Happy Deepavali

It's the festival of lights celebrated by our Indian counterpart and there a awesome celebration for them! Great job to the committee who brought this festival to life in America!

Day 5 to 7: Historical Visit to DC

Been busy and lazy lately . Here's our trip to Washinngton DC. 

Washington DC, the capital of the United States where the most important figure of world stayed in and a city of historical monuments. 

We visited lots of monuments during our 3 days stay and had a walking tour around the National mall. We learnt so much about the National Mall, the White House, Lincoln Memorial etc. It's totally worth it! 

We started our day full of laughter. We rented a car which we don't need and it was super small! The car was a Chevy and gosh, it was the size of a Cherry QQ. We couldn't keep all the luggage in the boot and had to carry it on our thighs. Even the front seat!!

After settling down, we went to the Lincoln Memorial in the evening. The night scenery there was breathtaking! It was very beautiful! 

The rest of our tour we were visiting famous monuments like the Washington Monument, the Marine Corps Memorial, Pentagon Memorial and also the Smitsonian Museum. It was like a history tour for us. Of course we did not forget about shopping there as we visited the Tanger Outlet which was 40 minutes away and Georgetown. 

We really enjoyed very much in this tour. We laughed so hard at times and it was really fun! 

P.S. 7 to 8 weeks. Excited! God bless them with good health! 

Day 4: Cont.... 2.. Empire State Building

I'll try to complete day 4. I'm slightly awake as I had a nap till 9pm after work. 

There are two famous tall buildings in New York and we chose the Empire State Building as it is more popular. However, I thought it was a bad choice as the scenery at Rockefeller Centre is way better. 

I thought the ticket to go all the way up to the Empire State Building was a little expensive. It was twice the price of the Rockefeller Centre. 

I would highly recommend to visit Rockefeller instead of The Empire State Building. That day, the top of the building was lighted with blue lights as the New York Yankees most popular player, Derek Jeter, retires. That's all and nothing special. Besides the poor scenery, the top was packed with tourists. Nevertheless, we still managed to take some photos! 

P.S. Lebron, Kyrie, Love, Burke and Waiters, we are seeing you in Utah!

Day 4: (Continue)

Alright! It's pretty late now. Ju made some curry puffs and I'll update later. Anyway, I'll continue the New York trip. After the visit to 9/11 site, we made our way to the Brooklyn Bridge just to take some pictures! There's nothing much there unless you want to walk all the way to Brooklyn. 

Thereafter, we left downtown New York to the famous Grand Central. Our initial plan was to take a break in the hotel first before going to Grand Central. Thanks to the ever confusing MTA, we went straight to Grand Central as we mistook the express transit. 

When we reached there, we were already pretty tired. The early tour to Statue of Liberty really made us lose our sleep. The Grand Central was very crowded and Ju and I didn't really took a pic as we had a small argument. Maybe we were too tired. Despite going back to the hotel, we pressed on to the Empire State Building.

P.S. Falling asleep.... Argh.... It's just Thursday..... 

Day 4: New York

Have some catching up to do. Been really tired but I'm going to update this post. The most interesting part of the trip and seeing the real New York. 

Day 4 in New York was a fruitful one. Right in the morning, we travelled all the way to Battery Park and to Statue of Liberty tour. How can you considered you come to US without visiting the icon of freedom. 

After the visit,we headed to a Lobster shack for lunch. The place was highly rated and to our surprise, it was like a mini cafe with limited seats and it's ain't cheap! However, the lobster roll ( lobster tail meat with butter between a bread roll) was delicious! It was very fresh even though the portion was small (just about 15cm long). After a quick bite, continued our tour to the Wall Street. 

To get a chance to stand in front of the iconic charging bull without many other tourists is really hard to come by. This shot was perfectly taken by Nisha. After taking photo with the charging bull, we made our way to the place where the most significant event had happened in Sep 11, 2001.

There should have two high rise had not the terrorism attack happened on that fateful day. Innocent lives were taken and from two high rise, it became two beautiful memorial. We visited the Tribute center for 9/11 and it really hurt to see so many innocent people passed on and missing during the terrorist attack. 

Argh... My eyes can't opened anymore. Going to bed. Update more tmr! 

P.S. Ju, I love you!

Day:3 The Shopping Spree

No one would want to drive in the crazy and busy street of New York. So do we. Therefore, booked a tour to Woodsbury Common Premium Outlets which was an hour away. 

That was one of the biggest shopping outlets in US and we couldn't complete it as our bus was leaving at 6pm. That's the disadvantage of taking a tour bus for a shopping trip. Not to worried as we had covered 80% of the shops there. 

We were all happy especially Ju! We had such a wonderful time there. Love it. 

Check this out:www.bustowoodsburycommon.com

Great tour to and from Woodsbury Commons!

Birthday Wish

So far, about 80% of my birthday wish came true. Including the one I wished recently. I'm so fortunate! (Excited and Happy)

Happy Birthday to Ruiz

29, 3 simple birthday wishes:

1. Ju and our family to remain fit and healthy.

2. Ju and I to have a cute little baby

3. Smooth sailing for my current job. 

It's not too late to choose the path I want for my future. I think I have serve enough. Time to pursue things I'm interested at! 

Day 2: Cycling down Central Park

After drinking so much and having so much fun in Marquee, we woke up late on the following day. There wasn't much plan that day except to visit the famous Central Park. A park in the middle of the busy city. 

It took us almost 30 minutes to walk to the park and we were so excited when we finally got there. As the park too big for us to complete it by foot, we rented our bicycles from some illegal vendor who were renting bikes at a much lower rate. 

Cycling in the park wasn't easy as there were lots of upslopes. The scenery at the park was beautiful. There was a big lawn where people would play soccer, baseball and football and there was also a lake for people to raft and relax. Singapore would not have such luxury. 

After spending two hours burning the calories, we went to Little Italy for a fabulous dinner at Nyonya Restaurant. I'll share more the restaurant in the next blog. 

P.S. We are already on the plane from Minneapolis to Boise. 😩😩

Nyonya Restaurant

Rajesh and I visited this restaurant 2 years ago and it was Jason who found it. It serves Malaysian cuisine which was what we had been missing. Here's some reviews on the restaurant. 

1. Food 4/5

The food was really delicious and very close to the taste of what we had back in Singapore. We ordered oyster omelette, sambal kangkong and sambal stingray as the side dish. As for the main course, we had Malaysian Prawn noodles, beef kway teow, Indian me goreng and stir fry chicken. We also ordered Ice kacang (they called it "ABC"), chendol and burbur  cha cha for dessert. For the main course, I would say they got the prawn noodles totally right! The broth was delicious and the prawns were really fresh. For the side dish, I would say all of them tasted excellent. For the dessert wise, the ABC is my number one choice. There is room for improvement for the bur bur cha cha. The tapioca balls are missing. 

2. Service 2.5/5

I thought they could have done better with their service. The lady who served us was not very friendly at all. 

3. Price 3.5/5

The price is pretty reasonable. To have such as nice asian food in New York is rare. To fly all the way from Boise, it even more worth it! 

Day 1: Empire State of Mind

We are onboard the transit flight to Minneapolis. I'm somehow lack of energy. Holiday is over and time to be prepared for work. Before I get mentally prepared for work, I'll share on some lovely memories we had in the Empire State. 

This is my second time to New York and nothing changed much. We survived the taxi ride from JFK airport to New Yorker hotel. The traffic there is crazy! After checking in to the small four star hotel, we wasted no time and made our way to Maze restaurant for a wonderful dinner. 

After the dinner, we went to Times Square. We didn't spend too much time there as we already had plan to party in New York City. Two years ago, Rajesh and I did not managed to party as planned and we were left disappointed. This time, we managed to find a decent nightclub called Marquee nightclub. It wasn't too rowdy but it was pretty expensive. Despite that, we still enjoyed our night partying away in New York City!

Air Force Appreciation Day

It was a tiring day as both of us didn't had sufficient sleep. However, we really enjoyed the parade. Dressed in pirates costume and walking down the streets, waving to the people who came to say 'Thank You'. We really appreciated that! 

Love life in Idaho!