Why I love Michigan or Ann Arbor or UM or...

There are many reasons why I love Ann Arbor or University of Michigan...

The most lovable thing is the squirrel and the hamster. This hamster is my housemate who is very lazy and sleep 25 hours a day.


Second reason I love being here is because of free Bus Ride. There's magic bus aka M Bus and there's AATA aka AnnArborTransportAuthority which takes me anywhere to shop for groceries. AATA is very concerned about my groceries because I hear "PLEASE REPORT ANY UNATTENDED ARTICLES TO THE BUS DRIVER" everytime I'm on the bus.

Then the other reasons are equally equal lovable. Among the rest, the most lovable is I can get money by playing computer games, fill in the blank, or simply say what I see...in paid experiments/surveys. The university is very rich they grant many researches so that those researchers can give me money. Best ones were to play econ game get $65 and another econ game get $42.

Then I can hear the bell tower singing for 5 minutes on 12pm everyday.

And here people will bless you when you sneeze, no need to "excuse me". The more you sneeze the more blessings you get. Sneeze more!

And if you walk into class after 9:59 minutes after class started you still can walk in with pride and smile to lecturer because you are still 1 second ahead of Michigan time! You are early! not late :)

And I love Michigan football bacause it's the winningest (it's the official word) college football team but this season already lost 2 and only won 1...but that was yesterday's story because today Sep 27 we win Wisconsin Badgers and from now on I bet we'll keep on winning forever...

Oh and everybody loves organic chemistry!

There are more reasons but too many I forget 99% of them...

New York

so, after Boston we went to New York. It isn't as new as New Zealand but it's not as old as Old Trafford.

As usual, we eat and sleep in New York, other than doing other stuffs. We stayed in Brooklyn's Red Carpet Inn motel where there's free breakfast every morning and and there's a television so that we watched Ben 10 and Johnny Test every morning on cartoon Network...

First day we did nothing but went to Empire State Building and did 2 things: the look-very-exciting-but-really-lame-Skyride and the observatory.

Second day we were still in New York and we went to see Statue of Liberty!

and then we took the Hop-on-Hop-off bus tour but we never hop off but we just sit properly in the bus like schoolchildren because we saw NYPD infront of United Nations HQ...duduk diam diam or else police tangkap!

In the evening we took free Sunset Cruise and wah! very nice! It made round the Manhattan Island and Statue of liberty and the wind is so New Yorkish smell...

and we see the so say biggest clock in the world - the Colgate Clock which located in Jersey City. New Jersey is actually very near New York, just swim a bit will reach.

Then at night went for another night bus tour, since included in package...

Oh suddenly 3rd day came and we went to walk walk at Wall Street to a construction site. The construction site was World Trade Center site. And we walked to Century 21 to buy nothing. And then the biggest thing. Broadway show! It was Grease! A fantastic show.

Then on 4th day we went to Madame Tussaud to see many fake people like Micahel Jackson but I think they should make Michael Phelps very soon before Michael Jackson publish another album.

After that we went to China Town and Little Italy etc etc and then walk from the very beginning of 5th Avenue until we see a fella who loves rock so therefore there's a building called Rockefeller. And not to forget Times Square and Grand Central station.


And then the 5th day...
went to a St Patrick's Cathedral and Natural History Musuem and then to Brooklyn park to watch movie!

And the last day we went to Central Park with all our bags and luggages...

Then took a subway to Newark, NJ, walked around, ate at McD and then finally took the Greyhound back to Ann Arbor...The end

Trip to Boston

Again, I went for a trip. Basically I go for trip every holiday.

+Chicago in Winter mid-semester break

+DC & Penn in Spring break

+Cedar Point in before Summer semester

 and now  Boston+ NY + NJ in Summer break

Wah am I'm so rich to travel? 

Oh I saved a lot and did a lot paid experiments/surveys so I'm rich but after I bought a lot (including laptop and camera) and ate a lot I'm poor.

We 5 ppl which names to be kept secret traveled in a group and then there were other people in other group but only met for broadway show (in NY) which was really nice which made me want to watch more.

First we went to Boston by the Greyhound bus which failed to impress us with their service. We traveled almost 24 hours by bus because we want to save money and reduce pollution by not hijacking the plane.

We did something in Boston which was travelling.

We stayed in Holiday Inn.

We ate foods including the most expensive food I ever eaten which was the $30 lobster because I ws cheated by somebody in the group into the restaurant.

We walked here and there and saw somebody and something. We went to Fanneuil Marketplace, and etc. 

Most importantly, Harvard's president awarded me a brochure for being a smart guy and I told her Harvard is Michigan in the East.  

and this is Boston viewed across the river from MIT

Overall Boston was nice but it made me love Michigan more.

The most dissapointed event was unable to go to Prudential's Skywalk because some guy having "private function" up there...

Then the end of Boston trip. 

Let's take a commercial break and the New York and New Jersey part will be right back!

Merdeka

Not intended to write about merdeka but read about it at blog so now I'm writing and you are reading

merdeka = independence = refer to Malaysia's Independence Day 0n Aug 31

8.31
it has been 831 days since I left Msia. oh no no, it's 8 months and 31 days.

what's so special about it? to some people it just a public holiday or wake up in the morning to watch TV or it's just August 31 but when you are study abroad there's sense of patriotism. Not that I wasn't a patriot but as Michelle Obama said, for the first time I really proud of my country, for me, for the first time I really appreciate Hari Merdeka.

and no fireworks display no parade on TV, the only thing is this T shirt
A 50th Hari Merdeka shirt I bought.
The shirt that I wore on Aug 31 2007 & Aug 31 2008 and sometimes Aug 21 and sometimes July 31
and the photo was taken after I took the shirt out from laundry bag...