Dinner is Served

Honey glazed chicken wings, veggies, egg, rice.

Cornflake Cookies!

Yesterday and today were good days! A colleague (Christine) drove me to 2 grocery stores to get stuff, then sent me back home with all my barang, and when I said I wanted to go to Walmart she said "I can take you now if you want".

At Walmart while I was shopping I saw a familiar figure... It was my trainer Lydia! Excerpt -

Lydia: How you going home?
Val: Eh... bus.
Lydia: I taking you home!
Val: Really??? -happy like siao-

After we got into her car I said I was hungry, you know, in the casual conversational way.

Lydia: I hungry too. You wanna go eat?
Val: Eh... its ok.
Lydia: I take you! You like burger? You like Chinese food?
Val: -very paiseh- No, its ok.
Lydia: Cmon, I hungry too. I taking you to Chinese food. You like?
Val: -nods- But I'm poor, no money!
Lydia: I pay!
Val: -eyes popping at good fortune-

So we went to a place called China King and I ate like crazy. They have everything. Chinese tea, fruit, brownies, donuts, pot stickers, crab, squid, pork, chicken, soup, icecream, jello, and the list goes on.

That night I slept a happy girl. When I woke up the next morning I baked cookies! Cornflake cookies to be exact. Made 'em into little packages for my 3 housemates who had to work :)







Not having a car is really inconvenient, but when people with cars do things like help you move house and bring you grocery shopping, it feels soooo good. (Some) people are kind after all.

Campbell Creek Trail

The exploration was a success! The Campbell Creek Trail was very nice indeed. I think I'm so lucky, whenever I come to the US the place I stay at turns out to be close to something nice. In SD I stayed close to the Pacific Ocean, this time there's a creek 10 minutes walk away :)

Its very pretty and serene when you stand on the bridges and hear the water trickling by. I did see some people wading in the waters but the sign says its not safe and Alaska's waters are supposed to have Giardia in them so I think I shall not risk it. For non-bio students, Giardia is basically a parasite and it gives you diarrhoea and a lot of other bad stuff if you're immunocompromised. It looks like this:



Anyway, it was a really cloudy day so the pictures didn't turn out good. I will go back when it is sunny. Meanwhile...












Here's what a bear-proof trash can looks like:





I assume the bear's paws are too fat to go inside that space to push the lever.

As I was walking along these 2 guys starting unloading some stuff from a car. Before I realised it they had started paddling in a boat on the creek! Shiok leh. The river had many many meanders so they had to follow its twists and turns. But how fun!



A cute little boy was fishing with his grandad.




Pretty flowers - I like. Dandelions have a special place in my heart and I love to blow them to scatter their seeds, but they grow like weeds here so it takes away some of the special feeling.

New House!

***updated***



Finally, another off day so I have the chance and energy to do a blog post. Anyway, its been a few days since I've moved into my new place and I like it! The best part is I get a room to myself, and I can fully unpack. All my luggage is back in the storeroom now.

This apartment is part of a residential area called Wildwood Estates and has lots of nice blue wooden houses in it. I have a small porch and am very near to the laundry house (important when its cold outside and you have to lug laundry there). We have a heater but try to save money so we haven't turned it on yet, resorting to wrapping ourselves like ba zhangs when the need arises :)

*insert*

Pictures I took today of the exterior!

Wildwood Estates.

My apartment complex -

2259!

Front entrance.

Back porch with stepping stones leading to it.

Laundry house.

There's also a fireplace but buying logs to burn requires money so we haven't done that either :p I think we should give it a go at least once before we leave though. Here's a picture of me (the dead-looking person on the floor) getting a massage from one of the girls. The mantle piece above the fireplace has become a support bar.



Other pictures of the house...


Kitchen. I just bought a 7 piece cookware set from Walmart for $16.67 so I just need stuff to cook!


My bathroom with a bathtub, which I fill with hot water and sprinkle some of this:


Eucalyptus and mint bath salts. Aah...



My room with a self-made "futon", composed of a thermal pad, a comforter, a twin bedsheet and a sleeping bag. I use the sheet and sleeping bag as my blanket.


That's the inside of the closet. I have 2 hanging organising shelves and hangers and shoes and bags in there. La la la~


My storage box cum table with laptop and Raggedy Ann. Foam crown over her head stuck on the wall plus a metal plate I found with my name on it :) Homely touches!


Shoeboxes instead of shelves for the poor!


My pink panther laundry basket!

And I just bought a purple paper lantern so my room is quite personalised already. Just the way I like it. More room furnishings when I get the chance! I shall go for a walk/jog now to explore the area. More pictures later if I see anything nice.

My Address

2259 East 56th Ave
Apt #1
Anchorage, Alaska 99507
USA

Off Days

We got Monday and Tuesday off this week. On Monday we went to the 5th Ave Mall where I bought a brown polka dotted hair band and 3 pairs of earrings! (Buy 2 pairs and get 1 free) On Tuesday, I brought the girls to Costco so we could check out what we wanted to buy before getting someone with a membership to buy the stuff for us. I forgot that you need to show your membership card before going in! So we started looking for kind-looking “targets” to smuggle us in. This old guy told us we could get a one day pass at the entrance, so we tried and went in under China Airlines. I had a feeling that was for the corporate membership but what the heck :p

Went crazy shopping there man. Nowadays we’re always starving and the mention of food gets us salivating like Pavlov’s dogs. Housekeeping is so physically demanding that I eat and eat and eat. Fries, soft drinks, chips, chocolate all go down the hatch! I never eat that stuff at home. The king crab legs at Costco were HUGE. But poor us kept telling ourselves to “wait till we move into our house”. No place to store and cook food mah. But once we do move in, we’re gonna buy one of those outdoor barbecues and invite some of our colleagues over. Ironically, its some of the bellmen who treat us the nicest. [This particular one treated me to chicken wings and a McMuffin! The wings were heavenly man.]

While waiting for the bus outside Costco, we got bored and started taking crazy pictures! But it was fun :) See for yourself!













Some guys horned at us when we were doing the kissing pose. Mua haha. Anyway, getting whistled at//yelled at from passing trucks/picked up here is like a really common occurrence so I recommend girls searching for boyfriends to come here – NOT!!!

Tagboard No Space!

Hello friends... I miss you all a lot!


xxx


Belly Welly: I've emailed you!

Voz: How was shopping in Hongkong? The shopping here is good!!! Sometimes some of the stuff very cheap already, then still got 50% off! Levi's and Abercrombie and Wet Seal and Claire's I love you ^^

Lynn: Hallo! Really missed your presence on my tagboard! How was Beijing? Yeah I figured you might be having problems accessing the internet/my blog or something. Anyway email me your address asap! Already prepared stuff to send to you but I don't have the address. Send to wan.valerie@gmail.com

Shin: Sitting by the water... Just being pensive as usual lor heh. Can't remember what I was thinking. Maybe something along the lines of 世界是美丽的 :D

Ling*~: Yeah I know Joanne! We were talking about you last time too. And I cannot tahan. I want to go ktv with you! Down here don't have. The only place that has karaoke looks damn scary and of course no chinese songs.

Carine: I miss you lots and lots too~~~ When is Jill coming to Singapore?

Sunset @ the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail

Heard that sunset at the Coastal Trail was really worth seeing so I went to check it out after work one day. Then I brought the girls out last night to see it Coastal Trail cos I thought it'd be good for them to see (they only go the mall one). They were bowled over cos its so nice! But then we were all pretty cold. Got them to come climb down some rocks so we could sit on some fallen logs which were perfect for chilling out on. Small pool of water right by our feet so it reflected the setting sun. Bliss~

First, I digress. Here's the hotel where I work:



Back to the topic at hand...

Anchorage Museum of History and Art

Last Saturday the 4 of us decided to be a little touristy so we went to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Tee hee hee! We arranged to meet at the 5th Ave Mall but Joanne and Shannon were late as expected so I got in some shopping at Wet Seal first. Anyway here are some pictures! Nothing too exciting ok... It is a museum :p