A quick update

Hello there everybody, greetings from the US---sorry I have not been able to have the chance and/or mood to type anything new here, but rest assured, I still do remember this place and here I am back on action!

I don’t have any pictures for the blog today---not that I didn’t take any, I took a number of photos (as I always do!)---but I don’t have them handy now, they’re at home, so be prepared, this is just gonna be words and hopefully not so boring, :)

I’m doing fine over here, although some little issues cropped up, we will get them fixed eventually---they have to be.

I’ve started work, settling in a new environment, and driving out our new car. I share a house with another 5 colleagues/friends, and I think you are guessing, is the car shared too? And yes! Haha…We bought a used-car @ USD5000+, so if you calculate, we pay about USD850/pax, and so we got our car! Isn’t that cool?

In US, unless you’re in NYC or Boston or so, you can’t actually live without a car. There’s practically no public transport in the place where I live---hardly see a taxi around, some rare bus stop standing lonely along the rare roads, no MRTs (only NYC and Boston and some other big big cities have MRT—which is their subway), and the most common ‘public’ transport I see here is the school bus…so, ya, we have to drive.

So you may wanna ask, does Venus drive? Oh yes, I drive, and I’m surprisingly one of the better drivers among our group. It’s a little weird at first to drive from the other side of the road---but I merely took a few days to adapt, it’s not so hard really. The driver seat is at the left hand side of the car, so you have to change your gear with your right hand, and put on signal lights with your left hand. On day one I always missed the signal lights coz I was using my right hand and realized there’s nothing over there, haha. But thereafter I’m fine. And then when you drive, you drive on the right lane of the road. So it’s like totally different from the British-colonized countries, as in M’sia and Singapore…but it so far is kinda fun.

We’ve had our very first road trip already, and it’s cool~ We’ll be driving some more in the coming weeks as we’re expecting a long weekend around the corner, so we’ll probably be driving somewhere far…:)

I think…I will be writing separately, probably in Chinese, a more detailed description of buying/renting/driving a car in US…I now have all of these three experiences to share, haha!

Move on to the next topic, weather maybe? It’s getting colder, but still not so cold yet, around 10-18C I would say…In US they use Fahrenheit to measure temperature, that’s one of the things I haven’t really been adapting to yet, you know, to convert from Fahrenheit to Celcius there’s this not-so-straightforward formula…:S

Ya, they measure everything in the non-metric system. Lengths in inch (not cm), speed in miles per hour (not kilometers per hour), weight in pounds/ounce (not kg/g---get a little troubled when you have to buy food from supermarket), temperature in Fahrenheit and so on…they’re just odd, aren’t they…everybody else is using the standard system, why aren’t they?...hmmm

Almost a month here now, we’ve been to several places for sightseeing---I really have many photos to share, give me some time to sort them out, the scenery are just fantastic!

Well, before it gets too long, I’d better wrap up…

Oh ya, to sadhu (I reply here coz I’m a bit lazy to reply your comment one by one):

1) I didn’t take the photos of the hotel food in the hotel room, that’s the restaurant table---they don’t look like they are?
2) For the insurance, you can just go to http://income.com.sg/insurance/travel/ It’s the travel insurance by NTUC income, very easy to buy, you can do it online, just a few clicks away…
3) What else…oh ya and thanks for your compliments on my photo skills…I know you take way much better photos than I do…:)
4) oh last but not least, I DO care about my weight, but when you first started in a new environment, you just wanna get yourself full, not hungry that's it, and you don't have much choices when you're new. As I'm here about a month now, I am already starting to go back to my old track---watch diet, eat moderately, and I wanna gym! Haha...

OK folks, stay tuned and I’ll be back, ;)




Venus

今天我吃什么

早餐：
左边黄色的是鸡蛋，中间的是煎肉饼（咸咸的），右边是马铃薯粒，上面是一片葡萄面包。再来一杯non-fat skim milk，还拿了杯yoghurt，不过不是早餐吃的，要拿回房间放着晚上吃，呵呵。


晚餐：
一碗典型的蔬菜沙拉（没有在照片里面），再加三个很美味的cookies，还有一堆brocolli-chicken in alfredo，以及两杯白开水，呵呵。




Venus

食在美国

Hotel Food~

来了美国这段时间，吃的最多的东西是马铃薯和鸡蛋。因为暂时还住在酒店的关系，每天早上的早餐都在酒店免费解决。于是乎，每天早上都会看到不同款式的鸡蛋（scrambled egg, egg patties, fried eggs...etc etc）, 还有不同款式的马铃薯（potato wedges, potato salad, potato etc etc），再来就是各种不同的面包。。。

晚餐也能在酒店解决，但每天晚上都是很‘稀奇古怪’的menu，绝对不是我们在新马会吃的晚餐，举例如下：

盘子里巧克力色的东西是beef gravy，旁边是两个blank buns，另外还有自己配搭的蔬菜salad，配上一包salad dressing：


同样有salad和dressing，加上旁边的meat gravy，tuna，清煮红萝卜，还有味道很好的cookies：


Normal American Food~

来到的第二天早上去downtown走走，随便进了一间美式餐厅，点了一个sandwich，长这个样子：（美国人很喜欢把薯片当作正餐的配料。。。）


另外一个午餐公司请我们在downtown吃，又点了另外一个sandwich，名字很眩目，叫做Beef Bomb，哈哈。类似这样的一个餐点，要美金8到15块钱不等。


周末的时候出去逛街，晚餐在一家路边的小餐厅解决，点了一个典型美国餐，叫做Chicken Dinner，美金8块半：


今天午餐在一个小deli cafe吃，环境很不错，叫了它的招牌signature sandwich：

一人一个set的promotion set，总共才美金7块半。（看到一包包的薯片吗？就是配料罗。)

特别的是它有这样的RFID的东西，你买的食物他给你一个pager，等到食物好了这个pager会亮灯，然后你可以去柜台领取你的食物：


Luxurious American Food~

有时候也会吃比较好料的美国餐。好像其中有一晚我们一群人去了一家海鲜餐厅，点了一桌子这个：


我记得一人大概花了10块钱美金左右，还有龙虾肉的哦！


再来一天午餐又去了另外一个比较高档的餐厅，叫了一堆东西，顺时钟是马铃薯泥+鸡排+牛排+沙拉，然后是蜜汁排骨+炸薯条+沙拉，最后是蜜汁小排骨+薯条。那天因为大家share food，一人花了差不多10块钱美金。


American Asian Food~

有一天在一个商场看到有一个摊位卖亚洲食物，走过去看看，摊主很热情地给我们试吃它的BBQ chicken，味道确实很不错。后来聊聊下才发现原来她也是从新加坡来的。于是乎就想要‘帮衬’她，买了一个set meal，就是一个炒饭或者炒面加两个餸。结果我就买了炒面加BBQ chicken加curry chicken。咖哩的味道还蛮不错的，BBQ chicken吃多了有点甜。重点是整个分量太大，然后。。。价钱很不便宜！要美金6块3毛6！新加坡这样的东西才多少钱而已嘛~！


American Muesli Bar~

外国人很流行吃一种东西叫做muesli bar，如果你要知道muesli bar是什么去wiki一下，呵呵。我在酒店每天早上都能拿到免费的，收集起来就等到哪天晚上觉得饿的时候可以吃，不要小看这样的小小一个个bar，打开一个来吃就可以耐饱好几个小时！不过也要留意热量，哈哈，女孩子要注意，:P


OK...so I think that's all for now...下次再拍到什么新奇的美国饮食就再blog吧，哈哈~



Venus