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.