Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
. . . . . . . . .. . . . . But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

How did I end up in Yellowstone?

Work and Travel USA Program.

I first came in the summer of 2005, with Speedwing as my agent. My job, as a server assistant (aka the person who pours water and clears the table and cleans it and resets it) sucked and my pay sucked but I honestly enjoyed myself most of the time, being away from the drudgery of life back in Singapore. And there is so much to do in this beautiful place, so many different people to meet, so many new perspectives to gain. So I chose to come back this summer, and I have not regretted my decision even for a moment.

This time, I came on the self-arranged program under ASK Management, meaning that I had to talk to Xanterra (the company operating Yellowstone facilities), plan my own flight itinerary etc, saving SGD300+ in the process. Not to mention greater freedom in planning. I came back to the same job of server assistant in same old Dining Room, Grant Village, Yellowstone National Park. I thought I would be picking up where I left off 2 years ago but so many things had changed: the whole management team, the Dining Room carpet and furniture, operating systems, and not a single person from '05 was here. The beginning was kind of rough: we were understaffed and overworked, people had already completed training together and formed cliques by the time I arrived, and I was the only foreigner in the entire front-of-the-house staff. But things got better rapidly. I started training as server (aka waitress) in my 2nd week, and did that full-time from week 3 onwards. Why is that such a huge improvement? 1) Much better money; remember that people tip here and the restaurant I work at is rather expensive. 2) Chatting with guests becomes part of my job, and I no longer feel like I am holding my server up or something. 3) I move between the front and back of the house and therefore get to know more people better. 4) It is simply more dynamic and way more fun. The kitchen and the other servers are rowdy and work is so much more enjoyable when there are people to monkey around with. 5) I pick up more skills, from dealing with people to alcohol knowledge, which I will otherwise not bother to learn.

6) Heavier responsibilities and therefore greater job satisfaction. Like, it just makes your day when people show their appreciation for you, not just in terms of bigger tips, but like, telling you about their day, asking you about your day, showing you pictures of their grandkids, offering free whitewater rafting trips, giving you candy, inviting you to visit them whenever you're in their state, or simply telling you how much better you made their day. And how some guests bother to remember your name when you don't even know theirs, and spend time filling out fancy comment cards for you. It also makes me happy when people who enter crabby leave all smiling and friendly.

So, although my job can be very physically taxing and frequently stressful, I think it's the best job in the park and I am happy =)

You should come to Yellowstone too!

How did I end up in Yellowstone?

So I have obviously been too lazy to post anything, coz the internet connection here is not exactly the fastest in the world. To see pictures (which are not too frequently updated as well), just find me on Facebook with 'Kheng Hui Ang'.

Okay here is a picture of the feast we made the last time we camped, which was at Shadow Mountain, a beautiful site facing the Teton Range, where the sun sets behind those mountains and rises on them. Aspen groves and purple wildflowers cover the mountain, and at night, you can see the lights of Jackson Hole shimmering in the distance.

We made the fanciest meals ever, even had pancakes and bacon and fruit kebabs and rosti-style potatoes for breakfast. And then after we broke camp we all went to String Lake in Grand Teton National Park for a swim, and then to Jackson Hole for Thai food! It was fun.

I missed last weekend's camping trip though, because I was having cramps and couldn't imagine fording a river and dragging a huge pack 5 miles into the backcountry. So I went to Shoshone and Lewis lakes for a long, leisurely hike instead. AND YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?! I tried to throw my backpack across a river before jumping over myself. The pack cleared the river alright, landed on the opposite bank and happily rolled into a hidden pool on that side. My camera enjoyed a ten-second dip in the cool waters of Lewis Channel. I'm still trying to dry it out =( I hope it'll be okay *wail*. But the trip was fun, and the lakes were beauuu-teee-fuuulll, especially at sunset.

i love camping

So there are basically 2 types of camping: car camping, in which you drive straight up to the campsite; and backcountry camping, in which you pack your tent, your sleeping bag, food and other barang barang, and hike into a backcountry campsite.

The first time I went camping this season, it was car camping with several other restaurant folks, and we went to Beaver Creek, which was the place I last camped before leaving Yellowstone in 2005. It was a different tent site but it brought to the surface such a dizzying mix of emotions. I was really happy to be back in that pretty place, by the same creek in the same valley, but it also made me miss the people of the summer of '05, with whom I may never ever meet again. So Noah and I pitched our tent right out in the open just beside the creek, because he said he thought it will be wonderful to be lulled to sleep by the sound of flowing water (but the next morning he said it just felt like he was sleeping next to a really noisy air-conditioner). This was the view from our front porch:

As usual, there was alot of drinking around the campfire, and after a while Corey, Frankie, Duga and Shannon discovered they could all balance beer cans on their heads and they absolutely needed to take pictures as proof of their rare talent. I love these people. In the past, at most campfires, everyone gets so happy-nonsensical-drunk it's kind of lonely to be the only sober person around, but luckily for me, Noah doesn't drink, and most people I have campfire-d with so far remain able to hold decent conversations. Yay!

Oh and we saw a moose and her calf that night! The pair wandered to within ten metres of us and gave me a bit of a shock when I saw something big and brown moving. That was so cool though. Before we left the campsite the next day, Shannon, Noah, Corey and I took another last picture.

Then the following week, Noah planned a backcountry camping trip to a site near Fairy Falls, and everyone bang-seh-ed him, and in the end only Anlin, Markus and I joined him. Only after Noah got the camping permit did I realize my Yellowstone guidebook says that site rates only 1 out of 5, and has "no view, no water source, no campfires allowed." Best. But since we got the permit we decided to go anyway. No campfire meant no cooking and alot of mosquitoes. When we nibbled away at our sad dinner of chocolate, chips, pretzels, EDR-stolen bananas, apples, peanut butter, while the mosquitoes dined on us, and it started to get dark and chilly, we totally felt like homeless people.

And I have also finally understood the importance of a campfire: it occupies you. You can always go look for firewood, feed twigs to the fire, poke at it, or just watch the dancing flames. Without a campfire, we were like, "Er... now what?". So.... we decided we should squeeze into Noah's tent to watch Kill Bill on his PSP. Haha. Unglam, uncool and un-gungho. We are the first people I know who watch movies when camping. Backcountry camping, at that.

But this atypical camping experience was followed the next day by a super backcountry camping trip at Ribbon Lake, which is reached by a hike along the Yellowstone Canyon rim. This time it was with Qiuqun, Liyan and the two funny Serbian guys Milan and Mario. The hike was beautiful, the campsite was on the edge of the lake, campfire was allowed, we cooked sausages and smores and alot of weird stuff like tofu on it, and basically just had alot of fun. It was awesome! Unfortunately I left my camera in the car, so no pictures folks, till I get them from Qiuqun =)

Oh on the same day, the four of them wanted to climb Mt Washburn, and since I've already done it and was feeling lazy, I sat on a grassy hillside in the lee of the wind reading "Memories of my melancholy whores" while waiting. It was a beautiful day, there were wildflowers everywhere, and whenever I lifted my eyes from my book I rested them on the soothing greens and blues of the landscape:

At times like this, life feels so perfect and peaceful, and I am content. I don't know how I can ever bring myself to leave this place.

Graduation Pictures

These are such reputation-annihilating pictures I simply HAD to post them. Liyan fooling around with Jamie's academic dress.

And Jamie's beanie too.

Yes this is my room =)

Mt Washburn

The day we got pulled over by the rangers was the day we hiked up Mt Washburn. Linghan and I planned the trip, and just as we were leaving I met Luke in the carpark and so asked him along. I remember the pathetic car-less days of long ago when we had to wait for other people to take us places. The drive to Mt Washburn was absolutely stunning. We could see for miles and miles across meadows and hills and alot of burnt forest, which can be so tragically beautiful. On the hike up Mt Washburn, there were also burnt groves, which look like this:


Dead trees, most probably burnt in the huges forest fires of 1988, and then bleached white and dry by the sun again.

That's Linghan and Luke ahead of me on the trail. We were headed for the peak where a fire watchtower is stationed.


Mt Washburn's peak is the highest point in the area, which is why the watchtower is there. From the peak, whichever way you turn, you can see forever. That awesome sense of vastness cannot be captured on camera, especially not with my idiot-proof canon ixus 40 and shabby photographic skills.

That's the Yellowstone Canyon in the mid-ground.

This is... a bunch of peaks in the same mountain range.

Don't you also feel like running to the end of the path and jumping off the cliff?

Do you want to climb a mountain today too? Come find me in Yellowstone!

吉祥如意

And so I haven't blogged in some time. That's because alot of things have been going on and whenever I'm free I tend to be sleeping or doing something outside.

Continuing from my last post, the 2nd day we got the car, we got pulled over by the rangers! And as poor Ling Han was driving, he was the unlucky person to receive 2 tickets from the rangers totaling USD500: one for driving without a license plate and one for driving without car insurance. So how did that happen? Long story. Basically we bought the car on a Saturday, when everything is closed so we couldn't get the transfer and registration etc done. And when we called the police department in Jackson, they told us it's okay to drive around without a license plate as long as we keep to all traffic rules, and register within ten days. And we all thought that you have to register the car, get an identification number, before you can buy insurance (otherwise how they know what you're insuring?). So we were innocently driving the car around to Mt Washburn, and on the way back we got pulled over. But Ling Han is going to contest the tickets in court because we honestly didn't know and we did actually try to find out by calling the police. And the rangers were not too nice either. Bleah.

But the car has been registered now, and insurance bought. And we have changed it's name to 吉祥如意 because apparently 小脆 is an unlucky name. We have also cleaned the car, both inside and out, and it looks so much better now! And oh, we've figured out how to turn the tail lights off and even to connect mp3 players to the stereo.

Actually, all of us find the incident rather hilarious (except maybe for Linghan). Jessica was like, "Hahahahahahahahahaha I didn't even know tickets went up to 500 dollars hahahahahahaha".

None of us regret buying the car. We have access to so many things now! We can go anywhere and stop anywhere for as long as we like. To give you an idea of things here, the next nearest patch of human civilization is about 45min drive away at Lake Hotel and Old Faithful, the nearest supermarket (a small one) is slightly over 1h drive in West Yellowstone, the nearest big supermarket with tiny Asian food sections is 2.5h drive away in Cody. So yes, we love our car!

Alot has happened in the past 2 weeks: I went camping, watched the rodeo, stayed in a motel for the first time, hiked Mt Washburn, found a Japanese restaurant in Cody, went to Beach Party Night in Old Faithful employee pub, and... Can't remember. Will show pictures soon! I work dinner shift tonight. I hope people will be nice to me.

Everyone have fun!

we have a car!

Yes we bought a car today! By Singaporean standards, the car looks like a piece of scrap metal haha. There's a crack across the windshield, countless rusted spots, semi-flat tires, falling mud flaps (is that what you call them?), flimsy bits flapping about, scarily noisy engine and funny sounds issue from various parts of the car. The coat of dust both on the inside and out doesn't do much to improve its appearance either. And the battery went flat too and we had to get someone to jump-start it for us. The car is 15 years old.

But it cost us only usd1200!

And we have since fixed the tires at the gas station on the way back. Now I know how to work the petrol pump and air pump! I can be a gas station attendant on top of cleaning tables! Yay!

The air pump and gauge were super primitive. We knew not to expect digital pressure meters out here in ulu-country and so we scrutinized the pump up and down, looking for an analogue meter face, to no avail. Then smart me suddenly realized that the guage is actually just a scale on a stick that collapses completely inside the handle until you plug it into the tire and release some catch. I am so brilliant I tell you. I bet you wouldn't have figured out how to use the thing. Okay just kidding; I am sure you are brilliant too. But there are still so many things we have yet to find out about the car; we don't know what all the buttons do yet, and of course I'm sure there'll be more idiosyncracies we will learn about in time. On the 1.5hr drive back the car felt rather sturdy though. Doesn't this sound exciting to you too? I feel like I learn so many things here, because if I meet the same problems in Singapore I'll just dial some hotline for help. Isolation and desperation drives us to be more resourceful here.

Oh and we have affectionately nicknamed our car Xiao3 Cui4 (小脆） because it looks very cui3 (meaning crumbling in hokkien). Linghan just came in to tell me they can't figure out how to turn XiaoCui's tail-lights off. Hah. Later battery flat again tomorrow...

Don't have a picture of XiaoCui yet but here's a picture of the Teton range, which was on the way between Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, the small touristy cowboy-ish town where we bought our car.

And here's a picture of Anling blowing on a dandelion.

Supposedly you have to pick a full head of dandelions, make a wish, and then blow hard on it; if all the seeds scatter within in breath, your wish will come true =)

Storm Point

After breakfast shift a few days ago I went on the 1st hike of summer '07 with 3 other people who work in the restaurant, to a place called Storm Point on Yellowstone Lake. It was an extremly short (about 1.5 miles) and easy hike, but nevertheless pretty. The shoreline looks so desolate, kind of how I imagine the Welsh landscape to be like, haha.

This rocky outcrop over the lake is Storm Point. Those are the sexy silhouettes of the other 3 girls.

The big wide world unfurled at your feet.

This is the shoreline of Yellowstone Lake as seen from Storm Point.

Of course there are no pictures of me, since I was behind my camera =) Some day I will get the rest of the pictures from the girls.

My mummy and papa sending me off at the airport =)

And Serene too! Serene you very skinny leh please eat more.

Will miss my family and friends, wish you all could be here too. Liyan's auntie asked my mummy if she wants to come visit with them, but she told me, "I'll look at the itinerary first, but very far leh... Must fly so long..." *sulk* Which is true though.. The journey here was harrowing. Will take the time to describe everything that went wrong on Greyhound, which I have decided is a despicable company.

Anyway, let me show you the food stash:

The stuff Jamie brought with her:

So how did I bring everything here? Remember I have a hot plate-mess tin-bowl set.

Pre-departure mess in my room (not everything fit into the picture):

In the end I checked in a 29kg suitcase and a 9.5kg 50L backpack, and hand-carried one deuter bag, my laptop and another smaller bag, all stuffed to bursting. Poor Linghan had to help me move the suitcase around. Sorry lah I give you porridge ok? Haha.

It's my day off today and I am bored. Qiuqun went hitchhiking this afternoon, with a lousy cardboard sign that Liyan made, to get a ride to Mammoth. But she missed her appointment there and went missing for 3 hours. Frightened us for a while there but she finally managed to get a phone call through to us to explain that she was late for her appointment because the kind folks who picked her up made detours to take in the sights. Moral of the story is: do not hitchhike if you can help it because you worry other people, especially when there is no mobile coverage. But actually I've done it before too. But my sign was of a superior quality haha.

I think I walked at least 5 miles today, what with looking for Qiuqun and Angel's walk. Alot more walking when it gets warm enough to hike. I want to qualify for the 100-mile t-shirt this season! With the physically taxing work and thin air up at 2.6km elevation, I am going to be so so fit =) Get back all the health I squandered in lab.

This is so random but I want to talk about my food stash because I am so proud of it. I brought like 25 packets of instant porridge, 2 boxes chicken rice mix, 1 box ba kut teh mix, 1 box chicken curry mix, 2 packets tom yam soup mix, 3 packets microwaveable chicken rice, 1 packet microwaveable nasi bryani, 2 packets microwaveable gomoku kama meshi, 10 servings salmon furikake, 20 servings Anpan-man dunno-what furikake, 12 servings instant matsutake mushroom osuimono, alot of powdered konbu dashi stock, 2 bags kuzugiri, 2 packets maggie vegetable and tofu instant soup, 2 packets mccormick fish and preserved vegetable instant soup, 6 packets mccormick hot and sour instant soup, 6 servings instant asari miso soup, 4 servings instant nameko miso soup, alot of instant tofu miso soup, 4 servings shijime and wakame osuimono, alot of chili spice mix, one bottle sesame oil, one box sencha and one bag instant cereal. Luxury items include 1 bag 7D dried mangoes, 1 packet kyoho grape flavoured kanten jelly, 1 bag dried mushrooms and 1 small pack 鲁蛋. You must think I am crazy but yesterday Jamie joined me with one drawerful of various instant noodles and beehoon, 1kg rice and 3 cans luncheon meat. That's not all. Liyan and Qiuqun brought more food than me. They brought 2kg of rice, sushi vinegar mix, oyster sauce and er... alot lah. More powerful than me. And their pot and hot plate are bigger than mine! I have knives but they win: they actually have a chopping board. We can do steamboat sometime. I think we rock. I'll upload pictures of our food stash sometime =P It's impressive, I swear. But it's still so not enough.

So there's no food in Yellowstone? There is an Employee Dining Room, but the food is bad. Even the Americans think it's bad so it's REALLY bad. And we're basically very removed from the rest of human civilization so we can't get any other type of food. AND we have no kitchen; just a microwave in the common lobby. You'll be surprised at the various things we have learnt to cook with a microwave.

We also have a frightening volume of toiletries. Will show you sometime too =P Oh and our books! Borders conveniently had a 35% discount on all books the week before I left so I bought like 5. I brought all of those plus 2 others and the notorious midori no hon (kanzen masuta-). Ain't I studious.

Ok enough verbal diarrhea for now. See you!

Okay! So I got to Yellowstone 3 nights ago. I thought I'll start a blog on my summer stint here, just for fun =) I'm mail-starved so if anyone has too much time to spare, please write me something! Send it to

Kheng Hui Ang
General Delivery
Grant Village
Yellowstone National Park
Wyoming 82190

I'll appreciate short postcards, cry in gratitude over long letters, and if you send me some good food from home I will love you for the rest of my life.

Today I checked my results and realized I got a crappy grade for honours project and therefore a crappy class for honours, but reality seems so far away now. Oh well.

Oh I have a crappy job here too but everyone has crappy jobs here so that's alright too =) I just hope it gets warmer soon. It's snowing every day now and we can't do much outdoor stuff when the weather's like that.

The best thing that has happened so far is seeing my lovely Angel and her lovely owner Jackie again! That's good enough to keep me happy here. Angel is the sweetest dog on earth, and she has grown a fair bit over the past 2 years. Will post pictures of her fat bum when I get any.

If you are reading this blog, you are an awesome person and I hope you are enjoying yourself too wherever you are =)