Seattle and Vancouver Trip Day 1

Okay, this is my first time using FLOCK. Plus! I managed to bulk upload my photos finally! It's just so easy I cannot believe I used to attach my photos one by one. But boo.. I haven't quite figured out the blogging yet. I chose my photos to be at 800 for the longest side, and each photo came out with one at 400, and another too big at 1000 I believe. So yeah.. I'm too tired to do this again. And I duno why sometimes the photos which I want 2 in a row, turn out as 1 in a row! so ugly! Think it's cos my laptop screen is wider than the average, so it gives more allowance. So let's hope the post on Day2 will be better, when I continue. And yes.. weijie, I will update the photobucket stamps soon, when I hate the time. And yah.. Xin en knows Im a sad case, cannot comment on my own tag board. =( I will also sign up for another one soon. One that I can actually post msgs on!! =( =(

Day 1 started off with me waking up in the wee hours of the morning. Minh and I met Rian outside the boy's apartment because it was nearer to the admin building and easier to find. I parked my car outside their garage, and let the keys in their house. It was so coincidental that I was going to be taking the same flight as Rian to Seattle. Though I've taken the plane many many times before, I've still never taken one without someone that I know on the same flight. Despite my self-assured confidence wahhaa (oxymoron?), maybe someone out there still doesn't trust blur me to be out roughing it on my own, getting lost en route to some place.

I arrived at seattle 9.15, a good 40 minutes before my scheduled landing. Drats.. Meaning more time before Xin en arrives. I wanted to shop around in the shops, but Rian seemed very anxious to get our bags, sentiments which I didn't quite share. But still I followed suite, my eyes lingering on the rows of shopping, with me well-knowing that I had a lot of spare time! But in the end, I'm glad we did get our bags asap, because I didn't realise that the luggage belts were outside of the customs, and anyone who walked into the airport, could just grab any bag from the belt and be off!After Rian left with her bro, I grabbed a bunch of brochures to occupy my time and to find out just what there was to do in seattle.

Dum de dum... Im hungry... wanted to eat my yoghurt bar, but decided not to, cos we need to find a place to sit and burn time and most probaly need to buy some food/drink.I sit at Xin'en's belt for an hour. Please come now!!Finally, people start streaming to the belt and still I dont see the gal... the possibility that we will have problems meeting up and she is waiting for me somewhere else does hit my mind, but its not long enough for panick yet. Finally, I see her walking towards me. Yey!! Reunion.. We are ready to hit seattle... Once we meet up with the rest of the group. We had some coffee at seattle's best coffee. On the plane, after I ordered a cranberry juice and rian ask for coffee, she informed me that seattle was well-known for coffee and I had to have coffee while in seattle. So yeah.. I'm a sucker when people tell me these things. It's like me going to eat blood pudding in ssweden at some resturant cos I heard it's traditional swedish food, and it ends up that my Swedish friends dont even eat it all that often and that is damn cheap in the super market. Okay, but actually, its not the same, cos I usually drink coffee too. Just that I bought none in the 5 weeks in texas, and specifically went for the coffee in seattle.

At about 12, we met up with the rest of the BIG Gang, which consisted of Weijie, Elvin, Gabriel, Jeremiah and at last Mark. Picked up our mini van at Enterprise and Elvin was the first driver with weijie navigating. Oooh.. I felt a good feeling about the trip already. There's a driver! and a navigator! Finally, I dont need to drive and navigate. I can sit back and relax. We had some lunch at jack in the box near the rental office, and then proceeded to go downtown to tour the area. First stop was the Space Needle, which is the icon of Seattle. One can take the lift to the top of the Space Needle and look out to Seattle City. But yeah.. I'm not too enthusiatic about paying money just to go up some builidng. Unless its the Eiffel, then u feel like u kind of have to go up. We were satisfied taking photos outside the building and browsing through its gift shop. I got one of my first warning of weijie's tricks, when he tried to con Elvin that we got to go up the Space Needle for free.

Right.....Things went a little downhill after the Space Needle, because we couldn't find anything to do. Pike's Market was closed and just about every other museum and place of attraction was closed of thanksgiving. Parks featured in brochures didn't quite turn out as we expected either. Even Chinatown, which we expected to be open was like a ghost town. We decided to drive to Vancouver to see what we could find, since Canada celebrated thanksgiving in October.However, we took rather long to get to Vancouver. We tried to stop for food a number of times but everything wnas closed. After much searching, we ended up having wendys for dinner, before continuing on to our hotel in whistler. When we got to our hotel, there was lots of snow and we got excited. As 4 of them went into checkin, Xin'en, Miah and I lingered on outside snapping away out in the snow and cold!

Eh.. as we had undeclared occupants, we had to acess the hotel through the carparks exit door. hehe.. so underground...As Xin en and I settled into one of the rooms, we found the boys outside our window.??? on the 2nd floor??Our windows were right ontop of the roof of the hotels drive way. So yeah.. the boys were walking outside on the roof. Xin en and I decided to pay their room a visit, where we witnessed the boys competing to see who could stand barefeet outside in the snow for the longest time. haha.. We decided to climb out too for the sake of photos.

After that, we went back to wash up. After my shower, I met Neisha and Philips from the small group. Then we went to bed, cos we needed to wake up early to hit Whistler/Blackcomb slopes!