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-Is an English Language major undergraduate who likes to Take It Easy.

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I've got a secret

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Hi dad,
we just hiked yesterday. From 8am to about 9.45pm. After the hike, mum kept thinking about not going to the Kota Kinabalu hiking trip anymore. However, I do not agree with that at all. She may reconsider it again. Her experience was such that for the way down, she was so happy go lucky. On the way up, her mood was very lousy. She even said there was this insect or creature making some noise and following behind her for half an hour. She didn't tell me about it, only this morning. I thought we could make it back up before dark, but I didn't expect her to be very unfit and not used to the air. She was immensely breathless and 'chuan' near the end especially. We were hiking at like, a tutle's pace. She says that she kept wishing you were behind her and pushing her back up. Anyway, luckily nothing happened to us, and that I had prepared a torchlight, raincoat and umbrella which we used all. And I had 2 times experience hiking up that trail so it was no problem for me (I was literally strolling back up), although mum had nightmares and worries about our hike up in the pitch dark in the middle of the canyon. her only thought was to keep following me, like an army leader leading her comrade. haha.

Anyway, we are already planning to leave the canyon on sunday evening, to catch the shuttle bus. We don't dare to book anything online now at all or give our credit card details over the phone after my horrible experience, so we can only do walk-ins for a lot of things, like for the shuttle bus and such.

So anyway, we only ate like, cup noodles and milk and cereal since this morning and are really hungry now. Mum spent the half the day sleeping and she said she seems to have lost 2 kg already, she estimates. -_-0. Now mum realizes after hiking how much she loves you (from her suffering), and not YY and YH. Because she now appreciates how much comfort, pampering and love she receives from you daily. haha. And i'm the 2nd because I 'saved' her out of the canyon last night. Now we're going to eat and draw maybe $800 (cuz i have 2 cards and can draw max. $300 and $500 from each) from my bank account. We are really hungry now but we're still taking the time to write to you because mum thinks it's important to let you guy's know about our whereabouts and such.

God bless and love you all,
mum and daughter.




So today, we basically followed the schedule I mentioned to you in the previous email. We checked out of our hostel early in the morning to take the shuttle bus to the grand canyon at 8am. Mum now has like, 3 (korean) books more to add to her luggage load, which she got from the bookshelves of the hostel. She's reading one right now in front of me as I'm typing out this email. So anyway, mum got a 'discount' for the shuttle bus fare as I told the driver that families of employees didn't need to pay the park entrance fee of $6. this is only the start of the numerous benefits mum experienced today of being related to me and me being around her. hurhur. While at the entrance toll booth into the canyon, I overheard the driver ask the lady behind if she was going to be around when obama arrived. I picked up on this info and immediately asked him if obama WAS indeed coming to the park anytime soon because my friend had just commented to me that my last day of work was obama day and I hadn't understood what she meant at that time. Indeed, obama is arriving on 16th august, sunday, after visiting Yellowstone National Park. I wonder if we'll be able to see him upclose. But still, it's kind of exciting just to hear the news.





Yuen How, mummy bought you a shirt at Walmart today, it's long-sleeved. But the design looks a little....weird. But it can probably look very nice on you, there's a chance.

So anyway, you know mummy can wake up so early, that buffalo? ;) We set the hotel's wake-up call at 6am and she woke up before that, and made a lot of noise and was like very busy around the room. Asking me to on my laptop, check the email or something, and call you. When she asked me to speak to you on the phone, I can't even remember doing that today. We got ready and left a $2 tip for the housekeeper. Do you know they made our beds the first night even though we didn't put the door sign 'Please change the linens' at our doorknob? I also left them some mini chocolate bars. Then we took the hotel shuttle but when we asked the driver if he could take us to the greyhound station (as the front desk had assured as it was possible), he said he couldn't as he was going to be busy in the next trip to pick up airport passengers, that he has a schedule to follow. Then he suggested we take a cab. But as it seemed we were already delaying the line (the bus was almost full), we just decided to go to the airport first which is the original route. When we reached the terminal, the driver told us we could take a city bus further down the curb. We waited less than half an hour and had to pay $1.75 each for one ticket at a time. However, I had prepared $3.50 exact for the both of us. So the driver just printed the tickets for us from the machine, even though it wouldn't give back any change when i put in like, $2 to buy the first ticket and $1.50 for the second. So we arrived at the greyhound in less than 5 minutes. And mum observed that people were leaving their baggage in front of the gate in a line even though it was more than one hour early. Anyway, I took pictures of the interior of the station, and you know even the clock has the greyhound logo?? And if you don't know, a greyhound is a type of dog which look tall and skinny because of its long legs. It's quite a strange dog if you see it face to face. I've seen it upclose a couple of times while I'm here in the US. So anyway, when we got on the bus, the interior's length was really loong. it felt almost like we were taking a plane. And the seats had the logo all over it. The driver made a really long speech before we set off, among a couple of amusing things he said was 'please do not use the speaker function of your handphone as we all want your private conversations to be private' and...well, he said another amusing thing but i can't remember it right now, probably cuz of the $2.49 bottle of wine we just finished and with mum harassing me restlessly with her comments and antics while i'm typing this. and it's almost 11pm here. gonna go to bed after this. she just called me 'banjira komang' (whatever that means) and cracked up to herself. and she asked me to pick up our 3 small bags of trail mix in one hand just now to confirm that it was 1 kg. we found out after reading the label that it's 179g for one and 142g for the other two, so about 500g. not 1kg. lol. anyway, we bought them at Walmart, after hanging out for a while at yet another garden today. This time, a place promoted as a 'mountain garden', which i think only because you can see the San Francisco peaks (mountains) in the background. The garden is officially called an: arboretum. darn, mum won't stop talking to me. and she just asked why i'm not laughing with her. -_- anyway, after browsing 2 'gardens' in 2 days, we concluded the Americans like to keep it natural, unlike the Asians who really like to beautify the gardens and such. We thought we could see lots of wildflowers as promoted in the brochure pictures, but it was disappointing. By the way, just 5 miles to the arboretum costs about $15 each way for the cab fare. We really wanted to go to many other places, but all is only accessible by car! sigh....like, we could see a dead volcano, take a ski lift to a mountain, or view some indian ruins, but all these cost a bomb if you take a cab out there :((

After shopping at Walmart's, we took the city bus back cuz mum is having her period and felt dizzy, achy everywhere and lethargic. :( I wanted to go to a nearby astronomy place today also as there was a meteor shower viewing but she just wanted to chill out in the hostel room (by the way, we were picked up at the greyhound station by a 1963 baby pink mustang! it was super cool! it belongs to the hostel.). we had a long talk over family matters over the wine, and beef jerky again (she bought 3 packets, kiasu right?). and when she tried on this new denim shorts she bought for $3, she was so happy she could wear medium size and said she lost some weight over the past couple of days. she said you'll be pleasantly surprised to see her looking all sexy back in singapore. haha. She ate chicken salad again for our late lunch today. haha. i'm glad she enjoys the salads here. they're tasty, fillling, and fresh. she told me actually she doesn't really like meat, that she's more a veg-lover (and that's why her favourite dish is bibimbap), because i was telling her about my other roommate who self-chose to be a vegetarian from young without any religious or family pressure.

so yeah, we're taking an early morning shuttle out to the canyon tomorrow and the first thing we'll do is go to the bank to see if i can confirm my clains for my bank account fraud. i have to claim back at least $200 cuz i see in my statement online that that transaction has already been confirmed while the others are still in the 'pending' stage. sucks. then we'll try our luck with an airplane ride and catch the IMAX movie about the canyon, and then we'll walk along the rim at around sunset i guess. busy day tomorrow i guess, so I gotta go to bed like now, as my email is ending here :)

are you feeling better now? mummy was saying take care of your sons and encourage YY to go to NTU so that he can apply for such programs as this and YOU can join him then in future. haha!

god bless and good night!

PS: it was such a riot seeing mum being all wide-eyed seeing all these native american locals in flagstaff today. they were like, everywhere. she finally understood what the big deal was at the Heard museum.




As much as we can, if we're not immensely tired and when we have internet connection, we'll try to update you on our daily activities I guess.

let us tell you how today went. we were planning to go to the river and do the activity of 'tubing' (saltrivertubing.com), which is going slowly down the river on a float. but we could only go there by taking a cab. so we took the train right to the end of the line, which is the nearest to go to the river, we estimated. and then we called the cab from there. they told us they'd arrive in about 20 minutes but in the end, it was like 40 minutes. we nearly wanted to leave when the taxi wasn't arriving in the last minute but it did. and it seems he tried to cheat us by tampering with the meter. that's what mum suspected as she saw him holding and pressing something and she said the meter figures jumped. i thought it was really strange too as the meter was running super fast like you wouldn't believe it. as fast as those machines at the arcade or like, jackpot machine or something. anyway, the rate was $3/mile (there was a poster of the rates posted on the dashboard) but it seemed more than that. and we were in a suspicious mood as the hotel receptionist told us it was $2/mile. When we were in the cab and saw the meter price skyrocketing, we asked the driver to give us an estimate of how much it will be to go to the river and he said about $60plus and above (and he didn't seem sure of the direction even after he called the place, and many people had already told us it was out of the way), so we decided to go to the city area instead, to the Heard museum (largest display of native american arts and culture). It took like, about 20 minutes to travel to the museum. All the time in the cab we were wondering if he was taking the longer route on the highway, and voicing our trepedition in chinese (mummy can speak chinese in times of need you know). and then the last 5 minutes, around the time when we saw the meter go past the $40 mark(and we were voicing out in chinese about the crazy price), mum asked the driver how long more till we were there. The driver said '3 minutes' and then he suddenly turned out of the highway. And then after 3 minutes, mum said she wanted to just stop at a nearby shopping mall even though the driver told us we'll be there in a minute. And then I argued a bit with mum and said let's just continue ahead to the museum and she just shouted 'NO!' It was super loud in the cab. Mum was really thirsty at that time becase we had waited around very long for the cab and she is a water buffalo i tell you. And the city is very very hot. So anyway, after she shouted, there was like, a minute of silence in the cab. Then i said, "let's just go to the museum, we're here already." so we got to the museum and the meter was $51. then the cab driver told us he could just pay $40 as he would go by the $2/mile rate which we asked him about while on the way. So anyway, we went in the museum and immediately looked around to buy drinks. The only place was a cafe (which looked like a restaurant) which only opened at 11am, and it was 10.30am. Mum kept saying she didn't want to eat at a restaurant and pay tips so we walked out of the museum. and then it seemed no shops were outside, it was like we were in a private neighbourhood. then she started walking away from me very fast while i was looking at the map in the guidebook and i just followed behind after her and kept quiet, knowing she was angry and ready to quarrel with me any moment. we walked for about 5 minutes plus and then asked a local where was the nearest shopping mall or supermarket or something. They said it was about 3 blocks away, and took some time to get there. then i told mum why don't we go back to the museum's cafe since it was about the same distance, and i really wanted to visit the museum and since we got all the way here from that $40 taxi fare. and she finally agreed. so we walked all the way back and it so happened it was exactly 11am, so we were the first customers at the cafe. We had chicken salad for lunch and then went in the museum. We spent about 2 hours there. then we wanted to go downtown and the shopping center area and whenever we walked outside, it was SUPER HOT. It's impossible to walk comfortably for about 10 minutes. We took the metro train (like MRT) to downtown and found our way to the Arizona center shopping area under the hot sun. Whenever we're outside walking around and not indoors in Phoenix, the weather is really torturous. I think even Singapore's weather is more bearable than this. the AZ centre was disappointing. too little shops and run-down. So after browsing around for a while, we crossed the road to check out this old church which i read in the guidebook. took pictures inside, quite beautiful. and then walked back to the metro because we were feeling too darn hot to do anything. My original plan for our itinerary was to walk around the city and check out some buildings, but it's really impossible. the weather is SUPER HOT and mum is really a water buffalo, she is thristy every 10 minutes. seriously, no joke. and she was carrying one of my bags which had food and shoes inside so i felt really bad, she really seemed to be suffering. She said she wanted to just go back to the hotel and relax so I said ok lor. before we went back, we stopped at subway to buy drinks because there were seriously no supermarkets around at all. if we wanted to find one, we had to walk there for some distance (a local told us). It seemed not only is Phoenix superhot, it's unfriendly as everywhere a person has to walk. What's more is that throughout the day when we asked anyone for directions, they were not locals. And the city is really quiet, it seemed like it's a public holiday or something (but we found out because the locals are hiding out from the heat while we 2 clowns are walking around in the afternoon) , but it's not. the city doesn't impress us both at all. so we took the train back. back at the hotel room, i called around trying to book transport and accommodation for flagstaff tomorrow. i was finally able to book a private room at a hostel in flagstaff. it was the last room. it's so funny, i shall tell you more next time. I nearly booked at a motel but the line suddenly got cut off so i tried the hostel again (i had tried 2 times before but no one answered), and got the room. then i told mum that actually i wanted to visit the botanical gardens here at phoenix then she agreed to go. we asked the front deak for directions and a hotel driver standing there said he could take us there for 'free' but that we could tip him as well. It took about 10 mins plus for the journey there and we paid him $10. We hung out at the gardens for close to an hour and managed to catch the sunset :) then we walked out just as it was getting dark and walked along the highway to find the 'city', where it was busy and where there were shops. the first alive place we came across (after passing all these car shops) was a petrol shop. we bought drinks and ice-cream there and asked for directions to the metro again from a couple of locals. the locals said it was quite far, 5 miles. and then while talking to one of the locals, he said he could give us a ride to our hotel as it was on his way, to the airport. i was against it and tell mum let's go now and walk to the metro. then the local told us he was a taxi driver and was refueling his car which we saw was true. then we asked how much he charged. then he said $10. mum asked how about $5. he agreed (he wanted to give us a free ride at first, remember?) so it wasn't strange. he sent us back to our hotel. he was from africa and has been here for 4 years. he told us he is working hard to support his 5 siblings who are all college graduates. he was a really nice and sincere guy. we got safely to our airport and settled in, having the korean cup noodles again for dinner (even though we weren't hungry) and talking about our strang day in Phoenix. haha. you could say we learned a lot of things from today. just one day and you learn a lot. (we also learned there are generally certain types of people who take the train, single tattooed men, old men, homeless people, and who are in the streets wandering in the daytime as well, so we must always keep and eye out and be wary of them)

is this update good enough for you? and you didn't go to work today? feeling unwell? mum says don't fall sick, you can only fall sick when she's there then she'll fall sick with you and you both can go for vacation together.

Reply back your comments. thanks.

PS: I'm just on google maps now and found out the biggest joke of the day is that the distance from the Mesa train station (where we first got off today) to the river is just 0.4 miles different that from the station to the Heard museum. wtf.

take care,
Mum (sleeping now cuz my email is too long) and yuen hee.