Thursday, December 25, 2008

Inspiration for the day

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” - the Dalai Lama

Reminded by Zen Habits' post, The Six Greatest Gifts You Can Give Your Loved Ones (Plus Audio Tips on Achieving Goals).

Friday, December 19, 2008

Hunny Holiday 1st Stop: Orlando! [Part 1]

First off - I think "honeymoon" screams CHEESY!, so we decided to call our trip "hunny holiday". =)

The journey that gets us to Orlando was pretty lengthy. The first flag of 14 hours flight brought us to Los Angeles Airport where we have to get our luggage and move them to the domestic airport to get them into the plane that we'll be boarding. We had to change the luggage tags cause the flight listed on the luggage tag is different to the one we'll be taking. Once we got those sorted - we dash to the domestic airport, got our boarding passes and quickly grab breakfast. Some egg-y breakfast burrito. Quite interesting, except that I find the tipping custom rather annoying. Ick! I like knowing exactly how much I will need to pay when I'm ordering. Oh well! It's only for a month and a bit. :P

When we got back to the boarding gate; we discovered that the flight has been delayed - there was some machine issue or something. Hmm.. not very good - considering the third flag of our flight is only an hour from our arrival time to Dallas (the next destination). Checked with the lady and she told us not to worry - there's always the next flight from Dallas to Orlando that we can take. Cool. So, we waited for a little bit. Half an hour later, found out that we'll get to board a different flight to our original flight - but we'll definitely be able to catch the next flight to Orlando (which is departing Dallas about 40mins from our estimated time in Dallas). Fast forward a little and we got on the flight - I slept the whole flight ~3 hours (not sure what Shanon was doing) - arrive in Dallas / Fort Worth and rush to catch the Orlando flight.

We boarded the Orlando flight successfully but were a little worried bout our luggages. Nothing we can do about it though. Hunger strikes! Luckily - Shanon got this chicken wrap thing from the stewardess of the previous flight for helping this other lady with luggage or something (while I was snoring like a pig :P). Yummm! Another nap after that for the rest of the flight. Finally got to Orlando within about two and a half hour. Bleh! We're both sick of flying by then.

I got super excited about finally getting there - only for Shanon to warn me not to get excited yet cause we might not get our luggage. ... So, we quickly get to the luggage pickup area, waited a little bit, and Shanon's luggage appears! Awesome! Yay! Hmmm - Waited some more... Hmmm - Hang on a sec. They've stopped the luggage train thing. What does that mean? Where is mine???

@#$!@$#$! D*mmit! Ick! Ick! Triple Ick!

The guy told us to go to the office to check. No luggage. They don't know where it is. Fill in forms & a little blah blah blah. Off we go. They'll send the luggage to the hotel when it gets to Orlando. Well there goes my beauty sleep - it'd be tricky to sleep cause I'll be worrying about whether or not we'll get the luggage as we're only in Orlando for 2 nights! Again - Nothing we can do though...

Exited the airport. Despite having done the research bout how best to get to the hotel - we were too tired and hence easily conned into getting this fancy taxi ride which ended up costing us $50 (~20 mins distance).

First impression of Orlando? Hmm.. Very quiet.

Got to the hotel. Super hungry. What should we do? Not to worry - there's supposed to be quite a few restaurants around the area. I purposely picked a hotel which is located in the International Drive (which is supposedly the "happening" place). Nope - most of them were closed (or closing). I guess it was late (nearly 11pm). Found this pizza place brochure in the hotel room. Called and asked for delivery. I got clean up (as much as I can without my luggage) and the food arrived. Not cheap considering they're bleh pizza n pasta. Still have to tip! Ick! Gemes!

We watched a little bit of tv n then bed time (again?) - yup - strangely we still managed to sleep after all those broken sleep on the plane. We needed to sleep though - for our big day tomorrow at Kennedy Space Center!

zZzZZzzzzzZZZ

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Tempura & Dumpling House - Boxhill

Just before I left for my "honey holiday" to NYC; Elly, my motherly gal pal, finally took me to this La Mien (translate: Pulled Noodle) place that she's been raving about since she arrived in Melbourne about 2 years ago, Tempura & Dumpling House.

If I had known that it is located in the Centro building in Boxhill (i.e. where the Boxhill train station is!); I would have gone there a longggggg time ago!!!

It was super yummy! The spring onion pancake. The dumpling. The spicy beef brisket noodle. Slurrrppp... Plus, very reasonably priced too! Can't wait to go back.

In the mean time, I'm wandering the streets of New York, experiencing different kind of food each day... Living in heaven (well - temporarily - until I found a weight scale somewhere!) :P

Cheerio!