one word: whoops!
with all the travellin i've been doing over the past fortnight, i've kinda let my blogging slip! once again - whoops! and sorry! =p
buttttt, seeing as i'm flying off for singapore (leaving vancouver) tomorrow morning... this has to be a rather short post anyhow!
so just to keep you all up to speed on my travellin adventures (yes i know i really should change my blog template now that i'm technically not trapising in toronto anymore... lol!) but anyhow, forgive that transgression and let me go on to detail my travels for the past 2 weeks!
december 28-jan 2: NEW YORK BABY!yes yes. rach and i hit up the big apple again. we ended up crashing at this "b&b", which in actual fact turned out to be less a bed AND breakfast, but more a room in a 70 year old woman's upper east side apartment. HAH. continental breakfast provided my ass. lol. one morning - it was one cold muffin, the next it was a cold plain croissant. i have no problems with either breakfast choice - so long as there's no deception involved! here i was expecting toast, OJ, and give or take bacon and eggs! lol. but oh well.. she's 70 huh. what can you say. =p
but all in all, the trip was pretty awesome. having been to NYC back in august when it was still hot and sticky, it was such a different feel to go back in late december/early jan when winter was starting to kick in. it was pretty cold hey! and when the wind started to blow? OMG. it was horrible. it took me two days to realize that i really needed to wear my north face windcheater in order to stay warm and toasty =p.
we also met up with a friend from back home - that was good. and we discovered 34th street a lot better than i would've liked. =p i'm totally sick of the herald square area now.. hahah. BUT soho was absolutely awesome. i'm so glad that i got to go back! and rach had a blast too.. hahah.
now new years was a funny story. since we were in soho that arvo, and we bought lots of stuff - we had to go home first to drop all our stuff off since they don't let you bring big bags into times square (yes... it really was our intention to go watch the ball drop at midnight). haha. so anyhow, by 5pm we were on the subway headed to times square to fight our way through the crowds. but to our dismay, there were SO many roadblocks! the police officers (who were really more of direction-givers that night), kept telling us we had to walk another couple of blocks over in order to get to get in... all in all we walked roughly 40 blocks (we started on the east side at 44th and 5th, walked down to 32nd, and then across to 8th ave... and up to 52nd. horrible huh). and in the midst of doing so, we were amongst about 1 million residue ppl... time square rejects really. hahah. so by the time we even got close to the times square area, they told us it was useless - coz times square had been closed off at 3pm! how stupid. lollll. so anyhow... we ended up watching the fireworks over central park from columbus circle... and it was pretty good too!
here are some snaps from the 5 days in nyc:

oh.my.goodness. i swear i got butch from carrying this bag all over! it was actually 26kg - plus another 10 from my smaller duffel! and getting it up on that rack on the train was absolute torture! all i can say is that i thank God for the kindess of strangers - particularly muscly guys.. haha. =p

we were SO lucky to have a sunny day... perfect for our east and hudson river happy snaps! =D

hahah. what can i say...

yes yes. it was like 3 degrees outside (i'm not kidding) and he was still naked... well.. sort of anyway. and some guy wanted to charge us 2 bucks to take his photo... i think he thought we didn't speak english. LOL.

so new york. starbucks and all.

new years eve - you can sorta see the fireworks in the background. =p such skill.
jan 3-11: vancouver/seattle/san franso after new york, we amtrakked it to buffalo, and then greyhounded it to toronto, and then caught a 6:30am flight out of toronto to vancouver. here, we've been spending time with our aunty and uncle! after a few days here we planned a trip down to the states - and we found a cheap flight going to san fran, so we decided to go! i'm so glad we did. it was GREAT! we roadtripped down to seattle on the 5th (saturday) and then spent the whole day there, we then stayed the night at an airport inn and then hopped on the morning flight to san fran!
it was great coz i got to meet up with sarah there too. =p and omg. people in san fran are sooooo much more stylo than in canada.. hahah. i mean, it's not that big of a suprize - but really... wearing my ryerson hoodie, i felt SO out of place. hahah. =p and the hills? omg. they really aren't kidding! you can stand at the bottom of the hill and just feel so unmotivated to move. hahahahah. =p
the 4 days in san fran were pretty much just spent sightseeing and shopping. =p i LOVE the states. hahah. low sales tax plus low retail prices = you can't beat it! hahah. i'm soooo definately coming back. i don't know if i could live here, but i'd definately love to holiday here again.
okay so i'm just gonna let the pics tell the story. =p

me and rach at seattle pike place public markets - how much more iconically seattle can you get?? lol.

san fran - we met sarah! this was outside our hotel on sutter.

the crazy hills... believe me. it's a million times worse in real life.. hahah. =p

hahaha. i love macys. =p

the infamous cable car! can you believe - it's $5 bucks one way!!! that's CRAZY. it doesn't even go that far... hahahahah. and it's REALLY noisy - even more noisy than the nyc subway, lol and i didn't even know that was possible! haha.

me standing on the cable car - it's pretty scary hey!

yes yes.. it's alcatraz!!

from the short cruise over to the island - sarah and me with the san fran skyline.

alcatraz "the rock" penitentiary island

the audio tour that took us around the actual prison - a great idea... but the tour was kinda freaky. and like i said at the beginning, i just don't do prisons.

lolllll. so there was an initial tour guide who told us "fun facts" as we were walking up the 4 hills to the top. whilst he knew heaps of gd stuff - he just didn't know when to stop. lol. we were standing there for AT LEAST half an hour.. and it was cold too.

the painted ladies victorians @ alamo square - full house!~ and whilst i mention that... did you know that it's still showing over here in canada? LOL.

japantown! hahaha. so cute.

cup. of. fat. i seriously have not drank anything which was so toxically fatty. *shudder*

hahahha. and i just HAD to snap this when i saw it on a street lamp post in chinatown in san fran. =p just for luke. hahaha.
so! that pretty much sums up my two weeks! hahahaha. so much for a SHORT post ay?
anyhow! i now really really really gotta get back to packing.. hahah. =p got a tonne of stuff to stuff into my bag. hahahah. wish me luck!
let the adventures continue i guess. =p
jyaa,
-pheebs.