best at night than at any other time of day, everywhere you turn are bright lights that NEVER stop glimmering or blinking their messages and names at you. people all over the streets even late at night, fancy limousines down the roads, driving adverts of services of rather dubious natures, loud music blaring and drunks dancing by the streets, big screen tvs advertising the numerous shows in the hotels. The Strip in vegas at its best. The Strip is that length of road in downtown vegas where the major hotels and restaurants and clubs are located, where the who's who cluster and where money talks. and might i mention that every few steps a male takes as he wanders down the street, he is confronted with numerous lackeys who shove cards of women in varied stages of undress at him. all highly amusing. what qualifies as illegal pornographic material in certain countries is at the same time thrust at passers-by on neat little cards as they take a walk down streets in other countries. what a quaint little world.

and thus we arrived at Vegas, checked into The Mirage, which i have to say, given the number of stars and its location in the one area with the greatest reputation of having the most beautifully designed hotels in the world, has an absolutely lamentable floor layout. we, after being dropped off at the front door, had to drag our bags past concierge, through the entire maze of the casino, which is absolutely gargantuan in magnitude, past numerous restaurants and inbuilt pubs, before finally arriving, arms throbbing and out of breath, at the elevators. where on earth is the sense in that?! mind-boggling. for all the big bucks rolling in, at least have the sense to hire a better contractor!

after we finally stumbled into our rooms, we took a brief rest before going for dinner. chinese restaurant again, which incidentally served water that we could actually TASTE. and it didn't taste of anything pleasant unfortunately, reminded me of warm radioactive sewage sludge. (see previous note of commenting on things tasting like other less common substances) and then back again to the hotel for a breather, before we were whisked off to watch Jubilee, a topless show, at the Ballys hotel. now when you mention Topless Show, usually the least of your expectations would be "BORING" or "yawn" or "dull". unfortunately, while it is not often where things live up to expectation, you wouldn't imagine that they could so drastically fall short of expectations as to even fall far BELOW the lowest of them. all that singing and dancing (well, not even dancing for it was more of simple walking and kicking legs and fancy show-standard arm waving), even with the bare tops of ladies, failed to keep most of the audience awake. i tried hard to stay awake, but succumbed near the middle and then again at the end. even the male audience was hard put to keep their attention from wandering and their eyelids from closing. what a drag. my cousins and i had a little joke about how we should have watched Chippendales instead. haha. so back to the hotel it was, threading through the crowd and the big screens showing snippets of shows that truly couldn't be any more boring than the one we just escaped from.

Day 4 - Dec 10

woke up to the window view of Vegas, baby! but we were feeling less pumped up owing to the fact that we overslept, and were roused by my aunt, informing us of the time, which happened to be when our coach was supposed to leave. with all my relatives already at the coach waiting, me fio and glo were running about the room pulling on clothes and hastily washing up. in record time (20 mins), we were in the lobby where some of them were standing and solemnly ushered to the coach. OOPS. later we learnt a big argument erupted between May, the tour manager, and brendan (my bro). may wanted the 3 of us to take a cab to the factory outlet, our itinerary for the day, and brendan replied asking Couldn't she just wait for 15 mins more? we weren't rushing to keep up an appointment anyway, since we were just shopping for the day. turned out to be quite a full-scale battle, the skirmishes of which we would get a hint of in the coming days. anyway, it was off to the factory outlet Premier or something like that. we spent a blissful day flinging dollars, as we tore up the place in search of bargains, not that they were hard to find. the deals there are AMAZING, managed to buy loads of clothes and more. original plans to conquer the area together with my cousins were abandoned due to respective shopping speeds, so in the end we were all separated, bumping into each other occasionally as we hunted down deals in the many foraging areas. going solo is probably the most productive, and so far my favourite, way of shopping. shopping with fiona is quite good too, she's super fast in sizing up the shop, although our tastes sometimes differ and also at times she's yanking at the reins of the shopping cart way before i'm prepared to leave the store.

at night we watched Mystere by Cirque Du Soleil at the Treasure Island hotel. which blew us all away. before the show started we were all already riveted on the antics of some old dude in a suit, laughing as he led blithely ignorant audience members to the wrong seats, pushing past seated people instead of using the aisles, then feigning impatience and finally flinging the tickets away in mock frustration. then the show started, every inch of the stage begged for our attention as perfomers filled it, even the upper balconies had eye-catching dancers and gymnasts and musical outfits. what a blast. the costumes were great, stunts were thrilling, music was captivating, occasional acts were hilarious. my favourite performer was a bird-like character in red, he was superbly graceful and strong and just plain eye-gluing. what a show. i swear to catch any Cirque Du Soleil shows i ever come across in future.

Day 4 - Dec 10

the next day was Grand Canyon day. we took several draggy coach rides, finally arriving at the place. and my oh my, what a sight to behold. makes you rethink the significance of your puny little existence indeed. and here, there's a lack of things to write about, for all you need is a personal view of the natural wonder to understand its sheer magnitude and beauty completely. and naturally, my vocabulary is much too limited for fully expressing the feelings any sentient being will feel when confronted with the sight of the Canyon. anyway, we headed up to Guano Point (yes, guano refers to bat crap), downed lunch, enjoyed more sights. we also got to the Skywalk, which sounded and looked tremendously exciting in the brochures, but turned out to be a short glass-floored U-path jutting out from a cliff of sorts. the view through the glass floor didn't afford us the privilege of looking right through to the very bottom of the canyon from the top, we could only see till about halfway because of the rocks jutting out. DOTS to the max. no cameras allowed but we took some nice shots with the in-house photographer. oh it was interesting that some areas of the canyon were totally unrestricted, you could walk right up to the edge and peer over at your worst nightmare, a 5000 feet drop towards the conversion into a bloody pulp. being the wimp that i was, i only managed to creep slowly, arms outstretched to impart balance, to a spot an inch away from the edge and leaning ever so slightly to peep at the endless stretch of rock below me. then it was a dreary ride back again to civilisation.

night was reserved for a visit to the famed Bellagio. where we had a FABULOUS buffet dinner at The Buffet (how creative). jaw-dropping variety of food, desserts were superb, service good as usual, all for less than US$30. half the price of The Line, just below it in terms of cost of ingredients used, but WAY better in terms of selection and even interior design. score!

Day 5 - Dec 11

we made our way to the airport, discovered that we had overweight luggages and had to pay, flew to Vancouver, then drove to Whistler, a little town up in the snowy mountains. had a fancy steakhouse dinner in the hotel, which took days between courses and had me napping intermittently. other than that the food was good. we had a good view of the heated pool and jacuzzi tub from our room window, perfect for checking out, i mean, casually observing their users. before dinner we rented our ski/snowboard equip, and might i add that ALL, i repeat ALL, service staff in the Whistler area are young and good-looking. really! everyone at the ski shop was up there on the outward appearance ladder. and most shops i went to later also proved similar. well of course you couldn't avoid the odd elderly cashier, or once in a while the less becoming assistants, but generally the employees in the service industry were HOT. heard that many young Brits and Aussies go there to work and board/ski at the same time, the former in order for the latter.

and here's a short description of the area near Crystal Lodge, our ski resort. to the right from the mezzanine entrance/exit were several shops, mostly selling ski/board equipment and outfits, and then the Blackcomb and Whistler mountain gondolas. to the left, a short walk to the Village Square, in which nestled in its cosy corner was an Armchair Books store. a right turn across a bridge led you to Starbucks (the legendary outlet where the Gohs and Chuas first saw real falling snow many years ago), a cinema, a Guess outlet (very random). further on was a supermarket, Mongolie (a Mongolian grill), italian restaurant, and a japanese restaurant.

Day 6 - Dec 12

ski day number one. cold as hell, although hell isn't rumoured to be cold. but still. clunked out, severely underdressed as we later learnt, to the Whistler gondola. fingers were already turning numb and painful while we waited for the tickets to be bought. clash number dunno-how-many: Mistake number 1: 2-day passes to the gondola were bought instead of 1-day passes, even though there was no discount for the 2-day ones. Mistake number 2: sight-seeing passes, which were cheaper than ski passes, were not bought for the adults who just wanted to go up the mountain for fun. why? Reason 1: tour guide did not buy tickets, but asked my cousin to. Reason 2: tour guide did not check ahead. Side detail 1: tour guide asked my cousin, all decked out in heavy boots that were hard to walk in, to buy the tickets because tour guide was afraid of cold weather and quickly rushed back to hotel room. and hence the explosion began. or maybe it was already snowballing. later, tour guide was overheard loudly telling tour-sponsor that the excess spent on buying the wrong tickets, "Take from my pay lah!". immediate comment from eavesdropping brother: "Sure, cut from your pay lah".

up the looooong gondola ride, with uncomfortably high seats, we reached a lodge near the top of Whistler. filed out. quickly sought shelter and warmth in the lodge. separated from the boarders. mustered the courage to exit building, and met our doom on Upper Whiskey Trail. i later figured one would need pints of whiskey to brave the long steep slope down to the end of the trail. well, at least for someone like me. the length of the trail was much too long, everyone said that it was the type of slope that one should pack a bottle of fluid and some crackers into a backpack and hit the john before starting. the slopes were also VERY steep, not steep enough to fling you off a cliff at the slightest mistake, but certainly steep enough such that i didn't dare to go down straight, but had to cut across the slope the whole way to avoid mowing down any unfortunate being in my way. the whole journey i was on the edge of my nerves, what a trip. the ski trail at Zermatt was infinitely better.

thawed a bit at a little cabin at the end of the trail, then set off for the Lower Whiskey Trail, before catching the gondola back up again. had lunch then it was back down to the heaters in the room. phew. it took us the better part of 4 hours i estimate, to complete the entire trail. what a nightmare.

dinner comprised several of us heading off in search of food in Whistler, with a bit of shopping here and there. tried an italian restaurant which was too crowded, eventually we settled for japanese. then we attacked a supermarket and headed back, squishing the icy slush beneath our shoes on the streets back.

Day 8 - Dec 14

skiing day 2. me and glo were absolutely dreading it. woke up late, all the while taking our time in getting dressed, delaying our doom as much as possible. the guys were getting impatient, apparently they loved the slopes. finally when we've pushed the limits as much as we could, we had to leave for the gondola ride. freezing again. -20 deg Celsius. at least it was sunnier this time. me and glo split from gigi and irwin, the boarders headed down first. 2 skiiers 1 boarder dropped out after the first day, citing various reasons, fever was one, exhaustion and lost hope among others. glo felt nauseous, so we sat at the lodge, thinking to go down after lunch. that never came. we had lunch, stoned there the whole time. brendan joined us for lunch and stoned with us after that. i was feeling immensely bored and restless, wanted to just heck it and ski down but it was too late and noone wanted to go down the slope a second time. derrick and kenny skipped lunch and went down the Ego Bowl slope 6 times i think. finally we were all assembled at the lodge in the mid-afternoon, and after a short delay owing to a missing boarder, we headed down. i was feeling thoroughly miserable, wanted to head to the gym to relieve the pent-up energy but there wasn't time. SHIT. that was probably the worst day of the trip. felt so useless bumming around up there. photo shoot at the gondola ticket station, then off for dinner. which was crap. Old Spaghetti Factory it was called, food sucked big time, service was slow. all in all a disastrous dinner. before dinner me glo yt fio bought tickets to Twilight at the cinema, and visited the Rocks and Gems shop on the way back. interesting stuff they sold. among them being dinosaur bones, trilobite fossils, and many other ancient fossils, rocks, stones, gems, shiny bits here and there. are dinosaur bones common?!?! or ancient fossils?!?! they were selling small bits for like less than twenty bucks!

after dinner we half-ran to the cinema, cos it was so cold. 4 of us plus brendan derrick gigi irwin went. movie was so-so, a bit boring, derrick was asleep the whole movie, book was definitely better. everyone came out interested in the series though, which possibly meant the movie caught their interest. glo was drooling over how mesmerising robert pattinson was, i still think gaspard ulliel would be way better as edward. oh well.

Day 9 - Dec 15

drive to vancouver. then we carried on with the drive to the hotel, the Hyatt Regency. vancouver was filled with asians, hong-kongers to be exact. it's like melbourne, half the population on the streets were yellow-skinned. i prefer california and vegas to vancouver. no point going overseas for vacation and looking around seeing asian faces as though you were back home. vancouver also seems more slow-moving and less interesting than america, less busy less glamorous.

arrived to much bustling in the lobby, turns out they were hosting some secondary school competition for gingerbread house making. people were walking around judging the entries, some were pretty impressive.

the room was fab, big, posh, luxurious. wall-to-wall ceiling-to-floor window occupied one wall, wide- and flat-screen attached to another, there was even a desk with a real cool desk lamp, ultra sleek. alarm clock had an iPod nano docking station, well actually most of the hotels we stayed in had that. anyway we had a while to walk through the attached shopping centre, think it was the Royal Plaza. nothing much, mostly unheard of brands that still managed to be quite expensive. made our way to the food court in the basement for lunch, a really good pannini, and then headed for Robson St, supposedly Vancouver's equivalent of Orchard Rd. but they were diff in that Robson St had stores by a narrow, 4 lane road, while orchard road has shopping malls by the side of a much wider road. we went souvenir shopping, cos the clothes and stuff didn't seem worth it after all the american factory outlets. dinner was at a chinese restaurant in the shopping centre next to our hotel, menu selected by ah song. not bad, a lot of veggies though.

Day 10 - Dec 16

breakfast was on the 34th floor, great view of the city below! then we took a city tour, nothing much. went to Stanley Park, where totem poles resided. funny event: the small lake in front of the totem poles was frozen over, and uncle tommie ventured down and put a foot out on the ice. larry came over, and stepped onto the ice. local canada-raised hk tour guide panicked, asking them to quickly get back up because it wasn't safe. then larry, being the usual rebellious kid he was, did a hilarious shuffle across the ice and back, before clambering back up. we all had a good laugh. he's so cute. (i know i've said this millions of times) then we droe to some exhibition centre, and chinatown or something, can't really remember, along the way was an aviary on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, and there was the Lion Gate Bridge which crosses the English Bay. photo ops done, we headed for lunch at some sorta market where most stalls sold meats, cheeses, pastries etc. my lunch was Indian, quite good. then we were off to oakridge shopping centre, 4 of us spent all our time at the bookstore cos we were pretty much done with any kind of shopping. factory outlets take their toll on everyone, they successfully crush the urge to whip out wallets or enter fitting rooms. oh, i also hate trying clothes when i have to shed so many layers in the cramped fitting room in winter countries. yucks. and you get static charge build-up from the rubbing of the cloth and your hair just sticks to your face, major eew. so anyway we spent eons at the bookstore but ventured further to a supermarket. borrowed fio's iTouch when we found out there was wireless at the supermarket's inbuilt Starbucks to check my results. she checked hers too. both of us did well. then it was meeting time, and we drove to dinner. chinese again. seafood this time, quite good. menu again by ah song.

Day 11 - Dec 17

breakfast at the 34th floor again, our own little private function room. thought it looked misty outside, only to discover that it was snowing! cool. snowing heavily too! we could see the flakes being buffeted by the winds in all directions, busy little white specks making their way here and there. what a sight. and way up high too. we contemplated going out in such heavy snowfall, but i forced the other 3 to go in the end. we headed to robson st again for some late souvenir pick-ups by fio and glo. the snow was spattering on our faces and built up quickly on our clothing. how exciting. then we headed to Icing by Claire's before going over to Sears in Pacific Centre. Sears is kinda like the typical departmental store, so we headed out to the main shopping centre. got lunch, a nice souvlaki pita wrap. yummy. bumped into auntie lena and others, then brendan and derrick joined us. we then attacked H & M, but it was nowhere as cheap as those in europe. i was also too lazy to hit the fitting rooms, so anything i found interesting i tried my best to ignore. had a little rest. getting tired of shopping by now. think the only other shop we hit in the centre was Stitches, where we bought the most stuff for the day. they were all so cheap. that pretty much drained all our shopping energy.

then we headed back again, snowfall had slowed to the occasional random laggy snowflake floating down from the sky. but the ground was still delightfully soft with fresh snow. trouble was getting the snow off your shoes before it melted and soaked them to the seams. dinner was steamboat at the the same chinese restaurant from our first night in vancouver. good stuff. the snowy beef, fancy name probably for thin beef strips, was the star. seafood tofu was good. chicken a bit fatty. mussels good. veggies not bad. mushrooms were great, as always. ate till i was bursting. what a last dinner to have.

then it was back to serious repackaging of luggages to prevent any overweight ones, even filled a bag daddy bought earlier in the day with the spoils of the trip.

Day 12 - Dec 18

left for the airport bright and early. breaths were held as we loaded each piece of luggage onto the belt, one was overweight by 3 kg and another underweight by the same amount, which prompted a collective release of breath. no charges after all. daddy brendan and derrick hit burger king while me and mommy strolled aimlessly around. nice aquarium in the airport, lotsa corals though the fishes behaved weirdly. they were all suspended facing the left, didn't move much other than to keep in the same spot. wonder what that was all about. thus we stepped onto the plane that would bring us back to reality, and humidity. flight back was pretty much filled with movies and tv shows. the lead actor in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging was really good-looking, which was helped by a brit accent definitely. many would agree. stopped over at Incheon airport. nothing much there, hurried to the gate. then straight to singapore and home nearly midnight.

side note: america's mtv channel rocks. the shows were interesting in true mtv style. notable shows: parental control, heterosexual participant. vicki and ricki were interesting too, can't rmb the long title of the series exactly, smt about a double shot at love. about a pair of female bisexual twins who had to choose from a bunch of male AND female contestants fighting for their attention. WHAT THE?!?! other than that, music on mtv was good too, Kanye's Love Lockdown (current fave), Beyonce's If I Were A Boy (great music vid!), Nickelback's Gotta Be Somebody (current fave number 2), Jonas Brothers' Lovebug (a cute song), Pink, Katy Perry's Hot N Cold (grows on you), Pokerface by Lady Gaga (grows on you too, although only one line of the song is nice). although there was an abundance of britney spears too with Circus and Womaniser. Paramour's song for twilight also got quite a bit of airtime. note again: canada's tv channels suck, no mtv! argh, how dull.

interesting (in my view) facts:

learnt to pack light.

learnt that fio draws really well, but can't do humans or animals, only buildings.

discovered the many likeable features of the iTouch.

this trip was very own-time-own-target, didn't really see much of yt, spent most of the time with fio and glo.

camwhored to the extreme one night in vegas. had so many laughs in the process. and fio edited the photos really well.

i sincerely hope the december holiday tradition continues nt year and for many years to come.

Merry Christmas!